BOOK I

Arms and the man I sing,[1] who at the first from Troy’s[2] shores the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her Latian[3] coast—a man much buffeted on land and on the deep by violence from above, to sate the unforgetting wrath of Juno[4] the cruel—much[5] scourged too in war, as he 5 struggled to build him a city, and find his gods a home in Latium—himself the father of the Latian people, and the chiefs of Alba’s[6] houses, and the walls of high towering Rome.

Bring to my mind, O Muse,[7] the causes—for what 10 treason against her godhead, or what pain received, the queen of heaven drove a man of piety so signal to turn the wheel of so many calamities, to bear the brunt of so many hardships! Can heavenly natures hate[8] so fiercely and so long? 15

Of old there was a city, its people emigrants from Tyre,[9] Carthage, over against Italy and Tiber’s mouths, yet far removed—rich and mighty, and formed to all roughness by war’s[10] iron trade—a spot where Juno, it was said, loved to dwell more than in all the world beside, 20 Samos[11] holding but the second place. Here was her armour, here her chariot—here to fix by her royal act the empire of the nations, could Fate be brought to assent, was even then her aim, her cherished scheme. But she had heard that the blood of Troy was sowing the seed of a 25 race to overturn one day those Tyrian towers—from that seed a nation, monarch of broad realms and glorious in war, was to bring ruin on Libya[12]—such the turning of Fate’s[13] wheel. With these fears Saturn’s[14] daughter, and with a lively memory of that old war which at first she had waged at Troy for her loved Argos’[15] sake—nor indeed had the causes of that feud and the bitter pangs they roused yet vanished from her mind—no, stored up 5 in her soul’s depths remains the judgment of Paris,[16] and the wrong done to her slighted beauty, and the race abhorred from the womb, and the state enjoyed by the ravished Ganymede.[17] With this fuel added to the fire, the Trojans, poor remnants of Danaan[18] havoc and 10 Achilles’[19] ruthless spear, she was tossing from sea to sea, and keeping far away from Latium; and for many long years they were wandering, with destiny still driving them, the whole ocean round. So vast the effort it cost to build up the Roman nation! 15

Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they spreading their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering with their brazen prows the briny spray, when Juno, the everlasting wound still rankling in her heart’s core, thus communed with herself: “And am I to give up what I have 20 taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to prevent the king of the Teucrians[20] from reaching Italy—because, forsooth, the Fates forbid me? What! was Pallas[21] strong enough to burn up utterly the Grecian fleet, and whelm the crews in the sea, for the offence of a single man, the frenzy of 25 Ajax,[22] Oïleus’ son? Aye, she with her own hand launched from the clouds Jove’s[23] winged fire, dashed the ships apart, and turned up the sea-floor with the wind—him, gasping out the flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the blast, and impaled on a rock’s[24] point—while I, who walk 30 the sky as its queen, Jove’s sister and consort both, am battling with a single nation these many years. And are there any found to pray to Juno’s deity after this, or lay on her altar a suppliant’s gift?”

With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 35 her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm-cloud’s birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern blasts, Æolia.[25] Here, in a vast cavern,[26] King Æolus[27] is bowing to his sway struggling winds and howling tempests, and bridling them with bond[28] and prison. They, in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while the huge rock roars responsive: Æolus is sitting aloft in his fortress, his sceptre in his hand, soothing their moods 5 and allaying their rage; were he to fail in this, why sea and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be forced along by their blast, and swept through the air. But the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark and deep, with this fear before his eyes, and placed over them 10 giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them a king who, by the terms of his compact, should know how to tighten or slacken the reins at his patron’s will. To him it was that Juno then, in these words, made her humble request:— 15

“Æolus—for it is to thee that the sire of gods and king of men has given it with the winds now to calm, now to rouse the billows—there is a race which I love not now sailing the Tyrrhene[29] sea, carrying Ilion[30] into Italy and Ilion’s vanquished gods; do thou lash the winds to fury, 20 sink and whelm their ships, or scatter them apart, and strew the ocean with their corpses. Twice seven nymphs are of my train, all of surpassing beauty; of these her whose form is fairest, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in lasting wedlock, and consecrate her thy own, that all her days, for a 25 service so great, she may pass with thee, and make thee father of a goodly progeny.”

Æolus returns: “Thine, great Queen, is the task to search out on what thou mayest fix thy heart; for me to do thy bidding[31] is but right. Thou makest this poor realm 30 mine, mine the sceptre and Jove’s smile; thou givest me a couch at the banquets of the gods, and makest me lord of the storm-cloud and of the tempest.”

So soon as this was said, he turned his spear, and pushed the hollow mountain on its side; and the winds, as though 35 in column formed, rush forth[32] where they see any outlet, and sweep over the earth in hurricane. Heavily they fall[33] on the sea, and from its very bottom crash down the whole expanse—one and all, east and south, and south-west, with his storms thronging at his back, and roll huge billows shoreward. Hark to the shrieks of the crew, and the creaking of the cables! In an instant the clouds snatch sky and daylight[34] from the Teucrians’ eyes—night 5 lies on the deep, black and heavy—pole thunders to pole; heaven flashes thick with fires, and all nature brandishes instant death in the seaman’s face. At once Æneas’[35] limbs are unstrung and chilled[36]—he groans aloud, and, stretching his clasped hands to the stars, 10 fetches from his breast words like these:—“O happy, thrice[37] and again, whose lot it was, in their fathers’ sight, under Troy’s high walls to meet death! O thou, the bravest of the Danaan race, Tydeus’ son,[38] why was it not mine to lay me low on Ilion’s plains, and yield this fated life to 15 thy right hand? Aye, there it is that Hector,[39] stern as in life, lies stretched by the spear of Æacides[40]—there lies Sarpedon’s[41] giant bulk—there it is that Simois[42] seizes and sweeps down her channel those many shields and helms, and bodies of the brave!” 20

