[76] He throws the responsibility on her. ‘Thine is the task to see well what thou askest.’ So ‘fas est’ is exculpatory. ‘I am doing my duty in executing thy commands.’ The general sense is from Il. 14. 196, αὔδα ὅ τι φρονέεις: τελέσαι δέ με θυμὸς ἄνωγεν.
[77] So Juno, 4. 115, “Mecum erit iste labor.”
[78] Lucr. 2.15, “Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est.” In both cases the form is depreciating, and here it denotes the depreciation of modesty. ‘This poor realm of mine.’ ‘Tu sceptra Iovemque Concilias,’ ‘you make power and Jupiter's patronage mine.’ Jupiter is the dispenser of the powers of the universe. Aesch. Prom. 229. ‘Concilias—das—facis,’ in the present, to express the tenure on which he continues to hold his station. Aeolus is far more complaisant than Sleep in Hom., who at first demurs violently to the request as dangerous to himself, and when promised a bride, exacts an oath from Here that she will keep her promise. In Il. 14. 212, Aphrodite tells Here she cannot refuse one who is the partner of Zeus' bed.
[79] Virg. possibly, as Heyne suggests, had in his mind Here's first offer to Sleep, Il. 14. 238, of a banqueting throne and a footstool; though this need not have been at the feast of the gods. He may also have thought of the “lectisternium.” This proof of equality, however, is sufficiently common: comp. E. 4. 63, Hor. 3 Od. 3. 11, Aesch. Eum. 351.
[80] Virg. probably refers to some physical theory or legend connected with the character of Juno as queen of the air: this conception of her as making interest with an inferior god is however perfectly Homeric. There is an awkwardness about the present line, which apparently merely repeats v. 78, and this when the mention of the banquet has intervened.
[81-101] ‘He opens the cave, the winds rush out, and there is a dreadful tempest. Aeneas, seeing nothing but death before him, wishes he had died with honour at Troy, like so many of his friends.’
