XXVI. Born of a nymph, by [Ammon's] forced embrace,
A hundred temples and in each a shrine
He built to Jove, the father of his race,
And lit the sacred fires, that sleepless shine,
The Gods' eternal watches. Slaughtered kine
Smoke on the teeming pavement, garlands fair
Of various hues the stately porch entwine.
Stung by the bitter tidings, in despair		226
Before the gods he kneels, and pours a suppliant's prayer.
XXVII. "Great Jove, to whom our Moorish tribes, reclined
On broidered couch, the votive wine-cup drain,
See'st thou or, Father, are thy bolts but blind,
Mere noise thy thunder, and thy lightnings vain?
This woman here, who, wandering on the main,
Bought leave to build and govern as her own
Her puny town, and till the sandy plain,
Our proffered love hath ventured to disown,		235
And takes a Trojan lord, Æneas, to her throne.

XXVIII. "And now that Paris, tricked in Lydian guise,
With perfumed locks and bonnet, and his crew
Of men half-women, gloats upon the prize,
While vainly at thy so-called shrines we sue,
And nurse a faith as empty as untrue."
He prayed and clasped the altar. His request
Jove heard, and to the city bent his view,
And saw the guilty lovers, lapt in rest		244
And lost to shame, and thus Cyllenius he addressed:

XXIX. "Go, son, [the Zephyrs] call, and wing thy flight
To Carthage. Call the Dardan chief away,
Who, deaf to Fate, his destined walls doth slight.
This mandate through the wafting air convey,
Not such fair Venus did her son pourtray,
Nor twice for this from Grecian swords reclaim
One born to rule Italia, big with sway
And fierce for war, and spread the Teucrian name		253
Through Teucer's sons, and laws to conquered earth proclaim.
XXX. "If glory cannot tempt him, nor inflame
His soul to win such greatness, if indeed
He takes no trouble for his own fair fame,
Shall he, a father, envy to his seed
The towers of Rome, by destiny decreed?
What schemes he now? what hope the chief constrains
To linger 'mid a hostile race, nor heed
Ausonia's sons and the Lavinian plains?		262
Go, bid him sail; enough; that word the sum contains."
XXXI. Jove spake. Cyllenius to his feet binds fast
His golden sandals, that aloft in flight
O'er sea and shore upbear him with the blast,
Then takes his rod—the rod of mystic might,
That calls from Hell or plunges into night
The pallid ghosts, gives sleep or bids it fly,
And lifts the dead man's eyelids to the light.
Armed with that rod, he rules the clouds on high,		271
And drives the scattered gales, and sails the stormy sky.

XXXII. Now, borne along, beneath him he espies
The sides precipitous and towering peak
Of rugged [Atlas,] who upholds the skies.
Round his pine-covered forehead, wild and bleak,
The dark clouds settle and the storm-winds shriek.
His shoulders glisten with the mantling snow,
Dark roll the torrents down his aged cheek,
Seamed with the wintry ravage, and below,		280
Stiff with the gathered ice his hoary beard doth show.