But Cytherea, studious to invent Arts yet untried, upon new counsels bent, Resolves that Cupid, chang’d in form and face To young Ascanius, should assume his place; Present the maddening gifts, and kindle heat 5 Of passion at the bosom’s inmost seat. She dreads the treacherous house, the double tongue; She burns, she frets--by Juno’s rancour stung; The calm of night is powerless to remove These cares, and thus she speaks to wingèd Love: 10 “O son, my strength, my power! who dost despise (What, save thyself, none dares through earth and skies) The giant-quelling bolts of Jove, I flee, O son, a suppliant to thy deity! What perils meet Æneas in his course, 15 How Juno’s hate with unrelenting force Pursues thy brother--this to thee is known; And oft-times hast thou made my griefs thine own. Him now the generous Dido by soft chains Of bland entreaty at her court detains; 20 Junonian hospitalities prepare Such apt occasion that I dread a snare. Hence, ere some hostile God can intervene, Would I, by previous wiles, inflame the queen With passion for Æneas, such strong love 25 That at my beck, mine only, she shall move. Hear, and assist;--the father’s mandate calls His young Ascanius to the Tyrian walls; He comes, my dear delight,--and costliest things Preserv’d from fire and flood for presents brings. 30 Him will I take, and in close covert keep, ’Mid groves Idalian, lull’d to gentle sleep, Or on Cythera’s far-sequestered steep, That he may neither know what hope is mine, Nor by his presence traverse the design. 35 Do thou, but for a single night’s brief space, Dissemble; be that boy in form and face! And when enraptured Dido shall receive Thee to her arms, and kisses interweave With many a fond embrace, while joy runs high, 40 And goblets crown the proud festivity, Instil thy subtle poison, and inspire, At every touch, an unsuspected fire.”