Pay vows to Juno; Juno's aid implore.
Let gifts be to the mighty queen design'd, And mollify with pray'rs her haughty mind.
Thus, at the length, your passage shall be free, And you shall safe descend on Italy.
Arriv'd at Cumae, when you view the flood Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood, The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find, Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin'd.
She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits, The notes and names, inscrib'd, to leafs commits.
What she commits to leafs, in order laid, Before the cavern's entrance are display'd:
Unmov'd they lie; but, if a blast of wind Without, or vapors issue from behind, The leafs are borne aloft in liquid air, And she resumes no more her museful care, Nor gathers from the rocks her scatter'd verse, Nor sets in order what the winds disperse.
Thus, many not succeeding, most upbraid The madness of the visionary maid, And with loud curses leave the mystic shade.
"'Think it not loss of time a while to stay, Tho' thy companions chide thy long delay;Tho' summon'd to the seas, tho' pleasing gales Invite thy course, and stretch thy swelling sails:
But beg the sacred priestess to relate With willing words, and not to write thy fate.
The fierce Italian people she will show, And all thy wars, and all thy future woe, And what thou may'st avoid, and what must undergo.
She shall direct thy course, instruct thy mind, And teach thee how the happy shores to find.
This is what Heav'n allows me to relate:
Now part in peace; pursue thy better fate, And raise, by strength of arms, the Trojan state.'
"This when the priest with friendly voice declar'd, He gave me license, and rich gifts prepar'd:
Bounteous of treasure, he supplied my want With heavy gold, and polish'd elephant;Then Dodonaean caldrons put on board, And ev'ry ship with sums of silver stor'd.
A trusty coat of mail to me he sent, Thrice chain'd with gold, for use and ornament;The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest, That flourish'd with a plume and waving crest.
Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;And large recruits he to my navy sends: