Vergil, Aeneid IV 296-330

Manuscripts: M 296-321, 322-330 | P 296-301, 302-324, 325-330

296–330: But she with the infallible instinct of love had scented danger in the air, even before Rumor brought her news of the preparations for sailing. Then distracted with passion, she seeks Aeneas, taunts him with trying to steal away at a season when nothing but a most urgent cause would induce a man to sail. “Was she the cause? By all the love between them, by all the sacrifices she has made for his sake, she implores him to stay, and not leave her to die, friendless without even a child to remember him by” (Stephenson).

296: quis possit: “who could (if he tried)?” Stronger than “who can?” (Stephenson). Possit is a potential subjunctive (AG 445).

297: praesēnsit: “divined” (Page). Dido “realized beforehand” what was afoot, or Fama took care to tell her (Austin). mōtūs excēpit futūrōs: “caught news of his coming departure” (F-B). Excipere rūmōrēs, vōcēs, sermōnem are found in prose; the word implies that the person who “catches” the rumor is on the lookout for it (Page). prīma excēpit: “the first to detect” (Frieze).

298: omnia tūta timēns: “fearing everything, (however) safe” (F-B). “Fearing even where there was no danger,” i.e., sensitively alive to the possibility of danger and therefore certain to know by instinct when it began to be (Stephenson). eadem impia Fāma: “the same heartless Rumor,” which had already noised abroad Dido’s shame. Fāma is impia because she takes delight in spreading bad news (F-B). It is a question whether eadem is feminine singular, “the same Rumor who visited Iarbas,” or neuter plural, eadem quae praesēnsit, “to confirm her forebodings” (Stephenson). furentī: supply eī. It is used proleptically, because it was this news that made her furēns (F-B). Compare 283, rēgīnam furentem (Carter).

300: inops animī: “weak in mind,” i.e., beside herself, distracted (F-B). Objective genitive (or locative) after inops = impotēns (Stephenson); “powerless in mind,” with no power to control her rage; perhaps “destitute of purpose” (Page). tōtam per urbem: she loses all sense of dignity (F-B).

301: bacchātur: “rages like a Bacchante” (Carter) [insert image]. quālis commōtīs excita sacrīs, etc.: “like a Thyiad, startled by the shaken emblems.” In the celebration of Bacchic rites the temple doors were thrown open and the statue and other emblems of the god shaken violently (F-B): “like a Thyiad startled by the stirring (waving?) of the sacred emblems, when amid Bacchic cries biennial revels rouse her and Cithaeron calls (her) by night with shouts” (Page). Take commōtīs sacrīs as ablative absolute: “when the vessels and symbols were brought forth” (from the temple) (Frieze); “at the revealing of the sacred emblems.”

302: Thyias: A maenad (Carter). Two syllables (G-K). From Greek θύω, “rage” (Page). ubi audītō...Bacchō: “when Bacchus is heard”; i.e., when the cry, Io Bacche! is heard, announcing the Bacchanalian rites (Frieze).

302–3: trietērica orgia…etc.: “biennial revels inspire her, and at night Cithaeron summons with its din.” Every other year a Bacchic festival was celebrated at Thebes. The votaries, calling upon the god, roamed in a state of frenzy over Mt. Cithaeron (F-B). In Greek reckoning the ‘third’ year is our “second,” so that it really describes a festival taking place every other year (Page). orgia: is the subject of stimulant (Frieze).

303: nocturnus: “by night”; the familiar use of the adjective instead of the adverb (Carter).

304: ultrō: without waiting for him to begin any explanations (Carter).

305 ff: Observe the varying tone of the different appeals of Dido. The tone of the present one is that of argument and passionate entreaty mingled with reproach (H-M).

305: dissimulāre etiam spērāstī, perfide, etc.: Dissimulāre is an infinitive with posse, which goes with spērāstī (like rumpī, 292) (G-K). “Did you hope even that you could conceal, etc.” Not only has he resolved to leave her, which she regards as an outrage, but expected to conceal his departure (Frieze). etiam: because concealment added to his guilt (Page). spērāstī: = syncopated form of spērā(vis)tī.

306: tacitus dēcēdere: a case of attraction for tē tacitum dēcēdere (F-B). Not only go, but conceal your going (G-K). nefas: something contrary to God’s law, a piece of cruel irony in this context.

307–8: amor…dextera…moritūra Dīdō: The three motives appealed to are love, honor, and pity (G-K).

307: nec tē...nec tē: emphatic personal appeal (Page). data dextera: The right hand given in mutual pledge of love (Frieze). Supply manū, i.e., that of Aeneas (Carter).

