"Gathering together a company of those who wished to flee from the tyrant,
Dido seized the ships, loaded them with the gold, and fled to Libya, where
she is now erecting the walls and towers of New Carthage. I would advise
thee to hasten forward and seek our queen. If augury fail me not, I read
from yonder flight of swans the return of thy missing ships and comrades."
As she turned to go, her neck shone with a rosy refulgence, ambrosial
fragrance breathed from her, her robe flowed down about her feet and
revealed the goddess. As she vanished, her son stretched longing hands
after her. "Ah, mother, why dost thou thus trifle with me? Why may not I
clasp thy loved hands and exchange true words with thee?"
Wrapped in a cloud by Venus, Aeneas and Achates mounted a hill that
overlooked the city, and looked down wondering on the broad roofs and the
paved streets of Carthage. The busy Tyrians worked like the bees in early
summer: some moving the immense masses of stone, some founding the
citadel, others laying off the sites for the law courts and sacred Senate
House. "O happy ye whose walls now rise!" exclaimed Aeneas, as he and
Achates mingled with the crowd, still cloud-wrapped, and entered the vast
temple built to Juno. Here Aeneas's fear fell from him; for as he waited
for the queen's coming, he saw pictured on the walls the fall of his own
dear city, and wept as he gazed upon the white tents of Rhesus, and
Hector's disfigured body.
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