Smear'd as she was with black Gorgonian blood,
The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood;
And on her wicker wings, sublime thro' night,
She to the Latian palace took her flight:
There sought the queen's apartment, stood before
The peaceful threshold, and besieg'd the door.
Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast
Fir'd with disdain for Turnus dispossess'd,
And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest.
From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes
Her darling plague, the fav'rite of her snakes;
With her full force she threw the poisonous dart,
And fix'd it deep within Amata's heart,
That, thus envenom'd, she might kindle rage,
And sacrifice to strife her house husband's age.
Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims
Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs;
His baleful breath inspiring, as he glides,
Now like a chain around her neck he rides,
Now like a fillet to her head repairs,
And with his circling volumes folds her hairs.
At first the silent venom slid with ease,
And seiz'd her cooler senses by degrees;
Then, ere th' infected mass was fir'd too far,
In plaintive accents she began the war,
And thus bespoke her husband: “Shall,” she said,
“A wand'ring prince enjoy Lavinia's bed?
If nature plead not in a parent's heart,
Pity my tears, and pity her desert.
I know, my dearest lord, the time will come,
You in vain, reverse your cruel doom;
The faithless pirate soon will set to sea,
And bear the royal virgin far away!
A guest like him, a Trojan guest before,
In shew of friendship sought the Spartan shore,
And ravish'd Helen from her husband bore.
Think on a king's inviolable word;
And think on Turnus, her once plighted lord:
To this false foreigner you give your throne,
And wrong a friend, a kinsman, and a son.
Resume your ancient care; and, if the god
Your sire, and you, resolve on foreign blood,
Know all are foreign, in a larger sense,
Not born your subjects, or deriv'd from hence.
Then, if the line of Turnus you retrace,
He springs from Inachus of Argive race.”
Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
card:
lines 1-4lines 5-24lines 25-36lines 37-44lines 45-80lines 81-106lines 107-134lines 135-147lines 148-169lines 170-191lines 192-211lines 212-248lines 249-285lines 286-322lines 323-340lines 341-372lines 373-405lines 406-434lines 435-444lines 445-474lines 475-510lines 511-539lines 540-571lines 572-600lines 601-640lines 641-646lines 647-654lines 655-669lines 670-677lines 678-690lines 691-705lines 706-722lines 723-732lines 733-743lines 744-749lines 750-760lines 761-782lines 783-802lines 803ff.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Sort places
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Argive (Greece) (1)Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
References (1 total)
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(1):
- Lewis & Short, dis-sĭdĕo
hide
Search
hideStable Identifiers
hide
Display Preferences