O Virgin! or what other Name you bear
Above that style; O more than mortal fair!
Your Voice and Meen Cœlestial Birth betray!
If, as you seem, the Sister of the Day;
Or one at least of Chast Diana's Train,455
Let not an humble Suppliant sue in vain:
But tell a Stranger, long in Tempests tost,
What Earth we tread, and who commands the Coast?
Then on your Name shall wretched Mortals call;
And offer'd Victims at your Altars fall.460
I dare not, she reply'd, assume the Name
Of Goddess, or Cœlestial Honours claim:
For Tyrian Virgins Bows and Quivers bear,
And Purple Buskins o'er their Ankles wear.
Know, gentle Youth, in Lybian Lands you are:465
A People rude in Peace, and rough in War.
The rising City, which from far you see,
Is Carthage; and a Tyrian Colony.
Phenician Dido rules the growing State,
Who fled from Tyre, to shun her Brother's hate:470
Great were her wrongs, her Story full of Fate;
Which I will sum in short. Sicheus known
For wealth, and Brother to the Punic Throne,
Possess'd fair Dido's Bed: And either heart
At once was wounded with an equal Dart.475
Her Father gave her, yet a spotless Maid;
Pigmalion then the Tyrian Scepter sway'd:
Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/124
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318
VIRGIL's
Æn. I.
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