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Thus having said, she turn’d, and made appear
Her neck refulgent, and dishevel’d hair,
Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach’d the ground.
And widely spread ambrosial scents around:
In length of train descends her sweeping gown;
And, by her graceful walk, the Queen of Love is known.
The prince pursued the parting deity
With words like these: “Ah! whither do you fly?
Unkind and cruel! to deceive your son
In borrow’d shapes, and his embrace to shun;
Never to bless my sight, but thus unknown;
And still to speak in accents not your own.”
Against the goddess these complaints he made,
But took the path, and her commands obey’d.
They march, obscure; for Venus kindly shrouds
With mists their persons, and involves in clouds,
That, thus unseen, their passage none might stay,
Or force to tell the causes of their way.
This part perform’d, the goddess flies sublime
To visit Paphos and her native clime;
Where garlands, ever green and ever fair,
With vows are offer’d, and with solemn pray’r:
A hundred altars in her temple smoke;
A thousand bleeding hearts her pow’r invoke.
They climb the next ascent, and, looking down,
Now at a nearer distance view the town.
The prince with wonder sees the stately tow’rs,
Which late were huts and shepherds’ homely bow’rs,
The gates and streets; and hears, from ev’ry part,
The noise and busy concourse of the mart.
The toiling Tyrians on each other call
To ply their labor: some extend the wall;
Some build the citadel; the brawny throng
Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along.
Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground,
Which, first design’d, with ditches they surround.
Some laws ordain; and some attend the choice
Of holy senates, and elect by voice.
Here some design a mole, while others there
Lay deep foundations for a theater;
From marble quarries mighty columns hew,
For ornaments of scenes, and future view.
Such is their toil, and such their busy pains,
As exercise the bees in flow’ry plains,
When winter past, and summer scarce begun,
Invites them forth to labor in the sun;
Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense
Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense;
Some at the gate stand ready to receive
The golden burthen, and their friends relieve;
All with united force, combine to drive
The lazy drones from the laborious hive:
With envy stung, they view each other’s deeds;
The fragrant work with diligence proceeds.
“Thrice happy you, whose walls already rise!”
Aeneas said, and view’d, with lifted eyes,
Their lofty tow’rs; then, entering at the gate,
Conceal’d in clouds (prodigious to relate)
He mix’d, unmark’d, among the busy throng,
Borne by the tide, and pass’d unseen along.
Full in the center of the town there stood,
Thick set with trees, a venerable wood.
The Tyrians, landing near this holy ground,
And digging here, a prosp’rous omen found:
From under earth a courser’s head they drew,
Their growth and future fortune to foreshew.
This fated sign their foundress Juno gave,
Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave.
Sidonian Dido here with solemn state
Did Juno’s temple build, and consecrate,
Enrich’d with gifts, and with a golden shrine;
But more the goddess made the place divine.
On brazen steps the marble threshold rose,
And brazen plates the cedar beams inclose:
The rafters are with brazen cov’rings crown’d;
The lofty doors on brazen hinges sound.
What first Aeneas this place beheld,
Reviv’d his courage, and his fear expell’d.
For while, expecting there the queen, he rais’d
His wond’ring eyes, and round the temple gaz’d,
Admir’d the fortune of the rising town,
The striving artists, and their arts’ renown;
He saw, in order painted on the wall,
Whatever did unhappy Troy befall:
The wars that fame around the world had blown,
All to the life, and ev’ry leader known.
There Agamemnon, Priam here, he spies,
And fierce Achilles, who both kings defies.
He stopp’d, and weeping said: “O friend! ev’n here
The monuments of Trojan woes appear!
Our known disasters fill ev’n foreign lands:
See there, where old unhappy Priam stands!
Ev’n the mute walls relate the warrior’s fame,
And Trojan griefs the Tyrians’ pity claim.”
He said (his tears a ready passage find),
Devouring what he saw so well design’d,
And with an empty picture fed his mind:
For there he saw the fainting Grecians yield,
And here the trembling Trojans quit the field,
Pursued by fierce Achilles thro’ the plain,