Such words as he flung wildly forth, a blast roaring from the north strikes his sail full in front and lifts the billows to the stars.[43] Shattered are the oars; then the prow turns and presents the ship’s side to the waves; down crashes in a heap a craggy mountain of water. Look! 25 these are hanging on the surge’s crest[44]—to those the yawning deep is giving a glimpse of land down among the billows; surf and sand are raving together. Three ships the south catches, and flings upon hidden rocks—rocks 30 which, as they stand with the waves all about them, the Italians call Altars, an enormous ridge rising above the sea. Three the east drives from the main on to shallows and Syrtes,[45] a piteous sight, and dashes them on shoals, and embanks them in mounds of sand. One in which the Lycians were sailing, and true Orontes, a 35 mighty sea strikes from high on the stem before Æneas’ very eyes; down goes the helmsman, washed from his post, and topples on his head, while she is thrice whirled round by the billow in the spot where she lay, and swallowed at once by the greedy gulf. You might see them here and there swimming in that vast abyss—heroes’ arms, and planks, and Troy’s treasures glimmering through the water. Already Ilioneus’ stout ship, already brave 5 Achates’, and that in which Abas sailed, and that which carried old Aletes, are worsted by the storm; their side-jointings[46] loosened, one and all give entrance to the watery foe, and part failingly asunder.

Meantime the roaring riot of the ocean and the storm let 10 loose reached the sense of Neptune,[47] and the still waters disgorged from their deep beds, troubling him grievously; and casting a broad glance over the main he raised at once his tranquil brow from the water’s surface. There he sees Æneas’ fleet tossed hither and thither over the 15 whole expanse—the Trojans whelmed under the billows, and the crashing ruin of the sky—nor failed the brother to read Juno’s craft and hatred there. East and West he calls before him, and bespeaks them thus:—“Are ye then so wholly o’ermastered by the pride of your birth? 20 Have ye come to this, ye Winds, that, without sanction from me, ye dare to confound[48] sea and land, and upheave these mighty mountains? ye! whom I—but it were best to calm the billows ye have troubled. Henceforth ye shall pay me for your crimes in far other coin. Make 25 good speed with your flight, and give your king this message. Not to him did the lot assign the empire of the sea and the terrible trident, but to me. His sway is over those enormous rocks, where you, Eurus,[49] dwell, and such as you; in that court let Æolus lord it, and rule in the prison-house 30 of the winds when its doors are barred.”

He speaks, and ere his words are done soothes the swelling waters, and routs[50] the mustered clouds, and brings back the sun in triumph. Cymothoë and Triton[51] combine their efforts to push off the vessels from the sharp-pointed 35 rock. The god himself upheaves them with his own trident,[52] and levels the great quicksands, and allays the sea, and on chariot-wheels of lightest motion glides along the water’s top. Even as when in a great crowd tumult is oft stirred up, and the base herd waxes wild and frantic, and brands and stones are flying already, rage suiting the weapon[53] to the hand—at that moment, should their eyes fall on some man of weight, for duty done and public 5 worth, tongues are hushed and ears fixed in attention, while his words sway the spirit and soothe the breast—so fell all the thunders of the ocean, so soon as the great father, with the waves before him in prospect, and the clear sky all about him, guides his steeds at will, and as he 10 flies flings out the reins freely to his obedient car.

Spent with toil, the family of Æneas labour to gain the shore that may be nearest, and are carried to the coasts of Libya. There is a spot retiring deep into the land, where an island forms a haven[54] by the barrier of its sides, which 15 break every billow from the main and send it shattered into the deep indented hollows. On either side of the bay are huge rocks, and two great crags rising in menace to the sky; under their summits far and wide the water is hushed in shelter, while a theatric background of waving woods, 20 a black forest of stiffening shade, overhangs it from the height. Under the brow that fronts the deep is a cave with pendent crags; within there are fresh springs and seats in the living rock—the home of the nymphs; no need of cable[55] here to confine the weary bark or anchor’s 25 crooked fang to grapple her to the shore. Here with seven ships mustered from his whole fleet Æneas enters; and with intense yearning for dry land the Trojans disembark and take possession of the wished-for shore, and lay their brine-drenched limbs upon the beach. And first Achates 30 from a flint struck out a spark, and received the fire as it dropped in a cradle of leaves, and placed dry food all about it, and spread the strong blaze among the tinder. Then their corn, soaked and spoiled as it was, and the corn-goddess’ armoury they bring out, sick of fortune; and make 35 ready to parch the rescued grain at the fire, and crush it with the millstone.

