Enter AENEAS, ACHATES, and ASCANIUS [and others].
AENEAS
Where am I now? These should be Carthage walls.
ACHATES
Why stands my sweet Aeneas thus amazed?
AENEAS
O my Achates, Theban Niobe,
Who for her sons’ death wept out life and breath,
And, dry with grief, was turned into a stone,
Had not such passions in her head as I.
Methinks that town there should be Troy, yon Ida’s hill,
There Xanthus’ stream, because here’s Priamus,
And when I know it is not, then I die.
ACHATES
10 And in this humour is Achates too.
I cannot choose but fall upon my knees
And kiss his hand. O, where is Hecuba?
Here she was wont to sit; but, saving air,
Is nothing here, and what is this but stone?
AENEAS
O, yet this stone doth make Aeneas weep!
And would my prayers, as Pygmalion’s did,
Could give it life, that under his conduct
We might sail back to Troy and be revenged
On these hard-hearted Grecians which rejoice
20 That nothing now is left of Priamus!
O, Priamus is left, and this is he!
Come, come aboard, pursue the hateful Greeks!
ACHATES
What means Aeneas?
AENEAS
Achates, though mine eyes say this is stone,
Yet thinks my mind that this is Priamus;
And when my grievèd heart sighs and says no,
Then would it leap out to give Priam life.
O were I not at all, so thou mightst be!
Achates, see, King Priam wags his hand!
30 He is alive, Troy is not overcome!
ACHATES
Thy mind, Aeneas, that would have it so,
Deludes thy eyesight. Priamus is dead.
AENEAS
Ah, Troy is sacked, and Priamus is dead,
And why should poor Aeneas be alive?
ASCANIUS
Sweet father, leave to weep. This is not he,
For, were it Priam, he would smile on me.
ACHATES
Aeneas, see, here come the citizens.
Leave to lament, lest they laugh at our fears.
Enter CLOANTHUS, SERGESTUS, ILIONEUS [and others].
AENEAS
Lords of this town, or whatsoever style
40 Belongs unto your name, vouchsafe of ruth
To tell us who inhabits this fair town,
What kind of people and who governs them;
For we are strangers driven on this shore,
And scarcely know within what clime we are.
ILIONEUS
I hear Aeneas’ voice but see him not,
For none of these can be our general.
ACHATES
Like Ilioneus speaks this nobleman,
But Ilioneus goes not in such robes.
SERGESTUS
You are Achates, or I deceived.
ACHATES
50 Aeneas, see, Sergestus or his ghost!
ILIONEUS
He names Aeneas, let us kiss his feet.
CLOANTHUS
It is our captain! See, Ascanius!
SERGESTUS
Live long Aeneas and Ascanius!
AENEAS
Achates, speak, for I am overjoyed.
ACHATES
O Ilioneus, art thou yet alive?
ILIONEUS
Blest be the time I see Achates’ face!
CLOANTHUS
Why turns Aeneas from his trusty friends?
AENEAS
Sergestus, Ilioneus and the rest,
Your sight amazed me. O, what destinies
60 Have brought my sweet companions in such plight?
O tell me, for I long to be resolved!
ILIONEUS
Lovely Aeneas, these are Carthage walls,
And here Queen Dido wears th’imperial crown,
Who for Troy’s sake hath entertained us all
And clad us in these wealthy robes we wear.
Oft hath she asked us under whom we served,
And when we told her, she would weep for grief,
Thinking the sea had swallowed up thy ships;
And now she sees thee, how will she rejoice!
SERGESTUS
70 See where her servitors pass through the hall
Bearing a banquet. Dido is not far.
ILIONEUS
Look where she comes. Aeneas, view her well.
Well may I view her, but she sees not me.
Enter DIDO [with ANNA and IARBAS] and her train.
DIDO
What stranger art thou that dost eye me thus?
AENEAS
Sometime I was a Trojan, mighty queen,
But Troy is not. What shall I say I am?
