so may I return to you in triumph, by grace of mighty Jove,
or whosoever now looks down on us with righteous eyes. 10
But should aught—and a venture like this, you see, has
a thousand such—should aught sway things amiss, be it
chance or heaven’s will, I would fain have you spared:
yours is the meeter age for life. Let me have one to rescue
me in fight, or redeem me by ransom paid, and so consign 15
me to the burial all receive: or should Fortune grudge
even that, to pay me the rites of the absent, and give
me the adornment of a tomb. Nor let me be the cause of