e Aurora risen up had left the ocean stream,
And gateward throng the chosen youth in first of morning's beam, 130
And wide-meshed nets, and cordage-toils and broad-steeled spears abound,
Massylian riders go their ways with many a scenting hound.
The lords of Carthage by the door bide till the tarrying queen
Shall leave her chamber: there, with gold and purple well beseen,
The mettled courser stands, and champs the bit that bids him bide.
At last she cometh forth to them with many a man beside:
A cloak of Sidon wrapped her round with pictured border wrought,
Her quiver was of fashioned gold, and gold her tresses caught;
The gathering of her purple gown a golden buckle had.

Then come the Phrygian fellows forth; comes forth Iulus glad; 140
Yea and AEneas' very self is of their fellowship,
And joins their band: in goodliness all those did he outstrip:
E'en such as when Apollo leaves the wintry Lycian shore,
And Xanthus' stream, and Delos sees, his mother's isle once more;
And halloweth in the dance anew, while round the altars shout
The Cretans and the Dryopes, and painted Scythian rout:
He steps it o'er the Cynthus' ridge, and leafy crown to hold
His flowing tresses doth he weave, and intertwines the gold,
And on his shoulders clang the shafts. Nor duller now passed on
AEneas, from his noble face such wondrous glory shone. 150
So come they to the mountain-side and pathless deer-fed ground,
And lo, from hill-tops driven adown, how swift the wild goats bound
Along the ridges: otherwhere across the open lea
Run hart and hind, and gathering up their horned host to flee,
Amid a whirling cloud of dust they leave the mountain-sides.
But here the boy Ascanius the midmost valley rides,
And glad, swift-horsed, now these he leaves, now those he flees before,
And fain were he mid deedless herds to meet a foaming boar,
Or see some yellow lion come the mountain-slopes adown. 159

Meanwhile with mighty murmuring sound confused the heavens are grown,
And thereupon the drift of rain and hail upon them broke;
Therewith the scattered Trojan youth, the Tyrian fellow-folk,
The son of Venus' Dardan son, scared through the meadows fly
To diverse shelter, while the streams rush from the mountains high.

Then Dido and the Trojan lord meet in the self-same cave;