And now we draw anigh the gates, and all the way seemed o'er, 730 When sudden sound of falling feet was borne upon our ears, And therewithal my father cries, as through the dusk he peers, 'Haste, son, and get thee swift away, for they are on us now; I see the glittering of the brass and all their shields aglow.'

What Godhead nought a friend to me amidst my terror there Snatched wit away I nothing know: for while I swiftly fare By wayless places, wandering wide from out the road I knew, Creusa, whether her the Fates from me unhappy drew, Whether she wandered from the way, or weary lagged aback, Nought know I, but that her henceforth mine eyes must ever lack. 740 Nor turned I round to find her lost, nor had it in my thought, Till to that mound and ancient house of Ceres we were brought; Where, all being come together now, there lacked but her alone, And there her fellows' hopes, her son's, her husband's were undone.

On whom of men, on whom of Gods, then laid I not the guilt? What saw I bitterer to be borne in all the city spilt? Ascanius and Anchises set the Teucrian Gods beside, I give unto my fellows there in hollow dale to hide, But I unto the city turn with glittering weapons girt; Needs must I search all Troy again, and open every hurt, 750 And into every peril past must thrust my head once more. And first I reach the walls again and mirk ways of the door Whereby I wended out erewhile; and my old footsteps' track I find, and mid the dusk of night with close eyes follow back; While on the heart lies weight of fear, and e'en the hush brings dread, Thence to the house, if there perchance, if there again she tread, I go: infall of Greeks had been, and all the house they hold, And 'neath the wind the ravening fire to highest ridge is rolled. The flames hang o'er, with raging heat the heavens are hot withal; Still on: I look on Priam's house and topmost castle-wall; 760 And in the desert cloisters there and Juno's very home Lo, Phoenix and Ulysses cursed, the chosen wards, are come To keep the spoil; fair things of Troy, from everywhither brought, Rapt from the burning of the shrines, Gods' tables rudely caught, And beakers utterly of gold and raiment snatched away Are there heaped up; and boys and wives drawn out in long array Stand trembling round about the heap. And now withal I dared to cast my cries upon the dark, I fill the streets with clamour great, and, groaning woefully, 'Creusa,' o'er and o'er again without avail I cry. 770

But as I sought and endlessly raved all the houses through A hapless shape, Creusa's shade, anigh mine eyen drew, And greater than the body known her image fashioned was; I stood amazed, my hair rose up, nor from my jaws would pass My frozen voice, then thus she spake my care to take away: 'Sweet husband, wherefore needest thou with such mad sorrow play? Without the dealing of the Gods doth none of this betide; And they, they will not have thee bear Creusa by thy side, Nor will Olympus' highest king such fellowship allow. Long exile is in store for thee, huge plain of sea to plough, 780 Then to Hesperia shalt thou come, where Lydian Tiber's wave The wealthiest meads of mighty men with gentle stream doth lave: There happy days and lordship great, and kingly wife, are born For thee. Ah! do away thy tears for loved Creusa lorn. I shall not see the Myrmidons' nor Dolopes' proud place, Nor wend my ways to wait upon the Greekish women's grace; I, daughter of the Dardan race, I, wife of Venus' son; Me the great Mother of the Gods on Trojan shore hath won. Farewell, and love the son we loved together once, we twain.'

She left me when these words were given, me weeping sore, and fain 790 To tell her much, and forth away amid thin air she passed: And there three times about her neck I strove mine arms to cast, And thrice away from out my hands the gathered image streams, E'en as the breathing of the wind or winged thing of dreams.

And so at last, the night all spent, I meet my folk anew; And there I found great multitude that fresh unto us drew, And wondered thereat: wives were there, and men, and plenteous youth; All gathered for the faring forth, a hapless crowd forsooth: From everywhere they draw to us, with goods and courage set, To follow o'er the sea where'er my will may lead them yet. 800

And now o'er Ida's topmost ridge at last the day-star rose With dawn in hand: all gates and doors by host of Danaan foes Were close beset, and no more hope of helping may I bide. I turned and took my father up and sought the mountain-side.



BOOK III.

ARGUMENT.

AENEAS TELLS OF HIS WANDERINGS AND MISHAPS BY LAND AND BY SEA.

Now after it had pleased the Gods on high to overthrow The Asian weal and sackless folk of Priam, and alow Proud Ilium lay, and Neptune's Troy was smouldering on the ground, For diverse outlands of the earth and waste lands are we bound, Driven by omens of the Gods. Our fleet we built beneath Antandros, and the broken steeps of Phrygian Ida's heath, Unwitting whither Fate may drive, or where the Gods shall stay And there we draw together men. Now scarce upon the way Was summer when my father bade spread sails to Fate at last. Weeping I leave my fatherland, and out of haven passed 10 Away from fields where Troy-town was, an outcast o'er the deep, With folk and son and Household Gods and Greater Gods to keep.

Far off a peopled land of Mars lies midst its mighty plain, Tilled of the Thracians; there whilom did fierce Lycurgus reign. 'Twas ancient guesting-place of Troy: our Gods went hand in hand While bloomed our weal: there are we borne, and on the hollow strand I set my first-born city down, 'neath evil fates begun, And call the folk AEneadae from name myself had won.

Unto Dione's daughter there, my mother, and the rest, I sacrificed upon a day to gain beginning blest, 20 And to the King of Heavenly folk was slaying on the shore A glorious bull: at hand by chance a mound at topmost bore A cornel-bush and myrtle stiff with shafts close set around: Thereto I wend and strive to pluck a green shoot from the ground, That I with leafy boughs thereof may clothe the altars well; When lo, a portent terrible and marvellous to tell! For the first stem that from the soil uprooted I tear out Oozes black drops of very blood, that all the earth about Is stained with gore: but as for me, with sudden horror chill My limbs fall quaking, and my blood with freezing fear stands still. 30 Yet I go on and strive from earth a new tough shoot to win, That I may search out suddenly what causes lurk within; And once again from out the bark blood followeth as before.

I turn the matter in my mind: the Field-Nymphs I adore, And him, Gradivus, father dread, who rules the Thracian plain, And pray them turn the thing to good and make its threatenings vain. But when upon a third of them once more I set my hand, And striving hard thrust both my knees upon the opposing sand— —Shall I speak now or hold my peace?—a piteous groan is heard From out the mound, and to mine ears is borne a dreadful word: 40 'Why manglest thou a wretched man? O spare me in my tomb! Spare to beguilt thy righteous hand, AEneas! Troy's own womb Bore me, thy kinsman; from this stem floweth no alien gore: Woe's me! flee forth the cruel land, flee forth the greedy shore; For I am Polydore: pierced through, by harvest of the spear O'ergrown, that such a crop of shafts above my head doth bear.'

I stood amazed: the wildering fear the heart in me down-weighed. My hair rose up, my frozen breath within my jaws was stayed. Unhappy Priam privily had sent this Polydore, For fostering to the Thracian king with plenteous golden store. 50 In those first days when he began to doubt the Dardan might, Having the leaguered walls of Troy for ever in his sight. This king, as failed the weal of Troy and fortune fell away, Turned him about to conquering arms and Agamemnon's day. He brake all right, slew Polydore, and all the gold he got Perforce: O thou gold-hunger cursed, and whither driv'st thou not The hearts of men? But when at length the fear from me did fall, Unto the chosen of the folk, my father first of all, I show those portents of the Gods and ask them of their will, All deem it good that we depart that wicked land of ill, 60 And leave that blighted guesting-place and give our ships the breeze. Therefore to Polydore we do the funeral services, The earth is heaped up high in mound; the Death-Gods' altars stand Woeful with bough of cypress black and coal-blue holy band; The wives of Ilium range about with due dishevelled hair; Cups of the warm and foaming milk unto the dead we bear, And bowls of holy blood we bring, and lay the soul in grave, And cry a great farewell to him, the last that he shall have. But now, when we may trust the sea and winds the ocean keep Unangered, and the South bids on light whispering to the deep, 70 Our fellows crowd the sea-beach o'er and run the ships adown, And from the haven are we borne, and fadeth field and town.

Amid the sea a land there lies, sweet over everything, Loved of the Nereids' mother, loved by that AEgean king Great Neptune: this, a-wandering once all coasts and shores around, The Bow-Lord good to Gyaros and high Myconos bound, And bade it fixed to cherish folk nor fear the wind again: There come we; and that gentlest isle receives us weary men; In haven safe we land, and thence Apollo's town adore; King Anius, who, a king of men, Apollo's priesthood bore, 80 His temples with the fillets done and crowned with holy bays, Meets us, and straight Anchises knows, his friend of early days. So therewith hand to hand we join and houseward get us gone.

There the God's fane I pray unto, the place of ancient stone: 'Thymbraean, give us house and home, walls to the weary give, In folk and city to endure: let Pergamus twice live, In Troy twice built, left of the Greeks, left of Achilles' wrath! Ah, whom to follow? where to go? wherein our home set forth? O Father, give us augury and sink into our heart!

Scarce had I said the word, when lo all doors with sudden start 90 Fell trembling, and the bay of God, and all the mountain side, Was stirred, and in the opened shrine the holy tripod cried: There as a voice fell on our ears we bowed ourselves to earth: 'O hardy folk of Dardanus, the land that gave you birth From root and stem of fathers old, its very bosom kind, Shall take you back: go fare ye forth, your ancient mother find: There shall AEneas' house be lords o'er every earth and sea, The children of his children's sons, and those that thence shall be.'

So Phoebus spake, and mighty joy arose with tumult mixed, As all fell wondering where might be that seat of city fixed, 100 Where Phoebus called us wandering folk, bidding us turn again. Thereat my father, musing o'er the tales of ancient men, Saith: 'Hearken, lords, and this your hope a little learn of me! There is an isle of mightiest Jove called Crete amid the sea; An hundred cities great it hath, that most abundant place; And there the hill of Ida is, and cradle of our race. Thence Teucer our first father came, if right the tale they tell, When borne to those Rhoetean shores he chose a place to dwell A very king: no Ilium was, no Pergamus rose high; He and his folk abode as then in dales that lowly lie: 110 Thence came Earth-mother Cybele and Corybantian brass, And Ida's thicket; thence the hush all hallowed came to pass, And thence the lions yoked and tame, the Lady's chariot drag. On then! and led by God's command for nothing let us lag! Please we the winds, and let our course for Gnosian land be laid; Nor long the way shall be for us: with Jupiter to aid, The third-born sun shall stay our ships upon the Cretan shore.'

