Epistulae

and ingratitude? You would indeed have been safe and unhurt; not because you deserved it, but in consequence of my softness and good-nature. But I would have satiated my eyes with the blood of that harlot; and you, the slave of her sorceries, should have beheld the tragedy. I would have been Medea to Medea. If you, O just Jupiter, hear from heaven the prayers of injured love, may this base intruder into my chaste bed groan under the same pangs which I now feel, and herself experience that treachery of which she has set the first example; and, as I, a wife and the mother of twins, am left destitute and forlorn, may she also be ravished from her husband and children: may she soon lose and shamefully abandon these ill-gotten trophies; exiled, and wandering a fugitive over all the earth! What sister she was to her brother, what daughter to her parent, such a mother and wife may she prove to her children and husband! When she has traversed the earth and sea, let her attempt the air, till, destitute and hopeless, she end a miserable life by her own hand. These are the prayers of the disappointed and injured daughter of Thoas. May you live an execrable pair, the partners of a devoted bed!

THUS the silver swan, when death approaches, bemoans her fate among the willows on the banks of Mæander. Nor do I address you, from a hope of being able to move you by my prayers: that, the Gods, averse to my request, forbid. But, having lost merit and fame, my honor and myself, why should I fear to lose a few dying words? You are then resolved to depart, and abandon unhappy Dido; the same winds will bear away your promises and sails. You are, I say, O Æneas, resolved to weigh at once your anchor and your vows, and go in quest of Italy, a land to which you are wholly a stranger. Neither my new-built Carthage and her rising walls have power to detain you; nor the supreme rule, which you are in vain urged to accept. You fly a city already built, and seek one that is yet to be raised; the one realm is still to be conquered, the other is subject to your command. Even if you had disembarked on the wished-for coast, how can the natives be induced to resignit? What people will grant the property of their lands to strangers? You must first be so fortunate as to find another love, another affectionate, constant Dido: you must again bind yourself by vows which you cannot keep. Yet when will you build a city flourishing like Carthage, and from your lofty towers survey the crowds below? But were all events to meet your desires, so that not even a wish remained unanswered, where will you find a wife to love like me? I burn like waxen torches smeared with sulphur, or pious incense cast into the smoking censer. Æneas is ever before my wakeful eyes; the image of Æneas baunts me both by night and day.

He indeed is ungrateful, and regardless of all my good offices; and I am a fond fool, not to tear him instantly from my heart. In spite of all his ill-usage, I have not power to hate him. I can only complain of his baseness; and, when my complaints are over, love him more than ever. Pity, O Venus, your daughter-in-law; pierce, O Cupid, the unrelenting heart of your brother, and teach him to fight under your banners. Teach me also, who have already begun the pleasing task, (for I deny it not,) and let him prove an object worthy of my tenderness and concern. I rave; and the enchanting image deludes my eager mind; nor does he retain any portion of the softness of his mother. You are certainly the offspring of rocks and mountains, or the hardened oak that rises out of the hanging cliff. A savage tigress, or the tempestuous ocean, such as it is now when swelled by gathering storms, gave thee birth. But whither can you shape your course, or how stem the force of opposing billows? You prepare to set sail, a stormy sea forbids: let me enjoy the blessing which a rough winter offers. Behold how the blustering east-wind raises the foaming waves. Let me owe that to winter and a stormy sea, which I would rather owe to your love; the winds and waves have more of justice than you. Although thou deservest to perish, cruel and barbarous man, yet I am not of such value, that in