her; yea, e'en they of that Tartarean place,
Her sisters, hate her: sure she hath as many a changing face,
As many a cruel body's form, as her black snakes put forth.
To whom in such wise Juno spake and whetted on her wrath: 330

"Win me a work after thine heart, O Virgin of the night,
Lest all my fame, unstained of old, my glory won aright,
Give place: lest there AEneas' sons Latinus overcome
By wedlock, and in Italy set up their house and home:
Thou, who the brothers of one heart canst raise up each 'gainst each,
And overturn men's homes with hate, and through the house-walls' breach
Bear in the stroke and deadly brand--a thousand names hast thou,--
A thousand arts of ill: Stir up thy fruitful bosom now;
Be render of the plighted peace; of war-seed be the sower; 339
That men may yearn for arms, and ask, and snatch in one same hour."

Thereon Alecto, steeped at heart with Gorgon venoming.
Sought Latium first and high-built house of that Laurentian king,
And by the silent threshold stood whereby Amata lay,
In whose hot heart a woman's woe and woman's wrath did play,
About those Teucrian new-comers and Turnus' bridal bed:
On her she cast an adder blue, a tress from off her head,
And sent it to her breast to creep her very heart-strings through,
That she, bewildered by the bane, may all the house undo.
So he betwixt her bosom smooth and dainty raiment slid,
And crawled as if he touched her not, and maddened her yet hid, 350
And breathed the adder's soul in her: the dreadful wormy thing
Seemed the wrought gold about her neck, or the long silken string
That knit her hair, and slippery soft it glided o'er her limbs.
And now while first the plague begins, and soft the venom swims,
Touching her sense, and round her bones the fiery web is pressed,
Nor yet her soul had caught the flame through all her poisoned breast,
Still soft, and e'en as mothers will, she spake the word and said
Her woes about her daughter's case, and Phrygian bridal bed.

"To Teucrian outcasts shall our maid, Lavinia, wedded be?
O Father, hast thou nought of ruth of her, forsooth, and thee? 360
Nor of the mother, whom that man forsworn shall leave behind,
Bearing the maiden o'er the sea with the first northern wind?
Nay, not e'en so the Phrygian herd pierced Lacedaemon's fold,