English Translation |
Latin Text |
4.160-90
Meanwhile with a great murmur the sky begins to be stirred up, a storm cloud with hail having been mixed, and the Tyrian companions everywhere and the Trojan youth and the Dardanian grandson of Venus sought different shelters through the fields because of dread; rivers rush down from the mountains. Dido and the Trojan leader arrive at the same cave; first both the Earth and the matron of honor Juno give the sign: fires flashed and the upper air was witness for the marriages and the Nymphs wailed at the highest peak. That day was the first cause of death and the first of evils; neither was Dido moved by her appearance or by her fame nor did she now meditate on a secret love: she calls it marriage, cloaks her fault by this name. Immediately Rumor goes through the great cities of Libya, Rumor, than which not any other evil was more swift; she flourishes with movement and gains strength with going, small at first because of dread, soon she raises herself on the breezes and proceeds on the ground and establishes her head among the clouds. Mother Earth, enraged by the anger of the gods, bore that one last, as they say, a sister for Coeus and Enceladus, swift with feet and nimble wings, an awful monster, huge, for whose body there are as many feathers, so many sleepless eyes underneath (marvelous to speak of), so many tongues, as many mouths sound, she raises so many ears. She flies at night in the middle of heaven and earth hissing through the shadows, neither does she turn down her eyes for sweet sleep; by light she sits as a guardian either on the peak of the highest roof or on the high towers, and terrifies the great cities, as tenacious of falsehood and wrong as a messenger of truth. This one then was filling the people with complex conversation, and was singing of things done and not done equally: |
4.160-90
Interea magno misceri murmure caelum 160 incipit, insequitur commixta grandine nimbus, et Tyrii comites passim et Troiana iuventus Dardaniusque nepos Veneris diversa per agros tecta metu petiere; ruunt de montibus amnes. speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem 165 deveniunt. prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum; fulsere ignes et conscius aether conubiis summoque ulularunt vertice Nymphae. ille dies primus leti primusque malorum causa fuit; neque enim specie famave movetur 170 nec iam furtivum Dido meditatur amorem: coniugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam. Extemplo Libyae magnas it Fama per urbes, Fama, malum qua non aliud velocius ullum: mobilitate viget virisque adquirit eundo, 175 parva metu primo, mox sese attollit in auras ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit. illam Terra parens ira inritata deorum extremam, ut perhibent, Coeo Enceladoque sororem progenuit pedibus celerem et pernicibus alis, 180 monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui quot sunt corpore plumae, tot vigiles oculi subter (mirabile dictu), tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit auris. nocte volat caeli medio terraeque per umbram stridens, nec dulci declinat lumina somno; 185 luce sedet custos aut summi culmine tecti turribus aut altis, et magnas territat urbes, tam ficti pravique tenax quam nuntia veri. haec tum multiplici populos sermone replebat gaudens, et pariter facta atque infecta canebat: 190 |
4.191-218
That Aeneas born of Trojan blood had come, to whom as a husband beautiful Dido deemed herself worthy to join; that now they were tending to the winter, however long it is, between themselves in luxury, unmindful of the kingdoms and captured by shameful desire. The foul goddess scatters these things everywhere into the mouths of men. Immediately she turns courses to the king Iarbus and burns his mind with words and heaps up his angers. This one begotten of Hammon a Garamantian nymph having been seized established a hundred temples of Jupiter in his wide kingdoms, established a hundred altars and had consecrated the sleepless fire, eternal sentinels of the gods, and the ground was rich by the blood of animals and the thresholds were blossoming with varied garlands. And frenzied in his mind and inflamed by bitter rumor he is said to have prayed to Jupiter for many things as a suppliant before the altars among the middle of the divinities of the gods with upturned hands: “Almighty Jupiter, to whom now the Maurusian race feasting on painted couches pour out the Lenean honor, do you see these things? Or do we shudder at you in vain when you twist thunderbolts, and the blind fires terrify our spirits and empty murmurs mingle? The woman, who wandering in our borders founded a small city at a price, to whom we gave a shore to be plowed and to whom we gave the laws of the place, rejected our marriages and received Aeneas as a lord into her kingdom. And now that Paris, with his half-man company, tied in his chin and in his dripping hair with a Maeonian turban, possesses his plunder: indeed we bear offerings to your temples and cherish an empty rumor.” |
