Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/217

Here those whose being tyrant love
With slow consumption has devoured
Dwell in secluded paths, embowered
By shade of myrtle grove.
Not e'en in death may they forget
Their pleasing pain, their fond regret.
Phædra and Procris here are seen,
And Eriphyle, hapless queen,
Still pointing to the death-wound made
By her fell son's unbated blade.
Evadne and Pasiphae too
Within that precinct meet the view:
Laodamia there is found,
And Cæneus, woman now, once man,
Condemned by fate's recurrent round
To end where she began.

'Mid these among the branching treen
Sad Dido moved, the Tyrian queen,
Her death-wound ghastly yet and green.
Soon as Æneas caught the view
And through the mist her semblance knew,
Like one who spies or thinks he spies
Through flickering clouds the new moon rise,
The teardrop from his eyelids broke,
And thus in tenderest tones he spoke:
'Ah Dido! rightly then I read
The news that told me you were dead,
Slain by your own rash hand!
Myself the cause of your despair!
Now by the blessed stars I swear,
By heaven, by all that dead men keep
In reverence here 'mid darkness deep,
Against my will, ill-fated fair,
I parted from your land.