On a pyre she has built to burn all that Aeneas has left her, Dido dies by her own hand on his sword. It is one of the great moments of the Aeneid, and augurs enmity and war for the future between Dido’s and Aeneas’s descendants. Hear the climax of the story here.
The Etruscan Lausus has died at Aeneas’s hands rescuing his wounded father, Mezentius, who rides back into the fray on his horse, Rhaebus, to join his son in death.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
Phaethon’s ride in the chariot of his father, the Sun, has brought catastrophe as he sets the world ablaze. Now Jupiter intervenes to fell him with a thunderbolt before the damage goes from bad to worse.
The illustration by Giovanni Bernardi shows his fall, his sisters, who are turned to poplar trees on his burial mound, and his friend Cycnus, who will be transformed in to a swan.
Hear Ovid’s Latin and follow in English here.
In the latest extract from Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas recalls the fate of Troy’s King, Priam, as he continues to tell the story of the fall of Troy to Queen Dido of Carthage. The painting is by Jean Baptiste Regnault.
In Virgil’s Aeneid, the Greek invaders fight their way to the very threshold of Priam’s palace, as Aeneas joins the defenders in an attempt to stem the tide. The Greek assault is led by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.
Hear Virgil’s original Latin and follow in English here.
In our latest post, Ovid describes the mysterious palace of Rumour, where everything that happens in the world is seen, heard and passed on. Hear his Latin and follow in English here.
Coming to the end of his underworld journey, Aeneas exits through the gates of sleep and brings Book 6 of the Aeneid to a close. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.