Look down propitious, and my thoughts infpire;
Warm my chafte bofom with thy facred fire!
Let all thy flames with all their raptures roll,
Deep in my breaft, and kindle all my foul!
The Trojans, after a seven years voyage, set fail for Italy, but are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Eolus raifes at Juno's requeft. The tempeft finks one ship, and scatters the reft: Neptune drives off the winds, and calms the feas. Æneas with his own, and fix more ships, arrives fafe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her fon's misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and fends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthagi-. nians. Encas, going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of a huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage; where he sees his friends whom he thought loft, and receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a paffion for him, and, after fome difcourfe with him defires the history of his adventures fince the fiege of Troy; which is the fubject of the two following books.
BOOK I.
ARMS and the Man I fing, the firft who bore
His course to Latium from the Trojan fhore;
By fate expell'd, on land and ocean toft,
Before he reach'd the fair Lavinian coaft:
Doom'd by the Gods a length of wars to wage,
And urg'd by Juno's unrelenting rage;
Ere the brave hero rais'd, in these abodes,
His deftin'd walls, and fix'd his wand'ring gods.
Hence the fam'd Latian line, and fenates come,
And the proud triumphs, and the tow'rs of Rome, 19
Say, Mufe, what causes could so far incense
Celestial pow'rs, and what the dire offence
That mov'd heav'n's aweful empress to impofe
On fuch a pious prince a weight of woes,
Expos'd to dangers, and with toils oppreft?
Can rage fo fierce inflame an heavenly breast?
Against th' Italian coaft, of ancient fame
A city rofe, and Carthage was the name;
A Tyrian colony; from Tiber far;
Rich, rough, and brave, and exercis'd in war.
Which Juno far above all realms, above
Her own dear Samos, honoured with her love.
Here flood her chariot, here her armour lay,
Here the defign'd, would deftiny give way,
Ev'n then the feat of universal sway.
But of a race she heard, that should destroy
The Tyrian tow'rs, a race deriv'd from Troy,
Who proud in arms, triumphant by their fwords,
Should rise in time, the world's victorious lords ;
By fate defign'd her Carthage to fubdue,
And on her ruin'd empire raise a new.
This fear'd the goddess; and in mind she bore
The late long war her fury rais'd before
For Greece with Troy; nor was her wrath resign'd,
But every cause hung heavy on her mind;
Her form disdain'd, and Paris' judgment, roll
Deep in her breast, and kindle all her foul;
Th' immortal honours of the ravish'd boy,
And last, the whole detefted race of Troy.
With all these motives fir'd, from Latium far
She drove the relicks of the Grecian war:
Then must I ftop? are all my labours vain? And must this Trojan prince in Latium reign?
Fate urg'd their courfe; and long they wander'd o'er
The fpacious ocean toft from shore to fhore.
So vaft the work to build the mighty frame,
And raife the glories of the Roman name!
Scarce from Sicilian fhores the fhouting train
Spread their broad fails, and plough'd the foamy main;
When haughty Juno thus her rage expreft;
Th' eternal wound ftill rankling in her breast.
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