4.191-218
venisse Aenean Troiano sanguine cretum, cui se pulchra viro dignetur iungere Dido; nunc hiemem inter se luxu, quam longa, fovere regnorum immemores turpique cupidine captos. haec passim dea foeda virum diffundit in ora. 195 protinus ad regem cursus detorquet Iarban incenditque animum dictis atque aggerat iras. Hic Hammone satus rapta Garamantide nympha templa Iovi centum latis immania regnis, centum aras posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignem, 200 excubias divum aeternas, pecudumque cruore pingue solum et variis florentia limina sertis. isque amens animi et rumore accensus amaro dicitur ante aras media inter numina divum multa Iovem manibus supplex orasse supinis: 205 'Iuppiter omnipotens, cui nunc Maurusia pictis gens epulata toris Lenaeum libat honorem, aspicis haec? an te, genitor, cum fulmina torques nequiquam horremus, caecique in nubibus ignes terrificant animos et inania murmura miscent? 210 femina, quae nostris errans in finibus urbem exiguam pretio posuit, cui litus arandum cuique loci leges dedimus, conubia nostra reppulit ac dominum Aenean in regna recepit. et nunc ille Paris cum semiviro comitatu, 215 Maeonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem subnexus, rapto potitur: nos munera templis quippe tuis ferimus famamque fovemus inanem.' |
4.259-95
As soon as he touched the huts with his winged feet, he sees Aeneas founding fortresses and building roofs. And there was a sword starred with yellow jasper for that one and the cloak let down from his shoulders was burning with Tyrian purple, which gifts wealthy Dido had made, and had separated the threads with fine gold. Immediately he attacks: “Now you lay the foundations of high Carthage and wife-ruled build up this beautiful city? Alas, you having forgotten your kingdom and your affairs! The ruler of the gods himself has sent me down from bright Olympus to you, who twists the sky and lands by his nod, himself commands to bear these orders through the swift winds: what are you building? Or with what hope are you wasting leisure in Libyan lands? If no glory of so great things moves you [neither morever do you yourself do work concerning your praise,] look back at Ascanius growing and the hopes of your heir Iulus, to whom the kingdom of Italy and the Roman earth is owed. The Cyllenean having spoken such things with his mouth left the mortal sights in the middle of his speech and vanished from his eyes far off into the thin breezes. But indeed Aeneas dumbfounded because of the sight stood speechless, and his hairs stood on end because of horror and his voice clung to his throats. He burns to depart by flight and to release the sweet lands, struck with so great a warning and the authority of the gods. Alas, what might he do? Where might he now dare to approach the raging queen by means of speech? What first beginning should he take? And he divides his swift mind now here, now there, and seizes it into various directions and turns through all things. The opinion seemed better for him alternating these things: he calls Mnestheus and Sergestus and brave Serestus, to ready the fleet, silent, and muster his companions to the shores, to prepare arms and to conceal what reason is for these new affairs; that meanwhile he, when finest Dido does not know and does not expect that so great loves break, is about to seek approaches and which times are the safest for speaking, what way is right for these affairs. All happy obey more swiftly than his command and fulfill his orders. |
4.259-95
ut primum alatis tetigit magalia plantis, Aenean fundantem arces ac tecta novantem 260 conspicit. atque illi stellatus iaspide fulva ensis erat Tyrioque ardebat murice laena demissa ex umeris, dives quae munera Dido fecerat, et tenui telas discreverat auro. continuo invadit: 'tu nunc Karthaginis altae 265 fundamenta locas pulchramque uxorius urbem exstruis? heu, regni rerumque oblite tuarum! ipse deum tibi me claro demittit Olympo regnator, caelum et terras qui numine torquet, ipse haec ferre iubet celeris mandata per auras: 270 quid struis? aut qua spe Libycis teris otia terris? si te nulla movet tantarum gloria rerum [nec super ipse tua moliris laude laborem,] Ascanium surgentem et spes heredis Iuli respice, cui regnum Italiae Romanaque tellus 275 debetur.' tali Cyllenius ore locutus mortalis visus medio sermone reliquit et procul in tenuem ex oculis evanuit auram. At vero Aeneas aspectu obmutuit amens, arrectaeque horrore comae et vox faucibus haesit. 280 ardet abire fuga dulcisque relinquere terras, attonitus tanto monitu imperioque deorum. heu quid agat? quo nunc reginam ambire furentem audeat adfatu? quae prima exordia sumat? atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc 285 in partisque rapit varias perque omnia versat. haec alternanti potior sententia visa est: Mnesthea Sergestumque vocat fortemque Serestum, classem aptent taciti sociosque ad litora cogant, arma parent et quae rebus sit causa novandis 290 dissimulent; sese interea, quando optima Dido nesciat et tantos rumpi non speret amores, temptaturum aditus et quae mollissima fandi tempora, quis rebus dexter modus. ocius omnes imperio laeti parent et iussa facessunt. 295 |
4.296-330
But the queen (who could be able to deceive a lover?) sensed these deceits in advance, and fearing all safe things first caught that the movements were about to be. The same wicked rumor carried down for her raging that the fleet was being armed and a course was being prepared. Out of mind she rages and inflamed raves through the whole city, just as a Thyian has been excited by the sacred objects put in motion, when Bacchus having been heard the trienniel rituals incite and the nocturnal Cithaeron calls with shouting. At last she hits Aeneas voluntarily with these voices: “Did you even hope, unfaithful one, that you were able to conceal so great impiety and to depart silent from my land? Neither our love nor the right hands having been given nor this Dido about to die by a cruel death holds you? No, you even hasten to prepare the fleet during the winter constellation and to go through the deep in the middle of Aquilos, cruel one? What, if you were not seeking other fields and unknown houses, and ancient Troy was remaining, were Troy being sought by the fleets through the billowing sea? Are you fleeing me? By these tears and by your right hand (since I myself have nothing else left for wretched me now), by our marriages, by the wedding hymns having been begun, if I rightly have deserved anything from you, or there has been anything of mine sweet for you, I beg you, pity a falling home and that of yours, if there is any place here for prayers, discard this mind. Because of you the Libyan peoples and the rulers of the Nomads have come to hate me, the Tyrians are hostile; because of the same you my honor, and, with which alone I was approaching the constellations, my prior reputation was extinguished. To whom do you, guest (since this name alone remains from my husband), desert me about to die? For what do I delay? Until my brother Pygmalion destroys my walls or Gaetulian Iarbus leads me away captured? At least if there were for me any child begotten of you before your flight, if some very little Aeneas were playing for me in the hall, who nevertheless would bring you back in face, not indeed altogether deceived and deserted would I seem. |
4.296-330
At regina dolos (quis fallere possit amantem?) praesensit, motusque excepit prima futuros omnia tuta timens. eadem impia Fama furenti detulit armari classem cursumque parari. saevit inops animi totamque incensa per urbem 300 bacchatur, qualis commotis excita sacris Thyias, ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho orgia nocturnusque vocat clamore Cithaeron. tandem his Aenean compellat vocibus ultro: 'dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide, tantum 305 posse nefas tacitusque mea decedere terra? nec te noster amor nec te data dextera quondam nec moritura tenet crudeli funere Dido? quin etiam hiberno moliri sidere classem et mediis properas Aquilonibus ire per altum, 310 crudelis? quid, si non arva aliena domosque ignotas peteres, et Troia antiqua maneret, Troia per undosum peteretur classibus aequor? mene fugis? per ego has lacrimas dextramque tuam te (quando aliud mihi iam miserae nihil ipsa reliqui), 315 per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos, si bene quid de te merui, fuit aut tibi quicquam dulce meum, miserere domus labentis et istam, oro, si quis adhuc precibus locus, exue mentem. te propter Libycae gentes Nomadumque tyranni 320 odere, infensi Tyrii; te propter eundem exstinctus pudor et, qua sola sidera adibam, fama prior. cui me moribundam deseris hospes (hoc solum nomen quoniam de coniuge restat)? quid moror? an mea Pygmalion dum moenia frater 325 destruat aut captam ducat Gaetulus Iarbas? saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset ante fugam suboles, si quis mihi parvulus aula luderet Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret, non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer.' 330 |
4.331-61
She had spoken. That man because of the warnings of Jupiter was holding his eyes unmoved and having struggled was repressing care under his heart. Finally he says these things: “I, queen, will never deny that you have deserved the very many things which you are able to enumerate by speaking, nor will it displease me to remember Elissa while I myself am remembering of myself, while the spirit rules these limbs. On behalf of this affair I will say these few things. Neither did I hope to hide this flight by trickery (do not imagine), nor did I ever hold forth the torches of a husband or come into these agreements. If the fates were allowing me to lead my life by my own auspices and to compose my cares by my own will, I would cherish first the Trojan city and the sweet remnants of my own people, the high roofs of Priam would remain, and I would have placed Pergama revived by my own hand for those conquered. But now Grynian Apollo, the Lycian lots have commanded me to seize great Italy, Italy; this is my love, this is my country. If the fortresses of Carthage and the sight of a Libyan city hold you, a Phoenician, what grudge is there for you that at last Trojans settle in the Ausonian land? It is right that we also seek foreign kingdoms. The troubled image of my father Anchises, as often as the night covers the lands in damp shadows, as often as the fiery stars rise, warns me in dreams and frightens me; the boy Ascanius and the injuries of his dear head frighten me, whom I am cheating from a kingdom of Hesperia and the fated fields. Now even a messenger of the gods sent by Jupiter himself (I swear on each head) has carried down commands through the swift breezes: I myself saw in the clear light the god entering the walls and I drank in his voice by these ears. Cease to burn both me and yourself by your laments; I do not follow Italy by my own will. |
4.331-61
Dixerat. ille Iovis monitis immota tenebat lumina et obnixus curam sub corde premebat. tandem pauca refert: 'ego te, quae plurima fando enumerare vales, numquam, regina, negabo promeritam, nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae 335 dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus. pro re pauca loquar. neque ego hanc abscondere furto speravi (ne finge) fugam, nec coniugis umquam praetendi taedas aut haec in foedera veni. me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam 340 auspiciis et sponte mea componere curas, urbem Troianam primum dulcisque meorum reliquias colerem, Priami tecta alta manerent, et recidiva manu posuissem Pergama victis. sed nunc Italiam magnam Gryneus Apollo, 345 Italiam Lyciae iussere capessere sortes; hic amor, haec patria est. si te Karthaginis arces Phoenissam Libycaeque aspectus detinet urbis, quae tandem Ausonia Teucros considere terra invidia est? et nos fas extera quaerere regna. 350 me patris Anchisae, quotiens umentibus umbris nox operit terras, quotiens astra ignea surgunt, admonet in somnis et turbida terret imago; me puer Ascanius capitisque iniuria cari, quem regno Hesperiae fraudo et fatalibus arvis. 355 nunc etiam interpres divum Iove missus ab ipso (testor utrumque caput) celeris mandata per auras detulit: ipse deum manifesto in lumine vidi intrantem muros vocemque his auribus hausi. desine meque tuis incendere teque querelis; 360 Italiam non sponte sequor.' |
4.659-705
She spoke, and having pressed her face into the couch she said, “We will die unavenged, but let us die. Thus, thus it pleases me to go under the shadows. Let the cruel Dardanian drink in this fire by his eyes from the deep and bear the omens of our death with him.” She had spoken, and her companions see that woman having collapsed on her sword among the middle of such words, and the sword foaming and hands sprinkled with blood. Shouting goes to the high halls: Rumor raves through the shaken city. The roofs groan with lamentations and groaning and female wailing, the upper air resounds with great shrieks, not otherwise than if all Carthage or ancient Tyre, the enemy having been let in, should rush down, and the raging