Twice seven nymphs have I of wondrous beauty, of whom Deiopea, fairest of form, I will link to you in wedlock, making her yours for ever, that for such service of yours she may spend all her years with you, and make you father of fair offspring.” Hurl fury into your winds, sink and overwhelm the ships, or drive the men asunder and scatter their bodies on the deep. “Aeolus – for to you the father of gods and king of men has given power to clam and uplift the waves with the wind – a people hateful to me sails the Tyrrhene sea, carrying into Italy Ilium’s vanquished gods. Him Juno now addressed thus in suppliant speech: But, fearful of this, the father omnipotent hid them in gloomy caverns, and over them piled high mountain masses and gave them a king who, under fixed covenant, should be skilled to tighten and loosen the reins at command. In his lofty citadel sits Aeolus, sceptre in hand, taming their passions and soothing their rage did he not so, they would surely bear off with them in wild flight seas and lands and the vault of heaven, sweeping them through space. They, to the mountain’s mighty moans, chafe blustering around the barriers. Here in his vast cavern, Aeolus, their king, keeps under his sway and with prison bonds curbs the struggling winds and the roaring gales. Thus inwardly brooding with heart inflamed, the goddess came to Aeolia, motherland of storm clouds, tracts teeming with furious blasts. And will any still worship Juno’s godhead or humbly lay sacrifice upon her altars? Yet I, who move as queen of gods, at once sister and wife of Jove, with one people am warring these many years.
Hardly out of sight of Sicilian land were they spreading their sails seaward, and merrily ploughing the foaming brine with brazen prow, when Juno, nursing an undying wound deep in her heart, spoke thus to herself: “What! I resign my purpose, baffled, and fail to turn from Italy the Teucrian king! The fates, doubtless, forbid me! Had Pallas power to burn up the Argive fleet and sink sailors in the deep, because of one single man’s guilt, and the frenzy of Ajax, son of Oileus? Her own hand hurled from the clouds Jove’s swift flame, scattered their ships, and upheaved the sea in tempest but him, as with pierced breast he breathed forth flame, she caught in a whirlwind and impaled on a spiky crag. So vast was the effort to found the Roman race. The daughter of Saturn, fearful of this and mindful of the old war which erstwhile she had fought at Troy for her beloved Argos – not yet, too, had the cause of her wrath and her bitter sorrows faded from her mind: deep in her heart remain the judgment of Paris and the outrage to her slighted beauty, her hatred of the race and the honours paid to ravished Ganymede – inflamed hereby yet more, she tossed on the wide main the Trojan remnant, left by the Greeks and pitiless Achilles, and kept them far from Latium and many a year they wandered, driven by the fates o’er all the seas. Yet in truth she had heard that a race was springing from Trojan blood, to overthrow some day the Tyrian towers that from it a people, kings of broad realms and proud in war, should come forth for Libya’s downfall: so rolled the wheel of fate.
Here was her armour, here her chariot that here should be the capital of the nations, should the fates perchance allow it, was even then the goddess’s aim and cherished hope. This, ‘tis said, Juno loved above all other lands, holding Samos itself less dear. There was an ancient city, the home of Tyrian settlers, Carthage, over against Italy and the Tiber’s mouths afar, rich in wealth and stern in war’s pursuits. Can heavenly spirits cherish resentment so dire? Tell me, O Muse, the cause wherein thwarted in will or wherefore angered, did the Queen of heaven drive a man, of goodness so wondrous, to traverse so many perils, to face so many toils. Arms and the man I sing, who first from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and Lavine shores much buffeted on sea and land by violence from above, through cruel Juno’s unforgiving wrath, and much enduring in war also, till he should build a city and bring his gods to Latium whence came the Latin race, the lords of Alba, and the lofty walls of Rome. BOOKS 7 - 12 AENEID BOOK 1, TRANSLATED BY H.
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