#5 Suicide of Dido

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Episode #5:  The Departure of Aeneas from Carthage & the Suicide of Dido

Vergil Aeneid Book 4 (lines 554-705)

[summarized in ‘Search for a Homeland’ pp. 46-49]

 

Now that the fleet was ready and Aeneas was resolved on going,

the Trojan leader was snatching some sleep, on the ship’s high stern.

A vision appeared again in dream admonishing him,

similar to Mercury in every way, voice and coloring,

golden hair, and youth’s graceful limbs:

‘Son of the Goddess, can you consider sleep in this disaster,

can’t you see the danger of it that surrounds you, madman

or hear the favorable west winds blowing?

Determined to die, she broods on mortal deceit and sin,

and is tossed about on anger’s volatile flood.

Won’t you flee from here, in haste, while you can hasten?

Soon you’ll see the water crowded with ships,

cruel firebrands burning, soon the shore will rage with flame,

if the Dawn finds you lingering in these lands. Come, now,

end your delay! Woman is ever fickle and changeable.’

So he spoke, and blended with night’s darkness.

 

Then Aeneas, terrified indeed by the sudden apparition,

roused his body from sleep, and called to his friends:

‘Quick, men, awake, and man the rowing-benches: run

and loosen the sails. Know that a god, sent from the heavens,

urges us again to speed our flight, and cut the twisted hawsers.

We follow you, whoever you may be, sacred among the gods,

and gladly obey your commands once more. Oh, be with us,

calm one, help us, and show stars favorable to us in the sky.’

He spoke, and snatched his shining sword from its sheath,

and struck the cable with the naked blade. All were possessed

at once with the same ardor: They snatched up their goods,

and ran: abandoning the shore: the water was clothed with ships:

setting to, they churned the foam and swept the blue waves.

 

And now, at dawn, Aurora, leaving Tithonus’ saffron bed,

was scattering fresh daylight over the earth.

As soon as the queen saw the day whiten, from her tower,

and the fleet sailing off under full canvas, and realized

the shore and harbor were empty of oarsmen, she

struck her lovely breast three or four times with her hand,

and tearing at her golden hair, said: “Ah, Jupiter, is he to leave,

is a foreigner to pour scorn on our kingdom, to pour scorn on me?

This I pray, these last words I pour out with my blood.

Then, O Tyrians, pursue my hatred against his whole line

and the race to come, and offer it as a tribute to my ashes.

Let there be no love or treaties between our peoples.

Rise, some unknown avenger, from my dust, who will pursue

the Trojan colonists with fire and sword, now, or in time

to come, whenever the strength is granted him.

I pray that shore be opposed to shore, water to wave,

weapon to weapon: let them fight, them and their descendants.’

 

Then Dido, restless, wild with desperate purpose,

rolling her bloodshot eyes, her trembling cheeks

stained with red flushes, yet pallid at approaching death,

rushed down into the house through its inner threshold, furiously

climbed the tall funeral pyre, and unsheathed

a Trojan sword, a gift that was never acquired to this end.

Then as she saw the Trojan clothing and the familiar couch,

she lingered a while, in tears and thought, then

cast herself on the bed, and spoke her last words:

‘Reminders, sweet while fate and the god allowed it,

accept this soul, and loose me from my sorrows.

I have lived, and I have completed the course that Fortune granted,

and now my noble spirit will pass beneath the earth.

I have built a bright city: I have seen its battlements,

avenging a husband I have exacted punishment

on a hostile brother, happy, ah, happy indeed

if Trojan keels had never touched my shores!’

She spoke, and buried her face in the couch.

‘I shall die unavenged, but let me die!’ she cried.

‘So, so I joy in travelling into the shadows.

Let the cruel Trojan’s eyes drink in this fire, on the deep,

and bear with him the evil omen of my death.’

She had spoken, and in the midst of these words,

her servants saw she had fallen on the blade,

the sword frothed with blood, and her hands were stained.

 

A cry rose to the high ceiling: Rumor, run riot, struck the city.

The houses sounded with weeping and sighs and women’s cries,

the sky echoed with a mighty lamentation,

as if all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling

to the invading enemy, and raging flames were rolling

over the roofs of men and gods.

Her sister, terrified, heard it, and rushed through the crowd,

tearing her cheeks with her nails, and beating her breast,

and called out to the dying woman in accusation:

 

‘So this was the meaning of it, sister? Did you aim to cheat me?

This pyre of yours, this fire and altar were prepared for my sake?

What shall I grieve for first in my abandonment? Did you scorn

your sister’s company in dying? You should have summoned me

to the same fate: the same hour the same sword’s hurt should have

taken us both. I even built your pyre with these hands,

and was I calling aloud on our father’s gods,

so that I would be absent, cruel one, as you lay here?

You have extinguished yourself and me, sister: your people,

your Sidonian ancestors, and your city. I should bathe

your wounds with water and catch with my lips

whatever dying breath still hovers.’ So saying she climbed

the high levels, and clasped her dying sister to her breast,

sighing, and stemming the dark blood with her dress.

Dido tried to lift her heavy eyelids again, but failed:

and the deep wound hissed in her breast.

Lifting herself three times, she struggled to rise on her elbow:

three times she fell back onto the bed, searching for light in

the depths of heaven, with wandering eyes, and, finding it, sighed.

 

Then all-powerful Juno, pitying the long suffering

of her difficult death, sent Iris from Olympus, to release

the struggling spirit, and captive body. For since

she had not died through fate, or by a well-earned death,

but wretchedly, before her time, inflamed with sudden madness,

Proserpine had not yet taken a lock of golden hair

from her head, or condemned her soul to Stygian Orcus.

So dew-wet Iris flew down through the sky, on saffron wings,

trailing a thousand shifting colors across the sun,

and hovered over her head. ‘I take this offering, sacred to Dis,

as commanded, and release you from the body that was yours.’

So she spoke, and cut the lock of hair with her right hand.

All the warmth ebbed at once, and life vanished on the breeze.