_NURSE_: I acknowledge that he is unworthy of thee but submit to fate and fortune, daughter, and do not, I implore thee, arouse the wrath of thy angry husband. Perhaps some avenging god will appear and a joyful day will dawn. _OCTAVIA_: For a long time our home has been beset with the heavy wrath of the gods. Pitiless Venus first exacted punishment for the madness of my wretched mother who was united in incestuous marriage, regardless of me, of her husband, and forgetful of the laws.[51] With her hair flowing and entwined with serpents, that avenging Erinys came to the fatal marriage couch and quenched in blood the torches snatched from the marriage chamber. Anger aroused the heart of the fierce leader to disgraceful murder. Our unhappy mother perished by the sword, and her death continually saddens me. She has led forth to death her own husband and son; she has betrayed and destroyed our home. _NURSE_: Cease renewing filial sorrows by thy weeping. Do not disturb the spirit of thy mother who has paid heavy penalties for her own madness. _CHORUS_: What rumor do we now hear? Falsely believed and repeated in vain so many times, may it lose credence; may the new wife not enter the bridal apartments; may the former wife, the child of Claudius, retain her own Penates; may she give birth to pledges of love in which a peaceful universe may rejoice and Rome preserve an eternal glory. Great Juno, chosen by lot, occupies the bridal apartment of her brother. Why is the wife and sister of Augustus driven from her ancestral halls? What does sacred pity avail her? What, a divine father? What, chastity and virtuous modesty? We, too, are forgetful of ourselves after the death of a leader whose son we betrayed since his life caused fear.[52] Once there was genuine Roman valor of the ancestors and the true race and blood of Mars in these men. They drove the haughty kings from Rome, and well did they avenge thy wrongs, Lucretia, thou, dishonored by the cruel tyrant and killed by thy own wretched hand.[53] Tullia, the wife of Tarquinius, paid the penalty for her dreadful crimes.--Tullia who wickedly drove the cruel chariot over the body of her murdered father and refused a funeral pyre to the mangled old man.[54]