So saying, all the offerings due he to the altar bore, A bull to Neptune, and a bull to thee, Apollo bright, A black ewe to the Storm of sea, to Zephyr kind a white. 120 Fame went that Duke Idomeneus, thrust from his fathers' land, Had gone his ways, and desert now was all the Cretan strand, That left all void of foes to us those habitations lie. Ortygia's haven then we leave, and o'er the sea we fly By Naxos of the Bacchus ridge, Donusa's green-hued steep, And Olearon, and Paros white, and scattered o'er the deep All Cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk; And diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke; Each eggs his fellow; On for Crete, and sires of time agone! And rising up upon our wake a fair wind followed on. 130

And so at last we glide along the old Curetes' strand, And straightway eager do I take the city wall in hand, And call it Pergamea, and urge my folk that name who love, For love of hearth and home to raise a burg their walls above.

And now the more part of the ships are hauled up high and dry, To wedding and to work afield the folk fall presently, And I give laws and portion steads; when suddenly there fell From poisoned heaven a wasting plague, a wretched thing to tell, On limbs of men, on trees and fields; and deadly was the year, And men must leave dear life and die, or weary sick must bear 140 Their bodies on: then Sirius fell to burn the acres dry; The grass was parched, the harvest sick all victual did deny. Then bids my father back once more o'er the twice-measured main, To Phoebus and Ortygia's strand, some grace of prayer to gain: What end to our outworn estate he giveth? whence will he That we should seek us aid of toil; where turn to o'er the sea? Night falleth, and all lives of earth doth sleep on bosom bear, When lo, the holy images, the Phrygian House-gods there, E'en them I bore away from Troy and heart of burning town, Were present to the eyes of me in slumber laid adown, 150 Clear shining in the plenteous light that over all was shed By the great moon anigh her full through windows fashioned. Then thus they fall to speech with me, end of my care to make:

'The thing that in Ortygia erst the seer Apollo spake Here telleth he, and to thy doors come we of his good will: Thee and thine arms from Troy aflame fast have we followed still. We 'neath thy care and in thy keel have climbed the swelling sea, And we shall bear unto the stars thy sons that are to be, And give thy city majesty: make ready mighty wall For mighty men, nor toil of way leave thou, though long it fall. 160 Shift hence abode; the Delian-born Apollo ne'er made sweet These shores for thee, nor bade thee set thy city down in Crete: There is a place, the Westland called of Greeks in days that are, An ancient land, a fruitful soil, a mighty land of war; Oenotrian folk first tilled the land, whose sons, as rumours run, Now call it nought but Italy, from him who led them on. This is our very due abode: thence Dardanus outbroke, Iasius our father thence, beginner of our folk. Come rise, and glad these tidings tell unto thy father old, No doubtful tale: now Corythus, Ausonian field and fold 170 Let him go seek, for Jupiter banneth Dictaean mead.'

All mazed was I with sight and voice of Gods; because indeed This was not sleep, but face to face, as one a real thing sees. I seemed to see their coifed hair and very visages, And over all my body too cold sweat of trembling flowed. I tore my body from the bed, and, crying out aloud, I stretched my upturned hands to heaven and unstained gifts I spilled Upon the hearth, and joyfully that worship I fulfilled. Anchises next I do to wit and all the thing unlock; And he, he saw the twi-branched stem, twin fathers of our stock, 180 And how by fault of yesterday through steads of old he strayed.

'O son, well learned in all the lore of Ilium's fate,' he said, 'Cassandra only of such hap would sing; I mind me well Of like fate meted to our folk full oft would she foretell; And oft would call to Italy and that Hesperian home. But who believed that Teucrian folk on any day might come Unto Hesperia's shores? or who might trow Cassandra then? Yield we to Phoebus, follow we as better counselled men The better part.' We, full of joy, obey him with one mind; From this seat too we fare away and leave a few behind; 190 With sail abroad in hollow tree we skim the ocean o'er.

But when our keels the deep sea made, nor had we any more The land in sight, but sea around, and sky around was spread, A coal-blue cloud drew up to us that, hanging overhead, Bore night and storm, and mirky gloom o'er all the waters cast: Therewith the winds heap up the waves, the seas are rising fast And huge; and through the mighty whirl scattered we toss about; The storm-clouds wrap around the day, and wet mirk blotteth out The heavens, and mid the riven clouds the ceaseless lightnings live. So are we blown from out our course, through might of seas we drive, 200 Nor e'en might Palinurus self the day from night-tide sift, Nor have a deeming of the road atwixt the watery drift. Still on for three uncertain suns, that blind mists overlay, And e'en so many starless nights, across the sea we stray; But on the fourth day at the last afar upon us broke The mountains of another land, mid curling wreaths of smoke. Then fall the sails, we rise on oars, no sloth hath any place, The eager seamen toss the spray and sweep the blue sea's face; And me first saved from whirl of waves the Strophades on strand Now welcome; named by Greekish name Isles of the Sea, they stand 210 Amid the great Ionian folk: Celaeno holds the shores, And others of the Harpies grim, since shut were Phineus' doors Against them, and they had to leave the tables they had won. No monster woefuller than they, and crueller is none Of all God's plagues and curses dread from Stygian waters sent. A winged thing with maiden face, whose bellies' excrement Is utter foul; and hooked hands, and face for ever pale With hunger that no feeding stints.

Borne thither, into haven come, we see how everywhere The merry wholesome herds of neat feed down the meadows fair, 220 And all untended goatish flocks amid the herbage bite. With point and edge we fall on them, and all the Gods invite, Yea very Jove, to share the spoil, and on the curved strand We strew the beds, and feast upon rich dainties of the land. When lo, with sudden dreadful rush from out the mountains hap The Harpy folk, and all about their clanging wings they flap, And foul all things with filthy touch as at the food they wrench, And riseth up their grisly voice amid the evilest stench.

Once more then 'neath a hollow rock at a long valley's head, 229 Where close around the boughs of trees their quavering shadows shed, We dight the boards, and once again flame on the altars raise. Again from diverse parts of heaven, from dusky lurking-place, The shrieking rout with hooked feet about the prey doth fly, Fouling the feast with mouth: therewith I bid my company To arms, that with an evil folk the war may come to pass. They do no less than my commands, and lay along the grass Their hidden swords, and therewithal their bucklers cover o'er. Wherefore, when swooping down again, they fill the curved shore With noise, Misenus blows the call from off a watch-stead high With hollow brass; our folk fall on and wondrous battle try, 240 Striving that sea-fowl's filthy folk with point and edge to spill. But nought will bite upon their backs, and from their feathers still Glanceth the sword, and swift they flee up 'neath the stars of air, Half-eaten meat and token foul leaving behind them there. But on a rock exceeding high yet did Celaeeno rest, Unhappy seer! there breaks withal a voice from out her breast:

'What, war to pay for slaughtered neat, war for our heifers slain? O children of Laomedon, the war then will ye gain? The sackless Harpies will ye drive from their own land away? Then let this sink into your souls, heed well the words I say; 250 The Father unto Phoebus told a tale that Phoebus told To me, and I the first-born fiend that same to you unfold: Ye sail for Italy, and ye, the winds appeased by prayer, Shall come to Italy, and gain the grace of haven there: Yet shall ye gird no wall about the city granted you, Till famine, and this murder's wrong that ye were fain to do, Drive you your tables gnawed with teeth to eat up utterly.'

She spake, and through the woody deeps borne off on wings did fly. But sudden fear fell on our folk, and chilled their frozen blood; 259 Their hearts fell down; with weapon-stroke no more they deem it good To seek for peace: but rather now sore prayers and vows they will, Whether these things be goddesses or filthy fowls of ill. Father Anchises on the strand stretched both his hands abroad, And, bidding all their worship due, the Mighty Ones adored: 'Gods, bring their threats to nought! O Gods, turn ye the curse, we pray! Be kind, and keep the pious folk!' Then bade he pluck away The hawser from the shore and slack the warping cable's strain: The south wind fills the sails, we fare o'er foaming waves again, E'en as the helmsman and the winds have will that we should fare.

And now amidmost of the flood Zacynthus' woods appear, 270 Dulichium, Samos, Neritos, with sides of stony steep: Wide course from cliffs of Ithaca, Laertes' land, we keep, Cursing the soil that bore and nursed Ulysses' cruelty. Now open up Leucata's peaks, that fare so cloudy high Over Apollo, mighty dread to all seafarers grown; But weary thither do we steer and make the little town, We cast the anchors from the bows and swing the sterns a-strand. And therewithal since we at last have gained the longed-for land, We purge us before Jupiter and by the altars pray, Then on the shores of Actium's head the Ilian plays we play. 280 Anointed with the sleeking oil there strive our fellows stripped In wrestling game of fatherland: it joys us to have slipped By such a host of Argive towns amidmost of the foe.

Meanwhile, the sun still pressing on, the year about doth go, And frosty winter with his north the sea's face rough doth wear; A buckler of the hollow brass of mighty Abas' gear I set amid the temple-doors with singing scroll thereon, AENEAS HANGETH ARMOUR HERE FROM CONQUERING DANAANS WON. And then I bid to leave the shore and man the thwarts again. Hard strive the folk in smiting sea, and oar-blades brush the main. 290 The airy high Phaeacian towers sink down behind our wake, And coasting the Epirote shores Chaonia's bay we make, And so Buthrotus' city-walls high set we enter in.

There tidings hard for us to trow unto our ears do win, How Helenus, e'en Priam's son, hath gotten wife and crown Of Pyrrhus come of AEacus, and ruleth Greekish town, And that Andromache hath wed one of her folk once more. All mazed am I; for wondrous love my heart was kindling sore To give some word unto the man, of such great things to learn: So from the haven forth I fare, from ships and shore I turn. 300

But as it happed Andromache was keeping yearly day, Pouring sad gifts unto the dead, amidst a grove that lay Outside the town, by wave that feigned the Simois that had been, Blessing the dead by Hector's mound empty and grassy green, Which she with altars twain thereby had hallowed for her tears. But when she saw me drawing nigh with armour that Troy bears About me, senseless, throughly feared with marvels grown so great, She stiffens midst her gaze; her bones are reft of life-blood's heat, She totters, scarce, a long while o'er, this word comes forth from her:

'Is the show true, O Goddess-born? com'st thou a messenger 310 Alive indeed? or if from thee the holy light is fled, Where then is Hector?' Flowed the tears e'en as the word she said, And with her wailing rang the place: sore moved I scarce may speak This word to her, grown wild with grief, in broken voice and weak: 'I live indeed, I drag my life through outer ways of ill; Doubt not, thou seest the very sooth. Alas! what hap hath caught thee up from such a man downcast? Hath any fortune worthy thee come back again at last? Doth Hector's own Andromache yet serve in Pyrrhus' bed?'

