No More Learning

Not Helenus the
prophet, though he counselled of many a terror, not boding Celaeno
foretold me of this grief. This was the last agony, this the goal of the
long ways; thence it was I had departed when God landed me on your
coasts. '

Thus lord Aeneas with all attent retold alone the divine doom and the
history of his goings. At last he was hushed, and here in silence made
an end.




BOOK FOURTH

THE LOVE OF DIDO, AND HER END


But the Queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound
with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. Again and again his
own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and
accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to
her limbs. The morrow's dawn bore the torch of Phoebus across the earth,
and had rolled away the dewy darkness from the sky, when, scarce
herself, she thus opens her confidence to her sister:

'Anna, my sister, such dreams of terror thrill me through! What guest
unknown is this who hath entered our dwelling? How high his mien! how
brave in heart as in arms! I believe it well, with no vain assurance,
his blood is divine. Fear proves the vulgar spirit. Alas, by what
destinies is he driven! what wars outgone he chronicled! Were my mind
not planted, fixed and immoveable, to ally myself to none in wedlock
since my love of old was false to me in the treachery of death; were I
not sick to the heart of bridal torch and chamber, to this temptation
alone I might haply yield.
Anna, I will confess it; since Sychaeus mine
husband met his piteous doom, and our household was shattered by a
brother's murder, he only hath [22-55]touched mine heart and stirred
the balance of my soul. I know the prints of the ancient flame. But
rather, I pray, may earth first yawn deep for me, or the Lord omnipotent
hurl me with his thunderbolt into gloom, the pallid gloom and profound
night of Erebus, ere I soil thee, mine honour, or unloose thy laws. He
took my love away who made me one with him long ago; he shall keep it
with him, and guard it in the tomb. ' She spoke, and welling tears filled
the bosom of her gown.

Anna replies: 'O dearer than the daylight to thy sister, wilt thou
waste, sad and alone, all thy length of youth, and know not the
sweetness of motherhood, nor love's bounty? Deemest thou the ashes care
for that, or the ghost within the tomb? Be it so: in days gone by no
wooers bent thy sorrow, not in Libya, not ere then in Tyre; Iarbas was
slighted, and other princes nurtured by the triumphal land of Africa;
wilt thou contend so with a love to thy liking? nor does it cross thy
mind whose are these fields about thy dwelling? On this side are the
Gaetulian towns, a race unconquerable in war; the reinless Numidian
riders and the grim Syrtis hem thee in; on this lies a thirsty tract of
desert, swept by the raiders of Barca. Why speak of the war gathering
from Tyre, and thy brother's menaces? . . . With gods' auspices to my
thinking, and with Juno's favour, hath the Ilian fleet held on hither
before the gale. What a city wilt thou discern here, O sister!