The Aeneid of Virgil, page 170 by Virgil
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or life; any toil soever I have patience to endure. But if, O Fortune, thou threatenest some dread calamity, now, ah now, may I break off a cruel life, while anxiety still wavers and expectation is in doubt, while thou, dear boy, my one last delight, art yet clasped in my embrace; let no bitterer message wound mine ear.' These words the father poured forth at the final parting; his servants bore him swooning within.
And now the cavalry had issued from the open gates, Aeneas and trusty Achates among the foremost, then other of the Trojan princes, Pallas conspicuous amid the column in scarf and inlaid armour; like the Morning Star, when, newly washed in the ocean wave, he shews his holy face in heaven, and melts the darkness away. Fearful mothers stand on the walls and follow with their eyes the cloud of dust and the squadrons gleaming in brass. They, where the goal of their way lies nearest, bear through the brushwood in armed array. Forming in column, they advance noisily, and the horse hoof shakes the crumbling plain with four-footed trampling. There is a high grove by the cold river of Caere, widely revered in ancestral awe; sheltering hills shut it in all about and girdle the woodland with their dark firs. Rumour is that the old Pelasgians, who once long ago held the Latin borders, consecrated the grove and its festal day to Silvanus, god of the tilth and flock. Not far from it Tarchon and his Tyrrhenians were encamped in a protected place; and now from the hill-top the tents of all their army might be seen outspread on the fields. Lord Aeneas and his chosen warriors draw hither and refresh their weary horses and limbs.
But Venus the white goddess drew nigh, bearing her gifts through the clouds of heaven; and when she saw her [610-646]son withdrawn far apart in the valley's recess by the cold river, cast herself in his way, and addressed him thus: 'Behold perfected the presents of my husband's promised craftsmanship: so shalt thou not shun, O my child, soon to challenge the haughty Laurentines or