Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/264

tragedy of Ilium." Then outspoke queenly Juno, goaded
by fierce passion: "Why force you me to break my deep
silence, and give forth in words my buried grief? Your
Æneas—was it any man or god that compelled him to
draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian 5
king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of fate,
at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra; was it our
counsel that he should leave his camp and place his life
at the mercy of the winds? that he should trust the control
of battle and his city to a boy—should tamper with 10
Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? What
god, what cruel tyranny of ours, drove him thither to his
hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris sent down from
the clouds? Ay, it is foul shame that the Italians should
throw a belt of flame round the infant Troy—that Turnus 15
should plant a foot on the soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose
grandsire was Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess
Venilia. How call you it for the Trojans to invade
Latium with their smoking torches, to put their yoke on a
country that is none of theirs, and harry away its plunder—to 20
choose at will those whose daughters they would wed,
and drag the plighted bride from the bosom—to bear
suppliant tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the
teeth? You have power to withdraw Æneas from the
hands of the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds 25
for the man they seek—power to turn a fleet of ships into
a bevy of Nymphs; and is it utterly monstrous for us to
give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? Æneas
is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him bide away.
You have your Paphos, your Idalium, your lofty Cythera: 30
why meddle with a city brimming with war and with ungentle
hearts? Is it we that are labouring to overturn
from the foundation your feeble Phrygian fortunes?
We? or the gallant who brought Greece down on the
wretched Trojans? What reason was there that Europe 35
and Asia should stand up to fight, and a league be broken
by treachery? Did I lead your Dardan leman to take
Sparta by storm? did I put weapons in his hand, or fan the