Book I

1 Arms and a man I sing, who was the first from the shores of Troy,
a fugitive by fate, to come to Italy and the Lavinian
shores — he has been buffeted much both on lands and on sea
by the force of the gods, because of the mindful wrath of cruel Juno,
5 many things also has he suffered too in war, until he should found a city
and bear the gods into Latium — from where [came] the Latin race
and the Alban fathers and the walls of lofty Rome.
   Muse, recall for me the reasons, because of what slight to her divinity
of suffering what did the queen of the gods drive
10 a man marked by devotion to undergo so many misfortunes,
to encounter so many hardships.  Do heavenly minds have such wrath?
   There was an ancient city (Tyrian colonists held it)
Carthage, opposite Italy and the mouth(s) of the Tiber by far,
rich of resources and very fierce in [respect to] zeal for war;
15 Juno is said to have cherished it alone more than all of the lands
with Samos having been placed after: here [were] her arms,
here was her chariot; for this to be the kingdom for the nations,
if in any way the fates would allow, the goddess already then strives and cherishes.
But indeed she had heard that a race had been led from Trojan blood
20 which would one day overturn Tyrian citadels;
hence that a people ruling widely and proud in war
would come as the destruction for Libya: that thus the Fates had spun.
Saturnia, fearing this and mindful of the former war,
which she foremost had waged near Troy on behalf of her dear Argos
25 (not yet, too, had the reasons for her wrath and the cruel sorrows
fallen from her mind; the judgment of Paris remains stored up in her deep mind
and the injury of her spurned beauty
and the envied race and the honors of snatched up Ganymede) —
inflamed at these things too, [she] she was warding the Trojans,
30 tossed  on the entire sea, the remnants of the Greeks and fierce Achilles,
from Latium far off, and through many years
they were wandering, driven by their fates, around all of the seas.
Of so great a burden it was to found the Roman race!
   Scarcely out of sight of Sicilian land on the deep [sea]
35 happy they were giving their sails, and they were plowing the foam of the salt with bronze,
when Juno, nursing and ever-lasting wound at the bottom of her heart
to herself [said] these things: “Me to cease from something begun defeated.
and not to be able to avert the ring of the Teucrians from Italy?
Surely I am forbidden by the fates.  Was Pallas able to burn up an Argive fleet
40 and to sink the same men in the sea
because of the crime of one and the frenzy of Ajax of Oileus?
She herself hurled the swift fire of Jupiter from the clouds,
and she scattered the ships and overturned the waters with the winds,
him, breathing out flames from his pierced breast,
45 she snatched up with a whirlwind and impaled on a sharp crag;
but I, who stride in as queen of the gods and Jupiter’s
both sister and wife, with one nation for so many years
wage wars.  And who worships the divinity of Juno
moreover or will as a suppliant place honor on her altars?”
50   Turning such things to herself in her inflamed heart, the goddess
into Aeolia, the country of the clouds, regions teaming with raging winds,
comes.  Here, King Aeolus in his vast cave
represses the struggling winds and the howling storms
with his sway and reigns them with chains and a prison.
55 They, being indignant, with a great murmur of the mountain
roar around the barriers; Aeolus sits on his lofty stronghold
holding the scepter and he calms their spirits and he controls their wrath;
if he were not doing [this], surely swift they would carry [off]
the seas and the lands and deep heaven with themselves and they would sweep through the breezes.
60 But the all-powerful father hid them in black caves
fearing this, and he placed on top a burden and tall mountains,
and he gave [them] a king who, by a sure agreement,
would know how both to control them and to give loose reins, having been ordered.
To him then Juno as a suppliant used these words:
65   “Aeolus, indeed to you the father of the gods and the king of men
has granted to soothe and to raise the waves with the wind,
a race unfriendly to me sails the Tyrrhenian sea
carrying Troy into Italy and their defeated penates:
strike power into the winds and overwhelm the sunken ships,
70 or drive them scattered and scatter their bodies on the sea.
I have twice six nymphs of excellent body,
of whom [she] who is most beautiful in shape, Deiopea,
I will join with a lasting marriage and will dedicate as your own,
so that with you [in return] for such merits
75 she will spend all of the years and will make you a parent with handsome offspring.”
   Aeolus [said] these things in reply: “It is your task, O queen,
to examine what you wish; I have the divine law to perform the things ordered.
You reconcile to me whatever of a kingdom this is, you [reconcile to me] the scepter and Jupiter
you grant me to recline at the banquets of the gods
80 and you make me powerful of clouds and storms.”
   When these things were said, with his spear turned
he strikes the hollow mountain into the side: and the winds, just as with a battle line having been made,
where a portal has been given, rush and they blow through the lands with a whirlwind.
They have lain upon the sea and the entire [sea] from the deepest seats
85 together both the Eurus and the Notus and frequent with blasts
Africus overturn, and they roll vast waves to the shores:
Suddenly clouds snatch away both heaven and day
from the eyes of the Teucrians; black night lay upon the sea.
90 The poles thunder, and the upper air flashes with frequent fire,
and everything threatens instant death for the men.
Suddenly the limbs of Aeneas are loosened with chill;
he groans and stretching both of his palms to the stars
relates such things with his voice: “O three and four times,
95 those who before the faces of their fathers under the lofty walls of Troy
happened to meet [death]!  O most brave of the race of Greeks
Diomedes!  Could I not have fallen on Ilian plains
and have poured out my life by your right [hand],
where fierce Hector lies by the weapon of the descendant of Aeacus {Achilles}, where huge
100 Sarpedon [lies], where the Simois turns snatched up under its waves
so many shields and helmets of men and brave bodies!”
   For him uttering such things, a gale roaring with the Aquilla
strikes against the sail, and it raises the waves to the stars.
Oars are shattered, then the prow turns and to the waves
105 gives its side, a towering mountain of water follows in a heap.
Some hang on the top of a wave; to others a gaping wave
discloses the land between the waves, the surf rages with sand.
The Notus twists three having been snatched up against the lurking rocks
(which rocks in the middle of the waves the Italians call The Altars,
110 a huge ridge at the surface of the sea), the Eurus drives three from the deep
into the shallows and sand bars, pitiable to see,
and dashes into the shoals and girds with a wall of sand.
One, which was conveying the Lycians and faithful Orontes,
before the eyes of [Aeneas] himself from above the huge sea
115 strikes upon the stern: he is cast off and leaning forward the master
is rolled out headlong; but three times in the same place a wave
twists that [ship] driving [it] around, and a swift whirlpool swallows [it] on the sea.
Scattered swimmers appear in the vast abyss,
arms of men and planks and Trojan treasure through the waves.
120 The storm conquered now the strong ship of Ilioneus, now [the ship] of brave Achates,
and [the one] in which Abas has been conveyed, and [the one] in which aged Aletes [has been carried];
with the joints of the sides loose, all of them
receive the hostile flood and they gape open in cracks.
   Meanwhile Neptune has perceived that the sea has been mixed with a great rumble
125 and that a storm had been sent forth and that from the deepest
shallows the still waters have been poured back, greatly disturbed {modifies Neptune}; and on the deep
looking out he lifted his calm head from the top of a wave.
He sees that the fleet of Aeneas has been scattered on the entire sea,
that the Trojans have been overwhelmed by the waves and by the downfall of the sky.
130 and the tricks and wrath of Juno did not escape the notice of her brother.
He calls Eurus and Zephyrus to him, and then he says such things:
   “Has such confidence of your birth held you?
Already do you dare to mix the heaven and earth without my assent, winds,
and to raise masses of such size?
135 You whom I — but it is better to calm the moved waves.
Afterwards you will atone to me for your crimes by no similar punishment.
Hasten your flight and say these things to your king:
that not to him has command of the sea and the fierce trident
been given, but to me by lot.  He holds immense rocks,
140 your home, Eurus; let Aeolus vaunt himself in those halls,
and let him reign in the closed prison of the winds.”
   Thus he spoke, and he calms the swollen waters more quickly than the word.
and he puts to flight the gathered clouds, and he leads back the sun.
at the same time Cymothoe and Triton, having leaned against, push the ships
145 from the sharp crag; he himself lifts them with his trident,
and he opens the vast sand bars, and he calms the water,
and he glides over the tops of the waves on light wheels.
And just as when in a great nation often strife has arisen,
and the ignoble crowd rages in their minds;
150 and now firebrands and rocks fly, madness supplies the arms;
then, if by chance they have seen some man marked with devotion and services,
they fall silent and stand near with ears pricked up;
he rules their minds with words and soothes their hearts:
thus the entire uproar of the sea has fallen, after looking out over the waters
155 the father, carried into an open sky,
turns his horses and flying gives the reins to his obedient chariot.
   The tired out followers of Aeneas struggle to seek in their course
the shores which are closest, and they are turned to the shores of Libya.
There is a place in a long inlet: an island makes a port
160 with the projection of its sides, by which each wave from the sea
is broken and divides itself into bays having been led back.
On this side and that vast cliffs and twin crags tower
into the sky, under the summit of which
the protected waters widely lie still; then a background of waving woods
165 from above, and a grove, black with trembling shade, overhangs;
at the foot of the opposite face, a cave of hanging cliffs,
sweet waters within and seats of living rocks,
a home of nymphs.  Here not ever do any chains
hold weary ships, an anchor does not bind with curved fluke.
170 To here with seven ships having been gathered from the entire number
Aeneas enters; and with a great love for the earth
the Trojans, having disembarked, gain the desired beach,
and the place their limbs dripping with salt on the shore.
And at once Achates struck out spark from a flint
175 and caught up the fire with leaves and around
gave dry fuel and snatched up the flame in the tinder.
Then the Ceres, spoiled by the waves, and the implements of Ceres
they bring out, weary of their affairs, and they prepare both to roast
the recovered grain with the flames and to break it with a rock.
180   Meanwhile Aeneas climbs a cliff, and he seeks
the entire view on the sea widely, if he should see any Antheus
tossed on the wind and Phrygian biremes
or Capys or the arms of Caicus on lofty ships.
he sees in his view no ship, three stags on the shore
185 wandering; entire herds follow these
from the back, and the long line grazes throughout the valley.
Here he stops and snatches up the bow with his hand and
the swift arrows, which missiles Achates was bearing,
and lays low first the leaders themselves, bearing their heads high
190 with branching antlers, then he confuses the crowd and the entire
mob, driving [it] with missiles within the leafy grove;
and he does not stop before as victor he pours out seven huge
bodies on the ground and equals their number with his ships.
From here he seeks the harbor and divides [them] into all of his comrades.
195 Then wine, which good Acestes had laden in jars
on the Sicilian shore and the hero had given the them departing,
he distributes, and he soothes their grieving hearts with words:
   “O comrades (and indeed we are not before ignorant of hardships),
O [you] having suffered more serious [things], a god will an end to these also.
200 You have approached both the madness of Scylla and the cliffs echoing
within, and you have experienced the Cyclops’ rocks:
recall your morale, and send [away] sad fear;
perhaps it will help one day even to remember these things.
Through various misfortunes, through so many crises of affairs
205 we stretch into Latium, where the fates promise
a peaceful home; there it is right for the realms of Troy to rise again.
Endure, and guard yourselves for favorable things.”
   He relates such words with his voice, and sick with huge concerns
he feigns hope with his face, he represses deep grief in his heart.
210 The others gird themselves for spoils and the coming banquet:
they tear the hide from the ribs and bare the flesh;
part cuts it into pieces and fix it, quivering, on spits,
others place bronze [pots] on the shore and tend the flames.
Then they recall their strength with food, and lain throughout the grass
215 they are filled with old Bacchus {wine} and fat venison.
After their hunger has been taken away by the feast and the tables have been removed,
they seek again in a long conversation their lost comrades,
doubtful between both hope and fear whether they believe that they are alive
or that they have suffered death and are not already hearing the ones calling.
220 Chiefly devoted Aeneas groans for the death now of keen Orontes,
now of Amycus and to himself
the cruel fates of Lycus and brave Gyas and Brave Cloanthus.
   And already it was the end, when Jupiter from the top of the upper air
looking down upon the sail-winged sea and the lands, lying outspread,
225 and the shores and the wide nations thus on the summit of the sky
stood and fixed his eyes on the kingdoms of Libya.
And Venus, rather sad and filled at the eyes with shining tears,
addresses him, pondering such concerns in his heart:
“O you who rule the affairs of both men and gods
230 with divine commands and terrifies [them] with lightning,
what so great an offense was my Aeneas able to commit against you,
what were the Trojans [able to commit], for whom, having suffered so many deaths,
the entire circle of lands is shut out because of Italy?
Surely you have promised that from this with the years rolling by they would some day be Romans,
235 from this that they would be leaders, from the restored blood of Teucer,
who would hold the sea, who would hold all the lands with their sway.
What opinion turns you, father?
With this indeed I found consolation for the fall and the sad ruin of Troy
compensating opposing fates with [these] fates;
240 now the same fortune pursues men driven by so many misfortunes.
What end of toils do you give, great king?
Antenor, having slipped out of the middle of the Greeks, was able
to enter Illyrian bays and to pass beyond the source of the Timavi,
245 from where through nine mouths with a vast murmuring of a mountain
it goes as a sea having burst forth, and it presses the farmlands with roaring sea.
Here, however, he has placed the city of Patavium and a home
of Trojans and has given his name to the nation and has fixed Trojan
arms, now, composed in calm peace, he rests:
250 we, your offspring, to whom you promise the citadel of the sky,
with ships (unspeakable!) having been lost because of the wrath of one
are betrayed and separated from Italian shores by far.
Is this the reward for devotion?  In this way do you restore us into power?
   The sire of men and of gods, smiling at her with his face,
255 with which he calms sky and storms,
poured out kisses to his daughter, then he says such things:
“Spare your fear, Cytheria, the fates of your people remain unmoved
[since you are concerned (tibi)]; you will perceive the city and the promised walls
of Lavinia, and you will bear great-souled Aeneas on high to the stars of heaven;
260 and an opinion does not turn me.
(for I will speak, since this concern gnaws at you,
rather long, and I will ponder, rolling, the secrets of the fates)
he [since you are concerned (tibi)] will wage a huge was in Italy
and will crush fierce nations and place both customs and walls for the men,
265 until a third summer will have seen him reigning in Latium,
and three winters will have passed with the Rutulians having been subdued.
But the boy Ascanius, to whom now the cognomen Iulus
is added (Ilus it was, while the Ilian state stood in power),
will fill up thirty great circles of rolling months
270 with his rule, and he will transfer the kingdom from the seat of Lavinia,
and he will fortify Alba Longa with much power.
Here now for an entire three hundred years it will be ruled
under the race of Hector, until a royal priestess,
Ilia, pregnant by Mars, will give twin offspring by birth.
275 Then happy in the tawny covering of the wolf nurse
Romulus will inherit the race, and he will found Martian walls
and will call them Romans from his own name.
To them I place neither boundaries nor time [limits] of affairs:
I give them empire without end.  Yes, even harsh Juno,
280 who now tires out sea and lands and sky with fear,
will restore her plans for the better, and with me she will cherish
the Romans, the masters of affairs and the togate race.
Thus it has pleased [me].  An age will come, with sacred seasons gliding by,
when the house of Assaracus will subject Phthia and famous Mycenae
285 to slavery and will rule over the conquered Argives.
From this beautiful origin a Trojan Caesar will be born,
who will limit his empire with Ocean, his fame with the stars,
Julius, a name derived from great Iulus.
Untroubled, you, some day, will receive him in heaven,
290 laden with the spoils of the East; he too will be called in prayers.
Then harsh ages will become mild with wars having been put down;
gray Fides and Vesta, Quirinus with brother Remus
will give laws; the dire gates of War will be closed
with iron and close fitting joints; impious Furor within
295 sitting above cruel arms and bound with one hundred bronze
knots behind its back roars, horrible with its bloody mouth.”
   He says these things and sends the son of Maia down from on high,
so that the lands, so that the new citadels of Carthage might lay open
as a welcome for the Trojans, lest Dido, unaware of fate,
300 keep them from her borders.  He flies through the great air
with his oarage of wings, and swift he stands at the shores of Libya.
And already he does the orders, and the Carthaginians put down their fierce
hearts with the god willing; among the first Dido receives a calm
soul and kindly mind toward the Trojans.
305   But devoted Aeneas, turning many things through the night,
as soon as nurturing light was given, decides to go out, and to explore
the strange places, to inquire what shores he has reached on the wind,
who held them (for he sees [that they are] untilled), whether men or beasts,
and to report things discovered to his comrades.
310 He hides the fleet in the hollow of the groves under a hollowed out cliff
closed in around by trees and bristling shadows;
he himself, accompanied by Achates alone, proceeds,
brandishing two spears with wide iron in his hand.
His mother bore herself to meet him in the middle of the forst
315 wearing the face and garb of a maiden and the arms
of a Spartan maiden, or as Thracian Harpalyce [when she] tires out horses
and in her flight outstrips the winged Hebrus.
Indeed according to custom she had suspended a handy bow on her shoulders
as a huntress and had given her hair to scatter in the winds
320 nude at the knee and having gathered her flowing folds in a knot.
And the former says, “Ho, youths, point out
is you have seen any of my sisters, by chance, wandering here
girded up with a quiver and the skin of a spotted lynx,
or pursuing the course of a frothing boar with a shout.”
325   Thus Venus [spoke]; and the son of Venus in turn began thus:
I have heard nothing nor seen [anything] of your sisters,
O whom should I call you, maiden?  Indeed scarcely is your countenance
mortal to me, and your voice does not sound human; O, goddess surely
(whether the sister of Phoebus or one from the blood or nymphs),
330 may you be blessed, and may you lighten our toil, whoever [you are],
and may you teach [me] under what sky at last, on what shores of the world
we are tossed; ignorant of the men and places
we wander, driven here by the wind and vast waves:
much sacrifice will fall for you before your altars by our hand.
335   Then Venus: “Scarcely, indeed, do I deem myself worthy of such an honor;
it is the custom for Tyrian maidens to wear a quiver
and to bind their legs high with high purple boots.
You will see Punic realms, Tyrians and a city of Agenor;
but the borders are Libyan, a race unmanageable in war.
340 Dido rules the empire, having set out from a Tyrian city,
fleeing her brother.  Long is the wrong-doing, long
the devious tales; but I will follow the highest points of the matters.
She had a husband, Sychaeus, very rich of field
of the Phoenicians, and cherished by the miserable woman’s great love,
345 to whom her father had given her untouched and had joined with the best
omens.  But her brother held the realms of Tyre,
Pygmalion, more wicked in crime before all others.
madness came between them in the middle.  Impious before the altars
and blinded by a love for gold,
350 he secretly overcame with iron unsuspecting Sychaeus, reckless
of his sister’s passions; and for a long time he hid the deed
and evil, feigning many things he deceived the sick lover with false hope.
But the very image of her unburied husband in dreams came
lifting his pallid face in marvelous ways;
355 he exposed the bloody altars and his breast pierce with iron,
and he uncovered each dark crime of the house.
