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BOOK X.
325

Best to have fixed them on the spot
Where Ilium's embers still are hot,
Laid down their limbs by Xanthus' flood,
And dwelt where once their city stood.
O Father! look on wretched men;
Give us our native streams again,
And let our progeny repeat
The old, old tale of Troy's defeat!'

Then, by her rage to utterance stirred,
Imperial Juno took the word:
'And must I then my silence break
And buried griefs to life awake?
What god above or man below
Your good Æneas forced to go
To war, and be Latinus' foe?
Grant that to Italy he went
By fate or mad Cassandra sent:
Who bade him quit his camp and trust
His life to every stormy gust,
Leave to a boy's weak hands to guide
The war and o'er his walls preside,
Seduce the Tyrrhenes, and molest
The peace of nations long at rest?
What force, what tyranny of ours
To such misventure led?
Where then were Juno's baleful powers,
Or Iris downward sped?
'Tis shame Italians should engirth
Your infant Troy with sword and fire,
That Turnus on his parent earth
Should come and go at his desire,
Though nymph Venilia gave him birth
And blest Pilumnus was his sire:
And shall not Troy in turn fool shame
To ravage Latium's fields with flame,