Jove had spoken, and Mercury was preparing to execute the great sire’s command: first he binds to his feet his 25 sandals, all of gold, which carry him, uplifted by their pinions, over sea no less than land, with the swiftness of the wind that wafts him. Then he takes his rod—the rod with which he is wont to call up pale spectres from the place of death, to send others on their melancholy way to 30 Tartarus, to give sleep or take it away, and to open the eyes when death is past. With this in hand, he drives the winds before him, and makes a path through the sea of clouds. And now in his flight he espies the crest and the tall sides of Atlas the rugged, who with his top supports 35 the sky—Atlas, whose pine-crowned dead, ever wreathed with dark clouds, is buffeted by wind and rain. A mantle of snow wraps his shoulders; rivers tumble from his hoary chin, and his grisly beard is stiff with ice. Here first Cyllene’s god poised himself on his wings and rested; then from his stand stooping his whole body, he sent himself headlong to the sea, like a bird which haunting the coast and the fishy rocks flies low, close to the water. Even so was 5 he flying between earth and heaven, between Libya’s sandy coast and the winds that swept it, leaving his mother’s father behind, himself Cyllene’s progeny. Soon as his winged feet alit among the huts of Carthage, he sees Æneas founding towers and making houses new. 10 A sword was at his side, starred with yellow jaspers, and a mantle drooped from his shoulders, ablaze with Tyrian purple—a costly gift which Dido had made, varying the web with threads of gold. Instantly he assails him:—“And are you at a time like this laying the foundations of 15 stately Carthage, and building, like a fond husband, your wife’s goodly city, forgetting, alas! your own kingdom and the cares that should be yours? It is no less than the ruler of the gods who sends me down to you from his bright Olympus—he whose nod sways heaven and earth; 20 it is he that bids me carry his commands through the flying air. What are you building? what do you look to in squandering your leisure in Libyan land? If you are fired by no spark of ambition for the greatness in your view, and will not rear a toilsome fabric for your own praise, 25 think of Ascanius rising into youth, think of Iulus, your heir and your hope, to whom you owe the crown of Italy and the realm of Rome.” With these words Cyllene’s god quitted mortal sight ere he had well ceased to speak, and vanished away from the eye into unsubstantial air. 30