e as he to the site of the future Rome.
When AEneas stands before her, it is as a wanderer like herself. His
heart is bleeding at the loss of Creusa, of Helen, of Troy. He is
solitary in his despair. He is longing for the touch of a human hand,
the sound of a voice of love. He is weary of being baffled by the
ghostly embraces of his wife, by the cloud that wraps his mother from
his view. He is weary of wandering, longing with all the old-world
intensity of longing for a settled home. "O fortunati quorum jam moenia
surgunt," he cries as he looks on the rising walls of Carthage. His
gloom has been lightened indeed by the assurance of his fame which he
gathers from the pictures of the great Defence graven on the walls of
the Tyrian temple. But the loneliness and longing still press heavily on
him when the cloud which has wrapt him from sight parts suddenly
asunder, and Dido and AEneas stand face to face.

Few situations in poetry are more artistic than this meeting of AEneas
and the Queen in its suddenness and picturesqueness. A love born of pity
speaks in the first words of the hero,[6] and the reply of Dido strikes
the same sympathetic note.[7] But the fervour of passion is soon to
supersede this compassionate regard. Love himself in the most exquisite
episode of the AEneid takes the place of Ascanius; while the Trojan boy
lies sleeping on Ida, lapped on Earth's bosom beneath the cool mountain
shade, his divine "double" lies clasped to Dido's breast, and pours his
fiery longings into her heart. Slowly, unconsciously, the lovers draw
together. The gratitude of AEneas is still at first subordinate to his
quest. "Thy name and praise shall live," he says to Dido, "whatever
lands call me." In the same way, though the Queen's generosity has shown
itself in her first offer to the sailors ("urbem quam statuo vestra
est"), it is still generosity and not passion. Passion is born in the
long night through which, with Eros still folded in her arms, Dido
listens to the "Tale of Troy."

The very verse quickens with the new pulse of love. The preface of the
AEneid, the stately introduction that fortells the destinies of Rome and
the divine end to which the fates were guiding AEneas, closes in fact
with the appearance of Dido. The poem takes a gayer and lighter tone.
The disguise and recognition of Venus as she appears to her son, the
busy scene of city-building, the sudden revelation of AEneas to the
Queen, have the note of exquisite