The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (40 page)

 

Poor Dido bums, and stung with restless love,
Runs raving to and fro through every street,
Runs like a hind, which in some covert grove
Where she securely graz’d in fruitful Crete,
A woodman shooting at far distance hit;
Drunk in her veins the feather’d iron lies,
Nor he who made the wound doth know of it;
She through Dictæan woods and pastures hies,
But carries in her side the arrow which she flies.

 

She takes Aeneas with her up and down,
And shews him the vast wealth she brought from Tyre,
The goodly streets and bulwarks of her town.
No less a thousand times did she desire
To show unto him too her amorous fire;
And oft began, but shame represt her tongue.
At night unto their banquets they retire,
And Troy’s sad fall again she must have sung,
And at his charming lips again she fondly hung.

 

When every one was parted to his rest,
And the dim moon trod on the heels of day,
And setting stars show’d it high time to rest,
She in the empty house languisht away,
And on the couch, which he had pressed, lay:
Absent she sees him whom her thoughts admire,
Him absent hears, or on her lap doth stay
Ascanius, the true picture of his sire,
As if she so could cheat her impotent desire.

 

All works are at a stand; the youth for war
Provide no forts, nor training exercise;
Huge beams, and arches, which half finisht are,
Hang doubtful in the air, to fall, or rise,
And towers do threat at once both earth and skies.
Whom whenas Jove’s dear wife perceiv’d so drown’d
In witchcrafts, and that fame, with loudest cries,
Could not awake her from the pleasing swound,
She thus accosted Venus, and her mind did sound.

 

“Great glory sure, and goodly spoils ye gain,
You and your boy: a doughty enterprise
Ye have achieved, and worthy to remain
In lasting marble, if two deities
By subtlety one woman do surprise.
Nor am I ignorant, that to defend
Your race from fear of future enemies,
Y’ are jealous of my walls. But to what end
Should so near friends as we eternally contend?

“Nay rather let us knit eternal love,
And bind the peace more strong with Hymen’s cord.
Ye have the thing for which so much ye strove,
Elissa with Love’s fiery shaft is gor’d;
Then rule we this joint town with one accord,
And who shall aid it most be now our strife.
Once let a queen obey a Trojan lord,
And Tyrians, to preserve a lover’s life,
Call thee their patroness, as dowry of his wife.”

Venus, who saw her drift was to translate
To Carthaginians those imperial dues
Which were reserved to Italy by fate,
Made this reply. “Who madly would refuse
So advantageous match, and rather choose
To war with you? If but the fair event
According to your wise forecast ensues.
But fates I fear me, nor will Jove consent
That Tyrians and Trojans in one town be pent.

 

“And yet, perchance, you lying in his breast
With a wife’s rhetoric may his counsels sway;
Then break the ice; I’ll second the request.”
“Leave that to me,” said she, “and for a way
T° effect our wishes, mark my plot I pray.
Tomorrow when the sun shall be descried
To gild the mountains with his earliest ray,
Æneas and the love-sick queen provide
To have a solemn hunting in the forest wide.

 

“Now I, when here they beat the coppice, there
The horsemen flutter, on their heads will pour
A pitchy cloud, and heaven with thunder tear.
Their followers, for shelter from the show‘r,
By several paths along the plain shall scour;
Mask’d in dead night, unto one cave they two
Shall come: there I will be; and (add your pow’r)
Tie such a knot as only Fates undo;
I’ll seal her his. Good Hymen shall be present too.”

 

Venus seems, nodding, to consent; and smiles
To see Dame Juno’s craft. Meanwhile the Morn
Arose: and the choice youth, with subtle toils,
Sharp hunting-spears, fleet steeds in Barbary born,
And sure-nos’d hounds tun’d to the bugle-horn,
Are gone before. The lords at door expect
Whilst the Queen stays within herself t’ adorn.
Her palfrey stands with gold and scarlet deckt,
And champs the foaming bit, as scorning to be checkt.

 

At length she comes, with a huge troop: her gown
Of Tyrian dye, border’d with flowers of gold:
A quiver by her comely side hung down,
Gold ribboning her brighter hair enroll‘d,
Gold buttons did her purple vesture hold.
The Trojans too and blithe Iulus went:
Above the rest, far goodliest to behold,
Æneas’ self his gladding presence lent,
And with his dark’ned train did Dido’s train augment.

 

As when Apollo leaves his winter seats
Of Lycia and Xanthus’ floods, to see
His country Delos, and his feast repeats;
About his altar hum confusedly
Cretes, Dryopes, and ruddy Nymphs: but he
On Cynthus rides, and pleating doth enlace
His flowing hair with gold, and his lov’d tree:
His shafts shog at his back. With no less grace
Æneas march’d: such rays display’d his lovely face.

When in the mountains now engag’d they were
And pathless woods, lo, goats from summits cast
Run tumbling through the bushes: herds of deer
Another way come hurrying down as fast,
And raise a cloud as through the dust they haste;
Hotspur Iulus on his mettled horse
Out-cracking all, now these, now those men past,
And wish’d ‘mong those faint beasts, and without
force,
Some lion or tusk’d boar would cross him in his course.

 

Meanwhile loud thunder heaven’s pavilion tears,
Making a passage for th’ ensuing rain:
The Trojan youth, and Tyrian followers,
And Venus’ Dardan grandchild through the plain
Seek several shelters: rivers, like a main,
Rush from the mountains round. One cave that lord
Of Troy, and she who did in Carthage reign,
Lighted upon. Earth gives the signal word,
And Juno, queen of marriage, doth their hands accord.

 

The guilty Heavens, as blushing to have been
An instrument this meeting to fulfil,
With flashing lightning shone: the Nymphs were seen
To weep with all their streams, and from each hill
Were heard to murmur the presaged ill.
That day did utter death, and Dido’s shame:
For now she’s arm‘d, let men say what they will,
Nor seeks as erst to hide her amorous flame:
She calls it wedlock, gives her fault an honest name.

 

Fame straight through Libya’s goodly towns doth post,
Fame, a fleet evil, which none can outfly;
Most strong she is when she hath travel’d most,
First small through fear, but grown so instantly,
That standing on the ground she’ll reach the sky.
She was the last birth Mother Earth did bring,
When her proud anger did the gods defy,
The Giants’ sister, swift of foot and wing;
A huger never was, nor a more monstrous thing.

 

Most strange! There’s not a plume her body bears,
But under it a watching eye doth peep,
As many tattling tongues, and list‘ning ears.
By night ’tween Earth and Heaven she doth sweep
Screeching, nor shuts her lids with balmy sleep.
And all the day time upon castle gates,
Or steeple-tops, she doth strict watches keep,
And frights great cities with her sudden baits,
And with one confidence both truths and lies relates.

 

 

She, glad of such a prey whereon to plume,
Through people’s minds truths mixt with falsehood
sent:
How one Æneas came from Troy, with whom
Fair Dido deign’d to wed; and how they spent
In revels the long winter, wholly bent
On brutish love, drowning affairs of state:
These things she sow’d in men’s rank mouths: then
went
To King larbas, and did irritate
His mind with tales, and his old wrath exasperate.

 

An hundred temples built to Jove had he,
(Who unto Hammon forc’d Gramantis bore)
An hundred altars burning constantly,
The gods’ eternal sentinels, each floor
Painted with blood of beasts, with flowers each door:
Who mad with love, and with the bitter news,
Before the altars and the gods before,
Kneeling with hands upheav’d to Jove, doth use
Great supplications, and in this manner sues.

 

“Jove, to whom Moors rich wine on carpets drink,
See‘st this? Or when thy arm doth lightning shake,
Giv’st thou false fire t’ a cloud to make fools wink?
And, when it thunders, dost thou only make
A rumbling o‘er our heads at which we quake?
A stray, to whom ourself (being hither fled)
Hir’d a small barren plat, for pity sake,
With some restraints, refus’d with us to wed,
And Don Æneas takes unto her crown and bed.

 

“And now this Paris, with a coif to stay
His beard and powder’d locks, and ’s beaver train
Of she-men, gluts himself upon the prey;
Whilst we with gifts on gifts enrich thy fane,
And make our person glorious in vain.”
Th’ all-powerful heard these prayers, and cast his eye
On the new walls where th’ amorous pair remain
Careless how desperate sick their fame doth lie,
Then spake, and gave this charge to winged Mercury.

