585And now the cavalry had gone out through the open gates, Aeneas among the first and faithful Achates, then other Trojan nobles, Pallas himself in the middle of the column, conspicuous in his cloak and painted armour: like the Morning Star when, bathed in the wave of Ocean, he whom Venus loves above the other fires of the stars, has raised his holy face in the sky and dissolved the darkness. 592Fearful mothers stand on the walls and follow with their eyes the cloud of dust and the squadrons gleaming with bronze. 594Through the thickets, where the end of the way is nearest, the armed men press on; 595a shout goes up, and, the column formed, the hoof shakes the crumbling plain with its four-footed thunder.
597There is a huge grove near the cold river of Caere, sacred far and wide by the reverence of the fathers; 598on all sides hollow hills enclose it and surround the wood with dark fir. 600The story is that the ancient Pelasgians, who were the first once to hold the Latin borders, consecrated grove and day to Silvanus, god of fields and flocks: not far from here Tarchon and the Tyrrhenians held a camp protected by its site, and from the high hill the whole army could now be seen, encamped in the broad fields. 606Here father Aeneas and the youth chosen for war come up, and, weary, tend their horses and their bodies.