Then he persuades her to speed her flight and the depart from her fatherland,
and he reveals, as an aid for the way, ancient treasures in the earth,
an unknown weight of silver and gold.
360 Aroused by these things, Dido prepared flight and comrades.
They came together who had either fierce hatred for the tyrant
or sharp fear; they seized and burdened with gold
ships, which by chance were prepared.  The riches of greedy
Pygmalion are carried on the sea; the leader of the deed was a woman.
365 They arrived at the places where now you will see huge
walls and the rising citadel of new Carthage,
and they purchased the ground, from the name of the deed, the Byrsa,
how much they were able to surround with the hide of a bull.
But who are you, at last?  Or from what shores have you come?
370 Or to where do you hold your way?”  To her asking with such words he,
sighing and from the bottom of his heart drawing his voice [says]:
   “O goddess, if retracing from the first origin I should proceed
and if there were leisure [for you] to hear the annals of our toils,
sooner would the evening star would compose day with Olympus having been closed.
375 A storm by its own will has driven us, carried from ancient Troy,
if by chance the name of Troy has gone through your ears,
through various waters to Libyan shores.
I am dutiful Aeneas, who carry with me in my ship
penates snatched from the enemy, known above the upper airs by my reputation.
380 I seek Italy as a fatherland and a race from highest Jupiter.
I embarked the Phrygian sea with twice twenty ships,
with my mother, a goddess, showing the way, having followed the given fates;
scarcely seven remain, having been shattered by the waves and Eurus.
I myself, unknown, being in need, wander the deserts of Libya,
385 driven from Europe and Asia.”  And not having endured him complaining more,
Venus interrupted in the middle of the grief thus:
   “Whoever you are, scarcely, do I believe, do you take in the airs of life
hateful to the gods, you who have approached the Tyrian city.
Only proceed, and bear yourself hence to the threshold of the queen.
390 Indeed I announce to you that your comrades are restored and your fleet renewed
and driven into safety with the winds having been turned,
unless false parents taught [me] augury in vain.
See twice six swans rejoicing in a line,
whom the bird of Jupiter, having glided from the upper air region,
395 was agitating in the opened sky; now in a long line
they seem either to seize the earth or to look down on the land already seized:
As these led back play on rustling wings
and encircle the sky in a flock and give songs,
scarcely otherwise do your ships and the youth of your people
400 either hold the harbor or enter its mouth with full sail.
Only proceed and, where the way leads you, direct your step.”
   She spoke and turning away shone from her rosy neck,
and her ambrosial locks breathed out a divine scent from the top;
her clothing flowed down to the bottoms of her feet;
405 and a true goddess is evident by her stride.  He, when he recognized
his mother, followed her fleeing with such a voice:
“Why do you mock your son so often with false images,
you also cruel?  Why is it not granted to join hand to hand
and to hear and return true voices?”
410 He reproaches [her] with such words and stretches his step toward the walls.
But Venus inclosed them proceeding in a dark fog,
and the goddess surrounded them much with a cloak of cloud,
so that no one could see nor touch them
or make a delay or demand the reasons of their coming.
415 She herself departs on high to Paphos and revisits her own home,
happy, where she has a temple and a hundred
altars burn with Arabian incense and are fragrant with fresh garlands.
   Meanwhile they have hastened on the way, where the path shows.
And already they were ascending a hill which with imposing size
420 towers over the city and looks at its facing tower from above.
Aeneas wonders at the mass, once huts,
he wonders at the gates and the noise and the beds of the roads.
The Tyrians, being eager, press on: part to lead the walls
and to make the citadel and to roll up stones with their hands,
425 part to choose a place for a house and to enclose it with a trench.
They choose laws and magistrates and a sacred senate.
Here some are digging harbors; here others are placing the deep foundations
for theaters, and they cut out huge columns
from cliffs, the lofty ornaments for the future stages.
430 Just as in new summer through the flowery countryside
work under the sun busies bees, when they lead forth
the grown broods of the race, or when they stuff the flowing honey
and stretch the cells with sweet nectar,
or they receive the loads of the ones coming, or, with a battle line drawn,
435 the ward the drones, a lazy swarm, from the hives;
the work boils, and the fragrant honey smells of thyme.
“O fortunate [they], whose walls are already rising!”
Aeneas says, and he looks up at the heights of the city.
He bears himself, inclosed in the cloud (marvelous to say),
440 through the middle of them, and he mixes with the men and is seen to no one.
In the middle of the city there was a grove, very luxuriant of shade,
where first the Phoenicians, tossed by waves and whirlwind,
excavated a token, which regal Juno
had shown, the head of a spirited horse; that indeed thus would
445 their race be excellent in war and easy to live through the ages.
Here Sidonian Dido was founding a huge temple to Juno,
rich with gifts and the divinity of the goddess,
on the steps of which brazen thresholds were rising and
beams fastened with bronze, on brazen doors a hinge creaked.
450 In this grove first did a new fortune offered soften his fear.
Here first did Aeneas dare to hope for safety
and to trust better in shattered fortunes.
Indeed while he surveys each thing at the foot of the huge temple
waiting for the queen, while he was wondering at what future the city would have
455 and at the hands of the craftsmen [competing] among themselves and toil of the deeds
 he sees in order the Trojan battles
and the wars already made known by their reputation through the entire world,
the sons of Atreus, and Priam and Achilles, cruel to both.
He stood fast and weeping said, “What place is there now, Achates,
460 what region on the lands is not full of our suffering?
Behold Priam.  Here also glory has its rewards;
there are tears of affairs and mortal things touch the mind.
Dismiss your fears; this fame will bring to you some safety.”
Thus he speaks and feeds his soul with the empty picture
465 groaning much, and he moistens his face with a plentiful river.
Indeed he saw how warring around the Pergama
here the Greeks fled, the Trojan youth was pressing on,
here the Phrygians, the plumed Achilles was pressing on in his chariot.
And not far off from here he recognizes, weeping, the tents of Rhesus of snowy canvas,
470 which, betrayed on his first sleep,
bloody Diomedes was laying waste to with much slaughter,
and he turns away the spirited horses into his camp before
they had tasted the fodder of Troy and had drunk of the Xanthus.
On another part Troilus fleeing, with his arms having been lost,
475 an unfortunate boy and, having fought with Achilles, unequal,
is carried by his horses and clings to his empty chariot on his back,
holding onto the reins, however;  both his neck and hair are being dragged
over the ground, and the dust is marked by his reversed spear.
Meanwhile to the temple of not impartial Minerva
480 the Trojan women were going, with their hair disheveled, and they were carrying a robe
humbly, sad and having beaten their breasts with their hands;
the goddess, having turned away, was holding her eyes fixed on the ground.
Three times Achilles had dragged Hector around the Trojan walls
and was selling his lifeless body for gold.
485 Then truly he gives a huge groan from the bottom of his heart,
as he saw the spoils, as [he saw] the chariot, and as [he saw] the very body of his friend
and Priam stretching out his unarmed hands.
He also recognized himself mixed in the Greek chiefs,
and the eastern battle lines and the arms of black Memnon.
490 Penthesilea leads the battle lines of the Amazons with the crescent shields
raging and she burns in the middle of the soldiers,
fastening her golden belt beneath her exposed breast,
a warrior woman, and the maiden dares to fight with men.
   While these marvelous things were seen by Trojan Aeneas,
495 while he stands agape and clings, fixed in one gaze,
the queen entered the temple, Dido, most beautiful in appearance,
with a great crowd of youths thronging [around her].
Even as on the river banks of the Eurotas or along the ridges of Cynthus
Diana busies the dances, having followed whom a thousand
500 Oreads are gathered on this side and that; she carries a quiver
on her shoulder and proceeding towers above all of the goddesses
(joys test Latona’s silent heart):
Such was Dido, happy she was carrying herself such
through the middle [of them], urging on the work and the future.realms.
505 Then in the doors of the goddess, in the middle of the vault of the temple,
inclosed in arms and resting on her throne on high she sat down.
She was giving laws and decrees to the men, and was equalizing the toil of the deeds
in fair shares or was drawing [them] by lot:
when suddenly Aeneas sees that Antheus and Sergestus
510 and brave Cloanthus are approaching in a great crowd
and others of the Trojans, whom the black whirlwind had driven apart on the water
and had carried away wholly to other shores.
Together he himself stood agape, together Achates, astounded, [stood agape],
both with gladness and with fear; eager to join hands,
515 they were burning; but the unknown matter disturbs their minds.
They hide and watch, wrapped in the hollow cloud,
what fortune the men had, on what shore they left their fleet,
why they come; indeed men chosen from all of the ships were coming
begging pardon, and they were seeking the temple with a shout.

Book II

1 Everyone became silent and, intent, they held their faces.
Then father Aeneas from the lofty couch began in this way:
“Queen, you order (me) to renew an unspeakable pain,
how the Danaans [Greeks] overthrew Trojan resources and their lamentable kingdom
5 and what very sad things I myself saw
and of which I was a large part.  What soldier, by speaking such things,
of the Myrmidons or of the Dolopes or of stern Ulysses
would refrain from tears?  And already dewy night from the sky
falls and the sinking stars advise dreams.
10 But if (for you) such love exists to learn of our ruin
and briefly to hear about the final toil of Troy,
although my soul shudders to remember and because of grief has fled
I will begin.
 Broken by war and by the fates repelled,
the leaders of the Danaans [Greeks], with so many years already slipping by,
15 build the likeness of a mountain, a horse, by the divine craft of Minerva,
and they cover the ribs with cut pine;
they pretend (that it was) a votive offering for their return; this story spreads.
Here, having chosen by lot, they enclose the hand-picked bodies of men
secretly in the dark sides and within
20 they fill up the huge cavities and the womb with armed soldier.
