Aeneid (19 BC)
I sing of arms and a man, who, exiled by fate, first came from the shores of Troy to Italy and the shores of Lavinia -- that one having been tossed much both on lands and on the deep (sea) by the force of the gods above, by the mindful anger of cruel Juno, having suffered many things even in war, until he founded a city and brought his gods into Latium -- whence Latin people and Alban fathers came, also the walls of high Rome.
Muse, recall to me the reason, what divine essence having been offended or grieving at what drove the queen of the gods to undergo so much misfortune to a man, distinguished in loyalty, to encounter so many hardships. Is there so much anger in the heavenly minds?
There was an ancient city, Carthage (held by the settlers of Tyre), facing Italy and the far off mouth of the Tiber, wealthy in resources and harsh in pursuits of war; which one land Juno is said to have cultivated more than all, Samos having been placed afterwards: here were her weapons, her chariot; now she both intended and cherished that this clan of the goddess would be the ruling power, if in any way the Fates should allow. But indeed she had heard of offspring, from Trojan blood, which would at some time overturn Tyrian citadels, that a people widely ruling and proud in war would come for the destruction of Libya: thus the Fates were turning. Juno, fearing this fact, was mindful of the former war, which foremost she had waged at Troy for her dear Argus (also not yet had the reasons of her anger and cruel pains perished from her mind; the remains in her lofty mind of the judgement of Paris, the injury of her scorned beauty the hated race, and Ganymede's honors having been snatched). Having been enraged, she hurled all the Trojans above the sea, the remnants of the Greeks and of fierce Achilles; she was keeping them far from Latium, and for many years they were wandering, having been driven by fate around all the seas. It was so great a difficulty to found the Roman nation.
Scarcely out of sight of Sicilian land in the deep sea, they set the sail, happy, onto the deep and they were plowing salt water foam with the bronze, when Juno, nurturing her eternal wound beneath her breast (said) these things with herself: “Will I, having been conquered, cease my purpose, and not be able to turn away the king of the Trojans from Italy? Indeed, I am forbidden by the Fates. Was Minerva able to burn the fleet of the Greeks and to sink them themselves in the sea, because of the fault and madness of one Ajax, son of Oileus? She herself, having hurled Jupiter’s swift fire out of the clouds, both scattered the rafts and overturned the sea with winds; she snatched that one with a whirlwind exhaling flames from his pierced chest, and impaled him on a sharp rock; but I, who walk majestically as queen of the gods and as both sister and wife of Jupiter, have been waging war with one nation for so many years. And is anyone worshipping the divine power of Juno hereafter, or will anyone as a suppliant place offerings on her altars?”
Turning over such things with herself in her inflamed heart, the goddess comes to Aeolia, to the country of storms, a place teeming with the raging south winds. Here, in his vast cave, King Aeolus presses the wrestling winds and roaring storms with his power and he restrains them with chains and prisons. Those ones moan angrily with great murmurs around a barrier of a mountain; Aeolus sits holding a staff in his lofty stronghold and soothes their minds and calms their anger; if he should not do this, they would surely carry the seas and lands and the vast sky swiftly with themselves and sweep them through the air. But the almighty father put them away in dark caves, fearing this, and placed on a mass and a high mountain above them, and gave them a king who would know how to give the order to both control and give loose the reins when ordered by a certain pact. Juno, as a suppliant, addressed with these words: “Aeolus, for indeed the father of divinity and king of people has granted to you both to calm and to raise the waves with winds, a people hostile to me sails to the Tyrrhenian Sea, carrying Troy and the conquered household gods into Italy: strike with winds and overwhelm their sunk sterns, or drive them scattered and scatter their bodies in the sea. Fourteen (twice seven) nymphs of surpassing form are mine, of whom which the most beautiful in form, Deiopeia, I will join to you in lasting marriage and dedicate her to you as your very own, so that, for such merit, she will pass all her years with you and make you parent to beautiful offspring.”
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