Authors: Virgil
Sometimes she would take Aeneas through the middle of
Carthage, showing him the wealth of Sidon and the city waiting
for him, and she would be on the point of speaking her mind to
him but checked the words on her lips. Sometimes, as the day
was ending, she would call for more feasting and ask in her
infatuation to hear once more about the sufferings of Troy and
80 once more she would hang on his lips as he told the story. Then,
after they had parted, when the fading moon was dimming her
light and the setting stars seemed to speak of sleep, alone and
wretched in her empty house she would cling to the couch
Aeneas had left. There she would lie long after he had gone and
she would see him and hear him when he was not there for her
to see or hear. Or she would keep back Ascanius and take him
on her knee, overcome by the likeness to his father, trying to
beguile the love she could not declare. The towers she was
building ceased to rise. Her men gave up the exercise of war and
were no longer busy at the harbours and fortifications making
them safe from attack. All the work that had been started, the
threatening ramparts of the great walls and the cranes soaring
to the sky, all stood idle.
90 As soon as Saturnian Juno, the dear wife of Jupiter, realized
that Dido was infected by this sickness and that passion was
sweeping away all thought for her reputation, she went and
spoke to Venus: ‘You are covering yourselves with glory. These
are the supreme spoils you are bringing home, you and that boy
of yours – and what a noble and notable specimen of the divine
he is – one woman has been overthrown by the arts of two gods!
I do not fail to see that you have long been afraid of our walls
and looked askance at the homes of lofty Carthage. But how is
this going to end? Where is all this rivalry going to lead us now?
100 Why do we not instead agree to arrange a marriage and live at
peace for ever? You have achieved what you have set your whole
heart on: Dido is passionately in love and the madness is working
through her bones. So let us make one people of them and share
authority equally over them. Let us allow her to become the
slave of a Phrygian husband and to hand over her Tyrians to
you as a dowry!’
Venus realized this was all pretence in order to divert the
empire of Italy to the shores of Libya, and made this response
to the Queen of Heaven: ‘Who would be so insane as to reject
such an offer and choose instead to contend with you in war? If
110 only a happy outcome could attend the plan you describe! But
I am at the mercy of the Fates and do not know whether Jupiter
would wish there to be one city for the Tyrians and those who
have come from Troy or whether he would approve the merging
of their peoples and the making of alliances. You are his wife.
It could not be wrong for you to approach him with prayers
and test his purpose. You proceed and I shall follow.’
‘That will be my task,’ replied Juno. ‘But now listen and I
shall explain in a few words how the first part of the plan may
be carried out. Aeneas and poor Dido are preparing to go
hunting together in the forest as soon as tomorrow’s sun first
rises and the rays of the Titan unveil the world. When the beaters
120 are scurrying about and putting nets round copses, I shall pour
down a dark storm of rain and hail on them and shake the
whole sky with thunder. Their companions will run away and
be lost to sight in a pall of darkness. Dido and the leader of the
Trojans will both take refuge in the same cave. I shall be there,
and if your settled will is with me in this, I shall join them in
lasting marriage and make her his. This will be their wedding.’
This was what Juno asked and Venus of Cythera did not refuse
her but nodded in assent. She saw through the deception and
laughed.
Meanwhile Aurora rose from the ocean and when her light
130 came up into the sky, a picked band of men left the gates
of Carthage carrying nets, wide-meshed and fine-meshed, and
broad-bladed hunting spears, and with them came Massylian
horsemen at the gallop and packs of keen-scented hounds. The
queen was lingering in her chamber and the Carthaginian leaders
waited at her door. There, resplendent in its purple and gold,
stood her loud-hoofed, high-mettled horse champing its foaming
bit. She came at last with a great entourage thronging round
her. She was wearing a Sidonian cloak with an embroidered
hem. Her quiver was of gold. Gold was the clasp that gathered
up her hair and her purple tunic was fastened with a golden
140 brooch. Nor was the Trojan company slow to move forward,
Ascanius with them in high glee. Aeneas himself marched at
their head, the most splendid of them all, as he brought his men
to join the queen’s. He was like Apollo leaving his winter home
in Lycia and the waters of the river Xanthus to visit his mother
at Delos, there to start the dancing again, while all around the
altars gather noisy throngs of Cretans and Dryopes and painted
Agathyrsians; the god himself strides the ridges of Mount
Cynthus, his streaming hair caught up and shaped into a soft
garland of green and twined round a band of gold, and the
150 arrows sound on his shoulders – with no less vigour moved
Aeneas and his face shone with equal radiance and grace. When
they had climbed high into the mountains above the tracks of
men where the animals make their lairs, suddenly some wild
goats were disturbed on the top of a crag and came running
down from the ridge. Then on the other side there were deer
running across the open plain. They had gathered into a herd
and were raising the dust as they left the high ground far behind
them. Down in the middle of the valley young Ascanius was
riding a lively horse and revelling in it, galloping past the deer
and the goats and praying that among these flocks of feeble
creatures he could come across a foaming boar or that a tawny
lion would come down from the mountains.
