Of man's injustice why should I complain?
The gods, and Jove himself, behold in vain
Triumphant treason, yet no thunder flies;
Nor Juno views my wrongs with equal eyes:
Faithless is earth, and faithless are the skies!
Justice is fled, and truth is now no more.
I saved the shipwrecked exile on my shore:
With needful food his hungry Trojans fed:
I took the traitor to my throne and bed:
Fool that I was!—'tis little to repeat
The rest—I stored and rigged his ruined fleet.
I rave, I rave! A god's command he pleads!
And makes heaven accessory to his deeds.
Now Lycian lots; and now the Delian god;
Now Hermes is employed from Jove's abode,
To warn him hence; as if the peaceful state
Of heavenly powers were touched with human fate!
But go: thy flight no longer I detain—
Go seek thy promised kingdom through the main!
Yet, if the heavens will hear my pious vow,
The faithless waves, not half so false as thou,
Or secret sands, shall sepulchres afford
To thy proud vessels and their perjured lord.
Then shalt thou call on injured Dido's name:
Dido shall come, in a black sulph'ry flame,
When death has once dissolved her mortal frame,
Shall smile to see the traitor vainly weep;
Her angry ghost, arising from the deep,
Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep.
At least my shade thy punishment shall know;
And fame shall spread the pleasing news below."
But in this passage, if nowhere else, a French translator has surpassed all his English rivals. Possibly the fervid passion of the scene, worked up as it
