How, changed in face and speaking, Cupid come
In place of sweet Ascanius; with the gifts
Inflame to rage, the queen; and implicate

Into her bones the fire. She dreads, be sure,

790

The ambiguous house, and Tyrians double-tongued ;
Atrocious Juno frets her, and her care

Returns anights; therefore wing-bearing love
Thus she addresses :-" Son, who art alone

My strength and mighty power; son, who contemnest
The darts Typhoean of the supreme Father,
To thee I flee, and suppliant beg thy God-aid.
How about every coast thy brother Eneas
Sea-tost, thou knowest, by unjust Juno's hate,

And with my grief hast oft grieved: him Phoenician
Dido possesses, and detains with soft words;

And where this hospitality Junonian

May end, I fear; she in so great a hinge

Will not be idle: to anticipate

In wiles, I meditate therefore, and with flame

Surround the queen, that by no God-power changed,
She to Eneas may with me be bound

In great love. Now, how this thou mayst effect,
My mind hear. At his dear sire's call, prepares

The royal boy, my chiefest care, to go

To the Sidonian city, bearing gifts,
Survivors of the sea, and flames of Troy.

On high Cythera or Idalium, him,

Entranced in sleep, I'll hide in sacred covert; (7) Lest by some means he learn, or in the midst

(1) V. 682.-Ne qua scire dolos, &c. Venus proposes so to dispose of Asca

805

810

815

nius, that it may be impossible for him, either knowingly or accidentally, to in

Come thwart, our artifice. Thou, for no more
Than one night, cheat his face, and, a boy, wear
The boy's known features; that, when to her bosom
Most joyous Dido takes thee, midst the royal
Tables, and cups Lyaean; when she hugs thee,
And with sweet kisses prints, thou mayst instil
The occult fire and cheat her with the poison.'
Love his dear mother's words obeys, and doffs
His wings, and in Iulus' step walks glad.
But Venus irrigates Ascanius' limbs

With placid sleep, and cherished in her bosom
The Goddess bears him to Idalia's high groves,
Where soft amaracus, upon him breathing

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825

With flowers and sweet shade, wraps him in its embrace.

And now in guidance of Achates, glad
Cupid, obedient to the word, was wending,
And to the Tyrians bearing the gifts regal.
Already had the queen, when he arrived,
Beneath superb dais, on a golden sofa

Composed herself, and taken the mid seat;
And now the sire Eneas, Troy's youth now,
Assemble, and on crimson cover-cloths,
Several recline; domestics on the hands
Pour water, and the bread with salvers hasten,
And bring the towel's shorn nap: fifty maids

830

835

840

terrupt her plot. That this is the meaning is sufficiently evidenced: 1st -by the disjunctive ve. 2ndly-by the word occurrere, indicating an accidental, not an intentional interruption;

and 3rdly-by the no less necessity which existed, of preventing the real Ascanius from accidentally appearing, than of keeping him in ignorance of what was going on.

In order long, within, the provand dress,
And the Penates fumigate with sweet flame.
A hundred others, and as many age-matched
Pages, the tables load, and set the cups.
Nor gather not the Tyrians, through the glad
Approaches frequent, and commanded take

On pictured tores their places of reclining,
Admire Eneas' gifts, admire Iulus,

And the God's flagrant face, and words of feigning,
The palle, and painted wimple's saffron bearsfoot.

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850

855

Hapless Phoenissa most, the coming pest's
Devoted victim, cannot her mind fill full,
And, gazing, kindles, by the boy alike moved,
And gifts. He, from Eneas' neck and embrace
When he had hung; and of his feigned sire filled
The great love, seeks the queen. She, with her eyes,
Clings to him, and her whole heart; in her bosom
(m) Between whiles cuddles him; unconscious Dido
How great a God sits brood upon her wretched.
But he, of Acidalian mother mindful,
Sichaeus gradual begins obliterate,

And with a live love her long listless spirit
And heart's desuetude tries to prevert.