She cast her countenance adown, and in a low voice said: 320 'O thou alone of Trojan maids that won a little joy, Bidden to die on foeman's tomb before the walls of Troy! Who died, and never had to bear the sifting lot's award, Whose slavish body never touched the bed of victor lord! We from our burning fatherland carried o'er many a sea, Of Achillaean offspring's pride the yoke-fellow must be, Must bear the childbed of a slave: thereafter he, being led To Leda's child Hermione and that Laconian bed, To Helenus his very thrall me very thrall gave o'er: But there Orestes, set on fire by all the love he bore 330 His ravished wife, and mad with hate, comes on him unaware Before his fathers' altar-stead and slays him then and there.

By death of Neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came To Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian fields by name, And all the land Chaonia, from Chaon of Troy-town; And Pergamus and Ilian burg on ridgy steep set down. What winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er? Or what of Gods hath borne thee on unwitting to our shore? What of the boy Ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet? Whom unto thee when Troy yet was—— 340 The boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her? Do him AEneas, Hector gone, father and uncle, stir, To valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?'

Such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain Great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh Lord Helenus the Priam-born midst mighty company, And knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door, Though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour. So on; a little Troy I see feigned from great Troy of fame, A Pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the Xanthus name, 350 On threshold of a Scaean gate I stoop to lay a kiss. Soon, too, all Teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss, And them the King fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad, And they amidmost of the hall the bowls of Bacchus poured, The meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand.

So passed a day and other day, until the gales command The sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the South: Therewith I speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth: 'O Troy-born, O Gods' messenger, who knowest Phoebus' will, The tripods and the Clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil, 360 And tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing, Come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing All shrines have said, and all the Gods have bid me follow on To Italy, till outland shores, far off, remote were won: Alone Celaeno, Harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth, Unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath, And ugly hunger. How may I by early perils fare? Or doing what may I have might such toil to overbear?'

So Helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain, Prays peace of Gods, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again, 370 And then with hand he leadeth me, O Phoebus, to thy door, My fluttering soul with all thy might of godhead shadowed o'er. There forth at last from God-loved mouth the seer this word did send:

'O Goddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend By mightiest bidding, such the lot the King of Gods hath found All fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round. Few things from many will I tell that thou the outland sea May'st sail the safer, and at last make land in Italy; The other things the Parcae still ban Helenus to wot, Saturnian Juno's will it is that more he utter not. 380 First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh, Thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby, Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land; And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand. On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile, And thou must see the nether meres, AEaean Circe's isle, Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down. I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown. When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh, And 'neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie, 390 That e'en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground She lieth white, with piglings white their mother's dugs around,— That earth shall be thy city's place, there rest from toil is stored. Nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board, The Fates shall find a way thereto; Apollo called shall come. But flee these lands of Italy, this shore so near our home, That washing of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks; For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks. There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build; And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled 400 With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small, Now by that Meliboean duke fenced round with mighty wall. Moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay, And on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay, Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye, Lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to God on high Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill. Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil, And let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind. But when, gone forth, to Sicily thou comest on the wind, 410 And when Pelorus' narrow sea is widening all away, Your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay, How long soe'er ye reach about: flee right-hand shore and wave. In time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave, So much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail.

It split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale, Had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood Hesperia's side from Italy, and field and city stood Drawn back on either shore, along a sundering sea-race strait. There Scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate 420 Charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown Sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown Thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine. But Scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine; With face thrust forth she draweth ships on to that stony bed; Manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fashioned Down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale, And unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin's tail. 'Tis better far to win about Pachynus, outer ness Of Sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness, 430 Than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den, And hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again.

Now furthermore if Helenus in anything have skill, Or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth Apollo fill, Of one thing, Goddess-born, will I forewarn thee over all, And spoken o'er and o'er again my word on thee shall fall: The mighty Juno's godhead first let many a prayer seek home; To Juno sing your vows in joy, with suppliant gifts o'ercome That Lady of all Might; and so, Trinacria overpast, Shalt thou be sped to Italy victorious at the last. 440 When there thou com'st and Cumae's town amidst thy way hast found, The Holy Meres, Avernus' woods fruitful of many a sound, There the wild seer-maid shalt thou see, who in a rock-hewn cave Singeth of fate, and letteth leaves her names and tokens have: But whatso song upon those leaves the maiden seer hath writ She ordereth duly, and in den of live stone leaveth it: There lie the written leaves unmoved, nor shift their ordered rows. But when the hinge works round, and thence a light air on them blows, Then, when the door doth disarray among the frail leaves bear, To catch them fluttering in the cave she never hath a care, 450 Nor will she set them back again nor make the song-words meet; So folk unanswered go their ways and loathe the Sibyl's seat. But thou, count not the cost of time that there thou hast to spend; Although thy fellows blame thee sore, and length of way to wend Call on thy sails, and thou may'st fill their folds with happy gale, Draw nigh the seer, and strive with prayers to have her holy tale; Beseech her sing, and that her words from willing tongue go free: So reverenced shall she tell thee tale of folk of Italy And wars to come; and how to 'scape, and how to bear each ill, And with a happy end at last thy wandering shall fulfil. 460 Now is this all my tongue is moved to tell thee lawfully: Go, let thy deeds Troy's mightiness exalt above the sky!'

So when the seer from loving mouth such words as this had said, Then gifts of heavy gold and gifts of carven tooth he bade Be borne a-shipboard; and our keels he therewithal doth stow With Dodonaean kettle-ware and silver great enow, A coat of hooked woven mail and triple golden chain, A helm with noble towering crest crowned with a flowing mane, The arms of Pyrrhus: gifts most meet my father hath withal; And steeds he gives and guides he gives, 470 Fills up the tale of oars, and arms our fellows to their need. Anchises still was bidding us meanwhile to have a heed Of setting sail, nor with the wind all fair to make delay; To whom with words of worship now doth Phoebus' servant say: 'Anchises, thou whom Venus' bed hath made so glorious, Care of the Gods, twice caught away from ruin of Pergamus, Lo, there the Ausonian land for thee, set sail upon the chase: Yet needs must thou upon the sea glide by its neighbouring face. Far off is that Ausonia yet that Phoebus open lays. Fare forth, made glad with pious son! why tread I longer ways 480 Of speech, and stay the rising South with words that I would tell?'

And therewithal Andromache, sad with the last farewell, Brings for Ascanius raiment wrought with picturing wool of gold, And Phrygian coat; nor will she have our honour wax acold, But loads him with the woven gifts, and such word sayeth she: 'Take these, fair boy; keep them to be my hands' last memory, The tokens of enduring love thy younger days did win From Hector's wife Andromache, the last gifts of thy kin. O thou, of my Astyanax the only image now! Such eyes he had, such hands he had, such countenance as thou, 490 And now with thee were growing up in equal tale of years.'

Then I, departing, spake to them amid my rising tears: 'Live happy! Ye with fortune's game have nothing more to play, While we from side to side thereof are hurried swift away. Your rest hath blossomed and brought forth; no sea-field shall ye till, Seeking the fields of Italy that fade before you still. Ye see another Xanthus here, ye see another Troy, Made by your hands for better days mehopes, and longer joy: And soothly less it lies across the pathway of the Greek, If ever I that Tiber flood and Tiber fields I seek 500 Shall enter, and behold the walls our folk shall win of fate. Twin cities some day shall we have, and folks confederate, Epirus and Hesperia; from Dardanus each came, One fate had each: them shall we make one city and the same, One Troy in heart: lo, let our sons of sons' sons see to it!'

Past nigh Ceraunian mountain-sides thence o'er the sea we flit, Whence the sea-way to Italy the shortest may be made. But in the meanwhile sets the sun, the dusk hills lie in shade, And, choosing oar-wards, down we lie on bosom of the land So wished for: by the water-side and on the dry sea-strand 510 We tend our bodies here and there; sleep floodeth every limb. But ere the hour-bedriven night in midmost orb did swim, Nought slothful Palinurus rose, and wisdom strives to win Of all the winds: with eager ear the breeze he drinketh in; He noteth how through silent heaven the stars soft gliding fare, Arcturus, the wet Hyades, and either Northern Bear, And through and through he searcheth out Orion girt with gold. So when he sees how everything a peaceful sky foretold, He bloweth clear from off the poop, and we our campment shift, And try the road and spread abroad our sail-wings to the lift. 520

And now, the stars all put to flight, Aurora's blushes grow, When we behold dim fells afar and long lands lying low, —E'en Italy. Achates first cries out on Italy; To Italy our joyous folk glad salutation cry. Anchises then a mighty bowl crowned with a garland fair, And filled it with unwatered wine and called the Gods to hear, High standing on the lofty deck: 'O Gods that rule the earth and sea, and all the tides of storm, Make our way easy with the wind, breathe on us kindly breath!'

Then riseth up the longed-for breeze, the haven openeth 530 As nigh we draw, and on the cliff a fane of Pallas shows: Therewith our fellow-folk furl sail and shoreward turn the prows. Bow-wise the bight is hollowed out by eastward-setting flood, But over-foamed by salt-sea spray thrust out its twin horns stood, While it lay hidden; tower-like rocks let down on either hand Twin arms of rock-wall, and the fane lies backward from the stand.

But I beheld upon the grass four horses, snowy white, Grazing the meadows far and wide, first omen of my sight. Father Anchises seeth and saith: 'New land, and bear'st thou war? For war are horses dight; so these war-threatening herd-beasts are. 540 Yet whiles indeed those four-foot things in car will well refrain, And tamed beneath the yoke will bear the bit and bridle's strain, So there is yet a hope of peace.' Then on the might we call Of Pallas of the weapon-din, first welcomer of all, And veil our brows before the Gods with cloth of Phrygian dye; And that chief charge of Helenus we do all rightfully, And Argive Juno worship there in such wise as is willed.

We tarry not, but when all vows are duly there fulfilled, Unto the wind our sail-yard horns we fall to turn about, And leave the houses of the Greeks, and nursing fields of doubt. 550 And next is seen Tarentum's bay, the Herculean place If fame tell true; Lacinia then, the house of Gods, we face; And Caulon's towers, and Scylaceum, of old the shipman's bane. Then see we AEtna rise far off above Trinacria's main; Afar the mighty moan of sea, and sea-cliffs beaten sore, We hearken, and the broken voice that cometh from the shore: The sea leaps high upon the shoals, the eddy churns the sand.

