birds, first slaughter our cattle and then make war on ourselves?” She then predicted dire sufferings to them in their future course, and having vented her wrath flew away.  The Trojans made haste to leave the country, and next found themselves coasting along the shore of Epirus.  Here they landed, and to their astonishment learned that certain Trojan exiles, who had been carried there as prisoners, had become rulers of the country.  Andromache, the widow of Hector, became the wife of one of the victorious Grecian chiefs, to whom she bore a son.  Her husband dying, she was left regent of the country, as guardian of her son, and had married a fellow-captive, Helenus, of the royal race of Troy.  Helenus and Andromache treated the exiles with the utmost hospitality, and dismissed them loaded with gifts.

From hence Aeneas coasted along the shore of Sicily and passed the country of the Cyclopes.  Here they were hailed from the shore by a miserable object, whom by his garments, tattered as they were, they perceived to be a Greek.  He told them he was one of Ulysses’s companions, left behind by that chief in his hurried departure.  He related the story of Ulysses’s adventure with Polyphemus, and besought them to take him off with them as he had no means of sustaining his existence where he was but wild berries and roots, and lived in constant fear of the Cyclopes.  While he spoke Polyphemus made his appearance; a terrible monster, shapeless, vast, whose only eye had been put out. [Footnote:  See Proverbial Expressions.] He walked with cautious steps, feeling his way with a staff, down to the sea-side, to wash his eye-socket in the waves.  When he reached the water, he waded out towards them, and his immense height enabled him to advance far into the sea, so that the Trojans, in terror, took to their oars to get out of his way.  Hearing the oars, Polyphemus shouted after them, so that the shores resounded, and at the noise the other Cyclopes came forth from their caves and woods and lined the shore, like a row of lofty pine trees.  The Trojans plied their oars and soon left them out of sight.

Aeneas had been cautioned by Helenus to avoid the strait guarded by the monsters Scylla and Charybdis.  There Ulysses, the reader will remember, had lost six of his men, seized by Scylla while the navigators were wholly intent upon avoiding Charybdis.  Aeneas, following the advice of Helenus, shunned the dangerous pass and coasted along the island of Sicily.

Juno, seeing the Trojans speeding their way prosperously towards their destined shore, felt her old grudge against them revive, for she could not forget the slight that Paris had put upon her, in awarding the prize of beauty to another.  In heavenly minds can such resentments dwell. [Footnote:  See Proverbial Expressions.] Accordingly she hastened to Aeolus, the ruler of the winds,—­the same who supplied Ulysses with favoring gales, giving him the contrary ones tied up in a bag.  Aeolus obeyed the goddess and sent forth his sons, Boreas, Typhon, and the other winds, to toss the ocean.  A terrible storm ensued and the Trojan ships were driven out of their course towards the coast of Africa.  They were in imminent danger of being wrecked, and were separated, so that Aeneas thought that all were lost except his own.