Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/50

26 So spoke Ilioneus: and the rest

With shouts their loud assent expressed.

Then, looking downward, Dido said:

'Discharge you, Trojans, of your dread:

An infant realm and fortune hard

Compel me thus my shores to guard.

Who knows not of Æneas' name,

Of Troy, her fortune and her fame,

And that devouring war?

Our Punic hearts have more of fire,

Nor all so retrograde from Tyre

Doth Phœbus yoke his car.

Whate'er your choice, the Hesperian plain,

Or Eryx and Acestes' reign,

My arms shall guard you in your way,

My treasuries your needs purvey.

Or would a home on Libya's shores

Allure you more? this town is yours:

Lay up your vessels: Tyre and Troy

Alike shall Dido's thoughts employ.

And would we had your monarch too,

Driven hither by the blast, like you,

The great Æneas! I will send

And search the coast from end to end,

If haply, wandering up and down,

He bide in woodland or in town.'

In breathless eagerness of joy

Achates and the chief of Troy

Were yearning long the cloud to burst;

And thus Achates spoke the first:

'What now, my chief, the thoughts that rise

Within you? see, before your eyes

Your fleet, your friends restored;