Then saith Anchises: 'Lo forsooth, Charybdis is at hand, Those rocks and stones the dread whereof did Helenus foretell. Save ye, O friends! swing out the oars together now and well!' 560

Nor worser than his word they do, and first the roaring beaks Doth Palinurus leftward wrest; then all the sea-host seeks With sail and oar the waters wild upon the left that lie: Upheaved upon the tossing whirl we fare unto the sky, Then down unto the nether Gods we sink upon the wave: Thrice from the hollow-carven rocks great roar the sea-cliffs gave; Thrice did we see the spray cast forth and stars with sea-dew done; But the wind left us weary folk at sinking of the sun, And on the Cyclops' strand we glide unwitting of the way.

Locked from the wind the haven is, itself an ample bay; 570 But hard at hand mid ruin and fear doth AEtna thunder loud; And whiles it blasteth forth on air a black and dreadful cloud, That rolleth on a pitchy wreath, where bright the ashes mix, And heaveth up great globes of flame and heaven's high star-world licks, And other whiles the very cliffs, and riven mountain-maw It belches forth; the molten stones together will it draw Aloft with moan, and boileth o'er from lowest inner vale. This world of mountain presseth down, as told it is in tale, Enceladus the thunder-scorched; huge AEtna on him cast, From all her bursten furnaces breathes out his fiery blast; 580 And whensoe'er his weary side he shifteth, all the shore Trinacrian trembleth murmuring, and heaven is smoke-clad o'er.

In thicket close we wear the night amidst these marvels dread, Nor may we see what thing it is that all that noise hath shed: For neither showed the planet fires, nor was the heaven bright With starry zenith; mirky cloud hung over all the night, In mist of dead untimely tide the moon was hidden close.

But when from earliest Eastern dawn the following day arose, And fair Aurora from the heaven the watery shades had cleared, Lo, suddenly from out the wood new shape of man appeared. 590 Unknown he was, most utter lean, in wretchedest of plight: Shoreward he stretched his suppliant hands; we turn back at the sight, And gaze on him: all squalor there, a mat of beard we see, And raiment clasped with wooden thorns; and yet a Greek is he, Yea, sent erewhile to leaguered Troy in Greekish weed of war. But when he saw our Dardan guise and arms of Troy afar, Feared at the sight he hung aback at first a little space, But presently ran headlong down into our sea-side place With tears and prayers: 'O Teucrian men, by all the stars,' he cried, 'By all the Gods, by light of heaven ye breathe, O bear me wide 600 Away from here! to whatso land henceforth ye lead my feet It is enough. That I am one from out the Danaan fleet, And that I warred on Ilian house erewhile, most true it is; For which, if I must pay so much wherein I wrought amiss, Then strew me on the flood and sink my body in the sea! To die by hands of very men shall be a joy to me.'

He spake with arms about our knees, and wallowing still he clung Unto our knees: but what he was and from what blood he sprung We bade him say, and tell withal what fate upon him drave. His right hand with no tarrying then Father Anchises gave 610 Unto the youth, and heartened him with utter pledge of peace. So now he spake when fear of us amid his heart did cease:

'Luckless Ulysses' man am I, and Ithaca me bore, Hight Achemenides, who left that Adamastus poor My father (would I still were there!) by leaguered Troy to be. Here while my mates aquake with dread the cruel threshold flee, They leave me in the Cyclops' den unmindful of their friend; A house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end, Mirky within: high up aloft star-smiting to behold Is he himself;—such bane, O God, keep thou from field and fold! 620 Scarce may a man look on his face; no word to him is good; On wretches' entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood. Myself I saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take In his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break As there he lay upon his back; I saw the threshold swim With spouted blood, I saw him grind each bloody dripping limb, I saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still. —He payed therefore, for never might Ulysses bear such ill, Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead: For when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head 630 Fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den, Snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men And mingled blood and wine; then we sought the great Gods with prayer And drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there, And bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk Enormous lonely 'neath his brow overhanging grim and mirk, As great a shield of Argolis, or Phoebus' lamp on high; And so our murdered fellows' ghosts avenged we joyously. —But ye, O miserable men, flee forth! make haste to pluck The warping hawser from the shore! 640 For even such, and e'en so great as Polypheme in cave Shuts in the wealth of woolly things and draws the udders' wave, An hundred others commonly dwell o'er these curving bights, Unutterable Cyclop folk, or stray about the heights. Thrice have the twin horns of the moon fulfilled the circle clear While I have dragged out life in woods and houses of the deer, And gardens of the beasts; and oft from rocky place on high Trembling I note the Cyclops huge, hear foot and voice go by. And evil meat of wood-berries, and cornel's flinty fruit 649 The bush-boughs give; on grass at whiles I browse, and plucked-up root So wandering all about, at last I see unto the shore Your ships a-coming: thitherward my steps in haste I bore: Whate'er might hap enough it was to flee this folk of ill; Rather do ye in any wise the life within me spill.'

And scarcely had he said the word ere on the hill above The very shepherd Polypheme his mountain mass did move, A marvel dread, a shapeless trunk, an eyeless monstrous thing, Who down unto the shore well known his sheep was shepherding; A pine-tree in the hand of him leads on and stays his feet; The woolly sheep his fellows are, his only pleasure sweet, 660 The only solace of his ill. But when he touched the waters deep, and mid the waves was come, He falls to wash the flowing blood from off his eye dug out; Gnashing his teeth and groaning sore he walks the sea about, But none the less no wave there was up to his flank might win. Afeard from far we haste to flee, and, having taken in Our suppliant, who had earned it well, cut cable silently, And bending to the eager oars sweep out along the sea. He heard it, and his feet he set to follow on the sound; But when his right hand failed to reach, and therewithal he found 670 He might not speed as fast as fares the Ionian billow lithe, Then clamour measureless he raised, and ocean quaked therewith Through every wave, and inwardly the land was terrified Of Italy, and AEtna boomed from many-hollowed side. But all the race of Cyclops stirred from woods and lofty hills, Down rushes to the haven-side and all the haven fills; And AEtna's gathered brethren there we see; in vain they stand Glowering grim-eyed with heads high up in heaven, a dreadful band Of councillors: they were as when on ridge aloft one sees The oaks stand thick against the sky, and cone-hung cypresses, 680 Jove's lofty woods, or thicket where Diana's footsteps stray.

Then headlong fear fell on our folk in whatsoever way To shake the reefs out spreading sail to any wind that blew; But Helenus had bid us steer a midmost course and true 'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis, lest to death we sail o'er-close: So safest seemed for backward course to let the sails go loose. But lo, from out Pelorus' strait comes down the northern flaw, And past Pantagia's haven-mouth of living stone we draw, And through the gulf of Megara by Thapsus lying low. Such names did Achemenides, Ulysses' fellow, show, 690 As now he coasted back again the shore erst wandered by.

In jaws of the Sicanian bay there doth an island lie Against Plemyrium's wavy face; folk called it in old days Ortygia: there, as tells the tale, Alpheus burrowed ways From his own Elis 'neath the sea, and now by mouth of thine, O Arethusa, blendeth him with that Sicilian brine. We pray the isle's great deities, e'en as we bidden were: And thence we pass the earth o'erfat about Helorus' mere; Then by Pachynus' lofty crags and thrust-forth rocks we skim, And Camarina showeth next a long way off and dim; 700 Her whom the Fates would ne'er be moved: then comes the plain in sight Of Gela, yea, and Gela huge from her own river hight: Then Acragas the very steep shows great walls far away, Begetter of the herds of horse high-couraged on a day. Then thee, Selinus of the palms, I leave with happy wind, And coast the Lilybean shoals and tangled skerries blind.

But next the firth of Drepanum, the strand without a joy, Will have me. There I tossed so sore, the tempests' very toy, O woe is me! my father lose, lightener of every care, Of every ill: me all alone, me weary, father dear, 710 There wouldst thou leave; thou borne away from perils all for nought! Ah, neither Helenus the seer, despite the fears he taught, Nor grim Celaeno in her wrath, this grief of soul forebode. This was the latest of my toils, the goal of all my road, For me departed thence some God to this your land did bear."

So did the Father AEneas, with all at stretch to hear, Tell o'er the fateful ways of God, and of his wanderings teach: But here he hushed him at the last and made an end of speech.



BOOK IV.

ARGUMENT.

HEREIN IS TOLD OF THE GREAT LOVE OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE, AND THE WOEFUL ENDING OF HER.

Meanwhile the Queen, long smitten sore with sting of all desire, With very heart's blood feeds the wound and wastes with hidden fire. And still there runneth in her mind the hero's valiancy, And glorious stock; his words, his face, fast in her heart they lie: Nor may she give her body peace amid that restless pain.

But when the next day Phoebus' lamp lit up the lands again, And now Aurora from the heavens had rent the mist apart, Sick-souled her sister she bespeaks, the sharer of her heart: "Sister, O me, this sleepless pain that fears me with unrest! O me, within our house and home this new-come wondrous guest! 10 Ah, what a countenance and mien! in arms and heart how strong! Surely to trow him of the Gods it doth no wisdom wrong; For fear it is shows base-born souls. Woe's me! how tossed about By fortune was he! how he showed war's utter wearing out! And, but my heart for ever now were set immovably Never to let me long again the wedding bond to tie, Since love betrayed me first of all with him my darling dead, And were I not all weary-sick of torch and bridal bed, This sin alone of all belike my falling heart might trap; For, Anna, I confess it thee, since poor Sychaeus' hap, 20 My husband dead, my hearth acold through murderous brother's deed, This one alone hath touched the quick; this one my heart may lead Unto its fall: I feel the signs of fire of long agone. And yet I pray the deeps of earth beneath my feet may yawn, I pray the Father send me down bolt-smitten to the shades, The pallid shades of Erebus, the night that never fades, Before, O Shame, I shame thy face, or loose what thou hast tied! He took away the love from me, who bound me to his side That first of times. Ah, in the tomb let love be with him still!"

