Whom I will bear to Ida in mine arms,
100 And couch him in Adonis’ purple down.
Exeunt.
Scene 3
Enter DIDO, AENEAS, ANNA, IARBAS, ACHATES, [CUPID dressed as ASCANIUS,] and FOLLOWERS.
DIDO
Aeneas, think not but I honour thee
That thus in person go with thee to hunt.
My princely robes, thou seest, are laid aside,
Whose glittering pomp Diana’s shrouds supplies;
All fellows now, disposed alike to sport:
The woods are wide, and we have store of game.
Fair Trojan, hold my golden bow a while,
Until I gird my quiver to my side.
Lords, go before. We two must talk alone.
[Exeunt FOLLOWERS.]
IARBAS [aside]
10 Ungentle, can she wrong Iarbas so?
I’ll die before a stranger have that grace.
‘We two will talk alone’ – what words be these?
DIDO
What makes Iarbas here of all the rest?
We could have gone without your company.
AENEAS
But love and duty led him on perhaps
To press beyond acceptance to your sight.
IARBAS
Why, man of Troy, do I offend thine eyes?
Or art thou grievèd thy betters press so nigh?
DIDO
How now, Gaetulian, are ye grown so brave
20 To challenge us with your comparisons?
Peasant, go seek companions like thyself,
And meddle not with any that I love.
Aeneas, be not moved at what he says,
For otherwhile he will be out of joint.
IARBAS
Women may wrong by privilege of love;
But should that man of men, Dido except,
Have taunted me in these opprobrious terms,
I would have either drunk his dying blood,
Or else I would have given my life in gage!
DIDO
30 Huntsmen, why pitch you not your toils apace,
And rouse the light-foot deer from forth their lair?
ANNA
Sister, see, see Ascanius in his pomp,
Bearing his hunt-spear bravely in his hand!
DIDO
Yea, little son, are you so forward now?
CUPID
Ay, mother, I shall one day be a man
And better able unto other arms;
Meantime these wanton weapons serve my war,
Which I will break betwixt a lion’s jaws.
DIDO
What, dar’st thou look a lion in the face?
CUPID
40 Ay, and outface him too, do what he can!
ANNA
How like his father speaketh he in all!
AENEAS
And mought I live to see him sack rich Thebes,
And load his spear with Grecian princes’ heads,
Then would I wish me with Anchises’ tomb,
And dead to honour that hath brought me up.
IARBAS
And might I live to see thee shipped away,
And hoist aloft on Neptune’s hideous hills,
Then would I wish me in fair Dido’s arms,
And dead to scorn that hath pursued me so.
AENEAS
50 Stout friend, Achates, dost thou know this wood?
ACHATES
As I remember, here you shot the deer
That saved your famished soldiers’ lives from death,
When first you set your foot upon the shore,
And here we met fair Venus, virgin-like,
Bearing her bow and quiver at her back.
AENEAS
O, how these irksome labours now delight
And overjoy my thoughts with their escape!
Who would not undergo all kind of toil
To be well stored with such a winter’s tale?
DIDO
60 Aeneas, leave these dumps and let’s away,
Some to the mountains, some unto the soil,
You to the valleys, [to IARBAS] thou unto the house.
[Exeunt; IARBAS remains].
IARBAS
Ay, this it is which wounds me to the death,
To see a Phrygian, forfeit to the sea,
Preferred before a man of majesty.
O love! O hate! O cruel women’s hearts,
That imitate the moon in every change
And, like the planets, ever love to range!
What shall I do, thus wronged with disdain?
70 Revenge me on Aeneas or on her?
On her? Fond man, that were to war ’gainst heaven,
And with one shaft provoke ten thousand darts.
Whose blood will reconcile thee to content
And make love drunken with thy sweet desire.
But Dido, that now holdeth him so dear,
Will die with very tidings of his death;
But time will discontinue her content
And mould her mind unto new fancy’s shapes.
80 O God of heaven, turn the hand of fate
Unto that happy day of my delight!
And then – what then? Iarbas shall but love.
So doth he now, though not with equal gain:
That resteth in the rival of thy pain,
Who ne’er will cease to soar till he be slain.
Exit.
Scene 4
The storm. Enter AENEAS and DIDO in the cave at several times.
DIDO
Aeneas!
AENEAS Dido!
DIDO
Tell me, dear love, how found you out this cave?
AENEAS
By chance, sweet queen, as Mars and Venus met.
DIDO
Why, that was in a net, where we are loose,
And yet I am not free. O would I were!
AENEAS
Why, what is it that Dido may desire
And not obtain, be it in human power?
DIDO
The thing that I will die before I ask,
And yet desire to have before I die.
AENEAS
10 It is not aught Aeneas may achieve?
DIDO
Aeneas? No, although his eyes do pierce.
AENEAS
What, hath Iarbas angered her in aught?
