Now by the blessed stars I swear,
By heaven, by all that dead men keep
In reverence here ’mid darkness deep,
Against my will, ill-fated fair,
I parted from your land.’”
Conington.
But Dido averts her eyes “that neither smiled nor wept,” and moves away in silence to join Sichæus, who “gives her love for love.”
Æneas learns from the lips of Anchises the future of his race, and beholds the shadowy forms of kings, generals, and statesmen that are to shed glory on the Roman name. “Augustus Cæsar, god by birth,” figures, as we should expect, the proudest of the throng. At last he espies the great Marcellus, “the Sword of Rome,” glittering in the spoils of the Punic War; and by his side
“A youth full-armed, by none excelled
In beauty’s manly grace.”