The tears arisen as she spake did all her bosom fill. 30 But Anna saith: "Dearer to me than very light of day, Must thou alone and sorrowing wear all thy youth away, Nor see sweet sons, nor know the joys that gentle Venus brings? Deem'st thou dead ash or buried ghosts have heed of such-like things? So be it that thy sickened soul no man to yield hath brought In Libya as in Tyre; let be Iarbas set at nought, And other lords, whom Africa, the rich in battle's bliss, Hath nursed: but now, with love beloved,—must thou be foe to this? Yea, hast thou not within thy mind amidst whose bounds we are? Here the Gaetulian cities fierce, a folk unmatched in war, 40 And hard Numidia's bitless folk, and Syrtes' guestless sand Lie round thee: there Barcaeans wild, the rovers of the land, Desert for thirst: what need to tell of wars new-born in Tyre, And of thy murderous brother's threats? Meseems by very will of Gods, by Juno's loving mind, The Ilian keels run down their course before the following wind. Ah, what a city shalt thou see! how shall the lordship wax With such a spouse! with Teucrian arms our brothers at our backs Unto what glory of great deeds the Punic realm may reach! But thou, go seek the grace of Gods, with sacrifice beseech; 50 Then take thy fill of guest-serving; weave web of all delays: The wintry raging of the sea, Orion's watery ways, The way-worn ships, the heavens unmeet for playing seaman's part."

So saying, she blew the flame of love within her kindled heart, And gave her doubtful soul a hope and loosed the girth of shame.

Then straight they fare unto the shrines, by every altar's flame Praying for peace; and hosts they slay, chosen as custom would, To Phoebus, Ceres wise of law, Father Lyaeus good, But chiefest unto Juno's might, that wedlock hath in care. There bowl in hand stands Dido forth, most excellently fair, 60 And pours between the sleek cow's horns; or to and fro doth pace Before the altars fat with prayer, 'neath very godhead's face, And halloweth in the day with gifts, and, gazing eagerly Amid the host's yet beating heart, for answering rede must try. —Woe's me! the idle mind of priests! what prayer, what shrine avails The wild with love!—and all the while the smooth flame never fails To eat her heart: the silent wound lives on within her breast: Unhappy Dido burneth up, and, wild with all unrest, For ever strays the city through: as arrow-smitten doe, Unwary, whom some herd from far hath drawn upon with bow 70 Amid the Cretan woods, and left the swift steel in the sore, Unknowing: far in flight she strays the woods and thickets o'er, 'Neath Dictae's heights; but in her flank still bears the deadly reed.

Now midmost of the city-walls AEneas doth she lead, And shows him the Sidonian wealth, the city's guarded ways; And now she falls to speech, and now amidst a word she stays. Then at the dying of the day the feast she dights again, And, witless, once again will hear the tale of Ilium's pain; And once more hangeth on the lips that tell the tale aloud. But after they were gone their ways, and the dusk moon did shroud 80 Her light in turn, and setting stars bade all to sleep away, Lone in the empty house she mourns, broods over where he lay, Hears him and sees him, she apart from him that is apart Or, by his father's image smit, Ascanius to her heart She taketh, if her utter love she may thereby beguile. No longer rise the walls begun, nor play the youth this while In arms, or fashion havens forth, or ramparts of the war: Broken is all that handicraft and mastery; idle are The mighty threatenings of the walls and engines wrought heaven high.

Now when the holy wife of Jove beheld her utterly 90 Held by that plague, whose madness now not e'en her fame might stay, Then unto Venus, Saturn's seed began such words to say: "Most glorious praise ye carry off, meseems, most wealthy spoil, Thou and thy Boy; wondrous the might, and long to tell the toil, Whereas two Gods by dint of craft one woman have o'erthrown. But well I wot, that through your fear of walls I call mine own, In welcome of proud Carthage doors your hearts may never trow. But what shall be the end hereof? where wends our contest now? What if a peace that shall endure, and wedlock surely bound, 99 We fashion? That which all thine heart was set on thou hast found. For Dido burns: bone of her bone thy madness is today: So let us rule these folks as one beneath an equal sway: Let the doom be that she shall take a Phrygian man for lord, And to thine hand for dowry due her Tyrian folk award."

But Venus felt that Juno's guile within the word did live, Who lordship due to Italy to Libya fain would give, So thus she answered her again: "Who were so overbold To gainsay this? or who would wish war against thee to hold, If only this may come to pass, and fate the deed may seal? But doubtful drifts my mind of fate, if one same town and weal 110 Jove giveth to the Tyrian folk and those from Troy outcast, If he will have those folks to blend and bind the treaty fast Thou art his wife: by prayer mayst thou prove all his purpose weighed. Set forth, I follow." Juno then took up the word and said: "Yea, that shall be my very work: how that which presseth now May be encompassed, hearken ye, in few words will I show: AEneas and the hapless queen are minded forth to fare For hunting to the thicket-side, when Titan first shall bear Tomorrow's light aloft, and all the glittering world unveil: On them a darkening cloud of rain, blended with drift of hail, 120 Will I pour down, while for the hunt the feathered snare-lines shake, And toils about the thicket go: all heaven will I awake With thunder, and their scattered folk the mid-mirk shall enwrap: Then Dido and the Trojan lord on one same cave shall hap; I will be there, and if to me thy heart be stable grown, In wedlock will I join the two and deem her all his own: And there shall be their bridal God." Then Venus nought gainsaid, But, nodding yea, she smiled upon the snare before her laid.

Meanwhile Aurora risen up had left the ocean stream, And gateward throng the chosen youth in first of morning's beam, 130 And wide-meshed nets, and cordage-toils and broad-steeled spears abound, Massylian riders go their ways with many a scenting hound. The lords of Carthage by the door bide till the tarrying queen Shall leave her chamber: there, with gold and purple well beseen, The mettled courser stands, and champs the bit that bids him bide. At last she cometh forth to them with many a man beside: A cloak of Sidon wrapped her round with pictured border wrought, Her quiver was of fashioned gold, and gold her tresses caught; The gathering of her purple gown a golden buckle had.

Then come the Phrygian fellows forth; comes forth Iulus glad; 140 Yea and AEneas' very self is of their fellowship, And joins their band: in goodliness all those did he outstrip: E'en such as when Apollo leaves the wintry Lycian shore, And Xanthus' stream, and Delos sees, his mother's isle once more; And halloweth in the dance anew, while round the altars shout The Cretans and the Dryopes, and painted Scythian rout: He steps it o'er the Cynthus' ridge, and leafy crown to hold His flowing tresses doth he weave, and intertwines the gold, And on his shoulders clang the shafts. Nor duller now passed on AEneas, from his noble face such wondrous glory shone. 150 So come they to the mountain-side and pathless deer-fed ground, And lo, from hill-tops driven adown, how swift the wild goats bound Along the ridges: otherwhere across the open lea Run hart and hind, and gathering up their horned host to flee, Amid a whirling cloud of dust they leave the mountain-sides. But here the boy Ascanius the midmost valley rides, And glad, swift-horsed, now these he leaves, now those he flees before, And fain were he mid deedless herds to meet a foaming boar, Or see some yellow lion come the mountain-slopes adown. 159

Meanwhile with mighty murmuring sound confused the heavens are grown, And thereupon the drift of rain and hail upon them broke; Therewith the scattered Trojan youth, the Tyrian fellow-folk, The son of Venus' Dardan son, scared through the meadows fly To diverse shelter, while the streams rush from the mountains high.

Then Dido and the Trojan lord meet in the self-same cave; Then Earth, first-born of everything, and wedding Juno gave The token; then the wildfires flashed, and air beheld them wed, And o'er their bridal wailed the nymphs in hill-tops overhead.

That day began the tide of death; that day the evil came; No more she heedeth eyes of men; no more she heedeth fame; 170 No more hath Dido any thought a stolen love to win, But calls it wedlock: yea, e'en so she weaveth up the sin.

Straight through the mighty Libyan folks is Rumour on the wing— Rumour, of whom nought swifter is of any evil thing: She gathereth strength by going on, and bloometh shifting oft! A little thing, afraid at first, she springeth soon aloft; Her feet are on the worldly soil, her head the clouds o'erlay. Earth, spurred by anger 'gainst the Gods, begot her as they say, Of Coeus and Enceladus the latest sister-birth. Swift are her wings to cleave the air, swift-foot she treads the earth: 180 A monster dread and huge, on whom so many as there lie The feathers, under each there lurks, O strange! a watchful eye; And there wag tongues, and babble mouths, and hearkening ears upstand As many: all a-dusk by night she flies 'twixt sky and land Loud clattering, never shutting eye in rest of slumber sweet. By day she keepeth watch high-set on houses of the street, Or on the towers aloft she sits for mighty cities' fear! And lies and ill she loves no less than sooth which she must bear.

She now, rejoicing, filled the folk with babble many-voiced, And matters true and false alike sang forth as she rejoiced: 190 How here was come AEneas now, from Trojan blood sprung forth, Whom beauteous Dido deemed indeed a man to mate her worth: How winter-long betwixt them there the sweets of sloth they nursed, Unmindful of their kingdoms' weal, by ill desire accursed. This in the mouth of every man the loathly Goddess lays, And thence to King Iarbas straight she wendeth on her ways, To set his mind on fire with words, and high his wrath to lead.

He, sprung from Garamantian nymph and very Ammon's seed, An hundred mighty fanes to Jove, an hundred altars fair, Had builded in his wide domain, and set the watch-fire there, 200 The everlasting guard of God: there fat the soil was grown With blood of beasts; the threshold bloomed with garlands diverse blown. He, saith the tale, all mad at heart, and fired with bitter fame, Amidmost of the might of God before the altars came, And prayed a many things to Jove with suppliant hands outspread:

"O Jupiter, almighty lord, to whom from painted bed The banqueting Maurusian folk Lenaean joy pours forth, Dost thou behold? O Father, is our dread of nothing worth When thou art thundering? Yea, forsooth, a blind fire of the clouds, An idle hubbub of the sky, our souls with terror loads! 210 A woman wandering on our shore, who set her up e'en now A little money-cheapened town, to whom a field to plough And lordship of the place we gave, hath thrust away my word Of wedlock, and hath taken in AEneas for her lord: And now this Paris, hedged around with all his gelding rout, Maeonian mitre tied to chin, and wet hair done about, Sits on the prey while to thine house a many gifts we bear, Still cherishing an idle tale who our begetters were."

The Almighty heard him as he prayed holding the altar-horns, And to the war-walls of the Queen his eyes therewith he turns, 220 And sees the lovers heeding nought the glory of their lives; Then Mercury he calls to him, and such a bidding gives: "Go forth, O Son, the Zephyrs call, and glide upon the wing Unto the duke of Dardan men in Carthage tarrying, Who hath no eyes to see the walls that fate to him hath given: Speak to him, Son, and bear my words down the swift air of heaven: His fairest mother promised us no such a man at need, Nor claimed him twice from Greekish sword to live for such a deed. But Italy, the fierce in war, the big with empire's brood, Was he to rule; to get for us from glorious Teucer's blood 230 That folk of folks, and all the world beneath his laws to lay. But if such glory of great deeds nought stirreth him today, Nor for his own fame hath he heart the toil to overcome, Yet shall the father grudge the son the towered heights of Rome? What doth he? tarrying for what hope among the enemy? And hath no eyes Ausonian sons, Lavinian land to see? Let him to ship! this is the doom; this word I bid thee bear."