And will she be avenged on his life?
DIDO
Not angered me, except in ang’ring thee.
AENEAS
Who, then, of all so cruel may he be
That should detain thy eye in his defects?
DIDO
The man that I do eye where’er I am,
Whose amorous face, like Paean, sparkles fire,
Whenas he butts his beams on Flora’s bed.
20 Prometheus hath put on Cupid’s shape,
And I must perish in his burning arms.
Aeneas, O Aeneas, quench these flames!
AENEAS
What ails my queen? Is she fall’n sick of late?
DIDO
Not sick, my love, but sick I must conceal
The torment that it boots me not reveal.
And yet I’ll speak, and yet I’ll hold my peace;
Do shame her worst, I will disclose my grief.
Aeneas, thou art he – what did I say?
Something it was that now I have forgot.
AENEAS
30 What means fair Dido by this doubtful speech?
DIDO
Nay, nothing. But Aeneas loves me not.
AENEAS
Aeneas’ thoughts dare not ascend so high
As Dido’s heart, which monarchs might not scale.
DIDO
It was because I saw no king like thee,
Whose golden crown might balance my content;
But now that I have found what to affect,
I follow one that lov
eth fame for me,
And rather had seem fair to Sirens’ eyes
Than to the Carthage queen that dies for him.
AENEAS
40 If that your majesty can look so low
As my despised worths, that shun all praise,
With this my hand I give to you my heart,
And vow by all the gods of hospitality,
By heaven and earth, and my fair brother’s bow,
By Paphos, Capys, and the purple sea
From whence my radiant mother did descend,
And by this sword that saved me from the Greeks,
Never to leave these new-uprearèd walls
Whiles Dido lives and rules in Juno’s town,
50 Never to like or love any but her!
DIDO
What more than Delian music do I hear,
That calls my soul from forth his living seat
To move unto the measures of delight?
Kind clouds that sent forth such a courteous storm
As made disdain to fly to fancy’s lap!
Stout love, in mine arms make thy Italy,
Whose crown and kingdom rests at thy command.
‘Sichaeus’, not ‘Aeneas’, be thou called;
The ‘King of Carthage’, not ‘Anchises’ son’.
60 Hold, take these jewels at thy lover’s hand,
These golden bracelets and this wedding-ring,
Wherewith my husband wooed me yet a maid,
And be thou King of Libya, by my gift.
Exeunt to the cave.
ACT 4
Scene 1
Enter ACHATES, [CUPID dressed as] ASCANIUS, IARBAS, and ANNA.
ACHATES
Did ever men see such a sudden storm,
Or day so clear so suddenly o’ercast?
IARBAS
I think some fell enchantress dwelleth here
That can call them forth whenas she please,
And dive into black tempests’ treasury
Whenas she means to mask the world with clouds.
ANNA
In all my life I never knew the like.
It hailed, it snowed, it light’nèd, all at once.
ACHATES
I think it was the devils’ revelling night,
10 There was such hurly-burly in the heavens;
Doubtless Apollo’s axle-tree is cracked,
Or aged Atlas’ shoulder out of joint,
The motion was so over-violent.
IARBAS
In all this coil, where have ye left the queen?
CUPID
Nay, where’s my warlike father, can you tell?
[Enter DIDO and AENEAS.]
ANNA
Behold where both of them come forth the cave.
IARBAS [aside]
Come forth the cave? Can heaven endure this sight?
Iarbas, curse that unrevenging Jove,
Whose flinty darts slept in Typhoeus’ den
20 Whiles these adulterers surfeited with sin.
Nature, why mad’st me not some poisonous beast,
That with the sharpness of my edgèd sting
I might have staked them both unto the earth,
Whil’st they were sporting in this darksome cave?
AENEAS
The air is clear and southern winds are whist.
Come, Dido, let us hasten to the town,
Since gloomy Aeolus doth cease to frown.
DIDO
Achates and Ascanius, well met.
AENEAS
Fair Anna, how escaped you from the shower?
ANNA
30 As others did, by running to the wood.
DIDO
But where were you, Iarbas, all this while?
IARBAS
Not with Aeneas in the ugly cave.
DIDO
I see Aeneas sticketh in your mind,
But I will soon put by that stumbling-block,
And quell those hopes that thus employ your cares.
Exeunt.
Scene 2
Enter IARBAS to sacrifice.
IARBAS
Come, servants, come; bring forth the sacrifice,
That I may pacify that gloomy Jove
Whose empty altars have enlarged our ills.
[Enter SERVANTS with the sacrifice, then exeunt.]