 There is in sight Tenedos, an island very known in reputation,
rich of resources while the realms of Priam were remaining,
now only a harbor and a badly faithful anchorage for keels [ships].
Having been conveyed here, they hide themselves on the deserted shore.
25 We thought that (they) had departed and had sought Mycenae.
Therefore, all Troy frees itself from long grief:
the gates are spread wide open, it helps, too, to go to the Doric [Greek] camp
and to see the deserted places and the shore having been abandoned:
here (was) the band of the Greeks of Thessaly, here relentless Achilles tented;
30 here (was) the place for ships, here they used to spar in formation.
Part stand agape at the fatal gift for unwed Minerva
and wonder at the sheer mass of the horse; and Thymoetes is the first
to urge that it be led within the walls and placed in the citadel,
whether because of the deception or the fates of Troy were bearing (themselves out).
35 But Capys, and (those) whose minds have better opinions,
either urge to throw the snare of the Danaans [Greeks] and their suspected gifts in the sea
and to burn it with fires placed beneath,
or to pierce the hollows of the womb and to test the hiding places.
An unsure crowd is split into opposing pursuits.
40 The first one there before everyone with a great crowd escorting,
Laocoon, burning, runs down from the top of the citadel,
and from far off  (says): ‘O wretched citizens, what so great madness (is this)?
Do you believe that the enemies have been carried away?  Or do you suppose that any
gifts of the Danaans [Greeks] lack deceits?  Is Ulysses thus known?
45 Either enclosed in this wood Achaeans [Greeks] are hidden,
or this machine has been fabricated (to go) into our walls,
going to look into our homes and going to come into the city from above,
or some trick lies hidden; do not believe in the horse, Teucrians [Trojans].
Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans [Greeks], even bearing gifts.’
50 Thus having spoken, he twists a huge spear with mighty strength
into the flank and into the beast’s belly, curved at the seams.
It stood trembling, and with the womb having been shaken
the hollows resounded and the cavities gave a groan.
And, if the fates of the gods, if their mind had not been contrary,
55 he would have driven (them) to fowl the Argive [Greek] hiding places with iron,
56 And Troy would now stand, and lofty citadel of Priam, you would endure.

199 Here another greater and more dreadful by much thing
200 is presented to the wretched and disturbs the unforeseeing hearts.
Laocoon, chosen by lot as priest for Neptune,
was sacrificing a massive bull at the solemn altars.
Behold, however, twin serpents from Tenedos through the tranquil deep
(I shudder retelling!) with immeasurable coils
205 lay upon the sea and side by side stretch to the shores;
their breasts raised between the waves and
blood-red crests overcome the waves; the remaining part
skims the sea behind and the immense back winds in coils.
A roar arises with the frothing brine; and already they are holding the farmlands
210 and suffused in their burning eyes with blood and fire
they lap hissing mouths with wavering tongues.
We disburse, pale at the sight.  They, in a sure course,
seek Laocoon; and first having embraced the small
bodies of the two sons, each serpent
215 entwines and feasts on the wretched limbs with a bite;
afterward they snatch up him himself approaching for help and bearing weapons
and they bound him with huge spirals; and already
twice having embraced his mid-section, twice having given their scaly
backs at his neck they overcome (him) with head and tall necks.
220 Simultaneously, he strives to untie the knots with his hands
drenched with gore at his fillets and with black venom,
Simultaneously he lifts terrible cries to the stars:
just like bellowing, when a wounded bull has fled the altar
and had rebuffed an uncertain ax from its neck.
225 But the twin serpents escape to the highest temple with a slither
and they seek the stronghold of cruel Minerva,
and under the feet and under the circle of the shield of the goddess they hide.
Then, in fact, for all a new panic creeps through the trembling hearts,
and they say that Laocoon (was) deserving to have paid for his sin
 230 who struck the sacred oak with a point
and twisted a criminal spear into the back.
They shout that they needed to lead the likeness to their homes
and that they needed to beseech the wishes of the goddess
We divide the battlements and we lay open the walls of the city.
235 Everyone equips (themselves) for the task and
they cast the glidings of wheels under the feet, and at the neck
they stretch hemp chains: the deadly machine scales the walls
pregnant with weapons.  Roundabout, boys and unwed girls
sing hymns and rejoice to touch the rope with a hand:
240 it enters and towering glides into the middle of the city.
O fatherland!  O home of the gods, Ilium and the renowned in war
walls of the Trojans!  four times in the very threshold of the gate
it stood still and four times from the womb the arms gave a clatter;
we push on, however, unmindful and blind with madness
245 and we stand up the ill-fated monster in the consecrated citadel.
Then even Cassandra reveals the future fates,
the mouth not ever believed by the Teucrians by order of the god.
We wretches, for whom that day would be the last,
cover the temples of the gods with festive frond throughout the city.
250 Meanwhile the sky is turned and night falls on Ocean
rolling in a great shadow both land and sky
and the deceits of the Myrmidons [Greeks]; having been poured through the walls, the Teucrians
fall quiet; sleep embraces tired limbs.
And already the Argive phalanx, with the ships having been arrayed, was going
255 from Tenedos through the friendly silence of the silent moon
seeking the familiar shore, since the royal ship
had issued flames, and defended by fate and unfair gods
Sinon sets free the Danaans enclosed in the womb and stealthily
releases the pine bolt.  Opened wide, the horse
260 gives them back to the air, and happy they bring themselves forth from the hollow oak,
leaders Thessandrus and Sthenelus and stern Ulysses,
having slid through the let-down rope, and Acamas and Thoas
and descendent of Peleus, Neoptolemus, and noble Machaon
and Menelaus and Epeos himself, builder of the deceit.
265 They invade the city, buried in sleep and wine;
the watchmen are killed, and with gates lying open
they receive all of their comrades and they join a purposeful formation.
 It was the time when first sleep begins for weary mortals
and as a gift of the gods very welcome it creeps.
270 In dreams, behold, before my eyes most mournful Hector
seemed to have been near to me and to pour out copious tears,
as once having been snatched up by the two-horse chariot and black with bloody
dust and through his swollen feet pierced with thongs.
Alas me!  what kind he was!  how much changed from that
275 Hector who returned clothed in the spoils of Achilles,
or having tossed Phrygian fires on the ships of the Danaans;
wearing a beard being rough and hear caked with blood
and those wounds most of which he received around
his native walls.  I seemed myself, weeping voluntarily,
280 to speak to the man and to express sad words:
‘O light of Troy, O most faithful hope of the Teucrians,
what such delays have detained (you)?  From what shores
have you come, awaited Hector?  How we have looked to you,
tired out after many funerals of your people, after various toils
285 both of men and of the city!  What unworthy cause
has befouled your fair looks?  Or why do I discern these wounds?’
He (said) nothing, and he did not heed me asking empty questions,
but heavily drawing groans from the bottom of his heart, (he says,)
‘Alas! flee, goddess-born, and rescue yourself from these flames.
290 The enemy holds the walls; Troy falls from a lofty pinnacle.
Enough has been given to fatherland and Priam (by you): if the Pergama
were able to be defended by a right hand, yet it would have been defended by this one.
Troy commits her sacred rites and her penates to you;
take these comrades of the fates, seek great walls for them,
295 which you will set up finally with the sea having been traversed.’
Thus he spoke, and with his hands he lifts the fillets and powerful Vesta
297 and the everlasting fire from the inmost sanctuary.

469 Before the very vestibule and in the most eminent threshold Pyrrhus
470 glories flashing with weapons and brazen light;
just like when into the light a snake, having grazed on poisonous weeds,
whom, swollen under the earth, frigid midwinter was covering,
now, renewed with slough having been put aside and glistening with youth,
roils his slippery back with breast uplifted
475 high toward the sun, and darts three-forked tongues from his mouth.
As one mighty Periphas and driver of the horses of Achilles,
armorbearer Automedon, as one all the Scyrian youth
approach the roof and hurl flames to the roof peaks.
He himself among the foremost with double axe snatched up
480 bursts though the sturdy threshold and tears the brazen door posts from the hinge;
and already with timber hewn he hollowed out the strong
oak and made a huge window with a wide mouth.
The house appears within and the long entry halls lay wide open,
the inner chambers of Priam and age-old kings lay wide open,
485 and they see armed men standing on the most eminent threshold.
But the inner house with a groan and wretched upheaval
is mixed, and deeply within the cavernous rooms
ululate with feminine wailings; the clamor strikes the golden stars.
Then the panicked matrons wander the huge homes
490 and having embraced they hold the door posts and fix kisses (on them).
Pyrrhus pushes on with paternal violence; neither bolts nor
guards themselves are strong enough to endure; the doorway falls with frequent battering ram,
and door posts moved from the hinge fall forward.
A way becomes from violence; the admitted Danaans burst though the entrances and slay the first men
495 and they fill up the place widely with soldiery.
not so, when with earthen wall broken has a frothy sea
go out and overwhelmed with a whirlpool the opposite-placed structures,
furying it is carried into the fields in a heap and through all the plains
it drags off herds with their stables.  I myself saw
500 Neoptolemus furying with slaughter and the two sons of Atreus on the threshold,
I saw throughout the altars Hecuba and the hundred daughters and Priam
befouling with his blood the fires which he himself had consecrated.
Those fifty wedding chambers, ample hope of grandchildren,
the door posts proud with barbarian gold and spoils
505 fell forward; the Danaans hold where the fire is lacking.
 Perhaps you may also seek what the fates of Priam were.
As he saw the misfortune of the captured city and the shattered
thresholds of homes and the enemy within in the inner rooms,
for a long time the old man trembling with age
510 places unaccustomed arms in vain on his shoulders and with a useless sword
is girded, and he bears (himself) to die to the crowded enemies.
