Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| Arms and the man I sing: driven by fate, he was the first to leave the coasts of Troy for Italy and the shores of Lavinium. Hard was the battering he took on land and on the deep from the power of the gods above, because of cruel Juno's unforgetting anger; much too he endured in war, until he could found his city and bring his gods into Latium — the source of the Latin race, the Alban fathers, and the walls of towering Rome.
8| Muse, tell me the causes: what offense to her divine will, what grievance made the queen of the gods drive a man so marked by duty to roll through so many disasters and face so many hardships. Can heavenly minds hold such anger?
12| There was an ancient city, held by settlers from Tyre: Carthage, facing Italy and the mouths of the Tiber far away, rich in wealth and fiercest in the pursuits of war. Juno, they say, loved this one land above all others, even above Samos; here were her arms, here her chariot. Even then the goddess was striving and nursing the hope that this should be the ruling power among nations, if only the Fates allowed. But she had heard that a line was being drawn from Trojan blood that would one day overturn the Tyrian towers; that from it a people ruling far and wide and proud in war would come to bring ruin on Libya: so the Fates were spinning. Fearing this, and remembering the old war she had waged at Troy at the head of all, for her beloved Argos — nor had the causes of her anger and her bitter grief yet faded from her heart: deep in her mind lay stored the judgment of Paris, the insult to her scorned beauty, the hated race, and the honors given to stolen Ganymede — inflamed by all this besides, she kept the Trojans, tossed over the whole sea, the remnant left by the Greeks and pitiless Achilles, far away from Latium; and for many years they wandered, driven by the Fates, around every sea. So great a labor it was to found the Roman people.
34| They were barely out of sight of Sicily, setting sail for the open sea in high spirits and churning the salt foam with their bronze prows, when Juno, nursing the everlasting wound beneath her breast, said to herself: "Am I to give up what I began, defeated, and be unable to turn the king of the Trojans away from Italy? Of course — the Fates forbid me. Could Pallas burn the Argive fleet and drown the men themselves in the sea for the offense and madness of one man, Ajax son of Oileus? She herself hurled Jupiter's swift fire from the clouds, scattered the ships, and churned the waters with winds; and him, as he breathed out flames from his pierced chest, she caught up in a whirlwind and impaled on a sharp rock. Yet I, who walk as queen of the gods, both sister and wife of Jupiter, wage war for so many years with a single nation! Will anyone after this worship Juno's divine power, or lay an offering on her altars as a suppliant?"
50| Turning such thoughts over in her burning heart, the goddess came to Aeolia, homeland of storm clouds, a place teeming with raging winds. Here in a vast cave King Aeolus holds down the struggling winds and roaring gales under his rule and bridles them with chains and a prison. They chafe in fury around their barriers, and the mountain rumbles loudly; Aeolus sits on his high citadel holding his scepter, soothing their spirits and tempering their rage. If he did not, they would surely sweep sea and lands and the depths of the sky along with them in their rush and whirl them through the air. But the all-powerful father, fearing this, hid them in dark caverns, piled a mass of high mountains on top, and gave them a king who would know, under fixed terms and by command, when to rein them in and when to let the reins go slack. It was to him that Juno now spoke as a suppliant, in these words:
65| "Aeolus — for the father of the gods, the king of men, has granted you power to calm the waves and to raise them with the wind — a race I hate is sailing the Tyrrhenian sea, carrying Ilium and its defeated household gods into Italy. Put force into your winds, sink and overwhelm their ships, or drive them apart and scatter their bodies over the sea. I have twice seven nymphs of outstanding beauty; the loveliest of them, Deiopea, I will join to you in lasting marriage and make her yours, so that for such a service she may spend all her years with you and make you the father of beautiful children."
76| Aeolus answered: "Your task, my queen, is to work out what you desire; mine is the duty to carry out your orders. You win me whatever realm I have, you win me my scepter and Jupiter's favor, you grant me a place at the banquets of the gods, and you make me master of clouds and storms."
81| With these words he turned his spear and struck the hollow mountain in its flank; and the winds, as though drawn up in a column, rush out where a gate has been given them and blast across the lands in a whirlwind. They have fallen on the sea, and from its lowest depths East Wind and South Wind together churn it all up, with the Southwester thick with squalls, and roll huge waves toward the shore. Then come the shouting of men and the shrieking of the rigging. Suddenly clouds snatch the sky and the day from the eyes of the Trojans; black night lies brooding over the sea. The heavens thunder, the upper air flashes with fire after fire, and everything threatens the men with instant death.
92| At once Aeneas's limbs go slack with cold terror. He groans, and stretching both palms to the stars he says aloud: "Three and four times blessed are those who had the luck to die before their fathers' eyes beneath the high walls of Troy! O Diomedes, bravest of the Greek race! Why could I not fall on the plains of Ilium and pour out this life under your right hand, where fierce Hector lies beneath the spear of Achilles, where huge Sarpedon lies, where the Simois sweeps along under its waters so many shields and helmets of men, and strong bodies?"
102| As he cries out such words, a screaming gust from the north strikes the sail head-on and lifts the waves to the stars. The oars break; then the prow swings away and gives its side to the waves; a steep mountain of water follows in a heap. Some ships hang on the crest of a wave; for others the water gapes and shows the ground between the waves; the surge rages with sand. The South Wind catches three ships and whirls them onto hidden rocks, rocks in mid-sea which the Italians call the Altars, an immense ridge on the surface of the water; the East Wind drives three from the deep into shallows and quicksands, a pitiable sight, dashes them on the shoals and walls them in with a bank of sand. One ship, which carried the Lycians and loyal Orontes, a huge wave strikes from above on the stern before Aeneas's own eyes. The helmsman is flung out and rolls headlong; the ship the water spins three times on the spot as it drives around, and a swift whirlpool swallows it in the sea. Swimmers appear here and there in the vast gulf, with men's weapons, planks, and Trojan treasure across the waves. By now the storm has overcome the sturdy ship of Ilioneus, then that of brave Achates, then the one that carried Abas and the one that carried aged Aletes; with the joints of their sides loosened, all of them take in the hostile water and gape with cracks.
124| Meanwhile Neptune sensed that the sea was being churned with a great roar, that a storm had been let loose, and that the still waters had been stirred up from the lowest depths. Deeply disturbed, and looking out over the deep, he raised his calm head above the surface of the water. He sees Aeneas's fleet scattered over the whole sea, the Trojans crushed by the waves and the falling sky; and Juno's brother did not miss her tricks and her anger. He calls East Wind and West Wind to him and then says:
132| "Has such confidence in your birth taken hold of you? Do you now dare, winds, to mix sky and earth without my divine will, and to raise such masses of water? You I will—but it is better to calm the stirred-up waves first. Afterward you will pay me for your offenses with a different penalty. Hurry your flight, and tell your king this: the rule of the sea and the savage trident were given by lot to me, not to him. He holds the huge rocks, your homes, East Wind; let Aeolus show off in that hall, and reign in the closed prison of the winds."
142| So he speaks, and faster than his words he calms the swollen seas, scatters the gathered clouds, and brings back the sun. Cymothoe and Triton, straining together, push the ships off the sharp reef; he himself lifts them with his trident, opens the great sandbanks, steadies the water, and glides over the surface of the waves on light wheels. And just as in a great crowd, when a riot has often broken out and the common mob rages in its anger, and torches and stones are already flying, for fury supplies weapons; then, if by chance they catch sight of a man weighty with devotion and service, they fall silent and stand with ears pricked up; he steers their passions with his words and soothes their hearts: so all the roaring of the sea subsided, as soon as the Father, looking out over the waters and carried along under a clear sky, turns his horses and, flying in his favoring chariot, gives them free rein.
157| Worn out, Aeneas's men strive to make for the nearest shore on their course, and turn toward the coast of Libya. There is a place in a deep inlet: an island forms a harbor with the barrier of its sides, against which every wave from the open sea is broken and divides itself into receding bays. On this side and that rise vast cliffs and twin crags that threaten the sky; beneath their peak the waters far and wide lie sheltered and still. Above them a backdrop of shimmering woods, and a dark grove looming with bristling shade. Facing the harbor, under overhanging rocks, is a cave, inside it fresh water and seats of natural rock, the home of nymphs. Here no cables hold weary ships, no anchor fastens them with its curved bite. Here Aeneas puts in with seven ships gathered from his whole fleet; and the Trojans, landing with great longing for dry ground, take possession of the sand they wished for, and lay their limbs, soaked with brine, on the shore. First Achates strikes a spark from flint, catches the fire in leaves, puts dry kindling around it, and fans a flame in the tinder. Then, exhausted by their ordeal, they bring out the grain spoiled by the water and the tools of Ceres, and prepare to roast the salvaged grain over the flames and grind it on stone.
180| Meanwhile Aeneas climbs a crag and looks out over the whole sea far and wide, in case he can see any trace of Antheus tossed by the wind and his Phrygian two-banked ships, or of Capys, or the arms of Caicus on a high stern. No ship is in sight, but he sees three stags wandering on the shore; whole herds follow them from behind, and a long column grazes through the valleys. He stops here and seizes a bow and swift arrows, which loyal Achates was carrying; and first he brings down the leaders themselves, carrying their lofty heads with branching antlers, then the common herd, and he drives the whole crowd in confusion with his shafts among the leafy woods; he does not stop until he has victoriously laid seven huge bodies on the ground, matching the number of his ships. From there he makes for the harbor and shares the game among all his companions. Then he divides the wine that good Acestes had loaded into jars on the Sicilian shore and, generous hero, had given them as they departed, and soothes their grieving hearts with words:
198| "Comrades, for we are no strangers to hardship before this, you who have suffered worse, god will give an end to these troubles too. You have come close to Scylla's rage and the crags that echo from deep within, and you have known the Cyclopes' rocks. Call back your courage and put aside sorrowful fear; perhaps one day it will even be a pleasure to remember this. Through all kinds of misfortune, through so many crises, we are heading for Latium, where the Fates show us a peaceful home. There it is right that the kingdom of Troy rise again. Hold on, and keep yourselves for better times."
208| So he speaks aloud, and though sick with enormous anxieties he feigns hope in his face and keeps his deep sorrow pressed down in his heart. The men gird themselves for the game and the coming feast; they strip the hides from the ribs and lay the flesh bare; some cut it into pieces and spit it still quivering; others set bronze cauldrons on the shore and tend the fires. Then they restore their strength with food, and stretched out on the grass they fill themselves with old wine and rich venison. When hunger has been banished by the feast and the tables cleared, in long conversation they ask after their lost companions, wavering between hope and fear, whether to believe them alive or suffering the final end and no longer hearing when called. Above all dutiful Aeneas mourns for fierce Orontes, then for the fate of Amycus, and in his own heart the cruel fate of Lycus, and brave Gyas, and brave Cloanthus.
223| And now it was ending, when Jupiter, looking down from the height of heaven on the sea alive with sails, the lands spread out, the shores and the wide peoples, took his stand on the summit of the sky and fixed his eyes on the kingdoms of Libya. And as he turned such cares over in his heart, Venus, sadder and her bright eyes full of tears, addresses him: "You who rule the affairs of men and gods with eternal commands and terrify with your thunderbolt, what great offense could my Aeneas have committed against you, what could the Trojans, who after suffering so many deaths find the whole world closed to them because of Italy? You certainly promised that from them, as the years rolled by, the Romans would one day arise, leaders descended from the revived blood of Teucer, who would hold sea and lands under their complete control. What reasoning has changed your mind, Father? That promise, at least, was how I used to console myself for the fall of Troy and its sad ruin, balancing one fate against another. Now the same ill fortune pursues men driven through so many disasters. What end do you grant to their hardships, great king? Antenor was able to slip through the midst of the Greeks and penetrate the Illyrian gulfs and the inner kingdom of the Liburnians in safety, and to get beyond the source of the Timavus, from which the sea bursts out through nine mouths with a vast roar from the mountain and floods the fields with a resounding surge.
247| Yet he founded the city of Patavium there and a home for the Trojans, gave his people a name, and hung up the arms of Troy; now he rests, settled in calm peace. We, your own offspring, to whom you grant the citadel of heaven, have lost our ships (shameful to say!) and are betrayed because of one goddess's anger and kept far away from the coasts of Italy. Is this the prize for devotion? Is this how you restore us to power?"
254| Smiling at her, the creator of men and gods, with the expression with which he calms sky and storms, kissed his daughter lightly and then said: "Put aside your fear, Cytherea: the fates of your people remain unchanged for you; you will see the city and the promised walls of Lavinium, and you will carry high-souled Aeneas up to the stars of heaven; no reasoning has changed my mind. He, for I will speak, since this worry gnaws at you, and I will unroll further and stir the secrets of the Fates, will wage a great war in Italy, crush fierce peoples, and set up customs and walls for his men, until the third summer has seen him reigning in Latium and three winters have passed after the Rutulians are subdued. But the boy Ascanius, who is now given the added name Iulus, he was Ilus while the Trojan state stood in its kingdom, will fill thirty great circles of rolling months with his rule; he will transfer the kingdom from the seat of Lavinium and fortify Alba Longa with great strength. Here for a full three hundred years the kingdom will be ruled under Hector's line, until a priestess queen, Ilia, pregnant by Mars, bears twin sons.
275| "After that, Romulus, proud in the tawny hide of the wolf who nursed him, will take over the people and found the walls of Mars and call the Romans by his own name. For them I set no limits of power or time; I have given them rule without end. Indeed, harsh Juno, who now wears out sea, land and sky with fear, will change her counsel for the better, and together with me will favor the Romans, masters of the world, the people in the toga. Such is my decision. In the course of the passing years a time will come when the house of Assaracus will bring Phthia and famous Mycenae under its servitude, and rule over conquered Argos. A Trojan Caesar will be born of noble descent, to bound his empire with Ocean and his fame with the stars: Julius, a name handed down from great Iulus. Him you will one day receive in heaven, laden with the spoils of the East, without anxiety; he too will be invoked in prayers. Then the rough ages will grow gentle when wars are laid aside; white-haired Faith, and Vesta, and Quirinus with his brother Remus, will give laws; the grim gates of War, with their iron and tightly fitted bars, will be shut; inside, impious Fury, sitting on savage weapons, his hands bound behind him with a hundred bronze knots, will roar, terrible, with bloody mouth."
297| So he speaks, and sends down Maia's son from on high, so that the land and the new citadel of Carthage may open to the Trojans in welcome, and Dido, ignorant of fate, may not keep them from her territory. He flies through the vast air on the oarage of his wings and quickly stands on the shores of Libya. And at once he does as ordered, and the Carthaginians lay aside their fierce hearts, since the god wills it; above all the queen takes up a peaceful spirit and a kindly mind toward the Trojans.
305| But dutiful Aeneas, turning over many thoughts through the night, as soon as kindly daylight was given, resolved to go out and explore the new places, to find out what shores he had reached by the wind, who held them, for he sees they are uncultivated, whether men or wild beasts, and to report his findings to his companions. He hides the fleet in a hollow under an overhanging rock, closed in all around by trees and bristling shadows; he himself walks on accompanied by Achates alone, brandishing in his hand two spears with broad iron heads.
314| In the middle of the wood his mother came to meet him, with the face and bearing of a girl, and the weapons of a girl, a Spartan girl, or like Harpalyce of Thrace, who tires out horses and outstrips swift Hebrus in her flight. For over her shoulders, as huntresses do, she had slung a handy bow, and had let her hair stream loose in the wind, bare to the knee, with her flowing folds gathered in a knot. And she spoke first: "Hey, young men, tell me, have you seen one of my sisters wandering here, by chance, with her quiver at her belt and the hide of a spotted lynx, or pressing with her shouts the course of a foaming boar?"
325| So spoke Venus; and Venus's son began in reply: "I have neither heard nor seen any of your sisters. Oh, what shall I call you, maiden? For your face is not mortal, and your voice does not sound human. Surely you are a goddess. Are you Phoebus's sister? Or one of the nymphs' blood? Whoever you are, be kind and ease our trouble, and tell us beneath what sky and on what shores of the world we are at last being tossed. We wander, ignorant of the people and the places, driven here by the wind and the vast waves. Many a sacrificial victim will fall before your altar by my right hand."
335| Then Venus: "I do not count myself worthy of such an honor; it is the custom for Tyrian girls to carry a quiver and to bind their calves high with purple hunting boots. You see the Punic kingdom, Tyrians and the city of Agenor; but the territory around is Libyan, a people unmanageable in war. Dido rules the realm, having set out from the Tyrian city to escape her brother. The wrong is long, and long its windings; but I will follow only the main points of the story.
343| "She had a husband, Sychaeus, the richest in land of the Phoenicians, and loved with great passion by the unhappy woman; her father had given her to him as a virgin, and joined her to him with the first marriage omens. But her brother Pygmalion held the throne of Tyre, a man more monstrous in crime than all others. Between them came madness. He, impious, and blind with love of gold, killed Sychaeus in secret with the sword in front of the altar, taking him unawares, careless of his sister's love; and he hid the deed for a long time, and, wicked man, with many pretenses mocked the grieving lover with empty hope. But in her sleep there came the actual ghost of her unburied husband, raising a face strangely pale; he laid bare the cruel altars and his chest pierced by the sword, and unveiled the whole hidden crime of the house. Then he urges her to hasten her flight and leave her homeland, and as help for the journey he uncovers an ancient treasure buried in the earth, an unknown weight of silver and gold. Moved by this, Dido prepared her escape and her companions. They gather, those who felt either bitter hatred of the tyrant or sharp fear; they seize ships that happened to be ready and load them with the gold: the wealth of greedy Pygmalion is carried over the sea; a woman leads the enterprise. They came to the place where you now see the huge walls and the rising citadel of new Carthage, and bought ground, called Byrsa from the name of the deal, as much as a bull's hide could enclose. But who are you, in the end, from what shores have you come, or where are you heading?" To her questions he, sighing and drawing his words from deep in his chest, replied:
372| "Goddess, if I were to go back to the very beginning and tell the story, and you had leisure to hear the record of our hardships, the Evening Star would close Olympus and end the day before I finished. A storm brought us, driven over strange seas away from old Troy, if perhaps the name of Troy has come to your ears, to the shores of Libya by its own chance. I am dutiful Aeneas, who carry with me in my fleet the household gods snatched from the enemy, known by reputation above the heavens. I am looking for Italy, my homeland; my race descends from Jupiter on high. With twice ten ships I set out on the Phrygian sea, my goddess mother showing the way, following the fates given me; scarcely seven are left, battered by the waves and the East Wind. I myself, unknown and in want, wander the deserts of Libya, driven from Europe and Asia." Venus would not allow him to complain further, and broke in on his grief with these words:
387| "Whoever you are, you are not, I think, hated by the heavenly powers as you breathe the air of life, since you have reached a Tyrian city. Only go on, and from here make your way to the queen's threshold. For I report to you that your companions are back and your fleet recovered, driven to safety by the shifting north winds, unless my parents taught me augury in vain. Look at those twelve swans, rejoicing in their formation, which Jupiter's bird, swooping from the region of the sky, was harrying in the open air; now they seem either to be settling on land in a long line or already looking down on land they have reached: just as they, returned, play with whirring wings, circle the sky in a flock and give out their song, in just the same way your ships and your young men either hold the harbor or enter its mouth under full sail. Only go on, and where the road leads you, direct your steps."
402| She spoke, and as she turned away her neck gleamed rosy, her ambrosial hair breathed a divine fragrance from her head, her robe fell to her feet, and in her walk she was revealed as a true goddess. When he recognized his mother, he followed her as she fled with these words: "Why do you, too, cruel, mock your son so often with false appearances? Why am I not allowed to join hand to hand, and hear and answer true words?"
410| With such words he reproaches her, and heads for the walls. But Venus screened them as they walked with dark air, and the goddess poured around them a thick cloak of mist, so that no one could see them or touch them, or cause delay, or ask their reasons for coming. She herself goes off high up to Paphos, and glad returns to her own home, where her temple stands, and a hundred altars glow with Sabaean incense and breathe fragrance with fresh garlands.
418| Meanwhile they hastened along the way where the path leads. And now they were climbing the hill which looms largest over the city and looks down on the citadel opposite. Aeneas marvels at the mass of it, once only huts; he marvels at the gates, the noise, and the paved streets. The Tyrians press on eagerly, some raising walls and building the citadel and rolling up stones by hand, others choosing a site for a house and enclosing it with a furrow. [They choose laws and magistrates and a revered senate;] here some dig out harbors; here others lay deep foundations for theaters, and cut huge columns from the cliffs, tall ornaments for future stages. Like the work that keeps bees busy in the sunshine through flowering fields in early summer, when they lead out the grown young of their race, or when they pack liquid honey and swell the cells with sweet nectar, or take the loads of those coming in, or in a body drive the drones, an idle herd, from the hives: the work boils, and the fragrant honey smells of thyme. "How fortunate are those whose walls are already rising!" says Aeneas, and looks up at the rooftops of the city. He enters, wonderful to tell, hidden in the mist, among them all, and mingles with the men, and is seen by no one.
441| In the middle of the city there was a grove, richly shaded, where the Carthaginians, first tossed by wave and whirlwind, dug up the sign that royal Juno had shown them, the head of a spirited horse; for this, she said, would make the nation outstanding in war and easy in living through the ages. Here Sidonian Dido was building a huge temple to Juno, rich with gifts and the goddess's power, its bronze thresholds rising on steps, its beams fastened with bronze, its hinges creaking on bronze doors. In this grove, a novel sight first eased his fear; here Aeneas first dared to hope for safety and to trust more in his battered fortunes. For while, waiting for the queen beneath the great temple, he looks over each detail, and marvels at the city's good fortune and the skill of the craftsmen's hands and the labor of their work, he sees the battles of Ilium in sequence, the wars already known across the whole world by report, the Atreidae, Priam, and Achilles, fierce to both. He stopped, and in tears said: "What place is there now, Achates, what region on earth, is not filled with our sufferings? Look, Priam! Here too there are rewards for honor; here are tears for what happens, and mortal things touch the heart. Put away your fear; this fame will bring you some safety." So he speaks, and feeds his mind on the empty picture, with many groans, and wets his face with a copious stream.
466| For he saw how, as they fought around Pergamum, the Greeks fled on one side while the Trojan youth pressed them, and on the other the Phrygians fled while plumed Achilles pressed on in his chariot. Not far from there, weeping, he recognizes the tents of Rhesus with their snow-white canvas, betrayed in their first sleep, which the son of Tydeus, bloody with great slaughter, was laying waste, and he drove the fiery horses off to the camp before they could taste Trojan pasture or drink from the Xanthus. In another part Troilus, who has fled and lost his weapons, an unlucky boy who met Achilles unequally, is carried along by his horses and clings, flat on his back, to the empty chariot, still holding the reins; his neck and his hair trail along the ground, and the dust is scored by his reversed spear. Meanwhile the Trojan women, with their hair loose, were going to the temple of unfriendly Pallas, carrying a robe, sad and humble, beating their breasts with their palms; the goddess, turned away, kept her eyes fixed on the ground. Achilles had dragged Hector three times around the walls of Ilium, and was selling the lifeless corpse for gold. Then indeed he gives a great groan from deep in his chest, as he sees the spoils, the chariot, the actual corpse of his friend, and Priam reaching out unarmed hands. He recognizes himself too, mingled with the Greek leaders, and the eastern ranks and the arms of dark Memnon. Penthesilea leads the columns of the Amazons with their crescent shields, raging, and blazes in the midst of thousands, fastening a golden belt beneath her bared breast, a warrior woman, a maiden who dares to clash with men.
494| While these sights seem wonderful to Trojan Aeneas, while he stands amazed and rooted in one gaze, the queen, Dido, most beautiful in form, came to the temple with a great crowd of young men thronging round. As on the banks of the Eurotas or along the ridges of Cynthus Diana leads her dances, and a thousand mountain nymphs follow and gather around her on this side and that; she carries a quiver on her shoulder, and as she walks she stands taller than all the goddesses; joy touches Latona's silent heart: such was Dido, so she carried herself joyfully among them, urging on the work and her future kingdom. Then, at the goddess's doors, beneath the temple's central vault, ringed with weapons, she sat down on a high-set throne. She gave laws and judgments to her men, and shared out the burden of the work in fair portions or assigned it by lot. At that moment Aeneas suddenly sees Antheus, Sergestus, brave Cloanthus and other Trojans approaching in a great crowd, whom a black whirlwind had scattered over the sea and carried far away to other shores. He himself was stunned, and Achates too was struck with joy and fear alike; they burned with eagerness to join hands; but the unknown situation troubled their minds. They hide their feelings, and wrapped in the hollow cloud they watch to see what has happened to the men, where they leave the fleet on shore, why they have come; for chosen men from all the ships were coming, asking for favor, and they made for the temple with a shout.
520| When they had gone in and the chance to speak before her was granted, eldest Ilioneus began calmly: "O queen, to whom Jupiter has granted to found a new city and by justice to curb proud nations, we unhappy Trojans, carried over every sea by the winds, beg you: keep dreadful fires from our ships, spare a dutiful people, and look more closely on our situation. We have not come to ravage Libyan household gods with the sword, or to carry plunder seized from your shores back to the sea; there is no such violence in our minds, and the defeated have no such arrogance. There is a land the Greeks call Hesperia, ancient, strong in arms and in rich soil; the Oenotrian people lived there; now report says that their descendants have called the nation Italy, after the name of a leader. That was our course: when suddenly stormy Orion, rising with the waves, drove us onto hidden shoals, and the wanton south winds scattered us far and wide over the waters, with the sea overwhelming us, and over trackless rocks; a few of us have swum to your shore. What kind of people is this? What country is so barbarous as to allow such a custom? We are refused the hospitality of the sand; they stir up war and will not let us step onto the nearest land. If you despise the human race and mortal weapons, at least hope for gods who remember right and wrong.
544| "We had a king, Aeneas, than whom no one was more just, or greater in devotion, or in war and arms. If the Fates preserve that man, if he still feeds on the upper air and does not yet lie in the cruel shades, then there is nothing to fear; and you will not regret having been the first to compete with him in kindness. In the regions of Sicily too we have cities and weapons, and Acestes, famous and of Trojan blood. Allow us to haul up our fleet, battered by the winds, to fit timbers from the woods and shape oars; if we are allowed to head for Italy, with our companions and our king recovered, we can happily seek Italy and Latium; but if safety is gone, and the sea of Libya holds you, best father of the Trojans, and the hope of Iulus no longer remains, then at least let us seek the straits of Sicily and the homes prepared for us, from which we came here, and King Acestes."
559| So spoke Ilioneus; all the Trojans murmured together in assent.
561| Then Dido, her face lowered, speaks briefly: "Free your hearts of fear, Trojans, put aside your worries. Hard circumstances and the newness of my kingdom force me to take such measures and to guard my borders far and wide with sentries. Who would not know the race of Aeneas's people, who would not know the city of Troy, its valor and its heroes, or the blaze of so great a war? We Carthaginians do not carry such dull hearts, nor does the Sun yoke his horses so far from the Tyrian city. Whether you choose great Hesperia and the fields of Saturn, or the land of Eryx and King Acestes, I will send you off protected by my help, and assist you with my resources. Or if you wish to settle with me in this kingdom on equal terms, the city I am founding is yours; haul your ships ashore; Trojan and Tyrian will be treated by me without any distinction. And I wish that King Aeneas himself, driven by the same south wind, were here! I will send out trusted men along the coast and order them to search the farthest parts of Libya, in case he is wandering, cast ashore in some forests or cities."
579| Stirred in spirit by these words, brave Achates and father Aeneas had long been burning to break out of the cloud. Achates is the first to address Aeneas: "Goddess-born, what plan is now rising in your mind? You see everything safe, the fleet and companions recovered. Only one is missing, whom we ourselves saw drowned in the midst of the waves; everything else matches your mother's words."
586| He had hardly spoken when the cloud around them suddenly parts and clears into the open air. Aeneas stood and shone in the bright light, in face and shoulders like a god; for his mother herself had breathed beauty on her son's hair, the glow of youth, and cheerful grace in his eyes, as hands lend beauty to ivory, or as silver or Parian marble is set in yellow gold.
594| Then he addresses the queen and, suddenly unexpected by all, says: "Here before you stands the man you are looking for, Trojan Aeneas, rescued from the Libyan waves. You alone have pitied the unspeakable sufferings of Troy; you offer us, the remnant left by the Greeks, worn out by every disaster of land and sea, and lacking everything, a share in your city and your home. To repay you with fitting thanks is beyond our power, Dido, and beyond whatever is left of the Trojan race anywhere, scattered over the great world. May the gods, if any divine powers look on the dutiful, if justice exists anywhere and a mind aware of its own righteousness, bring you worthy rewards. What happy age bore you? What parents brought forth such a woman? While rivers run into the sea, while shadows pass over the mountain slopes, while the heavens feed the stars, your honor, your name and your praises will always remain, whatever lands call me." Having spoken, he reaches with his right hand for his friend Ilioneus and with his left for Serestus, then the others, brave Gyas and brave Cloanthus.
613| Sidonian Dido was stunned, at the sight of him first, and then at the man's great misfortune, and she spoke: "What chance, goddess-born, pursues you through such great dangers? What force brings you to these savage shores? Are you that Aeneas, whom kindly Venus bore to Trojan Anchises beside the waters of the Phrygian Simois? Indeed I remember that Teucer came to Sidon, driven from his native land, seeking a new kingdom with the help of Belus; my father Belus was then ravaging rich Cyprus and held it in his power as a conqueror. From that time I have known the fall of the Trojan city, your name and the Greek kings. The enemy himself used to praise the Trojans highly, and claimed descent from the ancient stock of the Teucrians. So come, young men, enter our home. Fortune like yours has also driven me through many hardships and wished me to settle at last in this land. Not unacquainted with misfortune, I learn to help the wretched."
631| So she speaks; at the same time she leads Aeneas into the royal palace, at the same time she proclaims offerings in the temples of the gods. And no less she sends to his companions on the shore twenty bulls, a hundred bristling backs of huge pigs, a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, gifts and gladness from the god.
637| But the inner palace is furnished with the splendor of royal luxury, and they prepare a banquet in the middle of the halls: coverlets worked with skill and proud purple, great quantities of silver on the tables, and, engraved in gold, the brave deeds of her ancestors, a very long series of events led down through so many heroes from the ancient origin of the people.
643| Aeneas (for his fatherly love would not let his mind rest) sends swift Achates ahead to the ships, to carry word of this to Ascanius and bring him to the walls; all the care of the loving father centers on Ascanius. He orders him also to bring gifts snatched from the ruins of Ilium: a robe stiff with figures and gold, and a veil edged with yellow acanthus, the adornment of Argive Helen, which she had brought from Mycenae when she headed for Pergamum and an unlawful marriage, a wonderful gift from her mother Leda; also the scepter that Ilione, the eldest of Priam's daughters, once carried, a necklace of pearls, and a double crown of gems and gold. Hurrying to carry out this order, Achates headed for the ships.
