ile, with my comrades
and son and the gods of household and state.

'A land of vast plains lies apart, the home of Mavors, in Thracian
tillage, and sometime under warrior Lycurgus' reign; friendly of old to
Troy, and their gods in alliance while our fortune lasted. Hither I
pass, and on the winding shore I lay under thwarting fates the first
foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, Aeneadae.

'I was paying sacrifice to my mother, daughter of Dione, and to all the
gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore
to the high lord of [22-54]the heavenly people. Haply there lay a mound
hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with
shafts of myrtle. I drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood
from the soil, that I might cover the altar with leafy boughs, I see a
portent ominous and wonderful to tell. For from the first tree whose
roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood
trickle, and gore stains the earth. An icy shudder shakes my limbs, and
my blood curdles chill with terror. Yet from another I go on again to
tear away a tough shoot, fully to fathom its secret; yet from another
black blood follows out of the bark. With many searchings of heart I
prayed the woodland nymphs, and lord Gradivus, who rules in the Getic
fields, to make the sight propitious as was meet and lighten the omen.
But when I assail a third spearshaft with a stronger effort, pulling
with knees pressed against the sand; shall I speak or be silent? from
beneath the mound is heard a pitiable moan, and a voice is uttered to my
ears: "Woe's me, why rendest thou me, Aeneas? spare me at last in the
tomb, spare pollution to thine innocent hands. Troy bore me; not alien
to thee am I, nor this blood that oozes from the stem. Ah, fly the cruel
land, fly the greedy shore! For I am Polydorus; here the iron harvest of
weapons hath covered my pierced body, and shot up in sharp javelins."
Then indeed, borne down with dubious terror, I was motionless, my hair
stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue.

'This Polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless Priam sent in
secret to the nurture of the Thracian king, when now he was losing trust
in the arms of Dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about. The
king, when the Teucrian power was broken and fortune withdrew, following
Agamemnon's estate and triumphant arms, [55-87]severs every bond of
duty; murders