retching
forth in his hand an olive bough of peace-bearing:

'Thou seest men born of Troy and arms hostile to the Latins, who have
driven us to flight in insolent warfare. We seek Evander; carry this
message, and tell him that chosen men of the Dardanian captains are come
pleading for an armed alliance.'

Pallas stood amazed at the august name. 'Descend,' [122-154]he cries,
'whoso thou art, and speak with my father face to face, and enter our
home and hospitality.' And giving him the grasp of welcome, he caught
and clung to his hand. Advancing, they enter the grove and leave the
river. Then Aeneas in courteous words addresses the King:

'Best of the Grecian race, thou whom fortune hath willed that I
supplicate, holding before me boughs dressed in fillets, no fear stayed
me because thou wert a Grecian chief and an Arcadian, or allied by
descent to the twin sons of Atreus. Nay, mine own prowess and the
sanctity of divine oracles, our ancestral kinship, and the fame of thee
that is spread abroad over the earth, have allied me to thee and led me
willingly on the path of fate. Dardanus, who sailed to the Teucrian
land, the first father and founder of the Ilian city, was born, as
Greeks relate, of Electra the Atlantid; Electra's sire is ancient Atlas,
whose shoulder sustains the heavenly spheres. Your father is Mercury,
whom white Maia conceived and bore on the cold summit of Cyllene; but
Maia, if we give any credence to report, is daughter of Atlas, that same
Atlas who bears up the starry heavens; so both our families branch from
a single blood. In this confidence I sent no embassy, I framed no crafty
overtures; myself I have presented mine own person, and come a suppliant
to thy courts. The same Daunian race pursues us and thee in merciless
warfare; we once expelled, they trust nothing will withhold them from
laying all Hesperia wholly beneath their yoke, and holding the seas that
wash it above and below. Accept and return our friendship. We can give
brave hearts in war, high souls and men approved in deeds.'

Aeneas ended. The other ere now scanned in a long gaze the face and eyes
and all the form of the speaker; then thus briefly returns:

'How gladly, bravest of the Teucrians, do I hail and [155-188]own thee!
how I recall thy father's words and the very tone and glance of great
Anchises! For I remember how Priam son of Laomedon, when he sought
Salamis on his way to the realm of his sister Hesione, went on to visit
t