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