My much-loved country, and my more loved wife: Banished from both, I mourn; while in the sky, Transformed to birds, my lost companions fly: Hovering about the coasts, they make their moan, And cuff the cliffs with pinions not their own. What squalid spectres, in the dead of night, Break my short sleep, and skim before my sight! I might have promised to myself those harms, Mad as I was, when I, with mortal arms, Presumed against immortal powers to move, And violate with wounds the queen of love. Such arms this hand shall never more employ. No hate remains with me to ruined Troy. I war not with its dust; nor am I glad To think of past events, or good or bad. Your presents I return: whate'er you bring To buy my friendship, send the Trojan king. We met in fight: I know him, to my cost: With what a whirling force his lance he tossed! Heavens! what a spring was in his arm, to throw! How high he held his shield, and rose at every blow! Had Troy produced two more his match in might, They would have changed the fortune of the fight: The invasion of the Greeks had been returned, Our empire wasted, and our cities burned. The long defence the Trojan people made, The war protracted, and the siege delayed, Were due to Hector's and this hero's hand: Both brave alike, and equal in command; Æneas, not inferior in the field, In pious reverence to the gods excelled. Make peace, ye Latians, and avoid with care The impending dangers of a fatal war.' He said no more; but, with this cold excuse, Refused the alliance, and advised a truce." Thus Venulus concluded his report. A jarring murmur filled the factious court: As, when a torrent rolls with rapid force, And dashes o'er the stones that stop the course, The flood, constrained within a scanty space, Roars horrible along the uneasy race; White foam in gathering eddies floats around; The rocky shores rebellow to the sound. The murmur ceased: then from his lofty throne The king invoked the gods, and thus begun:-- "I wish, ye Latians, what we now debate Had been resolved before it was too late. Much better had it been for you and me, Unforced by this our last necessity, To have been earlier wise, than now to call A council, when the foe surrounds the wall. O citizens! we wage unequal war, With men, not only heaven's peculiar care, But heaven's own race--unconquered in the field, Or, conquered, yet unknowing how to yield. What hopes you had in Diomede, lay down: Our hopes must centre in ourselves alone. Yet those how feeble, and, indeed, how vain, You see too well; nor need my words explain-- Vanquished without resource--laid flat by fate-- Factions within, a foe without the gate! Not but I grant that all performed their parts