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Virgil, Europe & Beyond

Aineid, 7   *

The priest on skins of off'rings takes his ease,

And nightly visions in his slumber sees;

A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears,

And, flutt'ring round his temples, deafs his ears:

These he consults, the future fates to know,

From pow'rs above, and from the fiends below.

Here, for the gods' advice, Latinus flies,

Off'ring a hundred sheep for sacrifice:

Their woolly fleeces, as the rites requir'd,

He laid beneath him, and to rest retir'd.

No sooner were his eyes in slumber bound,

When, from above, a more than mortal sound

Invades his ears; and thus the vision spoke:

"Seek not, my seed, in Latian bands to yoke

Our fair Lavinia, nor the gods provoke.

A foreign son upon thy shore descends,

Whose martial fame from pole to pole extends.

His race, in arms and arts of peace renown'd,

Not Latium shall contain, nor Europe bound:

'T is theirs whate'er the sun surveys around."

These answers, in the silent night receiv'd,

The king himself divulg'd, the land believ'd:

The fame thro' all the neighb'ring nations flew,

When now the Trojan navy was in view.

Cf.  Horace, Wife of the Invincible * Ovid, The Rape of Europa
Hippocrates, Europeans Have Courage (margin: Aristotle, Europeans, Asians, and Greeks)