flames should roll through both the roofs of men and of gods. Her sister defiling her face with nails and her chest with fists heard mindless and rushes frightened through the middle of them by a trembling course, and calls the dying one by name: “Was this that thing, sister? Were you attacking me with trickery? This funeral pyre of yours, the fires and altars were preparing this for me? What should I deserted complain of first? Did you dying reject your sister as a comrade? You should have called me to the same fates: the same pain and the same hour should have carried us both away by the sword. Even by these hands did I build this and by my voice did I call the paternal gods, thus so that I might be away, you having been placed, cruel one? You extinguished yourself and me, sister, both your people and the Sidonian fathers and your city. Grant it so that I might wash your wounds with waters and, if any final breath moreover wanders, I might catch it by my mouth.” Thus having spoken she had gone over the high steps, and having embraced her dying sister to her bosom she was cherishing her with groaning and was drying the black bloods with her clothing. That woman trying to raise her heavy eyes fails again; the wound pierced under her chest gurgles. Three times she lifted herself raising herself and leaning on her elbow, three times she was rolled over on the couch and with wandering eyes sought the light in the high sky and groaned, the light having been found. Then almighty Juno having pitied the long pain and difficult deaths sent down Iris from Olympus, who might loosen the struggling spirit and bound limbs. For because she was dying neither because of fate nor a deserved death, but wretched before the day and inflamed by sudden madness, Proserpina had not yet for that one removed the yellow hair from her head and condemned her life to Stygian Orcus. Therefore with yellow wings misty Iris flies down dragging a thousand different colors through the sky the sun facing and stands over her head. “I having been commanded bring this sacred hair to Dis and release you from this body”: thus she speaks and cuts her hair with her right hand, and all color departed at once and her life withdrew into the winds. |
4.659-705
dixit, et os impressa toro 'moriemur inultae, sed moriamur' ait. 'sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras. 660 hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto Dardanus, et nostrae secum ferat omina mortis.' dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro conlapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore spumantem sparsasque manus. it clamor ad alta 665 atria: concussam bacchatur Fama per urbem. lamentis gemituque et femineo ululatu tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus aether, non aliter quam si immissis ruat hostibus omnis Karthago aut antiqua Tyros, flammaeque furentes 670 culmina perque hominum volvantur perque deorum. audiit exanimis trepidoque exterrita cursu unguibus ora soror foedans et pectora pugnis per medios ruit, ac morientem nomine clamat: 'hoc illud, germana, fuit? me fraude petebas? 675 hoc rogus iste mihi, hoc ignes araeque parabant? quid primum deserta querar? comitemne sororem sprevisti moriens? eadem me ad fata vocasses, idem ambas ferro dolor atque eadem hora tulisset. his etiam struxi manibus patriosque vocavi 680 voce deos, sic te ut posita, crudelis, abessem? exstinxti te meque, soror, populumque patresque Sidonios urbemque tuam. date, vulnera lymphis abluam et, extremus si quis super halitus errat, ore legam.' sic fata gradus evaserat altos, 685 semianimemque sinu germanam amplexa fovebat cum gemitu atque atros siccabat veste cruores. illa gravis oculos conata attollere rursus deficit; infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus. ter sese attollens cubitoque adnixa levavit, 690 ter revoluta toro est oculisque errantibus alto quaesivit caelo lucem ingemuitque reperta. Tum Iuno omnipotens longum miserata dolorem difficilisque obitus Irim demisit Olympo quae luctantem animam nexosque resolveret artus. 695 nam quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat, sed misera ante diem subitoque accensa furore, nondum illi flavum Proserpina vertice crinem abstulerat Stygioque caput damnaverat Orco. ergo Iris croceis per caelum roscida pennis 700 mille trahens varios adverso sole colores devolat et supra caput astitit. 'hunc ego Diti sacrum iussa fero teque isto corpore solvo': sic ait et dextra crinem secat, omnis et una dilapsus calor atque in ventos vita recessit. 705 |