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