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 Phœbus' 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 Sychæus' 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 Gætulian cities fierce, a folk unmatched in war,40
And hard Numidia's bitless folk, and Syrtes' guestless sand
Lie round thee: there Barcæans 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 Phœbus, Ceres wise of law, Father Lyæus 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 bow70
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 Dictæ's heights; but in her flank still bears the deadly reed.
Now midmost of the city-walls Æneas 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 shroud80
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 utterly90
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 weal110
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:
Æneas 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.