Æneas meanwhile clambers up a rock, and tries to get a full view far and wide over the sea, if haply he may see aught of Antheus, driven by the gale, and the Phrygian biremes,[56] or Capys, or high on the stern the arms of Caicus. Sail there is none in sight; three stags he sees at distance straying on the shore; these the whole herd follows in the 5 rear, and grazes along the hollows in long array. At once he took his stand, and caught up a bow and fleet arrows, which true Achates chanced to be carrying, and lays low first the leaders themselves, as they bear their heads aloft with tree-like antlers, then the meaner sort, and scatters with 10 his pursuing shafts the whole rout among the leafy woods; nor stays his hand till he stretches on earth victoriously seven huge bodies, and makes the sum of them even with his ships. Then he returns to the haven and gives all his comrades their shares. The wine next, which that good 15 Acestes had stowed in casks on the Trinacrian shore, and given them at parting with his own princely hand, he portions out, and speaks words of comfort to their sorrowing hearts:—

“Comrades! for comrades we are, no strangers to hardships 20 already; hearts that have felt deeper wounds! for these too heaven will find a balm. Why, men, you have even looked on Scylla[57] in her madness, and heard those yells that thrill the rocks; you have even made trial of the crags of the Cyclops.[58] Come, call your spirits back, 25 and banish these doleful fears—who knows but some day this too will be remembered[59] with pleasure? Through manifold chances, through these many perils of fortune, we are making our way to Latium, where the Fates hold out to us a quiet settlement; there Troy’s empire has 30 leave to rise again from its ashes. Bear up, and reserve yourselves for brighter days.”

Such were the words his tongue uttered; heart-sick[60] with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of hope in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. They 35 gird themselves to deal with the game, their forthcoming meal; strip the hide from the ribs, and lay bare the flesh—some cut it into pieces, and impale it yet quivering on spits, others set up the caldrons on the beach, and supply them with flame. Then with food they recall their strength, and, stretched along the turf, feast on old wine and fat venison to their hearts’ content. Their hunger sated by the meal, and the boards removed, they vent in 5 long talk their anxious yearning for their missing comrades—balanced between hope and fear, whether to think of them as alive, or as suffering the last change, and deaf already to the voice that calls on them. But good Æneas’ grief exceeds the rest; one moment he groans for 10 bold Orontes’ fortune, another for Amycus’, and in the depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus; for the gallant Gyas and the gallant Cloanthus.

And now at last their mourning had an end, when Jupiter from the height of ether,[61] looking down on the sea 15 with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, the shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus upon heaven’s very summit, and fixed his downward gaze on Libya’s realms. To him, revolving in his breast such thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, with tears suffusing 20 her starry eyes, speaks Venus: “O thou, who by thy everlasting laws swayest the two commonwealths of men and gods, and awest them by thy lightning! What can my poor Æneas have done to merit thy wrath? What can the Trojans? yet they, after the many deaths they 25 have suffered already, still find the whole world barred[62] against them for Italy’s sake. From them assuredly it was that the Romans, as years rolled on—from them were to spring those warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer’s blood revived, who should rule sea and land with absolute sway—such 30 was thy promise: how has thy purpose, O my father, wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was my constant solace when Troy’s star set in grievous ruin, as I sat balancing destiny against destiny. And now here is the same Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has so oft discomfited 35 already. Mighty king, what end of sufferings hast thou to give them? Antenor,[63] indeed, found means to escape through the midst of the Achæans, to thread in safety the windings of the Illyrian coast, and the realms of the Liburnians, up at the gulf’s head, and to pass the springs of Timavus, whence through nine mouths,’mid the rocks’ responsive roar, the sea comes bursting up, and deluges the fields with its thundering billows. Yet in that spot 5 he built the city of Patavium for his Trojans to dwell in, and gave them a place and a name among the nations, and set up a rest for the arms[64] of Troy: now he reposes, lapped in the calm of peace. Meantime we, of thine own blood, to whom thy nod secures the pinnacle of heaven, our ships, 10 most monstrous, lost, as thou seest, all to sate the malice of one cruel heart, are given up to ruin, and severed far from the Italian shores. Is this the reward of piety[65]? Is this to restore a king to his throne?”

Smiling on her, the planter of gods and men, with that 15 face which calms the fitful moods of the sky, touched with a kiss his daughter’s lips, then addressed her thus: “Give thy fears a respite, lady of Cythera[66]: thy people’s destiny abides still unchanged for thee; thine eyes shall see the city of thy heart, the promised walls of Lavinium[67]; 20 thine arms shall bear aloft to the stars of heaven thy hero Æneas; nor has my purpose wrought a change in me. Thy hero—for I will speak out, in pity for the care that rankles yet, and awaken the secrets of Fate’s book from the distant pages where they slumber—thy hero shall 25 wage a mighty war in Italy, crush its haughty tribes, and set up for his warriors a polity and a city, till the third summer shall have seen him king over Latium, and three winters in camp shall have passed over the Rutulians’[68] defeat. But the boy Ascanius,[69] who has now the new 30 name of Iulus—Ilus he was, while the royalty of Ilion’s state stood firm—shall let thirty of the sun’s great courses fulfil their monthly rounds while he is sovereign, then transfer the empire from Lavinium’s seat, and build Alba the Long, with power and might. Here for full three 35 hundred years the crown shall be worn by Hector’s[70] line, till a royal priestess, teeming by the war-god, Ilia, shall be the mother of twin sons. Then shall there be one, proud to wear the tawny hide of the wolf that nursed him, Romulus, who will take up the sceptre, and build a new city, the city of Mars, and give the people his own name of Roman. To them I assign no limit, no date of empire: my grant to them is dominion without end. Nay, Juno, 5 thy savage foe, who now, in her blind terror, lets neither sea, land, nor heaven rest, shall amend her counsels, and vie with me in watching over the Romans, lords of earth, the great nation of the gown. So it is willed. The time shall come, as Rome’s years roll on, when the house of 10 Assaracus[71] shall bend to its yoke Phthia[72] and renowned Mycenæ,[73] and queen it over vanquished Argos.[74] Then shall be born the child of an illustrious line, one of thine own Trojans, Cæsar, born to extend his empire to the ocean, his glory to the stars,[75]—Julius, in name as in blood the heir of 15 great Iulus. Him thou shalt one day welcome in safety to the sky, a warrior laden with Eastern spoils; to him, as to Æneas, men shall pray and make their vows. In his days war[76] shall cease, and savage times grow mild. Faith with her hoary head, and Vesta,[77] Quirinus,[78] and Remus his 20 brother, shall give law to the world: grim, iron-bound, closely welded, the gates of war shall be closed; the fiend of Discord a prisoner within, seated on a pile of arms deadly as himself, his hands bound behind his back with a hundred brazen chains, shall roar ghastly from his throat of blood.” 25