308: moritūra Dīdō: Dido, in all her impulsiveness, at once envisages her death—not suicide as yet, for it is not til later, when all her hope has gone, that the idea of self-destruction comes upon her and then grows inexorably in her mind. Crudeli funere means simply the bitterness of death in sorrow, and does not imply the manner of it (Austin). “Destined to die” in case Aeneas persists in his plan to depart (Carter). He must know that neither her honor nor her disappointed love will suffer her to live if he departs (Frieze). The use of her name, instead of ego, is strikingly effective. She, the great queen, is brought low. This early announcement of her intention (moritūra) to kill herself, indicates how unconditionally she has surrendered herself to her love for him (F-B). Dido full of the idea that Aeneas’ departure would be death to her assumes the same knowledge on his part (Stephenson).

309: quīn…, etc.: The very fact of his starting in winter showed that his object was to get away from her at once, though he knew it would break her heart (crūdēlis). If it were not so, he would not be sailing away in search of a “new” home at a time of the year when under ordinary circumstances men would not cross the sea to reach their old home (Stephenson). hībernō sīdere: “in the winter season” (F-B). mōlīris classem: mōlior, “labor at” (F-B), = parās (Frieze): “you prepare your fleet”; however at 3.6 the phrase means “to build a fleet” (Page). It is really a question with Aeneas not of building a fleet but merely of putting it in order (Carter).

310: Aquilōnibus: ablative of time when (AG 423); “in the stormy winds; in the wintry season” (Frieze). Used generally for tempestuous winds (Carter).

311: An argument from the greater to the less—if it were a question of returning hence, you would not go in winter, would you? How much less now when you are to try new lands (Carter).

crūdēlis: Vergil is fond of giving great emphasis to an adjective by placing it at the beginning of a line with a pause after it (Page). quid? sī: “tell me” (G-K). “Why, if…” The argument is that, even if he were going home, he would not start in such weather, and that therefore his haste must be due to eagerness to escape from her (Page). sī nōn: i.e., if you had a home to go to instead of being a wanderer in search of lands to settle in, even then you would wait for better weather (G-K). aliēna: belonging to others, implying that to make them his own he may have to fight for them (Carter).

313: peterētur: imperfect subjunctive in the apodosis of a present contrary-to-fact condition (AG 517) (G-K).

314: mēne fugis: -ne = nōnne; emphatic: “Is it I whom you flee?” (Frieze). The powerful simplicity is masterly (Page). The truth breaks upon her at last; she is the compelling cause of his flight. There is an echo of these words in 6.466 quem fugis? extremum fato quod te adloquor hoc est; but there it is Aeneas who speaks, Dido who recoils from him, as they meet in the lugentes campi (Austin). per ego hās, etc.: per governs lacrimās; tē is the object of ōrō. The separation of this preposition from its object is common in adjurations (F-B). Cf. Terence, Andria 289 per ego te hanc nunc dextram oro; Ovid, Fasti 2.841 per tibi ego hunc iuro fortem castumque cruorem; Aeneid 12.56 f.: Turne, per has ego te lacrimas… (Austin). dextram: supply manum (Carter).

315: aliud...nihil: “nothing else.” Dido has staked her all on Aeneas (F-B). Nothing else but prayers and appeals to your pity and honor (G-K).

316: per cōnūbia nostra, per inceptōs hymenaeōs: “by our marriage, by the wedlock (thus) begun.” The second phrase corrects the first. There has been no formal marriage, though Dido has looked forward to one. Note that the verse ends with a word of four syllables; this Vergil allows in the case of Greek words (F-B). Cōnūbia = “our union,” in its civil aspect; hymenaeōs = the formal rites of “marriage,” not fully completed, however inceptōs (G-K). The formal marriage had not yet taken place, but Dido understands that a private betrothal, or the “beginning” of the nuptials, has been made (Frieze). Conubia and hymenaei both imply legal marriage (Austin).

317: sī bene quid...: “if in any way I have done you service, if anything of mine was ever dear to you”; note that sī quid... here = “as surely as I have done you some service,” but in the next line sī quis...locus expresses real doubt (Page). dē tē: “at your hands.” (F-B). fuit aut tibi, etc.: “or if you have found any joy in me” (F-B). quicquam meum: “anything in me” (Frieze).

318: domūs labentis: genitive after miserēre (AG 354); “my house” (or family) falling (or ruined)” if you now desert me (Frieze); “falling” because he, who had been its stay, was going (Page). dulce: here, as often, applied to the demonstrations of love (Carter).

