Vergil, Aeneid IV 584-629

Manuscripts: M 584-612, 613-629 | P 584-601, 602-624, 625-629

584–631: Dido’s frenzy increases as from her palace window she sees the Trojan fleet depart. She again calls down curses on Aeneas and his followers and prays that some avenger may rise from her ashes to punish such perfidy (Pharr).

584: prīma Aurōra: the early dawn (Carter). novō: “fresh” (Carter). Vergil describes dawn in Homeric fashion; the lines are repeated in 9.459 f. (Austin).

585: Tithōnī: Tithonus, the husband of Aurora, goddess of the dawn.

586: ē speculīs: = arce ex summā (see 410) (Pharr); i.e., from the palace on the citadel. Dido, having passed a sleepless night, is watching the dawn (Carter).

586–8: ut prīmum vīdit…sēnsit: temporal clause with indicative (AG 543); “as soon as she saw…and perceived…” (F-B).

587: aequātīs vēlīs: “with steady sails”; with the wind blowing steadily from behind, so that the yards lie across, perpendicular, or nearly so, to the sides of the vessel (Frieze); “with sails all set alike,” i.e., all the ships were sailing in one direction (Carter). The god has sent a favorable breeze blowing directly from behind (Pharr).

588: vacuōs: “forsaken,” predicate to both lītora and portūs (Pharr), explained by sine rēmige (F-B). sine rēmige: “without a sailor”; this defines vacuōs; not an oarsman being left (Frieze).

589–590: pectus percussa…abscissa comās: pectus and comās are objects (Greek accusative) of the middle voice participles percussa and abscissa (AG 156a): “smiting her comely breast and tearing her golden hair” (Page). terque quaterque: “three times, yea even four times” (Pharr).

590: flāventēs comās: blondes were much admired and preferred by the Greeks and Romans (Pharr). The color universally ascribed to the hair of heroic persons by the ancients (G-K). These physical manifstations of emotion are common in the poetry of the Mediterranean world; that they are not imaginary is shown by Plutarch’s account of Cleopatra’s self-disfigurement after Antony’s death (Plut. Ant. 82). (Austin)

590–591: Prō Iuppiter! Ībit…advena: “Now heaven forefend! Shall this wanderer depart and have mocked…?” i.e., depart and so succeed in mocking, depart after mocking. As soon as he was gone he could say inlūsī (Page). Compare with this lament that of Ariadne on being deserted by Theseus (Catullus, 64.132 ff.) (Chase). The speech that follows must surely rank with the most magnificent of any poet in any language. It begins abruptly, with Dido’s anger at full pitch; her irresolution has gone, and she calls wildly on her Tyrians to pursue the Trojan fleet. The tone then changes (595), and in a brief soliloquy she reproaches herself for her own folly, then in a passage of heightened rhetoric she mocks Aeneas’ pietas, and in hissing anger rages in self-recrimination at her own cowardice in not treating him as he deserved. At 606 there is a sustained pause. The fury and the hot utterance leaves her, and her words ring out deliberately and clearly in measured tones of cold and deadly hate; it is not only Aeneas now whom she will hunt and haunt, but the whole Trojan people; and as the terrible words rise inexorably to their tremendous climax, foreshadowing her as yet unknown avenger Hannibal (625) and the death struggle of Rome and Carthage, the speech has a Roman quality of implacable pride and command and purpose—a Cato might have spoken so against Dido’s own Carthage (Austin).

591: hic: pronounce as hicc, making a long syllable (Pharr). Deictic; she flings her arms seaward (Austin). inlūserit: the future perfect looks forward to the completion of the act, as if she said, “shall he succeed in doing so?” (G-K). “Shall he successfully insult” or “escape?” (Frieze). advena: used with emphasis (Frieze) and scornfully, like English “adventurer” (Pharr); “intruder” (F-B). Aeneas is an interloper, an upstart, a newcomer with no status compared to dido’s royal power. Dido herself had seemed such to Iarbas (211) (Austin). rēgnīs: dative object of intransitive compound verb inlūserit (Carter).

592: nōn: = nōnne (Pharr). expedient: The nominative plural Tyriī is omitted, being obvious, to give vigor suited to the vehemence of 592–596 (Page). The omission lends vigor to the style (F-B). tōtā urbe: “from the whole city”; will not all Carthage join in the pursuit? (Frieze).