In the middle of the rooms and beneath an open shaft of the sky
there was a huge altar and close at hand a most ancient laurel tree
leaning over the altar and having shrouded the penates with shade.
515 Here Hecuba and her daughters in vain around the altar,
as if doves headfirst with a black storm,
crowded and having embraced the images of the gods were sitting.
When she saw, however, Priam himself with youthful arms having been taken up,
she said, ‘What mind so dreadful, most wretched husband,
520 has compelled you to be girded with these weapons?  Or where are you rushing?
The occasion does not require such help and these defenders of yours;
(it would) not if my Hector himself were present.
Finally come here; this altar will protect everyone,
or at once you will perish.’ Having spoken in this way from her mouth she received
525 to herself and placed the aged man in the sacred shrine.
 Look, however, having escaped the slaughter of Pyrrhus, Polites,
on of the children of Priam, through weapons, through enemies
he flees down the long colonnades and surveys the empty halls
wounded.  Burning, Pyrrhus pursues him with a threatened wound,
530 and at this very moment he holds (him) by hand and pierces (him) with a spear.
As at last he came forth before the eyes and faces of his parents,
he falls and with much blood he pours out his life.
Here Priam, although he is already held in the midst of death,
did not, however, refrain, nor spare his voice and anger:
535 ‘Yet to you,’ he shouts, ‘in return for crime, in return for such deeds,
if heaven has any scruple which cares for such things, may the gods
repay a fitting requital and render a reward
having been owed, you who have made me to perceive face to face the death of my son
and who have disfigured a father’s expressions with death,
540 But the famous, from whom you lie that you have been born, Achilles
was not such against his enemy Priam; but he showed reverence to laws and trust
of a suppliant and he returned to the tomb the bloodless body
of Hector and sent me back into my kingdom.’
Thus the old man spoke, and he hurled an unwarlike weapon without a blow,
545 which was immediately repelled by clanging bronze,
and it hung idly from the top of the boss of the shield.
Pyrrhus to him (said): ‘Therefore you will report these things and as a messenger you will go
to my father, son of Peleas.  To him you shall remember
to relate my sad deeds and Neoptolemus, unworthy of his birth.
550 Now die!’  Speaking this to the altar itself he dragged the man trembling
and slipping in much blood of his son,
and he wound his hair in his left hand, and with the right drew out
the flashing (sword) and he buried the sword in his side up to the hilt.
This end of the fates of Priam, this exit bore him
555 by chance, seeing Troy burned and the Pergama having fallen,
once the proud ruler for so many peoples and lands
of Asia.  A mighty body lies on the strand,
and a head torn from its shoulders and a body without a name.
Yet first then cruel horror surrounded me.
560 I was dumbfounded; the image of my dear father arose,
as I saw the aged king with a bitter wound
breathing out his life; forsaken Creusa arose
and a ravaged home and the death of small Iulus.
I look back and survey what resources are around me.
565 Tired out, everyone has deserted, and they have sent their bodies
566 in a leap to the ground or they have given them, sick, to the flames.

735 Here I don’t know what divinity badly friendly to me
tore away my confused mind.  For truly while I was following the pathless places
in haste and I depart from the familiar region of roads,
alas! having been stolen away by miserable fate my wife Creusa
stood.  Whether she strayed from the road or she sat down, tired,
740 it was uncertain; and afterwards she was not returned to our eyes.
Neither did I look back for the lost woman nor did I turn my mind back earlier
than we came to the hill and consecrated seat of time-honored Ceres:
here finally with everyone having been gathered one
was lacking, and she escaped the notice of comrades, son and husband.
745 Out of my mind, whom both of men and of gods did I not blame,
or what crueler thing did I see in the destroyed city?
Ascanius and father Anchises and the Teucrian penates
I entrust to comrades and hide (them) in a curved valley;
I myself seek the city and I am girded with flashing arms.
750 It remains to renew all of the misfortunes and to return
through all of Troy and again to stick my head into dangers.
At first I sought again the walls and the darkened thresholds of the gate,
from where I had borne my step out, and I follow back noted
footsteps through the night and I survey (them) with my eye.
755 Horror (is) everywhere in mind, at the same time silence itself terrifies.
Then I carry myself home, if by chance she had carried her step, if by chance:
the Danaans had overrun and were holding every roof.
Immediately a voracious fire rolls to the highest peaks by the wind;
the flames tower above, heat furies to the breezes.
760 I advance and revisit the home and citadel of Priam:
and already in the empty colonnades and the sanctuary of Juno
chosen guards Phoenix and dire Ulysses
were watching the booty.  To here from everywhere Trojan wealth,
snatched from the burned shrines,  both tables of the gods
765 and bowls of solid gold, and captured clothing
is being collected.  Boys and panicked matrons in a long line
are standing around.
Yes indeed having also dared to hurl voices toward the shade,
I filled the streets with a din, and gloomy
770 I called over and over again increasing in vain for Creusa.
to me seeking and hurrying in the buildings of the city without end
the unfortunate phantom and the very ghost of Creusa
was seen before my eyes and a likeness larger than familiar.
I stood agape, and my hair stood on end and the voice clung in my throat.
775 Then she addressed me in this way and took away concerns with these words:
‘Why does it help so much to indulge in mindless pain,
O sweet husband?  These things do not happen without the will of the gods;
nor is it right for you to carry Creusa from here as a companion,
or does the ruler himself of Olympus above allow (it).
780 You will have a long exile and have to plow the vast water of the sea,
and you will come to the land of Hesperia, where the Lydian Tiber
flows in a gentle course between fields rich of men:
there a happy time and a kingdom and a royal wife
has been produced for you; dispel tears for beloved Creusa.
785 I will not see the haughty home of the Myrmidons or Thessalians
or go to be a slave to Greek matrons,
as a Trojan woman and a daughter-in-law of divine Venus;
but the great mother of the gods detains me on these shores.
And now, farewell, and preserve the love of our common son.’
790 When she gave these words, she deserted me weeping and
wanting to say many things, and she retired into the thin breezes.
Thrice I tried then to give my arms around her neck;
thrice in vain, having been grasped, the image escapes my hands,
equal to the light winds and very similar to winged sleep.
795 Thus finally I revisit my comrades with the night having been consumed.
 And here, marveling, I discover a huge number of new followers
have flowed together, both mothers and husbands,
youth collected for exile, a miserable crowd.
From everywhere they have come together, prepared in spirits and in resources
800 to go into whatever lands on the sea I may wish.
And already the morning star was rising on the crests of the top of Ida
and was leading the day, and the Danaans were holding the besieged
thresholds of the gates, and not any hope for help was given.
I yielded and with father having been raised I sought the mountains.

Book IV

But the queen, for some time wounded with a serious love,
nurses a wound in her veins and is seized by a blind fire.
Much virtue of the man and much honor of his nation recurs
to her mind: his looks and words cling, fastened in her heart,
5 and concern does not give quiet sleep to her limbs.
The following Dawn surveyed the lands with Phoebean light
and had removed the dewy shade from the sky,
when in this way the badly sane woman addresses her sympathizing sister:
‘Sister Anna, what sleeplessness frightens me, agitated!
10 Who has come into our house, this new stranger,
bearing himself such in countenance, how of bold heart and arms!
Truly I do believe, and (it is) not empty faith, his race to be of the gods.
Fear makes ignoble minds clear.  Alas, by what fates he
has been buffeted! What wars having been endured was he singing!
15 If for me it were not settled in mind fixed and immovable
that I not consent to join myself to anyone in conjugal bond,
after my first love cheated me deceived by death,
if it were not that I was weary of the marriage bed and torch,
perhaps I have been able to succumb to this one sin.
20 Anna, indeed I will confess, after the death of wretched Sychaeus
my husband and the penates sprinkled with a brother’s murder
this one alone has bent my senses, and wavering mind
he has driven on.  I recognize the traces of a former flame.
But I should choose either that the depths of the earth gape open for me before,
25 or that father omnipotent drive me away with his lightning to the shades,
the pallid shades and deep night in Erebus,
before, sense of shame, I violate you or I relax your decrees.
He who first joined me to himself my passions
has stolen; may he have (them) with himself and protect (them) in the grave.”
30 Thus having spoken, she filled up her bosom with tears having welled up.
   Anna responds: “O beloved more to a sister than light,
will you be wasted, grieving alone in long-lasting youth,
will you have known neither sweet children nor the reward of Venus?
Do you believe that ashes or buried souls of the dead care for this?
35 so be it: no suitors have ever bent you wretched,
not in Libya, not before in Tyre; Iarbas has been scorned
and other leaders, whom the African land, rich in triumphs,
nourishes: will you fight, too, against a pleasing love?
Does it not come into your mind in whose fields you have settled?
40 On this side the cities of the Gaetulans, a tribe unsurpassed in war,
and the unbridled Numidians surround (you) and the inhospitable Syrtes;
on the other the region desolated of thirst and the widely furying
Barcaeans are.  Why should I mention wars rising from Tyre
and the threats of a brother?
45 Truly I think that with the gods as guides and with Juno favorable
did Ilian keels hold this course on the wind.
What a city, sister, you will see this to rise, what a realm from
such a marriage!  With the Teucrians’ arms as allies,
Punic glory will lift itself to such great things!
50 You just ask the gods for pardon, and with sacred rights executed
indulge in hospitality, and weave reasons for delaying,
while winter rages on the sea and watery Orion,
and the ships are shattered, while the sky is unfavorable.”
   With these words she enflamed her mind with vehement love
55 and gave hope to a doubting mind and loosened her sense of shame.
