e played on the lover sick,
And made a host of feignings false, and hid the matter long.
Till in her sleep the image came of that unburied wrong,
Her husband dead; in wondrous wise his face was waxen pale:
His breast with iron smitten through, the altar of his bale,
The hooded sin of evil house, to her he open laid,
And speedily to flee away from fatherland he bade;
And for the help of travel showed earth's hidden wealth of old,
A mighty mass that none might tell of silver and of gold.
Sore moved hereby did Dido straight her flight and friends prepare: 360
They meet together, such as are or driven by biting fear,
Or bitter hatred of the wretch: such ships as hap had dight
They fall upon and lade with gold; forth fare the treasures bright
Of wretch Pygmalion o'er the sea, a woman first therein.
And so they come unto the place where ye may see begin
The towers of Carthage, and the walls new built that mighty grow,
And bought the Byrsa-field good cheap, as still the name shall show,
So much of land as one bull's hide might scantly go about
--But ye forsooth, what men are ye, from what land fare ye out,
And whither go ye on your ways?" 370
Her questioning in speech
He answered, and a heavy sigh from inmost heart did reach:
"O Goddess, might I tread again first footsteps of our way,
And if the annals of our toil thine hearkening ears might stay,
Yet Vesper first on daylight dead should shut Olympus' door.
From Troy the old, if yet perchance your ears have felt before
That name go by, do we come forth, and, many a water past,
A chance-come storm hath drifted us on Libyan shores at last.
I am AEneas, God-lover; I snatched forth from the foe
My Gods to bear aboard with me, a fame for heaven to know.
I seek the Italian fatherland, and Jove-descended line; 380
Twice ten the ships were that I manned upon the Phrygian brine,
My Goddess-mother led the way, we followed fate god-given;
And now scarce seven are left to me by wave and east-wind riven;
And I through Libyan deserts stray, a man unknown and poor,
From Asia cast, from Europe cast,"
She might abide no more
To hear his moan: she thrusts a word amidst his grief and saith:
"Nay thou art not God's castaway, who d