Aeneas, faithful to a task divine,though yearning sore to remedy and soothesuch misery, and with the timely wordher grief assuage, and though his burdened heartwas weak because of love, while many a groanrose from his bosom, yet no whit did failto do the will of Heaven, but of his fleetresumed command. The Trojans on the shoreply well their task and push into the seathe lofty ships. Now floats the shining keel,and oars they bring all leafy from the grove,with oak half-hewn, so hurried was the flight.Behold them how they haste—from every gateforth-streaming!—just as when a heap of cornis thronged with ants, who, knowing winter nigh,refill their granaries; the long black lineruns o'er the levels, and conveys the spoilin narrow pathway through the grass; a partwith straining and assiduous shoulder pushthe kernels huge; a part array the file,and whip the laggards on; their busy trackswarms quick and eager with unceasing toil.O Dido, how thy suffering heart was wrung,that spectacle to see! What sore lamentwas thine, when from the towering citadelthe whole shore seemed alive, the sea itselfin turmoil with loud cries! Relentless Love,to what mad courses may not mortal heartsby thee be driven? Again her sorrow fliesto doleful plaint and supplication vain;again her pride to tyrant Love bows downlest, though resolved to die, she fail to proveeach hope of living: “O Anna, dost thou seeyon busy shore? From every side they come.their canvas wooes the winds, and o'er each prowthe merry seamen hang their votive flowers.Dear sister, since I did forebode this grief,I shall be strong to bear it. One sole boonmy sorrow asks thee, Anna! Since of thee,thee only, did that traitor make a friend,and trusted thee with what he hid so deep —the feelings of his heart; since thou alonehast known what way, what hour the man would yieldto soft persuasion—therefore, sister, haste,and humbly thus implore our haughty foe:‘I was not with the Greeks what time they sworeat Aulis to cut off the seed of Troy;I sent no ships to Ilium. Pray, have Iprofaned Anchises' tomb, or vexed his shade?’Why should his ear be deaf and obdurateto all I say? What haste? May he not makeone last poor offering to her whose loveis only pain? O, bid him but delaytill flight be easy and the winds blow fair.I plead no more that bygone marriage-vowby him forsworn, nor ask that he should losehis beauteous Latium and his realm to be.Nothing but time I crave! to give reposeand more room to this fever, till my fateteach a crushed heart to sorrow. I implorethis last grace. (To thy sister's grief be kind!)I will requite with increase, till I die.” Such plaints, such prayers, again and yet again,betwixt the twain the sorrowing sister bore.But no words move, no lamentations bringpersuasion to his soul; decrees of Fateoppose, and some wise god obstructs the waythat finds the hero's ear. Oft-times aroundthe aged strength of some stupendous oakthe rival blasts of wintry Alpine windssmite with alternate wrath: Ioud is the roar,and from its rocking top the broken boughsare strewn along the ground; but to the cragsteadfast it ever clings; far as toward heavenits giant crest uprears, so deep belowits roots reach down to Tartarus:—not lessthe hero by unceasing wail and cryis smitten sore, and in his mighty hearthas many a pang, while his serene intentabides unmoved, and tears gush forth in vain.
