duty done, they
shall lie at last in their Ausonian haven, from all that have outgone
the waves and borne their Dardanian captain to the fields of Laurentum,
will I take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty
deep, even as Doto the Nereid and Galatea, when they cut the sea that
falls away from their breasts in foam.' He ended; and by his brother's
Stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he
nodded confirmation, and shook all Olympus with his nod.

So the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due
time, when Turnus' injury stirred the Mother to ward the brands from her
holy ships. First then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great
glory from the Dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of Ida;
then an awful voice fell through air, filling the Trojan and Rutulian
ranks: 'Disquiet not yourselves, O Teucrians, to guard ships of mine,
neither arm your hands: sooner shall Turnus burn the seas than these
holy pines. You, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the Mother bids it.'
And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping
prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O
wonderful and strange!) they rise with maidens' faces in like number,
and bear out to sea.

The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his
disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur,
and recoils from sea. But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence;
nay, he [127-158]raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them:
'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft
them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire.
So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in
flight; they have lost half their world. And we hold the land: in all
their thousands the nations of Italy are under arms. In no wise am I
dismayed by those divine oracles of doom the Phrygians insolently
advance. Fate and Venus are satisfied, in that the Trojans have touched
our fruitful Ausonian fields. I too have my fate in reply to theirs, to
put utterly to the sword the guilty nation who have robbed me of my
bride; not the sons of Atreus alone are touched by that pain, nor may
Mycenae only rise in arms. But to have perished once is enough! To have
sinned once should have been enough, in all but utter hatred of the
whole of womankind. Trust in the sund