Anna replies:—“Sweet love, dearer than the light to your sister’s eye, are you to pine and grieve in loneliness 10 through life’s long spring, nor know aught of a mother’s joy in her children, nor of the prizes Venus gives? Think you that dead ashes and ghosts low in the grave take this to heart? Grant that no husbands have touched your bleeding heart in times gone by, none now in Libya, none 15 before in Tyre; yes, Iarbas has been slighted, and the other chieftains whom Afric, rich in triumphs, rears as its own—will you fight against a welcome, no less than an unwelcome passion? Nor does it cross your mind in whose territories you are settled? On one side the cities 20 of the Gætulians, a race invincible in war, and the Numidians environ you, unbridled as their steeds, and the inhospitable Syrtis; on another, a region unpeopled by drought, and the widespread barbarism of the nation of Barce. What need to talk of the war-cloud threatening 25 from Tyre, and the menaces of our brother? It is under Heaven’s auspices, I deem, and by Juno’s blessing, that the vessels of Ilion have made this voyage hither. What a city, my sister, will ours become before your eyes! what an empire will grow out of a marriage like this! 30 With the arms of the Teucrians at its back, to what a height will the glory of Carthage soar! Only be it yours to implore the favour of Heaven, and having won its acceptance, give free course to hospitality and weave a chain of pleas for delay, while the tempest is raging its 35 full on the sea, and Orion, the star of rain, while his ships are still battered, and the rigour of the sky still unyielding.” By these words she added fresh fuel to the fire of love, gave confidence to her wavering mind, and loosed the ties of woman’s honour.