593: aliī: corresponds to an aliī implied in what has gone before (Stephenson). nāvālibus: “dry-docks”; it was too early in the season for the ships to have been regularly launched (Carter). Īte: has the more force from its position at the end of the verse, where it is unusual to place a word of two syllables after a long pause (Frieze).

594: citī: adjective used adverbially, “quickly,” as in 574 (Frieze). Notice the hurried movement of this line (G-K). flammās: “torches” (G-K).

595: quae mentem īnsānia mūtat?: “What madness warps my purpose?” (Stephenson), i.e., her purpose of death (G-K). “What madness unseats my reason?” (Frieze). “What madness sways my brain?” (F-B). Dido realizes that she is going mad (Chase). mūtat: “changes,” i.e., from a mēns sāna to a mēns īnsāna (Page).

596: The tone sinks to sad regret, rising agin to rage in 600. nunc: emphatic (G-K). facta impia: Aeneas’ facta impia in the first sentence, her own in the second. (Stephenson). Dido has already called Aeneas impius (496); in 597–99 she is about to sneer at his piety towards gods and parent which she feels to be quite out of keeping with his treatment of her, and many editors accordingly ascribe these facta impia to Aeneas (Pease). “Poor luckless Dido, and is it now that your godless deeds come home to you?” She apostrophizes herself, as in 541 (note the slow spondees here, and contrast 593–4). By facta impia she means her lack of pietas to Sychaeus, and perhaps also her failure in her duty to her own people; it is nonsense to refer the words to Aeneas, as some editors do (Austin).

597: Tum decuit: (emphatic), supply tua facta impia tē tangere: “Then was the fitting time” (F-B); “Then it ought (to have come home to you) (G-K). cum scēptra dabās: supply Aenēae (dative): “when you were offering (him) your scepter,” i.e., before you put the power in his hand (G-K). The thought of the wrong she was doing ought to have come home to her then: it has indeed come home now, but too late (Page). Vergil always represents Dido, not Aeneas, as the active agent (dabās) in producing the unhappy entanglement (F-B). Compare line 214: dominum Aenēan in rēgna recēpit (“she received Aeneas into her kingdom as her lord”) (Frieze). dextra fidēsque: i.e., of Aeneas. (Stephenson). The right hand (dextra) was given in making a pledge, as with us; spoken with scorn, i.e., this then is the honor of this most pious hero (G-K).

598: quem: the antecedent is eius, understood with dextra and fidēs: “Behold the right hand and faith (of him) who, they say…” (Frieze). aiunt: pronounce as aiiunt, making the first syllable long by position (Pharr). Note the sneer intended in this verb (Page). The only occurrence of the form in Vergil; it implies that Aeneas’ pietas was all a traveller’s tale (Austin).

599: quem subiisse: supply aiunt (Pharr) to govern the indirect discourse. Note the anaphora of quem here and in 598. umerīs: see 2.707-8 (Frieze), for the famous picture of Aeneas rescuing his father from the burning Troy: Ergō, age, cāre pater, cervicī impōnere nostrae; ipse subībō umerīs… (“Therefore, come at once, dear father, and place yourself on my neck; I will carry you on my shoulders myself…”). parentem: = Anchisēn (Carter).

600: Nōn: = Nōnne (as in line 592 and elsewhere) (Pharr). “Could I not have seized and torn him limb from limb?” as Agave treated Pentheus, or Medea her brother Absyrtus (F-B).

601: ipsum: “even him” (Carter).

602: Ascanium: Dido might have assailed Aeneas at the most vulnerable point, his affection for Acanius, on whom depended the continuance of his family, much as Medea took revenge upon Jason by killing his children (Pease). patriīs epulandum pōnere mēnsīs: “and serve him for a banquet at his father’s board” (Page). I.e., she might hae murdered Ascanius, as Atreus did the sons of Thyestes, or as Procne the sons of Tereus, and have caused the body to be placed on the table as food for his father (Frieze).

603–604: vērum…tulissem: “but the issue of the combat would have been doubtful. Suppose it had, whom was I to fear, (being) resolved on death? I should have carried fire…” Lines 600–2 suggest that it would have been better to fight Aeneas and destroy him. Vērum…fortūna introduces an objection to this. Fuisset… says, “suppose the objection valid, yet I had no one to fear, for one who is prepared to die fears no one.” Then facēs….dedissem confirms this argument, for “(if I had fought with him) I should have destroyed him before perishing myself” (Page). The sense of the passage is, “But it may be said (verum = at enim) the issue of such a battle might have been uncertain. Suppose it had been: what then? I am going to die in any case. If I had died in battle I could have killed my hated guest first” (Stephenson).

