Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/283

'Born Trojans we: our warlike gear
Your Latian enemies may fear:
Driven from their coast by sword and spear
Evander's court we seek.
Go, tell your king, Dardania's power
Has sent us here, the nation's flower,
His succour to bespeak.'
That mighty name struck Pallas dumb:
'Whoe'er you are' he answers 'come,
Speak with my father face to face,
Our welcome take, our mansion grace.'
With friendly grasp he took and pressed
The hand of his illustrious guest:
Advancing, through the grove they wind,
And leave the river's bank behind.

And now with many a courteous word
The prince of Troy his suit preferred.
'Worthiest and best of Danaan race,
Whom Fortune bids me sue for grace
With signs of suppliant need,
I feared not to approach you, I,
Though sprung from Grecian Arcady,
Allied to Atreus' seed.
Heaven's oracles and conscious worth,
Your own fair fame, that fills the earth,
And kindred ancestry—'tis these
Have made us one in sympathies,
And driven me to your royal gate,
The willing instrument of fate.
Old Dardanus, Troy's founder styled,
Declared by Greece Electra's child,
To Teucer's nation came;
And Atlas was Electra's sire,
Whose sinewy strength, unused to tire,
Supports the starry frame.