She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their sight her neck’s roseate hue; her ambrosial locks breathed from her head a heavenly fragrance; her robe streamed down 5 to her very feet; and in her walk[92] was revealed the true goddess. Soon as he knew his mother, he pursued her flying steps with words like these:—“Why wilt thou be cruel like the rest, mocking thy son these many times with feigned semblances? Why is it not mine to grasp 10 thy hand in my hand, and hear and return the true language of the heart?” Such are his upbraidings, while he yet bends his way to the town. But Venus fenced them round with a dim cloud as they moved, and wrapped them as a goddess only can in a spreading mantle of mist, that 15 none might be able to see them, none to touch them, or put hindrances in their path, or ask the reason of their coming. She takes her way aloft to Paphos,[93] glad to revisit the abode she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred altars, smoking with Sabæan[94] incense, and fragrant with 20 garlands ever new. They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where the path guides them, and already they are climbing the hill which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from above on the towers that rise to meet it. Æneas marvels at the 25 mass of building, once a mere village of huts; marvels at the gates, and the civic din, and the paved ways. The Tyrians are alive and on fire—intent, some on carrying the walls aloft and upheaving the citadel, and rolling stones from underneath by force of hand; some on making 30 choice of a site for a dwelling, and enclosing it with a trench. They are ordaining the law and its guardians, and the senate’s sacred majesty. Here are some digging out havens; there are others laying deep the foundation of a theatre, and hewing from the rocks enormous columns, 35 the lofty ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the toils that keep the commonwealth of bees[95] at work in the sun among the flowery meads when summer is new, what time they lead out the nation’s hope, the young now grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, or relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or collect a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, that lazy, 5 thriftless herd. The work is all afire, and a scent of thyme breathes from the fragrant honey. “O happy they, whose city is rising already!” cries Æneas, as he looks upward to roof and dome. In he goes, close fenced by his cloud, miraculous to tell, threads his way through the midst, 10 and mingles with the citizens, unperceived of all.