Book 3
altar and hearth, and raise the lofty tower.
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But scarce the ships were beached along the strand
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(While o'er the isle my busy mariners
ploughed in new fields and took them wives once more, —
I giving homes and laws) when suddenly
a pestilence from some infectious sky
seized on man's flesh, and horribly exhaled
o'er trees and crops a fatal year of plague.
Some breathed their last, while others weak and worn
lived on; the dog-star parched the barren fields;
grass withered, and the sickly, mouldering corn
refused us life. My aged father then
bade us re-cross the waves and re-implore
Apollo's mercy at his island shrine;
if haply of our weariness and woe
he might vouchsafe the end, or bid us find
help for our task, or guidance o'er the sea.
'T was night, and sleep possessed all breathing things;
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when, lo! the sacred effigies divine,
the Phrygian gods which through the flames I bore
from fallen Troy, seemed in a vision clear
to stand before me where I slumbering lay,
bathed in bright beams which from the moon at full
streamed through the latticed wall: and thus they spoke
to soothe my care away. “Apollo's word,
which in far Delos the god meant for thee,
is uttered here. Behold, he sends ourselves
to this thy house, before thy prayer is made.
We from Troy's ashes have companioned thee
in every fight; and we the swollen seas,
guided by thee, in thine own ships have crossed;
our power divine shall set among the stars
thy seed to be, and to thy city give
dominion evermore. For mighty men
go build its mighty walls! Seek not to shun
the hard, long labors of an exile's way.
Change this abode! Not thine this Cretan shore,
nor here would Delian Phoebus have thee bide.
There is a land the roving Greeks have named
Hesperia. It is a storied realm
