Aeneid lines 1.715-22 (class translation)

That one, when he hung on the embrace and neck of Aeneas and filled the great love of his pretended father, seeks the queen. This one clings with her eyes, this one with her whole heart--Dido, unknowing how great a god has settled on the wretched woman--and meanwhile cherishes (him) on her lap. But that one, mindful of his Acidalian mother little by little begins to remove Sychaeus and tries to turn with living love already long since settled spirits and hearts unaccustomed (to love).

Aeneid lines 1.657-94 (class translation)

But the Cytherean considers new skills (and) new plans in her heart, so that Cupid having changed his appearance and looks would come in place of sweet Ascanius and would incite the mad queen with his gifts and entwine fire in her bones. Of course she fears the doubtful home and the double-tongued Tyrians, terrible Juno burns and the care returns by night. Therefore she speaks to winged Love with these words: “Son, my strength, my great power, son, you who alone scorns the Typhoean weapons of the highest father, I flee to you and as a suppliant I beg your divine will. These things are known to you, how your brother Aeneas is thrown about on the sea around all the shores by the hatreds of bitter Juno, and often you have grieved with our pain. Now Phoenician Dido holds and delays [him] with flattering voices, and I fear how the hospitalities of Juno might turn themselves: hardly will she yield in such a crisis of affairs. Therefore I plan to seize the queen first with tricks and to encircle [her] with flames, lest by any power she changes herself but so she is held with me by a great love of Aeneas. Take now our mind as to how you are able to do this: the royal boy prepares to go to the Sidonian city at the summon of his dear father, my greatest care, carrying gifts surviving from the sea and from the flames of Troy; I will hide this one lulled by sleep above high Cytherea or above Idalium in my sacred seat, lest in any way he is able to know the tricks or get in the middle. You as a boy counterfeit the appearance of that boy by a trick and put on his well-known countenance for one night, no longer, so that, when most joyful Dido receives you in her lap among the royal tables and Lyeaen wine, when she will give (you) hugs and will plant sweet little kisses (on you), you will breath (into her) hidden fire and deceive with poison.”

Love obeys the words of his dear mother and takes off his wings and, rejoicing, walks with the step of Iulus. But Venus steeps peaceful quiet through the limbs of Ascanius, and the goddess carries the cherished one on her lap into the high groves of Idalia, where breathing, soft sweet-marjoram enfolds that one with its flowers and sweet shade.

Aeneid lines 1.579-630 (class translation)

Both brave Achates and father Aeneas, alerted in mind by these words, long since burned to burst out of the cloud. Sooner Achates speaks to Aeneas “Born of a goddess, what thought now rises in your mind? You see everything safe, your fleet and your followers (are) recovered. One is absent, whom we ourselves saw drown in the middle of the wave; the rest correspond to the words of your mother.”

Hardly had he spoken these words when suddenly the cloud poured around (them) split itself and dispersed into the open upper air. Aeneas stood and gleamed in the bright light, like a god on his face and shoulders; for in fact his mother herself had breathed upon her son beautiful locks and the ruddy glow of youth and joyous grace in his eyes: such a grace as hands add to ivory or when silver or Parian marble is surrounded with yellow gold. Then speaking thus to the queen and unexpected by all he says suddenly “I am here in your presence whom you seek, Trojan Aeneas, snatched from the Libyan waves. O you alone Dido having pitied the unspeakable sufferings of Troy, it is not in our power to pay worthy thanks (to you) who join us with your city, with your home, those left by the Greeks, already exhausted by every disaster both on land and on sea, lacking everything, nor (is it in the power of) whatever exists anywhere of the Dardanian race which has been scattered through the great world. If any powers look at the pious, if there is anything of justice anywhere and a mind conscious of right in itself, may the gods bring you worthy rewards. What so happy ages bore you? What so great parents bore such a child? While into the seas the rivers will flow, while shadows will traverse the valleys in the mountains, which the sky will feed the stars, honor and your name and praise will always remain, whatever lands call me.” Thus having spoken, he seeks his Trojan friend with his right (hand) and with his left Serestus, next the others, both brave Gyas and brave Cloanthus.

