Dido has fallen for Aeneas, to her ultimate cost. See and hear the poem or see the blog with an illustration.
After stabbing herself, Dido lingers on in pain until Juno, Queen of the Gods, takes pity and sends Iris, the Goddess of the rainbow to set her finally free. See and hear the passage here.
Aeneas’s enemy Juno has duped his tired and travel-worn Trojan women into setting fire to his ships while he holds rich funeral games in Sicily for the anniversary of the death of his father Anchises. Juno and the women hope that he will give up his destiny in Italy and settle where he is. In today’s extract here, Aeneas calls on Jupiter to save the ships in the nick of time. Help is granted: only the old, tired and timid will stay and Aeneas will go on to Italy with a smaller but more select band composed solely of the young, brave and battle-ready. In the illustration, Claude Lorrain (1600 – 1682) uses the incident as an excuse for a charmingly mysterious seascape.
Hear Horace’s welcome to his old army comrade Pompeius, with whom he fought – on the wrong side – at the Battle of Philippi. Augustus has magnanimously restored Pompeius’s civic rights, allowing him to return to Italy, and Horace is cracking out the wine in celebration.
Today we publish a new selection of poems by Latin authors to hear in Latin and follow in English. See the selection here.
Mercury gets into formal dress to bring a stern message to Aeneas, visiting his Grandfather, Atlas, on the way. No wonder Aeneas will be startled. Virgil closely echoes Homer, but adds touches from his own imagination which bring Mercury, the shepherd of the souls of the dead, to disturbingly vivid life. Hear the story here.