How gladly, if only in Earth's air, Would-they again their toil, discomfort, and pities endure! Fate obstructs: deep sadness now, unloveliness awful Rings them about, & Styx with ninefold circle enarmeth.-- Not far hence they come to a land extensive on all sides; 440 Weeping Plain 'tis call'd:--such name such country deserveth. Here the lovers, whom fiery passion hath cruelly consumed, Hide in leafy alleys ' and pathways bow'ry, sequester'd By woodland myrtle, nor hath Death their sorrow ended. Here was Phædra to see, Procris ' and sad Eriphyle, She of her unfilial deathdoing wound not ashamèd, Evadne, ' and Pasiphae ' and Laodamia, And epicene Keneus, a woman to a man metamorphos'd, Now by Fate converted again to her old feminine form. 'Mong these shades, her wound yet smarting ruefully, Dido Wander'd throu' the forest-obscurity; and Æneas 451 Standing anigh knew surely the dim form, though i' the darkness Veil'd,--as when one seëth a young moon on the horizon, Or thinketh to' have seen i' the gloaming her delicate horn; Tearfully in oncelov'd accents he-lovingly addrest her. 'Unhappy! ah! too true 'twas told me' O unhappy Dido, Dead thou wert; to the fell extreme didst thy passion ensue. And was it I that slew-thee? Alas! Smile falsity, ye heav'ns! And Hell-fury attest-me', if here any sanctity reigneth, Unwilling, O my Queen, my step thy kingdom abandon'd. 460 Me the command of a god, who here my journey determines Through Ereban darkness, through fields sown with desolation, Drave-me to wrong my heart. Nay tho' deep-pain'd to desert thee I ne'er thought to provoke thy pain of mourning eternal. Stay yet awhile, ev'n here unlook'd-for again look upon me: Fly-me not ere the supreme words that Fate granteth us are said.' Thus he: but the spirit was raging, fiercely defiant, Whom he approach'd with words to appease, with tears for atonement. She to the ground downcast her ' eyes in fixity averted; Nor were her features more by his pleading affected, 470 Than wer' a face of flint, or of ensculptur'd alabaster. At length she started disdainful, an' angrily withdrew Into a shady thicket: where her grief kindly Sychæus Sooth'd with other memories, first love and virginal embrace. And ever Æneas, to remorse by deep pity soften'd, With brimming eyes pursued her queenly figure disappearing. Thence the Sibyl to the plain's extremest boundary led him, Where world-fam'd warriors, a lionlike company, haunted. Here great Tydeus saw he eclips'd, & here the benighted Phantom of Adrastus, ' of stalwart Parthenopæus. 480 Here long mourn'd upon earth went all that prowess of Ilium Fallen in arms; whom, when he-beheld them, so many and great, Much he-bewail'd.