He spake: his mighty father's will straight did the God prepare To compass, and his golden shoes first bindeth on his feet, E'en those which o'er the ocean plain aloft on feathers fleet, 240 Or over earth swift bear him on before the following gale: And then his rod he takes, wherewith he calleth spirits pale From Orcus, or those others sends sad Tartarus beneath, And giveth sleep and takes away, and openeth eyes to death; The rod that sways the ocean-winds and rules the cloudy rack. Now winging way he comes in sight of peak and steepy back Of flinty Atlas, on whose head all heaven is set adown— Of Atlas with the piny head, and never-failing crown Of mirky cloud, beat on with rain and all the winds that blow: 249 A snow-cloak o'er his shoulders falls, and headlong streams overflow His ancient chin; his bristling beard with plenteous ice is done. There hovering on his poised wings stayed that Cyllenian one, And all his gathered body thence sent headlong toward the waves; Then like a bird the shores about, about the fishy caves, Skims low adown upon the wing the sea-plain's face anigh, Not otherwise 'twixt heaven and earth Cyllene's God did fly; And now, his mother's father great a long way left behind, Unto the sandy Libya's shore he clave the driving wind. But when the cot-built place of earth he felt beneath his feet, He saw AEneas founding towers and raising houses meet: 260 Starred was the sword about him girt with yellow jasper stone, The cloak that from his shoulders streamed with Tyrian purple shone: Fair things that wealthy Dido's hand had given him for a gift, Who with the gleam of thready gold the purple web did shift.

Then brake the God on him: "Forsooth, tall Carthage wilt thou found, O lover, and a city fair raise up from out the ground? Woe's me! thy lordship and thy deeds hast thou forgotten quite? The very ruler of the Gods down from Olympus bright Hath sent me, he whose majesty the earth and heavens obey; This was the word he bade me bear adown the windy way. 270 What dost thou? hoping for what hope in Libya dost thou wear Thy days? if glorious fated things thine own soul may not stir, And heart thou lackest for thy fame the coming toil to wed, Think on Ascanius' dawn of days and hope inherited, To whom is due the Italian realm and all the world of Rome!"

But when from out Cyllenius' mouth such word as this had come, Amidst his speech he left the sight of men that die from day, And mid thin air from eyes of folk he faded far away. But sore the sight AEneas feared, and wit from out him drave; His hair stood up, amidst his jaws the voice within him clave. 280 Bewildered by that warning word, and by that God's command, He yearneth to depart and flee, and leave the lovely land. Ah, what to do? and with what word may he be bold to win Peace of the Queen all mad with love? what wise shall he begin? Hither and thither now he sends his mind all eager-swift, And bears it diversely away and runs o'er every shift: At last, as many things he weighed, this seemed the better rede. Mnestheus, Sergestus, straight he calls, Sergestus stout at need, And bids them dight ship silently and bring their folk to shore, And dight their gear, and cause thereof with lying cover o'er; 290 While he himself, since of all this kind Dido knoweth nought, Nor of the ending of such love may ever have a thought, Will seek to draw anigh the Queen, seek time wherein the word May softliest be said to her, the matter lightliest stirred. So all they glad his bidding do, and get them to the work.

But who may hoodwink loving eyes? She felt the treason lurk About her life, and from the first saw all that was to be; Fearing indeed where no fear was. That Rumour wickedly Told her wild soul of ship-host armed and ready to set out; The heart died in her; all aflame she raves the town about, 300 E'en as a Thyad, who, soul-smit by holy turmoil, hears The voice of Bacchus on the day that crowns the triple years, And mirk Cithaeron through the night hath called her clamorous.

Unto AEneas at the last herself she speaketh thus: "O thou forsworn! and hast thou hoped with lies to cover o'er Such wickedness, and silently to get thee from my shore? Our love, it hath not held thee back? nor right hand given in faith Awhile agone? nor Dido doomed to die a bitter death? Yea, e'en beneath the winter heavens thy fleet thou gatherest In haste to fare across the main amid the north's unrest 310 O cruel! What if land unknown and stranger field and fold Thou sought'st not; if the ancient Troy stood as in days of old; Wouldst thou not still be seeking Troy across the wavy brine? —Yea, me thou fleest. O by these tears, by that right hand of thine, Since I myself have left myself unhappy nought but this, And by our bridal of that day and early wedding bliss, If ever I were worthy thanks, if sweet in aught I were, Pity a falling house! If yet be left a space for prayer, O then I pray thee put away this mind of evil things! Because of thee the Libyan folks, and those Numidian kings, 320 Hate me, and Tyrians are my foes: yea, and because of thee My shame is gone, and that which was my heavenward road to be. My early glory.—Guest, to whom leav'st thou thy dying friend? Since of my husband nought but this is left me in the end. Why bide I till Pygmalion comes to lay my walls alow, Till taken by Getulian kings, Iarbas' slave I go? Ah! if at least ere thou wert gone some child of thee I had! If yet AEneas in mine house might play a little lad, E'en but to bring aback the face of that beloved one, Then were I never vanquished quite, nor utterly undone." 330

She spake: he, warned by Jove's command, his eyes still steadfast held, And, striving, thrust his sorrow back, howso his heart-strings swelled: At last he answered shortly thus: "O Queen, though words may fail To tell thy lovingkindness, ne'er my heart belies the tale: Still shall it be a joy to think of sweet Elissa's days While of myself I yet may think, while breath my body sways. Few words about the deed in hand: ne'er in my mind it came As flees a thief to flee from thee; never the bridal flame Did I hold forth, or plight my troth such matters to fulfil. If fate would let me lead a life according to my will, 340 Might I such wise as pleaseth me my troubles lay to rest, By Troy-town surely would I bide among the ashes blest Of my beloved, and Priam's house once more aloft should stand; New Pergamus for vanquished men should rise beneath my hand. But now Grynean Phoebus bids toward Italy the great To reach my hand; to Italy biddeth the Lycian fate: There is my love, there is my land. If Carthage braveries And lovely look of Libyan walls hold fast thy Tyrian eyes, Why wilt thou grudge the Teucrian men Ausonian dwelling-place? If we too seek the outland realm, for us too be there grace! 350 Father Anchises, whensoever night covereth up the earth With dewy dark, and whensoe'er the bright stars come to birth, His troubled image midst of sleep brings warning word and fear. Ascanius weigheth on my heart with wrong of head so dear, Whom I beguile of fateful fields and realm of Italy. Yea, even now God's messenger sent from the Jove on high, (Bear witness either head of us!) bore doom of God adown The eager wind: I saw the God enter the fair-walled town In simple light: I drank his voice, yea with these ears of mine. Cease then to burn up with thy wail my burdened heart and thine! 360 Perforce I follow Italy."

But now this long while, as he spake, athwart and wild she gazed, And here and there her eyeballs rolled, and strayed with silent look His body o'er; and at the last with heart of fire outbroke: "Traitor! no Goddess brought thee forth, nor Dardanus was first Of thine ill race; but Caucasus on spiky crags accurst Begot thee; and Hyrcanian dugs of tigers suckled thee. Why hide it now? why hold me back lest greater evil be? For did he sigh the while I wept? his eyes—what were they moved? Hath he been vanquished unto tears, or pitied her that loved? 370 —Ah, is aught better now than aught, when Juno utter great, Yea and the Father on all this with evil eyen wait? All faith is gone! I took him in a stranded outcast, bare: Yea in my very throne and land, ah fool! I gave him share. His missing fleet I brought aback; from death I brought his friends. —Woe! how the furies burn me up!—Now seer Apollo sends, Now bidding send the Lycian lots; now sendeth Jove on high His messenger to bear a curse adown the windy sky! Such is the toil of Gods aloft; such are the cares that rack Their souls serene.—I hold thee not, nor cast thy words aback. 380 Go down the wind to Italy! seek lordship o'er the sea! Only I hope amid the rocks, if any God there be, Thou shalt drink in thy punishment and call on Dido's name Full oft: and I, though gone away, will follow with black flame; And when cold death from out my limbs my soul hath won away, I will be with thee everywhere; O wretch, and thou shalt pay. Ah, I shall hear; the tale of all shall reach me midst the dead."

Therewith she brake her speech athwart, and sick at heart she fled The outer air, and turned away, and gat her from his eyes; Leaving him dallying with his fear, and turning many wise 390 The words to say. Her serving-maids the fainting body weak, Bear back unto the marble room and on the pillows streak.

But god-fearing AEneas now, however fain he were To soothe her grief and with soft speech assuage her weary care, Much groaning, and the heart of him shaken with loving pain. Yet went about the God's command and reached his ships again. Then fall the Teucrians on indeed, and over all the shore Roll the tall ships; the pitchy keel swims in the sea once more: They bear the oars still leaf-bearing: they bring the might of wood, Unwrought, so fain of flight they are, 400 Lo now their flitting! how they run from all the town in haste! E'en as the ants, the winter-wise, are gathered whiles to waste A heap of corn, and toil that same beneath their roof to lay, Forth goes the black troop mid the mead, and carries forth the prey Over the grass in narrow line: some strive with shoulder-might And push along a grain o'ergreat, some drive the line aright, Or scourge the loiterers: hot the work fares all along the road.

Ah Dido, when thou sawest all what heart in thee abode! What groans thou gavest when thou saw'st from tower-top the long strand A-boil with men all up and down; the sea on every hand 410 Before thine eyes by stir of men torn into all unrest! O evil Love, where wilt thou not drive on a mortal breast? Lo, she is driven to weep again and pray him to be kind, And suppliant, in the bonds of love her lofty heart to bind, Lest she should leave some way untried and die at last for nought.

