Aeneid IV.90-194
Juno meddles, again. Dido and Aeneas go spelunking. Enter Rumor.
As soon as Juno, Jupiter’s beloved wife, saw clearly that Dido
was gripped by such heart-sickness, and her reputation
no obstacle to love, she spoke to Venus in these words:
“You and that son of yours certainly take the prize and plenty
of spoils: a great and memorable show of divine power,
whereby one woman’s trapped by the tricks of two gods.
But the truth’s not escaped me, you’ve always held the halls
of high Carthage under suspicion, afraid of my city’s defences.
But where can that end? Why such rivalry, now?
Why don’t we work on eternal peace instead, and a wedding pact?
You’ve achieved all that your mind was set on:
Dido’s burning with passion, and she’s drawn the madness
into her very bones. Let’s rule these people together
with equal sway: let her be slave to a Trojan husband,
and entrust her Tyrians to your hand as the dowry.”
Venus began the reply to her like this (since she knew
she’d spoken with deceit in her mind to divert the empire
from Italy’s shores to Libya’s): “Who’d be mad enough
to refuse such an offer or choose to make war on you,
so long as fate follows up what you say with action?
But fortune makes me uncertain as to whether Jupiter wants
a single city for Tyrians and Trojan exiles, and approves
the mixing of races and their joining in league together.
You’re his wife: you can test his intent by asking.
Do it: I’ll follow.” Then royal Juno replied like this:
“That task’s mine. Now listen and I’ll tell you briefly
how the purpose at hand can be achieved.
Aeneas and poor Dido plan to go hunting together
in the woods, when the sun first shows tomorrow’s
dawn and reveals the world in his rays.
While the lines are beating and closing the thickets with nets,
I’ll pour down dark rain mixed with hail from the sky,
and rouse the whole heavens with my thunder.
They’ll scatter and be lost in the dark of night:
Dido and the Trojan leader will reach the same cave.
I’ll be there, and if I’m assured of your good will,
I’ll join them firmly in marriage and speak for her as his own.
This will be their wedding-night.” Not opposed to what she wanted,
Venus agreed, and smiled to herself at the deceit she’d found.
Meanwhile Dawn surges up and leaves the ocean.
Once she has risen, the chosen men pour from the gates:
Massylian1 horsemen ride out with wide-meshed nets,
snares, broad-headed hunting spears, and a pack
of keen-scented hounds. The queen lingers in her rooms,
while Punic2 princes wait at the threshold: her horse stands there,
bright in purple and gold, and champs fiercely at the foaming bit.
At last she appears, with a great crowd around her,
dressed in a Sidonian robe with an embroidered hem;
her quiver’s of gold, her hair knotted with gold,
a golden brooch fastens her purple tunic.
Her Trojan friends and joyful Iulus are with her.
Aeneas himself, the most handsome of them all,
moves forward and joins his friendly troop with hers.
Like Apollo, leaving behind the Lycian3 winter
and the streams of Xanthus, and visiting his mother’s Delos
to renew the dancing, Cretans and Dryopes and painted
Agathyrsians4, mingling around his altars, shouting:
he himself striding over the ridges of Cynthus5,
his hair dressed with tender leaves and clasped with gold,
the weapons rattling on his shoulder: so Aeneas walks
as lightly, beauty like the god’s shining from his noble face.
When they reach the mountain heights and pathless haunts,
see the wild goats, disturbed on their stony summits,
course down the slopes; in another place deer speed
over the open field, massing together in a fleeing herd
among clouds of dust, leaving the hillsides behind.
But the young Ascanius among the valleys delights
in his fiery horse, passing this rider and that at a gallop, hoping
that amongst these harmless creatures a boar, with foaming mouth,
might answer his prayers, or a tawny lion down from the mountain.
Meanwhile the sky becomes filled with a great rumbling:
rain mixed with hail follows, and the Tyrian company
and the Trojan men, with Venus’s Dardan grandson,
scatter here and there through the fields, in their fear,
seeking shelter: torrents stream down from the hills.
Dido and the Trojan leader reach the very same cave.
Primeval Earth and Juno of the Nuptials give their signal:
lightning flashes, the heavens are party to their union,
and the Nymphs howl on the mountain heights.
That first day is the source of misfortune and death.
Dido’s no longer troubled by appearances or reputation,
she no longer thinks of a secret affair: she calls it marriage,
and with that name disguises her sin.
Rumour raced at once through Libya’s great cities,
Rumour, compared with whom no other is as swift.
