Aeneid Book 4, lines 393 - 411

The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage

by Virgil

Aeneas and his men obey the will of the Gods by preparing to leave Carthage: abandoned, Dido watches from the citadel. The contrast between the sadness of the opening and conclusion and the liveliness of the preparations in between is very effective. The description of the ants is a good example of Virgil’s flair for describing the animal world: they may be small, but the way in which he uses the metre strikingly conveys their seriousness and bustle.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.

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At pius Aeneas, quamquam lenire dolentem
solando cupit et dictis avertere curas,
multa gemens magnoque animum labefactus amore
iussa tamen divum exsequitur classemque revisit.
tum vero Teucri incumbunt et litore celsas
deducunt toto navis. natat uncta carina,
frondentisque ferunt remos et robora silvis
infabricata fugae studio.
migrantis cernas totaque ex urbe ruentis:
ac velut ingentem formicae farris acervum
cum populant hiemis memores tectoque reponunt,
it nigrum campis agmen praedamque per herbas
convectant calle angusto; pars grandia trudunt
obnixae frumenta umeris, pars agmina cogunt
castigantque moras, opere omnis semita fervet.
quis tibi tum, Dido, cernenti talia sensus,
quosve dabas gemitus, cum litora fervere late
prospiceres arce ex summa, totumque videres
misceri ante oculos tantis clamoribus aequor!

Though pious Aeneas would like to console her in her
grief and allay her cares with words, he follows the orders
of the Gods and returns to the fleet, lamenting, his mind distraught with his great love. Then the Trojans truly set to, and haul the high ships down across the entire shore. Painted with pitch, the keel
is afloat, in their haste to get away, the men bring oars with leaf still on them and unworked timbers from the woods. You could see them on the move, pouring out of the city on all sides, like ants, when, thinking of winter, they plunder a huge pile of grain and bring it to their nest, the black column marches through the grass of the fields, carrying their booty on the narrow path; some, shoulders set to big grains, push them on, some drive the column and chide delays, and the whole path seethes with effort. What did you feel then, Dido, seeing such sights, what cries of distress did you give as you looked out from your high citadel over the ferment wide across the shore, and saw the whole of the sea churned by such a stir!

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More Poems by Virgil

  1. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  2. Virgil begins the Georgics
  3. Rumour
  4. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  5. Vulcan’s forge
  6. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  7. New allies for Aeneas
  8. Dido’s release
  9. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  10. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  11. The death of Pallas
  12. The death of Dido.
  13. Catastrophe for Rome?
  14. Signs of bad weather
  15. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  16. The natural history of bees
  17. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  18. The Trojans reach Carthage
  19. The farmer’s starry calendar
  20. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  21. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  22. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  23. The infant Camilla
  24. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  25. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  26. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  27. The farmer’s happy lot
  28. King Mezentius meets his match
  29. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  30. Turnus the wolf
  31. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  32. Dido falls in love
  33. Juno’s anger
  34. The death of Priam
  35. Aeneas joins the fray
  36. Jupiter’s prophecy
  37. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  38. Laocoon and the snakes
  39. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  40. Mourning for Pallas
  41. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  42. Rites for the allies’ dead
  43. Aristaeus’s bees
  44. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  45. Juno is reconciled
  46. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  47. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  48. Turnus is lured away from battle
  49. The Aeneid begins
  50. The Harpy’s prophecy
  51. Storm at sea!
  52. Sea-nymphs
  53. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  54. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  55. Aeneas’s oath
  56. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  57. Turnus at bay
  58. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  59. The Syrian hostess
  60. Dido’s story
  61. The portals of sleep
  62. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  63. Charon, the ferryman
  64. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  65. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  66. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  67. Love is the same for all
  68. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  69. In King Latinus’s hall
  70. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  71. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  72. Juno throws open the gates of war
  73. The journey to Hades begins
  74. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  75. Aeneas is wounded
    76. View Latin Poems