And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown.
An age is ripening in revolving fate

When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state;
And sweet Revenge her conquering 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 heaven, the just reward of human toils,
Securely shall repay with rites divine,

And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine.
Then dire debate and impious war shall cease,
And the stern age be softened into peace:
Then banished faith shall once again return,
And vestal fires in hallowed 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
Imprisoned 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 state.
Down from the steep of heaven Cyllenius flies,

And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skics.
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 Eneas 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 looked a wild uncultivated shore,
But whether humankind or beasts alone
Possessed 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.

Armed 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 confessed a queen.

Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind;
Loose was her hair, and wantoned in the wind;
Her hand sustained a bow, her quiver hung behind.
She seemed a virgin of the Spartan blood;

With such array Harpalice bestrode

Her Thracian courser, and outstripped the rapid flood.
"Ho, strangers, have you lately seen." she said,
One of my sisters, like myself arrayed,

Who crossed the lawn or in the forest strayed?
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 a humble suppliant sue in vain :

But tell a stranger, long in tempests tossed,

What earth we tread, and who commands the coast? Then on your name shall wretched mortals call,

And offered victims at your altars fall.”

"I dare not," she replied," assume the name
Of goddess, or celestial honours 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 sce
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,
Possessed 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 swayed:
One who contemned 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 concealed the cruel deed.
Some tale, some new pretence, he daily coined,
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.
Admonished 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 rigged they find,
Nor is Pygmalion's treasure left behind.
The vessels, heavy laden, put to sca

With prosperous winds: a woman leads the way.
I know not, if by stress of weather driven,
Or was their fatal course disposed by Heaven;
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 called
From the bull's hide, they first enclosed and walled.
But whence are you, what country claims your birth?
What seek you, strangers, on our Libyan earth ?”

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 expelled, we came,
If you by chance have heard the Trojan name.
On various seas, by various tempests tossed,
At length we landed on your Libyan coast.
The good Æneas am I called, a name,
While fortune favoured, not unknown to fame.

My household gods, companions of my woes,
With pious care I rescued from our foes.
To fruitful Italy my course was bent,

And from the King of Heaven is my descent.
With twice ten sail I crossed the Phrygian sea;
Fate and my mother goddess led my way.
Scarce seven, the thin remainder of my fleet,
From storms preserved, within your harbour meet;
Myself distressed, an exile and unknown,
Debarred from Europe and from Asia thrown,
In Libyan deserts wander thus alone."

His tender parent could no longer bear,
But, interposing, sought to sooth his care:
"Whoe'er you are, not unbeloved by Heaven,
Since on our friendly shore your ships are driven,
Have courage to the gods permit the rest,
And to the Queen expose your just request.
Now take this earnest of success for more:
Your scattered fleet is joined upon the shore;

The winds are changed, your friends from danger free,
Or I renounce my skill in augury.

Twelve swans behold, in beauteous order move,
And stoop with closing pinions from above:
Whom late the bird of Jove had driven along,

And through the clouds pursued the scattering throng;
Now all united in a goodly team,

They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream.
As they, with joy returning, clap their wings,

And ride the circuit of the skies in rings;
Not otherwise your ships, and every friend,

Already hold the port, or with swift sails descend.
No more advice is needful, but pursue

The path before you, and the town in view.”
Thus having said, she turned, and made appear

Her neck refulgent, and dishevelled hair,

Which, flowing from her shoulders, reached the ground, And widely spread ambrosial scents around;

In length of train descends her sweeping gown,

And by her graceful walk the Queen of Love is known.
The prince pursued the parting deity

With words like these: "Ah, whither dost thou fly?
Unkind and cruel, to deceive your son

In borrowed shapes, and his embrace to shun :
Never to bless my sight but thus unknown;
And still to speak in accents not your own."
Against the goddess these complaints be made;

But took the path, and her commands obeyed.
They march obscure, for Venus kindly shrouds
With mists their persons, and involves in clouds;
That, thus unseen, their passage none might stay,
Or force to tell the causes of their way.

This part performed, the goddess flies sublime,
To visit Paphos and her native clime;
Where garlands ever green an i ever fair,
With vows, are offered, and with solemn prayer;
A hundred altars in her tem le smoke,

A thousand bleeding hearts her power invoke.
They climb the next ascent, and looking down,
Now at a nearer distance view the town.

The prince with wonder sees the stately towers
Which late were huts and shepherd's homely bowers;
The gates and streets; and hears from every part
The noise and busy concourse of the mart.
The toiling Tyrians on each other call
To ply their labour: some extend the wall,
Some build the citadel; the brawny throng,
Or dig, or push unwieldy stones along.

Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground,
Which, first designed, with ditches they surround;
Some laws ordain, and some attend the choice
Of holy senates, and elect by voice.

Here some design a mole, while others there
Lay deep foundations for a theatre;

From marble quarries mighty columns hew,
For ornaments of scenes, and future view.
Such is their toil, and such their busy pains,
As exercise the bees in flowery plains,
When winter past and summer scarce begun
Invites them forth to labour in the sun.

Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense

Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense;

Some at the gate stand ready to receive

The golden burden, and their friends relieve.
All, with united force, combine to drive
The lazy drones from the laborious hive;
With envy stung, they view each other's deeds;
The fragrant work with diligence proceeds.
"Thrice happy you whose walls already rise,"
Eneas said, and viewed, with lifted eyes,
Their lofty towers; then entering at the gate,
Concealed in clouds (prodigious to relate)
He mixed, unmarked, among the busy throng,