Eternal Jove, great master of the clouds,
Father of gladness and all frolic thoughts,
That with thy gloomy hand corrects the heaven
When airy creatures war amongst themselves,
Hear, hear, O hear Iarbas’ plaining prayers
Whose hideous echoes make the welkin howl
10 And all the woods ‘Eliza’ to resound!
The woman that thou willed us entertain,
Where, straying in our borders up and down,
She craved a hide of ground to build a town,
With whom we did divide both laws and land
And all the fruits that plenty else sends forth,
Scorning our loves and royal marriage-rites,
Yields up her beauty to a stranger’s bed,
Who, having wrought her shame, is straightway fled.
Now, if thou be’st a pitying god of power,
20 On whom ruth and compassion ever waits,
Redress these wrongs and warn him to his ships,
That now afflicts me with his flattering eyes.
Enter ANNA.
ANNA
How now, Iarbas, at your prayers so hard?
IARBAS
Ay, Anna, is there aught you would with me?
ANNA
Nay, no such weighty business of import
But may be slacked until another time.
Yet, if you would partake with me the cause
Of this devotion that detaineth you,
I would be thankful for such courtesy.
IARBAS
30 Anna, against this Trojan do I pray,
Who seeks to rob me of thy sister’s love
And dive into her heart by coloured looks.
ANNA
Alas, poor king, that labours so in vain
For her that so delighteth in thy pain!
Be ruled by me and seek some other love,
Whose yielding heart may yield thee more relief.
IARBAS
Mine eye is fixed where fancy cannot start.
O leave me, leave me to my silent thoughts
That register the numbers of my ruth,
40 And I will either move the thoughtless flint
Or drop out both mine eyes in drizzling tears,
Before my sorrow’s tide have any stint.
ANNA
I will not leave Iarbas, whom I love,
In this delight of dying pensiveness.
Away with Dido! Anna be thy song,
Anna, that doth admire thee more than heaven!
IARBAS
I may nor will list to such loathsome change
That intercepts the course of my desire.
Servants, come fetch these empty vessels here,
50 For I will fly from these alluring eyes
That do pursue my peace where’er it goes.
Exit.
ANNA
Iarbas, stay, loving Iarbas, stay,
For I have honey to present thee with!
Hard-hearted, wilt not deign to hear me speak?
I’ll follow thee with outcries ne’er the less
And strew thy walks with my dishevelled hair.
Exit.
Scene 3
Enter AENEAS alone.
AENEAS
Carthage, my friendly host, adieu,
Since destiny doth call me from the shore.
Hermes this night, descending in a dream,
Hath summoned me to fruitful Italy;
Jove wills it so, my mother wills it so;
Let my Phoenissa grant, and then I go.
Grant she or no, Aeneas must away,
Whose gol
den fortunes, clogged with courtly ease,
Cannot ascend to fame’s immortal house
10 Or banquet in bright honour’s burnished hall,
Till he hath furrowed Neptune’s glassy fields
And cut a passage through his topless hills.
Achates, come forth! Sergestus, Ilioneus,
Cloanthus, haste away! Aeneas calls!
Enter ACHATES, CLOANTHUS, SERGESTUS and ILIONEUS.
ACHATES
What wills our lord, or wherefore did he call?
AENEAS
The dreams, brave mates, that did beset my bed,
When sleep but newly had embraced the night,
Commands me leave these unrenownèd realms,
Whereas nobility abhors to stay,
20 And none but base Aeneas will abide.
Aboard, aboard, since Fates do bid aboard
And slice the sea with sable-coloured ships,
On whom the nimble winds may all day wait
And follow them as footmen through the deep!
Yet Dido casts her eyes like anchors out
To stay my fleet from loosing forth the bay.
‘Come back, come back!’ I hear her cry afar,
‘And let me link thy body to my lips,
That, tied together by the striving tongues,
30 We may as one sail into Italy!’
ACHATES
Banish that ticing dame from forth your mouth
And follow your foreseeing stars in all.
This is no life for men-at-arms to live,
Where dalliance doth consume a soldier’s strength
And wanton motions of alluring eyes
Effeminate our minds inured to war.
ILIONEUS
Why, let us build a city of our own,
And not stand lingering here for amorous looks.
Will Dido raise old Priam forth his grave
40 And build the town again the Greeks did burn?
No, no, she cares not how we sink or swim,
So she may have Aeneas in her arms.
CLOANTHUS
To Italy, sweet friends, to Italy!
We will not stay a minute longer here.
AENEAS
Trojans, aboard, and I will follow you.
[Exeunt TROJANS; AENEAS remains.]
I fain would go, yet beauty calls me back.
To leave her so and not once say farewell
Were to transgress against all laws of love;
But if I use such ceremonious thanks
50 As parting friends accustom on the shore,
Her silver arms will coll me round about
And tears of pearl cry, ‘Stay, Aeneas, stay!’
Each word she says will then contain a crown,
And every speech be ended with a kiss.
I may not dure this female drudgery,
To sea, Aeneas, find out Italy!
Exit.
Scene 4