No More Learning

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. By night she flits between sky and land, shrilling
through the dusk, and droops not her lids in sweet slumber; in daylight
she sits on guard upon tall towers or the ridge of the house-roof, and
makes great cities afraid; obstinate in perverseness and forgery no less
than messenger of truth. She then exultingly filled the countries with
manifold talk, and blazoned alike what was done and undone: one Aeneas
is come, born of Trojan blood; on him beautiful Dido thinks no shame to
fling herself; now they hold their winter, long-drawn through mutual
caresses, regardless of their realms and enthralled by passionate
dishonour. This the pestilent goddess [195-227]spreads abroad in the
mouths of men, and bends her course right on to King Iarbas, and with
her words fires his spirit and swells his wrath.

He, the seed of Ammon by a ravished Garamantian Nymph, had built to Jove
in his wide realms an hundred great temples, an hundred altars, and
consecrated the wakeful fire that keeps watch by night before the gods
perpetually, where the soil is fat with blood of beasts and the courts
blossom with pied garlands. And he, distracted and on fire at the bitter
tidings, before his altars, amid the divine presences, often, it is
said, bowed in prayer to Jove with uplifted hands:

'Jupiter omnipotent, to whom from the broidered cushions of their
banqueting halls the Maurusian people now pour Lenaean offering, lookest
thou on this? or do we shudder vainly when our father hurls the
thunderbolt, and do blind fires in the clouds and idle rumblings appal
our soul? The woman who, wandering in our coasts, planted a small town
on purchased ground, to whom we gave fields by the shore and laws of
settlement, she hath spurned our alliance and taken Aeneas for lord of
her realm. And now that Paris, with his effeminate crew, his chin and
oozy hair swathed in the turban of Maeonia, takes and keeps her; since
to thy temples we bear oblation, and hallow an empty name. '

In such words he pleaded, clasping the altars; the Lord omnipotent
heard, and cast his eye on the royal city and the lovers forgetful of
their fairer fame. Then he addresses this charge to Mercury:

'Up and away, O son! call the breezes and slide down them on thy wings:
accost the Dardanian captain who now loiters in Tyrian Carthage and
casts not a look on destined cities; carry down my words through the
fleet air. Not such an one did his mother most beautiful vouch him to
[228-264]us, nor for this twice rescue him from Grecian arms; but he
was to rule an Italy teeming with empire and loud with war, to transmit
the line of Teucer's royal blood, and lay all the world beneath his law.
If such glories kindle him in nowise, and he take no trouble for his own
honour, does a father grudge his Ascanius the towers of Rome?
with what
device or in what hope loiters he among a hostile race, and casts not a
glance on his Ausonian children and the fields of Lavinium? Let him set
sail: this is the sum: thereof be thou our messenger. '

He ended: his son made ready to obey his high command. And first he
laces to his feet the shoes of gold that bear him high winging over seas
or land as fleet as the gale; then takes the rod wherewith he calls wan
souls forth of Orcus, or sends them again to the sad depth of hell,
gives sleep and takes it away and unseals dead eyes; in whose strength
he courses the winds and swims across the tossing clouds. And now in
flight he descries the peak and steep sides of toiling Atlas, whose
crest sustains the sky; Atlas, whose pine-clad head is girt alway with
black clouds and beaten by wind and rain; snow is shed over his
shoulders for covering; rivers tumble over his aged chin; and his rough
beard is stiff with ice. Here the Cyllenian, poised evenly on his wings,
made a first stay; hence he shot himself sheer to the water. Like a bird
that flies low, skirting the sea about the craggy shores of its fishery,
even thus the brood of Cyllene left his mother's father, and flew,
cutting the winds between sky and land, along the sandy Libyan shore. So
soon as his winged feet reached the settlement, he espies Aeneas
founding towers and ordering new dwellings; his sword twinkled with
yellow jasper, and a cloak hung from his shoulders ablaze with Tyrian
sea-purple, a gift that Dido had made costly and shot the warp with thin
gold. Straightway [265-299]he breaks in: 'Layest thou now the
foundations of tall Carthage, and buildest up a fair city in dalliance?
ah, forgetful of thine own kingdom and state! From bright Olympus I
descend to thee at express command of heaven's sovereign, whose deity
sways sky and earth; expressly he bids me carry this charge through the
fleet air: with what device or in what hope dost thou loiter idly on
Libyan lands? if such glories kindle thee in nowise, yet cast an eye on
growing Ascanius, on Iulus thine hope and heir, to whom the kingdom of
Italy and the Roman land are due. ' As these words left his lips the
Cyllenian, yet speaking, quitted mortal sight and vanished into thin air
away out of his eyes.

But Aeneas in truth gazed in dumb amazement, his hair thrilled up, and
the accents faltered on his tongue. He burns to flee away and leave the
pleasant land, aghast at the high warning and divine ordinance. Alas,
what shall he do?