Part 8 (1/2)

But Venus felt that Juno's guile within the word did live, Who lords.h.i.+p due to Italy to Libya fain would give, So thus she answered her again: ”Who were so overbold To gainsay this? or who would wish war against thee to hold, If only this may come to pa.s.s, and fate the deed may seal?

But doubtful drifts my mind of fate, if one same town and weal 110 Jove giveth to the Tyrian folk and those from Troy outcast, If he will have those folks to blend and bind the treaty fast Thou art his wife: by prayer mayst thou prove all his purpose weighed.

Set forth, I follow.”

Juno then took up the word and said: ”Yea, that shall be my very work: how that which presseth now May be encompa.s.sed, hearken ye, in few words will I show: aeneas and the hapless queen are minded forth to fare For hunting to the thicket-side, when t.i.tan first shall bear Tomorrow's light aloft, and all the glittering world unveil: On them a darkening cloud of rain, blended with drift of hail, 120 Will I pour down, while for the hunt the feathered snare-lines shake, And toils about the thicket go: all heaven will I awake With thunder, and their scattered folk the mid-mirk shall enwrap: Then Dido and the Trojan lord on one same cave shall hap; I will be there, and if to me thy heart be stable grown, In wedlock will I join the two and deem her all his own: And there shall be their bridal G.o.d.”

Then Venus nought gainsaid, But, nodding yea, she smiled upon the snare before her laid.

Meanwhile Aurora risen up had left the ocean stream, And gateward throng the chosen youth in first of morning's beam, 130 And wide-meshed nets, and cordage-toils and broad-steeled spears abound, Ma.s.sylian riders go their ways with many a scenting hound.

The lords of Carthage by the door bide till the tarrying queen Shall leave her chamber: there, with gold and purple well beseen, The mettled courser stands, and champs the bit that bids him bide.

At last she cometh forth to them with many a man beside: A cloak of Sidon wrapped her round with pictured border wrought, Her quiver was of fas.h.i.+oned gold, and gold her tresses caught; The gathering of her purple gown a golden buckle had.

Then come the Phrygian fellows forth; comes forth Iulus glad; 140 Yea and aeneas' very self is of their fellows.h.i.+p, And joins their band: in goodliness all those did he outstrip: E'en such as when Apollo leaves the wintry Lycian sh.o.r.e, And Xanthus' stream, and Delos sees, his mother's isle once more; And halloweth in the dance anew, while round the altars shout The Cretans and the Dryopes, and painted Scythian rout: He steps it o'er the Cynthus' ridge, and leafy crown to hold His flowing tresses doth he weave, and intertwines the gold, And on his shoulders clang the shafts. Nor duller now pa.s.sed on aeneas, from his n.o.ble face such wondrous glory shone. 150 So come they to the mountain-side and pathless deer-fed ground, And lo, from hill-tops driven adown, how swift the wild goats bound Along the ridges: otherwhere across the open lea Run hart and hind, and gathering up their horned host to flee, Amid a whirling cloud of dust they leave the mountain-sides.

But here the boy Ascanius the midmost valley rides, And glad, swift-horsed, now these he leaves, now those he flees before, And fain were he mid deedless herds to meet a foaming boar, Or see some yellow lion come the mountain-slopes adown. 159

Meanwhile with mighty murmuring sound confused the heavens are grown, And thereupon the drift of rain and hail upon them broke; Therewith the scattered Trojan youth, the Tyrian fellow-folk, The son of Venus' Dardan son, scared through the meadows fly To diverse shelter, while the streams rush from the mountains high.

Then Dido and the Trojan lord meet in the self-same cave; Then Earth, first-born of everything, and wedding Juno gave The token; then the wildfires flashed, and air beheld them wed, And o'er their bridal wailed the nymphs in hill-tops overhead.

That day began the tide of death; that day the evil came; No more she heedeth eyes of men; no more she heedeth fame; 170 No more hath Dido any thought a stolen love to win, But calls it wedlock: yea, e'en so she weaveth up the sin.

Straight through the mighty Libyan folks is Rumour on the wing-- Rumour, of whom nought swifter is of any evil thing: She gathereth strength by going on, and bloometh s.h.i.+fting oft!

A little thing, afraid at first, she springeth soon aloft; Her feet are on the worldly soil, her head the clouds o'erlay.

Earth, spurred by anger 'gainst the G.o.ds, begot her as they say, Of Coeus and Enceladus the latest sister-birth.

Swift are her wings to cleave the air, swift-foot she treads the earth: 180 A monster dread and huge, on whom so many as there lie The feathers, under each there lurks, O strange! a watchful eye; And there wag tongues, and babble mouths, and hearkening ears upstand As many: all a-dusk by night she flies 'twixt sky and land Loud clattering, never shutting eye in rest of slumber sweet.

By day she keepeth watch high-set on houses of the street, Or on the towers aloft she sits for mighty cities' fear!

And lies and ill she loves no less than sooth which she must bear.

She now, rejoicing, filled the folk with babble many-voiced, And matters true and false alike sang forth as she rejoiced: 190 How here was come aeneas now, from Trojan blood sprung forth, Whom beauteous Dido deemed indeed a man to mate her worth: How winter-long betwixt them there the sweets of sloth they nursed, Unmindful of their kingdoms' weal, by ill desire accursed.