603: fuerat: mixed condition with pluperfect indicative put for the subjunctive vividly because the indicative is necessary to bring out the contrast with the subsequent fuisset (Page) (AG 517b). “But the result of the contest would have been uncertain” (Frieze). The implied thought is sī pugnāvissem cum Aenēā (F-B). Fuisset: “(suppose) it had been (so)” (Pharr); “grant that it would have been” (Stephenson); “let it have been so,” I care not (Carter); “it might have been”; concessive subjunctive (AG 521) (Frieze).

604: quem metuī: “whom did I fear?” put vigorously for “whom was I to fear?” (Page); “whom had I to fear” (Pharr). The indicative is again used vividly for metuissem (F-B). moritūra: “since I was going to die anyway” (Pharr). facēs…tulissem: i.e., set the ships on fire (G-K).

604–606: tulissem…implēssem…exstinxem…dedissem: potential or conditional subjunctives expressing a past unfulfilled duty (AG 439b): “I should have fired his camp, etc.” (F-B); “(If I had done as I say) I should, might have…” (Stephenson).

604: castra: = castra nautica, where the ships were drawn up and protected (F-B). Permanent naval camps were defended by a wall on the land side (Frieze).

605: implēssem: = implē(vi)ssem by syncope (Pharr). Such syncopated forms are used by Vergil only in speeches. Here they accord with Dido’s mental excitement (F-B).

606: exstīnxem: = exstinx(iss)em by syncope (Page). cum genere: supply Teucrōrum (Pharr). “with the whole race,” i.e., all the surviving Trojans (Frieze). mēmet…dedissem: supply in ignēs (Pharr): “I would have thrown myself into the fire (Carter). Mēmet, an intensified version of mē. Note the asyndeton (F-B). super: “moreover” (Frieze).

607 ff.: The passage makes the tale of Dido part of Roman history, as if it were Vergil’s justification for including it in his epic (Austin).

607: Sōl, quī…lūstrās: she invokes the “all-beholding Sun,” the universal witness of all things on earth, to whose evidence all can appeal. Here, however, lūstrās is perhaps not so much “behold” as “illumine”; with his “fire he illumines all that is done upon earth,” so that nothing can be hidden or kept in darkness (Page). terrārum opera omnia: “all deeds of mortals” (G-K); “all things which are done on earth” (Carter). flammīs: “with your beams” (F-B).

608: tūque…Iūnō: “and you, O Juno, mediator and witness of these woes.” Interpres has two meanings, (1) a person who acts as agent between two others, (2) one who explains what is dark or mysterious. So Iūnō prōnuba (59, 166) is interpres because (1) she brings man and woman together in wedlock and (2) explains its mysteries and “troubles” (cūrae) (Page). The expression involves more truth than Dido could suspect, for she did not know how much Juno had done in working her ruin (F-B).

609: Hecatē triviīs: Hectae, “Diana of the Crossroads,” where she was worshipped at night (nocturnīs) by weird cries, howls of dogs, and various magical ceremonies (Pharr). See lines 510–11 where Dido calls upon the deities of the underworld: ter centum tonat ōre deōs, Erebumque Chaosque / tergeminamque Hecatēn, tria virginis ōra Dianae (“she invokes three hundred gods, both Erebus and Chaos / and three-fold Hecate, the three faces of the maiden Diana”). The goddess is identified as Lūna in heaven, Diāna on earth, and Hecatē in the underworld and thus was often represented by a three-headed statue (Pharr). nocturnīs triviīs ululāta: ululāta, though an intransitive verb, is used passively: “worshipped with wails” (Page); “invoked with shrieks” (G-K); “whose name is shrieked by night at the crossroads” (F-B).

610: Dīrae: “the Furies,” the Eumenidies and Erinyes of the Greeks. They carried out the sentence of the gods on human offenders in certain cases (Stephenson). Cf. 4.473: ultrīcēsque sedent in līmine Dīrae (“and the avenging Furies sit in wait on the threshold”). dī morientis Elissae: probably the dī mānēs (Pharr), those deities who pity and revenge such unhappy lovers as Dido, or perhaps her own “tutelary divinities” (Frieze). Why more than one is not clear. Perhaps it was conceived as twofold; hence the expression dī mānēs, and the custom of erecting two altars to the shade (G-K). A very obscure phrase; the gods of the lower world are meant to whom she consigns herself by death (Stephenson). In funeral inscriptions “D.M.” (= dīs mānibus) is very common. Dido’s use of the third person, in speaking of herself (Elissae = Dīdōnis) gives emphasis (F-B).

