The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dido discovers to her sister her passion for Æneas, and her thoughts of marrying him. She prepares a hunting-match for his entertainment. Juno, by Venus's consent, raises a storm, which separates the hunters, and drives Æneas and Dido into the same cave, where their marriage is supposed to be completed. Jupiter dispatches Mercury to Æneas, to warn him from Carthage. Æneas secretly prepares for his voyage. Dido finds out his design, and, to put a stop to it, makes use of her own and her sister's entreaties, and discovers all the variety of passions that are incident to a neglected lover. When nothing would prevail upon him, she contrives her own death, with which this book concludes.

But anxious cares already seized the queen;
She fed within her veins a flame unseen;
The hero's valour, acts, and birth, inspire
Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.
His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,
Improve the passion, and increase the smart.
Now, when the purple morn had chased away
The dewy shadows, and restored the day,

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Her sister first with early care she sought,
And thus in mournful accents eased her thought:—
“My dearest Anna! what new dreams affright
My labouring soul! what visions of the night
Disturb my quiet, and distract my breast
With strange ideas of our Trojan guest!
His worth, his actions, and majestic air,
A man descended from the gods declare.
Fear ever argues a degenerate kind;
His birth is well asserted by his mind.
Then, what he suffered, when by Fate betrayed!
What brave attempts for falling Troy he made!
Such were his looks, so gracefully he spoke,
That, were I not resolved against the yoke
Of hapless marriage—never to be cursed
With second love, so fatal was my first—
To this one error I might yield again;
For, since Sichæus was untimely slain,
This only man is able to subvert
The fixed foundations of my stubborn heart.
And, to confess my frailty, to my shame,
Somewhat I find within, if not the same,
Too like the sparkles of my former flame.
But first let yawning earth a passage rend,
And let me through the dark abyss descend—
First let avenging Jove, with flames from high,
Drive down this body to the nether sky,
Condemned with ghosts in endless night to lie—
Before I break the plighted faith I gave!
No! he who had my vows shall ever have;
For, whom I loved on earth, I worship in the grave.”

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She said: the tears ran gushing from her eyes,
And stopped her speech. Her sister thus replies:—
“O dearer than the vital air I breathe!
Will you to grief your blooming years bequeathe,
Condemned to waste in woes your lonely life,
Without the joys of mother, or of wife?
Think you these tears, this pompous train of woe,
Are known or valued by the ghosts below?
I grant, that, while your sorrows yet were green,
It well became a woman, and a queen,
The vows of Tyrian Princes to neglect,
To scorn Iarbas, and his love reject,
With all the Libyan lords of mighty name;
But will you fight against a pleasing flame?
This little spot of land, which heaven bestows,
On every side is hemmed with warlike foes;
Gætulian cities here are spread around,
And fierce Numidians there your frontiers bound;
Here lies a barren waste of thirsty land,
And there the Syrtes raise the moving sand;
Barcæan troops besiege the narrow shore,
And from the sea Pygmalion threatens more.
Propitious heaven, and gracious Juno, led
This wandering navy to your needful aid:
How will your empire spread, your city rise,
From such a union, and with such allies!
Implore the favour of the powers above,
And leave the conduct of the rest to love.
Continue still your hospitable way,
And still invent occasions of their stay,
Till storms and winter winds shall cease to threat,
And planks and oars repair their shattered fleet.”

These words, which from a friend and sister came,
With ease resolved the scruples of her fame,
And added fury to the kindled flame.

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Inspired with hope, the project they pursue;
On every altar sacrifice renew;
A chosen ewe of two years old they pay
To Ceres, Bacchus, and the god of day.
Preferring Juno's power (for Juno ties
The nuptial knot, and makes the marriage-joys),
The beauteous queen before her altar stands,
And holds the golden goblet in her hands.
A milk-white heifer she with flowers adorns,
And pours the ruddy wine betwixt her horns;
And, while the priests with prayer the gods invoke,
She feeds their altars with Sabæan smoke,
With hourly care the sacrifice renews,
And anxiously the panting entrails views.
What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,
What vows, avail to cure a bleeding heart?
A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,
Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.

Sick with desire, and seeking him she Ioves,
From street to street the raving Dido roves.
So, when the watchful shepherd, from the blind,
Wounds with a random shaft the careless hind,
Distracted with her pain she flies the woods,
Bounds o'er the lawn, and seeks the silent floods—
With fruitless care; for still the fatal dart
Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart.
And now she leads the Trojan chief along
The lofty walls, amidst the busy throng;
Displays her Tyrian wealth, and rising town,
Which love, without his labour, makes his own.
This pomp she shows, to tempt her wandering guest;
Her faltering tongue forbids to speak the rest.
When day declines, and feasts renew the night,
Still on his face she feeds her famished sight;

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She longs again to hear the prince relate
His own adventures, and the Trojan fate.
He tells it o'er and o'er; but still in vain,
For still she begs to hear it once again.
The hearer on the speaker's mouth depends,
And thus the tragic story never ends.

Then, when they part, when Phœbe's paler light
Withdraws, and falling stars to sleep invite,
She last remains, when every guest is gone,
Sits on the bed he pressed, and sighs alone;
Absent, her absent hero sees and hears;
Or in her bosom young Ascanius bears,
And seeks the father's image in the child,
If love by likeness might be so beguiled.

Meantime the rising towers are at a stand;
No labours exercise the youthful band,
Nor use of arts, nor toils of arms they know;
The mole is left unfinished to the foe;
The mounds, the works, the walls, neglected lie,
Short of their promised height, that seemed to threat the sky.