657| But the goddess of Cythera turns new schemes and new plans over in her heart: that Cupid, changed in face and features, should come in place of sweet Ascanius, set the queen raging with the gifts, and wind fire through her bones. She fears the treacherous house and the double-tongued Tyrians; cruel Juno burns her, and as night comes on her anxiety returns. So she addresses winged Love with these words:
664| "My son, my strength, you alone my great power, my son who scorn the father on high's Typhoean thunderbolts, I take refuge with you and come as a suppliant to ask for your divine aid. How your brother Aeneas is tossed over the sea around every shore by the hatred of unjust Juno you know well, and you have often grieved with my grief. Now Phoenician Dido holds him and delays him with coaxing words; and I fear where Juno's hospitality may turn: she will not sit idle at such a turning point of events. So I mean to catch the queen first by trickery and ring her round with flame, so that no divine power may change her, but she may be held with me by a great love for Aeneas. Hear now my thinking on how you can do this. The royal boy, my greatest care, is preparing, at his beloved father's call, to go to the Sidonian city with gifts saved from the sea and from the flames of Troy. I will lull him to sleep and hide him away in my sacred dwelling on high Cythera or on Idalium, so that he cannot learn of the trick or turn up in the middle of it. For no more than a single night, counterfeit his appearance by craft, and, a boy yourself, put on the boy's familiar face, so that when Dido, overjoyed, takes you into her lap amid the royal tables and the flowing wine, when she embraces you and presses sweet kisses on you, you may breathe hidden fire into her and deceive her with your poison."
689| Love obeys his dear mother's words, takes off his wings, and walks with delight in the gait of Iulus. But Venus pours peaceful rest through the limbs of Ascanius, and, holding him warm in her lap, the goddess lifts him to the high groves of Idalia, where soft marjoram wraps him in its flowers and its sweet-breathing shade.
695| And now Cupid, obeying her words, was on his way, carrying the royal gifts to the Tyrians, happy to have Achates as his guide. When he arrives, the queen has already settled herself on a golden couch amid proud tapestries and taken her place in the center. Now father Aeneas and now the Trojan young men gather, and they recline on spread purple. Servants pour water over their hands, bring out bread in baskets, and hand them napkins of close-shorn wool. Inside are fifty maidservants, whose task is to lay out the long store of food in order and to tend the hearth gods with fire; a hundred others, and as many pages of the same age, load the tables with food and set out the cups. The Tyrians too have gathered in crowds through the festive doorways, bidden to recline on embroidered couches. They admire Aeneas' gifts, they admire Iulus, the god's glowing face and his pretended words, [the robe, and the veil embroidered with yellow acanthus.] Above all the unhappy Phoenician, doomed to the ruin to come, cannot satisfy her heart; she burns as she gazes, and is moved by the boy and the gifts alike. He, after hanging in Aeneas' embrace and around his neck and satisfying the great love of his pretended father, goes to the queen. She clings to him with her eyes, with all her heart, and now and then cuddles him in her lap — Dido, not knowing how great a god is settling on her, poor woman. But he, remembering his Acidalian mother, begins little by little to erase Sychaeus, and tries to take by surprise, with a living love, her spirit long at rest and her heart long unused to it.
723| When the first lull came in the feasting and the tables were cleared, they set out great mixing bowls and crown the wine with garlands. Noise fills the palace, and voices roll through the spacious halls; lit lamps hang from the gilded ceilings, and torches defeat the night with their flames. Here the queen called for a bowl weighed down with gems and gold, and filled it with neat wine — the bowl Belus and all of Belus' line used to use. Then silence fell on the hall: "Jupiter — for they say you give the laws of hospitality — may it be your will that this day be a happy one for the Tyrians and for those who set out from Troy, and that our descendants remember it. May Bacchus, giver of joy, be with us, and kindly Juno; and you, Tyrians, honor this gathering with goodwill." She spoke, and poured an offering of wine on the table, and after the libation she was first to touch the bowl, just to the edge of her lips; then she handed it to Bitias with a challenge. He briskly drained the foaming bowl and drenched himself in the brimming gold; then the other lords drank after him. Long-haired Iopas, whom great Atlas taught, makes the hall ring with his golden lyre. He sings of the moon's wanderings and the sun's labors;
743| where the race of men and the beasts came from, where rain and lightning; of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, and the two Bears; why the winter suns hasten so to dip themselves in Ocean, and what delay holds back the slow nights. The Tyrians redouble their applause, and the Trojans follow. Unhappy Dido too was drawing out the night with talk of every kind and drinking long draughts of love, asking question after question about Priam, question after question about Hector: now in what armor the son of Dawn had come, now what Diomedes' horses were like, now how great Achilles was. "No, come," she said, "tell us from the very beginning, my guest, the treachery of the Greeks, the misfortunes of your people, and your own wanderings; for already the seventh summer is carrying you as you wander over every land and sea."
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