So saying, he sends down from on high the son of Maia,[79] that Carthage the new, her lands and her towers, may open themselves to welcome in the Teucrians, lest Dido,[80] in her ignorance of Fate, should drive them from her borders. Down flies Mercury through the vast abyss of 30 air, with his wings for oars, and has speedily alighted on the shore of Libya. See! he is doing his bidding already: the Punic[81] nation is resigning the fierceness of its nature at the god’s pleasure; above all the rest, the queen is admitting into her bosom thoughts of peace towards the 35 Teucrians, and a heart of kindness.

But Æneas the good, revolving many things the whole night through, soon as the gracious dawn is vouchsafed, resolves to go out and explore this new region; to inquire what shores be these on which the wind has driven him, who their dwellers, for he sees it is a wilderness, men or beasts; and bring his comrades back the news. His fleet he hides in the wooded cove under a hollow rock, 5 with a wall of trees and stiffening shade on each side. He moves on with Achates, his single companion, wielding in his hands two spear shafts, with heads of broad iron. He had reached the middle of the wood, when his way was crossed by his mother, wearing a maiden’s mien and 10 dress, and a maiden’s armour, Spartan, or even as Harpalyce of Thrace, tires steed after steed, and heads the swift waters of her own Hebrus as she flies along. For she had a shapely bow duly slung from her shoulders in true huntress fashion, and her hair streaming in the wind, her knee 15 bare, and her flowing scarf gathered round her in a knot. Soon as she sees them, “Ho![82] youths,” cries she, “if you have chanced to see one of my sisters wandering in these parts, tell me where to find her—wandering with a quiver, and a spotted lynx hide fastened about her; or, it may 20 be, pressing on the heels of the foaming boar with her hounds in full cry.”

Thus Venus spoke, and Venus’ son replied:—“No sight or hearing have we had of any sister of thine, O thou—what name shall I give thee? maiden; for thy face is not 25 of earth, nor the tone of thy voice human: some goddess[83] surely thou art. Phœbus’[84] sister belike, or one of the blood of the nymphs? be gracious, whoe’er thou art, and relieve our hardship, and tell us under what sky now, on what realms of earth we are thrown. Utter strangers 30 to the men and the place, we are wandering, as thou seest, by the driving of the wind and of the mighty waters. Do this, and many a victim shall fall to thee at the altar by this hand of mine.”

Then Venus:—“Nay, I can lay claim to no such honours. 35 Tyrian maidens, like me, are wont to carry the quiver, and tie the purple buskin high up the calf. This that you now see is the Punic realm, the nation Tyrian and the town Agenor’s[85]; but on the frontiers are the Libyans, a race ill to handle in war. The queen is Dido, who left her home in Tyre to escape from her brother. Lengthy is her tale of wrong, lengthy the windings of its course; but I will pass rapidly from point to point. Her 5 husband was Sychæus, wealthiest of Phœnician landowners, and loved by his poor wife with fervid passion; on him her father had bestowed her in her maiden bloom, linking them together by the omens of a first bridal. But the crown of Tyre was on the head of her brother, Pygmalion, 10 in crime monstrous beyond the rest of men. They were two, and fury came between them. Impious that he was, at the very altar of the palace, the love of gold blinding his eyes, he surprises Sychæus with his stealthy steel, and lays him low, without a thought for 15 his sister’s passion; he kept the deed long concealed, and with many a base coinage sustained the mockery of false hope[86] in her pining love-lorn heart. But lo! in her sleep there came to her no less than the semblance of her unburied spouse, lifting up a face of strange unearthly 20 pallor; the ruthless altar and his breast gored with the steel, he laid bare the one and the other, and unveiled from first to last the dark domestic crime. Then he urges her to speed her flight, and quit her home for ever, and in aid of her journey unseals a hoard of treasure long hid in 25 the earth, a mass of silver and gold which none else knew. Dido’s soul was stirred; she began to make ready her flight, and friends to share it. There they meet, all whose hate of the tyrant was fell or whose fear was bitter; ships, that chanced to lie ready in the harbour, they seize, and 30 freight with gold. Away it floats over the deep, the greedy Pygmalion’s wealth; and who heads the enterprise? a woman[87]! So they came to the spot where you now see yonder those lofty walls, and the rising citadel of Carthage the new; there they bought ground, which 35 got from the transaction the name of Byrsa,[88] as much as they could compass round with a bull’s hide. But who are you after all? What coast are you come from, or whither are you holding on your journey?” That question he answers thus, with a heavy sigh, and a voice fetched from the bottom of his heart:—

