Aeneid Book 4, lines 362 - 393

Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …

by Virgil

Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, has been sent to tell Aeneas in the starkest terms that he must leave Carthage and Dido and fulfil his mission for the foundation of Rome. Concerned about how Dido will react, he begins to prepare his fleet without telling her, but she finds out. Confronted, he has just told her about Mercury’s message and assured her, not too convincingly, that he did not intend to deceive her about leaving. Not very tactfully, he has added that he never proposed marriage and, unlike her, did not regard their affair as one. Here is Dido’s reply.

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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,
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?
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
(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:
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,
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
dicere. suscipiunt famulae conlapsaque membra
marmoreo referunt thalamo stratisque reponunt.

She watches him sidelong as he speaks, her eyes darting
to and fro, looks him up and down in silence,
and, livid, bursts out: “you traitor, no goddess was
your mother, nor was it Dardanus who founded your line:
bleak Caucasus bore you among its jagged rocks
and Hyrcanaean tigers suckled you. Why should I pretend?
What worse outrages should I wait for? Didn’t he sigh
in sympathy when I wept? Didn’t he turn his gaze to me?
Wasn’t he overcome by tears? Didn’t he pity me, see how
I loved him? Where to begin? Neither great Juno, nor
Father Jupiter can see this happen unmoved. Loyalty
can’t be trusted anywhere. I rescued him, washed up,
bereft, and in my madness set him to share my kingdom.
I brought his lost ships, his comrades back from death!
I am ablaze, driven by furies! Now Apollo the prophet,
Lycian oracles and Mercury, divine messenger of Jove,
bring these dreadful biddings through the air. So that’s
Gods’ will, what spoils their calm! I’ll not detain you,
question their word! Follow Italy on the winds, seek
your realm across the sea! I hope you will
know torture amidst the rocks, if just gods have power,
call again and again on Dido’s name!
From far, I’ll chase you with black fury’s
fire, when cold death has torn limbs from spirit,
my ghost will dog you everywhere. You’ll pay, wretch!
Word will reach me, I’ll hear it in the pit of Hades!”
She breaks off half-way, frenzied, shuns the open air,
turns, flees out of sight, leaving him with much
he meant to say, but in his shock leaving it unsaid.
Her maids support her, carry her in collapse
to her marble bedchamber and lay her on the couch.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Aeneas joins the fray
  2. The death of Priam
  3. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  4. The boxers
  5. The journey to Hades begins
  6. The portals of sleep
  7. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  8. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  9. The death of Pallas
  10. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  11. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  12. Venus speaks
  13. Juno throws open the gates of war
  14. Laocoon and the snakes
  15. Helen in the darkness
  16. Dido’s story
  17. Aeneas’s oath
  18. Virgil begins the Georgics
  19. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  20. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  21. Into battle
  22. What is this wooden horse?
  23. The Trojan horse opens
  24. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  25. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  26. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  27. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  28. Turnus the wolf
  29. Vulcan’s forge
  30. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  31. King Mezentius meets his match
  32. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  33. Aeneas and Dido meet
  34. Rumour
  35. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  36. The infant Camilla
  37. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  38. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  39. The farmer’s happy lot
  40. Dido’s release
  41. The Trojans reach Carthage
  42. New allies for Aeneas
  43. Aristaeus’s bees
  44. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  45. Sea-nymphs
  46. Turnus is lured away from battle
  47. Cassandra is taken
  48. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  49. The Harpy’s prophecy
  50. Jupiter’s prophecy
  51. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  52. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  53. Juno’s anger
  54. Love is the same for all
  55. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  56. The Syrian hostess
  57. Rites for the allies’ dead
  58. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  59. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  60. The natural history of bees
  61. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  62. The Aeneid begins
  63. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  64. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  65. In King Latinus’s hall
  66. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  67. Storm at sea!
  68. Aeneas is wounded
  69. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  70. The death of Dido
  71. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  72. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  73. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  74. Catastrophe for Rome?
  75. The death of Priam
  76. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  77. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  78. Juno is reconciled
  79. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  80. Signs of bad weather
  81. The battle for Priam’s palace
  82. The farmer’s starry calendar
  83. Charon, the ferryman
  84. Mourning for Pallas
  85. Turnus at bay
  86. Dido falls in love
    87. View Latin Poems
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