our bodies and the piteous ruin of trees and crops. Men gave up their sweet lives, or dragged enfeebled frames; Sirius, too, scorched the fields with drought; the grass withered, and the sickly crop denied sustenance. My father urges us to recross the sea and go again to Phoebus and Ortygia’s oracle, to pray for favour, and ask what end he grants to our weary lot, whence he bids us seek aid for our distress, whither bend our course.

“It was night and on earth sleep held the living world.

The sacred images of the gods, the Phrygian Penates, whom I had borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed as I lay in slumber to stand before my eyes, clear in the flood of light, where the full moon streamed through the inset windows. Then thus they spoke to me and with these words dispelled my cares,