These if we gain, then victory, ye powers!
This night, this glorious night, the fleet is ours!"
That heard, deep anguish stung Saturnia's soul;
She shook her throne, that shook the starry pole:
And thus to Neptune: "Thou, whose force can make
The stedfast earth from her foundations shake,
Seest thou the Greeks by fates unjust oppress'd,
Nor swells thy heart in that immortal breast?
Yet Ægae, Helice, thy power obey,195
And gifts unceasing on thine altars lay.
Would all the deities of Greece combine,
In vain the gloomy Thunderer might repine:
Sole should he sit, with scarce a god to friend,
And see his Trojans to the shades descend:
Such be the scene from his Idaean bower;
Ungrateful prospect to the sullen power!"
Neptune with wrath rejects the rash design:
"What rage, what
