wave you must strain the oar, and traverse with your ships the salt Ausonian main, past the nether lakes and Aeaean Circe’s isle, before you can build your city in a land of safety. I will declare tokens to you; keep them stored in your mind. When, in your distress, by the waters of a secluded stream, you find a sow lying under the oaks on the shore, just delivered of a litter of thirty young, a white mother reclining on the ground, and white the young at her teats – there shall be the city’s site, there a sure rest from your toils.

And fear not he gnawing of tables that awaits you; the Fates will find a way, and Apollo be present at your call. But these lands, and this nearest border of the Italian shore, that is washed by the tide of our own sea, avoid; in all the towns dwell evil Greeks! Here the