[The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil]@TWC D-Link bookThe Aeneid of Virgil BOOK FOUR 16/32
Poor Dido, crazed thereby, Raves like a Thyiad, when the frenzied rout With orgies hurry to Cithaeron high, And "Bacchus! Bacchus" through the night they shout. At length the chief she finds, and thus her wrath breaks out: XXXIX.
"Thought'st thou to steal in silence from the land, False wretch! and cloak such treason with a lie? Can neither love, nor this my plighted hand, Nor dying Dido keep thee? Must thou fly, When North-winds howl, and wintry waves are high? O cruel! what if home before thee lay, Not lands unknown, beneath an alien sky, If Troy were standing, as in ancient day, Would'st thou for Troy's own sake this angry deep essay? XL.
"_Me_ dost thou fly? O, by these tears, thy hand Late pledged, since madness leaves me naught beside, But lovers' vows and wedlock's sacred band, Scarce knit and now too soon to be untied; If aught were pleasing in a new-won bride, If sweet the memory of our marriage day, O by these prayers--if place for prayer abide-- In mercy put that cruel mind away. Pity a falling house, now hastening to decay. XLI.
"For thee the Libyans and each Nomad lord Hate me, and Tyrians would their queen disown. My wifely honour is a name abhorred, And that chaste fame has perished, which alone Perchance had raised me to a starry throne. O think with whom thou leav'st me to thy fate, Dear guest, no longer as a husband known. Why stay I? till Pygmalion waste my state, Or on Iarbas' wheels, a captive queen, to wait? XLII.
"Ah! if at least, ere thou had'st sailed away, Some babe, the token of thy love, were born, Some child AEneas, in my halls to play, Like thee at least in look, I should not mourn As altogether captive and forlorn." She paused, but he, at Jove's command, his eyes Keeps still unmoved, and, though with anguish torn, Strives with his love, nor suffers it to rise, But checks his heaving heart, and thus at length replies: XLIII.
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