But when imperial Juno, from above,
Saw Dido fettered in the chains of love,
Hot with the venom which her veins inflamed,
And by no sense of shame to be reclaimed,
With soothing words to Venus she begun:—
“High praises, endless honours, you have won,
And mighty trophies, with your worthy son!
Two gods a silly woman have undone!
Nor am I ignorant, you both suspect
This rising city, which my hands erect:
But shall celestial discord never cease?
'Tis better ended in a lasting peace.
You stand possessed of all your soul desired;
Poor Dido with consuming love is fired.

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Your Trojan with my Tyrian let us join;
So Dido shall be yours, Æneas mine—
One common kingdom, one united line.
Eliza shall a Dardan lord obey,
And lofty Carthage for a dower convey.”
Then Venus (who her hidden fraud descried,
Which would the sceptre of the world misguide
To Libyan shores) thus artfully replied:—
“Who, but a fool, would wars with Juno choose,
And such alliance and such gifts refuse,
If Fortune with our joint desires comply?
The doubt is all from Jove, and destiny;
Lest he forbid, with absolute command,
To mix the people in one common land—
Or will the Trojan and the Tyrian line,
In lasting leagues and sure succession, join.
But you, the partner of his bed and throne,
May move his mind; my wishes are your own.”
“Mine,” said imperial Juno, “be the care:—
Time urges now:—to perfect this affair,
Attend my counsel, and the secret share.
When next the Sun his rising light displays,
And gilds the world below with purple rays,
The queen, Æneas, and the Tyrian court,
Shall to the shady woods, for sylvan game, resort.
There, while the huntsmen pitch their toils around,
And cheerful horns, from side to side, resound,
A pitchy cloud shall cover all the plain
With hail, and thunder, and tempestuous rain;
The fearful train shall take their speedy flight,
Dispersed, and all involved in gloomy night;

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One cave a grateful shelter shall afford
To the fair princess and the Trojan lord.
I will myself the bridal bed prepare,
If you, to bless the nuptials, will be there:
So shall their loves be crowned with due delights,
And Hymen shall be present at the rites.”
The queen of love consents, and closely smiles
At her vain project, and discovered wiles.

The rosy morn was risen from the main,
And horns and hounds awake the princely train:
They issue early through the city gate,
Where the more wakeful huntsmen ready wait,
With nets, and toils, and darts, beside the force
Of Spartan dogs, and swift Massylian horse.
The Tyrian peers and officers of state,
For the slow queen, in antechambers wait;
Her lofty courser, in the court below,
Who his majestic rider seems to know,
Proud of his purple trappings, paws the ground,
And champs the golden bit, and spreads the foam around.
The queen at length appears: on either hand,
The brawny guards in martial order stand.
A flowered cymar with golden fringe she wore,
And at her back a golden quiver bore;
Her flowing hair a golden caul restrains,
A golden clasp the Tyrian robe sustains.
Then young Ascanius, with a sprightly grace,
Leads on the Trojan youth to view the chase.
But far above the rest in beauty shines
The great Æneas, when the troop he joins;
Like fair Apollo, when he leaves the frost
Of wintery Xanthus, and the Lycian coast,
When to his native Delos he resorts,
Ordains the dances, and renews the sports;

337

Where painted Scythians, mixed with Cretan bands,
Before the joyful altars join their hands:
Himself, on Cynthus walking, sees below
The merry madness of the sacred show.
Green wreaths of bays his length of hair inclose;
A golden fillet binds his awful brows;
His quiver sounds.—Not less the prince is seen
In manly presence, or in lofty mien.

Now had they reached the hills, and stormed the seat
Of savage beasts, in dens, their last retreat.
The cry pursues the mountain-goats: they bound
From rock to rock, and keep the craggy ground:
Quite otherwise the stags, a trembling train,
In herds unsingled, scour the dusty plain,
And a long chase, in open view, maintain.
The glad Ascanius, as his courser guides,
Spurs through the vale, and these and those outrides.
His horse's flanks and sides are forced to feel
The clanking lash, and goring of the steel.
Impatiently he views the feeble prey,
Wishing some nobler beast to cross his way,
And rather would the tusky boar attend,
Or see the tawny lion downward bend.

Meantime, the gathering clouds obscure the skies:
From pole to pole the forky lightning flies;
The rattling thunders roll; and Juno pours
A wintry deluge down, and sounding showers.
The company, dispersed, to coverts ride,
And seek the homely cots, or mountain's hollow side.
The rapid rains, descending from the hills,
To rolling torrents raise the creeping rills.

338

The queen and prince, as Love or Fortune guides,
One common cavern in her bosom hides.
Then first the trembling earth the signal gave,
And flashing fires enlighten all the cave;
Hell from below, and Juno from above,
And howling nymphs, were conscious to their love.
From this ill-omen'd hour, in time arose
Debate and death, and all succeeding woes,

The queen, whom sense of honour could not move,
No longer made a secret of her love,
But called it marriage, by that specious name
To veil the crime, and sanctify the shame.

