Ere Ilium’s sky was clouded o’er),
Shall thirty years of power complete,
Then from Lavinium’s royal seat
Transfer the empire, and make strong
The walls of Alba named the Long.
Three hundred years in that proud town
Shall Hector’s children wear the crown,
Till Ilia, priestess-princess, bear
By Mars’ embrace a kingly pair.
Then, with his nurse’s wolf-skin girt,
Shall Romulus the line assert,
Invite them to his new-raised home,
And call the martial city Rome.
No date, no goal I here ordain:
Theirs is an endless, boundless reign.
Nay Juno’s self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms,
Shall change for smiles her moody frown,
And vie with me in zeal to crown
Rome’s sons, the nation of the gown.
So stands my will. There comes a day,
While Rome’s great ages hold their way,
When old Assaracus’s sons
Shall quit them on the Myrmidons,
O’er Phthia and Mycenæ reign,
And humble Argos to their chain.
From Troy’s fair stock shall Cæsar rise,
The limits of whose victories
Are ocean, of his fame the skies;
Great Julius, proud that style to bear,
In name and blood Iulus’ heir.
Him, at the appointed time, increased
With plunder from the conquered East,
Thine arms shall welcome to the sky,
And worshippers shall find him nigh.
Then battles o’er the world shall cease,
Harsh times shall mellow into peace:
Then Vesta, Faith, Quirinus, joined
With brother Remus, rule mankind:
Grim iron bolt and massy bar
Shall close the dreadful gates of War:
Within unnatural Rage confined,
Fast bound with manacles behind,
His dark head pillowed on a heap
Of clanking armour, not in sleep,
Shall gnash his savage teeth, and roar
From lips incarnadined with gore.’
The son of Maia down;
Bids Carthage open to befriend
The Teucrians, realm and town,
Lest Dido, ignorant of fate,
Should drive the wanderers from her gate.
Swift Mercury cuts with plumy oar
The sky, and lights on Libya’s shore.
At once he does the Sire’s behest,
Each Tyrian smooths his rugged breast,
And chief the queen has thoughts of grace
And pity to the Teucrian race.
Revolving many a care,
Determines with the dawn of light
Forth from the port to fare,
Explore the stranger clime, and find
What land is his, by stress of wind,
By what inhabitants possessed
(For waste he sees it), man or beast,
And back the tidings bear.
Within a hollowed rock’s retreat,
Deep in the wood, he hides his fleet,
Defended by a leafy screen
Of forestry and quivering green:
Then with Achates moves along,
Wielding two spears, steel-tipped and strong
When in the bosom of the wood
Before him, lo, his mother stood,
In mien and gear a Spartan maid,
Or like Harpalyce arrayed,
Who tires fleet coursers in the chase,
And heads the swiftest streams of Thrace.
Slung from her shoulders hangs a bow;
Loose to the wind her tresses flow;
Bare was her knee; her mantle’s fold
The gathering of a knot controlled.
And ‘Saw ye, youths,’ she asks them, ‘say,
One of my sisters here astray,
A silvan quiver at her side,
And for a scarf a lynx’s hide,
Or pressing on the wild boar’s track
With upraised dart and voiceful pack?’
‘No sister we of thine have spied:
What name to call thee, beauteous maid?
That look, that voice the God betrayed;
Can it be Phœbus’ sister bright,
Or some fair Nymph, has crossed our sight?
Be gracious, whosoe’er thou art,
And lift this burden from our heart;
Instruct us, ’neath what sky at last,
Upon what shore, our lot is cast;
We wander here, by tempest blown,
The people and the place unknown.
O say! and many a victim’s life
Before thy shrine shall stain my knife.’
A goddess’ venerable name:
The buskins and the bow I bear
Are but what Tyrian maidens wear
The Punic state is this you see,
Agenor’s Tyrian colony:
But all around the Libyans dwell,
A race in war untamed and fell.
The sceptre here queen Dido sways,
Who fled from Tyre in other days,
To ’scape a brother’s frenzy: long
And dark the story of her wrong;
To thread each tangle time would fail,
So learn the summits of the tale.
Sychæus was her husband once,
The wealthiest of Phœnicia’s sons:
She loved him; nor her sire denied,
But made her his, a virgin bride.
But soon there filled the ruler’s place
Her brother, worst of human race,
Pygmalion: ’twixt the kinsman came
Fierce hatred, like a withering flame.
With avarice blind, by stealthy blow
The monster laid Sychæus low,
E’en at the altar, recking nought
What passion in his sister wrought:
Long time he hid the foul offence,
And, feigning many a base pretence,
Beguiled her love-sick innocence.
But, as she slept, before her eyes
She saw in pallid ghastly guise
Her lord’s unburied semblance rise;
The murderous altar he revealed,
The death-wound, gaping and unhealed,
And all the crime the house concealed:
Then bids her fly without delay,
And shows, to aid her on her way,
His buried treasures, stores untold
Of silver and of massy gold.
She heard, and, quickened by affright,
Provides her friends and means of flight.
Each malcontent her summons hears,
Who hates the tyrant, or who fears;
The
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