by Henry Howard
In desert land, her Tyrian folk to seek.
Like Pentheus, that in his madness saw
Swarming in flocks the furies all of hell;
Two suns remove, and Thebès town shew twain. 620
Or like Orestes Agamemnon’s son,
In tragedies who represented aye
Is driven about, that from his mother fled
Armed with brands, and eke with serpent’s black
That sitting found within the temple’s porch 625
The ugly furies his slaughter to revenge.
Yelden to woe, when phrensy had her caught,
Within herself then ‘gan she well debate,
Full bent to die, the time and eke the mean;
And to her woful sister thus she said, 630
In outward cheer dissembling her intent,
Presenting hope under a semblant glad:
‘Sister, rejoice! for I have found the way
Him to return, or loose me from his love.
Toward the end of the great ocean flood, 635
Whereas the wandering sun descendeth hence,
In the extremes of Ethiope, is a place
Where huge Atlas doth on his shoulders turn
The sphere so round with flaming stars beset.
Born of Massyle, I hear should be a Nun; 640
That of the Hesperian sisters’ temple old,
And of their goodly garden keeper was;
That gives unto the Dragon eke his food,
That on the tree preserves the holy fruit;
That honey moist, and sleeping poppy casts. 645
This woman doth avaunt, by force of charm,
What heart she list to set at liberty;
And other some to pierce with heavy cares:
In running flood to stop the waters’ course;
And eke the stars their movings to reverse; 650
T’ assemble eke the ghosts that walk by night:
Under thy feet the earth thou shalt behold
Tremble and roar; the oaks come from the hill.
The Gods and thee, dear Sister, now I call
In witness, and thy head to me so sweet, 655
To magic arts against my will I bend.
Right secretly within our inner court,
In open air rear up a stack of wood;
And hang thereon the weapon of this man,
The which he left within my chamber, stick: 660
His weeds dispoiled all, and bridal bed,
Wherein, alas! Sister, I found my bane,
Charge thereupon; for so the Nun commands,
To do away what did to him belong,
Of that false wight that might remembrance bring. 665
Then whisted she; the pale her face ‘gan stain.
Ne could yet Anne believe, her sister meant
To cloke her death by this new sacrifice;
Nor in her breast such fury did conceive:
Neither doth she now dread more grievous thing 670
Than followed Sycheës death; wherefore
She put her will in ure. But then the Queen,
When that the stack of wood was reared up
Under the air within the inward court
With cloven oak, and billets made of fir, 675
With garlands she doth all beset the place,
And with green boughs eke crown the funeral,
And thereupon his weeds and sword yleft,
And on a bed his picture she bestows,
As she that well foreknew what was to come. 680
The altars stand about, and eke the Nun
With sparkled tress; the which three hundred Gods
With a loud voice doth thunder out at once,
Erebus the grisly, and Chaos huge,
And eke the threefold Goddess Hecate, 685
And three faces of Diana the virgin:
And sprinkles eke the water counterfeit
Like unto black Avernus’ lake in hell:
And springing herbs reap’d up with brazen scythes
Were sought, after the right course of the Moon; 690
The venom black intermingled with milk;
The lump of flesh ‘tween the new born foals eyen
To reave, that winneth from the dam her love.
She, with the mole all in her hands devout,
Stood near the altar, bare of the one foot, 695
With vesture loose, the bands unlaced all;
Bent for to die, calls the Gods to record,
And guilty stars eke of her destiny:
And if there were any God that had care
Of lovers’ hearts not moved with love alike, 700
Him she requires of justice to remember.
It was then night; the sound and quiet sleep
Had through the earth the wearied bodies caught;
The woods, the raging seas were fallen to rest;
When that the stars had half their course declined; 705
The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers hue,
And what so that in the broad lakes remained,
Or yet among the bushy thicks of brier,
Laid down to sleep by silence of the night
‘Gan swage their cares, mindless of travails past. 710
Not so the spirit of this Phenician;
Unhappy she that on no sleep could chance,
Nor yet night’s rest enter in eye or breast:
Her cares redouble; love doth rise and rage again,
And overflows with swelling storms of wrath. 715
Thus thinks she then, this rolls she in her mind:
‘What shall I do? shall I now bear the scorn,
For to assay mine old wooers again?
And humbly yet a Numid spouse require,
Whose marriage I have so oft disdained? 720
The Troyan navy, and Teucrian vile commands
Follow shall I? as though it should avail,
That whilom by my help they were relieved;
Or for because with kind and mindful folk
Right well doth sit the passed thankful deed? 725
Who would me suffer (admit this were my will)?
Or me scorned to their proud ships receive?
Oh, woe-begone! full little knowest thou yet
The broken oaths of Laomedon’s kind.