The loud report through Libyan cities goes.
Fame, the great ill, from small beginnings grows—
Swift from the first; and every moment brings
New vigour to her flights, new pinions to her wings.
Soon grows the pigmy to gigantic size;
Her feet on earth, her forehead in the skies.
Enraged against the gods, revengeful Earth
Produced her, last of the Titanian birth—
Swift is her walk, more swift her winged haste—
A monstrous phantom, horrible and vast.
As many plumes as raise her lofty flight,
So many piercing eyes enlarge her sight;
Millions of opening mouths to Fame belong,
And every mouth is furnished with a tongue,
And round with listening ears the flying plague is hung.
She fills the peaceful universe with cries;
No slumbers ever close her wakeful eyes;
By day, from lofty towers her head she shews,
And spreads through trembling crowds disastrous news;

339

With court informers haunts, and royal spies;
Things done relates, not done she feigns, and mingles truth with lies.
Talk is her business; and her chief delight
To tell of prodigies, and cause affright.
She fills the people's ears with Dido's name,
Who, “lost to honour and the sense of shame,
Admits into her throne and nuptial bed
A wandering guest, who from his country fled:
Whole days with him she passes in delights,
And wastes in luxury long winter nights,
Forgetful of her fame, and royal trust,
Dissolved in ease, abandoned to her lust.”

The goddess widely spreads the loud report,
And flies at length to king Iarbas' court.
When first possessed with this unwelcome news,
Whom did he not of men and gods accuse?
This prince, from ravished Garamantis born,
A hundred temples did with spoils adorn,
In Ammon's honour, his celestial sire;
A hundred altars fed with wakeful fire;
And, through his vast dominions, priests ordained,
Whose watchful care these holy rites maintained.
The gates and columns were with garlands crowned,
And blood of victim beasts enriched the ground.

He, when he heard a fugitive could move
The Tyrian princess, who disdained his love,
His breast with fury burned, his eyes with fire,
Mad with despair, impatient with desire;
Then on the sacred altars pouring wine,
He thus with prayers implored his sire divine:—
“Great Jove, propitious to the Moorish race,
Who feast on painted beds, with offerings grace
Thy temples, and adore thy power divine
With blood of victims, and with sparkling wine!

340

Seest thou not this? or do we fear in vain
Thy boasted thunder, and thy thoughtless reign?
Do thy broad hands the forky lightnings lance?
Thine are the bolts, or the blind work of chance?
A wandering woman builds, within our state,
A little town, bought at an easy rate;
She pays me homage (and my grants allow
A narrow space of Libyan lands to plough);
Yet, scorning me, by passion blindly led,
Admits a banished Trojan to her bed!
And now this other Paris, with his train
Of conquered cowards, must in Afric reign!
(Whom, what they are, their looks and garb confess,
Their locks with oil perfumed, their Lydian dress.)
He takes the spoil, enjoys the princely dame;
And I, rejected I, adore an empty name!”

His vows, in haughty terms, he thus preferred,
And held his altar's horns. The mighty Thunderer heard,
Then cast his eyes on Carthage, where he found
The lustful pair in lawless pleasure drowned,
Lost in their loves, insensible of shame,
And both forgetful of their better fame.
He calls Cyllenius, and the god attends,
By whom this menacing command he sends:—
“Go, mount the western winds, and cleave the sky;
Then, with a swift descent, to Carthage fly:
There find the Trojan chief, who wastes his days
In slothful riot and inglorious ease,
Nor minds the future city, given by Fate.
To him this message from my mouth relate:—
Not so fair Venus hoped, when twice she won
Thy life with prayers, nor promised such a son.
Hers was a hero, destined to command
A martial race, and rule the Latian land;

341

Who should his ancient line from Teucer draw,
And on the conquered world impose the law.
If glory cannot move a mind so mean,
Nor future praise from fading pleasure wean,
Yet why should he defraud his son of fame,
And grudge the Romans their immortal name?
What are his vain designs? what hopes he more
From his long lingering on a hostile shore,
Regardless to redeem his honour lost,
And for his race to gain the Ausonian coast?
Bid him with speed the Tyrian court forsake;
With this command the slumbering warrior wake.”

Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds
His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:
And, whether o'er the seas or earth he flies,
With rapid force they bear him down the skies.
But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand;
With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves;
With this he drives them down the Stygian waves;
With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light.
Thus armed, the god begins his airy race,
And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space;
Now sees the top of Atlas, as he flies,
Whose brawny back supports the starry skies;
Atlas, whose head, with piny forests crowned,
Is beaten by the winds, with foggy vapours bound.
Snows hide his shoulders; from beneath his chin
The founts of rolling streams their race begin;

342

A beard of ice on his large breast depends.—
Here, poised upon his wings, the god descends:
Then, rested thus, he from the towering height
Plunged downward with precipitated flight,
Lights on the seas, and skims along the flood.
As water-fowl, who seek their fishy food,
Less, and yet less, to distant prospect show;
By turns they dance aloft, and dive below:
Like these, the steerage of his wings he plies,
And near the surface of the water flies,
Till, having passed the seas, and crossed the sands,
He closed his wings, and stooped on Libyan lands,
Where shepherds once were housed in homely sheds;
Now towers within the clouds advance their heads.
Arriving there, he found the Trojan prince
New ramparts raising for the town's defence.
A purple scarf, with gold embroidered o'er
(Queen Dido's gift), about his waist he wore;
A sword, with glittering gems diversified,
For ornament, not use, hung idly by his side.
Then thus, with winged words, the god began,
Resuming his own shape—“Degenerate man!
Thou woman's property! what mak'st thou here,
These foreign walls and Tyrian towers to rear,
Forgetful of thy own? All-powerful Jove,
Who sways the world below and heaven above,
Has sent me down with this severe command:
What means thy lingering in the Libyan land?
If glory cannot move a mind so mean,
Nor future praise from flitting pleasure wean,
Regard the fortunes of thy rising heir:
The promised crown let young Ascanius wear,

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To whom the Ausonian sceptre, and the state
Of Rome's imperial name, is owed by Fate.”
So spoke the god; and, speaking, took his flight,
Involved in clouds, and vanished out of sight.

