When, from aloft, almighty Jove surveys Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas: At length on Libyan realms he fixed his eyes-- Whom, pondering thus on human miseries, When Venus saw, she with a lowly look, Not free from tears, her heavenly sire bespoke:-- "O king of gods and men! whose awful hand } Disperses thunder on the seas and land; } Disposes all with absolute command; } How could my pious son thy power incense? Or what, alas! is vanished Troy's offence? Our hope of Italy not only lost, } On various seas by various tempests tossed, } But shut from every shore, and barred from every coast. } You promised once, a progeny divine, Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line, In after-times should hold the world in awe, And to the land and ocean give the law. How is your doom reversed, which eased my care When Troy was ruined in that cruel war? Then fates to fates I could oppose: but now, When Fortune still pursues her former blow, What can I hope? What worse can still succeed? What end of labours has your will decreed? Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts, Could pass secure, and pierce the Illyrian coasts, Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves, And through nine channels disembogues his waves. At length he founded Padua's happy seat, And gave his Trojans a secure retreat; There fixed their arms, and there renewed their name, And there in quiet rules, and crowned with fame. But we, descended from your sacred line, Entitled to your heaven and rites divine, Are banished earth, and, for the wrath of one, Removed from Latium, and the promised throne. Are these our sceptres? these our due rewards? And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards?" To whom the Father of the immortal race, Smiling with that serene indulgent face, With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies, First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies:-- "Daughter, dismiss thy fears: to thy desire, The fates of thine are fixed, and stand entire. Thou shalt behold thy wished Lavinian walls; And, ripe for heaven, when fate Æneas calls, Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me: No councils have reversed my firm decree. And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, Know, I have searched the mystic rolls of Fate: Thy son (nor is the appointed season far) In Italy shall wage successful war, Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field, And sovereign laws impose, and cities build, Till, after every foe subdued, the sun Thrice through the signs his annual race shall run: This is his time prefixed. Ascanius then, Now called Iülus, shall begin his reign. He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear, Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer, And, with hard labour, Alba-longa build. The throne with his succession shall be filled,