Authors: Virgil
630 Even as she spoke Dido was casting about in her mind how
she could most quickly put an end to the life she hated. She then
addressed these few words to Sychaeus’ nurse, Barce, for the
black ashes of her own now lay far away in her ancient homeland:
‘My dear nurse, send my sister Anna quickly to me, telling
her to sprinkle her body with river water and take with her the
animals and the other offerings as instructed. That is how she is
to come, and your own forehead must be veiled with a sacred
ribbon. I have prepared with due care offerings to Jupiter of the
Styx and I am now of a mind to complete them and put an end
640 to the pain of love by giving the pyre of this Trojan to the
flames.’
The old woman bustled away leaving Dido full of wild fears
at the thought of what she was about to do. Her cheeks trembling
and flecked with red, her bloodshot eyes rolling, she was pale
with the pallor of approaching death. Rushing through the door
into the inner courtyard, she climbed the high pyre in a frenzy
and unsheathed the Trojan sword for which she had asked –
though not for this purpose. Then her eyes lit on the Trojan
clothes and the bed she knew so well, and pausing for a moment
650
to weep and to remember, she lay down on the bed and spoke
these last words: ‘These are the possessions of Aeneas which I
so loved while God and the Fates allowed it. Let them receive
my spirit and free me from this anguish. I have lived my life and
completed the course that Fortune has set before me, and now
my great spirit will go beneath the earth. I have founded a
glorious city and lived to see the building of my own walls. I
have avenged my husband and punished his enemy who was my
brother. I would have been happy, more than happy, if only
Trojan keels had never grounded on our shores.’ She then buried
her face for a moment in the bed and cried: ‘We shall die
660 unavenged. But let us die. This, this, is how it pleases me to go
down among the shades. Let the Trojan who knows no pity
gaze his fill upon this fire from the high seas and take with him
the omen of my death.’
So she spoke and while speaking fell upon the sword. Her
attendants saw her fall. They saw the blood foaming on the
blade and staining her hands, and filled the high walls of the
palace with their screaming. Rumour ran raving like a Bacchant
through the stricken city. The palace rang with lamentation and
groaning and the wailing of women and the heavens gave back
the sound of mourning. It was as though the enemy were within
670 the gates and the whole of Carthage or old Tyre were falling
with flames raging and rolling over the roofs of men and gods.
Anna heard and was beside herself. She came rushing in terror
through the middle of the crowd, tearing her face and beating
her breast, calling out her sister’s name as she lay dying: ‘So this
is what it meant? It was all to deceive your sister! This was the
purpose of the pyre and the flames and the altars! You have
abandoned me. I do not know how to begin to reproach you.
Did you not want your sister’s company when you were dying?
You could have called me to share your fate and we would both
680 have died in the same moment of the same grief. To think it was
my hands that built the pyre, and my voice that called upon the
gods of our fathers, so that you could be so cruel as to lay
yourself down here to die without me. It is not only yourself
you have destroyed, but also your sister and your people, their
leaders who came with you from Sidon and the city you have
built. Give me water. I shall wash her wounds and catch any
last lingering breath with my lips.’
Saying these words, she had climbed to the top of the pyre
and was now holding her dying sister to her breast and cherishing
her, sobbing as she dried the dark blood with her own
dress. Once more Dido tried to raise her heavy eyes, but failed.
690 The wound hissed round the sword beneath her breast. Three
times she raised herself on her elbow. Three times she fell back
on the bed. With wavering eyes she looked for light in the heights
of heaven and groaned when she found it.
All-powerful Juno then took pity on her long anguish and
difficult death and sent Iris down from Olympus to free her
struggling spirit and loosen the fastenings of her limbs. For since
she was dying not by the decree of Fate or by her own deserts
but pitiably and before her time, in a sudden blaze of madness,
Proserpina had not yet taken a lock of her golden hair or
700 consigned her to Stygian Orcus. So Iris, bathed in dew, flew
down on her saffron wings, trailing all her colours across the
sky opposite the sun, and hovered over Dido’s head to say: ‘I
am commanded to take this lock of hair as a solemn offering to
Dis, and now I free you from your body.’
With these words she raised her hand and cut the hair, and
as she cut, all warmth went out of Dido’s body and her life
passed into the winds.
Meanwhile Aeneas, without slackening in his resolve, kept his
fleet on course in mid-ocean, as he cut through waves darkened
by the north wind and looked back at the walls of Carthage,
glowing now in the flames of poor Dido’s pyre. No one understood
what had lit such a blaze, but since they well knew what
bitter suffering is caused when a great love is desecrated and
what a woman is capable of when driven to madness, the minds
of the Trojans were filled with dark foreboding. The ships were
now in mid-ocean, with no land in sight. All around was sky
10 and all around was sea, when there came a cloud like lead and
stood over Aeneas bringing storm and black night and the waves
shivered in the darkness. Even Palinurus himself called out from
the high stern: ‘What can be the meaning of these great clouds
filling the sky? What have you in mind for us, Father Neptune?’