The pious prince was seized with sudden fear;
Mute was his tongue, and upright stood his hair.
Revolving in his mind the stern command,
He longs to fly, and loathes the charming land.
What should he say? or how should he begin?
What course, alas! remains to steer between
The offended lover and the powerful queen?
This way, and that, he turns his anxious mind,
And all expedients tries, and none can find.
Fixed on the deed, but doubtful of the means,
After long thought, to this advice he leans:
Three chiefs he calls, commands them to repair
The fleet, and ship their men, with silent care:
Some plausible pretence he bids them find,
To colour what in secret he designed.
Himself, meantime, the softest hours would choose,
Before the love-sick lady heard the news;
And move her tender mind, by slow degrees,
To suffer what the sovereign power decrees:
Jove will inspire him, when, and what to say.—
They hear with pleasure, and with haste obey.

But soon the queen perceives the thin disguise:
(What arts can blind a jealous woman's eyes?)
She was the first to find the secret fraud,
Before the fatal news was blazed abroad.
Love the first motions of the lover hears,
Quick to presage, and even in safety fears.
Nor impious Fame was wanting to report
The ships repaired, the Trojans' thick resort,
And purpose to forsake the Tyrian court.

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Frantic with fear, impatient of the wound,
And impotent of mind, she roves the city round.
Less wild the Bacchanalian dames appear,
When, from afar, their nightly god they hear,
And howl about the hills, and shake the wreathy spear.
At length she finds the dear perfidious man;
Prevents his formed excuse, and thus began:—
“Base and ungrateful! could you hope to fly,
And undiscovered 'scape a lover's eye?
Nor could my kindness your compassion move,
Nor plighted vows, nor dearer bands of love?
Or is the death of a despairing queen
Not worth preventing, though too well foreseen?
Even when the wintry winds command your stay,
You dare the tempests, and defy the sea.
False, as you are, suppose you were not bound
To lands unknown, and foreign coasts to sound;
Were Troy restored, and Priam's happy reign,
Now durst you tempt, for Troy, the raging main?
See, whom you fly! am I the foe you shun?
Now, by those holy vows, so late begun,
By this right hand (since I have nothing more
To challenge, but the faith you gave before),
I beg you by these tears too truly shed,
By the new pleasures of our nuptial bed;
If ever Dido, when you most were kind,
Were pleasing in your eyes, or touched your mind;
By these my prayers, if prayers may yet have place,
Pity the fortunes of a falling race!
For you, I have provoked a tyrant's hate,
Incensed the Libyan and the Tyrian state;
For you alone, I suffer in my fame,
Bereft of honour, and exposed to shame!

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Whom have I now to trust, ungrateful guest?
(That only name remains of all the rest!)
What have I left? or whither can I fly?
Must I attend Pygmalion's cruelty,
Or till Iarbas shall in triumph lead
A queen, that proudly scorned his proffered bed?
Had you deferred, at least, your hasty flight,
And left behind some pledge of our delight,
Some babe to bless the mother's mournful sight,
Some young Æneas to supply your place,
Whose features might express his father's face;
I should not then complain to live bereft
Of all my husband, or be wholly left.”

Here paused the queen. Unmoved he holds his eyes,
By Jove's command; nor suffered love to rise,
Though heaving in his heart; and thus at length replies:—
“Fair queen, you never can enough repeat
Your boundless favours, or I own my debt;
Nor can my mind forget Eliza's name,
While vital breath inspires this mortal frame.
This only let me speak in my defence—
I never hoped a secret flight from hence,
Much less pretended to the lawful claim
Of sacred nuptials, or a husband's name.
For, if indulgent heaven would leave me free,
And not submit my life to Fate's decree,
My choice would lead me to the Trojan shore,
Those relics to review, their dust adore,
And Priam's ruined palace to restore.
But now the Delphian oracle commands,
And Fate invites me to the Latian lands.
That is the promised place to which I steer,
And all my vows are terminated there.
If you, a Tyrian and a stranger born,
With walls and towers a Libyan town adorn,

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Why may not we—like you, a foreign race—
Like you, seek shelter in a foreign place?
As often as the night obscures the skies
With humid shades, or twinkling stars arise,
Anchises' angry ghost in dreams appears,
Chides my delay, and fills my soul with fears;
And young Ascanius justly may complain,
Defrauded of his fate and destined reign.
Even now the herald of the gods appeared—
Waking I saw him, and his message heard.
From Jove he came commissioned, heavenly bright
With radiant beams, and manifest to sight
(The sender and the sent I both attest):
These walls he entered, and those words expressed:—
Fair queen, oppose not what the gods command;
Forced by my fate, I leave your happy land.”

Thus while he spoke, already she began,
With sparkling eyes, to view the guilty man;
From head to foot surveyed his person o'er,
Nor longer these outrageous threats forebore:—
“False as thou art, and, more than false, forsworn!
Not sprung from noble blood, nor goddess-born,
But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock!
And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck!
Why should I fawn? what have I worse to fear?
Did he once look, or lent a listening ear,
Sighed when I sobbed, or shed one kindly tear?
All symptoms of a base ungrateful mind,
So foul, that, which is worse, 'tis hard to find.
Of man's injustice why should I complain?
The gods, and Jove himself, behold in vain
Triumphant treason; yet no thunder flies,
Nor Juno views my wrongs with equal eyes;
Faithless is earth, and faithless are the skies!