This in the mouth of every man the loathly G.o.ddess lays, And thence to King Iarbas straight she wendeth on her ways, To set his mind on fire with words, and high his wrath to lead.

He, sprung from Garamantian nymph and very Ammon's seed, An hundred mighty fanes to Jove, an hundred altars fair, Had builded in his wide domain, and set the watch-fire there, 200 The everlasting guard of G.o.d: there fat the soil was grown With blood of beasts; the threshold bloomed with garlands diverse blown.

He, saith the tale, all mad at heart, and fired with bitter fame, Amidmost of the might of G.o.d before the altars came, And prayed a many things to Jove with suppliant hands outspread:

”O Jupiter, almighty lord, to whom from painted bed The banqueting Maurusian folk Lenaean joy pours forth, Dost thou behold? O Father, is our dread of nothing worth When thou art thundering? Yea, forsooth, a blind fire of the clouds, An idle hubbub of the sky, our souls with terror loads! 210 A woman wandering on our sh.o.r.e, who set her up e'en now A little money-cheapened town, to whom a field to plough And lords.h.i.+p of the place we gave, hath thrust away my word Of wedlock, and hath taken in aeneas for her lord: And now this Paris, hedged around with all his gelding rout, Maeonian mitre tied to chin, and wet hair done about, Sits on the prey while to thine house a many gifts we bear, Still cheris.h.i.+ng an idle tale who our begetters were.”

The Almighty heard him as he prayed holding the altar-horns, And to the war-walls of the Queen his eyes therewith he turns, 220 And sees the lovers heeding nought the glory of their lives; Then Mercury he calls to him, and such a bidding gives: ”Go forth, O Son, the Zephyrs call, and glide upon the wing Unto the duke of Dardan men in Carthage tarrying, Who hath no eyes to see the walls that fate to him hath given: Speak to him, Son, and bear my words down the swift air of heaven: His fairest mother promised us no such a man at need, Nor claimed him twice from Greekish sword to live for such a deed.

But Italy, the fierce in war, the big with empire's brood, Was he to rule; to get for us from glorious Teucer's blood 230 That folk of folks, and all the world beneath his laws to lay.

But if such glory of great deeds nought stirreth him today, Nor for his own fame hath he heart the toil to overcome, Yet shall the father grudge the son the towered heights of Rome?

What doth he? tarrying for what hope among the enemy?

And hath no eyes Ausonian sons, Lavinian land to see?

Let him to s.h.i.+p! this is the doom; this word I bid thee bear.”

He spake: his mighty father's will straight did the G.o.d prepare To compa.s.s, and his golden shoes first bindeth on his feet, E'en those which o'er the ocean plain aloft on feathers fleet, 240 Or over earth swift bear him on before the following gale: And then his rod he takes, wherewith he calleth spirits pale From Orcus, or those others sends sad Tartarus beneath, And giveth sleep and takes away, and openeth eyes to death; The rod that sways the ocean-winds and rules the cloudy rack.

Now winging way he comes in sight of peak and steepy back Of flinty Atlas, on whose head all heaven is set adown-- Of Atlas with the piny head, and never-failing crown Of mirky cloud, beat on with rain and all the winds that blow: 249 A snow-cloak o'er his shoulders falls, and headlong streams overflow His ancient chin; his bristling beard with plenteous ice is done.

There hovering on his poised wings stayed that Cyllenian one, And all his gathered body thence sent headlong toward the waves; Then like a bird the sh.o.r.es about, about the fishy caves, Skims low adown upon the wing the sea-plain's face anigh, Not otherwise 'twixt heaven and earth Cyllene's G.o.d did fly; And now, his mother's father great a long way left behind, Unto the sandy Libya's sh.o.r.e he clave the driving wind.

But when the cot-built place of earth he felt beneath his feet, He saw aeneas founding towers and raising houses meet: 260 Starred was the sword about him girt with yellow jasper stone, The cloak that from his shoulders streamed with Tyrian purple shone: Fair things that wealthy Dido's hand had given him for a gift, Who with the gleam of thready gold the purple web did s.h.i.+ft.

Then brake the G.o.d on him: ”Forsooth, tall Carthage wilt thou found, O lover, and a city fair raise up from out the ground?

Woe's me! thy lords.h.i.+p and thy deeds hast thou forgotten quite?

The very ruler of the G.o.ds down from Olympus bright Hath sent me, he whose majesty the earth and heavens obey; This was the word he bade me bear adown the windy way. 270 What dost thou? hoping for what hope in Libya dost thou wear Thy days? if glorious fated things thine own soul may not stir, And heart thou lackest for thy fame the coming toil to wed, Think on Ascanius' dawn of days and hope inherited, To whom is due the Italian realm and all the world of Rome!”

But when from out Cyllenius' mouth such word as this had come, Amidst his speech he left the sight of men that die from day, And mid thin air from eyes of folk he faded far away.

But sore the sight aeneas feared, and wit from out him drave; His hair stood up, amidst his jaws the voice within him clave. 280 Bewildered by that warning word, and by that G.o.d's command, He yearneth to depart and flee, and leave the lovely land.

Ah, what to do? and with what word may he be bold to win Peace of the Queen all mad with love? what wise shall he begin?