XLIII. Bare were her knees, and from her shoulders hung The wonted bow, kept handy for the prey Her flowing raiment in a knot she strung, And loosed her tresses with the winds to play. "Ho, Sirs!" she hails them, "saw ye here astray Ought of my sisters, girt in huntress wise With quiver and a spotted lynx-skin gay, Or following on the foaming boar with cries?" Thus Venus spake, and thus fair Venus' son replies; XLIV. "Nought of thy sisters have I heard or seen. What name, O maiden, shall I give to thee, For mortal never had thy voice or mien? O Goddess surely, whether Nymph I see, Or Phoebus' sister; whosoe'er thou be, Be kind, for strangers and in evil case We roam, tost hither by the stormy sea. Say, who the people, what the clime and place, And many a victim's blood thy hallowed shrine shall grace." XLV. "Nay, nay, to no such honour I aspire." Said Venus, "But a simple maid am I, And 'tis the manner of the maids of Tyre To wear, like me, the quiver, and to tie The purple buskin round the ankles high. The realm thou see'st is Punic; Tyrians are The folk, the town Agenor's. Round them lie The Libyan plains, a people rough in war. Queen Dido rules the land, who came from Tyre afar, XLVI. "Flying her brother. Dark the tale of crime, And long, but briefly be the sum supplied. Sychaeus was her lord, in happier time The richest of Phoenicians far and wide In land, and worshipped by his hapless bride. Her, in the bloom of maidenhood, her sire Had given him, and with virgin rites allied. But soon her brother filled the throne of Tyre, Pygmalion, swoln with sin; 'twixt whom a feud took fire. XLVII. "He, reckless of a sister's love, and blind With lust of gold, Sychaeus unaware Slew by the altar, and with impious mind Long hid the deed, and flattering hopes and fair Devised, to cheat the lover of her care. But, lifting features marvellously pale, The ghost unburied in her dreams laid bare His breast, and showed the altar and the bale Wrought by the ruthless steel, and solved the crime's dark tale. XLVIII. "Then bade her fly the country, and revealed, To aid her flight, an old and unknown weight Of gold and silver, in the ground concealed. Thus roused, her friends she gathers. All await Her summons, who the tyrant fear or hate. Some ships at hand, chance-anchored in the bay, They seize and load them with the costly freight, And far off o'er the deep is borne away Pygmalion's hoarded pelf. A woman leads the way.