347

Justice is fled, and truth is now no more!
I saved the shipwrecked exile on my shore;
With needful food his hungry Trojans fed;
I took the traitor to my throne and bed:
Fool that I was—'tis little to repeat
The rest—I stored and rigged his ruined fleet.
I rave, I rave! A god's command he pleads,
And makes heaven accessory to his deeds.
Now Lycian lots, and now the Delian god,
Now Hermes is employed from Jove's abode,
To warn him hence; as if the peaceful state
Of heavenly powers were touched with human fate!
But go! thy flight no longer I detain—
Go! seek thy promised kingdom through the main!
Yet, if the heavens will hear my pious vow,
The faithless waves, not half so false as thou,
Or secret sands, shall sepulchres afford
To thy proud vessels, and their perjured lord.
Then shalt thou call on injured Dido's name:
Dido shall come in a black sulphury flame,
When death has once dissolved her mortal frame—
Shall smile to see the traitor vainly weep:
Her angry ghost, arising from the deep,
Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep.
At least my shade thy punishment shall know,
And Fame shall spread the pleasing news below.”

Abruptly here she stops—then turns away
Her loathing eyes, and shuns the sight of day.
Amazed he stood, revolving in his mind
What speech to frame, and what excuse to find.
Her fearful maids their fainting mistress led,
And softly laid her on her ivory bed.

But good Æneas, though he much desired
To give that pity which her grief required—

348

Though much he mourned, and laboured with his love—
Resolved at length, obeys the will of Jove;
Reviews his forces: they with early care
Unmoor their vessels, and for sea prepare.
The fleet is soon afloat, in all its pride,
And well-caulked galleys in the harbour ride.
Then oaks for oars they felled; or, as they stood,
Of its green arms despoiled the growing wood,
Studious of flight. The beach is covered o'er
With Trojan bands, that blacken all the shore:
On every side are seen, descending down,
Thick swarms of soldiers, loaden from the town.
Thus, in battalia, march embodied ants,
Fearful of winter, and of future wants,
To invade the corn, and to their cells convey
The plundered forage of their yellow prey.
The sable troops, along the narrow tracks,
Scarce bear the weighty burden on their backs:
Some set their shoulders to the ponderous grain;
Some guard the spoil; some lash the lagging train;
All ply their several tasks, and equal toil sustain.
What pangs the tender breast of Dido tore,
When, from the tower, she saw the covered shore,
And heard the shouts of sailors from afar,
Mixed with the murmurs of the watery war!
All-powerful Love! what changes canst thou cause
In human hearts, subjected to thy laws!
Once more her haughty soul the tyrant bends:
To prayers and mean submissions she descends.
No female arts or aids she left untried,
Nor counsels unexplored, before she died.
“Look, Anna! look! the Trojans crowd to sea;
They spread their canvas, and their anchors weigh.
The shouting crew their ships with garlands bind,
Invoke the sea-gods, and invite the wind.

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Could I have thought this threatening blow so near,
My tender soul had been forewarned to bear.
But do not you my last request deny;
With yon perfidious man your interest try,
And bring me news, if I must live or die.
You are his favourite; you alone can find
The dark recesses of his inmost mind:
In all his trusted secrets you have part,
And know the soft approaches to his heart.
Haste then, and humbly seek my haughty foe;
Tell him, I did not with the Grecians go,
Nor did my fleet against his friends employ,
Nor swore the ruin of unhappy Troy,
Nor moved with hands profane his father's dust:
Why should he then reject a suit so just?
Whom does he shun? and whither would he fly?
Can he this last, this only prayer deny?
Let him at least his dangerous flight delay,
Wait better winds, and hope a calmer sea.
The nuptials he disclaims, I urge no more:
Let him pursue the promised Latian shore.
A short delay is all I ask him now—
A pause of grief, an interval from woe,
Till my soft soul be tempered to sustain
Accustomed sorrows, and inured to pain.
If you in pity grant this one request,
My death shall glut the hatred of his breast.”
This mournful message pious Anna bears,
And seconds, with her own, her sister's tears:
But all her arts are still employed in vain;
Again she comes, and is refused again.
His hardened heart nor prayers nor threatenings move;
Fate, and the god, had stopped his ears to love.

As, when the winds their airy quarrel try,
Jostling from every quarter of the sky,

350

This way and that the mountain oak they bend,
His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend;
With leaves and falling mast they spread the ground;
The hollow valleys echo to the sound:
Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks,
Or, shaken, clings more closely to the rocks;
Far as he shoots his towering head on high,
So deep in earth his fixed foundations lie.—
No less a storm the Trojan hero bears;
Thick messages and loud complaints he hears,
And bandied words, still beating on his ears.
Sighs, groans, and tears, proclaim his inward pains;
But the firm purpose of his heart remains.

The wretched queen, pursued by cruel Fate,
Begins at length the light of heaven to hate,
And loathes to live. Then dire portents she sees,
To hasten on the death her soul decrees—
Strange to relate! for when, before the shrine,
She pours in sacrifice the purple wine,
The purple wine is turned to putrid blood,
And the white offered milk converts to mud.
This dire presage, to her alone revealed,
From all, and even her sister, she concealed.
A marble temple stood within the grove,
Sacred to death, and to her murdered love;
That honoured chapel she had hung around
With snowy fleeces, and with garlands crowned:
Oft, when she visited this lonely dome,
Strange voices issued from her husband's tomb:
She thought she heard him summon her away,
Invite her to his grave, and chide her stay.
Hourly 'tis heard, when with a boding note
The solitary screech-owl strains her throat,
And, on a chimney's top, or turret's height,
With songs obscene, disturbs the silence of the night.

