The quiver seized, and scatter’d on the strand
    The pointless arrows, and the broken bow
    Of Cupid, their despoil’d and recreant foe.—­
    Lovely Virginia with her sire was nigh: 
    Paternal love and anger in his eye
    Beam’d terrible, while in his hand he show’d
    Aloft the dagger, tinged with virgin blood,
    Which freedom on the maid and Rome at once bestow’d.—­
    Then the Teutonic dames, a dauntless race,
    Who rush’d on death to shun a foe’s embrace;—­
    And Judith chaste and fair, but void of dread,
    Who the hot blood of Holofernes shed;—­
    And that fair Greek who chose a watery grave
    Her threaten’d purity unstain’d to save.—­
    All these and others to the combat flew,
    And all combined to wreak the vengeance due
    On him, whose haughty hand in days of yore
    From clime to clime his conquering standard bore. 
    Another troop the vestal virgin led,
    Who bore along from Tyber’s oozy bed
    His liquid treasure in a sieve, to show
    The falsehood of her base calumnious foe
    By wondrous proof.—­And there the Sabine queen
    With all the matrons of her race was seen,
    Renown’d in records old;—­and next in fame
    Was she, who dauntless met the funeral flame,
    Not wrong’d in Love, but to preserve her vows
    Immaculate to her Sidonian spouse. 
    Let others of AEneas’ falsehood tell,
    How by an unrequited flame she fell;
    A nobler, though a self-inflicted doom,
    Caused by connubial Love, dismiss’d her to the tomb.—­
    Picarda next I saw, who vainly tried
    To pass her days on Arno’s flowery side
    In single purity, till force compell’d
    The virgin to the marriage bond to yield. 
    The triumph seem’d at last to reach the shore
    Where lofty Baise hears the Tuscan roar. 
    ’Twas on a vernal morn it touch’d the land,
    And ’twixt Mount Barbaro that crowns the strand
    And old Avernus (once an hallow’d ground);
    For the Cumaean sibyl’s cell renown’d. 
    Linterno’s sandy bounds it reach’d at last,
    Great Scipio’s favour’d haunt in ages past;
    Famed Africanus, whose victorious blade
    The slaughterous deeds of Hannibal repaid,
    And to his country’s heart a bloody passage made. 
    Here in a calm retreat his life he spent,
    With rural peace and solitude content. 
    And here the flying rumour sped before,
    And magnified the deed from shore to shore. 
    The pageant, when it reach’d the destined spot,
    Seem’d to exceed their utmost reach of thought. 
    There, all distinguish’d by their deeds of arms,
    Excell’d the rest in more than mortal charms. 
    Nor he, whom oft the steeds of conquest drew,
    Disdained another’s triumphs to pursue. 
    At the metropolis arrived at last,
    To fair Sulpicia’s temples