Then Dido, struck with wonder at the sight
Of one so great and in so strange a plight,
"O Goddess-born! what fate through dangers sore,
What force to savage coasts compels thy flight?
Art thou, then, that AEneas, whom of yore
Venus on Simois' banks to old Anchises bore?

LXXXII. "Ay, well I mind me how in days of yore
To Sidon exiled Teucer crossed the main,
To seek new kingdoms and the aid implore
Of Belus. He, my father Belus, then
Ruled Cyprus, victor of the wasted plain,
Since then thy name and Ilion's fate are known,
And all the princes of Pelasgia's reign.
Himself, a foe, oft lauded Troy's renown,
And claimed the Teucrian sires as kinsmen of his own.

LXXXIII. "Welcome, then, heroes! Me hath Fortune willed
Long tost, like you, through sufferings, here to rest
And find at length a refuge. Not unskilled
In woe, I learn to succour the distrest."
So to the palace she escorts her guest,
And calls for festal honours in the shrine.
Then shoreward sends beeves twenty to the rest,
A hundred boars, of broad and bristly chine,
A hundred lambs and ewes and gladdening gifts of wine.

LXXXIV. Meanwhile with regal splendour they arrayed
The palace-hall, where feast and banquet high
All in the centre of the space is laid,