se top now the gathered bees, O wondrous to be said!
Borne on with mighty humming noise amid the flowing air,
Had settled down, and foot to foot all interwoven there,
In sudden swarm they hung adown from off the leafy bough.

But straight the seer cries out: "Ah me! I see him coming now,
The stranger man; I see a host from that same quarter come
To this same quarter, to be lords amidst our highest home." 70

But further, while the altar-fires she feeds with virgin brands,
The maid Lavinia, and beside her ancient father stands,
Out! how along her length of hair the grasp of fire there came,
And all the tiring of her head was caught in crackling flame.
And there her royal tresses blazed, and blazed her glorious crown
Gem-wrought, and she one cloud of smoke and yellow fire was grown:
And wrapped therein, the fiery God she scattered through the house:
And sure it seemed a dreadful thing, a story marvellous:
For they fell singing she should grow glorious of fame and fate,
But unto all her folk should be the seed of huge debate. 80

So troubled by this tokening dread forth fareth now the king
To Faunus' fane, his father-seer, to ask him counselling
'Neath Albunea the high, whose wood, the thicket most of worth,
Resoundeth with the holy well and breathes the sulphur forth.
From whence the folk of Italy and all Oenotrian land
Seek rede amidst of troublous time. Here, when the priest in hand
Hath borne the gifts, and laid him down amidst the hush of night
On the strown fells of slaughtered ewes, and sought him sleep aright,
He seeth wondrous images about him flit and shift,
He hearkeneth many a changing voice, of talk with Gods hath gift, 90
And holdeth speech with Acheron, from deep Avernus come.
There now the sire Latinus went seeking the answers home,
And there an hundred woolly ewes in order due did slay,
And propped upon the fells thereof on bed of fleeces lay,
Till from the thickets inner depths the sudden answer came:

"Seek not thy daughter, O my son, to wed to Latin name;
Unto the bridal set on foot let not thy troth be given:
Thy sons are coming over sea to raise our blood to heaven,
And sons of sons' sons from their stem shall see beneath their feet
All things for them to shift and doom; all things the sun may meet, 100
As to and fro he wend