Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/468

444 Shall soar alike o'er earth and skies,

So pious, just, and good:

Nor evermore shall nation pay

Such homage to your shrine as they.'

Saturnia hears with altered mind,

Triumphant now and proud:

The sky meantime she leaves behind,

And quits her chilly cloud.

This done, the Father in his heart

New counsels ponders o'er,

To force Juturna to depart

Nor help her brother more.

Two fiends there are of evil fame,

The Diræ their ill-omened name,

Whom at a birth unkindly Night

With dark Megæra brought to light,

With serpent-spires their tresses twined,

And gave them wings to cleave the wind.

On Jove's high threshold they appear

Before his throne, and lash to fear

Mankind's unhappy brood,

When grisly death the Sire prepares

And sickness, or with battle scares

A guilty multitude.

Such pest as this the Thunderer sent

Down from the Olympian sky,

And bade it, for an omen meant,

Across Juturna fly.

Down swoops the portent, fierce and fast,

With swiftness of a whirling blast:

Not swifter bounds from off the string

The dart that with envenomed sting

The Parthian launches on the wing,

The Parthian or the Crete;