Ah me! the Furies drive me to despair.
Now Phoebus calls him, now the Lycian fane,
Now Jove's own herald brings the dreadful news too plain:

XLIX. "Fit task for Gods; such cares disturb their ease.
I care not to confute thee nor delay.
Go, seek thy Latin lordship o'er the seas.
May Heaven--if Heaven be righteous--make thee pay
Thy forfeit, left on ocean's rocks to pray
For help to Dido. There shall Dido go
With sulphurous flames, and vex thee far away.
My ghost in death shall haunt thee. I shall know
Thy punishment, false wretch, and hail the news below."

L. Abrupt she ceased and, sickening with despair,
Turns from his gaze, and shuns the light of day,
And leaves the Dardan, faltering in his fear,
And thinking of a thousand things to say.
Back to her marble couch the maids convey
The fainting Queen. The pious Prince, though fain
With gentle words her anguish to ally,
Sighing full sore, and racked with inward pain,
Bows to the God's behest, and hastens to the main.

LI. Stirred by his presence, at their chief's command,
The Trojan mariners, with might and main,
Bend to the work. Along the shelving strand
They launch tall ships that long had idle lain.
The tarred keel joys the waters to regain.
Timbers unshaped and many a green-leaved oar
They fetch from out the forest, glad and fain
To speed their flight, and hurrying to the shore
Forth from the town-gates fast the mustering Trojans pour.

LII. As ants that, mindful of the cold to come,
Lay waste a mighty heap of garnered grain,
And store the golden treasure in their home:
Back through the grass, with plunder, o'er the plain
In narrow column troops the sable train:
Their tiny shoulders heave, with restless moil,
The cumbrous atomies; these scourge amain
The loiterers in the rear, and guard the spoil.
Hot fares the busy work; the pathway glows with toil.

LIII. What, hapless Dido, were thy feelings then?
What groans were thine, from out thy tower to view
The ships prepared, the shores astir with men,
The turmoil'd deep, the shouting of each crew!
O tyrant love, so potent to subdue!
Again, perforce, she weeps for him; again
She stoops to try persuasion, and to sue,
And yields, a suppliant, to her love's sweet pain,
Lest aught remain untried, and Dido die in vain.

LIV. "Look yonder, look, dear Anna! all around