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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book VII Chapter 16: Alecto inspires Amata | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
Straightway Alecto, through whose body flows the Gorgon poison, took her viewless way to Latium and the lofty walls and towers of the Laurentian King. Crouching she sate in silence on the threshold of the bower where Queen Amata in her fevered soul pondered, with all a woman's wrath and fear, upon the Trojans and the marriage-suit of Turnus. From her Stygian hair the fiend a single serpent flung, which stole its way to the Queen's very heart, that, frenzy-driven, she might on her whole house confusion pour. Betwixt her smooth breast and her robe it wound unfelt, unseen, and in her wrathful mind instilled its viper soul. Like golden chain around her neck it twined, or stretched along the fillets on her brow, or with her hair enwrithing coiled; then on from limb to limb slipped tortuous. Yet though the venom strong thrilled with its first infection every vein, and touched her bones with fire, she knew it not, nor yielded all her soul, but made her plea in gentle accents such as mothers use; and many a tear she shed, about her child, her darling, destined for a Phrygian's bride: “O father! can we give Lavinia's hand to Trojan fugitives? why wilt thou show no mercy on thy daughter, nor thyself; nor unto me, whom at the first fair wind that wretch will leave deserted, bearing far upon his pirate ship my stolen child? Was it not thus that Phrygian shepherd came to Lacedaemon, ravishing away Helen, the child of Leda, whom he bore to those false Trojan lands? Hast thou forgot thy plighted word? Where now thy boasted love of kith and kin, and many a troth-plight given unto our kinsman Turnus? If we need an alien son, and Father Faunus' words irrevocably o'er thy spirit brood, I tell thee every land not linked with ours under one sceptre, but distinct and free, is alien; and t is thus the gods intend. Indeed, if Turnus' ancient race be told, it sprang of Inachus, Acrisius, and out of mid Mycenae.” Events: The Gods interfere in the Aeneid, Aeneas comes to Latium, The abduction of Helen |
341-372 Exim Gorgoneis Allecto infecta uenenis principio Latium et Laurentis tecta tyranni celsa petit, tacitumque obsedit limen Amatae, quam super aduentu Teucrum Turnique hymenaeis femineae ardentem curaeque iraeque coquebant. huic dea caeruleis unum de crinibus anguem conicit, inque sinum praecordia ad intima subdit, quo furibunda domum monstro permisceat omnem. ille inter uestis et leuia pectora lapsus uoluitur attactu nullo, fallitque furentem uipeream inspirans animam; fit tortile collo aurum ingens coluber, fit longae taenia uittae innectitque comas et membris lubricus errat. ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa ueneno pertemptat sensus atque ossibus implicat ignem necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam, mollius et solito matrum de more locuta est, multa super natae lacrimans Phrygiisque hymenaeis: 'exsulibusne datur ducenda Lauinia Teucris, o genitor, nec te miseret nataeque tuique? nec matris miseret, quam primo Aquilone relinquet perfidus alta petens abducta uirgine praedo? at non sic Phrygius penetrat Lacedaemona pastor, Ledaeamque Helenam Troianas uexit ad urbes? quid tua sancta fides? quid cura antiqua tuorum et consanguineo totiens data dextera Turno? si gener externa petitur de gente Latinis, idque sedet, Faunique premunt te iussa parentis, omnem equidem sceptris terram quae libera nostris dissidet externam reor et sic dicere diuos. et Turno, si prima domus repetatur origo, Inachus Acrisiusque patres mediaeque Mycenae.' |