351

Besides, old prophecies augment her fears;
And stern Æneas in her dreams appears,
Disdainful as by day: she seems, alone,
To wander in her sleep, through ways unknown,
Guideless and dark; or, in a desert plain,
To seek her subjects, and to seek in vain—
Like Pentheus, when, distracted with his fear,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes, appear;
Or mad Orestes, when his mother's ghost
Full in his face infernal torches tossed,
And shook her snaky locks: he shuns the sight,
Flies o'er the stage, surprised with mortal fright;
The Furies guard the door, and intercept his flight.

Now, sinking underneath a load of grief,
From death alone she seeks her last relief;
The time and means resolved within her breast,
She to her mournful sister thus addressed:—
(Dissembling hope, her cloudy front she clears,
And a false vigour in her eyes appears)
“Rejoice!” she said. “Instructed from above,
My lover I shall gain, or lose my love.
Nigh rising Atlas, next the falling sun,
Long tracts of Ethiopian climates run:
There a Massylian priestess I have found,
Honoured for age, for magic arts renowned:
The Hesperian temple was her trusted care;
'Twas she supplied the wakeful dragon's fare.
She poppy-seeds in honey taught to steep,
Reclaimed his rage, and soothed him into sleep:
She watched the golden fruit. Her charms unbind
The chains of love, or fix them on the mind;
She stops the torrents, leaves the channel dry,
Repels the stars, and backward bears the sky.
The yawning earth rebellows to her call,
Pale ghosts ascend, and mountain ashes fall.
Witness, ye gods, and thou my better part,
How loth I am to try this impious art!

352

Within the secret court, with silent care,
Erect a lofty pile, exposed in air:
Hang, on the topmost part, the Trojan vest,
Spoils, arms, and presents, of my faithless guest.
Next, under these, the bridal bed be placed,
Where I my ruin in his arms embraced.
All relics of the wretch are doomed to fire;
For so the priestess and her charms require.”
Thus far she said, and further speech forbears.
A mortal paleness in her face appears:
Yet the mistrustless Anna could not find
The secret funeral, in these rites designed;
Nor thought so dire a rage possessed her mind.
Unknowing of a train concealed so well,
She feared no worse than when Sichæus fell;
Therefore obeys. The fatal pile they rear,
Within the secret court, exposed in air.
The cloven holms and pines are heaped on high,
And garlands on the hollow spaces lie.
Sad cypress, vervain, yew, compose the wreath,
And every baleful green denoting death.
The queen, determined to the fatal deed,
The spoils and sword he left, in order spread,
And the man's image on the nuptial bed.

And now (the sacred altars placed around)
The priestess enters, with her hair unbound,
And thrice invokes the power below the ground.
Night, Erebus, and Chaos, she proclaims,
And threefold Hecate, with her hundred names,
And three Dianas: next, she sprinkles round,
With feigned Avernian drops, the hallowed ground;
Culls hoary simples, found by Phœbe's light,
With brazen sickles reaped at noon of night;
Then mixes baleful juices in the bowl,
And cuts the forehead of a new-born foal,

353

Robbing the mother's love.—The destined queen
Observes, assisting at the rites obscene:
A leavened cake in her devoted hands
She holds, and next the highest altar stands:
One tender foot was shod, her other bare,
Girt was her gathered gown, and loose her hair.
Thus dressed, she summoned, with her dying breath,
The heavens and planets conscious of her death,
And every power, if any rules above,
Who minds, or who revenges, injured love.

'Twas dead of night, when weary bodies close
Their eyes in balmy sleep, and soft repose:
The winds no longer whisper through the woods,
Nor murmuring tides disturb the gentle floods.
The stars in silent order moved around;
And Peace, with downy wings, was brooding on the ground.
The flocks and herds, and party-coloured fowl,
Which haunt the woods, or swim the weedy pool,
Stretched on the quiet earth, securely lay,
Forgetting the past labours of the day.
All else of nature's common gift partake:
Unhappy Dido was alone awake.
Nor sleep nor ease the furious queen can find;
Sleep fled her eyes, as quiet fled her mind.
Despair, and rage, and love, divide her heart;
Despair and rage had some, but love the greater part.

Then thus she said within her secret mind:—
“What shall I do? what succour can I find?
Become a suppliant to Iarbas' pride,
And take my turn to court, and be denied?
Shall I with this ungrateful Trojan go,
Forsake an empire, and attend a foe?
Himself I refuged, and his train relieved—
'Tis true—but am I sure to be received?

354

Can gratitude in Trojan souls have place?
Laomedon still lives in all his race!
Then, shall I seek alone the churlish crew,
Or with my fleet their flying sails pursue?
What force have I but those, whom scarce before
I drew reluctant from their native shore?
Will they again embark at my desire,
Once more sustain the seas, and quit their second Tyre?
Rather with steel thy guilty breast invade,
And take the fortune thou thyself hast made.
Your pity, sister, first seduced my mind,
Or seconded too well what I designed.
These dear-bought pleasures had I never known,
Had I continued free, and still my own—
Avoiding love, I had not found despair,
But shared with savage beasts the common air.
Like them, a lonely life I might have led,
Not mourned the living, nor disturbed the dead.”
These thoughts she brooded in her anxious breast.—
On board, the Trojan found more easy rest.
Resolved to sail, in sleep he passed the night;
And ordered all things for his early flight.

