At first he was shocked and terrified at the spectacle. Creusa, however, endeavored to calm and quiet him by soothing words. "My dearest husband," said she, "do not give way thus to anxiety and grief. The events which have befallen us, have not come by chance. They are all ordered by an overruling providence that is omnipotent and divine. It was predetermined by the decrees of heaven that you were not to take me with you in your flight. I have learned what your future destiny is to be. There is a long period of weary wandering before you, over the ocean and on the land, and you will have many difficulties, dangers, and trials to incur. You will, however, be conducted safely through them all, and will in the end find a peaceful and happy home on the banks of the Tiber. There you will found a new kingdom; a princess is even now provided for you there, to become your bride. Cease then to mourn for me; rather rejoice that I did not fall a captive into the hands of our enemies, to be carried away into Greece and made a slave. I am free, and you must not lament my fate. Farewell. Love Ascanius for my sake, and watch over him and protect him as long as you live."
Having spoken these words, the vision began to disappear. Æneas endeavored to clasp the beloved image in his arms to retain it, but it was intangible and evanescent, and, before he could speak to it, it was gone, and he was left standing in the desolate and gloomy street alone. He turned at length slowly away; and solitary, thoughtful and sad, he went back to the gate of the city, and thence out to the valley where he had concealed Anchises and his little son.
He found them safe. The whole party then sought places of retreat among the glens and mountains, where they could remain concealed a few days, while Æneas and his companions could make arrangements for abandoning the country altogether. These arrangements were soon completed. As soon as the Greeks had retired, so that they could come out without danger from their place of retreat, Æneas employed his men in building a number of small vessels, fitting them, as was usual in those days, both with sails and oars.
During the progress of these preparations, small parties of Trojans were coming in continually, day by day, to join him; being drawn successively from their hiding-places among the mountains, by hearing that the Greeks had gone away, and that Æneas was gradually assembling the remnant of the Trojans on the shore. The numbers thus collected at Æneas's encampment gradually increased, and as Æneas enlarged and extended his naval preparations to correspond with the augmenting numbers of his adherents, he found when he was ready to set sail, that he was at the head of a very respectable naval and military force.
When the fleet at last was ready, he put a stock of provisions on board, and embarked his men,-taking, of course, Anchises and Ascanius with him. As soon as a favorable wind arose, the expedition set sail. As the vessels moved slowly away, the decks were covered with men and women, who gazed mournfully at the receding shores, conscious that they were bidding a final farewell to their native land.
[Illustration: WANDERINGS OF ÆNEAS.]
The nearest country within reach in leaving the Trojan coast, was Thrace-a country lying north of the Egean Sea, and of the Propontis, being separated, in fact, in one part, from the Trojan territories, only by the Hellespont. Æneas turned his course northward toward this country, and, after a short voyage, landed there, and attempted to make a settlement. He was, however, prevented from remaining long, by a dreadful prodigy which he witnessed there, and which induced him to leave those shores very precipitously. The prodigy was this:
They had erected an altar on the shore, after they had landed, and were preparing to offer the sacrifices customary on such occasions, when Æneas, wishing to shade the altar with boughs, went to a myrtle bush which was growing near, and began to pull up the green shoots from the ground. To his astonishment and horror, he found that blood flowed from the roots whenever they were broken. Drops of what appeared to be human blood would ooze from the ruptured part as he held the shoot in his hand, and fall slowly to the ground. He was greatly terrified at this spectacle, considering it as some omen of very dreadful import. He immediately and instinctively offered up a prayer to the presiding deities of the land, that they would avert from him the evil influences, whatever they might be, which the omen seemed to portend, or that they would at least explain the meaning of the prodigy. After offering this prayer, he took hold of another stem of the myrtle, and attempted to draw it from the ground, in order to see whether any change in the appearances exhibited by the prodigy had been effected by his prayer. At the instant, however, when the roots began to give way, he heard a groan coming up from the ground below, as if from a person in suffering. Immediately afterward a voice, in a mournful and sepulchral accent, began to beg him to go away, and cease disturbing the repose of the dead. "What you are tearing and lacerating," said the voice, "is not a tree, but a man. I am Polydorus. I was killed by the king of Thrace, and instead of burial, have been turned into a myrtle growing on the shore."
Polydorus was a Trojan prince. He was the youngest son of Priam, and had been sent some years before to Thrace, to be brought up in the court of the Thracian king. He had been provided with a large supply of money and treasure when he left Troy, in order that all his wants might be abundantly supplied, and that he might maintain, during his absence from home, the position to which his rank as a Trojan prince entitled him. His treasures, however, which had been provided for him by his father as his sure reliance for support and protection, became the occasion of his ruin-for the Thracian king, when he found that the war was going against the Trojans, and that Priam the father was slain, and the city destroyed, murdered the helpless son to get possession of his gold.
Æneas and his companions were shocked to hear this story, and perceived at once that Thrace was no place of safety for them. They resolved immediately to leave the coast and seek their fortunes in other regions. They however, first, in secrecy and silence, but with great solemnity, performed those funeral rites for Polydorus which were considered in those ages essential to the repose of the dead. When these mournful ceremonies were ended they embarked on board their ships again and sailed away.
After this, the party of Æneas spent many months in weary voyages from island to island, and from shore to shore, along the Mediterranean sea, encountering every imaginable difficulty and danger, and meeting continually with the strangest and most romantic adventures. At one time they were misled by a mistaken interpretation of prophecy to attempt a settlement in Crete-a green and beautiful island lying south of the Egean sea. They had applied to a sacred oracle, which had its seat at a certain consecrated spot which they visited in the course of their progress southward through the Egean sea, asking the oracle to direct them where to go in order to find a settled home. The oracle, in answer to their request, informed them that they were to go to the land that their ancestors had originally come from, before their settlement in Troy. Æneas applied to Anchises to inform them what land this was. Anchises replied, that he thought it was Crete. There was an ancient tradition, he said, that some distinguished men among the ancestors of the Trojans had originated in Crete; and he presumed accordingly that that was the land to which the oracle referred.