Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they spreading their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering with their brazen prows the briny spray, when Juno, the everlasting wound still rankling in her heart’s core, thus communed with herself: “And am I to give up what I have 20 taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to prevent the king of the Teucrians[20] from reaching Italy—because, forsooth, the Fates forbid me? What! was Pallas[21] strong enough to burn up utterly the Grecian fleet, and whelm the crews in the sea, for the offence of a single man, the frenzy of 25 Ajax,[22] Oïleus’ son? Aye, she with her own hand launched from the clouds Jove’s[23] winged fire, dashed the ships apart, and turned up the sea-floor with the wind—him, gasping out the flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the blast, and impaled on a rock’s[24] point—while I, who walk 30 the sky as its queen, Jove’s sister and consort both, am battling with a single nation these many years. And are there any found to pray to Juno’s deity after this, or lay on her altar a suppliant’s gift?” With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 35 her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm-cloud’s birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern blasts, Æolia.[25] Here, in a vast cavern,[26] King Æolus[27] is bowing to his sway struggling winds and howling tempests, and bridling them with bond[28] and prison. They, in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while the huge rock roars responsive: Æolus is sitting aloft in his fortress, his sceptre in his hand, soothing their moods 5 and allaying their rage; were he to fail in this, why sea and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be forced along by their blast, and swept through the air. But the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark and deep, with this fear before his eyes, and placed over them 10 giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them a king who, by the terms of his compact, should know how to tighten or slacken the reins at his patron’s will. To him it was that Juno then, in these words, made her humble request:— 15