Reckless of the risks he ran he shouted from street to street, "Creusa! Creusa!" when at last a familiar voice replied, and before him he saw, not, alas! Creusa, but her ghost, larger than human, gazing down on him with eyes of infinite pity. "Why," it whispered, "this wild grief? Nothing, dear lord, is here for tears. 'Twas not the will of heaven that I should share thy wanderings and toils. Be of good heart. In the far west, so fate ordains, where Tiber rolls his yellow tide, thou shalt found a new empire and espouse a princess of the land. Nor need'st thou pity my less fortunate lot. I have known all the joys of married bliss, and my body shall rest in the soil that gave me birth. No proud Greek will boast that he bears home in his captive train her who was the wife of Æneas, the daughter-in-law of Venus. And now, fare thee well. Forget not our sweet child, and her who bore him."
"Thrice he essayed with arms outstretched to clasp
Her shade, and thrice it slipped from his fond grasp,
Like frolic airs that o'er a still lake play,
Or dreams that vanish at the break of day."
ÆNEAS AND DIDO
BY V. C. TURNBULL
Hardly less renowned than the wanderings of crafty Ulysses, after the fall of Troy, are those of pious Æneas, the Trojan. Many were his adventures and heavy his losses, for he was pursued evermore by the hatred of Juno, who detested all Trojans, and but for the protecting care of his mother Venus he must have perished.
On the Sicilian shore he had lost his aged father, Anchises, and Æneas mourned his good old sire, whom he had carried on his shoulders from burning Troy.
Thence he set sail with his son Iulus to Italy. But when they had put forth to sea, Juno smote them with a terrible storm, so that Æneas lost all but seven ships of his fleet and not a few of his comrades perished. He himself, with his son Iulus and his friend Achates, was driven out of his course and carried to the shores of Libya. Here the Trojans disembarked and thankfully rested their brine-drenched limbs on the beach. And when they had feasted off the grain brought from their ships, and the venison procured for them by their captain's bow, Æneas, taking with him only Achates, set forth to survey this unexplored country.
On their way through a forest they met a fair maid in the garb of a huntress, and of her they inquired what land this might be and who dwelt therein. She told them they had come to the land and city of Carthage, over which ruled the Tyrian Queen Dido. She told them, moreover, that the Queen had once ruled in Tyre, the consort of Sichæus, a Phœnician prince, and that when her lord had been murdered by his cruel brother Pygmalion, she had fled to Libya, where even now she was rearing the stately city of Carthage. And she bade them seek the Queen and throw themselves on her protection. Æneas had gazed in wonder and admiration at the maiden, deeming her some nymph of Dian's train, and he was about, on bended knee, to give her thanks when she turned on him a parting glance. And lo! the goddess stood revealed, radiant in celestial beauty; and as he recognized his mother, she had vanished from his sight.