Aeneid Book 1, lines 441-65

The Trojans reach Carthage

by Virgil

After travels which have already lasted many years since Troy fell, Aeneas and his companions have been blown off course to North Africa by a storm arranged by the Trojans’ enemy, the Goddess Juno. They have reached Carthage, later Rome’s great rival and enemy, newly founded by Dido, a Phoenician exile. Here, the sight of sculptures showing the Trojan War gives Aeneas hope of a sympathetic reception. Achates is Aeneas’s right-hand man. “Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt” is one of the Aeneid’s most famous lines. In context the words can have a fairly restricted meaning (the locals can be moved by misfortune and the fragility of mortal life), but they are also often quoted as a very economical wider summing-up of the whole human predicament.

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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Lucus in urbe fuit media, laetissimus umbrae,
quo primum iactati undis et turbine Poeni
effodere loco signum, quod regia Iuno
monstrarat, caput acris equi: sic nam fore bello
egregiam et facilem victu per saecula gentem.
hic Iunoni templum ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae,
aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aƫnis.
hoc primum in luco nova res oblata timorem
leniit, hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem
ausus et adflictis melius confidere rebus.
namque sub ingenti lustrat dum singula templo
reginam opperiens, dum quae fortuna sit urbi
artificumque manus intra se operumque laborem
miratur, videt Iliacas ex ordine pugnas
bellaque iam fama totum vulgata per orbem,
Atridas Priamumque et saevum ambobus Achillem.
constitit, et lacrimans “quis iam locus,” inquit, “Achate,
quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
en Priamus! sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem.”
sic ait atque animum pictura pascit inani
multa gemens, largoque umectat flumine vultum.

In the midst of the city was a grove, lovely with shade,
where first the Phoenicians, tossed by wave and wind,
dug up the token that royal Juno had revealed, the head
of a fiery horse, a sign that the race would excel in war
and prosper in their life down the centuries. Here
Sidon’s Dido was building a huge temple to Juno, blessed
with rich gifts and the Goddess’s holy presence, its steps
ending at a brazen threshold, the posts braced with bronze
and the hinges creaking on the gates, also of bronze.
Here first in this grove something he encountered
relieved his fears, here first he dared hope for safety
and, difficult as his fortunes were, to trust more in them.
For as he looks round in the huge temple,
waiting for the Queen, wondering at the city’s opulence,
at the skill of the craftsmen and the interplay of their
works, he sees the battles of Troy set out in order, the wars
now spread by fame throughout the world, the sons
of Atreus, Priam, and Achilles, savage to them both.
He stopped, and “What place now”, he said, “Achates,
What region in the world is not full of our labour?
Look, there is Priam! Here still are his tributes of praise;
tears for his lot, and mortal affairs touch the mind.
Relax your fears: this fame will bring you some safety”.
He spoke, and fed his spirit on the empty pictures, sighing
heavily, his tears wetting his face in a broad stream.

`

More Poems by Virgil

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