Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/264

 tragedy of Ilium." Then outspoke queenly Juno, goaded by fierce passion: "Why force you me to break my deep silence, and give forth in words my buried grief? Your Æneas—was it any man or god that compelled him to draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian                 5 king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of fate, at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra; was it our counsel that he should leave his camp and place his life at the mercy of the winds? that he should trust the control of battle and his city to a boy—should tamper with                  10 Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? What god, what cruel tyranny of ours, drove him thither to his hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris sent down from the clouds? Ay, it is foul shame that the Italians should throw a belt of flame round the infant Troy—that Turnus             15 should plant a foot on the soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose grandsire was Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess Venilia. How call you it for the Trojans to invade Latium with their smoking torches, to put their yoke on a country that is none of theirs, and harry away its plunder—to       20 choose at will those whose daughters they would wed, and drag the plighted bride from the bosom—to bear suppliant tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the teeth? You have power to withdraw Æneas from the hands of the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds            25 for the man they seek—power to turn a fleet of ships into a bevy of Nymphs; and is it utterly monstrous for us to give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? Æneas is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him bide away. You have your Paphos, your Idalium, your lofty Cythera:              30 why meddle with a city brimming with war and with ungentle hearts? Is it we that are labouring to overturn from the foundation your feeble Phrygian fortunes? We? or the gallant who brought Greece down on the wretched Trojans? What reason was there that Europe                  35 and Asia should stand up to fight, and a league be broken by treachery? Did I lead your Dardan leman to take Sparta by storm? did I put weapons in his hand, or fan the