860

(m) V. 718.—Inscia Dido, Insideat quantus miserae deus. "That the word Dido, after reginam and haec,is clumsy, and hath a bad effect, will be acknowledged, I believe, by every poet. I should rather thus: Inscia quantus, Insideat quantus miserae Deus." Jortin. Philol. Tracts. On the contrary, the insertion of Dido's name in this position not only gives additional

pathos to the passage, but is according to Virgil's manner. Donec regina sacerdos, Marte gravis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem. En. i, 273. See also v. 496, and note. The proposed repetition of quantus would have only operated to withdraw the attention from the principal personage, for the purpose of fixing it on one which performs only a secondary part.

After the feast's first pause, and trays removed,

They stablish the great beakers, and the wines crown;
The din the house fills, and they roll their voices
Through the wide halls. Hang from the golden ceilings
Chandeliers burning; and the flambeau's blaze
Conquers the night. Heavy with gems and gold,
The queen then calls for, and with pure, a cup fills, 870
Which Belus, and from Belus down, wont use;
Then silence had :-"O Jupiter, for thou

(n) Art lord, they say, of hospitable rites,

Happy may this day to the Tyrians be,
And Trojan travellers; and may our heirs
This day remember; may joy-giving Bacchus
Be present, and good Juno; and ye, Tyrians,
With favor the re-union celebrate."
She said, and on the board, libating, poured
The liquor's honor; then the cup, with lips

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880

Just touching first, to Bitias gave with chiding:

Nor slothful he the foam bowl quaffed, and drenched him

With the full gold; the other nobles after.

To golden lyre, long-tressed Iopas sings

(0) The lore of greatest Atlas; the moon devious

Sings, and sun's labors; whence the race of men

885

And beasts; the lightning whence, and whence the shower;
Arcturus, and the rainy Hyades,

And twin Triones; why the winter suns

(n) V. 731.-Dare jura. See Note, narrative of Eneas. In this respect, as i. 293.

(0) V. 741.-Docuit quae maximus Atlas. The calm and philosophical subject of Iopas's song contrasts finely with the subsequent romantic and exciting

in so many others, Virgil has improved upon his master, who, making his minstrel sing, and his hero tell, similarly romantic stories, loses the advantage of contrast. See Odyss. books viii, ix.

(p) So haste to dip in ocean, or what let

Stands in the slow nights' way. Ingeminate
Plaudits the Tyrians, and the Trojans follow.

Nor hapless Dido not with various speech
The night protracted, and the long love drank;
Much asking oft of Priam, much of Hector;
Now, in what arms Aurora's son had come,
Now, Diomede's horses what like; now, how great
Achilles :-"Nay; come, guest, relate," she says,
(q)"The ambush of the Danaï from commencement;
Thy friends' misfortunes; and own wanderings
Now the seventh summer, o'er all lands and waves."

890

895

900

Danaum.

(P) V. 746.-Quae tardis mora nocti- (q) V. 754.-Dic..........nobis Insibus obstet. Sciz., quin praecipitantes dias...... See En. ii, 65, coelo (see En. ii, 8) se quoque tingant and note.

oceano.

POSTSCRIPT.

After the note on Huic conjux Sichaeus erat, (v. 343,) was printed, I was agreeably surprised to meet in Shakspeare an account of a betrothing, which, like that of Sichaeus and Dido, had been universally understood to be the account of an actual marriage, and which continues up to the present day to be so mistaken, notwithstanding the clear demonstration of the error by that highly accomplished commentator of the "native wood-notes wild," Mr. Francis Douce; see his Illustrations of Shakspeare, 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1807. The passage is in the Twelfth Night,

G

Act v, sc. 3, where Olivia says to the
priest: :-

Father, I charge thee by thy reverence
Here to unfold, (though lately we intended
To keep in darkness, what occasion now
Reveals before 'tis ripe) what thou dost know
Hath newly past between this youth and me.

To which the priest answers :—
A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthened by interchangement of your rings,
And all the ceremony of this compact
Sealed in my function, by my testimony.

These words which, at first sight, seem to be the plain periphrasis of matri