With furious haste, and shoots the Stygian sound,
To rouse Alecto from th' infernal seat
Of her dire sisters, and their dark retreat.
This Fury, fit for her intent, she chose;
One who delights in wars, and human woes.
Ev'n Pluto hates his own mis-shapen race;
Her sister Furies fly her hideous face;
So frightful are the forms the monster takes,
So fierce the hissings of her speckled snakes.
Her Juno finds, and thus inflames her spite:
"O virgin daughter of eternal Night,
Give me this once thy labour, to sustain
My right, and execute my just disdain.
Let not the Trojans, with a feign'd pretence
Of proffer'd peace, delude the Latian prince.
Expel from Italy that odious name,
And let not Juno suffer in her fame.
'Tis thine to ruin realms, o'erturn a state, Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate,
And kindle kindred blood to mutual hate.
Thy hand o'er towns the fun'ral torch displays, 470 And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways.
Now shake, from out thy fruitful breast, the seeds Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds:
Confound the peace establish'd, and prepare
Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war." 475
Smear'd as she was with black Gorgonean blood,
The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood:
And on her wicker wings, sublime through night,
She to the Latian palace took her flight;
There sought the queen's apartment, stood before
The peaceful threshold, and besieg'd the door.
Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast
Fir'd with disdain for Turnus dispossess'd,
And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest.
From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes 485
Her darling plague, the fav'rite of her snakes:
With her full force she threw the pois'nous dart,
And fix'd it deep within Amata's heart,
That, thus envenom'd, she might kindle rage,
And sacrifice to strife her house and husband's age.
Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims
Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs,
His baneful breath inspiring as he glides.
Now like a chain around her neck he rides,
Now like a fillet to her head repairs,
And with his circling volumes folds her hairs.
At first the silent venom slid with ease,
And seis'd her cooler senses by degrees;
Then, ere th' infected mass was fir'd too far,
In plaintive accents she began the war,
And thus bespoke her husband: "Shall," she said,
"A wand'ring prince enjoy Lavinia's bed? If nature plead not in a parent's heart, Pity my tears, and pity her desert.
I know, my dearest lord, the time will come,
You would, in vain, reverse your cruel doom:
The faithless pirate soon will set to sea,
And bear the royal virgin far away! !
A guest like him, a Trojan guest before,
In shew of friendship sought the Spartan shore 510 And ravish'd Helen from her husband bore.
Think on a king's inviolable word;
And think on Turnus, her once plighted lord.
To this false foreigner you give your throne,
And wrong a friend, a kinsman, and a son.
Resume your
Your sire, and you, resolve on foreign blood,
Know all are foreign, in a larger sense,
Not born your subjects, or deriv'd from hence.
Then, if the line of Turnus you retrace,
He springs from Inachus of Argive race."
But, when she saw her reasons idly spent,
And could not move him from his fix'd intent,
She flew to rage; for now the snake possess'd
Her vital parts, and poison'd all her breast.
She raves, she runs with a distracted pace,
And fills, with horrid howls, the public place,
And, as young striplings whip the top for sport,
On the smooth pavement of an empty court;
The wooden engine flies and whirls about,
Admir'd, with clamours, of the beardless rout;
They lash aloud; each other they provoke,
And lend their little souls at ev'ry stroke:
Thus fares the queen; and thus her fury blows
Amidst the crowd, and kindles as she goes.
Nor yet content, she strains her malice more,
And adds new ills to those contriv'd before:
She flies the town, and, mixing with the throng
Of madding matrons, bears the bride along,
Wand'ring through woods and wilds, and devious ways,
And with these arts the Trojan match delays.
She feign'd the rites of Bacchus; cry'd aloud,
And to the buxom god the virgin vow'd.
"Euoi! O Bacchus!" thus began the song;
And "Euoi!" answer'd all the female throng. 545
"O virgin worthy thee alone!" she cry'd;
"O worthy thee alone!" the crew reply'd.
"For thee she feeds her hair, she leads thy dance,
And with thy winding ivy wreaths her lance."
Like fury seis'd the rest: the progress known, 550
All seek the mountains, and forsake the town:
All, clad in skins of beasts, the javelin bear,
Give to the wanton winds their flowing hair;
And shrieks and shoutings rend the suff'ring air.
The queen herself, inspir'd with rage divine,
Shook high above her head a flaming pine,
Then roll'd her hagard eyes around the throng,
And sung, in Turnus' name, the nuptial song:
"Iö! ye
Latian dames, if any here
Hold your unhappy queen, Amata, dear;
If there be here," she said, "who dare maintain
My right, nor think the name of mother vain ;
Unbind your fillets, loose your flowing hair,
And orgies and nocturnal rites prepare."
Amata's breast the Fury thus invades,
And fires with rage, amid the silvan shades.
Then, when she found her venom spread so far,
The royal house embroil'd in civil war,
Rais'd on her dusky wings, she cleaves the skies,
And seeks the palace where young Turnus lies. 570
His town, as fame reports, was built of old
By Danaë, pregnant with almighty gold,
Who fled her father's rage, and, with a train
Of following Argives, through the stormy main, 574
Driv'n by the southern blasts, was fated here to reign.
'Twas Ardua once: now Ardea's name it bears;
Once a fair city, now consum'd with years.
Here, in his lofty palace, Turnus lay,
Betwixt the confines of the night and day,
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