No More Learning

Then rule we this people jointly in equal lordship; allow
her to be a Phrygian husband's slave, and to lay her Tyrians for dowry
in thine hand. '

To her--for she knew the dissembled purpose of her words, to turn the
Teucrian kingdom away to the coasts of Libya--Venus thus began in
answer: 'Who so mad as to reject these terms, or choose rather to try
the fortune of war with thee? if only when done, as thou sayest, fortune
follow. But I move in uncertainty of Jove's ordinance, whether he will
that Tyrians and wanderers from Troy be one city, or approve the
mingling of peoples and the treaty of union. Thou art his wife, and thy
prayers may essay his soul. Go on; I will follow. '

Then Queen Juno thus rejoined: 'That task shall be mine. Now, by what
means the present need may be fulfilled, attend and I will explain in
brief. Aeneas and Dido (alas and woe for her! ) are to go hunting
together in the woodland when to-morrow's rising sun goes forth and his
rays unveil the world. On them, while the beaters run up and down, and
the lawns are girt with toils, will I pour down a blackening rain-cloud
mingled with hail, and startle all the sky in thunder. Their company
will scatter for shelter in the dim darkness; Dido and the Trojan
captain [125-159]shall take refuge in the same cavern. I will be there,
and if thy goodwill is assured me, I will unite them in wedlock, and
make her wholly his; here shall Hymen be present. ' The Cytherean gave
ready assent to her request, and laughed at the wily invention.

Meanwhile Dawn rises forth of ocean.
A chosen company issue from the
gates while the morning star is high; they pour forth with meshed nets,
toils, broad-headed hunting spears, Massylian horsemen and sinewy
sleuth-hounds. At her doorway the chief of Carthage await their queen,
who yet lingers in her chamber, and her horse stands splendid in gold
and purple with clattering feet and jaws champing on the foamy bit. At
last she comes forth amid a great thronging train, girt in a Sidonian
mantle, broidered with needlework; her quiver is of gold, her tresses
knotted into gold, a golden buckle clasps up her crimson gown.
Therewithal the Phrygian train advances with joyous Iulus. Himself first
and foremost of all, Aeneas joins her company and unites his party to
hers: even as Apollo, when he leaves wintry Lycia and the streams of
Xanthus to visit his mother's Delos, and renews the dance, while Cretans
and Dryopes and painted Agathyrsians mingle clamorous about his altars:
himself he treads the Cynthian ridges, and plaits his flowing hair with
soft heavy sprays and entwines it with gold; the arrows rattle on his
shoulder: as lightly as he went Aeneas; such glow and beauty is on his
princely face. When they are come to the mountain heights and pathless
coverts, lo, wild goats driven from the cliff-tops run down the ridge;
in another quarter stags speed over the open plain and gather their
flying column in a cloud of dust as they leave the hills. But the boy
Ascanius is in the valleys, exultant on his fiery horse, and gallops
past one and another, praying that among the unwarlike herds a foaming
boar may issue or a tawny lion descend the hill.

[160-194]Meanwhile the sky begins to thicken and roar aloud. A
rain-cloud comes down mingled with hail; the Tyrian train and the men of
Troy, and the Dardanian boy of Venus' son scatter in fear, and seek
shelter far over the fields. Streams pour from the hills. Dido and the
Trojan captain take refuge in the same cavern. Primeval Earth and Juno
the bridesmaid give the sign; fires flash out high in air, witnessing
the union, and Nymphs cry aloud on the mountain-top. That day opened the
gate of death and the springs of ill. For now Dido recks not of eye or
tongue, nor sets her heart on love in secret: she calls it marriage, and
with this name veils her fall.

Straightway Rumour runs through the great cities of Libya,--Rumour, than
whom none other is more swift to mischief; she thrives on restlessness
and gains strength by going: at first small and timorous; soon she lifts
herself on high and paces the ground with head hidden among the clouds.
Her, one saith, Mother Earth, when stung by wrath against the gods, bore
last sister to Coeus and Enceladus, fleet-footed and swift of wing,
ominous, awful, vast; for every feather on her body is a waking eye
beneath, wonderful to tell, and a tongue, and as many loud lips and
straining ears.