count) of his affectionate search for her (with the usual tears) must have recommended him to Dido, and excused that poor lady for falling in love with him instantly! Rousseau has more truth in his epigram,—what could Dido expect better from a man who left his lawful wife to be burnt in Troy, and vowed he never missed her? Segrais, very like a Frenchman of the days of Louis XIV., thinks all would have been right if Æneas had but thrown a little more sentiment into the parting, and had bestowed upon Dido a few of those tears which were so ready upon less pathetic occasions.[1] As to the scene in the Shades, where the
- ↑ Dido has always been a favourite heroine with Frenchmen, and has been worked up into three or four tragedies. One writer, partly adopting M. Segrais's notion of how things ought to have been—that is to say, how a Frenchman would have behaved himself when such a parting was inevitable—has made Æneas take at least a civil farewell of the injured queen:—
"Helas! si de mon sort j'avais ici mon choix,
Bornant à vous aimer le bonheur de ma vie,
Je tiendrais de vos mains un sceptre, une patrie:
Les dieux m'ont envie le seul de leurs bienfaits,
Qui pourait réparer tons les maux qu'ils m'ont faits."And Dido, mollified by this declaration, far from cursing the fugitive lover in her last moments, assures him of her unchangeable affection, rather apologising for having so inconveniently fallen in his way, and delayed him so improperly from Lavinia and his kingdom:—
"Et toi, d'ont j'ai troublée la haute destinée,
Toi, qui ne m'entends plus—adieux, mon cher Ænée!
Ne crains point ma colere—elle expire avec moi,
Et mes derniers soupirs sont encore pour toi!" †† Le Franc de Pompignan, "Didon."