Sidonian Dido stood agape first at the sight and then at the great misfortune of the man, and with her mouth spoke thus: “What disaster follows you, goddess born, through such great dangers? What force drives (you) to monstrous shores? Are you that Aeneas whom nourishing Venus bore to Dardanian Anchises at the wave of the Phrygian Simois? Indeed I even remember that Teucer came to Sidon, driven from his paternal territory, seeking new kingdoms with the aid of Belus; then my father Belus laid waste to fertile Cyprus and as victor held (it) under his sway. Already from that time the misfortune of the Trojan city was known to me and your name and the Greek kings. He himself, though an enemy, held the Teucrians with marked praise and wished that he had been born from the ancient race of the Teucrians. Therefore go on, youths; enter our roofs. A similar fortune also wanted me, thrown about through many sufferings, to stand fast at last in this land. I learn to aid the wretched, myself not unknowing of evil.”

Aeneid lines 1.446-93 (class translation)

[1.437 “Oh fortunate ones whose walls already rise!”]


Here Sidonian Dido was building a huge temple to Juno, rich with gifts and the majesty of the goddess, on the steps of which were rising the bronze thresholds and the beams fastened with bronze; the socket creaked with the bronze doors. First in this grove did a strange sight which presented itself soften his fear, here Aeneas first dared to hope for safety and to trust for better in shattered circumstances. And truly while he looks at each thing under the huge temple, waiting for the queen, while he wonders at what luck the city has and the artifice of the hands among them and the effort of the deeds, he sees Trojan battles in order and the wars known already by their reputation through the whole world, the sons of Atreus and Priam, and Achilles hostile to both. He stopped and crying he said “Achates, what place now, what region among the lands is not full of our sorrow? Look Priam! Here also praise has its own rewards, there are tears for (human) affairs, and human (woes) touch the mind. Release your fears; this fame will carry some safety to you.”

Thus he speaks and groaning much he feeds his mind on the lifeless picture, and he wets his face with a large river (of tears). For he was seeing how here the Greeks warring around Pergama were fleeing, the Trojan youth pressing on, but there the Trojans (were fleeing), crested Achilles pressing on with his chariot. Not far from here, crying he recognized the tents of the Rhesus with their white canvases, to which, betrayed in first sleep, cruel Diomedes laid waste with much slaughter, and he averted the fiery horses into his camp before they had tasted the fodder of Troy and had drunk the Xanthus. In another part, Troilus fleeing with his arms lost, unlucky boy, and not equal to Achilles in battle is born by his horses and on his back clings to the empty chariot yet holding the reins; both his neck and his hair are drug through the earth and the dust is marked with his trailing spear. Meanwhile the Trojan women were going with their hair disheveled and were humbly carrying a robe to the temple of not impartial Pallas, sad and beating their breasts with their palms; the goddess, turned away, held her eyes fixed to the ground. Three times Achilles had dragged Hector around the Trojan walls and was selling the lifeless body for gold. Then indeed he gives a huge groan from the depth of his chest as he looked at the spoils, at the chariots, and at the body itself of his friend, and Priam, holding out unarmed hands. He recognized himself also mixed with the Greek chiefs and the eastern armies and the arms of black Memnon. Raging Penthesilea leads the bands of Amazons with their crescent shields and burns amidst the thousands, a woman warrior, binding her bare breast with golden girdle; a maiden, she dares to contend with the men.

Aeneid lines 1.372-410 (class translation)

“O goddess, if retracing from the very beginning I should proceed and if you have time to hear the records of our sufferings, sooner would the Evening star settle the day with Olympus closed up. By its own caprice a storm has driven us carried through various seas to Lybian shores from ancient Troy, if by chance the name of Troy has come to your ears. I am pius Aeneas, who carries my Penates, snatched from the enemy, in my fleet with me, known by my fame above the ether. I seek my fatherland, Italy, and a race from highest Jove. I embarked on the Phrigian sea with twice ten ships; with my mother goddess showing the way, I followed my given fates; scarcely seven have survived, rocked by waves and the east wind. Indeed, I myself, unknown, in need, wander through the deserts of Libya, driven from Europe and Asia.”

And Venus, not enduring his complaining more, interrupted in the middle of his pain thus: “Whoever you are, hardly do I think you consume vital breath hated by the gods, you who have come to the Tyrian city. Go on now, and from here take yourself to the thresholds of the queen. And in fact I tell you that your allies are restored and your fleet born back and driven into safety by the shifted north winds, unless in vain my parents falsely taught me augury. Look! twice six swans rejoicing in their line whom a bird of Jove, having slipped from the ethereal region, has thrown into confusion in the open sky; now they are seen either taking the ground in a long line or looking down on the already occupied (lands). As those led back play on rustling wings and have encircled the sky with their formation and given their song, hardly otherwise both your ships and the young men of your group either hold port or enter the harbors under full sail. Go on now, and where the road leads you, direct your step.”