160 While all this was happening a great rumble of thunder began
to stir in the sky. Down came the rain and the hail, and Tyrian
huntsmen, men of Troy and Ascanius of the line of Dardanus
and grandson of Venus, scattered in fright all over the fields,
making for shelter as rivers of water came rushing down the
mountains. Dido and the leader of the Trojans took refuge
together in the same cave. The sign was first given by Earth and
by Juno as matron of honour. Fires flashed and the heavens
were witness to the marriage while nymphs wailed on the mountain
170 tops. This day was the beginning of her death, the first cause
of all her sufferings. From now on Dido gave no thought to
appearance or her good name and no longer kept her love as a
secret in her own heart, but called it marriage, using the word
to cover her guilt.
Rumour did not take long to go through the great cities of
Libya. Of all the ills there are, Rumour is the swiftest. She thrives
on movement and gathers strength as she goes. From small and
timorous beginnings she soon lifts herself up into the air, her
feet still on the ground and her head hidden in the clouds. They
180 say she is the last daughter of Mother Earth who bore her in
rage against the gods, a sister for Coeus and Enceladus. Rumour
is quick of foot and swift on the wing, a huge and horrible
monster, and under every feather of her body, strange to tell,
there lies an eye that never sleeps, a mouth and a tongue that
are never silent and an ear always pricked. By night she flies
between earth and sky, squawking through the darkness, and
never lowers her eyelids in sweet sleep. By day she keeps watch
perched on the tops of gables or on high towers and causes fear
in great cities, holding fast to her lies and distortions as often as
190 she tells the truth. At that time she was taking delight in plying
the tribes with all manner of stories, fact and fiction mixed in
equal parts: how Aeneas the Trojan had come to Carthage and
the lovely Dido had thought fit to take him as her husband; how
they were even now indulging themselves and keeping each
other warm the whole winter through, forgetting about their
kingdoms and becoming the slaves of lust. When the foul goddess
had spread this gossip all around on the lips of men, she
then steered her course to king Iarbas to set his mind alight and
fuel his anger.
Jupiter had ravished a Garamantian nymph and Iarbas was
200 his son. Over his broad realm he had erected a hundred huge
temples to the god and set up a hundred altars on which he
had consecrated ever-burning fires to keep undying holy vigil,
enriching the earth with the blood of slaughtered victims and
draping the doors with garlands of all kinds of flowers. Iarbas,
they say, was driven out of his mind with anger when he heard
this bitter news. Coming into the presence of the gods before
their altars in a passion of rage, he offered up prayer upon
prayer to Jupiter, raising his hands palms upward in supplication:
‘Jupiter All-powerful, who now receive libations of wine
from the Moorish people feasting on their embroidered couches,
do you see all this? Or are we fools to be afraid of you, Father,
210 when you hurl your thunderbolts? Are they unaimed, these fires
in the clouds that cow our spirits? Is there no meaning in the
murmur of your thunder? This woman was wandering about
our land and we allowed her at a price to found her little city.
We gave her a piece of shore to plough and laid down the laws
of the place for her and she has spurned our offer of marriage
and taken Aeneas into her kingdom as lord and master, and
now this second Paris, with eunuchs in attendance and hair
dripping with perfume and Maeonian bonnet tied under his
chin, is enjoying what he has stolen while we bring gifts to
temples we think are yours and keep warm with our worship
the reputation of a useless god.’
220 As Iarbas prayed these prayers with his hand on the altar, the
All-powerful god heard him and turned his eyes towards the
royal city and the lovers who had lost all recollection of their
good name. Then he spoke to Mercury and gave him these
instructions: ‘Up with you, my son. Call for the Zephyrs, glide
down on your wings and speak to the Trojan leader who now
lingers in Tyrian Carthage without a thought for the cities
granted him by the Fates. Take these words of mine down to
him through the swift winds and tell him that this is not the
man promised us by his mother, the loveliest of the goddesses.
It was not for this that she twice rescued him from the swords
230 of the Greeks. She told us he would be the man to rule an Italy
pregnant with empire and clamouring for war, passing the high
blood of Teucer down to his descendants and subduing the
whole world under his laws. If the glory of such a destiny does
not fire his heart, if he does not strive to win fame for himself,
ask him if he grudges the citadel of Rome to his son Ascanius.
What does he have in mind? What does he hope to achieve
dallying among a hostile people and sparing not a thought for
the Lavinian fields and his descendants yet to be born in
Ausonia? He must sail. That is all there is to say. Let that be
our message.’
Jupiter had finished speaking and Mercury prepared to obey
the command of his mighty father. First of all he fastened on his
240 feet the golden sandals whose wings carry him high above land
and sea as swiftly as the wind. Then, taking the rod which
summons pale spirits out of Orcus or sends them down to
gloomy Tartarus, which gives sleep and takes it away and opens
the eyes of men in death, he drove the winds before him and
floated through the turbulent clouds till in his flight he saw the
crest and steep flanks of Atlas whose rocky head props up the
sky. This is the Atlas whose head, covered in pine trees and
250 beaten by wind and rain, never loses its dark cap of cloud. The
snow falls upon his shoulders and lies there, then rivers of water
roll down the old man’s chin and his bristling beard is stiff with
ice. This is where Mercury the god of Mount Cyllene first
landed, fanning out his wings to check his flight. From here he
let his weight take him plummeting to the wave tops, like a bird
skimming the sea as it flies along the shore, among the rocks
where it finds the fish. So flew the Cyllenian god between earth
and sky to the sandy beaches of Libya, cleaving the winds as he
swooped down from the mountain that had fathered his own
mother, Maia.