Octavia: That may not be. Long since, our ill-starred house
Has groaned beneath the heavy wrath of heaven.
That wrath at first my hapless mother felt,
Whom Venus cursed with lust insatiate;
For she, with heedless, impious passion fired,260
Unmindful of her absent lord, of us,
Her guiltless children, and the law's restraints,
In open day another husband wed.
To that fell couch avenging Fury came
With streaming locks and serpents intertwined,
And quenched those stolen wedding fires in blood.
For with destructive rage, on murder bent,265
She fired the prince's heart; and at his word,
Ah, woe is me, my ill-starred mother fell,
And, dying, doomed me to perpetual grief.
For after her in quick succession came
Her husband and her son; and this our house,
Already falling, was to ruin plunged.
Nurse: Forbear with pious tears to renew thy grief,270
And do not so disturb thy father's shade,
Who for his rage has bitterly atoned.
Chorus [sympathetic with Octavia]: False prove the rumor that of late
To our ears has come! May its vaunted threats
Fall fruitless out and of no avail!275
May no new wife invade the bed
Of our royal prince; may Octavia, born
Of the Claudian race, maintain her right
And bear us a son, the pledge of peace,
In which the joyful world shall rest,280
And Rome preserve her glorious name.
Most mighty Juno holds the lot
By fate assigned—her brother's mate;
But this our Juno, sister, wife
Of our august prince, why is she driven285
From her father's court? Of what avail
Her faith, her father deified,
Her love and spotless chastity?
We, too, of our former master's fame