“Fair goddess! should I begin from the first and proceed in order, and hadst thou leisure to listen to the chronicle 5 of our sufferings, eve would first close the Olympian gates and lay the day to sleep. For us, bound from ancient Troy, if the name of Troy has ever chanced to pass through a Tyrian ear, wanderers over divers seas already, we have been driven by a storm’s wild will upon your Libyan 10 coasts. I am Æneas, styled the good, who am bearing with me in my fleet the gods of Troy rescued from the foe; a name blazed by rumour above the stars. I am in quest of Italy, looking there for an ancestral home, and a pedigree drawn from high Jove himself. With twice ten 15 ships I climbed the Phrygian main, with a goddess mother guiding me on my way, and a chart of oracles to follow. Scarce seven remain to me now, shattered by wind and wave. Here am I, a stranger, nay, a beggar, wandering over your Libyan deserts, driven from Europe and Asia 20 alike.” Venus could bear the complaint no longer, so she thus struck into the middle of his sorrows:—

“Whoever you are, it is not, I trow, under the frown of heavenly powers that you draw the breath of life,[89] thus to have arrived at our Tyrian town. Only go on, and make 25 your way straight hence to the queen’s palace. For I give you news that your comrades are returned and your fleet brought back, wafted into shelter by shifting gales, unless my learning of augury was vain, and the parents who taught me cheats. Look at these twelve swans 30 exultant in victorious column, which the bird of Jove,[90] swooping from the height of ether, was just now driving in confusion over the wide unsheltered sky; see now how their line stretches, some alighting on the ground, others just looking down on those alighted. As they, thus rallied, 35 ply their whirring wings[91] in sport, spreading their train round the sky, and uttering songs of triumph, even so your vessels and your gallant crews are either safe in the port, or entering the haven with sails full spread. Only go on, and where the way leads you direct your steps.”

She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their sight her neck’s roseate hue; her ambrosial locks breathed from her head a heavenly fragrance; her robe streamed down 5 to her very feet; and in her walk[92] was revealed the true goddess. Soon as he knew his mother, he pursued her flying steps with words like these:—“Why wilt thou be cruel like the rest, mocking thy son these many times with feigned semblances? Why is it not mine to grasp 10 thy hand in my hand, and hear and return the true language of the heart?” Such are his upbraidings, while he yet bends his way to the town. But Venus fenced them round with a dim cloud as they moved, and wrapped them as a goddess only can in a spreading mantle of mist, that 15 none might be able to see them, none to touch them, or put hindrances in their path, or ask the reason of their coming. She takes her way aloft to Paphos,[93] glad to revisit the abode she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred altars, smoking with Sabæan[94] incense, and fragrant with 20 garlands ever new.

They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where the path guides them, and already they are climbing the hill which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from above on the towers that rise to meet it. Æneas marvels at the 25 mass of building, once a mere village of huts; marvels at the gates, and the civic din, and the paved ways. The Tyrians are alive and on fire—intent, some on carrying the walls aloft and upheaving the citadel, and rolling stones from underneath by force of hand; some on making 30 choice of a site for a dwelling, and enclosing it with a trench. They are ordaining the law and its guardians, and the senate’s sacred majesty. Here are some digging out havens; there are others laying deep the foundation of a theatre, and hewing from the rocks enormous columns, 35 the lofty ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the toils that keep the commonwealth of bees[95] at work in the sun among the flowery meads when summer is new, what time they lead out the nation’s hope, the young now grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, or relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or collect a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, that lazy, 5 thriftless herd. The work is all afire, and a scent of thyme breathes from the fragrant honey. “O happy they, whose city is rising already!” cries Æneas, as he looks upward to roof and dome. In he goes, close fenced by his cloud, miraculous to tell, threads his way through the midst, 10 and mingles with the citizens, unperceived of all.

