Now let my happier foes possess my place, } Whom Jove prefers before the Trojan race; } And conquer they, whom you with conquest grace. } Since you can spare, from all your wide command, No spot of earth, no hospitable land, Which may my wandering fugitives receive; (Since haughty Juno will not give you leave,) Then, father, (if I still may use that name,) By ruined Troy, yet smoking from the flame, I beg you, let Ascanius, by my care, Be freed from danger, and dismissed the war: Inglorious let him live, without a crown: } The father may be cast on coasts unknown, } Struggling with fate; but let me save the son. } Mine is Cythera, mine the Cyprian towers: In those recesses, and those sacred bowers, Obscurely let him rest; his right resign To promised empire, and his Julian line. Then Carthage may the Ausonian towns destroy, Nor fear the race of a rejected boy. What profits it my son, to 'scape the fire, Armed with his gods, and loaded with his sire; To pass the perils of the seas and wind; Evade the Greeks, and leave the war behind; To reach the Italian shores; if, after all, Our second Pergamus is doomed to fall? Much better had he curbed his high desires, And hovered o'er his ill-extinguished fires. To Simoïs' banks the fugitives restore, And give them back to war, and all the woes before." Deep indignation swelled Saturnia's heart: "And must I own," she said, "my secret smart-- What with more decence were in silence kept, And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept? Did god or man your favourite son advise, With war unhoped the Latians to surprise? By fate, you boast, and by the gods' decree, He left his native land for Italy! Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, more Than heaven, inspired, he sought a foreign shore. Did I persuade to trust his second Troy To the raw conduct of a beardless boy, With walls unfinished, which himself forsakes, And through the waves a wandering voyage takes? When have I urged him meanly to demand The Tuscan aid, and arm a quiet land? Did I or Iris give this mad advice? Or made the fool himself the fatal choice? You think it hard, the Latians should destroy With swords your Trojans, and with fires your Troy! Hard and unjust indeed, for men to draw Their native air, nor take a foreign law! That Turnus is permitted still to live, To whom his birth a god and goddess give! But yet 'tis just and lawful for your line To drive their fields, and force with fraud to join; Realms, not your own, among your clans divide, And from the bridegroom tear the promised bride; Petition, while you public arms prepare; Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war! 'Twas given to you, your darling son to shroud, } To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd, }