the main, With brazen beaks, when Juno, harbouring yet Within her breast the ever-rankling pain, Mused thus: "Must I then from the work refrain, Nor keep this Trojan from the Latin throne, Baffled, forsooth, because the Fates constrain? Could Pallas burn the Grecian fleet, and drown
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Their crews, for one man's crime, Oileus' frenzied son?
VII .
"She, hurling Jove's winged lightning, stirred the deep And strewed the ships. Him, from his riven breast The flames outgasping, with a whirlwind's sweep She caught and fixed upon a rock's sharp crest. But I, who walk the Queen of Heaven confessed, Jove's sister-spouse, shall I forevermore With one poor tribe keep warring without rest? Who then henceforth shall Juno's power adore?
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Who then her fanes frequent, her deity implore?"
VIII .
Such thoughts revolving in her fiery mind, Straightway the Goddess to Æolia passed, The storm-clouds' birthplace, big with blustering wind. Here Æolus within a dungeon vast The sounding tempest and the struggling blast Bends to his sway and bridles them with chains. They, in the rock reverberant held fast, Moan at the doors. Here, throned aloft, he reigns;
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His sceptre calms their rage, their violence restrains:
IX .
Else earth and sea and all the firmament The winds together through the void would sweep. But, fearing this, the Sire omnipotent Hath buried them in caverns dark and deep, And o'er them piled huge mountains in a heap, And set withal a monarch, there to reign, By compact taught at his command to keep Strict watch, and tighten or relax the rein.
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Him now Saturnia sought, and thus in lowly strain:
X .
"O Æolus, for Jove, of human kind And Gods the sovran Sire, hath given to thee To lull the waves and lift them with the wind, A hateful people, enemies to me, Their ships are steering o'er the Tuscan sea, Bearing their Troy and vanquished gods away To Italy. Go, set the storm-winds free, And sink their ships or scatter them astray,
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And strew their corpses forth, to weltering waves a prey.
XI .
"Twice seven nymphs have I, beautiful to see; One, Deiopeia, fairest of the fair, In lasting wedlock will I link to thee, Thy life-long years for such deserts to share, And make thee parent of an offspring fair."— "Speak, Queen," he answered, "to obey is mine. To thee I owe this sceptre and whate'er Of realm is here; thou makest Jove benign,
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Thou giv'st to rule the storms and sit at feasts divine."
XII .
So spake the God and with her hest complied, And turned the massive sceptre in his hand And pushed the hollow mountain on its side. Out rushed the winds, like soldiers in a band, In wedged array, and, whirling, scour the land. East, West and squally South-west, with a roar, Swoop down on Ocean, and the surf and sand Mix in dark eddies, and the watery floor
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Heave from its depths, and roll huge billows to the shore.
XIII .
Then come the creak of cables and the cries Of seamen. Clouds the darkened heavens have drowned, And snatched the daylight from the Trojans' eyes. Black night broods on the waters; all around From pole to pole the rattling peals resound And frequent flashes light the lurid air. All nature, big with instant ruin, frowned Destruction. Then Æneas' limbs with fear
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Were loosened, and he groaned and stretched his hands in prayer:
XIV .
"Thrice, four times blest, who, in their fathers' face Fell by the walls of Ilion far away! O son of Tydeus, bravest of the race, Why could not I have perished, too, that day Beneath thine arm, and breathed this soul away Far on the plains of Troy, where Hector brave Lay, pierced by fierce Æacides, where lay Giant Sarpedon, and swift Simois' wave
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Rolls heroes, helms and shields, whelmed in one watery grave?"
XV .
E'en as he cried, the hurricane from the North Struck with a roar against the sail. Up leap The waves to heaven; the shattered oars start forth; Round swings the prow, and lets the waters sweep The broadside. Onward comes a mountain heap Of billows, gaunt, abrupt. These, horsed astride A surge's crest, rock pendent o'er the deep; To those the wave's huge hollow, yawning wide,
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Lays bare the ground below; dark swells the sandy tide.
XVI .
Three ships the South-wind catching hurls away On hidden rocks, which (Latins from of yore Have called them "Altars") in mid ocean lay, A huge ridge level with the tide. Three more Fierce Eurus from the deep sea dashed ashore On quicks and shallows, pitiful to view, And round them heaped the sandbanks. One, that bore The brave Orontes and his Lycian crew,
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Full in Æneas' sight a toppling wave o'erthrew.
XVII .
Dashed from the tiller, down the pilot rolled. Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, Then whelmed below. Strewn here and there behold Arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, And treasures snatched from Trojan homes away. Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride And Abas; old Aletes' bark gives way, And brave Ilioneus'. Each loosened side
the main, With brazen beaks, when Juno, harbouring yet Within her breast the ever-rankling pain, Mused thus: "Must I then from the work refrain, Nor keep this Trojan from the Latin throne, Baffled, forsooth, because the Fates constrain? Could Pallas burn the Grecian fleet, and drown
