So prayed she: such unhappy words of weeping Anna bears, And bears again and o'er again: but him no weeping stirs, Nor any voice he hearkeneth now may turn him from his road: God shut the hero's steadfast ears; fate in the way abode. 440 As when against a mighty oak, strong growth of many a year, On this side and on that the blasts of Alpine Boreas bear, Contending which shall root it up: forth goes the roar, deep lie The driven leaves upon the earth from shaken bole on high. But fast it clingeth to the crag, and high as goes its head To heaven aloft, so deep adown to hell its roots are spread. E'en so by ceaseless drift of words the hero every wise Is battered, and the heavy care deep in his bosom lies; Steadfast the will abides in him; the tears fall down for nought. Ah, and unhappy Dido then the very death besought, 450 Outworn by fate: the hollow heaven has grown a sight to grieve. And for the helping of her will, that she the light may leave, She seeth, when mid the frankincense her offering she would lay, The holy water blackening there, O horrible to say! The wine poured forth turned into blood all loathly as it fell. Which sight to none, not e'en unto her sister, would she tell. Moreover, to her first-wed lord there stood amidst the house A marble shrine, the which she loved with worship marvellous, And bound it was with snowy wool and leafage of delight; 459 Thence heard she, when the earth was held in mirky hand of night, Strange sounds come forth, and words as if her husband called his own. And o'er and o'er his funeral song the screech-owl wailed alone, And long his lamentable tale from high aloft was rolled. And many a saying furthermore of god-loved seers of old Fears her with dreadful memory: all wild amid her dreams Cruel Æneas drives her on, and evermore she seems Left all alone; and evermore a road that never ends, Mateless, and seeking through the waste her Tyrian folk, she wends. As raving Pentheus saw the rout of that Well-willing Folk, When twofold sun and twofold Thebes upon his eyes outbroke: 470 Or like as Agamemnon's son is driven across the stage, Fleeing his mother's fiery hand that bears the serpent's rage, While there the avenging Dreadful Ones upon the threshold sit.