des against AEneas, the
Grecian prince, fearing the resentment of Venus, refuses to send him
assistance; and relates how some of his followers have been
transformed by Venus into birds. An Apulian shepherd surprising some
Nymphs, insults them, on which he is changed into a wild olive tree.

Macareus had concluded. And the nurse of AEneas, {now} buried in a marble
urn, had {this} short inscription on her tomb:-- "My foster-child, of
proved piety, here burned me, Caieta, preserved from the Argive flames,
with that fire which was my due." The fastened cable is loosened from
the grassy bank, and they leave far behind the wiles and the dwelling of
the Goddess, of whom so ill a report has been given, and seek the groves
where the Tiber, darkened with the shade {of trees}, breaks into the sea
with his yellow sands. {AEneas}, too, gains the house and the daughter of
Latinus, the {son of} Faunus;[37] but not without warfare. A war is
waged with a fierce nation, and Turnus is indignant on account of the
wife that had been betrothed to him.[38] All Etruria meets {in battle}
with Latium, and long is doubtful victory struggled for with ardent
arms. Each side increases his strength with foreign forces, and many
take the part of the Rutulians, many that of the Trojan side. Nor {had}
AEneas {arrived} in vain at the thresholds of Evander,[39] but Venulus
came {in vain} to the great city, of the exiled Diomedes. He, indeed,
had founded a very great city under the Iapygian Daunus, and held the
lands given to him in dower.

But after Venulus had executed the commands of Turnus, and had asked for
aid, the AEtolian hero pleaded his resources as an excuse: that he was
not wishful to commit the subjects of his father-in-law to a war, and
that he had no men to arm of the nation of his own countrymen; "And that
ye may not think this a pretext, although my grief be renewed at the
bitter recollection, yet I will endure the recital {of it}. After lofty
Ilion was burnt, and Pergamus had fed the Grecian flames, and the
Narycian hero,[40] having ravished the virgin, distributed that
vengeance upon all, which he alone merited, on account of the virgin; we
were dispersed and driven by the winds over the hostile seas; we Greeks
had to endure lightning, darkness, rain, and the wrath both of the
heavens and of the sea, and Caphareus, the completion of our misery. And
not to detain you by relating these sad events in their order, Greece
might then