ILIONEUS
Renownèd Dido, ’tis our general,
Warlike Aeneas.
DIDO
Warlike Aeneas, and in these base robes?
80 Go fetch the garment which Sichaeus ware.
Brave Prince, welcome to Carthage and to me,
Both happy that Aeneas is our guest.
Sit in this chair and banquet with a queen;
Aeneas is Aeneas, were he clad
In weeds as bad as ever Irus ware.
AENEAS
This is no seat for one that’s comfortless.
May it please your grace to let Aeneas wait:
For though my birth be great, my fortune’s mean,
Too mean to be companion to a queen.
DIDO
90 Thy fortune may be greater than thy birth.
Sit down, Aeneas, sit in Dido’s place,
And if this be thy son, as I suppose,
Here let him sit. Be merry, lovely child.
AENEAS
This place beseems me not. O pardon me!
DIDO
I’ll have it so. Aeneas, be content.
ASCANIUS
Madam, you shall be my mother.
DIDO
And so I will, sweet child. [To AENEAS] Be merry, man;
Here’s to thy better fortune and good stars.
[She raises a toast.]
AENEAS
In all humility I thank your grace.
DIDO
100 Remember who thou art. Speak like thyself;
Humility belongs to common grooms.
AENEAS
And who so miserable as Aeneas is?
DIDO
Lies it in Dido’s hands to make thee blest,
Then be assured thou art not miserable.
AENEAS
O Priamus! O Troy! O Hecuba!
DIDO
May I entreat thee to discourse at large,
And truly too, how Troy was overcome?
For many tales go of that city’s fall,
And scarcely do agree upon one point.
110 Some say Antenor did betray the town,
Others report ’twas Sinon’s perjury;
But all in this, that Troy is overcome,
And Priam dead. Yet how, we hear no news.
AENEAS
A woeful tale bids Dido to unfold,
Whose memory, like pale death’s stony mace,
Beats forth my senses from this troubled soul,
And makes Aeneas sink at Dido’s feet.
DIDO
What, faints Aeneas to remember Troy,
In whose defence he fought so valiantly?
120 Look up and speak.
AENEAS
Then speak, Aeneas, with Achilles’ tongue,
And, Dido, and you Carthaginian peers,
Hear me, but yet with Myrmidons’ harsh ears,
Daily inured to broils and massacres,
Lest you be moved too much with my sad tale.
The Grecian soldiers, tired with ten years’ war,
Began to cry, ‘Let us unto our ships,
Troy is invincible, why stay we here?’
With whose outcries Atrides being appalled,
130 Summoned the captains to his princely tent,
Who, looking on the scars we Trojans gave,
Seeing the number of their men decreased,
And the remainder weak and out of heart,
Gave up their voices to dislodge the camp,
And so in troops all marched to Tenedos;
Where when they came, Ulysses on the sand
Assayed with honey words to turn them back;
And as he spoke to further his intent,
The winds did drive huge billows to the shore,
140 And heaven was darkened with tempestuous clouds.
Then he alleged the gods would have them stay,
And prophesied Troy should be overcome;
And therewithal he called false Sinon forth,
A man compact of craft and perjury,
Whose ticing tongue was made of Hermes’ pipe,
To force a hundred watchful eyes to sleep;
And him, Epeus having made the horse,
With sacrificing wreaths upon his head,
Ulysses sent to our unhappy town,
150 Who, grovelling in the mire of Xanthus’ banks,
His hands bound at his back, and both his eyes
Turned up to heaven, as one resolved to die,
Our Phrygian shepherds haled within the gates
And brought unto the court of Priamus,
To whom he used action so pitiful,
Looks so remorseful, vows so forcible,
As therewithal the old man overcome,
Kissed him, embraced him, and unloosed his bands,
And then – O Dido, pardon me!
DIDO
160 Nay, leave not here, resolve me of the rest.
O, th’enchanting words of that base slave
Made him to think Epeus’ pine-tree horse
A sacrifice t’appease Minerva’s wrath;
The rather, for that one Laocoön,
Breaking a spear upon his hollow breast,
Was with two wingèd serpents stung to death.
