May you live happily and long, for the fervice of your country, the encouragement of good letters, and the ornament of poetry! which cannot be wished more carnefly by any man, than by

Your Lordship's

most humble, most obliged,

and most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE

Æneas, with his own

The Trojans, after a feven years voyage, set sail for
Italy; but are overtaken by the dreadful ftorm, which
olus raifes at Juno's request. The tempeft finks
one, and fcatters the reft. Neptune drives off the
winds, and calms the fea.
fhip, and fix more, arrives fafe at an African port.
Venus complains to Jupiter of her fon's misfor-
tunes. Jupiter comforts her, and fends Mercury to
procure him a kind reception among the Carthagi-
nians. Æneas, going out to difcover the country,
meets his mother in the shape of an huntress, who
conveys him in a cloud to Carthage; where he fees
his friends whom he thought loft, and receives a
kind entertainment from the queen.
vice of Venus, begins to have a paffion for him, and,
after fome difcourfe with him, defires the hiftory of
his adventures fince the fiege of Troy, which is
the fubject of the two following books.

X 4

Dido, by a de

ARMS

RMS and the man I fing, who forc'd by fate,

And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate;

Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore;
Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore;
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the deftin'd town:
His banish'd gods restor❜d to rites divine,
And fettled fure fucceffion in his line:
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.

O, Mufe! the caufes and the crimes relate,
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offence the queen of heaven began
To perfecute fo brave, so just a man!
Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos'd to wants, and hurry'd into wars!

Can heavenly minds fuch high refentment show;
Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away,
An ancient town was feated on the fea:

A Tyrian colony; the people made

15

20

Stout for the war, and studious of their trade.
Carthage the name, belov'd by Juno more
Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.
Here ftood her chariot, here, if heaven were kind, 25
The feat of awful empire fhe defign'd.
Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly

(Long cited by the people of the fky);

That

That times to come should see the Trojan race
Her Carthage ruin, and her towers deface;
Nor, thus confin'd, the yoke of fovereign fway
Should on the necks of all the nations lay.
She ponder'd this, and fear'd it was in fate;
Nor could forget the war fhe wag'd of late,
For conquering Greece against the Trojan ftate. 35.
Befides, long causes working in her mind,
And fecret feeds of envy, lay behind.
Deep graven in her heart, the doom remain'd
Of partial Paris, and her form disdain’d:
The grace beftow'd on ravifh'd Ganymed,
Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed.
Each was a caufe alone, and all combin'd
To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.
For this, far diftant from the Latian coaft,
She drove the remnants of the Trojan host:
And feven long years th' unhappy wandering train

30

40

45

Were tofs'd by ftorms, and fcatter'd through the main. Such time, fuch toil, requir'd the Roman name,

Such length of labour for so vast a frame.

Now scarce the Trojan fleet with fails and oars

50

Had left behind the fair Sicilian fhores;
Entering with chearful fhouts the watery reign,
And ploughing frothy furrows in the main;
When, labouring ftill with endless discontent,
The queen of heaven did thus her fury vent.

55

Then am I vanquish'd, muft I yield, faid fhe,

And muft the Trojans reign in Italy?

So

So fate will have it, and Jove adds his force;
Nor can my power divert their happy course.
Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,
The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?
She, for the fault of one offending foe,
The bolts of Jove himself prefum'd to throw:
With whirlwinds from beneath the tofs'd the ship,
And bare expos'd the bofom of the deep:
Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game,
The wretch yet hifling with her father's flame
She ftrongly feiz'd, and, with a burning wound,
Transfix'd and naked, on a rock she bound.
But I, who walk in awful state above,

The majefty of heaven, the fifter-wife of Jove,
For length of years my fruitless force employ
Against the thin remains of ruin'd Troy.
What nations now to Juno's power will pray,
Or offerings on my flighted altars lay?

бо

Thus rag'd the goddess, and, with fury fraught, The reftlefs regions of the storms she sought; Where, in a spacious cave of living ftone, The tyrant Æolus from his airy throne,

65

70

75

With power imperial curbs the ftruggling winds, 80
And founding tempefts in dark prifons binds,
This way, and that, th' impatient captives tend,
And, preffing for release, the mountains rend:
High in his hall, th' undaunted monarch stands,
And fhakes his fceptre, and their rage commands: 85
Which did he not, their unrefifted sway

Would sweep the world before them in their way:

Earth,