611: accipite haec: “heed / hear these (my complaints)” (Carter). After accipite supply animīs or more probably auribus (Page). advertite nūmen: “take notice,” “turn your (divine) consideration hither” (Carter). meritum…nūmen: literally, “turn your deserved power to my woes,” i.e., give heed to my griefs, for I deserve your pity (Frieze); “turn your power to (avenge) my sufferings” (G-K); “turn your (divine) regard to ills that have earned it.” Malīs seems to have a double construction, being a dative with advertite (“turn your attention to my ills”), but also closely related to meritum (“deserved by my ills”) (F-B).

612–629: The curse of a dying person was supposed to be especially potent and almost sure to be fulfilled by the gods (Pharr). The prophetic curse of Dido was fulfilled in the dangers and losses which Aeneas met with in the war with Turnus, who, with his brave Rutulians, came near destroying the Trojans. Aeneas was on this occasion obliged to leave Ascanius and his followers in the camp near the Tiber, and to seek help from Evander. He perished in the fourth year after finishing the war and making a treaty with the Latins, and was finally deprived of burial (the heaviest curse of all) because his body could not be found (Frieze).

612–613: sī…necesse est: with the indicative here, an expression of her conviction that so it must be; sī is almost equivalent to quoniam. Perhaps Vergil has in mind the idea, not uncommon with the ancients, that on the verge of death the future becomes clearer, and thus Dido sees with certainty that which awaits Aeneas (Frieze).

612: audīte: “grant” (G-K).

613: īnfandum caput: = Aenēās, with caput standing for the person (Frieze): “that accursed one” (Page); “this abhorrent being” (Austin). terrīs: dative of direction (Carter): in poetry place to which, or limit of motion, is often expressed by the dative (Pharr).

614: hic terminus haeret: terminus = Italia, as the goal of the Trojans’ wanderings (Carter). Supply sī (612); “and if there his goal stands fixed” (F-B); “and if this end (destiny) is fixed” (Frieze); “if that bound stands fixed.” A truly Roman image of immovability, derived from the “boundary-stones” which everywhere marked their fields under the protection of the god Terminus (Page).

615–629: In this curse of Dido’s—as in the famous Blessing of Jacob—the speaker is on the eve of death gifted with prophetic power. The later books of the Aeneid tell how Aeneas was “harassed in war” by the Rutuli, driven to leave his son, “implore aid” from Evander, and accept a peace which sacrificed the name of Troy, while other legends relate that after a brief reign of three years he fell in battle (being drowned in the Numicius) and his corpse was undiscovered. These things did happen to Aeneas, but they happened in such a way as to add to his ultimate glory, and to make the Romans proud of their ancestor, as the feud between Carthage and Rome also furnished proud memories to the Romans (Stephenson). It was on this passage that Charles I. is said to have opened when he consulted the Sortēs Vergiliānae in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Page).

615: at: “yet” (F-B); “at least” (G-K). In strong contrast; if this must be, at least let it happen thus (Austin). audācis populī: this people proved to be the Rutulians in Italy (Pharr).

616: fīnibus: ablative of separation (AG 402a) (Pharr). Aeneas was compelled to leave his camp and seek help from Evander. He left Ascanius behind to guard the camp (Carter).

617–620: implōret, videat, fruātur, cadat: hortatory or optative subjunctives (AG 441, 443): “May he (or let him) beseech…” (Pharr).

617-618: indigna fūnera: “cruel deaths” (Page); during Aeneas’ absence Turnus attacked the camp and killed many Trojans (Carter).

618–619: cum sē…trādiderit: “when he shall have surrendered to the conditions of a harsh peace” (F-B). The chief disadvantage of the Trojans in the peace made with the Latins was the loss of their separate nationality and their language. See Juno’s petition, 12.822–828 (Frieze).

619: optātā lūce: supply vītae (Pharr): “the delights of life” (F-B). Optāta is a general epithet of light (G-K). Ablative object of fruātur (AG 410). fruātur: he was king only three years (Carter).

