Book 7
Laurentian, which his realm and people bear.
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Unto this tree-top, wonderful to tell,
came hosts of bees, with audible acclaim
voyaging the stream of air, and seized a place
on the proud, pointing crest, where the swift swarm,
with interlacement of close-clinging feet,
swung from the leafy bough. “Behold, there comes,”
the prophet cried, “a husband from afar!
To the same region by the self-same path
behold an arm'd host taking lordly sway
upon our city's crown!” Soon after this,
when, coming to the shrine with torches pure,
Lavinia kindled at her father's side
the sacrifice, swift seemed the flame to burn
along her flowing hair—O sight of woe!
Over her broidered snood it sparkling flew,
lighting her queenly tresses and her crown
of jewels rare: then, wrapt in flaming cloud,
from hall to hall the fire-god's gift she flung.
This omen dread and wonder terrible
was rumored far: for prophet-voices told
bright honors on the virgin's head to fall
by Fate's decree, but on her people, war.
The King, sore troubled by these portents, sought
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oracular wisdom of his sacred sire,
Faunus, the fate-revealer, where the groves
stretch under high Albunea, and her stream
roars from its haunted well, exhaling through
vast, gloomful woods its pestilential air.
Here all Oenotria's tribes ask oracles
in dark and doubtful days: here, when the priest
has brought his gifts, and in the night so still,
couched on spread fleeces of the offered flock,
awaiting slumber lies, then wondrously
a host of flitting shapes he sees, and hears
voices that come and go: with gods he holds
high converse, or in deep Avernian gloom
parleys with Acheron. Thither drew near
Father Latinus, seeking truth divine.
Obedient to the olden rite, he slew
