it east and west, and sweeping every corner of the field. So balancing, at last he thought this judgment the best. He calls Mnestheus and Sergestus and brave Serestus; bids them quietly get ready the fleet, muster the crews on the shore, with their arms in their hands, hiding the reason 5 for so sudden a change. Meantime he, while Dido, kindest of friends, is in ignorance, deeming love's chain too strong to be snapped, will feel his way, and find what are the happiest moments for speech, what the right hold to take of circumstance. At once all gladly obey his command, 10 and are busy on the tasks enjoined.
But the queen (who can cheat a lover's senses?) scented the plot, and caught the first sound of the coming stir, alive to fear in the midst of safety. Fame, as before, the same baleful fiend, whispered in her frenzied ear that the fleet 15 was being equipped and the voyage got ready. She storms in impotence of soul, and, all on fire, goes raving through the city, like a Mænad[o] starting up at the rattle of the sacred emblems, when the triennial orgies lash her with the cry of Bacchus, and Cithæron's yell calls her into 20 the night. At length she thus bespeaks Æneas, unaddressed by him:—-
"To hide, yes, hide your enormous crime, perfidious wretch, did you hope that might be done—to steal away in silence from my realm? Has our love no power to keep 25 you? has our troth, once, plighted, none, nor she whom you doom to a cruel death, your Dido? Nay, are you fitting out your fleet with winter's sky overhead, and hastening to cross the deep in the face of all the northern winds, hard-hearted as you are? Why, suppose you were not 30 seeking a strange clime and a home you know not—suppose old Troy were still standing—would even Troy draw you to seek her across a billowy sea? Flying, and from me! By the tears I shed, and by your plighted hand, since my own act, alas! has left me nought else to plead—by 35 our union—by the nuptial rites thus prefaced—if I have ever deserved well of you, or aught of mine ever gave you pleasure—have pity on a falling house, and strip