Then wretched Dido, by her doom appalled,asks only death. It wearies her to seethe sun in heaven. Yet that she might hold fasther dread resolve to quit the light of day,behold, when on an incense-breathing shrineher offering was laid—O fearful tale!—the pure libation blackened, and the wineflowed like polluting gore. She told the sightto none, not even to her sister's ear.A second sign was given: for in her housea marble altar to her husband's shade,with garlands bright and snowy fleeces dressed,had fervent worship; here strange cries were heardas if her dead spouse called while midnight reigned,and round her towers its inhuman songthe lone owl sang, complaining o'er and o'erwith lamentation and long shriek of woe.Forgotten oracles by wizards toldwhisper old omens dire. In dreams she feelscruel Aeneas goad her madness on,and ever seems she, friendless and alone,some lengthening path to travel, or to seekher Tyrians through wide wastes of barren lands.Thus frantic Pentheus flees the stern arrayof the Eumenides, and thinks to seetwo noonday lights blaze oer his doubled Thebes;or murdered Agamemnon's haunted son,Orestes, flees his mother's phantom scourgeof flames and serpents foul, while at his dooravenging horrors wait. Now sorrow-crazedand by her grief undone, resolved on death,the manner and the time her secret soulprepares, and, speaking to her sister sad,she masks in cheerful calm her fatal will:“I know a way—O, wish thy sister joy!—to bring him back to Iove, or set me free.On Ocean's bound and next the setting sunlies the last Aethiop land, where Atlas talllifts on his shoulder the wide wheel of heaven,studded with burning stars. From thence is comea witch, a priestess, a Numidian crone,who guards the shrine of the Hesperidesand feeds the dragon; she protects the fruitof that enchanting tree, and scatters thereher slumb'rous poppies mixed with honey-dew.Her spells and magic promise to set freewhat hearts she will, or visit cruel woeson men afar. She stops the downward flowof rivers, and turns back the rolling stars;on midnight ghosts she calls: her vot'ries hearearth bellowing loud below, while from the hillsthe ash-trees travel down. But, sister mine,thou knowest, and the gods their witness give,how little mind have I to don the garbof sorcery. Depart in secret, thou,and bid them build a lofty funeral pyreinside our palalce-wall, and heap thereonthe hero's arms, which that blasphemer hungwithin my chamber; every relic bring,and chiefly that ill-omened nuptial bed,my death and ruin! For I must blot outall sight and token of this husband vile.'T is what the witch commands.” She spoke no more,and pallid was her brow. Yet Anna's mindknew not what web of death her sister woveby these strange rites, nor what such frenzy dares;nor feared she worse than when Sichaeus died,but tried her forth the errand to fulfil. Soon as the funeral pyre was builded highin a sequestered garden, Iooming huge with boughs of pine and faggots of cleft oak,the queen herself enwreathed it with sad flowersand boughs of mournful shade; and crowning allshe laid on nuptial bed the robes and swordby him abandoned; and stretched out thereona mock Aeneas;—but her doom she knew.Altars were there; and with loose locks unboundthe priestess with a voice of thunder calledthree hundred gods, Hell, Chaos, the three shapesof triple Hecate, the faces threeof virgin Dian. She aspersed a streamfrom dark Avernus drawn, she said; soft herbswere cut by moonlight with a blade of bronze,oozing black poison-sap; and she had pluckedthat philter from the forehead of new foalbefore its dam devours. Dido herself,sprinkling the salt meal, at the altar stands;one foot unsandalled, and with cincture free,on all the gods and fate-instructed stars,foreseeing death, she calls. But if there besome just and not oblivious power on high,who heeds when lovers plight unequal vow,to that god first her supplications rise.
Soon fell the night, and peaceful slumbers breathedon all earth's weary creatures; the loud seasand babbling forests entered on repose;now midway in their heavenly course the starswheeled silent on; the outspread lands belowlay voiceless; all the birds of tinted wing,and flocks that haunt the merge of waters wideor keep the thorny wold, oblivious laybeneath the night so still; the stings of careceased troubling, and no heart its burden knew.Not so the Tyrian Queen's deep-grieving soul!To sleep she could not yield; her eyes and heartrefused the gift of night; her sufferingredoubled, and in full returning tideher love rebelled, while on wild waves of rageshe drifted to and fro. So, ceasing notfrom sorrow, thus she brooded on her wrongs:“What refuge now? Shall I invite the scornof my rejected wooers, or entreatof some disdainful, nomad blackamoorto take me to his bed—though many a timesuch husbands I made mock of? Shall I sailon Ilian ships away, and sink to bethe Trojans' humble thrall? Do they rejoicethat once I gave them bread? Lives gratitudein hearts like theirs for bygone kindnesses?O, who, if so I stooped, would deign to bearon yon proud ships the scorned and fallen Queen?Lost creature! Woe betide thee! Knowest thou not the perjured children of Laomedon?What way is left? Should I take flight aloneand