“Go, son, as swift as winds in Carthage light,
Tell Venus’ son, whom loit‘ring there thou’lt see
Unworthy of that fate which he doth slight,
That his fair mother painted him to me
Another man, and therefore twice did free
From Grecian swords; one who with steady rein
Should manage proud and warlike Italy,
And prove himself of Teucer’s haughty strain,
And the triumphed world under his laws maintain.

“If not at all this him with glory fires,
Nor care of his own greatness doth he show,
Why should he grudge his son the Roman spires?
What makes he here? What seeks he from a foe?
Latium, and them who there expect to grow
From him, let him regard. Let him away.
This is th’ effect, from me this let him know.”
At once Jove ended, and the son of May
His greater sire’s commands prepar’d himself t’ obey.

 

First golden wings unto his feet he binds,
Which over lands and over seas that swell
Bear him aloft, as speedy as the winds;
Then takes his rod. With this he calls from Hell
Pale ghosts, sends others in sad shades to dwell,
Gives sleep and takes it from the drowsy brain,
And seals up eyes with death. He doth repel
By power of this the heav‘ns which part in twain,
And through the watery cloud he sails as through a
main.

 

 

He soaring the lank sides and crown disclos’d
Of craggy Atlas, whose neck props the sky,
Atlas, whose piney head to storms expos’d
Is bound about with clouds continually.
Thick on his aged back the snow doth lie,
And down his dravel’d chin pour plenteous springs,
His beard in icicles grows horribly.
Here lights the god pois’d on his hovering wings,
Towards the sea from hence his body headlong flings.

 

Like to a bird, which round the shores doth glide
And fishy rocks, skimming along the bay;
So flies ‘tween earth and heaven, and doth divide
The wind and sandy coast of Libya,
Leaving his mother’s sire, the son of May.
Who landing where the sheep-cotes lately were,
Sees how Æneas doth the works survey,
Here building towers, and alt’ring turrets there,
He by his side a sword all starr’d with gems did wear.

 

Upon his shoulder to the air display’d
A robe of Tyrian purple seemed to flame,
Which Dido with her own fair hands had made
And edg’d the seams with gold. “Here do you frame.”
Said Hermes, “hind‘ring your own crown and fame,
High towers of Carthage, and, uxorious, raise
Fair walls whereof another bears the name?
Mark now what Jove himself, whom Heav’n obeys
And Earth, by his wing’d messenger unto you says.

 

“What make you here loit‘ring in Libya?
If glory of great actions fire not you,
Nor your own interest nor fame you weigh;
Seek your heir’s good, Iulus’ hopes pursue,
To whom the Latian crown and Rome is due.”
This having said, Cyllenius vanish’d quite
From mortal eyes, and back to Heaven flew.
Æneas at the vision shakes with fright,
His tongue cleaves to his jaws, his hair stands bolt up
right.

 

He is on fire to go, and fly that land
Of sweet enchantments, being scar’d away
By no less warning than the gods’ command.
But, ah, what shall he do? How dare t’ assay
With words the amorous queen? What should he say
For introduction? His swift-beating thought

In doubtful balance thousand things did lay,
And this way cast them, and then that way wrought;
At last this seem’d the best when all ways he had
sought.

 

He call’d Sergestus, Mnestheus, and the stout
Cloanthus, bids them fit immediately
Their fleet, and draw their companies about
The port, their arms prepar‘d, not telling why;
Meanwhile himself (when no least jealousy
To the good queen should thought of breach betray
In so great loves) an entrance would espy,
The season of soft speech, and dextrous way.
With readiness and joy they do him all obey.

 

But Dido found their plot—what’s hid from lovers?
Herself, who doubts even safe things, first doth see’t:
And the same tattling Fame to her discovers
That Trojans are departing with their fleet.
She’s mad, stark mad, and runs through every street,
Like Bacchus’ she-priests, when the god is in,
And they to do him furious homage meet,
Cithæron yelling with their midnight din:
Then thus t’ Æneas speaks, nor stays till he begin.

 

“Didst thou hope too by stealth to leave my land,
And that such treason could be unbetray’d?
Nor should my love, nor thy late plighted hand,
Nor Dido, who would die, thy flight have stay’d?
Must too this voyage be in winter made?
Through storms? 0, cruel to thyself and me,
Didst thou not hunt strange lands and sceptres sway’d
By others, if old Troy reviv’d should be,
Should Troy itself be sought through a tempestuous sea?