A grove there was in the heart of the city, most plenteous of shade—the spot where first, fresh from the buffeting of wave and wind, the Punic race dug up the token which queenly Juno had bidden them expect, the head of a fiery 15 steed—for even thus, said she, the nation should be renowned in war and rich in sustenance for a life of centuries. Here Dido, Sidon’s[96] daughter, was building a vast temple to Juno, rich in offerings and in the goddess’s especial presence; of brass was the threshold with its rising steps, 20 clamped with brass the door-posts, the hinge creaked on a door of brass. In this grove it was that first a new object appeared, as before, to soothe away fear: here it was that Æneas first dared to hope that all was safe, and to place a better trust in his shattered fortunes. For while his eye 25 ranges over each part under the temple’s massy roof, as he waits there for the queen—while he is marvelling at the city’s prosperous star, the various artist-hands vying with each other, their tasks and the toil they cost, he beholds, scene after scene, the battles of Ilion, and the 30 war that Fame had already blazed the whole world over—Atreus’[o] sons, and Priam, and the enemy of both, Achilles. He stopped short, and breaking into tears, “What place is there left?” he cries, “Achates, what clime on earth that is not full of our sad story? See there 35 Priam. Here, too, worth finds its due reward; here, too, there are tears[97] for human fortune, and hearts that are touched by mortality. Be free from fear: this renown of ours will bring you some measure of safety.” So speaking, he feeds his soul on the empty portraiture, with many a sigh, and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For he still saw how, as they battled round Pergamus,[98] here the Greeks were flying, the Trojan youth in hot pursuit; 5 here the Phrygians, at their heels in his car Achilles, with that dreadful crest. Not far from this he recognizes with tears the snowy canvas of Rhesus’ tent, which, all surprised in its first sleep, Tydeus’ son was devastating with wide carnage, himself bathed in blood—see! he drives off 10 the fiery steeds to his own camp, ere they have had time to taste the pastures of Troy or drink of Xanthus.[99] There in another part is Troilus[100] in flight, his arms fallen from him—unhappy boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal combat—hurried away by his horses, and hanging half 15 out of the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the reins still in his hand; his neck and his hair are being trailed along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas,[101] not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with locks 20 dishevelled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant guise of mourning, their breasts bruised with their hands—the goddess was keeping her eyes riveted on the ground, with her face turned away. Thrice had Achilles dragged Hector round the walls of Ilion, and was now selling for 25 gold his body, thus robbed of breath. Then, indeed, heavy was the groan that he gave from the bottom of his heart, when he saw the spoils, the car, the very body of his friend, and Priam, stretching out those helpless hands. Himself, too, he recognizes in the forefront of 30 the Achæan ranks, and the squadrons of the East, and the arms of the swarthy Memnon.[102] There, leading the columns of her Amazons, with their moony shields, is Penthesilea[103] in her martial frenzy, blazing out, the centre of thousands, as she loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 35 the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of combat, a maiden against men.

While these things are meeting the wondering eyes of Æneas the Dardan—while he is standing bewildered, and continues riveted in one set gaze—the queen has moved towards the temple, Dido, of loveliest presence, with a vast train of youths thronging round her. Like as on Eurotas’ banks, or along the ridges of Cynthus, 5 Diana[104] is footing the dance, while, attending her, a thousand mountain nymphs are massing themselves on either side; she, her quiver on her shoulder, as she steps, towers over the whole goddess sisterhood, while Latona’s[105] bosom thrills silently with delight; such was Dido—such she 10 bore herself triumphant through the midst, to speed the work which had empire for its prospect. Then, at the doors of the goddess, under the midmost vaulting of the temple, with a fence of arms round her, supported high on a throne, she took her seat. There she was giving laws and judgments 15 to her citizens, and equalizing the burden of their tasks by fair partition, or draughting it by lot, when suddenly Æneas sees coming among the great crowd Antheus and Sergestus, and brave Cloanthus, and other of the Teucrians, whom the black storm had scattered over the 20 deep, and carried far away to other coasts. Astounded was he, overwhelmed, too, was Achates, all for joy and fear: eagerly were they burning to join hands with theirs, but the unexplained mystery confounds their minds. They carry on the concealment, and look out from the 25 hollow cloud that wraps them, to learn what fortune their mates have had, on what shore they are leaving their fleet, what is their errand here—for they were on their way, a deputation from all the crews, suing for grace, and were making for the temple with loud cries. 30

After they had gained an entrance, and had obtained leave to speak in the presence, Ilioneus, the eldest, thus began, calm of soul:—

“Gracious queen, to whom Jupiter has given to found a new city, and to restrain by force of law the pride of savage 35 nations, we, hapless Trojans, driven by the winds over every sea, make our prayer to you—keep off from our ships the horrors of fire, have pity on a pious race, and vouchsafe a nearer view to our affairs. We are not come to carry the havoc of the sword into the homes of Libya—to snatch booty and hurry it to the shore; such violence is not in our nature; such insolence were not for the vanquished. There is a place—the Greeks call it 5 Hesperia—a land old in story, strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of its soil; the Œnotrians were its settlers; now report says that later generations have called the nation Italian, from the name of their leader. Thither were we voyaging, when, rising with a sudden swell, Orion,[106] 10 lord of the storm, carried us into hidden shoals, and far away by the stress of reckless gales over the water, the surge mastering us, and over pathless rocks scattered us here and there: a small remnant, we drifted hither on to your shores. What race of men have we here? What 15 country is so barbarous as to sanction a native usage like this? Even the hospitality of the sand is forbidden us—they draw the sword, and will not let us set foot on the land’s edge. If you defy the race of men, and the weapons that mortals wield, yet look to have to do with gods, who 20 watch over the right and the wrong. Æneas was our king, than whom never man breathed more just, more eminent in piety, or in war and martial prowess. If the Fates are keeping our hero alive—if he is feeding on this upper air, and not yet lying down in death’s cruel shade—all 25 our fears are over, nor need you be sorry to have made the first advance in the contest of kindly courtesy. The realm of Sicily, too, has cities for us, and store of arms, and a hero-king of Trojan blood, Acestes.[o] Give us leave but to lay up on shore our storm-beaten fleet, to fashion 30 timber in your forests, and strip boughs for our oars, that, if we are allowed to sail for Italy, our comrades and king restored to us, we may make our joyful way to Italy and to Latium; or, if our safety is swallowed up, and thou, best father of the Teucrians, art the prey of the Libyan 35 deep, and a nation’s hope lives no longer in Iulus, then, at least, we may make for Sicania’s straits, and the houses standing to welcome us, whence we came hither, and may find a king in Acestes.” Such was the speech of Ilioneus; an accordant clamour burst at once from all the sons of Dardanus.

