Authors: Virgil
These were Dido’s pleas. These were the griefs her unhappy
sister brought and brought again. But no griefs moved Aeneas.
440 He heard but did not heed her words. The Fates forbade it and
God blocked his ears to all appeals. Just as the north winds off
the Alps vie with one another to uproot the mighty oak whose
timber has hardened over long years of life, blowing upon it
from this side and from that and howling through it; the trunk
feels the shock and the foliage from its head covers the ground,
but it holds on to the rocks with roots plunged as deep into the
world below as its crown soars towards the winds of heaven –
just so the hero Aeneas was buffeted by all this pleading on this
side and on that, and felt the pain deep in his mighty heart but
his mind remained unmoved and the tears rolled in vain.
450 Then it was that unhappy Dido prayed for death. She had
seen her destiny and was afraid. She could bear no longer to
look up to the bowl of heaven, and her resolve to leave the
light was strengthened when she was laying offerings on the
incense-breathing altars and saw to her horror the consecrated
milk go black and the wine, as she poured it, turn to filthy gore.
No one else saw it and she did not tell even her sister. There
was more. She had in her palace a marble shrine dedicated to
Sychaeus, who had been her husband. This she used to honour
above all things, hanging it with white fleeces and sacred
460 branches. When the darkness of night covered the earth, she
thought she heard, coming from this shrine, the voice of her
husband and the words he uttered as he called to her, and all
the while the lonely owl kept up its long dirge upon the roof,
drawing out its doleful song of death. And there was more.
She kept remembering the predictions of ancient prophets that
terrified her with their dreadful warnings, and as she slept
Aeneas himself would drive her relentlessly in her madness, and
she was always alone and desolate, always going on a long road
without companions, looking for her Tyrians in an empty land.
She would be like Pentheus in his frenzy when he was seeing
470 columns of Furies and a double sun and two cities of Thebes; or
like Orestes, son of Agamemnon, driven in flight across the stage
by his own mother armed with her torches and black snakes,
while the avenging Furies sat at the door.
And so Dido was overwhelmed by grief and possessed by
madness. She decided to die and planned in her mind the time
and the means. She went and spoke to her sorrowing sister with
her face composed to conceal her plan and her brow bright with
hope. ‘My dear Anna, rejoice with your sister. I have found a
480 way to bring him back to me in love or else to free me from him.
Near Oceanus and the setting of the sun is the home of the
Ethiopians, the most distant part of our earth, where mightiest
Atlas turns on his shoulders the axis of the sky, studded with its
burning stars. From here, they say, there comes a Massylian
priestess who was the guardian of the temple of the Hesperides.
She used to keep watch over the branches of the sacred tree and
bring rich foods for the serpent, spreading the oozing honey and
sprinkling the sleep-bringing seeds of the poppy. She undertakes
to free by her spells the mind of anyone she wishes and to send
cruel cares to others, to stop the flow of rivers and turn stars
490 back in their courses. At night she raises the spirits of the dead
and you will see the ash trees coming down from the mountains
and hear the earth bellow beneath your feet. I call the gods and
your own sweet self to witness, O my dearest sister, that it is
not by my own will that I have recourse to magic arts. Go now,
telling no one, and build up a pyre under the open sky in the
inner courtyard of the palace and lay on it the armour this
traitor has left hanging on the walls of my room, everything
there is of his remaining, and the marriage bed on which I was
destroyed. I want to wipe out everything that can remind me of
such a man and that is what the priestess advises.’
500 She spoke, and spoke no more. Her face grew pale, but Anna
did not understand that these strange rites were a pretence and
that her sister meant to die. She had no inkling that such madness
had seized Dido, no reason to fear that she would suffer more
than she had at the death of Sychaeus. She did what she was
asked.
But the queen knew what the future held. As soon as the pine
torches and the holm-oak were hewn and the huge pyre raised
under the open sky in the very heart of the palace, she hung the
place with garlands and crowned the pyre with funeral branches.
Then she laid on a bed an effigy of Aeneas with his sword and
everything of his he had left behind. There were altars all around
510 and the priestess with hair streaming called with a voice of
thunder upon three hundred gods, Erebus, Chaos, triple Hecate
and virgin Diana of the three faces. She had also sprinkled water
to represent the spring of Lake Avernus. She also sought out
potent herbs with a milk of black poison in their rich stems and
harvested them by moonlight with a bronze sickle. She found,
too, a love charm, torn from the forehead of a new-born foal
before the mare could bite it off. Dido herself took meal in her
hands and worshipped, standing by the altars with one foot
freed from all fastenings and her dress unbound, calling before
520 she died to gods and stars to be witnesses to her fate and praying
to whatever just and mindful power there is that watches over
lovers who have been betrayed.
It was night and weary living things were peacefully taking
their rest upon the earth. The woods and wild waves of ocean
had been stilled. The stars were rolling on in mid-course. Silence
reigned over field and flock and all the gaily coloured birds were
laid to sleep in the quiet of night, those that haunt broad lakes
and those that crowd the thickets dotted over the countryside.
530 But not Dido. Her heart was broken and she found no relief in
sleep. Her eyes and mind would not accept the night, but her
torment redoubled and her raging love came again and again in
great surging tides of anger. These are the thoughts she dwelt
upon, this is what she kept turning over in her heart: ‘So then,
what am I to do? Shall I go back to those who once wooed me
and see if they will have me? I would be a laughing stock. Shall
I beg a husband from the Numidians after I have so often
scorned their offers of marriage? Shall I then go with the Trojan
fleet and do whatever the Trojans ask? I suppose they would be
delighted to take me after all the help I have given them! They
are sure to remember what I have done and be properly grateful!
540 No: even if I were willing to go with them, they will never allow
a woman they hate to come aboard their proud ships. There is
nothing left for you, Dido. Do you not know, have you not yet
noticed, the treacheries of the race of Laomedon? But if they did
agree to take me, what then? Shall I go alone into exile with a
fleet of jubilant sailors? Or shall I go in force with all my Tyrian
bands crowding at my side? It was not easy for me to uproot
them from their homes in the city of Sidon. How can I make
them take to the sea again and order them to hoist sail into the
winds? No, you must die. That is what you have deserved. Let
the sword be the cure for your suffering. You could not bear,
Anna, to see your sister weeping. When the madness was taking
me, you were the first to lay this load upon my back and put me
550 at the mercy of my enemy. I was not allowed to live my life
without marriage, in innocence, like a wild creature, and be
untouched by such anguish as this – I have not kept faith with
the ashes of Sychaeus.’
While these words of grief were bursting from Dido’s heart,
Aeneas was now resolved to leave and was taking his rest on the
high stern of his ship with everything ready for sailing. There,
as he slept, appeared before him the shape of the god, coming
to him with the same features as before and once again giving
advice, in every way like Mercury, the voice, the radiance, the
560 golden hair, the youthful beauty of his body: ‘Son of the goddess,
how can you lie there sleeping at a time like this? Do you not
see danger all around you at this moment? Have you lost your
wits? Do you not hear the west wind blowing off the shore?
Having decided to die, she is turning her schemes over in her
mind and planning some desperate act, stirring up the storm
tides of her anger. Why do you not go now with all speed
while speed you may? If morning comes and finds you loitering
here, you will soon see her ships churning the sea and deadly
torches blazing and the shore seething with flames. Come
then! No more delay! Women are unstable creatures, always
changing.’
570 When he had spoken he melted into the blackness of night
and Aeneas was immediately awake, terrified by the sudden
apparition. There was no more rest for his men, as he roused
them to instant action: ‘Wake up and sit to your benches,’ he
shouted. ‘Let out the sails and quick about it. A god has been
sent down again from the heights of heaven – I have just seen
him – spurring us on to cut our plaited ropes and run from here.
We are following you, O blessed god, whoever you are. Once
again we obey your commands and rejoice. Stand beside us and
graciously help us. Put favouring stars in the sky for us.’
580 As he spoke he drew his sword from its scabbard like a flash
of lightning and struck the mooring cables with the naked steel.
In that instant they were all seized by the same ardour and set
to, hauling and hustling. The shore was emptied. The sea could
not be seen for ships. Bending to the oars they whipped up the
foam and swept the blue surface of the sea.
Aurora was soon leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus and
beginning to sprinkle new light upon the earth. The queen saw
from her high tower the first light whitening and the fleet moving
out to sea with its sails square to the following winds. She saw
the deserted shore and harbour and not an oarsman in sight.
590 Three times and more she beat her lovely breasts and tore her
golden hair, crying, ‘O Jupiter! Will this intruder just go, and
make a mockery of our kingdom? Why are they not running to
arms and coming from all over the city to pursue him? And
others should be rushing ships out of the docks. Move! Bring
fire and quick about it! Give out the weapons! Heave on the
oars! – What am I saying? Where am I? What madness is this
that changes my resolve? Poor Dido, you have done wrong and
it is only now coming home to you. You should have thought
of this when you were offering him your sceptre. So much for
his right hand! So much for his pledge, the man who is supposed
to be carrying with him the gods of his native land and to have
600 lifted his weary old father up on to his shoulders! Could I not
have taken him and torn him limb from limb and scattered the
pieces in the sea? Could I not have put his men to the sword,
and Ascanius, too, and served his flesh at his father’s table? I
know the outcome of a battle would have been in doubt. So it
would have been in doubt! Was I, who am about to die, afraid
of anyone? I would have taken torches to his camp and filled
the decks of his ships with fire, destroying the son and the father
and the whole Trojan people before throwing myself on the
flames. O heavenly Sun whose fires pass in review all the works
of this earth, and you, Juno, who have been witness and party
to all the anguish of this love, and Hecate whose name is heard
in nightly howling at crossroads all over our cities, and the
610 avenging Furies and you, the gods of dying Dido, listen to these
words, give a hearing to my sufferings, for they are great, and
heed my prayers. If that monster of wickedness must reach
harbour, if he must come to shore and that is what the Fates of
Jupiter demand, if the boundary stone is set and may not be
moved, then let him be harried in war by a people bold in arms;
may he be driven from his own land and torn from the embrace
of Iulus; may he have to beg for help and see his innocent people
dying. Then, after he has submitted to the terms of an unjust
peace, let him not enjoy the kingdom he longs for or the life he
620 longs to lead, but let him fall before his time and lie unburied
on the broad sand. This is my prayer. With these last words I
pour out my life’s blood. As for you, my Tyrians, you must
pursue with hatred the whole line of his descendants in time to
come. Make that your offering to my shade. Let there be no
love between our peoples and no treaties. Arise from my dead
bones, O my unknown avenger, and harry the race of Dardanus
with fire and sword wherever they may settle, now and in the
future, whenever our strength allows it. I pray that we may
stand opposed, shore against shore, sea against sea and sword
against sword. Let there be war between the nations and between
their sons for ever.’