ÆNEAS AND HIS TROJANS BEING DRIVEN TO LIBYA BY A TEMPEST, HAVE GOODWELCOME OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE.
Lo I am he who led the song through slender reed to cry, And then, come forth from out the woods, the fields that are thereby In woven verse I bade obey the hungry tillers' need: Now I, who sang their merry toil, sing Mars and dreadful deed.
I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep: And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame And set his Gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name, [Pg 2]And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.
Say, Muse, what wound of godhead was whereby all this must come, How grieving, she, the Queen of Gods, a man so pious drave To win such toil, to welter on through such a troublous wave:10 —Can anger in immortal minds abide so fierce and fell?
There was a city of old time where Tyrian folk did dwell, Called Carthage, facing far away the shores of Italy And Tiber-mouth; fulfilled of wealth and fierce in arms was she, And men say Juno loved her well o'er every other land, Yea e'en o'er Samos: there were stored the weapons of her hand, And there her chariot: even then she cherished the intent To make her Lady of all Lands, if Fate might so be bent; Yet had she heard how such a stem from Trojan blood should grow, As, blooming fair, the Tyrian towers should one day overthro