To whom once more the winged god appears;
His former youthful mien and shape he wears,
And with this new alarm invades his ears:—
“Sleep'st thou, O goddess-born? and canst thou drown
Thy needful cares, so near a hostile town,
Beset with foes; nor hear'st the western gales
Invite thy passage, and inspire thy sails?
She harbours in her heart a furious hate,
And thou shalt find the dire effects too late;
Fixed on revenge, and obstinate to die.
Haste swiftly hence, while thou hast power to fly.

355

The sea with ships will soon be covered o'er,
And blazing firebrands kindle all the shore.
Prevent her rage, while night obscures the skies,
And sail before the purple morn arise.
Who knows what hazards thy delay may bring?
Woman's a various and a changeful thing.”—
Thus Hermes in the dream; then took his flight
Aloft in air unseen, and mixed with night.

Twice warned by the celestial messenger,
The pious prince arose with hasty fear;
Then roused his drowsy train without delay:
“Haste to your banks! your crooked anchors weigh,
And spread your flying sails, and stand to sea!
A god commands: he stood before my sight,
And urged us once again to speedy flight.
O sacred power! what power soe'er thou art,
To thy blessed orders I resign my heart.
Lead thou the way; protect thy Trojan bands,
And prosper the design thy will commands.”—
He said; and, drawing forth his flaming sword,
His thundering arm divides the many-twisted cord.
An emulating zeal inspires his train:
They run; they snatch; they rush into the main.
With headlong haste they leave the desert shores,
And brush the liquid seas with labouring oars.

Aurora now had left her saffron bed,
And beams of early light the heavens o'erspread,
When, from a tower, the queen, with wakeful eyes,
Saw day point upward from the rosy skies.
She looked to seaward; but the sea was void,
And scarce in ken the sailing ships descried.

356

Stung with despite, and furious with despair,
She struck her trembling breast, and tore her hair.
“And shall the ungrateful traitor go” (she said),
“My land forsaken, and my love betrayed?
Shall we not arm? not rush from every street,
To follow, sink, and burn, his perjured fleet?
Haste, haul my galleys out! pursue the foe!
Bring flaming brands! set sail, and swiftly row!—
What have I said? where am I? Fury turns
My brain; and my distempered bosom burns.
Then, when I gave my person and my throne,
This hate, this rage, had been more timely shown.
See now the promised faith, the vaunted name,
The pious man, who, rushing through the flame,
Preserved his gods, and to the Phrygian shore
The burden of his feeble father bore!
I should have torn him piece-meal—strewed in floods
His scattered limbs, or left exposed in woods—
Destroyed his friends, and son; and, from the fire,
Have set the reeking boy before the sire.
Events are doubtful, which on battle wait:
Yet where's the doubt, to souls secure of fate?
My Tyrians, at their injured queen's command,
Had tossed their fires amid the Trojan band;
At once extinguished all the faithless name;
And I myself, in vengeance of my shame,
Had fallen upon the pile, to mend the funeral flame.
Thou Sun, who view'st at once the world below!
Thou Juno, guardian of the nuptial vow!
Thou Hecate, hearken from thy dark abodes!
Ye Furies, Fiends, and violated Gods!

357

All powers invoked with Dido's dying breath,
Attend her curses and avenge her death!
If so the Fates ordain, and Jove commands,
The ungrateful wretch should find the Latian lands,
Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose:
Oppressed with numbers in the unequal field,
His men discouraged, and himself expelled,
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace.
First, let him see his friends in battle slain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain:
And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace:
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command;
But fall, untimely, by some hostile hand,
And lie unburied on the barren sand!
These are my prayers, and this my dying will;
And you, my Tyrians, every curse fulfil.
Perpetual hate, and mortal wars proclaim,
Against the prince, the people, and the name.
These grateful offerings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now, and from hence, in every future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage,
Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
With fire and sword pursue the perjured brood;
Our arms, our seas, our shores, opposed to theirs;
And the same hate descend on all our heirs!”

This said, within her anxious mind she weighs
The means of cutting short her odious days.
Then to Sichæus' nurse she briefly said
(For, when she left her country, hers was dead),
“Go, Barce, call my sister. Let her care
The solemn rites of sacrifice prepare

358

The sheep, and all the atoning offerings, bring;
Sprinkling her body from the crystal spring
With living drops; then let her come, and thou
With sacred fillets bind thy hoary brow.
Thus will I pay my vows to Stygian Jove,
And end the cares of my disastrous love;
Then cast the Trojan image on the fire,
And, as that burns, my passion shall expire.”

The nurse moves onward with officious care,
And all the speed her aged limbs can bear.
But furious Dido, with dark thoughts involved,
Shook at the mighty mischief she resolved.
With livid spots distinguished was her face;
Red were her rolling eyes, and discomposed her pace;
Ghastly she gazed, with pain she drew her breath,
And nature shivered at approaching death.

Then swiftly to the fatal place she passed,
And mounts the funeral pile with furious haste;
Unsheathes the sword the Trojan left behind
(Not for so dire an enterprise designed).
But when she viewed the garments loosely spread,
Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed,
She paused, and, with a sigh, the robes embraced,
Then on the couch her trembling body cast,
Repressed the ready tears, and spoke her last:—
“Dear pledges of my love, while heaven so pleased,
Receive a soul, of mortal anguish eased.
My fatal course is finished; and I go,
A glorious name, among the ghosts below.
A lofty city by my hands is raised;
Pygmalion punished, and my lord appeased.
What could my fortune have afforded more,
Had the false Trojan never touched my shore?”