join the revelling sailors? Or departwith Tyrians, the whole attending trainof my own people? Hard the task to forcetheir hearts from Sidon's towers; how once morecompel to sea, and bid them spread the sail?Nay, perish! Thou hast earned it. Let the swordfrom sorrow save thee! Sister of my blood—who else but thee,—my own tears borne down,didst heap disaster on my frantic soul,and fling me to this foe? Why could I notpass wedlock by, and live a blameless lifeas wild things do, nor taste of passion's pain?But I broke faith! I cast the vows awaymade at Sichaeus' grave.” Such loud lamentburst from her breaking heart with doleful sound.Meanwhile Aeneas on his lofty ship,having made ready all, and fixed his mindto launch away upon brief slumher fell.But the god came; and in the self-same guiseonce more in monitory vision spoke,all guised as Mercury,—his voice, his hue,his golden locks, and young limbs strong and fair.“Hail, goddess-born! Wouldst linger on in sleepat such an hour? Nor seest thou the snaresthat hem thee round? Nor hearest thou the voiceof friendly zephyrs calling? Senseless man!That woman's breast contrives some treacheryand horrid stroke; for, resolute to die,she drifts on swollen floods of wrath and scorn. Wilt thou not fly before the hastening hourof flight is gone? To-morrow thou wilt seeyon waters thronged with ships, the cruel glareof fire-brands, and yonder shore all flame,if but the light of morn again surprisethee loitering in this land. Away! Away!Stay not! A mutable and shifting thingis woman ever.” Such command he spoke,then melted in the midnight dark away. Aeneas, by that fleeting vision struckwith an exceeding awe, straightway leaped forthfrom slumber's power, and to his followers cried :“Awake, my men! Away! Each to his placeupon the thwarts! Unfurl at once the sails!A god from heaven a second time sent downurges our instant flight and bids us cutthe twisted cords. Whatever be thy name,behold, we come, O venerated Power!Again with joy we follow! Let thy graceassist us as we go! And may thy powerbring none but stars benign across our sky.”So saying, from its scabbard forth he flashedthe lightning of his sword, with naked bladestriking the hawsers free. Like ardor seizedon all his willing men, who raced and ran;and, while their galleys shadowed all the sea,clean from the shore they scudded, with strong strokessweeping the purple waves and crested foam.
Aurora's first young beams to earth were pouringas from Tithonus' saffron bed she sprang;while from her battlements the wakeful Queenwatched the sky brighten, saw the mated sailspush forth to sea, till all her port and strandheld not an oar or keel. Thrice and four timesshe smote her lovely breast with wrathful hand,and tore her golden hair. “Great Jove,” she cries,“Shall that departing fugitive make mockof me, a queen? Will not my men-at-armsdraw sword, give chase, from all my city thronging?Down from the docks, my ships! Out, out! Begone!Take fire and sword! Bend to your oars, ye slaves!What have I said? Where am I? What mad thoughtsdelude this ruined mind? Woe unto thee,thou wretched Dido, now thy impious deedsstrike back upon thee. Wherefore struck they not,as was most fit, when thou didst fling awaythy sceptre from thy hand? O Iying oaths!O faith forsworn! of him who brings, they boast,his father's gods along, and bowed his backto lift an age-worn sire! Why dared I notseize on him, rend his body limb from limb,and hurl him piecemeal on the rolling sea?Or put his troop of followers to the sword,ascanius too, and set his flesh beforethat father for a feast? Such fearful warhad been of doubtful issue. Be it so!What fears a woman dying? Would I hadattacked their camp with torches, kindled flamefrom ship to ship, until that son and sire,with that whole tribe, were unto ashes burnedin one huge holocaust—myself its crown!Great orb of light whose holy beam surveysall earthly deeds! Great Juno, patronessof conjugal distress, who knowest all!Pale Hecate, whose name the witches cryat midnight crossways! O avenging furies!O gods that guard Queen Dido's dying breath!Give ear, and to my guiltless miseryextend your power. Hear me what I pray!If it be fated that yon creature curstdrift to the shore and happy haven find,if Father Iove's irrevocable wordsuch goal decree—there may he be assailedby peoples fierce and bold. A banished man,from his Iulus' kisses sundered far,may his own eyes see miserably slainhis kin and kind, and sue for alien arms.nor when he basely bows him to receiveterms of unequal peace, shall he be blestwith sceptre or with life; but perish therebefore his time, and lie without a graveupon the barren sand. For this I pray.This dying word is flowing from my heartwith my spilt blood. And—O ye Tyrians! Isting with your hatred all his seed and tribe forevermore. This is the offering my ashes ask. Betwixt our nations twain, No Iove! No truce or amity! Arise, Out of my dust, unknown Avenger, rise!To harry and lay waste with sword and flamethose Dardan settlers, and to vex them sore,to-day, to-morrow, and as long as poweris thine to use! My dying curse arraysshore against shore and the opposing seasin shock of arms with arms. May living foespass down from sire to son insatiate war!”