She spoke and, turning, gleamed from her rosy neck, and her ambrosial hair breathed out divine smell from her head; her dress flowed down to the bottom of her feet, and the true goddess was evident in her step. That man, when he recognized his mother, followed the one fleeing with such a voice, "Why so many times do you also mock your son with false shapes, cruel one. Why is it not given to join right hand to right hand and to hear and return true voices?” With such (words) he reproaches and holds his step to the walls.

Aeneid lines 1.325-71 (class translation)

Thus Venus (spoke), and in response the son of Venus began thus: 'None of your sisters have been heard or seen by me. What am I to call you, maiden? For you hardly have the features of a mortal, nor does your voice sound human; o, certainly a goddess (whether a sister of Phoebus or one of the race of the nymphs) may you be propitious, and may you lighten our suffering who ever you are, and may you teach us under which sky finally and on which shores of the world we are thrown; we wander unknowing both of the people and the places, driven hither by wind and vast waves: many a (sacrificial) victim will fall before your altar by my right hand.

Then Venus (replied): 'Hardly indeed do I deem myself worthy of such honor; it is the custom for Tyrian maidens to bear a quiver and to bind high our legs with scarlet buskins. You see the kingdoms of Phoenicia, the Tyrians, and the city of Agenor; but also the borders of Lybia, a race intractable in war. Dido directs power, having set out from the city of Tyre, fleeing her brother. Long is the injustice, long the tales, but I shall follow the main points of the affair.

Her husband was Sycaeus, richest in land of the Phoenicians, and cherished by the great love of the poor women, to whom her father gave her, untouched, and joined (her to him) in her first marriage. But her own brother Pygmalion was holding rule of Tyre, more immense in his villainy than all others. Between whom a fury came in their midst. That man, unholy before the altar and blind with love of gold, overcomes a careless Sychaeus with his sword secretly, caring nothing for his sister's love, and for a long time he hid his deed, and the evil man, feigning many things, deceived the distraught lover with vain hope. But the very image of her unburied husband came in her dreams, lifting his pale face in wondrous ways; he laid bare the bloody altars and his chest, pierced by the sword, and he uncovered the whole hidden wickedness of his house. Then her urges (her) to hasten her flight and depart from her fatherland, and he unearths as an aid for her journey ancient treasures, an unknown weight of silver and gold. Moved by these things Dido prepared her flight and her allies. They come together who had either a fierce hatred or a sharp fear of the tyrant; they seize and with gold load the ships which were prepared by chance; the riches of greedy Pygmalion are carried on the sea; a woman is the leader of this deed. They arrived at the places where now you will see the massive walls and the rising citadels of new Carthage, and they purchased the soil, Byrsa from the name of the deed, as much as they were able to circle with a bull hide. But, finally, who are you? Or from which shores did you come? To what place do you hold your course?” To the one asking, that man, sighing, drawing his voice from deep within his chest, (answers) with such (words):

Aeneid lines 1.297-324 (class translation)

He says these things and sends down the son of Maia from the sky, in order that the lands and the new citadels of Carthage would lie open in welcome to the Teucrians, lest Dido, unaware of fate, keep (him) from her territory. That one flies through the great air on the oarage of his wings, and quickly stood on the shores of Libya. And already he obeys his commands, and the Phoenicians put aside their fierce hearts with the god willing; among the first, the queen accepts a quiet spirit and a benign mind toward the Teucrians.

But pious Aeneas, considering many things through the night, as soon as the kindly light appeared, decided to leap up and explore the new places (and) to ask what shores he had reached by the wind, who held them, whether men or wild beast, for he saw they were uncultivated, and to carry back his discoveries to his allies. He hides his fleet in a dome of forest under a hollowed out cliff, closed around by trees and by trembling shade. He himself attended by Achates alone proceeds, brandishing a pair of spears with wide iron tips in his hand. To whom his mother, in his way in the middle of the forest, took herself, bearing the face and clothing of a maiden and the arms of a Spartan maiden, or of such as the Thracian girl Harpalyce, wearing down her horses and outstripping the swift Hebrus with her course. For she had hung her bow handily from her shoulder by custom as a huntress, and she had given her hair to the winds to scatter; (she is) bare at the knee and has collected her flowing robes into a knot. And she speaks first, “Ho there, young men! Tell me if you have seen any of my sisters wandering here, by chance, girt with a quiver and the hide of a dappled lynx or pressing the course of a foaming boar with a shout.”

