Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/260

236 Go, fight your fights that win no thanks,

Seek scorn amid the embattled field;

Go, mow them down, the Tuscan ranks,

And Latium's tribes with safety shield.

These words Saturnia's awful power

Breathes in your ear in midnight's hour.

Come, sound the glad alarm, and call

The youth to arms without the wall;

Consume the Phrygian ships, that ride

At anchor in our pleasant tide:

'Tis heaven's high will that gives command,

And prompts to fight your ready hand.

Nay, let Latinus' self, if yet

He grudge the fair, nor own his debt,

From late experience learn, and feel

The might of Turnus, sheathed in steel.'

With scornful laughter in his eye

The haughty youth thus made reply:

'The fleet arrived in Tiber's stream

Has not escaped me, as you deem:

Why feign these terrors? well I ween

Turnus is watched by Juno queen:

'Tis you, good dame, effete and old,

Whom purblind age, o'ergrown with mould,

Bemocks with visions of alarms

Amid the clang of monarchs' arms.

Yours is the task to tend the shrine

And make your image look divine;

But leave to men, whose care they are,

The mysteries of peace and war.'

These taunts enkindled into fire

The furnace of Alecto's ire.

Or ere he ceased, a trembling takes

His frame; his eyes are fixed as stone;