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Thus having said, he turn'd with pious haste, And joyful his expecting friends embrac'd: With his right hand Ilioneus was grac'd, Serestus with his left; then to his breast Cloanthus and the noble Gyas press'd; And so by turns descended to the rest. The Tyrian queen stood fix'd upon his face, Pleas'd with his motions, ravish'd with his grace; Admir'd his fortunes, more admir'd the man; Then recollected stood, and thus began: "What fate, O goddess-born; what angry pow'rs Have cast you shipwrack'd on our barren shores? Are you the great Aeneas, known to fame, Who from celestial seed your lineage claim? The same Aeneas whom fair Venus bore To fam'd Anchises on th' Idaean shore? It calls into my mind, tho' then a child, When Teucer came, from Salamis exil'd, And sought my father's aid, to be restor'd: My father Belus then with fire and sword Invaded Cyprus, made the region bare, And, conqu'ring, finish'd the successful war. From him the Trojan siege I understood, The Grecian chiefs, and your illustrious blood. Your foe himself the Dardan valor prais'd, And his own ancestry from Trojans rais'd. Enter, my noble guest, and you shall find, If not a costly welcome, yet a kind: For I myself, like you, have been distress'd, Till Heav'n afforded me this place of rest; Like you, an alien in a land unknown, I learn to pity woes so like my own." She said, and to the palace led her guest; Then offer'd incense, and proclaim'd a feast. Nor yet less careful for her absent friends, Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends; Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs, With bleating cries, attend their milky dams; And jars of gen'rous wine and spacious bowls She gives, to cheer the sailors' drooping souls. Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls, And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls: On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine; |