Whereat aghast, we were commanded straight
With reverence to draw it into Troy;
In which unhappy work was I employed:
170 These hands did help to hale it to the gates,
Through which it could not enter, ’twas so huge.
O, had it never entered, Troy had stood!
But Priamus, impatient of delay,
Enforced a wide breach in that rampired wall,
Which thousand battering-rams could never pierce,
And so came in this fatal instrument,
At whose accursed feet, as overjoyed,
We banqueted, till, overcome with wine,
Some surfeited, and others soundly slept.
180 Which Sinon viewing, caused the Greekish spies
To haste to Tenedos and tell the camp;
Then he unlocked the horse, and suddenly
From out his entrails Neoptolemus,
Setting his spear upon the ground, leapt forth,
And after him a thousand Grecians more,
In whose stern faces shined the quenchless fire
That after burnt the pride of Asia.
By this, the camp was come unto the walls,
And through the breach did march into the streets,
190 Where, meeting with the rest, ‘Kill, kill!’ they cried.
Frighted with this confusèd noise, I rose,
And looking from a turret might behold
Young infants swimming in their parents’ blood,
Headless carcasses pilèd up in heaps,
Virgins half-dead, dragged by their golden hair
And with main force flung on a ring of pikes,
Old men with swords thrust through their agèd sides,
Kneeling for mercy to a Greekish lad,
Who with steel pole-axes dashed out their brains.
200 Then buckled I mine armour, drew my sword,
And thinking to go down, came Hector’s ghost,
With ashy visage, bluish sulphur eyes,
His arms torn from his shoulders, and his breast
Furrowed with wounds, and – that which made me weep –
Thongs at his heels, by which Achilles’ horse
Drew him in triumph through the Greekish camp,
Burst from the earth, crying, ‘Aeneas, fly!
Troy is a-fire, the Grecians have the town!’
DIDO
O Hector, who weeps not to hear thy name?
AENEAS
210 Yet flung I forth and, desperate of my life,
Ran in the thickest throngs, and with this sword
Sent many of their savage ghosts to hell.
At last came Pyrrhus, fell and full of ire,
His harness dropping blood, and on his spear
The mangled head of Priam’s youngest son,
And after him his band of Myrmidons,
With balls of wildfire in their murdering paws,
Which made the funeral flame that burnt fair Troy;
All which hemmed me about, crying, ‘This is he!’
DIDO
220 Ah, how could poor Aeneas ’scape their hands?
AENEAS
My mother, Venus, jealous of my health,
Conveyed me from their crooked nets and bands;
So I escaped the furious Pyrrhus’ wrath,
Who then ran to the palace of the king,
And at Jove’s altar finding Priamus,
About whose withered neck hung Hecuba,
Folding his hand in hers, and jointly both
Beating their breasts and falling on the ground,
He, with his falchion’s point raised up at once,
230 And with Megaera’s eyes, stared in their face,
Threat’ning a thousand deaths at every glance.
To whom the agèd king thus trembling spoke:
‘Achilles’ son, remember what I was:
Father of fifty sons, but they are slain,
Lord of my fortune, but my fortune’s turned,
King of this city, but my Troy is fired,
And now am neither father, lord, nor king.
Yet who so wretched but desires to live?
O let me live, great Neoptolemus!’
240 Not moved at all, but smiling at his tears,
This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,
Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.
DIDO
O end, Aeneas! I can hear no more.
AENEAS
At which the frantic queen leaped on his face,
And in his eyelids hanging by the nails,
A little while prolonged her husband’s life.
At last the soldiers pulled her by the heels
And swung her howling in the empty air,
Which sent an echo to the wounded king;
250 Whereat he lifted up his bed-rid limbs,
And would have grappled with Achilles’ son,
Forgetting both his want of strength and hands:
Which he disdaining whisked his sword about,
And with the wind thereof the king fell down.
