Jessey Norman - Dido’s lament

OVERTURE ACT ONE Scene One The Palace (Enter Dido, Belinda and train.) BELINDA Shake the cloud from off your brow, Fate your wishes does allow Empire growing, Pleasures flowing, Fortune smiles and so should you. CHORUS Banish sorrow, banish care, Grief should ne’er approach the fair. DIDO Ah! Belinda, I am prest With torment not to be confest, Peace and I are strangers grown. I languish till my grief is known, yet would not have it guess’d. BELINDA Grief increases by concealing DIDO Mine admits of no revealing. BELINDA Then let me speak; the Trojan guest into your tender thoughts has pressed; the greatest blessing Fate can give, Our Carthage to secure and Troy revive. CHORUS When monarchs unite, how happy their state, They triumph at once, o’er their foes and their fate. DIDO Whence could so much virtue spring? What storms, what battles did he sing? Anchises’ valour mixt with Venus’ charms, how soft in peace, and yet how fierce in arms! BELINDA A tale so strong and full of woe Might melt the rocks as well as you. What stubborn heart unmov’d could see such distress, such piety? DIDO Mine with storms of care opprest is taught to pity the distrest. Mean wretches’ grief can touch, so soft, so sensible my breast; But ah! I fear, I pity his too much. BELINDA and SECOND WOMAN (repeated by CHORUS) Fear no danger to ensue, The Hero loves as well as you, Ever gentle, ever smiling, And the cares of life beguiling, Cupid strew your path with flowers, Gather’d from Elysian bowers. [The Baske] (Enter Aeneas and train.) BELINDA See, your Royal guest appears; How Godlike is the form he bears! ... for more lyric see -