What then? alone on merry mariners 730
Shall I wait? or board them with my power
Of Tyrians assembled me about?
And such as I with travail brought from Tyre
Drive to the seas, and force them sail again?
But rather die, even as thou hast deserved; 735
And to this woe with iron give thou end.
And thou, Sister, first vanquish’d with my tears,
Thou in my rage with all these mischiefs first
Didst burden me, and yield me to my foe.
Was it not granted me from spousals free, 740
Like to wild beasts, to live without offence,
Without taste of such cares? is there no faith
Reserved to the cinders of Sychee?’
Such great complaints brake forth out of her breast:
Whiles Æneas full minded to depart, 745
All things prepared, slept in the poop on high.
To whom in sleep the wonted Godhead’s form
Gan aye appear, returning in like shape
As seemed him; and ‘gan him thus advise:
Like unto mercury in voice and hue, 750
With yellow bush, and comely limbs of youth.
‘O Goddess son, in such case canst thou sleep?
Ne yet, bestraught, the dangers dost foresee,
That compass thee? nor hear’st the fair winds blow?
Dido in mind rolls vengeance and deceit; 755
Determ’d to die, swells with unstable ire.
Wilt thou not flee whiles thou hast time of flight?
Straight shalt thou see the seas covered with sails,
The blazing
brands the shore all spread with flame,
And if the morrow steal upon thee here. 760
Come off, have done, set all delay aside;
For full of change these women be alway.’
This said, in the dark night he ‘gan him hide.
Æneas, of this sudden vision
Adread, starts up out of his sleep in haste; 765
Calls up his feres: ‘Awake, get up, my men,
Aboard your ships, and hoise up sail with speed;
A God me wills, sent from above again,
To haste my flight, and wreathen cables cut.
O holy God, what so thou art, we shall 770
Follow thee, and all blithe obey thy will;
Be at our hand, and friendly us assist;
Address the stars with prosperous influence.’
And with that word his glistering sword unsheaths;
With which drawn he the cables cut in twain. 775
The like desire the rest embraced all.
All thing in haste they cast, and forth they whirl;
The shores they leave; with ships the seas are spread;
Cutting the foam by the blue seas they sweep.
Aurora now from Titan’s purple bed 780
With new daylight had overspread the earth;
When by her windows the Queen the peeping day
Espied, and navy with ‘splay’d sails depart
The shore, and eke the port of vessels void.
Her comely breast thrice or four times she smote 785
With her own hand, and tore her golden tress.
‘Oh Jove,’ quoth she, ‘shall he then thus depart,
A stranger thus, and scorn our kingdom so?
Shall not my men do on their armour prest,
And eke pursue them throughout all the town? 790
Out of the road soon shall the vessel warp.
Haste on, cast flame, set sail, and wield your oars.
What said I? but where am I? what phrensy
Alters thy mind? Unhappy Dido, now
Hath thee beset a froward destiny. 795
Then it behoved, when thou didst give to him
His sceptre. Lo! his faith and his right hand!
That leads with him, they say, his country Gods,
That on his back his aged father bore!
His body might I not have caught and rent? 800
And in the seas drenched him and his feres?
And from Ascanius his life with iron reft,
And set him on his father’s board for meat?
Of such debate perchance the fortune might
Have been doubtful: would God it were assay’d! 805
Whom should I fear, sith I myself must die?
Might I have throwen into that navy brands,
And filled eke their decks with flaming fire,
The father, son, and all their nation
Destroy’d, and fallen myself dead over all! 810
Sun with thy beams, that mortal works descriest;
And thou, Juno, that well these travails know’st;
Proserpine, thou, upon whom folk do use
To howl, and call in forked ways by night;
Infernal Furies eke, ye wreakers of wrong; 815
And Dido’s Gods, who stands at point of death,
Receive these words, and eke your heavy power
Withdraw from me, that wicked folk deserve:
And our request accept we you beseech:
If so that yonder wicked head must needs 820
Recover port, and sail to land of force;
And if Jove’s will have so resolved it,
And such end set as no wight can foredo;
Yet at the least assailed might he be
With arms and wars of hardy nations; 825
From the bounds of his kingdom far exiled;
Iulus eke ravish’d out of his arms;
Driven to call for help, that may he see
The guiltless corpses of his folk lie dead:
And after hard conditions of peace, 830
His realm, nor life desired may he brook;
But fall before his time, ungraved amid the sands.
This I require; these words with blood I shed.
And, Tyrians, ye his stock and all his race
Pursue with hate; reward our cinders so. 835
No love nor league betwixt our peoples be;
And of our bones some wreaker may there spring,
With sword and flame that Troyans may pursue:
And from henceforth, when that our power may stretch,
Our coasts to them contrary be for aye, 840
I crave of God; and our streams to their floods;
Arms unto arms; and offspring of each race
With mortal war each other may fordo.’