Then briefly Dido, with downcast look, makes reply:—“Teucrians! unburden your hearts of fear, lay your anxieties 5 aside. It is the stress of danger and the infancy of my kingdom that make me put this policy in motion and protect my frontiers with a guard all about. The men of Æneas and the city of Troy—who can be ignorant of them?—the deeds and the doers, and all the blaze of that 10 mighty war? Not so blunt are the wits we Punic folk carry with us, not so wholly does the sun turn his back on our Tyrian town when he harnesses his steeds. Whether you make your choice of Hesperia the great, and the old realm of Saturn, or of the borders of Eryx and their 15 king Acestes, I will send you on your way with an escort to protect you, and will supply you with stores. Or would you like to settle along with me in my kingdom here? Look at the city I am building, it is yours, lay up your ships, Trojan and Tyrian shall be dealt with by me without 20 distinction. Would to heaven your king were here too, driven by the gale that drove you hither—Æneas himself! For myself, I will send trusty messengers along the coast, with orders to traverse the furthest parts of Libya, in case he should be shipwrecked and wandering anywhere in 25 forest or town.”

Excited by her words, brave Achates and father Æneas, too, were burning long ere this to break out of their cloud. Achates first accosts Æneas:—“Goddess-born, what purpose now is foremost in your mind? All you see is safe, 30 our fleet and our mates are restored to us. One is missing, whom our own eyes saw in the midst of the surge swallowed up, all the rest is even as your mother told us.”

Scarce had he spoken when the cloud that enveloped them suddenly parts asunder and clears into the open sky. 35 Out stood Æneas, and shone[107] again in the bright sunshine, his face and his bust the image of a god, for his great mother had shed graceful tresses over her son’s brow, and the glowing flush of youth, and had breathed the breath of beauty and gladness into his eyes, loveliness such as the artist’s touch imparts to ivory, or when silver or Parian marble is enchased[108] with yellow gold. Then he addresses the queen, and speaks suddenly to the astonishment 5 of all:—“Here am I whom you are seeking, before you,—Æneas, the Trojan, snatched from the jaws of the Libyan wave. O heart that alone of all has found pity for Troy’s cruel agonies—that makes us, poor remnants of Danaan fury, utterly spent by all the chances of land and 10 sea, destitute of all, partners of its city, of its very palace! To pay such a debt of gratitude, Dido, is more than we can do—more than can be done by all the survivors of the Dardan nation, now scattered the wide world over. May the gods—if there are powers that regard the pious, if 15 justice and conscious rectitude count for aught anywhere on earth—may they give you the reward you merit! What age had the happiness to bring you forth? what godlike parents gave such nobleness to the world? While the rivers run into the sea, while the shadows sweep along 20 the mountain-sides, while the stars draw life from the sky, your glory and your name and your praise shall still endure, whatever the land whose call I must obey.” So saying, he stretches out his right hand to his friend Ilioneus, his left to Serestus, and so on to others, gallant Gyas 25 and gallant Cloanthus.

Astounded was Dido, Sidon’s daughter, first at the hero’s presence, then at his enormous sufferings, and she bespoke him thus:—“What chance is it, goddess-born, that is hunting you through such a wilderness of perils? what 30 violence throws you on our savage coasts? Are you, indeed, the famed Æneas, whom to Anchises the Dardan, Venus, queen of light and love, bore by the stream of Simois? Aye, I remember Teucer coming to Sidon, driven from the borders of his fatherland, hoping to gain a new 35 kingdom by the aid of Belus. Belus, my sire, was then laying waste the rich fields of Cyprus, and ruling the isle with a conqueror’s sway. Ever since that time I knew the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. 5 I, too, have had a fortune like yours, which, after the buffeting of countless sufferings, has been pleased that I should find rest in this land at last. Myself no stranger to sorrow, I am learning[109] to succour the unhappy.” With these words, at the same moment she ushers 10 Æneas into her queenly palace, and orders a solemn sacrifice at the temples of the gods. Meantime, as if this were nought, she sends to his comrades at the shore twenty bulls, a hundred huge swine with backs all bristling, a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, and the 15 wine-god’s jovial bounty.

But the palace within is laid out with all the splendour of regal luxury, and in the centre of the mansion they are making ready for the banquet; the coverlets are embroidered and of princely purple—on the tables is massy 20 silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits of Tyrian ancestors, a long, long chain of story, derived through hero after hero ever since the old nation was young.

Æneas, for his fatherly love would not leave his heart at rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships to tell Ascanius 25 the news and conduct him to the city. On Ascanius all a fond parent’s anxieties are centred. Presents, moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he bids him bring—a pall stiff with figures of gold, and a veil with a border of yellow acanthus,[110] adornments of Argive 30 Helen,[111] which she carried away from Mycenæ, when she went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, her mother Leda’s marvellous gift; the sceptre, too, which Ilione had once borne, the eldest of Priam’s daughters, and the string of pearls for the neck, and the double coronal of 35 jewels and gold. With this to despatch, Achates was bending his way to the ships.

