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.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.

To listen, press play:

To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

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