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So dire the hissing of her snakes,
So ghastly grim the features shown;
She thrusts him back with angry glare
As, faltering, further speech he tries,
Uprears two serpents from her hair,
And cracks her scorpion whip, and cries:
'Behold the dame, grown o'er with mould,
Whom dotage, impotent and old,
Bemocks with visions of alarms
Amid the clang of monarchs' arms!
My home is with the infernal king,
And death and war in hand I bring.'

A fire-brand at the youth she throws:
Lodged in his breast the pinewood glows
With lurid light and dim:
A giant terror breaks his sleep,
And, bursting forth, big sweat-drops steep
His body, bone and limb.
'My sword! my sword!' he madly shrieks;
His sword he through the chamber seeks
And all the mansion o'er:
Burns the fierce fever of the steel,
The guilty madness warriors feel,
And jealous wrath yet more:
As when piled high a caldron round
The wood-fire sends a crackling sound,
And makes the waters start and bound,
In wild turmoil with smoke and steam
Seethes, hisses, froths the imprisoned stream,
Till the vexed wave o'erleaps control,
And vaporous clouds to heaven uproll.
So, proudly trampling treaties down,
He sounds a march to Latium's town:
To king Latinus he will go,
Protect the realm, expel the foe: