Your sire is Mercury, whom of yore
Maia, his radiant mother, bore
In cold Cyllene's air:
But Maia, if report say true,
Her birth from that same Atlas drew
Whose shoulders heaven upbear.
'Tis thus one fountain-head contains
The stream that flows in either's veins.
Thus armed, I made no first essay
By embassies to sound the way:
My life I jeopardied, my own,
And came in person to your throne,[errata 1]
The Daunian hunts us as his prey,
Your own inveterate foe:
If us they banish, nought, they say,
Shall save Hespcria from their sway;
The upper sea shall soon obey,
And that which rolls below.
Exchange we friendship: martial powers,
Stout hearts, and practised arms are ours.'
He said. Evander's keen eyes scan
Eyes, features, mien, and all the man:
Then thus he speaks: 'How great my joy
To hail you, bravest son of Troy!
How truly, fondly I recall
Anchises' look, voice, language, all!
I mind, when Priam came to see
His sister's realm, Hesione,
On to Arcadia's bounds he passed
And breathed our cold inclement blast.
A boy was I, a stripling lad,
My cheek with youth's first blossom clad;
I gazed at Priam and his train
Of Trojan lords, and gazed again:
