Aeneid IV.296-396
Turns out trying to ghost her was a bad idea.
But the queen sensed his tricks (who can deceive a lover?)
and was first to anticipate future events, fearful even of safety.
That same impious Rumour brought her madness:
they are fitting out the fleet and planning a journey.
Her mind weakened, she raves, and, on fire, runs wild
through the city like a Maenad, thrilled by the shaken emblems
of the god, when the biennial festival rouses her, and, hearing the Bacchic cry,
Mount Cithaeron summons her by night with its noise.1
Of her own accord she finally reproaches Aeneas in these words:
“Faithless one, did you really think you could hide
such wickedness and vanish from my land in silence?
Will my love not hold you, nor the pledge I once gave you,
nor the promise that Dido will die a cruel death?
Even in winter do you labour over your ships, cruel one,
so as to sail the high seas at the height of the northern gales?
Why? If you were not seeking foreign lands and unknown
settlements, but ancient Troy still stood, would Troy
be sought out by your ships in wave-torn seas?
Is it me you run from? I beg you, by these tears, by your own
right hand (since I’ve left myself no other recourse in my misery),
by our union, by the marriage we have begun,
if ever I deserved well of you, or anything of me
was sweet to you, pity this ruined house, and if
there is any room left for prayer, change your mind.
The Libyan peoples and Numidian rulers hate me because of you:
my Tyrians are hostile: because of you all shame too is lost,
the reputation I had, by which alone I might reach the stars.
My guest (since that’s all that is left me from the name of husband,
to whom do you relinquish me, a dying woman?
Why do I stay? Until Pygmalion, my brother, destroys
the city, or Iarbas the Gaetulian takes me captive?
If I’d at least conceived a child of yours
before you fled, if a little Aeneas were playing
about my halls, whose face might still recall yours,
I’d not feel myself so utterly deceived and forsaken.”
She had spoken. He set his gaze firmly on Jupiter’s
warnings, and hid his pain steadfastly in his heart.
He replied briefly at last: “O queen, I will never deny
that you deserve the most that can be spelt out in speech,
nor will I regret my thoughts of you, Elissa2,
while memory itself is mine and breath controls these limbs.
I’ll speak about the reality a little. I did not expect to conceal
my departure by stealth (don’t think that), nor have I ever
held the marriage torch or entered into that pact.
If the fates had allowed me to live my life under my own
auspices and attend to my own concerns as I wished,
I should first have cared for the city of Troy and the sweet relics
of my family, Priam’s high roofs would remain, and I’d have
recreated Pergama with my own hands for the defeated.
But now it is Italy that Apollo of Grynium3,
Italy that the Lycian oracles order me to take:
that is my desire, that is my country. If the turrets of Carthage
and the sight of your Libyan city occupy you, a Phoenician,
why then begrudge the Trojans their settling of Ausonia’s lands?
It is right for us too to search out a foreign kingdom.
As often as night cloaks the earth with dew-wet shadows,
as often as the burning constellations rise, the troubled image
of my father Anchises warns and terrifies me in dream:
about my son Ascanius and the wrong to so dear a person,
whom I cheat of a Hesperian kingdom and pre-destined fields.
Now even the messenger of the gods, sent by Jupiter himself,
(I swear it on both our heads), has brought the command
on the swift breeze: I saw the god himself in broad daylight
enter the city and these very ears drank of his words.
Stop rousing yourself and me with your complaints:
I do not take course for Italy of my own free will.”
As he was speaking she gazed at him with hostility,
casting her eyes here and there, considering the whole man
with a silent stare, and then, incensed, she spoke:
“Deceiver, your mother was no goddess, nor was Dardanus
the father of your race: harsh Caucasus engendered you
on the rough crags, and Hyrcanian tigers nursed you.4
Why pretend now, or restrain myself waiting for something worse?
Did he groan at my weeping? Did he look at me?
Did he shed tears in defeat or pity his lover?
What is there to say after this? Now neither greatest Juno, indeed,
nor Jupiter, son of Saturn, are gazing at this with friendly eyes.
Nowhere is truth safe. I welcomed him as a castaway on the shore,
a beggar, and foolishly gave away a part of my kingdom.
I saved his lost fleet and his friends from death.
Ah! Driven by the Furies, I burn: now prophetic Apollo,
now the Lycian oracles, now even a divine messenger sent
by Jove himself carries his orders through the air.
This is the work of the gods indeed, this is a concern to trouble
their calm. I do not hold you back or refute your words:
go, seek Italy on the winds, find your kingdom over the waves.
Yet if the virtuous gods have power, I hope that you
will drain the cup of suffering among the reefs, and call out Dido’s
name again and again. Absent, I’ll follow you with dark fires,
and when icy death has divided my soul and body, my ghost
will be present everywhere. Cruel one, you’ll be punished.
I’ll hear of it: that news will reach me in the depths of Hades.”
Saying this, she broke off her speech mid-flight, and fled
the light in pain, turning from his eyes and going,
leaving him fearful and hesitant, ready to say more.
Her servants received her and carried her failing body
to her marble chamber, and laid her on her bed.
But dutiful Aeneas, though he desired to ease her sadness
by comforting her and to turn aside pain with words, still,
with much sighing and a heart shaken by the strength of her love,
followed the divine command and returned to the fleet.
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
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.'
Talia dicentem iamdudum aversa tuetur
huc illuc volvens oculos totumque pererrat
luminibus tacitis et sic accensa profatur:
'nec tibi diva parens generis nec Dardanus auctor, 365
perfide, sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres.
nam quid dissimulo aut quae me ad maiora reservo?
num fletu ingemuit nostro? num lumina flexit?
num lacrimas victus dedit aut miseratus amantem est? 370
quae quibus anteferam? iam iam nec maxima Iuno
nec Saturnius haec oculis pater aspicit aequis.
nusquam tuta fides. eiectum litore, egentem
excepi et regni demens in parte locavi.
amissam classem, socios a morte reduxi 375
(heu furiis incensa feror!): nunc augur Apollo,
nunc Lyciae sortes, nunc et Iove missus ab ipso
interpres divum fert horrida iussa per auras.
scilicet is superis labor est, ea cura quietos
sollicitat. neque te teneo neque dicta refello: 380
i, sequere Italiam ventis, pete regna per undas.
spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,
supplicia hausurum scopulis et nomine Dido
saepe vocaturum. sequar atris ignibus absens
et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus, 385
omnibus umbra locis adero. dabis, improbe, poenas.
audiam et haec Manis veniet mihi fama sub imos.'
his medium dictis sermonem abrumpit et auras
aegra fugit seque ex oculis avertit et aufert,
linquens multa metu cunctantem et multa parantem 390
dicere. suscipiunt famulae conlapsaque membra
marmoreo referunt thalamo stratisque reponunt.
At pius Aeneas, quamquam lenire dolentem
solando cupit et dictis avertere curas,
multa gemens magnoque animum labefactus amore 395
iussa tamen divum exsequitur classemque revisit.
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
The Maenads were the madwoman followers of Bacchus/Dionysus, famous for raving in the mountains (including Cithaeron) during his festivals.
Another name of Dido’s.
A parallel to Iliad 16, in which Patroclus accuses Achilles of much the same: “Pitiless man, you are no son it seems of Thetis or the horseman Peleus, rather the grey sea and the stony cliffs bore you, with heart of granite.” (See also Catullus 64, from Ariadne to Theseus: “What lioness bore you beneath lonely crag? What sea conceived and spued you from its foamy crest? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis?”) Caucusus refers to the mountain range, Hyrcania a region of modern-day Iran and Turkmenistan.