She flourishes by speed and gains strength as she goes:
first limited by fear, she soon reaches into the sky,
walks on the ground, and hides her head in the clouds.
Earth, incited to anger against the gods, so they say,
bore her last, a monster, vast and terrible, fleet-winged
and swift-footed, sister to Coeus and Enceladus6,
who for every feather on her body has as many
watchful eyes below (marvellous to tell), as many
tongues speaking, as many listening ears.
She flies, screeching, by night through the shadows
between earth and sky, never closing her eyelids
in sweet sleep; by day she sits on guard on tall roof-tops
or high towers, and scares great cities, as tenacious
of lies and evil as she is messenger of truth.
Now in delight she filled the ears of the nations
with endless gossip, singing fact and fiction alike:
Aeneas has come, born of Trojan blood, a man whom
lovely Dido deigns to unite with; now they’re spending
the whole winter together in indulgence, forgetting
their royalty, trapped by shameless passion.
Quam simul ac tali persensit peste teneri 90
cara Iovis coniunx nec famam obstare furori,
talibus adgreditur Venerem Saturnia dictis:
'egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla refertis
tuque puerque tuus (magnum et memorabile numen),
una dolo divum si femina victa duorum est. 95
nec me adeo fallit veritam te moenia nostra
suspectas habuisse domos Karthaginis altae.
sed quis erit modus, aut quo nunc certamine tanto?
quin potius pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos
exercemus? habes tota quod mente petisti: 100
ardet amans Dido traxitque per ossa furorem.
communem hunc ergo populum paribusque regamus
auspiciis; liceat Phrygio servire marito
dotalisque tuae Tyrios permittere dextrae.'
Olli (sensit enim simulata mente locutam, 105
quo regnum Italiae Libycas averteret oras)
sic contra est ingressa Venus: 'quis talia demens
abnuat aut tecum malit contendere bello?
si modo quod memoras factum fortuna sequatur.
sed fatis incerta feror, si Iuppiter unam 110
esse velit Tyriis urbem Troiaque profectis,
miscerive probet populos aut foedera iungi.
tu coniunx, tibi fas animum temptare precando.
perge, sequar.' tum sic excepit regia Iuno:
'mecum erit iste labor. nunc qua ratione quod instat 115
confieri possit, paucis (adverte) docebo.
venatum Aeneas unaque miserrima Dido
in nemus ire parant, ubi primos crastinus ortus
extulerit Titan radiisque retexerit orbem.
his ego nigrantem commixta grandine nimbum, 120
dum trepidant alae saltusque indagine cingunt,
desuper infundam et tonitru caelum omne ciebo.
diffugient comites et nocte tegentur opaca:
speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem
devenient. adero et, tua si mihi certa voluntas, 125
conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo.
hic hymenaeus erit.' non adversata petenti
adnuit atque dolis risit Cytherea repertis.
Oceanum interea surgens Aurora reliquit.
it portis iubare exorto delecta iuventus, 130
retia rara, plagae, lato venabula ferro,
Massylique ruunt equites et odora canum vis.
reginam thalamo cunctantem ad limina primi
Poenorum exspectant, ostroque insignis et auro
stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit. 135
tandem progreditur magna stipante caterva
Sidoniam picto chlamydem circumdata limbo;
cui pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in aurum,
aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.
nec non et Phrygii comites et laetus Iulus 140
incedunt. ipse ante alios pulcherrimus omnis
infert se socium Aeneas atque agmina iungit.
qualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta
deserit ac Delum maternam invisit Apollo
instauratque choros, mixtique altaria circum 145
Cretesque Dryopesque fremunt pictique Agathyrsi;
ipse iugis Cynthi graditur mollique fluentem
fronde premit crinem fingens atque implicat auro,
tela sonant umeris: haud illo segnior ibat
Aeneas, tantum egregio decus enitet ore. 150
postquam altos ventum in montis atque invia lustra,
ecce ferae saxi deiectae vertice caprae
decurrere iugis; alia de parte patentis
transmittunt cursu campos atque agmina cervi
pulverulenta fuga glomerant montisque relinquunt. 155
at puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri
gaudet equo iamque hos cursu, iam praeterit illos,
spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis
optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.
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
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.
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
A people living to the west of Carthage.
Carthaginian
A region of Asia Minor allied with Troy, where the river Xanthus is located.
Cretans and Dryopes were Greek peoples; Agathyrsians came from Scythia.
A mountain on Delos.
Titans; Earth here refers to the divine personification of the earth.