620: sed cadat…harēnā: “and let him (lie) unburied on a waste of sand” (F-B): some verb like iaceat or sit (Pharr) must be supplied from cadat in the second clause (Page). His body was never recovered from the river Numicus (Carter). ante diem: take as an adjective, like immatūrus (Frieze): “before his time” (F-B). Dido prays that Aeneas may suffer the premature death he is bringing on her, and worse than that, may suffer the evils after death which awaited those who lacked burial (inhumātus) (Stephenson).

621–629: Dido’s second prophecy and prayer are also framed in such a way as to find fulfillment in the Second Punic War, when in the “eternal enmity” between Rome and Carthage, Hannibal arose as Dido’s avenger (ultor) and brought the Roman Republic to the verge of ruin (Pharr). An imprecation prophetic of the Punic wars, which, strictly fulfilled, resulted in the greatest struggle, but also in the proudest military glory of Rome (G-K).

621: cum sanguine: “with my life-blood” (Carter).

623–624: exercēte…mūnera: “hound” or “harass (Carter) with hate, and offer that tribute to my dust”; exercēre = “keep busy,” “allow no rest to” (Page). Catullus at his brother’s tomb brings offerings to the dead tristi munere, after traveling far (101.3 f.). But instead of wine and oil, it is revenge that will be Dido’s munus in the grave. Haec refers both to what has preceded and to what follows. Mittere is the usual word for dedicating offerings (Austin).

624: populīs nec foedera: i.e., between Rome and Carthage; dative of possession (AG 373) (Pharr). There were actually several treaties made between the two nations, the first in 509 B.C.; but after the Romans had extended their power over Italy, and had come into collision with Carthage in Sicily, treaties were observed between the two nations only so long as they were too much exhausted to renew hostilities (Frieze). suntō: the plural future imperative, as though in a solemn legal document (Carter) (AG 449.2).

625: exoriāre…ultor: “Arise, oh thou unknown Avenger, from my bones, to pursue…” Aliquis ultor is in apposition to tū understood (F-B). No Roman could read this without thinking of Hannibal (G-K). The combination of the second person of the verb with the indefinite pronoun lends great assurance to the statement. The avenger, unknown to be sure, and hence addressed with aliquis, is nevertheless so certain that he is spoken to directly in the second person (apostrophe) (Carter). nostrīs ex ossibus: because in his hatred of Rome Hannibal was her true descendant (Page); not descended from her, but rising up to represent her, and to re-embody on the earth again all her hatred to the Trojan race, as if he had risen from her very ashes (Frieze). This was the line that Filippo Strozzi of Florence wrote with his own blood upon his prison-wall in 1537 (Austin).

626: quī sequāre: = sequāris: “to pursue” (Frieze); relative clause of purpose (AG 531 note 2) or of characteristic (AG 535) (Pharr). face ferrōque: “with fire and sword” (F-B).

627: nunc, ōlim: “now (or) hereafter” (Frieze); i.e., at all times (Carter). quōcumque…vīrēs: “whenever strength is given (to do it)” (Stephenson). Note the climax and asyndeton in this line (F-B). dabunt sē: = dabuntur: “will present themselves,” “occur” (Page); “troops shall offer battle” (Carter).

628 ff.: Nothing could better express the interlocked struggle of Roman and Carthage than these two lines, with their juxtaposition of repeated nouns in different cases. Dido seems to leave the two peoples locked for ever in their enmity. And would not the Roman reader have thought also of that other struggle, the Civil War? (Austin)

628: lītora lītoribus contrāria, etc.: “Be shore opposed to shore…” The substantives with their predicative qualifications form the objects to imprecor (Stephenson).

629: imprecor: “this is my curse upon them…” (Stephenson). “I invoke.” The hypermetric line at the end of a speech is very remarkable, and marks the rush and vehemence of her words, while it also indicates that there is no break between her words and what follows (Page). pugnent: hortatory or optative subjunctive (AG 441, 443) (Pharr). ipsīque nepōtēsque: “both themselves (those of the two races now living) and their descendants” (Frieze); i.e., may the warfare begin at once, and not cease (G-K). Ipsī are the inhabitants as opposed to the inanimate objects mentioned —lītora, fluctūs, arma (Carter). The hypermetrical syllable, when it occurs, is almost always -que (Stephenson) and it betrays an intention to say more, which the powers of speech refused (Carter).