AEneas and Anchises received the stranger kindly, assured him of his safety, and asked him who he was, and how he came to be in that desolate country.  He answered that he was an Ithacan, his name Achaemenides, and that he had been one of the companions of Ulysses in his wanderings.  He related the adventures of the Ithacan hero in the cave of Polyphemus, and told how he himself, having been by accident left behind when his comrades escaped, had since led a wretched existence in the woods, living on wild berries and roots, and continually in dread lest he should be seen by the Cyclops.  He advised AEneas to lose no time in quitting the country, lest the ferocious shepherds should discover and destroy them.  Even as Achaemenides spoke, Polyphemus was seen accompanying his flock to their pasture.  So tall was he of stature that he carried the trunk of a pine-tree as a staff to guide his footsteps.  Reaching the sea he stepped into it, and bent down to bathe the wound inflicted by Ulysses.  The Trojans hastened to cut their cables, and rowed out to sea.  The giant heard the sound of their oars, and turned to follow them; but in his blindness he dared not follow far, and therefore he called on his brethren with a cry so loud that the very sea was shaken in its depths.  Forthwith the huge Cyclops came trooping to the shore, like a wood of lofty trees endued with life and motion; but by this time the Trojan vessels had got beyond their reach.

AENEAS AND QUEEN DIDO

By Alfred J. Church

    [AEneas was driven by a storm upon the shores of Carthage.]

Now it came to pass on the next day that AEneas, having first hidden his ships in a bay that was well covered with trees, went forth to spy out the new land whither he was come, and Achates only went with him.  And AEneas had in each hand a broad-pointed spear.  And as he went there met him in the middle of the wood his mother, but habited as a Spartan virgin, for she had hung a bow from her shoulders after the fashion of a huntress, and her hair was loose, and her tunic short to the knees, and her garments gathered in a knot upon her breast.  Then first the false huntress spake:  “If perchance ye have seen one of my sisters wandering hereabouts, make known to me the place.  She is girded with a quiver, and is clothed with the skin of a spotted lynx, or, maybe, she hunts a wild boar with horn and hound.”

To whom AEneas, “I have not seen nor heard sister of thine, O virgin—­for what shall I call thee? for, of a surety, neither is thy look as of a mortal woman, nor yet thy voice.  A goddess certainly thou art, sister of Phoebus, or, haply, one of the nymphs.  But whosoever thou art, look favorably upon us and help us.  Tell us in what land we be, for the winds have driven us hither, and we know not aught of place or people.”