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Rh "Blest nations of Ausonian strain,

The heirs of Saturn's golden reign,

What chance disturbs your peace, and goads

To rush on war's untrodden roads?

All, all our chiefs who erst combined

To sweep the Trojans from mankind

(Let pass the sufferings in the field,

The dead by Simois' wave concealed)

Alike have drained 'neath every sky

The cup of penal agony,

A hapless crew, whose lorn estate

E'en Priam would compassionate,

As Pallas' baleful star can tell,

And grim Caphareus knows too well.

The perils of our warfare o'er,

Outcast we fly from shore to shore;

Lo, Menelaus borne away

To Proteus' pillars all astray!

Ulysses, sorest tried of men,

'Neath Ætna sees the Cyclops' den.

What need to tell of Pyrrhas slain,

Idomeneus expelled his reign,

And Locrians driven, their country lost,

To make their homes on Libya's coast?

E'en he, Mycenæ's mighty lord,

Who led us when at Troy we warred,

In his own hall shed out his life

By hand of his adulterous wife:

As Asia sinks in fight subdued,

The paramour takes up the feud.

O jealous heaven, that no return

To hapless Diomed allows,

To see his home's dear altars burn

And greet his wished-for spouse!

Nay, dreadful prodigies of ill:

With ghastly presence hound me still: