Dido’s story

“Punica regna vides, Tyrios et Agenoris urbem;
sed fines Libyci, genus intractabile bello.
Imperium Dido Tyria regit urbe profecta,
germanum fugiens. longa est iniuria, longae
ambages; sed summa sequar fastigia rerum.
huic coniunx Sychaeus erat, ditissimus agri
Phoenicum, et magno miserae dilectus amore,
cui pater intactam dederat, primisque iugarat
ominibus. Sed regna Tyri germanus habebat
Pygmalion, scelere ante alios immanior omnes.
quos inter medius venit furor. Ille Sychaeum
impius ante aras, atque auri caecus amore,
clam ferro incautum superat, securus amorum
germanae; factumque diu celavit, et aegram,
multa malus simulans, vana spe lusit amantem.
ipsa sed in somnis inhumati venit imago
coniugis, ora modis attollens pallida miris,
crudeles aras traiectaque pectora ferro
nudavit, caecumque domus scelus omne retexit.
tum celerare fugam patriaque excedere suadet,
auxiliumque viae veteres tellure recludit
thesauros, ignotum argenti pondus et auri.
his commota fugam Dido sociosque parabat:
conveniunt, quibus aut odium crudele tyranni
aut metus acer erat; navis, quae forte paratae,
corripiunt, onerantque auro: portantur avari
Pygmalionis opes pelago; dux femina facti.
devenere locos, ubi nunc ingentia cernis
moenia surgentemque novae Karthaginis arcem,
mercatique solum, facti de nomine Byrsam,
taurino quantum possent circumdare tergo.
sed vos qui tandem, quibus aut venistis ab oris,
quove tenetis iter?”

“It is a Punic realm and Phoenicians that you see, a city of Agenor, on its borders are the Libyans, a people formidable in war. Dido rules here, and has fled from her brother and begun a Tyrian city. It is a long and complicated tale of injustice, but I will tell the main points. Her husband was Sychaeus, richest of the Phoenicians in land, dear to the poor woman by her great love for him. Her father gave her to him when a maid, and joined them under the best of auspices. But the ruler of Tyre was her brother Pygmalion, whose crimes made him the foulest of all men. Madness was at their core: sacrilegiously, blind with the love of gold, he secretly cut the unsuspecting Sychaeus down at the altars, regardless of his sister’s love. Wickedly, he long hid the deed with many pretences, and deceived the lovesick woman with vain hope. But her unburied husband’s ghost itself came to her in dreams and, lifting its strange, pale face, revealed the cruelty at the altar and the stab-wounds in its breast, and laid bare all the house’s hidden crime. It persuaded her to flee her homeland at once, and to help the journey revealed ancient buried treasures, uncountable weights of silver and gold. Shaken, Dido found companions for her escape. Men to whom the tyrant’s cruel hate or his fear were a danger banded together.  They took ships which happened to be in readiness and loaded them with gold, and, with a woman as leader, the riches that Pygmalion lusted for were put to sea. They came to this place where now you see the great walls and citadel of new Carthage rising, where they bought only so much land as they could ring with an ox’s hide, named Byrsa after the deed. Now, who are you, what shores have you come from and where are you going?”