The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse. Virgil

a midmost course and true

       'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis, lest to death we sail o'er-close:

       So safest seemed for backward course to let the sails go loose.

       But lo, from out Pelorus' strait comes down the northern flaw,

       And past Pantagia's haven-mouth of living stone we draw,

       And through the gulf of Megara by Thapsus lying low.

       Such names did Achemenides, Ulysses' fellow, show,690

       As now he coasted back again the shore erst wandered by.

      In jaws of the Sicanian bay there doth an island lie

       Against Plemyrium's wavy face; folk called it in old days

       Ortygia: there, as tells the tale, Alpheus burrowed ways

       From his own Elis 'neath the sea, and now by mouth of thine,

       O Arethusa, blendeth him with that Sicilian brine.

       We pray the isle's great deities, e'en as we bidden were:

       And thence we pass the earth o'erfat about Helorus' mere;

       Then by Pachynus' lofty crags and thrust-forth rocks we skim,

       And Camarina showeth next a long way off and dim;700

       Her whom the Fates would ne'er be moved: then comes the plain in sight

       Of Gela, yea, and Gela huge from her own river hight:

       Then Acragas the very steep shows great walls far away,

       Begetter of the herds of horse high-couraged on a day.

       Then thee, Selinus of the palms, I leave with happy wind,

       And coast the Lilybean shoals and tangled skerries blind.

      But next the firth of Drepanum, the strand without a joy,

       Will have me. There I tossed so sore, the tempests' very toy,

       O woe is me! my father lose, lightener of every care,

       Of every ill: me all alone, me weary, father dear,710

       There wouldst thou leave; thou borne away from perils all for nought!

       Ah, neither Helenus the seer, despite the fears he taught,

       Nor grim Celæno in her wrath, this grief of soul forebode.

       This was the latest of my toils, the goal of all my road,

       For me departed thence some God to this your land did bear."

      So did the Father Æneas, with all at stretch to hear,

       Tell o'er the fateful ways of God, and of his wanderings teach:

       But here he hushed him at the last and made an end of speech.

BOOK IV.

       Table of Contents

ARGUMENT.

       Table of Contents

HEREIN IS TOLD OF THE GREAT LOVE OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE, AND THE WOEFUL ENDING OF HER.