This said, her mind she writhed on all sides,
Seeking with speed to end her irksome life. 845
To Sychees’ nurse Barcen then thus she said,
(For hers at home in ashes did remain):
‘Call unto me, dear Nurse, my Sister Anne:
Bid her in haste in water of the flood
She sprinkle the body, and bring the beasts, 850
And purging sacrifice I did her shew;
So let her come: and thou thy temples bind
With sacred garlands: for the sacrifice
That I to Pluto have begun, my mind
Is to perform, and give end to these cares; 855
And Troyan statue throw into the flame.’
When she had said, redouble ‘gan her nurse
Her steps, forth on an aged woman’s trot.
But trembling Dido eagerly now bent
Upon her stern determination; 860
Her bloodshot eyes rolling within her head;
Her quivering cheeks flecked with deadly stain,
Both pale and wan to think on death to come;
Into the inward wards of her palace
She rusheth in, and clamb up, as distraught, 865
The burial stack, and drew the Troyan sword,
Her gift sometime, but meant to no such use.
Where when she saw his weed, and well knowen bed,
Weeping awhile in study ‘gan she stay,
Fell on the bed, and these last words she said: 870
‘Sweet spoils, whiles God and destinies it would,
Receive this sprite, and rid me of these cares:
I lived and ran the course fortune did grant;
And under earth my great ghost now shall wend:
A goodly town I built, and saw my walls; 875
Happy, alas, too happy, if these coasts
The Troyan ships had never touched aye.’
This said, she laid her mouth close to the bed.
‘Why then,’ quoth she, ‘unwroken shall we die?
But let us die: for this! and in this sort 880
It liketh us to seek the shadows dark!
And from the seas the cruel Troyan’s eyes
Shall well discern this flame; and take with him
Eke these unlucky tokens of my death!’
As she had said, her damsels might perceive 885
Her with these words fall pierced on a sword;
The blade embrued, and hands besprent with gore
The clamour rang unto the palace top;
The bruit ran throughout all th’ astonied town:
With wailing great, and women’s shrill yelling 890
The roofs ‘gan roar; the air resound with plaint:
As though Carthage, or th’ ancient town of Tyre
With press of enter’d enemies swarmed full:
Or when the rage of furious flame doth take
The temples’ tops, and mansions eke of men. 895
Her sister Anne, spriteless for dread to hear
This fearful stir, with nails ‘gan tear her face;
She smote her breast, and rushed through the rout
And her dying she cleps thus by her name:
‘Sister, for this with craft did you me bourd? 900
The stack, the flame, the altars, bred they this?
What shall I first complain, forsaken wight?
Loathest thou in death thy sister’s fellowship?
Thou shouldst have call’d me to like destiny;
One woe, one sword, one hour, might end us both. 905
This funeral stack built I with these hands,
And with this voice cleped our native Gods?
And, cruel, so absentest me from thy death?
Destroy’d thou hast, Sister, both thee and me,
Thy people eke, and princes born of Tyre. 910
Give here; I shall with water wash her wounds;
And suck with mouth her breath, if ought be left.’
This said, unto the high degrees she mounted,
Embracing fast her sister now half dead,
With wailful plaint: whom in her lap she laid, 915
The black swart gore wiping dry with her clothes.
But Dido striveth to lift up again
Her heavy eyen, and hath no power thereto:
Deep in her breast that fixed wound doth gape.
Thrice leaning on her elbow ‘gan she raise 920
Herself upward; and thrice she overthrew
Upon the bed: ranging with wand’ring eyes
The skies for light, and wept when she it found.
Almighty Juno having ruth by this
Of her long pains, and eke her lingering death, 925
From heaven she sent the Goddess Iris down,
The throwing sprite, and jointed limbs to loose.
For that neither by lot of destiny,
Nor yet by kindly death she perished,
But wretchedly before her fatal day, 930
And kindled with a sudden rage of flame,
Proserpine had not from her head bereft
The golden hair, nor judged her to hell.
The dewy Iris thus with golden wings,
A thousand hues shewing against the Sun, 935
Amid the skies then did she fly adown
On Dido’s head: where as she ‘gan alight,
‘This hair,’ quod she, ‘to Pluto consecrate,
Commanded I reave; and thy spirit unloose
From this body. And when she thus had said, 940
With her right hand she cut the hair in twain:
And therewithal the kindly heat ‘gan quench,
And into wind the life forthwith resolve.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Other Verses
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Primus. My fearful hope from me is fled
MY 1 fearful hope from me is fled,