And night with flames wax-torches overpower.

Here the queen called for, and with pure wine brimmed,
Weighty with jewels and with gold, a bowl,

Which Bel, and all from Bel [to brim] were wont ;
Then silence was observed throughout the domes:
"Jove, (for to guests they say thou deignest rights,)
That this a happy day to Tyrians both,

And to the voyagers from Troy, may prove
Ordain thou, and that our posterity
May this remember. Let be present [here]
Bacchus, giver of joy, and Juno kind;
And ye, O Tyrians, th' union solemnise

In friendly mood." She said, and on the board
An offering of the liquor pourèd forth

In libament, and first, when it was poured,
She reached it to the surface of her lip;
Then it to Bitias, challenging, vouchsafed.

He, eager [wight], drained off the foaming bowl,
And drenched himself from out the brimming gold;
Next th' other nobles. On his gilded lute
Long-tressed Iopas warbles o'er [the lays],

Which highest Atlas taught him. Chants this [bard]
The roving moon and travails of the sun;

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Line 1037. Facta; or, procured, produced.

1053. Bards in ancient times wore their hair very long. The reader may, perhaps, readily call to mind this element in the grand description of one of their number, in Gray's noble Ode:

"Robed in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air,)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,

Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre."

Whence [came] the race of mankind, and the flocks,
Whence shower and the [leven-] fires; [he chants]
Arcturus, and the rainy Hyades,

And twin Triones; wherefore speed so fast
To dip them in the ocean wintry suns,

Or what delay foreslows the laggard nights.
Tyrians redouble with acclaim, and [these]
The Trojans second. Likewise, too, the night
With diverse talk unhappy Dido eked,
And drank deep passion, about Priam much
Earnestly asking, about Hector much;

Now, in what arms Aurora's son had come,

Now, of what kind were Diomedes' steeds,

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How puissant, now, Achilles [was]. "Nay come," she cries, "And from the first beginning tell, O guest,

To us the stratagems of Danai,

And th' hazards of thy [friends], and wanderings thine; For now the seventh summer wafts thee on,

Estraying over every land and surge."

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Line 1062. The enthusiasm of his auditors, in so warmly clapping Iopas, shows that they would not have come under the jealous lash of Lorenzo; Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, v. 1:

Therefore the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;

Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,

But music for the time doth change his nature:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted."

BOOK II.

ALL hushed, and kept their faces riveted,
On him attent. Then from his lofty couch
Father Æneas thus began: "O queen,
Thou bidst renew unutterable grief,
How Troja's wealth and pitiable realm

The Greeks uprooted, and those saddest [scenes],
Which I myself have witnessed, and wherein

A leading part I bore. In telling such,

Who of the Myrmidons, or Dolopes,

Either [what] soldier of Ulysses stern

Could keep from tears? And now the moistful night

10

Line 1-3. Medina's invitation to Sir Guyon is similarly expressed by Spenser; Faerie Queene, ii. 2, 39:

"At last, when lust of meat and drinke was ceast,

She Guyon deare besought of curtesie

To tell from whence he came through ieopardy,

And whether now on new adventure bownd:
Who with bold grace, and comely gravity,
Drawing to him the eies of all arownd,

From lofty siege began these words aloud to sownd."

11. At Paridell's mention of Troy's misfortunes, the pain felt by the warlike Britomart justifies the Quis talia fando temperet a lacrimis of Æneas; F. Q. iii. 9, 39:

"Then, sighing soft awhile, at last she thus:

O lamentable fall of famous towne,

Which raignd so many yeares victorious,
And of all Asie bore the soveraine crowne,

Speeds downward from the sky, and setting stars
Are urging slumbers. But if [thee possess]

So strong a passion our mishaps to learn,
And briefly hear the latest pang of Troy,
Although my soul at the remembrance thrills,
And hath in woe recoiled, I will begin.

"Worn out by war, and baffled by the fates,
The chieftains of the Greeks, so many years
Now gliding by, a horse of mountain size
By the heavenly skilfulness of Pallas build,
And overlay its ribs with plank of fir:
An offering, they pretend, for their return;

That rumour spreads. Hither choice frames of men,
By lot selecting them, in secresy

Imprison they within its darksome side,

And throughly its colossal vaults and womb
With weaponed soldiery do they fill up.

"Within the view lies Tenedos, an isle
Most widely known by rumour, rich in wealth,
While Priam's realm endured, now but a bay,
And roadstead little trustworthy for ships.
Transported hither, on the lonely beach

They hide themselves. We deemed that they had gone,
And voyaged to Mycena with the breeze.
Accordingly all Teucria frees itself

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In one sad night consumd and throwen downe !
What stony hart, that heares thy haplesse fate,
Is not empierst with deepe compassiowne,
And makes ensample of mans wretched state,
That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late!"
Line 12, 13.

"For now the streaky light began to peep,
And setting stars admonish'd both to sleep."

Dryden, close of Hind and Panther.

From lengthened misery: the gates are oped;
It joys to go and view the Doric camp,
And the lorn stations, and abandoned shore.
Here the Dolopians' hosts, here fell Achilles camped;
Here for their ships the place, in battle-line
Here were they wont to fight. Some gaze with awe
At the unwed Minerva's deathful gift,

And marvel at the hugeness of the horse:
And first Thymates moves that it be brought
Within the walls, and in the castle lodged,
Whether in guile, or now the fates of Troy
Did so ordain. But Capys and [the rest,]
Within whose minds a sounder judgment [dwelt],
Or in the sea the ambush of the Greeks,
And their mistrusted offerings, bid to fling,
And burn them up with blazes underlaid;
Or of the womb the vaulted lurking-holes

To bore and probe. The common folk, in doubt,

Into conflicting sentiments is split.

"There first ahead of all, a mighty throng

Attending him, Laocoon in a fume

Down from the summit of the castle runs;
And from afar: 'O wretched citizens,
What such intense deliriousness [is this]?
Believe ye that the foemen are withdrawn?
Or think ye any offerings of the Greeks
Are free from craft? Is thus Ulysses known?
Or in the wood imprisoned Greeks are hid,
Or this is framed an engine 'gainst our walls,

Line 43. It is very stiff to make Minervæ, v. 31, the dative case; nor is it at all according to the usage of Virgil, who continually uses the genitive under such circumstances; e. g. Templum conjugis antiqui, Æn. iv. 457.