Aeneid lines 1.254-96 (class translation)

Smiling at her, the father of men and gods, with the countenance with which he brightens the sky and storms, pours little kisses on his daughter, hence says such things: Spare your fear, Cytherean: the fates of your people remain for you; you will see the city and promised walls of Lavinium, you will bear great-hearted Aeneas aloft to the stars of the sky; no purpose turns me. (For I will speak more, because this care gnaws at you, and rolling out [the scroll] I will reveal the secrets of the fates.) This man will wage a vast war in Italy for you and will crush the fierce peoples, and he will establish customs and walls for his people, while three summers see him ruling in Latium and three winters pass by for the subdued Rutulians. But the boy Ascanius, to whom now the surname Iulus is added—it was Ilus, while the Trojan state stood in power—will fill out thirty great cycles with their swift passing months in power, and he will transfer the kingdom from the seat of Lavinium, and he will fortify Alba Longa with great power. Here now for 300 full years royal power will be exercised under Hectors race, until the Trojan queen, priestess, pregnant by Mars, will give twin offspring at birth. Thence rejoicing in the tawny hide of his nursemaid the wolf, Romulus will take up the race and will establish the walls of Mars, and he will call the Romans from his name.

I place neither limits of affairs nor times for these men: I have given power without end. But even cruel Juno, who now harasses the sea and lands and sky with fear, will turn her plans for the better, and will cherish the Romans with me, the lords of the world’s affairs, the toga-ed people. Thus is it settled. The age will come with the sacred seasons slipping by when the home of Assaracus will subdue Phthia and famous Mycenae in servitude and will rule over the defeated Argives. A Trojan Caesar will be born from a beautiful origin, who will limit (the reach of) his power with the ocean and his fame with the stars—Julius, the name derived from the great Iulus. You, untroubled, will receive this man burdened by the spoils of the Orient to the sky one day; this man will also be called in prayers. With wars set aside, then will the rough ages become mild; grey Faith and Vesta, Quirinus with his brother Remus will give the laws. The awful gates of war will be closed with iron and skillful seams; impious Fury, sitting deep within over savage weapons and bound with 100 bronze knots behind his back will rage horribly with his bloody mouth.

Aeneid lines 1.223-53 (class translation)

And now it was the end, when Jupiter, looking down from the highest heaven on the sail-winged sea and the outspread lands and the shores and the scattered peoples, so stood on the summit of the sky and fixed his eyes on the kingdoms of Libya. Venus, sadder and filled with shining tears in her eyes, said to him mulling such cares in his heart: O you who rule the affairs of both men and gods with eternal commands and frighten with lightning, what so great a thing were my Aeneas and the Trojans able to commit against you, for whom, having endured such losses, the whole expanse of the lands is closed to them because of Italy? Certainly you have promised that from them one day would be the Romans with the rolling of the years, from them would be the leaders, from the restored line of Teucer, who would hold the sea, who would hold all the lands in their jurisdiction. What thought changes you, father? Indeed I consoled myself concerning the fall of Troy and its sad ruins with this, balancing one fate against another. Now the same fortune follows men driven by so many calamities. What end to their labors do you give, great king? Antenor, having slipped from the midst of the Argives, was able to penetrate Illyrian gulfs and the inmost kingdoms of the Liburnians safely and (was able) to pass along the fountain of Timavus, whence the furious sea goes through nine mouths of the mountain with a vast noise and overwhelm the fields with the roaring sea. Yet here that man paced the city of Patavus and the abodes of the Teucri, and he gave his name to the race, and he fixed the Trojan arms; now settled in placid peace he rests: we, your offspring, for whom you have bared the citadel of the sky, our ships lost (unspeakable!), because of the anger of one are betrayed and separated far from the shores of Italy. Is this the reward of piety? Do you thus place us in power?

Aeneid lines 1.197-222 (class translation)

. . .and he eases the sorrowing hearts (of his men) with (these) words: O allies (for we are not unknowing of evils from before) o you who have endured more serious things, the god will grant an end also to these (things). You have approached both Scylla's rage and the deep sounding rocks, you have endured even the Cyclopean rocks: recall your courage and send away sad fear: perhaps it will even delight to remember these things one day. Through various disasters, through so many crises of affairs we held into Latium, where the fates offer quiet homes; there it is right for the kingdoms of Troy to rise again. Endure, and save yourself for favorable times.

