Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/340

 come,—let this ineffectual frenzy give way: I grant your wish, and submit myself in willing obedience. The Ausonians shall keep their native tongue, their native customs: the name shall remain as it is: the Teucrians shall merge in the nation they join—that and no more:               5 their rites and worship shall be my gift: all shall be Latians and speak the Latian tongue. The race that shall arise from this admixture of Ausonian blood shall transcend in piety earth and heaven itself, nor shall any nation pay you such honours as they." Juno nodded assent, and                   10 turned her sullenness to pleasure; meanwhile she departs from the sky, and quits the cloud where she sat.

This done, the sire meditates a further resolve, and prepares to part Juturna from her brother's side. There are two fiends known as the Furies, whom with Tartarean              25 Megæra dismal Night brought forth at one and the same birth, wreathing them alike with coiling serpents, and equipping them with wings that fan the air. They are seen beside Jove's throne, at the threshold of his angry sovereignty, goading frail mortality with stings of terror,          20 oft as the monarch of the gods girds himself to send forth disease and frightful death, or appals guilty towns with war. One of these Jove sped with haste from heaven's summit, and bade her confront Juturna in token of his will. Forth she flies, borne earthward on the blast of a             25 whirlwind. Swift as the arrow from the string cleaves the cloud, sent forth by Parthian—Parthian or Cydonian—tipped with fell poison's gall, the dealer of a wound incurable, and skims the flying vapours hurtling and unforeseen, so went the Daughter of Night and made her                        30 way to earth. Soon as she sees the forces of Troy and the army of Turnus, she huddles herself suddenly into the shape of a puny bird, which oft on tombstone or lonely roof sitting by night screams restlessly through the gloom; in this disguise the fiend again and again flies flapping in         35 Turnus' face, and beats with her wings on his shield. A strange chilly terror unknits his frame, his hair stands shudderingly erect, and his utterance cleaves to his jaws.