318-19: istam…exue mentem: “put away this purpose of yours” (F-B); “this determination of yours.” Notice the force of iste as a pronoun of the second person (Carter).

319: locus: supply est (Carter).

320: Nomadum: for Numidārum (Frieze). tyrannī: especially Iarbas (Carter).

321: ōdēre: alternate form of ōdērunt; supply mē (F-B). īnfēnsī Tyriī: supply sunt (F-B). Nothing was more natural than that her Carthaginian or Tyrian nobles should be jealous of Aeneas and the new-comers (Frieze); i.e., my own people are indignant (G-K). Because she did not marry one of her own people but preferred Aeneas, a foreigner (Carter). tē propter eundem: “on your account too”; preposition placed after its object (Carter). “Again, because of you”; idem often corresponds to “also,” “likewise” (Austin).

322: extinctus pudor, etc.: “perished is honor and that former fame by which alone I was approaching heaven.” Sīdera adīre is “to win immortality.” By her “former fame” (fāma prior) she seems to mean her reputation for fidelity to her dead husband, though the fame of building Carthage, which will now be destroyed, is not excluded (Page). quā sōla: i.e., the fāma prior (Carter). “That fame (as a faithful widow) by which alone I might have aspired to the skies (literally, was on my way to; she is thinking vaguely of deification, as it were) (G-K). sīdera adībam: “I approached the stars”; I was highly renowned (Frieze).

323: cui: “to what?” (G-K). moribundam: i.e., destined to die on your account (Carter). More vivid than morientem (G-K).

323–4: hospes, etc.: “O guest, since that name only is left in place of ‘husband’”: the clause with quoniam... explains why she says hospes (Page). Quoniam is elliptical with hospes “(I have called you hospes) because...” etc. (Carter).

324: dē coniuge: “of that of husband” (F-B); “from husband,” put shortly for “from the name of husband.” Servius says that Vergil threw intense pathos into this passage when reading it to Augustus (Conington).

325: quid moror: “why linger here?”: the thought continues in her mind that life is useless now; either her borther Pygmalion would come to kill her, as he killed Sychaeus, or she would be forcibly carried off by Iarbas, now that Aeneas’ protection has gone (Austin). “Why do I delay?” i.e., to die (F-B). Compare moribundam (323) (Page). an dum: “shall I delay until..., etc.” With an we may supply morer (F-B).

326: dēstruat…ducat: subjunctive in dum anticipatory clause expressing uncertainty (AG 553).

Gaetulus: used generally for “African.” (Carter).

327: saltem sī qua etc.: “At least had any child of yours been taken into my arms.” Suscipere līberōs is strictly used of the father who takes up (tollit) the child and acknowledges it as his own, but also quite vaguely of either parent merely “to have children” (Page). Many heroes of ancient story had children by their forsaken brides; and Dido, throughout, regards her own union with Aeneas as a true marriage (G-K). saltem: emphatic, both by position and rhythm (Austin).

328: ante fugam: still in the tone of reproach (G-K). quis..parvulus...Aenēās: “a little Aeneas”; quis has almost the force of the English indefinite article (Carter). parvulus: diminutives belong to intimate, familiar language, and so are very rare in epic style; their natural home in poetry is the personal lyric (e.g. Catullus) and satire. This is the only occurrence of a diminutive adjective in the whole Aeneid, and it is one which Ovid does not use in the whole of the Metamorphoses. This parvulus here is a very remarkable word, and Vergil’s use of it shows Dido is not an epic heroine but a real and tender woman (Austin).

329: quī tē tamen ōre referret: “who, in spite of all, would bring back your face”; literally, “you in face.” These simple words could hardly be excelled for pathos (F-B); “be the image of you” (Carter). tamen: “but, if, only” (Frieze); “in spite of the fact that I had lost you” (Carter); “after all,” implying a preceding concession (“although I had you no longer”), as tamen always does (G-K). The beautiful tamen “notwithstanding” is untranslatable, because the suppressed thought opposed to it must be supplied or suggested in translation. It may be “to remind me of you by his face in spite of all (your cruelty),” or “though you are far away,” or “with his face at least, though he can do so with nothing else.” Each of these thoughts is suggested by tamen, but none of them is right by itself. Commentators attempt to define and successfully destroy the force of the word (Page). referret: purpose clause; but it would in any case be subjunctive of integral part (AG 593) (G-K).

330: capta: “captured,” either by Iarbas, or some other enemy (Frieze); “cheated, betrayed.” Capiō in this sense differs from dēcipiō in that it always implies harm done to the person deceived (Stephenson). capta ac deserta: as if at the sack of a city (Austin).