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 shifting 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 Gods, 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 Goddess 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 God: there fat the soil was grown
With blood of beasts; the threshold bloomed with garlands diverse blown.
He, sai