LITMIR.BIZ

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a wandering wide

       With quiver girt, and done about with lynx's spotted hide,

       Or following of the foaming boar with shouts and eager feet?"

      So Venus; and so Venus' son began her words to meet:

       "I have not seen, nor have I heard thy sisters nigh this place,

       O maid:—and how to call thee then? for neither is thy face

       Of mortals, nor thy voice of men: O very Goddess thou!

       What! Phœbus' sister? or of nymphs whom shall I call thee now?

       But whosoe'er thou be, be kind and lighten us our toil,330

       And teach us where beneath the heavens, which spot of earthly soil

       We are cast forth; unlearned of men, unlearned of land we stray,

       By might of wind and billows huge here driven from out our way.

       Our right hands by thine altar-horns shall fell full many a host."

      Spake Venus: "Nowise am I worth so much of honour's cost:

       The Tyrian maids are wont to bear the quiver even as I,

       And even so far upon the leg the purple shoe-thong tie.

       The Punic realm thou seest here, Agenor's town and folk,

       But set amidst of Libyan men unused to bear the yoke.

       Dido is Lady of the Land, who fled from Tyre the old,340

       And from her brother: weary long were all the ill deed told,

       And long its winding ways, but I light-foot will overpass.

       Her husband was Sychæus hight, of land most rich he was

       Of all Phoenicians: she, poor wretch! loved him with mighty love,

       Whose father gave her, maid, to him, and first the rites did move

       Of wedlock: but as King of Tyre her brother did abide,

       Pygmalion, more swollen up in sin than any man beside:

       Mad hatred yoked the twain of them, he blind with golden lust,

       Godless with stroke of iron laid Sychæus in the dust

       Unwares before the altar-horns; nor of the love did reck350

       His sister had, but with vain hope played on the lover sick,

       And made a host of feignings false, and hid the matter long.

       Till in her sleep the image came of that unburied wrong,

       Her husband dead; in wondrous wise his face was waxen pale:

       His breast with iron smitten through, the altar of his bale,

       The hooded sin of evil house, to her he open laid,

       And speedily to flee away from fatherland he bade;

       And for the help of travel showed earth's hidden wealth of old,

       A mighty mass that none might tell of silver and of gold.

       Sore moved hereby did Dido straight her flight and friends prepare:360

       They meet together, such as are or driven by biting fear,

       Or bitter hatred of the wretch: such ships as hap had dight

       They fall upon and lade with gold; forth fare the treasures bright

       Of wretch Pygmalion o'er the sea, a woman first therein.

       And so they come unto the place where ye may see begin

       The towers of Carthage, and the walls new built that mighty grow,

       And bought the Byrsa-field good cheap, as still the name shall show,

       So much of land as one bull's hide might scantly go about

       —But ye forsooth, what men are ye, from what land fare ye out,

       And whither go ye on your ways?"370

       Her questioning in speech

       He answered, and a heavy sigh from inmost heart did reach:

       "O Goddess, might I tread again first footsteps of our way,

       And if the annals of our toil thine hearkening ears might stay,

       Yet Vesper first on daylight dead should shut Olympus' door.

       From Troy the old, if yet perchance your ears have felt before

       That name go by, do we come forth, and, many a water past,

       A chance-come storm hath drifted us on Libyan shores at last.

       I am Æneas, God-lover; I snatched forth from the foe

       My Gods to bear aboard with me, a fame for heaven to know.

       I seek the Italian fatherland, and Jove-descended line;380

       Twice ten the ships were that I manned upon the Phrygian brine,

       My Goddess-mother led the way, we followed fate god-given;

       And now scarce seven are left to me by wave and east-wind riven;

       And I through Libyan deserts stray, a man unknown and poor,

       From Asia cast, from Europe cast,"

       She might abide no more

       To hear his moan: she thrusts a word amidst his grief and saith:

       "Nay thou art not God's castaway, who drawest mortal breath,

       And fairest to the Tyrian town, if aught thereof I know. Set on to Dido's threshold then e'en as the way doth show.

       For take the tidings of thy ships and folk brought back again390

       By shifting of the northern wind all safe from off the main:

       Unless my parents learned me erst of soothsaying to wot

       But idly. Lo there twice seven swans disporting in a knot,

       Whom falling from the plain of air drave down the bird of Jove

       From open heaven: strung out at length they hang the earth above,

       And now seem choosing where to pitch, now on their choice to gaze,

       As wheeling round with whistling wings they sport in diverse ways

       And with their band ring round the pole and cast abroad their song.

       Nought otherwise the ships and youth that unto thee belong

       Hold haven now, or else full sail to harbour-mouth are come.400

       Set forth, set forth and tread the way e'en as it leadeth home."

      She spake, she turned, from rosy neck the light of heaven she cast,

       And from her hair ambrosial the scent of Gods went past

       Upon the wind, and o'er her feet her skirts fell shimmering down,

       And very God she went her ways. Therewith his mother known,

       With such a word he followed up a-fleeing from his eyes:

      "Ah cruel as a God! and why with images and lies

       Dost thou beguile me? wherefore then is hand to hand not given

       And we to give and take in words that come from earth and heaven?"

      Such wise he chided her, and then his footsteps townward bent:410

       But Venus with a dusky air did hedge them as they went,

       And widespread cloak of cloudy stuff the Goddess round them wrapped,

       Lest any man had seen them there, or bodily had happed

       Across their road their steps to stay, and ask their dealings there.

       But she to Paphos and her home went glad amidst the air:

       There is her temple, there they stand, an hundred altars meet,

       Warm with Sabæan incense-smoke, with new-pulled blossoms sweet.

      But

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