Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| But the queen, long since wounded by a heavy care, feeds the wound with her lifeblood and is consumed by a hidden fire. The man's great courage and the great glory of his race keep coming back to her mind; his face and his words cling fixed in her heart, and her care gives her limbs no peaceful rest. The next Dawn was lighting the earth with the lamp of Phoebus and had driven the damp shadow from the sky, when, scarcely in her right mind, she speaks to the sister who shares her heart: "Anna, my sister, what dreams terrify me and leave me hanging in doubt! Who is this stranger who has come to our home? How he carries himself, how brave his heart, what a warrior! I truly believe — and it is no empty belief — that he is born of the gods. Fear exposes low-born souls. Ah, by what destinies he has been battered! What wars, fought to the end, he told of! If it were not fixed in my mind, settled and immovable, never to join myself to any man in the bond of marriage, since my first love cheated me and deceived me by death; if I were not utterly weary of the bridal bed and the wedding torch, to this one fault, perhaps, I might have yielded. Anna — for I will confess it — since the death of my poor husband Sychaeus, since our household gods were spattered by my brother's murder, he alone has swayed my feelings and shaken my wavering heart. I know the marks of the old flame. But I would rather the earth gape open for me to its depths, or the all-powerful father drive me with his thunderbolt down to the shades — the pale shades of Erebus and the deep night — before I violate you, my sense of honor, or break your laws. He who first joined me to himself took my love away; let him take it with him and keep it safe in the grave." So she spoke, and filled the fold of her robe with welling tears.
31| Anna replies: "You who are dearer to your sister than the light, will you waste away alone and grieving all your youth, and never know sweet children or the rewards of Venus? Do you think ashes or buried spirits care about that? Granted: no suitors have moved you in your grief before now, not in Libya, nor earlier in Tyre; Iarbas was scorned, and the other leaders whom Africa, rich in triumphs, breeds. Will you fight even against a love that pleases you? Does it not cross your mind in whose lands you have settled? On one side the Gaetulian cities, a race unbeatable in war, and the unbridled Numidians and the inhospitable Syrtis hem you in; on the other a region deserted by drought and the Barcaeans raging far and wide. Why speak of the wars rising from Tyre, and our brother's threats? I truly believe it was under the gods' guidance and with Juno's favor that the Trojan ships held their course here on the wind. What a city you will see rise here, sister, what a kingdom, from such a marriage! With the arms of the Trojans at its side, to what heights will the glory of Carthage raise itself! Only ask the gods' favor, and once the sacrifices are accepted, give yourself to hospitality and weave reasons for delay, while winter and rainy Orion rage themselves out on the sea, while the ships are battered and the sky cannot be dealt with."
54| With these words she set her sister's heart ablaze with boundless love, gave hope to her doubting mind, and loosened her sense of shame. First they go to the shrines and seek peace from altar to altar. They sacrifice chosen two-year-old sheep, as custom requires, to Ceres the lawgiver, to Phoebus and to father Lyaeus, and above all to Juno, who cares for the bonds of marriage. Dido herself, in all her beauty, holding a bowl in her right hand, pours it between the horns of a gleaming white heifer, or paces before the faces of the gods to the altars rich with offerings; she renews the day with gifts, and, poring over the opened chests of the victims, consults the still-breathing entrails. Ah, the ignorant minds of seers! What use are vows, what use are shrines, to a woman raging with love? All the while a flame eats at the soft marrow of her bones, and a silent wound lives beneath her breast. Unhappy Dido burns and wanders raging through the whole city, like a doe struck by an arrow, which a shepherd hunting with his weapons has hit from far off, catching her off guard among the Cretan woods, leaving the flying steel in her without knowing it: she ranges in flight through the forests and glades of Dicte; the deadly shaft clings to her side.
74| Now she takes Aeneas with her through the heart of the city, shows him the wealth of Sidon and the city ready for him; she begins to speak and stops in mid-sentence. Now, as the day wanes, she looks for the same banquet, and in her madness begs to hear the hardships of Troy once more, and once more hangs on the lips of the speaker. Then, when they have parted, and the dim moon in her turn puts out her light, and the setting stars urge sleep, she grieves alone in the empty house and lies down on the couch he has left. Absent, she hears him and sees him, absent; or, captivated by his likeness to his father, she holds Ascanius in her lap, in case she can cheat a love she cannot speak. The towers she began no longer rise, the young men no longer practice arms or work on harbors and ramparts to make them safe in war; the works stand idle, broken off, the huge threatening walls and the cranes that reach the sky.
90| As soon as Jupiter's dear wife saw that she was gripped by such a plague, and that reputation was no obstacle to her madness, Saturn's daughter approached Venus with these words: "Truly you and your boy have won splendid praise and ample spoils (a great and memorable divine power), if one woman has been conquered by the trickery of two gods. Nor does it escape me that you were afraid of my walls and looked with suspicion on the houses of high Carthage. But what limit will there be, or what is the purpose now of so great a struggle? Why do we not rather work for eternal peace and a marriage agreement? You have what you sought with all your heart: Dido is in love and burns, and has drawn madness through her bones. So let us rule this people jointly and with equal authority; let her be allowed to serve a Phrygian husband and to hand over her Tyrians to your right hand as a dowry."
105| To her (for Venus sensed that she had spoken with feigned intent, to turn the kingdom of Italy away to Libyan shores) Venus began to answer in this way: "Who would be so mad as to reject such a proposal, or to prefer to contend with you in war? If only fortune would follow through on what you propose. But I am carried along uncertain of the fates, whether Jupiter would wish there to be one city for the Tyrians and for those who left Troy, or would approve a mixing of the peoples or the joining of treaties. You are his wife; it is right for you to test his mind by entreaty. Go ahead, and I will follow." Then royal Juno took it up: "That task will be mine. Now I will explain to you in a few words (listen) how what is pressing can be accomplished. Aeneas and wretched Dido together are preparing to go hunting in the forest, as soon as tomorrow's Titan has raised the first dawn and uncovered the world with his rays. While the horsemen rush about and ring the glades with nets, I will pour over them from above a dark cloud mixed with hail, and I will stir the whole sky with thunder. Their companions will scatter and be covered by dark night: Dido and the Trojan leader will arrive at the same cave. I shall be present, and, if I have your firm consent, I will join them in a lasting marriage and declare her his own. This will be their wedding." Not opposing the request, Venus agreed, and laughed at the trick she had discovered.
129| Meanwhile Aurora rose and left the Ocean. At sunrise the picked young men go out through the gates, with wide-meshed nets, snares, and hunting spears with broad iron blades, and Massylian horsemen rush forward, and a keen-scented pack of hounds. The leading Carthaginians wait at the threshold for the queen, who lingers in her chamber, and her horse, splendid in purple and gold, stands there, and champs fiercely at its foaming bit. At last she comes forth, surrounded by a great crowd, wearing a Sidonian cloak with an embroidered border; she has a quiver of gold, her hair is knotted up in gold, and a golden brooch fastens her purple dress. The Trojan companions also come along, and happy Iulus. Aeneas himself, more handsome than all the others, joins them as a companion and unites the columns. As when Apollo leaves wintry Lycia and the streams of the Xanthus and visits his mother's Delos and renews the dances, and Cretans and Dryopes and painted Agathyrsi mingle and shout around the altars; he himself walks on the ridges of Cynthus and shapes his flowing hair, pressing it with soft foliage and binding it with gold, and his arrows ring on his shoulders: no less lively than he went Aeneas, so much beauty shone from his noble face.
151| After they came to the high mountains and the pathless lairs, look, wild goats, driven from the rocky summit, ran down the ridges; from another side deer cross the open plains at a run and gather their dust-raising herds in flight, leaving the mountains behind. But the boy Ascanius in the middle of the valleys delights in his spirited horse, and now outstrips these, now those, in his course; and among the sluggish herds he prays that a foaming boar be given to his wishes, or that a tawny lion come down from the mountain.
160| Meanwhile the sky begins to be stirred with a great rumbling, a cloud mixed with hail follows, and the Tyrian companions, the Trojan young men, and Venus's Dardan grandson scattered here and there through the fields, seeking shelter in fear; torrents rush down from the mountains. Dido and the Trojan leader come to the same cave. Earth first, and Juno who presides over marriage, give the signal; fires flashed, and the sky was witness to the union, and on the highest peak the Nymphs wailed. That day was the first of death and the first cause of evils; for Dido is no longer moved by appearance or reputation, and no longer plans a secret love: she calls it marriage, and under that name hides her fault.
173| At once Rumor goes through the great cities of Libya, Rumor, than which no other evil is faster: she thrives on movement and gains strength as she goes, small at first from fear, soon lifting herself into the air, her feet tread the earth while her head is buried in the clouds. Mother Earth, stirred to anger against the gods, bore her last, as they say, as a sister to Coeus and Enceladus, swift of foot and quick of wing, a dreadful monster, huge, with as many watchful eyes beneath her body as she has feathers (wonderful to tell), as many tongues, as many mouths that speak, as many ears that prick up. By night she flies between heaven and earth through the shadows, screeching, and she never closes her eyes in sweet sleep; by day she sits as a watcher on the roof peak of a high house or on lofty towers, and she terrifies great cities, as ready to cling to falsehood and wickedness as to report the truth. Then she was filling the peoples with her many kinds of talk, delighting in it, and sang alike of what was done and what was not: that Aeneas, born of Trojan blood, had come, and that beautiful Dido deigned to join herself to him as husband; that now they spent the whole winter, however long, in luxury together, forgetting their kingdoms, held captive by shameful desire. The foul goddess spreads this everywhere into men's mouths. She turns her course straight to King Iarbas, and kindles his heart with her words and heaps up his anger.
198| He was the son of Hammon and a Garamantian nymph he had raped, and he had set up a hundred huge temples to Jupiter throughout his broad kingdoms, and a hundred altars, and he had consecrated a watchful fire, an everlasting guard of the gods, and a floor rich with the blood of animals and thresholds in bloom with garlands of every kind. Out of his mind and inflamed by the bitter rumor, he is said to have prayed to Jupiter at length as a suppliant, in front of the altars, among the divine powers, with his palms turned up: "Almighty Jupiter, to whom the Moorish people, feasting now on embroidered couches, pour a libation of wine, do you see this? Or do we shudder at you in vain, Father, when you hurl your thunderbolts, and are those blind fires in the clouds only terrifying our minds and stirring empty rumbling? A woman who wandered into our territory and paid for a small city, to whom we gave a shore to plow and laws for the place, rejected marriage with me and took Aeneas into her kingdom as her lord. And now that Paris, with his retinue of half-men, his chin and dripping hair bound up in a Maeonian cap, enjoys what he has seized; meanwhile we bring offerings to your temples, and nurture an empty reputation."
219| As he prayed in such words, holding the altars, the Almighty heard him, and turned his gaze to the royal walls and to the lovers who had forgotten their better reputation. Then he spoke to Mercury and gave him this command: "Go now, son, call the Zephyrs and glide on your wings, and speak to the Trojan leader, who now waits in Tyrian Carthage and pays no attention to the cities granted by fate, and carry my words through the swift air. His most beautiful mother did not promise us that he would be such a man, nor was it for this that she twice rescued him from Greek arms; he was to be the one who would rule an Italy pregnant with empire and roaring with war, who would bring forth a race from Teucer's noble blood and put the whole world under law. If no glory from such great things inspires him, and he himself takes no trouble for his own fame, does he, a father, begrudge Ascanius the Roman citadels? What is he doing? With what hope does he linger among a hostile people, and give no thought to his Ausonian offspring and the Lavinian fields? Let him sail! This is the sum of it; let this be my message."
238| He had spoken. Mercury prepared to obey the command of his great father; and first he fastened to his feet the golden sandals, which carry him on wings, high above the seas or the land, as swiftly as the wind. Then he takes up his staff: with it he calls the pale souls out of Orcus, sends others down to gloomy Tartarus, gives sleep and takes it away, and opens eyes closed in death. Relying on it, he drives the winds and swims through the turbulent clouds. And now as he flies he sees the summit and steep flanks of tough Atlas, who props up the sky with his head, Atlas, whose pine-covered head is constantly ringed with dark clouds and lashed by wind and rain; snow lies over his shoulders, then rivers pour from the old man's chin, and his rough beard bristles with ice. Here the god of Cyllene first came to rest on balanced wings; from here he threw himself headlong with his whole body toward the waves, like a bird that flies low around the shores, around the fish-filled rocks, close to the water. Not otherwise did the offspring of Cyllene fly between earth and sky toward the sandy shore of Libya, cutting through the winds, as he came from his maternal grandfather.
259| As soon as he touched the huts with his winged feet, he sees Aeneas laying the foundations of citadels and renovating buildings. He had a sword studded with tawny jasper, and a cloak hanging from his shoulders, glowing with Tyrian purple, a rich gift Dido had made, and she had interwoven the web with thin gold. At once Mercury attacks: "Are you now laying the foundations of high Carthage, and, a devoted husband, building a beautiful city? Alas, you who forget your kingdom and your own affairs! The ruler of the gods himself sends me down to you from bright Olympus, he who governs heaven and earth by his divine power; he himself orders me to carry these commands through the swift air: what are you doing? With what hope do you waste your leisure in Libyan lands? If no glory from such great things moves you, [and you yourself take no trouble for your own fame,] consider the growing Ascanius and the hopes of your heir Iulus, to whom the realm of Italy and the Roman land are owed." Having spoken thus, the god of Cyllene left mortal sight in the middle of his speech, and vanished far away from his eyes into thin air.
279| But Aeneas, truly stunned at the sight, was struck dumb; his hair stood on end with horror and his voice stuck in his throat. He burns to flee and to leave the sweet land, astonished by so great a warning and command from the gods. Alas, what is he to do? With what speech can he now dare to approach the raging queen? What opening should he take first? And he divides his quick mind now this way, now that, drives it in various directions, and turns it over through every possibility. As he went back and forth, this plan seemed better: he calls Mnestheus, Sergestus, and brave Serestus, telling them to ready the fleet quietly, gather their companions at the shore, prepare their arms, and conceal the reason for the change of plans; meanwhile he himself, since excellent Dido did not know and did not expect so great a love to be broken, would try the approaches and the gentlest times for speaking, and the right way to handle matters. All gladly obey his command more quickly and carry out the orders.
296| But the queen sensed the tricks (who could deceive a woman in love?) and was the first to catch the coming movements, afraid even when everything was safe. That same wicked Rumor reported to her, in her frenzy, that the fleet was being armed and the voyage prepared. Out of her mind, she rages and, inflamed, runs wild through the whole city, like a Thyiad roused when the sacred rites are set in motion, when the biennial orgies goad her at the cry of Bacchus, and night-time Cithaeron calls her with shouting. At last she addresses Aeneas first with these words: "Did you even hope, faithless man, that you could hide so great a crime and leave my land in silence? Does neither our love hold you, nor the right hand you once gave, nor Dido, who will die a cruel death? Why do you even work on your fleet under a winter star, and hurry to go over the open sea in the midst of the north winds, cruel one? What if you were not seeking foreign fields and unknown homes, and ancient Troy still stood, would Troy be sought by fleets over the wave-tossed sea? Are you fleeing me? By these tears and by your right hand (since I have left myself, wretched as I am, nothing else), by our marriage, by the wedding begun, if I have deserved anything good from you, or if anything of mine ever pleased you, pity a falling house, and, I beg, if there is still any room for prayers, give up that intention.
320| Because of you the peoples of Libya and the tyrants of the Nomads hate me, and the Tyrians are hostile; because of you my sense of shame has been destroyed, and my former reputation, by which alone I was approaching the stars. To whom do you leave me as I die, my guest (since this is the only name left of husband)? Why do I linger? Until my brother Pygmalion destroys my walls, or the Gaetulian Iarbas takes me captive? If only, before your flight, I had conceived some child by you, if some little Aeneas were playing in my hall who would nevertheless recall you by his face, I would not feel so completely captured and abandoned."
331| She had spoken. He, because of Jupiter's warnings, held his eyes unmoving and struggled to press his distress down in his heart. At last he answers briefly: "I will never deny, queen, that you have deserved the most, all that you can list in speech, nor will it displease me to remember Elissa as long as I remember myself, as long as breath governs these limbs. I will speak briefly on the matter. I did not hope to hide this flight by stealth (do not imagine it), nor did I ever carry a marriage torch before you or enter into such an agreement. If the fates allowed me to live my life under my own auspices and settle my cares as I wished, I would first look after the city of Troy and the dear remains of my people; Priam's high house would stand, and with my own hand I would have set up a restored Pergamum for the defeated. But now Grynean Apollo, now the Lycian oracles have ordered me to seize great Italy; that is my love, that is my homeland. If the citadels of Carthage and the sight of a Libyan city hold you, a Phoenician, what grudge is it at last that Trojans settle in the land of Ausonia? We too have a right to seek a foreign kingdom.
351| Whenever night covers the lands with damp shadows, whenever the fiery stars rise, the troubled image of my father Anchises warns me in my sleep and frightens me; the boy Ascanius moves me, and the wrong done to his dear person, whom I cheat of the kingdom of Hesperia and his destined fields. Now even the messenger of the gods, sent by Jupiter himself (I swear it by both our lives), has carried his commands through the swift air: I saw the god myself in clear light entering the walls, and I drank in his voice with these ears. Stop inflaming both me and yourself with your complaints; it is not by my own choice that I head for Italy."
362| As he speaks, she has been watching him for some time with a look turned away, her eyes rolling now here, now there, and she scans him all over with silent glances, and then, inflamed, she speaks: "No goddess was your mother, and Dardanus was not the founder of your line, faithless man, but the bristling Caucasus bore you on its hard cliffs, and Hyrcanian tigers offered you their teats. For why do I hide it, or for what greater wrongs do I hold myself back? Did he groan at my weeping? Did he turn his eyes? Did he give way and shed tears, or pity the woman who loved him? What shall I set before what? Now, now neither great Juno nor Saturn's son looks on this with fair eyes. Nowhere is faith safe. When he was cast up on the shore and in need, I took him in, and in my madness I gave him a share of my kingdom. I brought back his lost fleet and his comrades from death (alas, I am carried along inflamed by furies!): now the augur Apollo, now the Lycian oracles, now even the messenger of the gods sent by Jupiter himself carries dreadful orders through the air. Of course, that is the labor of the gods above; that is the concern that disturbs their peace. I do not hold you, nor do I refute your words: go, make for Italy on the winds, seek your kingdoms over the waves.
382| I do hope, if the righteous powers above can do anything, that you will drink your punishment among the rocks in the middle of the sea and will often call out the name of Dido. Though absent, I will follow you with black fires, and when cold death has separated my limbs from my breath, I will be present everywhere as a shade. You will pay the penalty, wicked man. I will hear of it, and the news will reach me among the Shades far below." With these words she breaks off her speech in the middle and, sick at heart, flees the light, turns away from his eyes and removes herself, leaving him hesitating in fear and ready to say much more. Her servants take her up and carry her collapsed limbs back to her marble bedchamber and lay her upon her bed.
393| But dutiful Aeneas, although he longs to soothe her grief by comforting her and to turn away her cares with words, groaning deeply and shaken in heart by his great love, nonetheless carries out the gods' commands and goes back to his fleet. Then indeed the Trojans bend to the work and drag the tall ships down the whole shore. The oiled keels float, and they bring leafy oars and rough-hewn timber from the forests, in their eagerness to flee. You could see them leaving and rushing out of the whole city: just as when ants, mindful of winter, plunder a huge heap of grain and store it in their nest, a black column moves across the fields and they carry their booty through the grass along a narrow track; some strain against the big kernels with their shoulders, some marshal the column and punish stragglers, and the whole path boils with work. What feelings were yours then, Dido, as you saw such things, or what groans did you give, when from the top of the citadel you looked out and saw the shores seething far and wide, and the whole sea before your eyes churned with such great shouting! Cruel Love, what do you not force on mortal hearts! She is driven to go into tears again, again to try him by entreaty, and, a suppliant, to lower her pride before love, so that she may not leave anything untried, about to die in vain.
416| "Anna, you see the hurry all around the whole shore: they have gathered from every side; the canvas is already calling for the breeze, and the happy sailors have put garlands on the sterns. If I was able to expect this great sorrow, I will be able to bear it too, sister. Yet carry out this one thing for me in my misery, Anna; for that faithless man used to honor you alone, and even confided his secret feelings to you; you alone knew the man's gentle approaches and moments. Go, sister, and speak as a suppliant to my proud enemy: I did not swear at Aulis with the Greeks to destroy the Trojan people, nor did I send a fleet to Pergamum, nor did I disturb the ashes or the spirit of his father Anchises: why does he refuse to let my words into his hard ears? Where is he rushing? Let him give this last gift to the wretched woman who loved him: let him wait for an easy flight and favoring winds. I no longer ask for the old marriage, which he betrayed, nor that he give up beautiful Latium and leave his kingdom: I ask for empty time, a rest and a pause for my madness, until my fortune teaches me, defeated as I am, to grieve. I beg this last favor (pity your sister), and when he has granted it to me, I will repay it to him in full with my death."
437| With such words she pleaded, and such tears her unhappy sister carries to him and brings back. But he is moved by no tears and hears no words with a yielding heart; the fates stand in the way, and a god blocks the man's gentle ears. And just as, when northern gusts from the Alps strive among themselves to uproot a sturdy oak of ancient strength, blowing now from this side, now from that, a creaking goes up, and the high leaves strew the ground as the trunk is shaken; the oak itself clings to the rocks, and as far as it reaches with its crown to the airy heights, so far its roots reach down toward Tartarus: not otherwise is the hero battered by constant appeals from this side and that, and he feels the pain deeply in his great heart; his mind stays unmoved, and his tears roll down in vain.
450| Then indeed unhappy Dido, terrified by her fate, prays for death; she is weary of looking at the vault of heaven. To make her carry out her plan more surely and leave the light, she saw, as she placed gifts on the incense-burning altars, (horrible to tell) the holy water turn black and the poured wine change into foul blood; she told no one of this vision, not even her sister. Besides, in the palace there was a marble shrine to her former husband, which she honored with wonderful reverence, bound with snow-white fleeces and festive foliage: from there she seemed to hear the voices and words of her husband calling her, when dark night held the earth, and a lone owl on the roof peaks seemed often to complain in a funereal song and draw its long cries out into weeping; and many predictions of former seers besides terrify her with their dreadful warnings. Savage Aeneas himself drives her, in her frenzy, through her dreams, and she always seems to be left alone, always to walk a long road unaccompanied and to look for her Tyrians in a deserted land, as mad Pentheus sees the ranks of the Furies, and a double sun and two Thebes appearing, or as Orestes, son of Agamemnon, is driven across the stage when he flees from his mother armed with torches and black snakes, and the avenging Dirae sit on the threshold.
474| So when, overcome by grief, she had conceived madness and decided to die, she herself works out the time and the method, and, approaching her sorrowing sister with words, she hides her plan in her expression and brightens her hope on her face: "I have found a way, sister (congratulate your sister), that will either bring him back to me or release me from loving him. At the edge of Ocean, toward the setting sun, lies the farthest place of the Ethiopians, where great Atlas turns on his shoulder the heavens fitted with burning stars: from there a priestess of the Massylian people has been pointed out to me, the keeper of the Hesperides' temple, who used to give the dragon its food and kept the sacred branches on the tree, sprinkling moist honey and sleep-bringing poppy. She promises with her spells to free the minds she wishes, but to send harsh cares to others, to stop water in rivers and turn the stars backward, and she stirs up the shades of the night: you will see the earth bellow under your feet and ash trees descend from the mountains. I swear, dear one, by the gods and by you, sister, and your sweet head, that I take up magic arts unwillingly. In secret, build a pyre under the open sky in the inner part of the house, and place on top the weapons the faithless man left fixed in my chamber, and all his clothes and the marriage bed where I was ruined: it pleases me to wipe out every reminder of that wicked man, and the priestess directs it." Having said this, she falls silent, and at the same time pallor covers her face. Yet Anna does not believe that her sister is covering up a funeral with these new rites, nor does she conceive in her mind such great madness or fear anything worse than at the death of Sychaeus. So she prepares what she was told.
504| But the queen, when the pyre had been erected under the open sky in the innermost part of the house, huge, of cut pine torches and oak, festoons the spot with wreaths and crowns it in mournful greenery; on top she places his clothes, the sword he left, and his likeness on the couch, not unaware of what is to come. Altars stand around and the priestess, her hair unbound, calls with thundering voice on three hundred gods, Erebus and Chaos and three-fold Hecate, the three faces of the virgin Diana. She had also sprinkled water counterfeiting the spring of Avernus, and herbs in full bloom, cut by moonlight with bronze sickles, are sought, with the milk of black poison; and the love-token wrenched from the brow of a newborn colt and snatched from its mother is also sought. Dido herself, near the altar with the sacred meal and pure hands, with one foot unshod, her dress ungirdled, as she is about to die calls the gods to witness, and the stars that know her fate; then she prays to any divine power that is just and mindful, if there is one, for lovers joined in an unequal bond.
522| It was night, and weary bodies across the lands were enjoying peaceful sleep. The woods and the savage seas had settled, it was the hour when the stars roll on in mid-course, when every field is silent, and the cattle and the bright-colored birds, those that haunt the wide clear lakes and those that live in the countryside rough with thickets, lay stilled in sleep beneath the quiet night. But not the Phoenician woman, ill-fated in spirit. She never dissolves into sleep or lets the night into her eyes or heart. Her cares redouble; her love rises again and rages, and she is tossed on a great tide of anger. So she persists, and turns it over in her heart like this: "Look, what am I doing? Shall I put myself to the test again, mocked, with my earlier suitors? Shall I go begging for marriage with the Nomads, men I have already scorned so many times as husbands? Then shall I follow the Trojan fleet and the Teucrians' most humiliating commands? Is it because I am glad I once relieved them with my help, and because gratitude for an old kindness stands firm among people who remember? But who will allow me, even if I wanted it, or take a woman they hate aboard their proud ships? Ah, you lost woman, do you not know yet, do you not yet feel the perjuries of Laomedon's race? What then? Shall I go alone, in flight, with the exultant sailors? Or shall I set out surrounded by the Tyrians and my whole band of followers, and drive out to sea again those whom I barely tore away from the city of Sidon, and order them to spread their sails to the winds? No, die as you deserve, and turn away your pain with the sword. You, my sister, overcome by my tears, you were the first to load this madness of mine with these troubles and throw me in the enemy's path. I was not allowed to live my life apart from marriage, without reproach, like a wild animal, and not to touch such cares as these. The faith I promised to the ashes of Sychaeus has not been kept."
553| Such complaints she was bursting from her heart. Aeneas, high on his stern, already resolved on going, was taking sleep, since everything was now properly prepared. In his dream the form of the god appeared to him again, returning with the same face, and again seemed to warn him. He was like Mercury in every way, in voice and coloring, in his golden hair and in the limbs of his youthful beauty. "Son of a goddess, can you sleep through a moment like this, and do you not see, madman, what dangers now stand around you, or hear the favorable west winds blowing? She is turning treachery and dreadful crime over in her heart, determined to die, and stirring up shifting tides of anger. Will you not flee from here headlong, while you still have the chance to rush away? Soon you will see the sea churned up with timbers, savage torches blazing, the shores seething with flames, if Dawn finds you lingering on these lands. Come now, break off the delay. A woman is always a fickle and changeable thing." With these words he mingled with the black night.
571| Then Aeneas, terrified by the sudden shadows, snatched his body from sleep and roused his comrades in haste: "Wake up, men, and take your seats at the benches. Loose the sails quickly. A god sent down from high heaven is spurring us again to speed our flight and slash the twisted ropes. We follow you, holy one among the gods, whoever you are, and again we obey your command with joy. Be with us, and kindly help us, and bring favorable stars to the sky." He spoke, and snatched his flashing sword from its sheath, and struck the mooring ropes with the drawn blade. The same eagerness seizes everyone at once; they snatch and rush. They have left the shores; the sea is hidden beneath the fleets; straining, they churn the foam and sweep the dark blue water.
584| Already Dawn, quitting Tithonus' saffron bed, was first scattering the earth with new light. When the queen from her watchtower saw the first light whitening and the fleet moving off with sails in line, and realized the shore and harbor were empty, without an oarsman, she struck her lovely breast three and four times with her hand, tore her golden hair, and cried: "Jupiter! Is he to go, this foreigner, and make a mockery of my kingdom? Will they not get out their arms and follow from all over the city, and others tear the ships from the docks? Go, quickly, bring fire, hand out weapons, ply the oars! What am I saying? In what place am I? What madness twists my mind? Unhappy Dido, do your impious deeds touch you now? They should have then, when you were giving him the scepter. So this is the pledge and faith of the man who, they say, carries his ancestral household gods with him, who carried on his shoulders his father worn out with age! Could I not have seized him, torn his body apart, and scattered it on the waves? Not killed his companions with the sword, killed Ascanius himself and served him up as a feast at his father's table? But the outcome of a fight would have been uncertain. Suppose it had been:
604| Whom did I fear, when I was going to die anyway? I should have carried torches into their camp, filled their decks with flames, wiped out son and father along with the whole race, and flung myself on top of them. Sun, you who survey all the works of the earth with your flames; and you, Juno, go-between and witness of these sorrows; and Hecate, whose name is howled at night at crossroads through the cities; and you avenging Furies, and you gods of dying Elissa: hear this, turn your divine power to the wrongs I have suffered, as is my due, and listen to my prayers. If that unspeakable man must reach harbor and float to land, if Jupiter's decrees demand it, and this outcome is fixed: then let him be harassed in war by the arms of a bold people, driven from his territory, torn from the embrace of Iulus; let him beg for help and see his people die undeserved deaths; and when he has surrendered himself to the terms of an unfair peace, let him not enjoy his kingdom or the light he longs for, but let him die before his day and lie unburied in the middle of the sand. This is my prayer; these last words I pour out with my blood. Then you, my Tyrians, harass his stock and all his race to come with hatred, and send this as an offering to my ashes. Let there be no love between the peoples, no treaties. Rise up from my bones, some avenger, to pursue the Dardan settlers with fire and sword, now, hereafter, at whatever time the strength is supplied: shore set against shore, wave against water, arms against arms — this is my curse: let them fight, they themselves and their children's children."
630| So she spoke, and turned her mind every way, seeking to break off the hateful light as soon as she could. Then she spoke briefly to Barce, Sychaeus' nurse — for her own lay in black ashes in their old homeland: "Dear nurse, bring my sister Anna here. Tell her to hurry and sprinkle her body with river water, and bring the animals with her and the offerings for atonement as she was shown. Let her come like that; and you yourself cover your temples with the holy ribbon. I mean to finish the rites to Stygian Jupiter that I have duly begun and prepared, to put an end to my sorrows, and to give the pyre of the Dardan to the flames." So she spoke. The nurse hurried her steps with an old woman's eagerness. But Dido, trembling and made savage by her monstrous undertaking, rolling her bloodshot eyes, her quivering cheeks flecked with spots and pale with approaching death, bursts through the doors into the inner courtyard of the house, climbs the high pyre in frenzy, and unsheathes the Dardan sword, a gift not sought for such a use as this. Here, when she saw the Trojan clothes and the familiar bed, she paused a little in tears and thought, then lay down on the couch and spoke her last words:
651| "Relics that were sweet to me while fate and the god allowed, receive this spirit of mine and free me from these sorrows. I have lived, and I have finished the journey that Fortune allotted me, and now a great image of me will go beneath the earth. I founded a glorious city; I have seen my own walls; I avenged my husband and made my brother, my enemy, pay the penalty — happy, ah, too happy, if only the Dardan ships had never touched our shores." She spoke, and pressing her face into the couch, she said: "We will die unavenged — yet let us die. Thus, thus I am glad to go down to the shades. Let the cruel Dardan drink in this fire with his eyes from out at sea, and carry with him the omen of my death." She had spoken, and in the midst of such words her women see her collapsed upon the sword, the steel foaming with blood and her hands spattered. A scream rises to the high halls; Rumor runs wild through the shaken city. The houses roar with lamentation, groaning and the wailing of women; the sky echoes with loud cries of mourning, just as if the enemy had broken in and all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling, and raging flames were rolling over the roofs of men and of gods.
672| Her sister heard it and, half dead and terrified, rushes in frantic haste through the middle of the crowd, tearing her face with her nails and beating her breast with her fists, and calls the dying woman by name: "Was this what it meant, sister? Were you deceiving me? Was this what that pyre, these fires and altars were preparing for me? What shall I lament first, now that you have abandoned me? Did you scorn your sister as a companion in death? You ought to have called me to the same fate: the same pain, the same hour, should have taken us both by the sword. Did I build this pyre with these very hands and call aloud on our fathers' gods only to be absent, cruel one, while you lay here like this? You have destroyed yourself and me, sister, the commons and the senate of Sidon, and your city. Let me wash her wounds with water and catch with my lips any last breath still hovering over her." With these words she had climbed the high steps, and was holding her half-dead sister to her breast and cradling her, groaning, and drying the dark blood with her dress. Dido tried to lift her heavy eyes but failed again; the wound fixed deep beneath her breast hisses. Three times she raised herself, propping herself on her elbow; three times she rolled back on the couch, and with wandering eyes she searched for the light in the high sky, and when she found it, groaned.
693| Then all-powerful Juno, pitying her long suffering and her hard death, sent Iris down from Olympus to release the struggling spirit from the limbs that held it fast. For since she was dying neither by fate nor by a death she had earned, but wretchedly, before her day, set ablaze by sudden madness, Proserpina had not yet taken a golden lock from her head and condemned her life to Stygian Orcus. So Iris, dewy, on saffron wings, trailing a thousand changing colors across the sky against the sun, flies down and stands above her head. "As I am bidden, I take this lock as an offering sacred to Dis, and release you from that body." So she speaks, and cuts the lock with her right hand; and at once all the warmth ebbed away, and the life withdrew into the winds.
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