Sires

Yea, and more, / in war enduring, ere he built a home, / and his loved household-deities brought o'er / to Latium, whence the Latin people come, / whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.

"Towns yet for us in Sicily remain, / and arms, and, sprung from Trojan sires of yore, / our kinsman there, Acestes, holds his reign."

"Himself, a foe, oft lauded Troy's renown, / and claimed the Teucrian sires as kinsmen of his own."

And forth they bring the broidered tapestry, / with purple dyed and wrought full cunningly. / The tables groan with silver; there are told / the deeds of prowess for the gazer's eye, / a long, long series, of their sires of old, / traced from the nation's birth, and graven in the gold.

"Brave hearts, the land that bore / your sires shall nurse their Dardan sons again. / Seek out your ancient mother; from her shore / through all the world the AEneian house shall reign, / and sons of sons unborn the lasting line sustain."

The two-fold race Anchises understands, / the double sires, and owns himself misled / by modern error 'twixt two ancient lands.

Saved beyond hope and glad the land is won, / and lustral rites, with blazing altars, pay / to Jove, and make the shores of Actium gay / with Ilian games, as, like our sires, we strip / and oil our sinews for the wrestler's play. / Proud, thus escaping from the foemen's grip, / past all the Argive towns, through swarming Greeks, to slip.