With which he drives the clouds and clears the
First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies :—
‘Daughter, dismiss thy fears: to thy desire,
The fates of thine are fix'd and stand intire.
Thou shalt behold thy wish'd Lavinian walls;
And, ripe for heav'n, when fate Æneas calls,
Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me:—
No counsels have reversed my firm decree.
And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state,
Know, I have search'd the mystic rolls of fate :
Thy son (nor is th' appointed season far)
In Italy shall wage successful war,
Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field,
And sov'reign laws impose, and cities build,
Till, after ev'ry foe subdued, the sun
Thrice through the signs his annual race shall run:
This is his time prefix'd. Ascanius then,
Now call'd Iulus, shall begin his reign.
He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear,
Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer,
And, with hard labor, Alba Longa build.—
The throne with his succession shall be fill'd,
Three hundred circuits more: then shall be seen
Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen,
Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes,
Ev'n haughty Juno, who, with endless broils,
Earth, seas, and heav'n, and Jove himself turmoils,
At length atoned, her friendly pow'r shall join,
To cherish and advance the Trojan line.
The subject world shall Rome's dominion own,
And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown. 385 An age is rip'ning in revolving fate,
When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state,
And sweet revenge her conqu❜ring sons shall call,
To crush the people that conspired her fall.
Then Cæsar from the Julian stock shall rise,
Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies,
Alone shall bound; whom fraught with eastern spoils
Our heav'n the just reward of human toils,
Securely shall repay with rites divine;
And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine. 395
Then dire debate, and impious war, shall cease,
And the stern age be soften'd into peace:
Then banish'd Faith shall once again return,
And Vestal fires in hallow'd temples burn;
And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain
The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.
Janus himself before his fane shall wait,
And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,
With bolts and iron bars: within remains
Imprison'd Fury, bound in brazen chains:
High on a trophy raised, of useless arms,
He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms.'
He said, and sent Cyllenius with command
To free the ports, and ope the Punic land
To Trojan guests; lest, ignorant of fate,
The queen might force them from her town and
Down from the steep of heav'n Cyllenius flies,
And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skies.
Soon on the Libyan shore descends the god,
Performs his message, and displays his rod.
The surly murmurs of the people cease;
And as the fates required, they give the peace.
The queen herself suspends the rigid laws,
The Trojans pities, and protects their cause.
Meantime in shades of night Æneas lies:
Care seized his soul, and sleep forsook his eyes.
But when the sun restored the cheerful day,
He rose, the coast and country to survey,
Anxious and eager to discover more.—
It look'd a wild uncultivated shore :
But, whether humankind, or beasts alone,
Possess'd the new-found region, was unknown.
Beneath a ledge of rocks his fleet he hides:
Tall trees surround the mountain's shady sides:
The bending brow above a safe retreat provides.
Arm'd with two pointed darts, he leaves his friends;
And true Achates on his steps attends.
Lo! in the deep recesses of the wood,
Before his eyes his goddess mother stood
A huntress in her habit and her mien :
Her dress a maid, her air confess'd a queen.
Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind ;
Loose was her hair, and wanton'd in the wind;
Her hand sustain’d a bow; her quiver hung behind.
She seem'd a virgin of the Spartan blood:
With such array Harpalyce bestrode
Her Thracian courser, and outstripp'd the rapid flood. 'Ho! strangers! have you lately seen,' she said, One of my sisters, like myself array'd,
Who cross'd the lawn, or in the forest stray'd?
A painted quiver at her back she bore;
Varied with spots, a lynx's hide she wore ;
And at full cry pursued the tusky boar.'
Thus Venus thus her son replied again :
None of your sisters have we heard or seen,
O virgin! or what other name you bear
Above that style-O more than mortal fair!
Your voice and mien celestial birth betray!
If, as you seem, the sister of the day,
Or one at least of chaste Diana's train,
Let not an humble suppliant sue in vain :
But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss'd,
What earth we tread, and who commands the coast?
Then on your name shall wretched mortals call,
And offer'd victims at your altars fall.'-
'I dare not,' she replied,' assume the name
Of goddess, or celestial honors claim:
For Tyrian virgins bows and quivers bear,
And purple buskins o'er their ankles wear.
Know, gentle youth, in Libyan lands you are
A people rude in peace, and rough in war.
The rising city, which from far you see,
Is Carthage, and a Tyrian colony.
Phoenician Dido rules the growing state,
Who fled from Tyre, to shun her brother's hate.
Great were her wrongs, her story full of fate ;
Which I will sum in short. Sichæus, known
For wealth, and brother to the Punic throne,
Possess'd fair Dido's bed; and either heart
At once was wounded with an equal dart.
Her father gave her, yet a spotless maid;
Pygmalion then the Tyrian sceptre sway'd—
One who contemn'd divine and human laws.
Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause.
The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth,
With steel invades his brother's life by stealth;
Before the sacred altar made him bleed,
And long from her conceal'd the cruel deed.
Some tale, some new pretence, he daily coin'd,
To soothe his sister, and delude her mind.
At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears
Of her unhappy lord: the spectre stares,
And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares.
The cruel altars, and his fate, he tells,
And the dire secret of his house reveals;
Then warns the widow, and her household gods,
To seek a refuge in remote abodes.
Last, to support her in so long a way,
He shows her where his hidden treasure lay:
Admonish'd thus, and seized with mortal fright,
The queen provides companions of her flight:
They meet, and all combine to leave the state,
Who hate the tyrant, or who fear his hate.
They seize a fleet, which ready rigg'd they find;
Nor is Pygmalion's treasure left behind.
The vessels, heavy laden, put to sea
With prosp'rous winds: a woman leads the way.
I know not, if by stress of weather driven,
Or was their fatal course disposed by heav'n ;
At last they landed, where from far your eyes
May view the turrets of new Carthage rise;
There bought a space of ground, which (Byrsa call'd
From the bull's hide) they first inclosed and wall'd.-
But whence are you? what country claims your birth?
What seek you, strangers, on our Libyan earth?' 510
To whom, with sorrow streaming from his eyes,
And deeply sighing, thus her son replies:
'Could you with patience hear, or I relate,
O nymph! the tedious annals of our fate,
Through such a train of woes if I should run,
The day would sooner, than the tale, be done!
From ancient Troy, by force expell'd, we came—
If you by chance have heard the Trojan name.
On various seas by various tempests toss'd,
At length we landed on your Libyan coast.
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