"Anna, thou seest the strand astir, the men together brought From every side, the canvas spread calling the breezes down. While joyful on the quarter-deck the sea-folk lay the crown. Sister, since I had might to think that such a thing could be, I shall have might to bear it now: yet do one thing for me, 420 Poor wretch, O Anna: for to thee alone would he be kind, That traitor, and would trust to thee the inmost of his mind; And thou alone his softening ways and melting times dost know. O sister, speak a suppliant word to that high-hearted foe: I never swore at Aulis there to pluck up root and branch The Trojan folk; for Pergamus no war-ship did I launch: Anchises' buried ghost from tomb I never tore away: Why will his ears be ever deaf to any word I say? Where hurrieth he? O let him give his wretched love one gift; Let him but wait soft sailing-tide, when fair the breezes shift. 430 No longer for the wedding past, undone, I make my prayer, Nor that he cast his lordship by, and promised Latium fair. For empty time, for rest and stay of madness now I ask, Till Fortune teach the overthrown to learn her weary task. Sister, I pray this latest grace; O pity me today, And manifold when I am dead the gift will I repay."

So prayed she: such unhappy words of weeping Anna bears, And bears again and o'er again: but him no weeping stirs, Nor any voice he hearkeneth now may turn him from his road: God shut the hero's steadfast ears; fate in the way abode. 440 As when against a mighty oak, strong growth of many a year, On this side and on that the blasts of Alpine Boreas bear, Contending which shall root it up: forth goes the roar, deep lie The driven leaves upon the earth from shaken bole on high. But fast it clingeth to the crag, and high as goes its head To heaven aloft, so deep adown to hell its roots are spread. E'en so by ceaseless drift of words the hero every wise Is battered, and the heavy care deep in his bosom lies; Steadfast the will abides in him; the tears fall down for nought. Ah, and unhappy Dido then the very death besought, 450 Outworn by fate: the hollow heaven has grown a sight to grieve. And for the helping of her will, that she the light may leave, She seeth, when mid the frankincense her offering she would lay, The holy water blackening there, O horrible to say! The wine poured forth turned into blood all loathly as it fell. Which sight to none, not e'en unto her sister, would she tell. Moreover, to her first-wed lord there stood amidst the house A marble shrine, the which she loved with worship marvellous, And bound it was with snowy wool and leafage of delight; 459 Thence heard she, when the earth was held in mirky hand of night, Strange sounds come forth, and words as if her husband called his own. And o'er and o'er his funeral song the screech-owl wailed alone, And long his lamentable tale from high aloft was rolled. And many a saying furthermore of god-loved seers of old Fears her with dreadful memory: all wild amid her dreams Cruel AEneas drives her on, and evermore she seems Left all alone; and evermore a road that never ends, Mateless, and seeking through the waste her Tyrian folk, she wends. As raving Pentheus saw the rout of that Well-willing Folk, When twofold sun and twofold Thebes upon his eyes outbroke: 470 Or like as Agamemnon's son is driven across the stage, Fleeing his mother's fiery hand that bears the serpent's rage, While there the avenging Dreadful Ones upon the threshold sit.

But when she gave the horror birth, and, grief-worn, cherished it, And doomed her death, then with herself she planned its time and guise, And to her sister sorrowing sore spake word in such a wise, Covering her end with cheerful face and calm and hopeful brow: "Kinswoman, I have found a way, (joy with thy sister now!) Whereby to bring him back to me or let me loose from him. Adown beside the setting sun, hard on the ocean's rim, 480 Lies the last world of AEthiops, where Atlas mightiest grown Upon his shoulder turns the pole with burning stars bestrown. A priestess thence I met erewhile, come of Massylian seed, The warden of the West-maid's fane, and wont the worm to feed, Mingling for him the honey-juice with poppies bearing sleep, Whereby she maketh shift on tree the hallowed bough to keep. She by enchantment takes in hand to loose what hearts she will, But other ones at need will she with heavy sorrows fill; And she hath craft to turn the stars and back the waters beat, Call up the ghosts that fare by night, make earth beneath thy feet 490 Cry out, and ancient ash-trees draw the mountain-side adown. Dear heart, I swear upon the Gods, I swear on thee, mine own And thy dear head, that I am loath with magic craft to play. But privily amid the house a bale for burning lay 'Neath the bare heaven, and pile on it the arms that evil one Left in the chamber: all he wore, the bridal bed whereon My days were lost: for so 'tis good: the priestess showeth me All tokens of the wicked man must perish utterly."

No more she spake, but with the word her face grew deadly white. But Anna sees not how she veiled her death with new-found rite, 500 Nor any thought of such a deed her heart encompasseth; Nor fears she heavier things to come than at Sychaeus' death. Wherefore she takes the charge in hand.

But now the Queen, that bale being built amid the inner house 'Neath the bare heavens, piled high with fir and cloven oak enow, Hangeth the garlands round the place, and crowns the bale with bough That dead men use: the weed he wore, his very effigy, His sword, she lays upon the bed, well knowing what shall be. There stand the altars, there the maid, wild with her scattered hair, Calls Chaos, Erebus, and those three hundred godheads there, 510 And Hecate triply fashioned to maiden Dian's look; Water she scattered, would-be wave of dark Avernus' brook; And herbs she brought, by brazen shears 'neath moonlight harvested, All downy-young, though inky milk of venomed ill they shed. She brings the love-charm snatched away from brow of new-born foal Ere yet the mother snatcheth it. Dido herself the altars nigh, meal in her hallowed hands, With one foot of its bindings bare, and ungirt raiment stands, And dying calls upon the Gods, and stars that fateful fare; And then if any godhead is, mindful and just to care 520 For unloved lovers, unto that she sendeth up the prayer.

Now night it was, and everything on earth had won the grace Of quiet sleep: the woods had rest, the wildered waters' face: It was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due, And all the tilth is hushed, and beasts, and birds of many a hue; And all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep In thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide lay asleep, And slipping off the load of care forgat their toilsome part. But ne'er might that Phoenician Queen, that most unhappy heart, Sink into sleep, or take the night unto her eyes and breast: 530 Her sorrows grow, and love again swells up with all unrest, And ever midst her troubled wrath rolls on a mighty tide; And thus she broods and turns it o'er and o'er on every side.

"Ah, whither now? Shall I bemocked my early lovers try, And go Numidian wedlock now on bended knee to buy: I, who so often scorned to take their bridal-bearing hands? Or shall I, following Ilian ships, bear uttermost commands Of Teucrian men, because my help their lightened hearts makes kind; Because the thank for deed I did lies ever on their mind? But if I would, who giveth leave, or takes on scornful keel 540 The hated thing? Thou knowest not, lost wretch, thou may'st not feel, What treason of Laomedon that folk for ever bears. What then? and shall I follow lone the joyous mariners? Or, hedged with all my Tyrian host, upon them shall I bear, Driving again across the sea those whom I scarce might tear From Sidon's city, forcing them to spread their sails abroad? Nay, stay thy grief with steel, and die, and reap thy due reward! Thou, sister, conquered by my tears, wert first this bane to lay On my mad soul, and cast my heart in that destroyer's way. Why was I not allowed to live without the bridal bed, 550 Sackless and free as beasts afield, with no woes wearied? Why kept I not the faith of old to my Sychaeus sworn?" Such wailing of unhappy words from out her breast was torn.

AEneas on the lofty deck meanwhile, assured of flight, Was winning sleep, since every need of his was duly dight; When lo! amid the dreams of sleep that shape of God come back, Seemed once again to warn him thus: nor yet the face did lack Nor anything of Mercury; both voice and hue was there, And loveliness of youthful limbs and length of yellow hair: 559 "O Goddess-born, and canst thou sleep through such a tide as this? And seest thou not how round about the peril gathered is? And, witless, hear'st not Zephyr blow with gentle, happy wind? For treason now and dreadful deed she turneth in her mind, Assured of death; and diversely the tide of wrath sets in. Why fleest thou not in haste away, while haste is yet to win? Thou shalt behold the sea beat up with oar-blade, and the brand Gleam dire against thee, and one flame shall run adown the strand, If thee tomorrow's dawn shall take still lingering on this shore. Up! tarry not! for woman's heart is shifting evermore."

So saying, amid the mirk of night he mingled and was lost. 570 And therewithal AEneas, feared by sudden-flitting ghost, Snatching his body forth from sleep, stirs up his folk at need: "Wake ye, and hurry now, O men! get to the thwarts with speed, And bustle to unfurl the sails! here sent from heaven again A God hath spurred us on to flight, and biddeth hew atwain The hempen twine. O holy God, we follow on thy way, Whatso thou art; and glad once more thy bidding we obey. O be with us! give gracious aid; set stars the heaven about To bless our ways!" And from the sheath his lightning sword flew out E'en as he spake: with naked blade he smote the hawser through, 580 And all are kindled at his flame; they hurry and they do. The shore is left, with crowd of keels the sight of sea is dim; Eager they whirl the spray aloft, as o'er the blue they skim.

And now Aurora left alone Tithonus' saffron bed, And first light of another day across the world she shed. But when the Queen from tower aloft beheld the dawn grow white, And saw the ships upon their way with fair sails trimmed aright, And all the haven shipless left, and reach of empty strand, Then thrice and o'er again she smote her fair breast with her hand, And rent her yellow hair, and cried, "Ah, Jove! and is he gone? 590 And shall a very stranger mock the lordship I have won? Why arm they not? Why gather not from all the town in chase? Ho ye! why run ye not the ships down from their standing-place? Quick, bring the fire! shake out the sails! hard on the oars to sea! —What words are these, or where am I? What madness changeth me? Unhappy Dido! now at last thine evil deed strikes home. Ah, better when thou mad'st him lord—lo whereunto are come His faith and troth who erst, they say, his country's house-gods held The while he took upon his back his father spent with eld? 599 Why! might I not have shred him up, and scattered him piecemeal About the sea, and slain his friends, his very son, with steel, Ascanius on his father's board for dainty meat to lay? But doubtful, say ye, were the fate of battle? Yea, O yea! What might I fear, who was to die?—if I had borne the fire Among their camp, and filled his decks with flame, and son and sire Quenched with their whole folk, and myself had cast upon it all! —O Sun, whose flames on every deed earth doeth ever fall, O Juno, setter-forth and seer of these our many woes, Hecate, whose name howled out a-nights o'er city crossway goes, Avenging Dread Ones, Gods that guard Elissa perishing, 610 O hearken! turn your might most meet against the evil thing! O hearken these our prayers! and if the doom must surely stand, And he, the wicked head, must gain the port and swim aland, If Jove demand such fixed fate and every change doth bar, Yet let him faint mid weapon-strife and hardy folk of war! And let him, exiled from his house, torn from Iulus, wend, Beseeching help mid wretched death of many and many a friend. And when at last he yieldeth him to pact of grinding peace, Then short-lived let his lordship be, and loved life's increase. And let him fall before his day, unburied on the shore! 620 Lo this I pray, this last of words forth with my blood I pour. And ye, O Tyrians, 'gainst his race that is, and is to be, Feed full your hate! When I am dead send down this gift to me: No love betwixt the peoples twain, no troth for anything! And thou, Avenger of my wrongs, from my dead bones outspring, To bear the fire and the sword o'er Dardan-peopled earth Now or hereafter; whensoe'er the day brings might to birth. I pray the shore against the shore, the sea against the sea, The sword 'gainst sword—fight ye that are, and ye that are to be!"

