Segrais reckons another way, and his computation is not condemned by
the learned Ruaeus, who compiled and published the commentaries on
our poet which we call the "Dauphin's Virgil." He allows the time
of year when Anchises died to be in the latter end of winter or the
beginning of the spring; he acknowledges that when AEneas is first
seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of
Africa, is the time when the action is naturally to begin; he
confesses farther, that AEneas left Carthage in the latter end of
winter, for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his
longer stay -
"Quin etiam hiberno moliris sidere classem."
But whereas Ronsard's followers suppose that when AEneas had buried
his father he set sail immediately for Italy (though the tempest
drove him on the coast of Carthage), Segrais will by no means allow
that supposition, but thinks it much more probable that he remained
in Sicily till the midst of July or the beginning of August, at
which time he places the first appearance of his hero on the sea,
and there opens the action of the poem.
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