Not till then did he give orders to shorten sail and bend to the
stout oars. Then, setting the canvas aslant to the winds, he
turned to Aeneas and said: ‘Great-hearted Aeneas, not if Jupiter
himself gave me his guarantee, would I expect to reach Italy
20 under a sky like this. The wind has changed and is freshening,
howling across us from the west where the sky is black. We
cannot struggle against it or make any real headway. Since
Fortune is too strong for us to resist, let us follow her. Let us
change course and go where she calls. I do not think we are far
from the safety of the shores of your brother Eryx and the
harbours of Sicily, if only my memory serves me right, and I
plot our course back by the stars I observed on the way out.’
The good Aeneas then replied: ‘That is what the wind wants.
I have seen it myself for some time and watched you fighting it
to no effect. Change course then and adjust the sails. There is
no land that would please me more, nowhere I would rather put
30 in with our weary ships, than the place that gives a home to the
Trojan Acestes and holds the bones of my father Anchises in the
lap of earth.’ As soon as this was said they set course for harbour
and the wind blew from astern and stretched their sails. The
fleet raced over the sea and the sailors were delighted to have
their prows pointing at last towards a beach they knew.
Far away, on the top of a high mountain, Acestes saw his
friends’ ships arriving and was amazed. He came down to meet
them bristling with javelins and the shaggy fur of a Libyan
she-bear. Acestes had been born of a Trojan mother to the
river-god Crinisus and he had not forgotten his ancestry, but
40 welcomed the returning Trojans and gladly received them with
all the treasures of the countryside, comforting their weariness
with his loving care.
As soon as the next day had risen bright in the east and put
the stars to flight, Aeneas called his men from all along the shore
to a council and addressed them from a raised mound: ‘Great
sons of Dardanus, who draw your high blood from the gods,
the months have passed and the cycle of the year is now complete
since we laid in the ground the bones that were all that remained
of my divine father and consecrated an altar of mourning. This
is now the day, if I am right, which I shall always find bitter and
50 always hold in honour, for so the gods have willed. If I were
spending this day as an exile in the Syrtes among the Gaetulians,
or if I had been caught in Greek waters and were a prisoner in
the city of Mycenae, I would still offer up these annual vows,
perform these processions in ritual order and lay due offerings
on altars. Today we find ourselves near the very place where the
bones and ashes of my father lie (I for one do not believe this is
without the wish and will of the gods), and the sea has taken us
into this friendly harbour. Come then, let us all celebrate these
60 rites with joy. Let us ask for favouring winds and may it be his
will that we found a city and offer him this worship in it every
year in temples dedicated to his name. Trojan-born Acestes is
giving you two head of oxen for each ship. Call to your feast
the Penates, the gods of your ancestral home, and those of your
host Acestes. After all this, when in nine days the dawn, god
willing, lifts up her life-giving light among men and the round
earth is revealed in her rays, I shall hold games for the Trojans,
first a race for the ships, then for those who are fleet of foot,
and a contest for those who take the arena in the boldness of
their strength to compete with the javelin or the flying arrow,
70 for those too who dare to do battle in rawhide gauntlets. Let
them all come and see who wins the prizes of victory. Keep
holy silence, all of you, and crown your heads with shoots of
living green.’
When he had spoken he shaded his temples with a garland of
his mother’s myrtle. So did Helymus. So did old Acestes. So did
the boy Ascanius and all the men, while Aeneas, and many
thousands with him, left the council and walked to the tomb in
the middle of this great escort. Here he offered a libation, duly
pouring two goblets of unmixed wine upon the ground with
two of fresh milk and two of sacrificial blood. Then, scattering
80 red flowers, he spoke these words: ‘Once more I greet you, my
divine father. I come to greet your sacred ashes, the spirit and
the shade of a father rescued in vain. Without you I must search
for the land of Italy, for the fields decreed by Fate and for the
Thybris of Ausonia, whatever that may be.’
When he had finished speaking, a snake slithered from under
the shrine. Moving gently forward in seven great curves and
seven great coils, it glided between the altars and twined itself
round the tomb, its back flecked with blue and its scales flashing
mottled gold like the thousand different colours cast by a rainbow
90 on the clouds opposite the sun. Aeneas was struck dumb
at the sight. At last it dragged its long length among the polished
bowls and goblets and tasted the offerings, then, harming no
one, it left the altars where it had fed and went back under the
tomb. Encouraged by this, Aeneas renewed the rites he had
begun for his father, not knowing whether to think of the snake
as the genius of the place or as his father’s attendant spirit. He
slew a pair of yearling sheep as ritual prescribed, two swine,
and as many black-backed bullocks, pouring wine from bowls
and calling repeatedly upon the spirit of great Anchises and his
100 shade released from Acheron. His comrades, too, each brought
what gifts he could and gladly offered them. They heaped the
altars and slaughtered bullocks while others laid out bronze
vessels in due order, and all over the grass there was lighting of
fires under spits and roasting of flesh.