So sayeth she, and everywise she turns about her mind 630 How ending of the loathed light she speediest now may find. And few words unto Barce spake, Sychaeus' nurse of yore; For the black ashes held her own upon the ancient shore: "Dear nurse, my sister Anna now bring hither to my need, And bid her for my sprinkling-tide the running water speed; And bid her have the hosts with her, and due atoning things: So let her come; but thou, thine head bind with the holy strings; For I am minded now to end what I have set afoot, And worship duly Stygian Jove and all my cares uproot; Setting the flame beneath the bale of that Dardanian head." 640

She spake; with hurrying of eld the nurse her footsteps sped. But Dido, trembling, wild at heart with her most dread intent, Rolling her blood-shot eyes about, her quivering cheeks besprent With burning flecks, and otherwhere dead white with death drawn nigh Burst through the inner doorways there and clomb the bale on high, Fulfilled with utter madness now, and bared the Dardan blade, Gift given not for such a work, for no such ending made. There, when upon the Ilian gear her eyen had been set, And bed well known, 'twixt tears and thoughts awhile she lingered yet; Then brooding low upon the bed her latest word she spake: 650

"O raiment dear to me while Gods and fate allowed, now take This soul of mine and let me loose from all my woes at last! I, I have lived, and down the way fate showed to me have passed; And now a mighty shade of me shall go beneath the earth! A glorious city have I raised, and brought my walls to birth, Avenged my husband, made my foe, my brother, pay the pain: Happy, ah, happy overmuch were all my life-days' gain, If never those Dardanian keels had drawn our shores anigh."

She spake: her lips lay on the bed: "Ah, unavenged to die! But let me die! Thus, thus 'tis good to go into the night! 660 Now let the cruel Dardan eyes drink in the bale-fire's light, And bear for sign across the sea this token of my death."

Her speech had end: but on the steel, amid the last word's breath, They see her fallen; along the blade they see her blood foam out, And all her hands besprent therewith: wild fly the shrieks about The lofty halls, and Rumour runs mad through the smitten town. The houses sound with women's wails and lamentable groan; The mighty clamour of their grief rings through the upper skies. 'Twas e'en as if all Carthage fell mid flood of enemies, Or mighty Tyre of ancient days,—as if the wildfire ran 670 Rolling about the roof of God and dwelling-place of man.

Half dead her sister heard, and rushed distraught and trembling there, With nail and fist befouling all her face and bosom fair: She thrust amidst them, and by name called on the dying Queen: "O was it this my sister, then! guile in thy word hath been! And this was what the bale, the fire, the altars wrought for me! Where shall I turn so left alone? Ah, scorned was I to be For death-fellow! thou shouldst have called me too thy way to wend. One sword-pang should have been for both, one hour to make an end. Built I with hands, on Father-Gods with crying did I cry 680 To be away, a cruel heart, from thee laid down to die? O sister, me and thee, thy folk, the fathers of the land, Thy city hast thou slain——O give, give water to my hand, And let me wash the wound, and if some last breath linger there, Let my mouth catch it!" Saying so she reached the topmost stair, And to her breast the dying one she fondled, groaning sore, And with her raiment strove to staunch the black and flowing gore. Then Dido strove her heavy lids to lift, but back again They sank, and deep within her breast whispered the deadly bane: Three times on elbow struggling up a little did she rise, 690 And thrice fell back upon the bed, and sought with wandering eyes The light of heaven aloft, and moaned when it was found at last.

Then on her long-drawn agony did Juno pity cast, Her hard departing; Iris then she sent from heaven on high, And bade her from the knitted limbs the struggling soul untie. For since by fate she perished not, nor waited death-doom given, But hapless died before her day by sudden fury driven, Not yet the tress of yellow hair had Proserpine off-shred, Nor unto Stygian Orcus yet had doomed her wandering head. So Iris ran adown the sky on wings of saffron dew, 700 And colours shifting thousandfold against the sun she drew, And overhead she hung: "So bid, from off thee this I bear, Hallowed to Dis, and charge thee now from out thy body fare."

She spake and sheared the tress away; then failed the life-heat spent And forth away upon the wind the spirit of her went.



BOOK V.

ARGUMENT.

AENEAS MAKING FOR ITALY IS STAYED BY CONTRARY WINDS, WHEREFORE HE SAILETH TO SICILY, AND, COMING TO THE TOMB OF HIS FATHER ANCHISES, HOLDETH SOLEMN GAMES THEREAT, AND IN THE END GOETH HIS WAY TO ITALY AGAIN.

Meanwhile AEneas with his ships the mid-sea way did hold Steadfast, and cut the dusky waves before the north wind rolled, Still looking back upon the walls now litten by the flame Of hapless Dido: though indeed whence so great burning came They knew not; but the thought of grief that comes of love defiled How great it is, what deed may come of woman waxen wild, Through woeful boding of the sooth the Teucrians' bosoms bore.

But when the ships the main sea held, nor had they any more The land in sight, but sea around and sky around was spread, A coal-blue cloud drew up to them, that hanging overhead 10 Bore night and storm: feared 'neath the dark the waters trembling lie. Then called the helmsman Palinure from lofty deck on high: "Ah, wherefore doth such cloud of storm gird all the heavens about? What will ye, Father Neptune, now?" Therewith he crieth out To gather all the tackling in, and hard on oars to lay, And slopeth sail across the wind; and so such word doth say: "Great-souled AEneas, e'en if Jove my borrow now should be, 'Neath such a sky I might not hope to make our Italy: The changed winds roar athwart our course, and from the west grown black They rise; while o'er the face of heaven gathers the cloudy rack. 20 Nor have we might to draw a-head, nor e'en to hold our own. Wherefore since Fortune hath prevailed, by way that she hath shown, Whither she calleth, let us turn: methinks the way but short To brother-land of Eryx leal and safe Sicanian port, If I may read the stars aright that erst I bare in mind."

Quoth good AEneas: "Now for long that suchwise would the wind I saw, and how thou heldest head against it all in vain: Shift sail and go about; what land may sweeter be to gain, Or whither would I liefer turn my keels from beat of sea, Than that which yet the Dardan lord Acestes holds for me, 30 That holds my very father's bones, Anchises, in its breast?"

They seek the haven therewithal, and fair and happy west Swelleth the sails: o'er whirl of waves full speedily they wend, And glad to that familiar sand they turn them in the end: But there Acestes meeteth them, who from a mountain high All wondering had seen afar the friendly ships draw nigh. With darts he bristled, and was clad in fell of Libyan bear. Him erst unto Crimisus' flood a Trojan mother fair Brought forth: and now, forgetting nought his mother's folk of old, He welcomes them come back again with wealth of field and fold, 40 And solaces the weary men with plenteous friendly cheer.

But when the stars in first of dawn fled from the morrow clear, AEneas called upon the shore assembly of his folk, And standing high aloft on mound such words to tell he spoke: "O mighty Dardan men, O folk from blood of Godhead born, The yearly round is all fulfilled, with lapse of months outworn, Since when my godlike father's husk and bones of him we laid Amid the mould, and heavy sad the hallowed altars made: And now meseems the day is here, for evermore to me A bitter day, a worshipped day.—So God would have it be! 50 Yea should it find me outcast man on great Getulia's sand, Or take me in the Argive sea, or mid Mycenae's land, Yet yearly vows, and pomps that come in due recurring while, Still should I pay, and gifts most meet upon the altar pile. Now to my father's bones, indeed, and ashes are we brought By chance; yet not, meseems, without the Godhead's will and thought Are we come here, to lie in peace within a friendly bay. So come, and let all worship here the glory of the day; Pray we the winds, that year by year this worship may be done In temples dedicate to him within my city won. 60 Troy-born Acestes giveth you two head of horned beasts For every ship; so see ye bid the House-gods to your feasts, Both them of Troy and them our host Acestes loveth here. Moreover, if the ninth dawn hence Aurora shall uprear For health of men, and with her rays earth's coverlit shall lift, For Teucrians will I fast set forth the race for galleys swift: Then whosoe'er is fleet of foot, or bold of might and main, Or with the dart or eager shaft a better prize may gain, Or whoso hath the heart to play in fight-glove of raw hide, Let all be there, and victory's palm and guerdon due abide. 70 Clean be all mouths! and gird with leaves the temple of the head."

His mother's bush he did on brow e'en as the word he said; The like did Helymus, the like Acestes ripe of eld, The like the boy Ascanius, yea, and all that manner held. Then from that council to the tomb that duke of men did pass; Mid many thousands, he the heart of all that concourse was. There, worshipping, on earth he pours in such wise as was good Two cups of mere wine, two of milk, and two of holy blood, And scatters purple flowers around; and then such words he said: "Hail, holy father! hail once more! hail, ashes visited 80 Once more for nought! hail, father-shade and spirit sweet in vain! Forbid with me that Italy to seek, that fated plain, With me Ausonian Tiber-flood, whereso it be, to seek."

He spake: but from the lowest mound a mighty serpent sleek Drew seven great circles o'er the earth, and glided sevenfold, Passing in peace the tomb around, and o'er the altars rolled: Blue striped was the back of him, and all his scales did glow With glitter of fine flecks of gold; e'en as the cloud-hung bow A thousand shifting colours fair back from the sun he cast. AEneas wondered at the sight; but on the serpent passed, 90 And 'twixt the bowls and smoothed cups his long array he wound, Tasting the hallowed things; and so he gat him underground Beneath the tomb again, and left the altars pastured o'er.

Heartened hereby, his father's soul AEneas worshipped more, And, doubtful, deemeth it to be Anchises' guardian ghost Or godhead of the place: so there he slayeth double host, As custom would; two black-backed steers, and e'en as many swine, And calleth on his father's soul with pouring of the wine, On great Anchises' glorious ghost from Acheron set free. From out their plenty therewithal his fellows joyfully 100 Give gifts, and load the altar-stead, and smite the steers adown. While others serve the seething brass, and o'er the herbage strown Set coaly morsels 'neath the spit, and roast the inner meat.