Almighty Jove surveys the world

Pondering on human miseries,

Venus [1] saw, with tears forming words

Asking what sins deserved such wrathful seas

*

Love in Heaven must know

What ire was to drive Her earthly son

His Trojan kin into oblivion

What came of His almighty promise of Rome [2]

*

After-times would to hold in awe

Her heavenly birthed nation

Who to land and ocean give the law

Sighs for Her loss rose up to his mind divine

*

Love lamented Troy

Echoed the empty gift of War

The cruel grift of Fortune a whore

Asked of Omnipotence for the mercy of a safe shore

*

A tale of Trojans spared

Refugees on Illyrian shores

In a land notoriously storm-barred

She spoke to draw Jove from His well whence she was born [1]

*

That a Trojan chief and tribe

Had through nine torrential trials

Found in Jove’s name a home to thrive

To raise weapons again in the world of Man

*

She pleads that they bear His name

That She daughter of his Might

Deserved a son well-famed

That a pious nation should rise to feed them with rites

*

Regaled as the father of an immortal race

Smiling with serene indulgence

From his cataclysm-banishing face

Bestowing a Heavenly kiss

*

Indulgently spoke Almighty Jove

Words blessed in a cosmic gust

Assuring his daughter Love

That He in Heaven held Her trust

That Aeneas of their divine blood

Would when Fate cast him to dust

Recall the hero to Him above.

End 6

Notes:

-1. Venus, or Love, or Aphrodite was the foremost daughter of Jove-Jupiter-Zeus, who was regarded as manifesting the fecund and positive aspects later attributed to the Christian God by the same races. Venus was said to have issued forth from Jupiter as an observable astrological phenomenon. Also, sea foam, from which Venus emerged was said to be his semen. There has been some speculation that the cult of Venus, associated with the morning star and planet by the same name, was a thanksgiving faith born in some cataclysm associated with astronomical observations of the inner planet. See Emanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collison.

-2. Naked poetic justification of Roman political dominance no doubt included as a condition of the poet’s imperial patronage.