When, calmly looking o’er the wave,
Girt with a range of azure sky,
The father bids his chariot fly.[61]
The Trojans reach the African coast, where Æneas meets his mother, Venus, and is directed to the city of Carthage, which the Phœnician princess Dido has just founded. Æneas and his comrade, the faithful Achates, enter the city wrapped in a cloud, which makes them invisible. When they are revealed to Dido, she receives them kindly, and takes them to her palace. Æneas sends to the ships for his son Ascanius, also called Iulus, but Venus substitutes for him the god of love, Cupid, who fills Dido’s heart with love for Æneas. In the second book Æneas begins the story of his adventures with a superb account of the fall of Troy, his own valiant but ineffectual struggle against the Greeks, and his final flight. In the third book he continues his story to the time of his arrival at Carthage. The fourth book is devoted to the love and fate of Dido. Æneas and Dido, with their followers, go hunting in the forest; a storm arises, and the two, separated from the rest, take refuge in a cave, where only the woodland nymphs witness the union of their loves. Dido looks forward to a joint reign over Trojans and Tyrians alike. But Æneas is warned by Mercury, at the command of Jupiter, to fulfil his destiny and sail to Italy. Dido overwhelms him with loving reproaches, but in vain; he remains steadfast in his obedience to the divine will. Then Dido determines to die. She erects a funeral pyre, places upon it the mementoes of her former husband, Sychæus, and mounts it to end her life. But before she dies she calls down curses upon Æneas and his race:
Eye of the world, majestic Sun,
Who seest whate’er on earth is done,
Thou, Juno, too, interpreter
And witness of the heart’s fond stir,
And Hecate, tremendous power,
In cross-ways howled at midnight hour,