Ascanius

"Then, too, the boy Ascanius, named of late / Iulus (Ilus was he in the day / when firm by royalty stood Ilium's state) / shall rule till thirty years complete the destined date. / He from Lavinium shall remove his seat, / and gird Long Alba for defence."

But good AEneas (for a father's care / no rest allows him) to the ships sends down / Achates, to Ascanius charged to bear / the welcome news, and bring him to the town. / The father's fondness centres on the son.

But crafty Cytherea planned meanwhile / new arts, new schemes: that Cupid should conspire, / in likeness of Ascanius, to beguile / the queen with gifts, and kindle fierce desire, / and turn the marrow of her bones to fire.

She o'er Ascanius rains a soft repose, / and gently bears him to Idalia's height, / where breathing marjoram around him throws / sweet shade, and odorous flowers his slumbering limbs compose.

"Wilt thou not see, if yet thy sire survive, / worn out with age, amid the war's alarms? / And if thy wife Creusa be alive, / and young Ascanius? for around thee swarms / the foe, and but for my protecting arms, / fierce sword or flame had swept them all away."

"And the boy / Ascanius – lives he, or what hap befalls / his parents' darling, and their only joy? / Breathes he the vital air, whom unto thee now Troy..."

Aeneas demands a search for Ascanius, who had stayed within the fleet; but Venus, who fears the queen's instability and the Cartaginean disloyalty, in order to calm her heart, decides to kidnap young Ascanius.