After they have entered and an opportunity has been given for speaking face-to-face,

eldest Ilioneus thus began with a calm heart:

Oh queen, to whom Jupiter granted [the power] to build a new city

and to restrain the haughty races with equity,

we miserable Trojans, h/b carried by the winds through all seas,

beseech you, keep off the accursed fires from the ships,

spare a pious race, and look more closely at our affairs.

We have not come either to ravage the Libyan Penates by sword,

or to drive away h/b seized booty to the shores;

this violence [is] not of [our] spirit, nor so much haughtiness of [those] h/b conquered.

There is a place, Greeks call [it] Hesperia by name,

an ancient land, powerful in arms and in fertility of the soil;

Oenotrian men inhabited [it]; now [there is] a rumor that the descendants

have called the race Italy from the name of [their] leader.

Here was [our] course:

when suddenly stormy Orion, rising on the wave,

carried [us] into hidden shallows, and by the boisterous winds he wholly

dispersed [us] both through the waves, with the sea overpowering [us], and through impenetrable rocks; here we few have floated to your shores.

What is this race of men? Or what so very savage country allows this custom?

We are prohibited from the refuge of the beach;

they excite wars, and they forbid [us] to stand on the first land.

If you scorn the human race and mortal arms,

yet expect that the gods [are] mindful of right and of wrong.

"There was the king to us, Aeneas, than whom neither has been another more just

in duty, nor greater in war and in arms.

If the fates protect that man, if he breathes ethereal air,

and he still does not lie dead in the cruel shadows,

[there is] no fear; nor should you regret to have rivaled first in service.

There are also, in the Sicilian regions, cities

and arms, and illustrious Acestes from Trojan blood.

Let it be permitted to draw up the fleet, h/b shaken by the winds,

and to fit beams in the woods and to strip oars:

if it is given to strive for Italy, with comrades and king h/b recovered,

so that we, happy, might seek Italy and Latium;

but if safety has been destroyed, and the sea of Libya holds you,

noblest father of the Trojans, nor hope of Julus now remains,

but at least let us seek the straits of Sicily and h/b prepared abodes,

whence we have been conveyed here, and king Acestes.”

Ilioneus [spoke] with such [words]; all Trojans were murmuring together

with a face.