Spake Venus: "Nowise am I worth so much of honour's cost: The Tyrian maids are wont to bear the quiver even as I, And even so far upon the leg the purple shoe-thong tie. The Punic realm thou seest here, Agenor's town and folk, But set amidst of Libyan men unused to bear the yoke. Dido is Lady of the Land, who fled from Tyre the old, 340 And from her brother: weary long were all the ill deed told, And long its winding ways, but I light-foot will overpass. Her husband was Sychæus hight, of land most rich he was Of all Phoenicians: she, poor wretch! loved him with mighty love, Whose father gave her, maid, to him, and first the rites did move Of wedlock: but as King of Tyre her brother did abide, Pygmalion, more swollen up in sin than any man beside: Mad hatred yoked the twain of them, he blind with golden lust, Godless with stroke of iron laid Sychæus in the dust Unwares before the altar-horns; nor of the love did reck 350 His sister had, but with vain hope played on the lover sick, And made a host of feignings false, and hid the matter long. Till in her sleep the image came of that unburied wrong, Her husband dead; in wondrous wise his face was waxen pale: His breast with iron smitten through, the altar of his bale, The hooded sin of evil house, to her he open laid, And speedily to flee away from fatherland he bade; And for the help of travel showed earth's hidden wealth of old, A mighty mass that none might tell of silver and of gold. Sore moved hereby did Dido straight her flight and friends prepare: 360 They meet together, such as are or driven by biting fear, Or bitter hatred of the wretch: such ships as hap had dight They fall upon and lade with gold; forth fare the treasures bright Of wretch Pygmalion o'er the sea, a woman first therein. And so they come unto the place where ye may see begin The towers of Carthage, and the walls new built that mighty grow, And bought the Byrsa-field good cheap, as still the name shall show, So much of land as one bull's hide might scantly go about --But ye forsooth, what men are ye, from what land fare ye out, And whither go ye on your ways?" 370 Her questioning in speech He answered, and a heavy sigh from inmost heart did reach: "O Goddess, might I tread again first footsteps of our way, And if the annals of our toil thine hearkening ears might stay, Yet Vesper first on daylight dead should shut Olympus' door. From Troy the old, if yet perchance your ears have felt before That name go by, do we come forth, and, many a water past, A chance-come storm hath drifted us on Libyan shores at last. I am Æneas, God-lover; I snatched forth from the foe My Gods to bear aboard with me, a fame for heaven to know.