But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new devices in her breast, that Cupid,[112] form and feature changed, may arrive in the room of the charmer Ascanius, and by the presents he brings influence the queen to madness, and turn the very marrow of her bones to fire. She fears the two-faced generation, the double-tongued sons of Tyre; Juno’s 5 hatred scorches her like a flame, and as night draws on the care comes back to her. So then with these words she addresses her winged Love:—“My son, who art alone my strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest to scorn our great father’s Typhœan[113] thunderbolts, to thee 10 I fly for aid, and make suppliant prayer of thy majesty. How thy brother Æneas is tossed on the ocean the whole world over by Juno’s implacable rancour I need not tell thee—nay, thou hast often mingled thy grief with mine. He is now the guest of Dido, the Phœnician woman, and 15 the spell of a courteous tongue is laid on him, and I fear what may be the end of taking shelter under Juno’s wing; she will never be idle at a time on which so much hangs. Thus then I am planning to be first in the field, surprising the queen by stratagem, and encompassing 20 her with fire, that no power may be able to work a change in her, but that a mighty passion for Æneas may keep her mine. For the way in which thou mayest bring this about, listen to what I have been thinking. The young heir of royalty, at his loved father’s summons, is making 25 ready to go to this Sidonian city—my soul’s darling that he is—the bearer of presents that have survived the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in deep sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high on Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know or mar 30 our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no more, artfully counterfeit his form, and put on the boy’s usual looks, thyself a boy, that when Dido, at the height of her joy, shall take thee into her lap while the princely board is laden and the vine-god’s liquor flowing, when she shall 35 be caressing thee and printing her fondest kisses on thy cheek, thou mayest breathe concealed fire into her veins, and steal upon her with poison.”[114]

At once Love complies with his fond mother’s words, puts off his wings, and walks rejoicing in the gait of Iulus. As for Ascanius, Venus sprinkles his form all over with the dew of gentle slumber,[115] and carries him, as a goddess may, lapped in her bosom, into Idalia’s lofty groves, where a 5 soft couch of amaracus enfolds him with its flowers, and the fragrant breath of its sweet shade. Meanwhile Cupid was on his way, all obedience, bearing the royal presents to the Tyrians, and glad to follow Achates. When he arrives, he finds the queen already settled on the gorgeous tapestry 10 of a golden couch, and occupying the central place. Already father Æneas, already the chivalry of Troy are flocking in, and stretching themselves here and there on coverlets of purple. There are servants offering them water for their hands, and deftly producing the bread from the 15 baskets, and presenting towels with shorn nap. Within are fifty maidens, whose charge is in course to pile up provisions in lasting store, and light up with fire the gods of the hearth. A hundred others there are, and male attendants of equal number and equal age, to load the table with 20 dishes, and set on the cups. The Tyrians, too, have assembled in crowds through the festive hall, and scatter themselves as invited over the embroidered couches. There is marvelling at Æneas’ presents, marvelling at Iulus, at those glowing features, where the god shines 25 through, and those words which he feigns so well, and at the robe and the veil with the yellow acanthus border. Chief of all, the unhappy victim of coming ruin cannot satisfy herself with gazing,[116] and kindles as she looks, the Phœnician woman, charmed with the boy and the 30 presents alike. He, after he has hung long in Æneas’ arms and round his neck, gratifying the intense fondness of the sire he feigned to be his, finds his way to the queen. She is riveted by him—riveted, eye and heart, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap[117]—poor Dido, unconscious 35 how great a god is sitting heavy on that wretched bosom. But he, with his mind still bent on his Acidalian mother, is beginning to efface the name of Sychæus letter by letter, and endeavouring to surprise by a living passion affections long torpid, and a heart long unused to love.

When the banquet’s first lull was come, and the board removed, then they set up the huge bowls and wreathe the wine. A din rings to the roof—the voice rolls through 5 those spacious halls; lamps[118] hang from the gilded ceiling, burning brightly, and flambeau-fires put out the night. Then the queen called for a cup, heavy with jewels and gold, and filled it with unmixed wine; the same which had been used by Belus, and every king from Belus downward. 10 Then silence was commanded through the hall. “Jupiter, for thou hast the name of lawgiver for guest and host, grant that this day may be auspicious alike for the Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, and that its memory may long live among our posterity. Be with us, Bacchus,[119] 15 the giver of jollity, and Juno, the queen of our blessings; and you, the lords of Tyre, may your goodwill grace this meeting.” She said, and poured on the table an offering of the wine, and, the libation made, touched the cup first with her lips, then handed it to Bitias, rallying his 20 slowness. Eagerly he quaffed the foaming goblet, and drenched himself deep with its brimming gold. Then came the other lords in order. Iopas, the long-haired bard, takes his gilded lyre, and fills the hall with music; he, whose teacher was the mighty Atlas.[120] His song[121] is of 25 the wanderings of the moon and the agonies of the sun, whence sprung man’s race and the cattle, whence rain-water and fire; of Arcturus and the showery Hyades, and the twin Bears; why the winter suns make such haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause that 30 bids the nights move slowly. Plaudits redouble from the Tyrians, and the Trojans follow the lead. With varied talk, too, she kept lengthening out the night, unhappy Dido, drinking draughts of love long and deep, as she asked much about Priam, about Hector much; 35 now what were the arms in which Aurora’s son had come to battle; now what Diomede’s steeds were like; now how great was Achilles. “Or rather, gentle guest,” cries she, “tell us the story from the very first—all about the stratagems of the Danaans, and the sad fate of your country, and your own wanderings—for this is now the seventh summer that is wafting you a wanderer still over every land and wave.”