First, they approach the temples, and they seek out peace throughout the altars;
They sacrifice according to custom chosen two-year-old sheep
to law-bringing Ceres and Phoebus and father Lycaeus,
to Juno before all (others), who has the bond of marriage as a concern.
60 Herself, holding in her right hand the bowl, most beautiful Dido
pours (the offering) between the horns of a gleaming heifer,
or before the faces of the gods strides to the opulent altars,
and she renews day with gifts, and with the breasts of beasts having been opened
she consults, gaping, the quivering entrails.
65 Alas! the minds of prophets are ignorant!  What votive offerings,
what temples help a raving person? Flame consumes tender marrows
meanwhile, and a silent wound lives beneath her breast.
Unlucky Dido is being burned up and wanders the entire
city, raving, just like a doe with an arrow having been shot,
170 whom unplanned within Cretan groves from afar
a shepherd shooting with missiles has struck, and has left the winged iron
unknowing: in flight she roams the woods and glades
of Mt. Dicte; the lethal reed sticks in her side.
Now she leads Aeneas through the middle of the walls with her
75 and displays Sidonian riches and a city having been readied,
she begins to speak up, and holds back in mid-speech;
now, with day slipping by, she seeks the same banquets
and out of her mind demands to hear again the Trojan toils,
and again she hangs from the mouth of the one telling.
80 Afterward, when they have been parted, and gloomy moon in turns
presses on its light, and the falling stars encourage dreams,
alone she pines in her empty home, and upon abandoned couches
she reclines.  Parted, she hears and sees him parted,
or seized by the likeness of his father
85 she holds Ascanius back in her lap, if it be possible to trick her unspeakable love.
The towers having been begun do not rise, the youth does not
exercise arms, nor do they prepare harbors or battlements
safe for war: the labors hang, interrupted, and the formidable threat
of walls and war-engines made equal to the sky.
90    As soon as the dear wife of Jupiter perceived that she was held
by such a scourge and that her reputation was not resisting the madness,
Saturnia approaches Venus with such words:
“Truly you are carrying back outstanding praise and copious spoils,
you and your son (a great and memorable god),
95 if one woman has been conquered by the stratagem of two gods,
And it does not to such an extent escape the notice of me that you, having feared our walls,
considered as suspected the homes of lofty Carthage.
But what limit will there be, or now how far (will we go) in such a contest?
Why rather should we not perform a lasting peace and stipulated wedding hymns?
100 You have what you have sought with all your mind:
loving, Dido burns and has drawn the passion through her bones.
Therefore, let us rule this joint nation and with equal
powers; let it be permitted for her to serve a Phrygian husband
and to entrust the Tyrians to your right hand as a dowry.”
105    To her (for she realized that she had spoken with intention falsified,
so that the kingdom of Italy would turn away to Libyan shores)
Venus began thusly in return: “Who, out of her mind, would
refuse such things or prefer to contend with you in war?
If only fortune would follow the exploit which you say.
110 But I am carried by the fates uncertain, whether Jupiter wishes
for Tyrians, having set out, and Troy to have one city,
or whether he would approve for the nations to be mingled or treaties to be joined.
You (are) his wife, it is right for you to test his mind by entreating.
Go on, I will follow.”  Then in this way queenly Juno took up:
115 “That task will be with me.  Now by what method
it is possible for what urges to be accomplished, take heed, I will teach (you) in a few words.
Aeneas and most wretched Dido are preparing to go to hunt together
in a grove, when tomorrow’s Sun having arisen
has sent forth his first lights and has recovered the world with his rays.
120 For them, I will pour out from above a stormcloud black with hail having been mixed in,
while the beaters scurry and surround the glades with their circle of nets,
and I will arouse all of the sky with thunder.
Their followers will scatter, and they will be clothed in dusky night:
Dido and the Trojan leader at the same cave
125 will arrive.  I will be present, and, if I have your sure consent,
I will join (them) in a lasting matrimony and I will declare her to be exclusively his.
This will be their wedding.”  Not having resisted the one asking,
she nodded consent and Cytherea smiled at the revealed deceptions.
Meanwhile rising Aurora left behind Oceanus.
130 With a ray of light having arisen, select youth goes from the gates,
wide-meshed nets, snares, hunting spears with wide iron,
and Massylian horses rush and the keen-smelling power of dogs.
For the queen hesitating in her bedchamber near the threshold the chiefs
of the Carthaginians wait, and, marked with purple and gold,
135 a prancing steed stands and spirited he champs the foaming bridle.
Finally she proceeds, with a great throng crowding,
surrounded with a Sidonian cloak with embroidered hem;
she has a quiver of gold, her tresses are bound into gold,
a golden pin fastens a purple garment.
140 Likewise both Phrygian followers and happy Iulus
go proudly.  Himself, most handsome before all others,
Aeneas carries himself as a comrade and joins the troop.
Just like when wintry Lycia and the floods of the Xanthus
Apollo forsakes, and he visits motherly Delos
145 and renews the song, and around the altars mingled
Cretans and Dryopian and painted Agathysians shout:
He himself strides on the ridges of Cynthus
and, arranging, he confines his flowing hair with supple frond and weaves it with gold,
the weapons clang from his shoulders: scarcely slower than him goes
150 Aeneas, such dignity gleams from his outstanding face.
After there is an arrival into the lofty mountains and the pathless marshes,
look, wild goats, having been dislodged from the peak of the rock,
run down from the ridges; from another side
they send (themselves) across the extending plains in their course and
155 dusty troops of deer collect in flight and abandon the mountains.
But the boy, Ascanius, into the middle of the valleys
rejoices on a spirited horse, and now he surpasses these in his course, now those,
and he desires that a frothing boar be given among the tame herds to his prayers
or that a tawny lion descend from the mountain.
160    Meanwhile the sky begins to be mixed with a great rumbling,
a storm cloud follows with hail mixed in,
and Tyrian attendants all about and the Trojan youth
and the Dardanian grandson of Venus sought different shelters throughout the fields
out of fear; streams rush down the mountains.
165 Dido and the Trojan leader arrive at the same cave.
Both Primeval Earth and Juno as matron of honor
give the sign; flames flashed and the upper air is witness
to the nuptuals, and nymphs wail on the highest peak.
That day was the first to be a reason for death and the first to be
170 a reason for evils; indeed neither is she moved by the appearance or the gossip,
nor now does Dido design a secretive love:
she calls it marriage, with this name she cloaks the crime.
   At once Rumor goes through the great cities of Libya,
Rumor, than whom no other evil thing is swifter,
175 she flourishes in activity and gains strength by going,
at first small out of fear, soon she lifts herself into the breezes
and strides on the ground and buries her head among the clouds.
Earth, the parent, vexed by the wrath for the gods, bore her,
the last, as they present it, sister to Coeus and Enceladus,
180 swift of feet and with nimble wings,
a terrible monster, huge, who has as many feathers on her body,
so many watchful eyes beneath (marvelous to say),
so many tongues, the same number of mouths roar, so many ears she pricks.
By night she flies in the middle of heaven and earth, through the shade
185 hissing, and she does not turn aside her eyes to sweet slumber;
by light she sits as a guard either on the peak of the top of the roof
or on high towers, and she alarms great cities,
as tenacious a messenger of fiction and perversity as of truth.
Then she was filling the peoples with manifold gossip
190 rejoicing, and she was singing things done and things not done equally:
that Aeneas, begotten of Trojan blood, had come,
to whom as a husband beautiful Dido deigned to join herself;
now that in excess between themselves they were cherishing the winter, however long it would be,
mindless of kingdoms and seized by desire for the shameful.
195 All about, the foul goddess pours these things into the mouths of men.
Immediately she turns her course to King Iarbas
and inflames his mind and heaps up his anger with these words.
   He, begotten of Hammon by a seized Garamantian nymph,
placed one hundred huge temples in his wide realms,
200 one hundred altars, and he had consecrated a watchful fire,
everlasting sentinels of the gods, and the ground rich with the blood of flocks
and thresholds flowering with varied garlands.
And he, crazy of mind and having been inflamed by the bitter rumor
is said before the altars in the midst of the divinities of the gods
205 as a suppliant to have beseeched Jupiter much with hands upturned:
“All-powerful Jupiter, to whom now the Moorish
race, having feasted upon embroidered couches, pours out Bacchic honor,
are you beholding these things?  Or do we fear you, father, when you hurl thunderbolts,
in vain, and do blind fires in the clouds
210 terrify our minds and empty rumblings mix [them]?
A woman, who, wandering in our borders,
has placed a city scanty of worth, to whom a strand for plowing,
to whom we have given laws of the place,
has rebuffed our marriage and has received lord Aeneas into her realms.
215 And now that Paris with effeminate retinue,
his chin and dripping hair wrapped up with Maeonian mitre,
gains control of his plunder: we carry gifts to your temples,
indeed and cherish a useless reputation.”
The All-mighty heard him beseeching with such words and holding the altars,
220 and he turned his eyes to the regal walls
and the ones loving, having forgotten a better reputation.
Then he addresses Mercury in this way and commands such things:
Go, up. son, call the winds and glide on feathers
and address the Dardanian leader, who now tarries in Tyrian Carthage
225 and does not regard cities granted by the fates,
and carry down my words through the swift airs.
His most beautiful mother did not promise to us that he was such [a man]
and twice rescue him from the arms of the Greeks for this reason;
but that he would be the type who would rule Italy weighed down with empires
230 and raging with war, produce a race from the lofty blood of Teucer,
and submit the entire world to laws.
If no glory of such things inflames him
nor does he himself do the task for his own praise,
does the father begrudge Ascanius Roman citadels?
