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 Æneas' 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
Æneas, 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 hornèd 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 Cœus 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 Æneas 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 Lenæan 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 Æneas for her lord:
And now this Paris, hedged around with all his gelding rout,
Mæonian 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 blood230
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."