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