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_ [
Enter Dido, AEneas, Anna, Iarbus, Achates, and followers.]
DIDO.
Aeneas, think not but I honor thee,
That thus in person go with thee to hunt:
My princely robes thou seest are layd aside,
Whose glittering pompe Dianas shrowdes supplies,
All fellowes now disposde alike to sporte,
The woods are wide, and we have store of game:
Fair Trojan, hold my golden bow awhile,
untill I gird my quiver to my side:
Lords go before, we two must talk alone.
IARBUS
Ungentle, can she wrong Iarbus so?
I'll die before a stranger have that grace:
We two will talk alone, what words be these?
DIDO.
What makes Iarbus here of all the rest?
We could have gone without your company.
AENEAS.
But love and duetie led him on perhaps,
To presse beyond acceptance to your sight.
IARBUS
Why man of Troy, do I offend thine eyes?
Or art thou grieude thy betters presse so nye?
DIDO.
How now Getulian, are ye growne so brave,
To challenge us with your comparisons?
Pesant, go seek companions like thy selfe,
And meddle not with any that I love:
Aeneas, be not moude at what he sayes,
For otherwhile he will be out of ioynt.
IARBUS
Women may wrong by priviledge of love:
But should that man of men (Dido except)
Have taunted me in these opprobrious termes,
I would have either drunke his dying blood,
Or else I would have given my life in gage?
DIDO.
Huntsmen, why pitch you not your toyles apace,
And rowse the light foote Deere from forth their lair.
ANNA.
Sister, see see Ascanius in his pompe,
Bearing his huntspear bravely in his hand.
DIDO.
Yea little son, are you so forward now?
ASCANIUS.
I mother, I shall one day be a man,
And better able unto other arms,
mean time these wanton weapons serve my war,
Which I will break betwixt a Lyons iawes.
DIDO.
What, darest thou Look a Lyon in the face?
ASCANIUS.
I, and outface him to, do what he can.
ANNA.
How like his father speaketh he in all?
AENEAS.
And mought I live to see him sacke rich Thebes,
And load his spear with Grecian Princes heads,
Then would I wish me with Anchises Tomb,
And dead to honour that hath brought me up.
IARBUS
And might I live to see thee shipt away,
And hoyst aloft on Neptunes hideous hilles,
Then would I wish me in fair Dido's arms,
And dead to scorn that hath pursued me so.
AENEAS.
Stoute friend Achates, doest thou know this wood?
ACHATES.
As I remember, here you shot the Deere,
That sav'd your famisht soldiers lives from death,
When first you set your foote upon the shore,
And here we met fair Venus virgine like,
Bearing her bow and quiver at her back.
AENEAS.
O how these irksome labours now delight,
And overjoy my thoughts with their escape:
Who would not undergo all kind of toyle,
To be well stor'd with such a winters tale?
DIDO.
Aeneas, leave these dumpes and lets away,
Some to the mountains, some unto the soil,
You to the vallies, thou unto the house.
[Exeunt omnes: manent.]
IARBUS
I, this it is which wounds me to the death,
To see a Phrigian far fet to the sea,
Preferd before a man of majesty:
O love, O hate, O cruell womens hearts,
That imitate the Moone in every change,
And like the Planets ever love to range:
What shall I do thus wronged with disdaine?
Revenge me on Aeneas, or on her:
On her? fond man, that were to war gainst heaven,
And with one shaft prouoke ten thousand darts:
This Trojans end will be thy envies aime,
Whose blood will reconcile thee to content,
And make love drunken with thy sweet desire:
But Dido that now holdeth him so dear,
Will die with very tidings of his death:
But time will discontinue her content,
And mould her mind unto newe fancies shapes:
O God of heaven, turn the hand of fate
unto that happy day of my delight,
And then, what then? Iarbus shall but love:
So doth he now, though not with equal gain,
That resteth in the rivall of thy pain,
Who nere will cease to soar till he be slain.
[Exit.] _
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