Aeneid Book 6, lines 450 - 476

Aeneas finds Dido among the shades

by Virgil

On his journey in the underworld, Aeneas finds his lost steersman, Palinurus, among the unburied souls who are unable to cross over the river Styx. Aeneas’s guide, the Sibyl, comforts him by prophesying that he will soon be given a splendid tomb and be allowed to make the voyage. Persuading an initially reluctant Charon to ferry them across, Aeneas and the Sibyl sneak past Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog, by giving him a drugged titbit and press on to the Fields of Mourning, the home of those who have suffered from sorrow in love.

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inter quas Phoenissa recens a vulnere Dido
errabat silva in magna; quam Troius heros
ut primum iuxta stetit agnovitque per umbras
obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense
aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam,
demisit lacrimas dulcique adfatus amore est:
‘infelix Dido, verus mihi nuntius ergo
venerat exstinctam ferroque extrema secutam?
funeris heu tibi causa fui? per sidera iuro,
per superos et si qua fides tellure sub ima est,
invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi.
sed me iussa deum, quae nunc has ire per umbras,
per loca senta situ cogunt noctemque profundam,
imperiis egere suis; nec credere quivi
hunc tantum tibi me discessu ferre dolorem.
siste gradum teque aspectu ne subtrahe nostro.
quem fugis? extremum fato quod te adloquor hoc est.’
talibus Aeneas ardentem et torva tuentem
lenibat dictis animum lacrimasque ciebat.
illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat
nec magis incepto vultum sermone movetur
quam si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes.
tandem corripuit sese atque inimica refugit
in nemus umbriferum, coniunx ubi pristinus illi
respondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem.
nec minus Aeneas casu percussus iniquo
prosequitur lacrimis longe et miseratur euntem.

Among them Phoenician Dido was wandering in
the great wood, fresh from her death-wound, whom
Aeneas, as he stopped nearby, recognised dimly in
the dark, as one at the start of the month sees, or thinks
he has seen the moon rise through the clouds.
He shed tears and spoke to her in tender love:
“unhappy Dido, so the news was true that you
were no more and had met your end by the sword?
Was I, alas, the cause of your death? By the stars
and Gods I swear, if any trust exists here in the depths
of earth, unwillingly, my Queen, I left your shores.
Orders from the Gods, which force me now to fare
through this shadow, wilderness and darkest night,
made me obey their power, nor could I have thought
that I would bring you such great pain by leaving.
Stop, and do not avoid my sight. Who do you run from?
Fate decrees that what I say to you now will be the last.”
So Aeneas tried to soothe her mind, as she looked askance,
burning in anger, and his tears began to flow.
She, turned away, kept her eyes fixed on the ground, nor
was her expression more changed by what he said than
if she had stood there hard flint or Marpesian stone.
Finally she tore herself away and, still in enmity, fled
into the dark grove, where her first husband, Sychaeus,
responds to her cares and gives her mutual love.
All the same, Aeneas, struck by her unjust fate,
follows her afar with tears and pities her as she goes.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  2. The journey to Hades begins
  3. Aeneas is wounded
  4. Juno throws open the gates of war
  5. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  6. The farmer’s happy lot
  7. Virgil begins the Georgics
  8. Turnus the wolf
  9. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  10. The natural history of bees
  11. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  12. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  13. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  14. The Harpy’s prophecy
  15. The death of Pallas
  16. Laocoon and the snakes
  17. Into battle
  18. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  19. Dido falls in love
  20. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  21. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  22. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  23. The portals of sleep
  24. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  25. Sea-nymphs
  26. Charon, the ferryman
  27. Dido’s story
  28. Rumour
  29. Aeneas joins the fray
  30. In King Latinus’s hall
  31. Juno is reconciled
  32. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  33. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  34. The farmer’s starry calendar
  35. The infant Camilla
  36. Turnus is lured away from battle
  37. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  38. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  39. Aristaeus’s bees
  40. What is this wooden horse?
  41. Love is the same for all
  42. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  43. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  44. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  45. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  46. The Trojan horse opens
  47. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  48. Vulcan’s forge
  49. Signs of bad weather
  50. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  51. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  52. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  53. Dido’s release
  54. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  55. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  56. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  57. Cassandra is taken
  58. The Syrian hostess
  59. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  60. Jupiter’s prophecy
  61. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  62. The death of Dido.
  63. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  64. Catastrophe for Rome?
  65. New allies for Aeneas
  66. King Mezentius meets his match
  67. The Trojans reach Carthage
  68. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  69. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  70. Mourning for Pallas
  71. Turnus at bay
  72. Aeneas and Dido meet
  73. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  74. Aeneas’s oath
  75. Juno’s anger
  76. The death of Priam
  77. Storm at sea!
  78. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  79. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  80. The Aeneid begins
  81. Rites for the allies’ dead
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