The Aeneid

by Virgil

And the Dog Star scorched the green fields barren, the grasses shriveled, blighted crops refused us food.

These are not the shores Apollo of Delos urged. He never commanded you to settle here on Crete.

Seek out the town of Corythus, sail for Italy! 210 Jove denies you the fields of Dicte: Crete.’

For three whole days we rush, the waves driving us wildly on, the sun blotted out, for as many nights we’re robbed of stars to steer by.

The Harpies…no monsters on earth more cruel, no scourge more savage, no wrath of the gods has ever raised its head from the Styx’s waters. The faces of girls, but birds! A loathsome ooze discharges from their bellies, talons for hands, their jaws deathly white with a hunger never sated.

You, the sons of Laomedon, as if to atone for the butchery of our cattle, our young bulls? 300 You’d force the innocent Harpies from their fathers’ kingdom? Take what I say to heart and stamp it in your minds: this prophecy the almighty Father made to Phoebus and Phoebus made to me, the greatest of the Furies, and I reveal to you. Italy is the land you seek? You call on the winds to sweep you there by sea? To Italy you will go. Permitted to enter port but never granted a city girded round by ramparts, not before some terrible hunger and your attack on us— outrageous slaughter—drive you to gnaw your platters with your teeth!’

“So, exceeding our hopes, we win our way to solid ground at last. We cleanse ourselves with the rites we owe to Jove and make the altars blaze with votive gifts, then crowd the Actian shore with Trojan games.

Just now tipping wine to her husband’s ashes, she implored Hector’s shade to visit his tomb, an empty mound of grassy earth, crowned with the double altars she had blessed, a place to shed her tears.

The king ushered us into generous colonnades, in the heart of the court we offered Bacchus wine and feasted from golden plates, all cups held high.

What course to set to master these ordeals?’

‘Son of the goddess, surely proof is clear, the highest sanctions shine upon your voyage. So the King of the Gods has sorted out your fate, so rolls your life, as the world rolls through its changes. Now, few out of many truths I will reveal to you, so you can cross the welcoming seas more safely, moor secure in a Latian harbor. The Fates 450 have forbidden Helenus to know the rest.

So, first you must bend your oar in Sicilian seas and cross in your ships the salt Italian waves, the lakes of the Underworld and Aeaea, Circe’s isle, before you can build your city safe on solid ground.

I will give you a sign. Guard it in your heart. When at an anxious time by a secret river’s run, under the oaks along the bank you find a great sow stretched on her side with thirty pigs just farrowed, a snow-white mother with snow-white young at her dugs: that will be the place to found your city, there your repose from labor lies.

Once you have passed them all, moored your ships on the far shore and set up altars on the beach to perform your vows, then cloak yourselves in purple, 480 veil your heads, so while the hallowed fires are burning in honor of the gods, no enemy presence can break in and disrupt the omens. Your comrades, you yourself must hold fast to this sacred rite, this custom. Your sons’ sons must keep it pure forever.

Scylla lurks in her blind cave, thrusting out her mouths and hauling ships on her rocks. She’s human at first glance, down to the waist a girl with lovely breasts, but a monster of the deep below, her body a writhing horror, her belly spawns wolves flailing with dolphins’ tails.

Revere great Juno’s power first in all your prayers, to Juno chant your vows with a full heart and win the mighty goddess over with gifts to match your vows.

She will reveal to you the Italian tribes, the wars that you must fight, and the many ways 540 to shun or shoulder each ordeal that you must meet.

By your own brave work exalt our Trojan greatness to the skies.’

“Friendly words, and when he had closed, the prophet ordered presents, hoards of gold and ivory inlays, brought to our ships, crowding our holds with a massive weight of silver, Dodona cauldrons, a breastplate linked with mail and triple-meshed in gold, a magnificent helmet 550 peaked with a plumed crest—Neoptolemus’ arms— and then the gifts of honor for my father.

“Meanwhile Anchises gave the command to spread sail, no time to waste, we’d lose the good fair winds, and Apollo’s seer addressed him with deep respect: ‘Anchises, worthy to wed the proudest, Venus herself, how the gods do love you. Twice they plucked you safe from the ruins of Troy. Italy waits you now, look, 560 sail on and make it yours!

“The dawn was a red glow now, putting stars to flight as we glimpse the low-lying hills, dim in the distance… Italy. ‘Italy!’—Achates was first to shout the name— ‘Italy!’ comrades cried out too with buoyant hearts.

“At once we pray to the force of Pallas, goddess of clashing armies, the first to receive our band of happy men. We stand at the altar, heads under Trojan veils, and following Helenus’ orders first and foremost, duly burn our offerings, just as bidden, to Juno, Queen of Argos.

Father Anchises cries out: ‘Surely that’s Charybdis, those the cliffs that Helenus warned of, craggy deathtraps. Row for your lives, my shipmates—backs in the oars, now stroke!’

Father Anchises, barely pausing, gives the man his hand and the friendly gesture lifts the stranger’s spirits. 710 Setting his fears aside, he starts out on his story: ‘I come from Ithaca, my country… unlucky Ulysses’ comrade. Call me Achaemenides.

Just as horrible, huge as Polyphemus here in his rocky cavern, penning his woolly sheep, milking their udders dry, there are a hundred more accursed Cyclops, everywhere, crowding the deep inlets, lumbering over the ridged hills.

“He’d barely finished when there, up on a ridge we saw him, Polyphemus!

Soon as the giant gained deep water and offshore swells, he washed the blood still trickling down from his dug-out socket, gnashing his teeth, groaning, and wades out in the surf but the breakers still can’t douse his soaring thighs.

But we run counter to Helenus’ 790 warnings not to steer between Scylla and Charybdis— only a razor-edge between the devil and deep blue sea

We act on command, we worship the Powers of the place,

“Here, after all the blows of sea and storm I lost my father, my mainstay 820 in every danger and defeat. Spent as I was, you left me here, Anchises, best of fathers, plucked from so many perils, all for nothing. Not even Helenus, filled with dreadful warnings, foresaw such grief for me—not even foul Celaeno. This was my last ordeal, my long journey’s end. From here I sailed. God drove me to your shores.”

Bacchus who sets us free

What good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love?

The flame keeps gnawing into her tender marrow hour by hour and deep in her heart the silent wound lives on. Dido burns with love—the tragic queen.

She wanders in frenzy through her city streets like a wounded doe caught al...

She’d speak her heart but her voice chokes, mid-word.

Lost as he is, she’s lost as well, she hears him, sees him

What good is all our strife?

Come, why don’t we labor now to live in peace? Eternal peace, sealed with the bonds of marriage.

Tomorrow Aeneas and lovesick Dido plan to hunt the woods together, soon as the day’s first light climbs high and the Titan’s rays lay bare the earth.

I’ll bind them in lasting marriage, make them one. Their wedding it will be!”

Too late. The skies have begun to rumble, peals of thunder first and the storm breaking next, a cloudburst pelting hail and the troops of hunters scatter up and down the plain,

Dido and Troy’s commander make their way to the same cave for shelter now.

This was the first day of her death, the first of grief, the cause of it all. From now on, Dido cares no more for appearances, nor for her reputation, either. She no longer thinks to keep the affair a secret, no, she calls it a marriage, using the word to cloak her sense of guilt.

“Here this Aeneas, born of Trojan blood, has arrived in Carthage, and lovely Dido deigns to join the man in wedlock. Even now they warm the winter, long as it lasts, with obscene desire, oblivious to their kingdoms, abject thralls of lust.”

Jove had spoken. Mercury made ready at once to obey the great commands of his almighty father. 300 First he fastens under his feet the golden sandals, winged to sweep him over the waves and earth alike with the rush of gusting winds.

Soon as his winged feet touched down on the first huts in sight, he spots Aeneas founding the city fortifications, building homes in Carthage.

Mercury lashes out at once: “You, so now you lay foundation stones for the soaring walls of Carthage! Building her gorgeous city, doting on your wife. Blind to your own realm, oblivious to your fate!

Then Aeneas was truly overwhelmed by the vision, stunned, his hackles bristle with fear, his voice chokes in his throat.

He summons Mnestheus, Sergestus, staunch Serestus, gives them orders: “Fit out the fleet, but not a word. Muster the crews on shore, all tackle set to sail, but the cause for our new course, you keep it secret.”

Rumor, vicious as ever, brings her word, already distraught, that Trojans are rigging out their galleys, gearing to set sail.