Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/206

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Ausonian land; five flocks of sheep had he, five herds of oxen went to and fro from his stalls, and his land was furrowed by a hundred ploughs.

While thus on the plains the impartial war-god deals out fortune, the goddess, having achieved her promise, soon 5 as she had inaugurated the war with blood, and brought the battle to its first murderous shock, flies from Hesperia, and rounding the cope of heaven, addresses Juno in the haughty tones of triumph: "See here the work of discord complete in the horrors of war! Now bid them come together 10 in friendship and strike truce. Thou hast seen that I can sprinkle the Trojans with Ausonian blood; let me but be assured of thy wish, I will give thee a further boon: I will sew rumours and bring the neighbouring cities into the war, and inflame their souls with mad martial passion 15 to crowd from all sides with succour; I will scatter arms broadcast." Juno returns: "There is panic and treachery enough; the seeds of war are sown deep; men are fighting hand to hand; the weapons which chance first supplied are being seasoned with new-spilt blood. Such be the 20 alliance, such the nuptial rites solemnized by Venus' virtuous son and good king Latinus. For thee to walk the upper air with larger freedom would displease the great Father, the monarch of high Olympus. Give place; should any chance emerge in the struggle, myself will deal with it." 25 So spoke Saturn's daughter: the Fury lifts her wings that hurtle with serpent plumage, and seeks her home in Cocytus, leaving the altitudes above. There is a place in the bosom of Italy, under the shadow of lofty hills, known to fame and celebrated in far-off lands, the vale of Amsanctus; 30 pent between two woody slopes, dark with dense foliage, while at the bottom a broken torrent makes a roaring among the rocks along its winding bed. Here men show an awful cavern, the very gorge of the fell infernal god, and a deep gulf through which Acheron breaks open its baleful 35 mouth: there dived the Fury, and relieved of her loathed presence earth and heaven.

Meanwhile, for her part, Saturn's royal daughter gives