I never shall gainsay, O Queen, that thy desert Can equal all and more than all that thou canst claim; And ever in the days to come ‘t will be my joy Fair Dido to recall while memory serves me, while My spirit animates these limbs.—To thine appeal A brief reply. I did not hope to leave thy shores By stealth—believe it or not—nor yet a husbands’ name Have I desired, nor have I claimed the marriage bonds. If under omens of my own it were ordained That I should live, and lay aside at will the weight Of destiny, then first of all would I restore My Trojan city and the dear remains of all I called my own; old Priam’s royal halls would still Endure, and long ago would I have built again Our ruined citadel of Pergama. But now To mighty Italy Apollo’s oracle, To Italy his lots command that I repair. This is my love and this must be my fatherland. If thou, though born in distant Tyre, art linked to this Thy Carthage in the land of Libya, why, I pray, Shouldst thou begrudge to us, the Trojan wanderers, Ausonia’s land? ‘T is fate that we as well as thou Should seek a foreign home. My sire Anchises’ shade Invades my dreams with threats and admonition stern, Whene’er with dewy shadows night o’erspreads the earth. And when I think upon Ascanius and the wrong That I am bringing on his head, though innocent, My heart reproaches me that I am thwarting fate, Which promised him the destined fields of Italy. And now the very messenger of heav’n sent down By Jove himself—I swear by both our lives—has brought The mandate through the wind-swept air; I saw the god Myself in open day invade thy city’s walls, And with these very ears I heard his warning voice. Then cease to vex thyself and me with these complaints; ‘T is not of mine own will I fare to Italy. Æneas, as he speaks, has become as one seeing in vision the glorious future of his race. Dido, who has stood with averted face and scornful look, now turns upon him, in a passion of grief and rage. _Dido_ (365-387):