god with prevenient art,
Begins the lost Sychaeus to efface,
And living passion to a breast impart
Long dead to feeling, and a vacant heart.
Now, hushed the banquet and the tables all
Removed, huge wine-bowls for each guest apart
They wreathe with flowers. The noise of festival
Rings through the spacious courts, and rolls along the hall.

XCVI. There, blazing from the gilded roof, are seen
Bright lamps, and torches turn the night to day.
Now for the ponderous goblet called the Queen,
Of jewelled gold, which Belus used and they
Of Belus' line, and poured the wine straightway,
And prayed, while silence filled the crowded hall:
"Great Jove, the host's lawgiver, bless this day
To these my Tyrians and the Trojans all.
Long may our children's sons this solemn feast recall.

XCVII. "Come, jolly Bacchus, giver of delight;
Kind Juno, come; and ye with fair accord
And friendly spirit hold the feast aright."
So spake the Queen, and on the festal board
The prime libation to the gods outpoured,
Then lightly to her lips the goblet pressed,
And gave to Bitias. Challenged by the word,
He dived into the brimming gold with zest,
And quaffed the foaming bowl, and after him, the rest.

XCVIII. His golden lyre long-haired Iopas tunes,
And sings what Atlas taught in loftiest strain;
The suns' eclipses and the changing moons,
Whence man and beast, whence lightning and the rain,
Arcturus, watery Hyads and the Wain;
What causes make the winter nights so long,
Why sinks the sun so quickly in the main;
All this he sings, and ravished at the song,
Tyrians and Trojan guests the loud applause prolong.

XCIX. With various talk the night poor Dido wore,
And drank deep love, and nursed her inward flame,
Of Priam much she asks, of Hector more,
Now in what arms Aurora's offspring came,
Of Diomede's horses and Achilles' fame.
"Tell me," she says, "thy wanderings; stranger, come,
Thy friends' mishaps and Danaan wiles proclaim;
For seven long summers now have seen thee roam
O'er every land and sea, far from thy native home."

BOOK TWO

ARGUMENT

AEneas' story.--The Greeks, baffled in battle, built a wooden horse,
in which their leaders took ambush. Their fleet sailed to Tenedos.
The Trojans, but for Capys and Laocoon, had dragged the horse
forthwith as a trophy into Troy (1-72). Sinon, a Greek, br