He brings forth such things with his voice, and sick with huge cares he feigns hope on his face; he pressed grief deep in his heart. Those men gird themselves for reward and for the coming feasts; they rip the hides from the ribs and bare the innards; part cuts into parts and fix the trembling flesh on spits; others place the bronze (pots) on the shore and tend to the fires. Then they recall their strength with food, and stretched out through the grass they are filled with aged wine and rich venison. After hunger has removed by the feasts and the tables are withdrawn (cleared), they lament their lost comrades with long conversation. Wavering between hope and fear, they believe either that they (still) live or that they, having endured their final fates, no longer hear (themselves) called. Especially pious Aeneas bemoans now the destruction of fierce Orontus, now (that) of Amycus, and the cruel fates of Lycus, and brave Gyas, and brave Cloanthus.

Aeneid lines 1.124-41 (class translation)

Meanwhile Neptune felt the sea being mixed with a great noise and the sent storm and the calm waters poured up from the lowest depths and (was) seriously moved; and looking out from the deep, he lifted his serene head out of the water top. He sees the scattered fleet of Aeneas over the whole sea, and the Trojans crushed by the waves and the ruin of the sky, and the tricks and angers of Juno did not elude her brother. He calls Eurus and Zephyr to himself (and) thence says such words: Did such faith in your kind hold you? Do you dare, winds, to mix now the sky and the earth without my authority and to bear up such masses? Why I—but it is better to settle the moving waves. Afterwards you will pay me with not like punishments for your actions. Hasten your flight, and tell these things to your king: command of the sea and the savage trident were not given to him by lot, but to me. That man holds the huge rocks, your homes, Eurus; let Aeolus vaunt himself in those halls, and let him rule in the closed prison of the winds.

Aeneid lines 1.1-49 (class translation)

I sing of arms and a man who first from the shores of Troy, a fugitive because of fate, came to Italy and Lavinian shores, that man tossed much both on lands and on the sea by the force of the gods due to the mindful anger of savage Juno; also having endured much, even war, while founding his city and carrying his gods to Latium, whence the Latin race, the Alban fathers, and the walls of lofty Rome. Muse, remind me (of) the causes, by what injured divinity or grieving in respect to what the queen of the gods forced a man marked by piety to roll out so many misfortunes to enter so many labors. Have the spirits of the skies such angers?

There was an ancient city, Tyrians held (it) as colonists, Carthage, far opposite Italy and Tiber's mouths, wealthy in riches and most fierce in the arts of war, which alone Juno is said to have cherished above all lands, even Samos was held lower; here were the weapons of that (goddess), here was her chariot; the goddess then already held and nourished this kingdom for her people , if the fates would allow. But indeed she had heard that an offspring would be led from Trojan blood which someday would overturn the Tyrian citadels; from this a people ruling widely and proud in war would come for the destruction of Libya: thus the Fates had written.

Fearing this, the daughter of Saturn, mindful of the old war which she had waged as a leader for her dear Argives upon Troy--also the causes of angers and savage pains had not yet left her mind: the judgement of Paris, stored deep in her heart, and the injury of her spurned form, and the hated race, and the honors of stolen Ganymede remain. Burning over these, she drove far from Latium the Trojans left by the Danai and hostile Achilles, tossed on the whole sea, and driven by the fates they wandered for many years, around all the seas. Of such effort was it to found the Roman race!

Scarcely out of sight of Sicilian land, the Trojans were happily giving their sails into the deep and churning the foam of the salt sea with their bronze prow, when Juno, nursing the eternal wound in her heart, (said) these things to herself, “Am I, beaten, to cease from my plan? Am I not able to turn the King of the Tucreans from Italy? Indeed I am barred by the fates. Was Pallas able to burn the Argive fleet and sink those in the sea due to the crime of one and the violent passions of Ajax, son of Oileus? She herself, having hurled the swift fire of Jove from the clouds, both scattered the ships and turned over the waters with the winds; she snatched that man from the whirlwind, breathing out flames from his pierced chest and impaled him on a sharp rock; but I, who stride as queen of the gods and both sister and wife of Jove, wage war with one race for so many years! And who will worship the power of Juno hereafter or put sacrificial honor on my altars as a suppliant?"