May endless billows rise between, and storms unnumbered roar. _70 Still let the cursed, detested place, Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race, Be cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in grass. There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray; Or, while the lonely shepherd sings, Amidst the mighty ruins play, And frisk upon the tombs of kings. May tigers there, and all the savage kind, Sad, solitary haunts and silent deserts find; In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces, _80 May the unmolested lioness Her brinded whelps securely lay, Or couched, in dreadful slumbers waste the day. While Troy in heaps of ruins lies, Rome and the Roman Capitol shall rise; The illustrious exiles unconfined Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind. In vain the sea's intruding tide Europe from Afric shall divide, And part the severed world in two: _90 Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread, And the long train of victories pursue To Nile's yet undiscovered head. Riches the hardy soldier shall despise, And look on gold with undesiring eyes, Nor the disbowelled earth explore In search of the forbidden ore; Those glittering ills concealed within the mine, Shall lie untouched, and innocently shine. To the last bounds that nature sets, _100 The piercing colds and sultry heats, The godlike race shall spread their arms; Now fill the polar circle with alarms, Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine; Now sweat for conquest underneath the line. This only law the victor shall restrain, On these conditions shall he reign; If none his guilty hand employ To build again a second Troy, If none the rash design pursue, _110 Nor tempt the vengeance of the gods anew. A curse there cleaves to the devoted place, That shall the new foundations raze: Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire To storm the rising town with fire, And at their armies' head myself will show What Juno, urged to all her rage, can do. Thrice should Apollo's self the city raise, And line it round with walls of brass, Thrice should my favourite Greeks his works confound, _120 And hew the shining fabric to the ground; Thrice should her captive dames to Greece return, And their dead sons and slaughtered husbands mourn.' But hold, my Muse, forbear thy towering flight, Nor bring the secrets of the gods to light: In vain would thy presumptuous verse The immortal rhetoric rehearse; The mighty strains, in lyric numbers bound, Forget their majesty, and lose their sound. THE VESTAL. FROM OVID DE FASTIS, LIB. III. EL. 1. Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis, &c.