37Now come, Erato: who were the kings, what was the state of affairs, what the condition of ancient Latium when first the foreign army brought its fleet to the Ausonian shores, I will unfold, and I will recall the beginnings of the first battle. 41You, goddess, you must prompt your poet. 41I will tell of dreadful wars, I will tell of battle lines and of kings driven by their passions to death, of the Tyrrhenian band and all Hesperia forced under arms. 44A greater order of events is born for me; I set in motion a greater work. King Latinus, now growing old, was ruling over fields and towns calm in a long peace.
47He, we are told, was born of Faunus and the Laurentine nymph Marica; Faunus' father was Picus, and he names you, Saturn, as his parent; you are the first founder of the line. 50By the fate of the gods he had no son, no male offspring; the one he had was snatched away in the first bloom of youth. 52A daughter alone was keeping the house and its great estate, now ripe for a husband, now of full marriageable age. 54Many from great Latium and all Ausonia sought her hand. 55Before all others sought her Turnus, most handsome of all, mighty in his grandfathers and forefathers, whom the royal wife was eager, with wondrous love, to see joined to her as son-in-law; 58but portents from the gods stand in the way, with various terrors.
59In the middle of the palace, in the high inner courts, there was a laurel, sacred in its foliage and preserved with awe for many years, which father Latinus himself, it was said, had found when he was founding his first citadel and had consecrated to Phoebus, and from it had given its name to his settlers, the Laurentines. 64On its very top a dense swarm of bees (wonderful to tell), borne with a loud humming through the clear air, settled on the crown, and, their feet linked together, the sudden swarm hung from the leafy branch. 68At once the seer said: 'We see a foreign man approaching, and a host seeking the same parts from the same parts, and lording it on the topmost citadel.' 71Moreover, while she was kindling the altars with pure torches, standing beside her father, the maiden Lavinia seemed (horror!) to catch fire in her long hair, her royal tresses alight, alight her crown shining with jewels; then, wrapped in smoke and yellow light, to scatter fire throughout the whole palace.
78That indeed was reported as a dreadful and wondrous sight: for they prophesied that she herself would be glorious in fame and fortune, but that she foretold a great war for her people.