Book 1
rebellious to her godhead; and Jove's smile
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that beamed on eagle-ravished Ganymede.
With all these thoughts infuriate, her power
pursued with tempests o'er the boundless main
the Trojans, though by Grecian victor spared
and fierce Achilles; so she thrust them far
from Latium; and they drifted, Heaven-impelled,
year after year, o'er many an unknown sea—
O labor vast, to found the Roman line!
Below th' horizon the Sicilian isle
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just sank from view, as for the open sea
with heart of hope they sailed, and every ship
clove with its brazen beak the salt, white waves.
But Juno of her everlasting wound
knew no surcease, but from her heart of pain
thus darkly mused: “Must I, defeated, fail
of what I will, nor turn the Teucrian King
from Italy away? Can Fate oppose?
Had Pallas power to lay waste in flame
the Argive fleet and sink its mariners,
revenging but the sacrilege obscene
by Ajax wrought, Oileus' desperate son?
She, from the clouds, herself Jove's lightning threw,
scattered the ships, and ploughed the sea with storms.
Her foe, from his pierced breast out-breathing fire,
in whirlwind on a deadly rock she flung.
But I, who move among the gods a queen,
Jove's sister and his spouse, with one weak tribe
make war so long! Who now on Juno calls?
What suppliant gifts henceforth her altars crown?”
So, in her fevered heart complaining still,
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unto the storm-cloud land the goddess came,
a region with wild whirlwinds in its womb,
Aeolia named, where royal Aeolus
in a high-vaulted cavern keeps control
o'er warring winds and loud concourse of storms.
There closely pent in chains and bastions strong,
they, scornful, make the vacant mountain roar,
chafing against their bonds. But from a throne
of lofty crag, their king with sceptred hand