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witness Minerva's baleful star, and the crags of Eubœa,
and Caphereus the avenger. Discharged from that warfare,
wandering outcasts on diverse shores, Menelaus,
Atreus' son, is journeying in banishment even to the pillars
of Proteus[o]; Ulysses has looked upon Ætna and her Cyclop 5
brood. Need I tell of Neoptolemus' portioned realms,
of Idomeneus' dismantled home, of Locrian settlers on
a Libyan coast? Even the monarch[o] of Mycenæ, the
leader of the great Grecian name, met death on his very
threshold at the hand of his atrocious spouse; Asia fell 10
before him, but the adulterer rose in her room. Cruel gods,
that would not have me restored to the hearth-fires of my
home, to see once more the wife of my longing and my own
fair Calydon! Nay, even my flight is dogged by portents
of dreadful view; my comrades torn from me are winging 15
the air and haunting the stream as birds—alas that the
followers of my fortunes should suffer so!—and making
the rocks ring with the shrieks of their sorrow. Such was
the fate I had to look for even from that day when with
my frantic steel I assailed the flesh of immortals, and impiously 20
wounded Venus' sacred hand. Nay, nay, urge
me no longer to a war like this. Since Pergamus fell, my
fightings with Troy are ended; I have no thought, no joy,
for the evils of the past. As for the gifts which you bring
me from your home, carry them rather to Æneas. I tell 25
you, I have stood against the fury of his weapon, and joined
hand to hand with him in battle; trust one who knows
how strong is his onset as he rises on the shield, how
fierce the whirlwind of his hurtling lance. Had Ida's
soil borne but two other so valiant, Dardanus would have 30
marched in his turn to the gates of Inachus, and the tears
of Greece would be flowing for a destiny reversed. All
those years of lingering at the walls of stubborn Troy, it
was Hector's and Æneas' hand that clogged the wheels of
Grecian victory, and delayed her coming till the tenth 35
campaign had begun. High in courage were both, high
in the glory of martial prowess; but piety gave him the
preëminence. Join hand to hand in treaty, if so you may;