Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/266

242 For thee, heaven's monarch may not hear

That longer thou in upper air

Shouldst ply thine errant wing.

Give place: if further chance betide,

Myself the circumstance will guide.'

Saturnia spoke: the Fury spread

Her serpent wings for flight,

Dives to the regions of the dead,

And leaves the upper light.

In mid Italia lies a place

Retiring 'neath a mountain's base,

Amsanctus' vale, pent in between

Two wooded slopes of dusky green,

While in the midst a torrent raves,

As 'twixt the rocks it winds its waves.

An awful cavern there men show,

The very gorge of Dis below,

And gulfs whence Acheron bursts to sight

Ope jaws of pestilential night:

There plunged the hateful fiend beneath,

And earth and sky again took breath.

Juno takes up the unfinished plan

And perfects what the fiend began.

Straight to the city from the plain

The shepherds speed, and bear the slain,

Young Almo in his comely grace

And old Galæsus' mangled face,

Make street and home with clamour ring,

Implore the gods, adjure the king.

Fierce Turnus takes the tide at flood:

His loud voice swells the cry for blood

That blazes up to heaven:

'Strange slips defile the royal stem:

The Phrygians share the diadem,

Himself from Latium driven.'