After the Trojan War, Æneas, fleeing from the desolation of the city, came with Ascanius by ship unto Italy. There, for that Æneas was worshipfully received by King Latinus, Turnus, King of the Rutulians, did wax envious and made war against him. When they met in battle, Æneas had the upper hand, and after that Turnus was slain, obtained the kingdom of Italy and Lavinia the daughter of Latinus. Later, when his own last day had come, Ascanius, now king in his stead, founded Alba on Tiber, and begat a son whose name was Silvius. Silvius, unknown to his father, had fallen in love with and privily taken to wife a certain niece of Lavinia, who was about to become a mother. When this came to the knowledge of his father Ascanius, he commanded his wizards to discover whether the damsel should be brought to bed of a boy or a girl. When they had made sure of the matter by art magic, they told him that the child would be a boy that should slay his father and his mother, and after much travel in many lands, should, albeit an exile, be exalted unto the highest honors. Nor were the wizards out in their forecast, for when the day came that she should be delivered of a child, the mother bare a son, but herself died in his birth.
Howbeit, the child was given in charge unto a nurse, and was named Brute.
At last, after thrice five years had gone by, the lad, bearing his father company out a-hunting, slew him by striking him unwittingly with an arrow. For when the verderers drave the deer in front of them, Brute thinking to take aim at them, smote his own father under the breast. Upon the death of his father he was driven out of Italy, his kinsfolk being wroth with him for having wrought a deed so dreadful. He went therefore as an exile into Greece, and there he met with the descendants of Helenus, son of Priam, then held in bondage by the Greeks. Freeing these countrymen by a sudden attack on the Greek stronghold, and capturing Pandrasus himself, the valiant adventurer presently sailed away with the king's daughter for a wife, and a ransom of over three hundred ships laden with treasure and provisions.
They ran on together for two days and a night with a fair current of wind, and drew to land at a certain island called Leogecia, which had been uninhabited ever since it was laid waste by pirates in the days of old. Howbeit, Brute sent three hundred men inland to discover by whom it might be inhabited. Who, finding not a soul, slew such venison of divers kinds as they found in the glades and the forests.