Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/187

 and the axes of doom: the father will bring his rebel sons to death, all for fair freedom's sake. Unhappy man! let after ages speak of that deed as they will, strong over all will be patriot passion and unmeasured thirst of praise. Look, there are the Drusi[o] and the Decii,[o] and Torquatus[o]       5 with his unpitying axe, and Camillus[o] the restorer of the standards. But those whom you see there, dressed alike in gleaming armour—spirits at harmony now and so long as they are confined in darkness—alas! how vast a war will they wage, each with each, if they shall attain       10 the light of day, what arraying of hosts, what carnage will there be! Father-in-law and son-in-law,[o] the one coming down from Alpine ramparts and the stronghold of Monœcus: the other drawn up against him with the forces of the east. Do not, do not, my children, make       15 wars like these familiar to your spirits: turn not your country's valour against your country's vitals: and you, restrain yourself the first: you, whose lineage is from heaven, drop the steel from your grasp, heir of Anchises' blood. See here, a conqueror who shall drive to the lofty       20 Capitol the car of triumph over Corinth, glorious from Achæan slaughter: here one who shall lay Argos in dust, and Agamemnon's own Mycenæ, ay, and the heir of Æacus, with Achilles' martial blood in his veins: a Roman's vengeance for his Trojan grandsires, and for Pallas' insulted       25 fame. What tongue would leave you unpraised, great Cato, or Cossus, you? or the race of the Gracchi, or those twin thunderbolts of war, the Scipios, Libya's ruin, or Fabricius, princely in his poverty, or you, Serranus, sowing your own ploughed fields? When, ye Fabii,[o]       30 will panting praise overtake you? You are in truth our greatest, the single saviour of our state by delay. Others, I doubt not, will mould the breathing brass to more flesh-like softness, and spread over marble the look of life. Others will plead better at the bar, will trace with the       35 rod the courses of heaven, and foretell the risings of the stars. Yours, Roman, be the lesson to govern the nations as their lord: this is your destined culture, to impose the