359

Then kissed the couch; and “Must I die,” she said,
“And unrevenged? 'tis doubly to be dead!
Yet even this death with pleasure I receive:
On any terms, 'tis better than to live.
These flames, from far, may the false Trojan view;
These boding omens his base flight pursue!”
She said, and struck; deep entered in her side
The piercing steel, with reeking purple dyed:

360

Clogged in the wound the cruel weapon stands;
The spouting blood came streaming on her hands.
Her sad attendants saw the deadly stroke,
And with loud cries the sounding palace shook.
Distracted, from the fatal sight they fled,
And through the town the dismal rumour spread.
First, from the frighted court the yell began;
Redoubled, thence from house to house it ran:
The groans of men, with shrieks, laments, and cries
Of mixing women, mount the vaulted skies.

361

Not less the clamour, than if—ancient Tyre,
Or the new Carthage, set by foes on fire—
The rolling ruin, with their loved abodes,
Involved the blazing temples of their gods.
Her sister hears; and, furious with despair,
She beats her breast, and rends her yellow hair,
And, calling on Eliza's name aloud,
Runs breathless to the place, and breaks the crowd.
“Was all that pomp of woe for this prepared,
These fires, this funeral pile, these altars reared?
Was all this train of plots contrived” (said she),
“All only to deceive unhappy me?
Which is the worst? Didst thou in death pretend
To scorn thy sister, or delude thy friend?
Thy summoned sister, and thy friend, had come;
One sword had served us both, one common tomb:
Was I to raise the pile, the powers invoke,
Not to be present at the fatal stroke?
At once thou hast destroyed thyself and me,
Thy town, thy senate, and thy colony!
Bring water! bathe the wound; while I in death
Lay close my lips to hers, and catch the flying breath.”
This said, she mounts the pile with eager haste,
And in her arms the gasping queen embraced;
Her temples chafed; and her own garments tore,
To stanch the streaming blood, and cleanse the gore.
Thrice Dido tried to raise her drooping head,
And, fainting, thrice fell grovelling on the bed;
Thrice oped her heavy eyes, and sought the light,
But, having found it, sickened at the sight,
And closed her lids at last in endless night.

362

Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain
A death so lingering, and so full of pain,
Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife
Of labouring nature, and dissolve her life.
For, since she died, not doomed by heaven's decree,
Or her own crime, but human casualty,
And rage of love, that plunged her in despair,
The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair,
Which Proserpine and they can only know;
Nor made her sacred to the shades below.—
Downward the various goddess took her flight,
And drew a thousand colours from the light;
Then stood above the dying lover's head,
And said, “I thus devote thee to the dead.
This offering to the infernal gods I bear.”
Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair:
The struggling soul was loosed, and life dissolved in air.

This is certainly the sense of Virgil , on which I have paraphrased, to make it plain. His words are these—

— Moriemur inultæ?
Sed moriamur, ait; sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras.

Servius makes an interrogation at the word sic; thus sic? Sic juvat ire sub umbras; which Mr. Cowley justly censures: but his own judgment may perhaps be questioned; for he would retrench the latter part of the verse, and leave it a hemistich,—Sed moriamur, ait. That Virgil never intended to have left any hemistich, I have proved already in the preface. That this verse was filled up by him with these words, sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras, is very probable, if we consider the weight of them; for this procedure of Dido does not only contain that dira execratio, quæ nullo expiatur carmine (as Horace observes in his “Canidia”), but, besides that, Virgil , who is full of allusions to history, under another name describes the Decii devoting themselves to death this way, though in a better cause, in order to the destruction of the enemy. The reader, who will take the pains to consult Livy in his accurate description of those Decii thus devoting themselves, will find a great resemblance betwixt these two passages. And it is judiciously observed upon that verse,

Nulla fides populis nec fœdera sunto,

that Virgil uses, in the word sunto, a verbum juris, a form of speaking on solemn and religious occasions. Livy does the like. Note also, that Dido puts herself into the habitus Gabinus, which was the girding herself round with one sleeve of her vest; which is also according to the Roman pontifical in this dreadful ceremony, as Livy has observed; which is a further confirmation of this conjecture. So that, upon the whole matter, Dido only doubts whether she should die before she had taken her revenge, which she rather wished; but, considering that this devoting herself was the most certain and infallible way of compassing her vengeance, she thus exclaims:

— Sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras!
Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto
Dardanus, et nostræ secum ferat omina mortis?
Those flames from far may the false Trojan view;
Those boding omens his base flight pursue!

which translation I take to be according to the sense of Virgil . I should have added a note on that former verse,

Infelix Dido! nunc te fata impia tangunt—

which, in the edition of Heinsius, is thus printed, nunc te facta impia tangunt? The word facta, instead of fata, is reasonably altered; for Virgil says afterwards, she died not by fate, nor by any deserved death, nec fato, meritâ nec morte, peribat, etc. When I translated that passage, I doubted of the sense, and therefore omitted that hemistich, nunc te fata impia tangunt. But Heinsius is mistaken only in making an interrogation-point instead of a period. The words facta impia, I suppose, are genuine; for she had perjured herself in her second marriage, having firmly resolved, as she told her sister in the beginning of this Æneïd, never to love again, after the death of her first husband; and had confirmed this resolution by a curse on herself, if she should alter it—

Sed mihi vel tellus, optem, prius ima dehiscat, etc.
Ante, pudor, quam te violem, aut tua jura resolvam.
Ille meos, primus qui me sibi junxit, amores
Abstulit: ille habeat secum, servetque sepulcro.