in her breast, that Cupid,[o] form and feature changed, may arrive in the room of the charmer Ascanius, and by the presents he brings influence the queen to madness, and turn the very marrow of her bones to fire. She fears the two-faced generation, the double-tongued sons of Tyre; Juno's 5 hatred scorches her like a flame, and as night draws on the care comes back to her. So then with these words she addresses her winged Love:—"My son, who art alone my strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest to scorn our great father's Typhœan[o] thunderbolts, to thee 10 I fly for aid, and make suppliant prayer of thy majesty. How thy brother Æneas is tossed on the ocean the whole world over by Juno's implacable rancour I need not tell thee—nay, thou hast often mingled thy grief with mine. He is now the guest of Dido, the Phœnician woman, and 15 the spell of a courteous tongue is laid on him, and I fear what may be the end of taking shelter under Juno's wing; she will never be idle at a time on which so much hangs. Thus then I am planning to be first in the field, surprising the queen by stratagem, and encompassing 20 her with fire, that no power may be able to work a change in her, but that a mighty passion for Æneas may keep her mine. For the way in which thou mayest bring this about, listen to what I have been thinking. The young heir of royalty, at his loved father's summons, is making 25 ready to go to this Sidonian city—my soul's darling that he is—the bearer of presents that have survived the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in deep sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high on Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know or mar 30 our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no more, artfully counterfeit his form, and put on the boy's usual looks, thyself a boy, that when Dido, at the height of her joy, shall take thee into her lap while the princely board is laden and the vine-god's liquor flowing, when she shall 35 be caressing thee and printing her fondest kisses on thy cheek, thou mayest breathe concealed fire into her veins, and steal upon her with poison."[o]