235 What is he building?  Or with what hope does he delay in an unfriendly race
and not regard Ausonian offspring and Lavinian farmlands?
Let him sail!  This is the summation, let this be our message.”
   He had spoken.  The other was preparing to obey his great father’s
command: and at once he binds to his feet the golden sandals,
240 which carry him aloft on wings either over the waters
or equally over the land with swift wind.
Then he takes up his staff: with this he summons pale spirits from Orcus,
others he sends under dreary Tartarus,
he gives and takes away dreams and unseals the eyes for the dead.
245 Relying upon it, he drives the winds and swims across the stormy clouds.
And already, flying, he perceives the peak and steep sides
of enduring Atlas, who supports the sky with his top,
of Atlas, whose pine-bearing head is continually encircled with black clouds
and is beaten by wind and rain,
250 poured down snow covers his shoulders, then rivers
flow down from the chin of the old man, and his bristling beard is stiff with ice.
Here at once the Cyllenean, resting on even wings,
stood still: from here he sent himself headfirst with respect to his entire body to the waves
similar to a bird, which around the shores, around
255 the fishy crags flies low, close to the waters.
Scarcely otherwise between lands and sky he was flying
to the sandy shore of Libya, and the Cyllenean offspring was slicing the winds,
coming from his maternal grandfather.
As soon as he touched the mud huts with his winged feet,
260 he sees Aeneas founding citadels and building houses.
And he had a sword starred with yellow jasper,
and a cloak was burning with Tyrian purple
having been sent down from his shoulders, which gifts Dido
had made rich and had marked off the web with delicate gold.
265 Suddenly he addresses: “Are you now placing the foundations of lofty Carthage
and, henpecked, are you building the beautiful city?
Alas, forgetful of rule and your own affairs!
He himself sends me down from famous Olympus to you,
the ruler of the gods, who sways heaven and lands with his will:
270 he himself orders [me] to carry these commands through the swift breezes:
Why are you building? Or with what hope do you waste idleness in Libyan lands?
If no glory of such things moves you
[and you do not accomplish the task for your own praise,]
consider rising Ascanius and the hope of an heir for Julus,
275 to whom the kingdom of Italy and Roman land
is owed.” Having spoken with such mouth [speech], the Cyllenean
left mortal sight in the middle of his speech
and vanished from eyes far off into thin air.
But indeed Aeneas stood dumbfounded at the sight, crazy,
280 and his hair has been stood on end with horror and his voice sticks in his throat.
He burns to depart in flight and to leave behind the sweet lands,
having been thunderstruck by such a warning and by the command of the gods.
Alas, what should he do?  With what speech should he dare to conciliate the furying queen?
What beginning should he take up as first?
285 And he divides his nimble mind now to this, now to that
and snatches it into different sides and turns through everything.
This opinion seemed better to him, wavering:
he calls Mnestheus and Sergestus and brave Serestus,
[that] they, silent, should equip the fleet and muster to the shores,
290 [that] they should prepare weapons and conceal what the reason is for altering things;
meanwhile, [that] he himself; since finest Dido
is ignorant and does not expect such affections to be broken off,
will test an approach and what times may be easiest for speaking,
what method favorable for the affairs. Rather swiftly everyone,
295 happy, obeys the command and they fulfill the orders.
   But the queen has suspected deceptions (who is able to deceive a lover?),
and was the first to understand the impending movements
fearing everything safe.  The same accursed Rumor to her, raving,
reported that the fleet was being equipped and that the course was being made ready.
300 Bereft of mind she rages, and enflamed she raves though the entire city,
like Thyias, excited with the sacred objects having been shaken,
when the triennial orgies spur [her] with Bacchus having been listened to,
and Cithaeron of the night calls with a shout.
Finally, of her own accord, she accosts Aeneas with these words:
305 “Did you hope still to be able to conceal such sin, treacherous one,
and silent to depart from my land? -
Does neither our love hold you, nor right hands once given hold you,
nor Dido, going to die in a cruel funeral?
Nay, even in winter weather do you prepare the fleet,
310 and in the midst of the winds do you prepare to go through the deep,
cruel one?  Why, if you were not seeking foreign fields
and unknown homes, and ancient Troy were remaining,
would Troy be sought in fleets through wavy waters?
Are you fleeing me?  I, by these tears and your right hand
315 (since I myself have left nothing else for my wretched self),
by our marriage, by the marriage rites begun,
if I have well earned anything from you, or anything of mine has been
sweet for you, I beseech you, have pity on this failing house,
if to this point there is any place for prayers, discard this intention of yours.
320 Because of you Libyan nations and rulers of the Nomads
hate [me], the Tyrians are bitter [to me]; because of the same you
shame has been destroyed and my prior reputation, by which alone I was going to the stars.
For whom are you deserting me, about to die, — guest
(since this name alone remains from “husband”)?
325 Why am I delaying?  [Am I delaying] Until brother Pygmalion destroys my walls
or Gaetulian Iarbas leads me, captured?
At least if there had been any offspring begotten from you
before your flight, if any little Aeneas for my benefit
were playing in the court, who would recall you, however, with his face,
330 not indeed completely would I seem [to myself] captured and deserted.”
   She had spoken.  He, because of the warnings of Jupiter, was holding unmoved
his eyes and having struggled he was repressing care deep in his heart.
Finally he responds few words: “I will never deny, queen, that you have deserved
the very many things which you are able to enumerate by speaking,
335 nor will it displease me to remember Elissa
while I myself am mindful of myself, while breath rules these limbs.
I will say few things for the matter.  Neither did I hope to hide this flight
with stealth (don’t imagine), nor ever did I hold out the torches of a spouse
or did I come into this agreement.
If the fates were allowing me to lead life by my
340 authority and to settle concerns of my own accord,
I would be honoring a Trojan city first and the sweet remnants of my [people],
the lofty roofs of Priam would be remaining,
and I would have been able [to build] with my hand a renewed Pergama for the conquered.
345 But now Apollo of Grynium [has ordered me to reach] great Italy,
the oracles of Lycia have ordered me to reach Italy;
this is my love, this is my fatherland.  If the citadels of Carthage
and the sight of a Libyan city holds you back, a Phoenician woman,
what envy is there that the Trojans settle in Ausonian land?
350 It is right for us, too, to seek foreign realms.
The troubled image of father Anchises, as often as with dewy shadows
night covers the lands, as often as the fiery stars rise,
in dreams warns and terrifies me;
The boy Ascanius [moves] me and the wrong-doing for his dear life,
355 whom I am depriving the kingdom of Hesperia and the fated farmlands.
Now also the interpreter of the gods sent by Jupiter himself
(I swear on each life) has carried down orders through the swift breezes:
I myself saw the god in clear light
entering the walls and have drunk in his voice with these ears.
360 Cease to inflame both me and you with your complaints;
I follow Italy not of my own accord.”
   For a long time she watches askance him saying such things
rolling her eyes here and there, and she surveys the entire man
with silent eyes and thus enflamed speaks out:
365 “Neither do you have a divine parent of your race nor Dardanus as a founder,
treacherous one, but Caucasus bristling with harsh crags bore you
and Hyrcanian tigers moved their breasts to you.
Indeed why do I pretend otherwise or for what greater things do I keep myself back?
He didn’t lament because of our weeping, did he?  He didn’t bend his eyes, did he?
370 He hasn’t, having been overcome, given tears, or he hasn’t pitied a lover, has he?
What things shall I put before what things?  Already now neither greatest Juno
nor father Saturnius sees these things with just eyes.
Faith is safe nowhere.  [You] Tossed out on the shore, being in need
I have received, and mad I placed you in part if the kingdom.
375 Lost fleet, comrades I have rescued from death
(alas I am borne, inflamed with madness!): now prophet Apollo,
now Lycian oracles, now even the interpreter of the gods sent by Jupiter himself
brings horrible orders through the air.
Naturally this is a job for the gods, this concern disturbs calm [gods].
380 Neither do I hold you nor will I refute your words:
go, follow Italy on the winds, seek realms through the waves.
Indeed I hope, if pious divinities avail anything,
that you will drink in tortures in the middle of crags
and that you will call Dido by name often. Absent, I will follow with black fires
385 and, when cold death has separated body from spirit,
I, a shade, will be present in all places. You will pay the penalty, wicked one.
I will listen, and this story shall come to me under the bottom of Hades.”
She breaks the middle of the conversation with these words and flees the air,
weary, and turns herself from his eyes and carries herself away,
390 leaving him hesitating much out of fear and preparing to say many things.
Her handmaidens take her up and her limbs, having fainted,
they carry back to the marbled bedchamber and deposit [her] on her couches.
   But dutiful Aeneas, although he wants to soothe her, grieving,
by consoling and to turn away her cares with words,
395 groaning much and having stumbled in intent because of a great love,
however he follows the orders of the gods and revisits the fleet.
Then truly the Teucrians urge on and they lead the lofty ships down
on the entire shore.  The curved keel swims,
and they bring leafy oars and unfashioned oaks from the woods
400 with zeal for flight.
You would see them departing and rushing from the entire city.
And just as when ants devastate a huge heap of spelt,
mindful of winter, and they store it in their home,
the black line goes on the plains, and they convey their booty through the grasses
405 in a narrow track: some shove huge grains,
having struggled with their shoulders, some force the troops
and chastise delays, every path seethes with work.
What feeling then did you have, Dido, discerning such things,
or what groans were you giving, when you saw the shores being busy widely
410 from the top of your tower, and you saw the entire
sea mixed before your eyes with such shouts!
Wicked Love, to what do you not drive mortal hearts!
