Straight through the mighty Libyan folks is Rumour on the wing-- Rumour, of whom nought swifter is of any evil thing: She gathereth strength by going on, and bloometh shifting oft! A little thing, afraid at first, she springeth soon aloft; Her feet are on the worldly soil, her head the clouds o'erlay. Earth, spurred by anger 'gainst the Gods, begot her as they say, Of Coeus and Enceladus the latest sister-birth. Swift are her wings to cleave the air, swift-foot she treads the earth: 180 A monster dread and huge, on whom so many as there lie The feathers, under each there lurks, O strange! a watchful eye; And there wag tongues, and babble mouths, and hearkening ears upstand As many: all a-dusk by night she flies 'twixt sky and land Loud clattering, never shutting eye in rest of slumber sweet. By day she keepeth watch high-set on houses of the street, Or on the towers aloft she sits for mighty cities' fear! And lies and ill she loves no less than sooth which she must bear. She now, rejoicing, filled the folk with babble many-voiced, And matters true and false alike sang forth as she rejoiced: 190 How here was come Æneas now, from Trojan blood sprung forth, Whom beauteous Dido deemed indeed a man to mate her worth: How winter-long betwixt them there the sweets of sloth they nursed, Unmindful of their kingdoms' weal, by ill desire accursed. This in the mouth of every man the loathly Goddess lays, And thence to King Iarbas straight she wendeth on her ways, To set his mind on fire with words, and high his wrath to lead. He, sprung from Garamantian nymph and very Ammon's seed, An hundred mighty fanes to Jove, an hundred altars fair, Had builded in his wide domain, and set the watch-fire there, 200 The everlasting guard of God: there fat the soil was grown With blood of beasts; the threshold bloomed with garlands diverse blown. He, saith the tale, all mad at heart, and fired with bitter fame, Amidmost of the might of God before the altars came, And prayed a many things to Jove with suppliant hands outspread: "O Jupiter, almighty lord, to whom from painted bed The banqueting Maurusian folk Lenæan joy pours forth, Dost thou behold? O Father, is our dread of nothing worth When thou art thundering? Yea, forsooth, a blind fire of the clouds, An idle hubbub of the sky, our souls with terror loads! 210 A woman wandering on our shore, who set her up e'en now A little money-cheapened town, to whom a field to plough And lordship of the place we gave, hath thrust away my word Of wedlock, and hath taken in Æneas for her lord: And now this Paris, hedged around with all his gelding rout, Mæonian mitre tied to chin, and wet hair done about, Sits on the prey while to thine house a many gifts we bear, Still cherishing an idle tale who our begetters were."