1 Then Venus: 'Nay, to no such offerings do I aspire.'
2 Fate and Venus are satisfied, in that the Trojans have touched our fruitful Ausonian fields.
3 Let this be the union, this the bridal that Venus' illustrious progeny and Latinus the King shall celebrate.
4 Some glance ineffectual from helmet and shield; some Venus the bountiful turned aside as they grazed his body.
5 From one side Venus, from one opposite Juno, daughter of Saturn, looks on; pale Tisiphone rages among the many thousand men.
6 But Venus, indignant that the Nymph might be so bold, drew nigh and wrenched away the spear where it stuck deep in the root.
7 This it was I had to look for even from the time when I madly assailed celestial limbs with steel, and sullied the hand of Venus with a wound.
8 Next, where the crest of Eryx is neighbour to the stars, a dwelling is founded to Venus the Idalian; and a priest and breadth of holy wood is attached to Anchises' grave.
9 A rain-cloud comes down mingled with hail; the Tyrian train and the men of Troy, and the Dardanian boy of Venus' son scatter in fear, and seek shelter far over the fields.
10 Never will I look on the proud homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, or go to be the slave of Greek matrons, I a daughter of Dardania, a daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess.
11 But Venus girt them in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work delay, or ask wherefore they came.
12 This Venus bore down, her shape girt in a dim halo; this she steeps with secret healing in the river-water poured out and sparkling abrim, and sprinkles life-giving juice of ambrosia and scented balm.
13 But Venus pours gentle dew of slumber on Ascanius' limbs, and lifts him lulled in her lap to the tall Idalian groves of her deity, where soft amaracus folds him round with the shadowed sweetness of its odorous blossoms.
14 At this, stirred deep by her son's cruel pain, Venus his mother plucked from Cretan Ida a stalk of dittamy with downy leaves and bright-tressed flowers, the plant not unknown to wild goats when winged arrows are fast in their body.
15 Howling Anubis, and gods monstrous and multitudinous, level their arms against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva; Mars rages amid the havoc, graven in iron, and the Fatal Sisters hang aloft, and Discord strides rejoicing with garment rent, and Bellona attends her with blood-stained scourge.
16 But Venus meanwhile, wrought upon with distress, accosts Neptune, and thus pours forth her heart's complaint: 'Juno's bitter wrath and heart insatiable compel me, O Neptune, to sink to the uttermost of entreaty: neither length of days nor any goodness softens her, nor doth Jove's command and fate itself break her to desistence.'