Book 4
beholds her vanished hero and receives
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his voice upon her ears; or to her breast,
moved by a father's image in his child,
she clasps Ascanius, seeking to deceive
her unblest passion so. Her enterprise
of tower and rampart stops: her martial host
no Ionger she reviews, nor fashions now
defensive haven and defiant wall;
but idly all her half-built bastions frown,
and enginery of sieges, high as heaven.
But soon the chosen spouse of Jove perceived
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the Queen's infection; and because the voice
of honor to such frenzy spoke not, she,
daughter of Saturn, unto Venus turned
and counselled thus: “How noble is the praise,
how glorious the spoils of victory,
for thee and for thy boy! Your names should be
in lasting, vast renown—that by the snare
of two great gods in league one woman fell!
it 'scapes me not that my protected realms
have ever been thy fear, and the proud halls
of Carthage thy vexation and annoy.
Why further go? Prithee, what useful end
has our long war? Why not from this day forth
perpetual peace and nuptial amity?
Hast thou not worked thy will? Behold and see
how Iove-sick Dido burns, and all her flesh
'The madness feels! So let our common grace
smile on a mingled people! Let her serve
a Phrygian husband, while thy hands receive
her Tyrian subjects for the bridal dower!”
In answer (reading the dissembler's mind
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which unto Libyan shores were fain to shift
italia's future throne) thus Venus spoke:
“'T were mad to spurn such favor, or by choice
be numbered with thy foes. But can it be
that fortune on thy noble counsel smiles?
To me Fate shows but dimly whether Jove
unto the Trojan wanderers ordains
a common city with the sons of Tyre,
