nds: 'Jupiter omnipotent,
if thou hatest not Troy yet wholly to her last man, if thine ancient
pity looks at all on human woes, now, O Lord, grant our fleet to escape
the flame, and rescue from doom the slender Teucrian estate. Or do thou
plunge to death this remnant, if I deserve it, with levelled
thunderbolt, and here with thine own hand smite us down.' Scarce had he
uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth
trembles [695-726]to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood
rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and
volleying blasts of the South. The ships are filled from overhead, the
half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all
the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction.

But lord Aeneas, dismayed by the bitter mischance, revolved at heart
this way and that his shifting weight of care, whether, forgetting fate,
he should rest in Sicilian fields, or reach forth to the borders of
Italy. Then old Nautes, whom Tritonian Pallas taught like none other,
and made famous in eminence of art--she granted him to reply what the
gods' heavy anger menaced or what the order of fate claimed--he then in
accents of comfort thus speaks to Aeneas:

'Goddess-born, follow we fate's ebb and flow, whatsoever it shall be;
fortune must be borne to be overcome. Acestes is of thine own divine
Dardanian race; take him, for he is willing, to join thee in common
counsel; deliver to him those who are over, now these ships are lost,
and those who are quite weary of thy fortunes and the great quest.
Choose out the old men stricken in years, and the matrons sick of the
sea, and all that is weak and fearful of peril in thy company. Let this
land give a city to the weary; they shall be allowed to call their town
Acesta by name.'

Then, indeed, kindled by these words of his aged friend, his spirit is
distracted among all his cares. And now black Night rose chariot-borne,
and held the sky; when the likeness of his father Anchises seemed to
descend from heaven and suddenly utter thus:

'O son, more dear to me than life once of old while life was yet mine; O
son, hard wrought by the destinies of Ilium! I come hither by Jove's
command, who drove the [727-760]fire from thy fleets, and at last had
pity out of high heaven. Obey thou the fair counsel aged Nautes now
gives. Carry through to Italy thy chosen men and bravest souls; in
Latium must thou war down a pe