Then from the navel to the throat at once
He ripped old Priam, at whose latter gasp
Jove’s marble statue gan to bend the brow
As loathing Pyrrhus for this wicked act.
Yet he, undaunted, took his father’s flag
260 And dipped it in the old king’s chill cold blood,
And then in triumph ran into the streets,
Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men;
So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still,
Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.
By this, I got my father on my back,
This young boy in mine arms, and by the hand
Led fair Creusa, my beloved wife;
When thou, Achates, with thy sword mad’st way,
And we were round-environed with the Greeks.
270 O there I lost my wife, and had not we
Fought manfully, I had not told this tale.
Yet manhood would not serve; of force we fled,
And as we went unto our ships, thou knowest
We saw Cassandra sprawling in the streets,
Whom Ajax ravished in Diana’s fane,
Her cheeks swoll’n with sighs, her hair all rent,
Whom I took up to bear unto our ships.
But suddenly the Grecians followed us,
And I, alas, was forced to let her lie.
280 Then got we to our ships and, being aboard,
Polyxena cried out, ‘Aeneas, stay!
The Greeks pursue me, stay and take me in!’
Moved with her voice, I leapt into the sea,
Thinking to bear her on my back aboard,
For all our ships were launched into the deep,
And as I swum, she, standing on the shore,
Was by the cruel Myrmidons surprised
And after by that Pyrrhus sacrificed.
DIDO
I die with melting ruth; Aeneas, leave!
ANNA
290 O, what became of agèd Hecuba?
IARBAS
How got Aeneas to the fleet again?
DIDO
But how ’scaped Helen, she that caused this war?
AENEAS
Achates, speak, sorrow hath tired me quite.
ACHATES
What happened to the queen we cannot show;
We hear they led her captive into Greece.
As for Aeneas, he swum quickly back,
And Helena betrayed Deiphobus,
Her lover after Alexander died,
And so was reconciled to Menelaus.
DIDO
300 O had that ticing strumpet ne’er been born!
Trojan, thy ruthful tale hath made me sad.
Come, let us think upon some pleasing sport,
To rid me from these melancholy thoughts.
Exeunt [except ASCANIUS].
Enter VENUS [with CUPID] at another door, and takes ASCANIUS by the sleeve.
VENUS
Fair child, stay thou with Dido’s waiting-maid,
I’ll give thee sugar-almonds, sweet conserves,
A silver girdle and a golden purse,
And this young prince shall be thy playfellow.
ASCANIUS
Are you Queen Dido’s son?
CUPID
Ay, and my mother gave me this fine bow.
ASCANIUS
310 Shall I have such a quiver and a bow?
VENUS
Such bow, such quiver, and such golden shafts,
Will Dido give to sweet Ascanius.
For Dido’s sake I take thee in my arms
And stick these spangled feathers in thy hat;
Eat comfits in mine arms, and I will sing.
Now is he fast asleep, and in this grove,
Amongst green brakes, I’ll lay Ascanius,
And strew him with sweet-smelling violets,
Blushing roses, purple hyacinth;
320 These milk-white doves shall be his sentinels,
Who, if that any seek to do him hurt,
Will quickly fly to Cytherea’s fist.
Now, Cupid, turn thee to Ascanius’ shape,
And go to Dido, who, instead of him,
Will set thee on her lap and play with thee;
Then touch her white breast with this arrow head,
That she may dote upon Aeneas’ love,
And by that means repair his broken ships,
Victual his soldiers, give him wealthy gifts,
330 And he at last depart to Italy,
Or else in Carthage make his kingly throne.
CUPID
I will, fair mother, and so play my part
As every touch shall wound Queen Dido’s heart.
[Exit.]
VENUS
Sleep, my sweet nephew, in these cooling shades,
Free from the murmur of these running streams,
The cry of beasts, the rattling of the winds,
Or whisking of these leaves. All shall be still,
And nothing interrupt thy quiet sleep
Till I return and take thee hence again.
Exit.