Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/141

Now heaven's own herald comes, to bear
His grisly mandate through the air!
Aye, Gods above ply tasks like these:
Such cares disturb their life of ease.—
I loathe your person, scorn your pleas.
Go, seek your kingdom o'er the foam,
Hunt with the winds your Latian home.
Yet, yet I trust, if Heaven do right,
That fate shall find you 'mid your flight,
Wrecked on some rock remote from shore
And calling Dido o'er and o'er:
Dido shall fasten on her prey
In sulphurous fires, though far away:
And when her life and limbs divide
Her ghost shall never quit your side:
Yes, blood for blood! your cry of woe,
Base wretch, shall reach me down below.'
Her speech half done, she breaks away,
And, sickening, shuns the light of day,
And tears her from his gaze,
While he, with thousand things to say,
Still falters and delays:
Her servants lift the sinking fair,
And to her marble chamber bear.

But good Æneas, though he fain
Would follow and console her pain,
With many a groan, his mighty breast
Shaken all o'er with love suppressed,
Bows ne'ertheless to Heaven's command
And swiftly hies him to the strand.
Roused by the night, the Trojan train
Haul down their navy to the main:
Some launch the vessels, some careen:
Rough oars they bring, still leafy green,