To go again into tears, again to test with beseeching
she is compelled, and as a suppliant to submit her pride to love,
415 lest she, going to die needlessly, leave behind something untried.
   “Anna, you see that it is being prepared all about on the entire shore:
from everywhere they have come together; already the canvas calls the breezes,
and happy sailors put wreaths on the sterns.
If I have been able to anticipate this sorrow so great,
420 I will also, sister, be able to endure it. However, perform, Anna,
this one thing for miserable me; indeed that treacherous man
honored you alone and entrusted to you his hidden feelings;
alone you knew the man’s gentle approaches and (suitable) times:
go, sister, and as a suppliant address this haughty guest:
425 I did not conspire with the Greeks to destroy the Trojan race
at Aulis or send a fleet to the Pergama,
nor did I tear up the ashes or soul of father Anchises:
Why does he refuse to let my words down into his harsh ears?
To where does he rush?  Let him give this last gift to a wretched lover:
430 let him wait for an easy flight and favorable winds.
No longer do I pray for the old marriage, which he has betrayed,
nor that he lack beautiful Latium and leave behind his kingdom:
I seek his empty time, rest and time for my madness,
until my future teaches me, conquered, to grieve.
435 I pray for this last favor (pity your sister),
which, heaped over, when he has given it to me, I will repay in my death.”
   She was pleading with such words, and such laments her very wretched
sister both carries and carries back.  But he is moved by no
laments or manageable hears any words;
440 His fates oppose, and god stops up the man’s kindly ears.
And just as when an oak, mighty with aged strength,
Alpine winds now here, now there with blasts
fight among themselves to uproot; a wail goes, and the tall
leaves strews the ground with the trunk shaken;
445 It itself clings to the crags and stretches with its root into the underworld
as much as [it stretches] with its top toward the airy breezes:
scarcely otherwise is the hero, on this side and that, by unceasing words
beaten, and he feels concerns in his great heart;
449 His mind remains unmoved, empty tears are rolled.

642 Yet Dido, trembling and wild with huge undertakings,
rolling her bloodshot gaze, suffused with spots at her trembling
cheeks and pale with future death,
645 breaks into the inner thresholds of the house
and climbs the tall steps, full of madness, and unsheathes the Trojan sword,
a gift not sought for these uses.
Here, after she beheld Ilian garments and well-known bed,
and somewhat delayed by tears and thought,
650 she reclined on the cushion and said her very last words:
“Sweet mementos, while the fates and god was allowing,
receive this spirit and release me from these concerns.
I have lived, and I have accomplished which course fortune had given,
and now the great likeness of me will go under the lands.
655 I established a very renowned city, and I saw my walls,
having avenged my husband, I received punishments from a hostile brother,
[I would have been] happy, alas too happy, if only
Dardanian keels had never touched our shores.”
She spoke, and having imprinted her mouth on the couch, she said, “I shall die unavenged,
660 but let me die!  Thus, thus it helps to go to the shades.
Let the cruel Dardanian drink in this fire with his eyes from the deep,
and let him carry with him the omens of my death.”
She had spoken, and within the middle of such things
her attendants behold her, having fallen on the steel, and the sword
665 foaming with blood and the spattered hands.  A shout goes to the high
halls: Rumor raves wildly through the shaken city.
With lamentations and a groan and a feminine wail
the roofs roar, the upper air echoes with great wailings,
not otherwise than if with enemies let in
670 all Carthage or ancient Tyre falls, and raging flames
are rolled through the roofs of men and through the roofs of gods.
Lifeless her sister has heard, and frightened in an excited course,
fouling her face with nails and her breasts with fists
rushes through the middle [of the people], and she calls on the dying one by name:
675 Was this that [which you were planning], sister?  Were you seeking me with fraud?
The funeral pyre of yours [was preparing], this, for me, the fires and altars were preparing this?
What first should I complain, deserted?  Have you, dying, rejected
your sister as an attendant?  You should have called me to the same fates:
the same pain and the same hour should have borne both of us with steel.
680 Did I build it with these hands, too, and did I call upon our ancestral
gods with this voice, that with you positioned thus, cruel [woman], I should be absent?
I have destroyed you and myself sister, and the nation and the Sidonian
fathers and your city.  Grant it, may I wash her wounds with waters
and, if any last breath wanders above,
685 let me catch it with my mouth.”  Thus having spoken, she had passed over the tall steps,
and she was cherishing the half-dead sister in her bosom, having embraced her
with a groan, and she was drying the black blood with her garment.
The other woman, having tried to lift her heavy eyes again fainted;
the wound pierced under her breast gurgles.
690 Three times raising and having leaned on her elbow she lifted herself,
three times she has been rolled back on the couch, and with her eyes wandering to high
heaven she sought the light and she groaned with it having been found.
   Then all-powerful Juno, having pitied the long pain
and difficult death, sent Iris down from Olympus
695 to free the struggling spirit and fastened limbs.
For because she was perishing neither by fate nor a merited death,
but wretched before her day and having been enflamed with sudden madness,
not yet had Proserpina taken the golden lock from her head for her
and had doomed her head [life] to Stygian Orcus.
700 Therefore Iris, rosy with saffron feathers,
dragging through the sky a thousand varied colors with the sun opposite
flies down and stood still over her head.  “I, ordered,
bring this sacred token to Dis and free you from this your body.”
Thus she spoke, and she cuts the lock with her right hand: and together all
705 the warmth glided away, and her life into the winds departed.

Book VI

Thus he speaks, weeping, and he loosens the reins for the fleet
and finally glides toward the Euboean shores of Cumae.
They turn the prows toward the sea; then with gripping fluke
the anchor makes fast the ships and the curved ships
5  fringe the shores.  Burning, a band of young men darts forth
onto the Hesperian shore;  part seeks the seeds of flame
hidden in the veins of flint, part scours the dense shelters of the beasts,
the woods, and point out discovered streams.
But devout Aeneas seeks the strongholds which lofty Apollo
10 rules and far off the secret places of the revered Sibyl,
a huge cave, for whom the Delian seer inspires
a great mind and soul andreveals future things.
Already they enter the groves and golden house of Hecate.
 Daedalus, so the rumor is, fleeing Minoan realms,
15 having dared to entrust himself to the sky on swift feathers,
flew forth through an unaccustomed route to the chilly Bear,
and above light he stood near the Chalcidian stronghold.
Having first returned himself to these lands, Phoebus, he dedicated to you
his oarage of wings and established a huge shrine.
20 On the doors is the death of Androgeos; then the children of Cecrops,
order to pay the penalty, (miserable!) seven bodies yearly
of children; the urn stands with lots having been drawn.
On the opposite the Gnossian land raised from the sea corresponds:
here the cruel love for a bull and Pasiphae, placed under in stealth,
25 and the mixed breed and the two-formed offspring,
the Minotaur, are present, a reminder and an unspeakable Venus;
here that labor of a house and the inescapable maze;
but indeed, having pitied the great love of the queen,
Daedalus himself unravels the scheme of the building and its windings,
30 guiding blind footsteps with a thread.  You also
would have had a great part in so great a work, Icarus, were grief permitting.
Twice he had tried to fashion your fall in gold,
twice his fatherly hands fell.  And indeed they would have continuously
surveyed everything with their eyes, had not Achates, having been sent ahead, now
35 been present and together the priestess of Phoebus and Hecate,
Deiphobe of Glaucus, who says such things to the king:
“This situation does not seek from you these sights of yours;
now it were better to sacrifice seven oxen from the untouched herd,
as many sheep chosen according to rite.”
40 Having addressed Aeneas with such words (and the men do not delay
such sacred rites having been ordered), the priestess calls the Trojans into the lofty shrine.
 The Euboean cliff’s huge side has been cut out into a cavern,
from where one hundred wide entrances lead, one hundred mouths,
from where as many voices rush, the responses of the Sibyl.
45 There was an arrival at the threshold, when the maiden said, “it is time to ask for oracles;
The god, behold, the god!”  For her, saying such things
before the doors suddenly no expressions, no color,
no arranged hair remained the same; but her breast is heaving;
her heart swells, wild with frenzy, and she is larger to be seen
50 and not sounding mortal, because she has been breathed upon
by the closer divinity of the god.  “Do you tarry (to go) into vows and prayers,
Trojan Aeneas,” she says.  “Do you tarry?  For indeed the great mouths
of this awestruck house will not gape open before.”  And having spoken such words,
she fell silent.  A chilly trembling ran through the hardy bones for the Trojans,
55 and the king pours prayers from the bottom of his heart:
“Phoebus, always having pitied the heavy toils of Troy,
you who directed the Dardanian missiles of Paris and his hand
against the body [life] of the descendant of Aeacus, I have entered so many
seas skirting great lands with you as a guide and the deeply secluded
60 tribes of the Massylians and the farmlands having stretched before the Syrtes:
now finally we grasp the shores of fleeing Italy,
thus far let Trojan fortunes have followed me.
Also it is right for you now to spare the Pergamean race,
both gods and goddesses all, whom Troy and the great
65 glory of Troy has opposed.  And you, o most holy seer,
foreknowing of the coming future, grant (I do not demand
realms not owed to my people by the fates) that the Trojans settle in Latium
and the wandering gods and harassed divinities of Troy.
Then to Phoebus and Hecate a temple of solid marble
70 I will dedicate, and festal days in accordance with the name of Phoebus.
Furthermore, great sanctuaries await you in our realms:
here indeed I will put your oracles and the hidden words
spoken to my race, and I will consecrate chosen
men, kindly woman.  Only do not entrust the chants to the leaves,
75 lest they, as mockeries, flit, confused on the rapid winds:
I beg that you yourself sing.”  He gave end with his mouth speaking.
 But not yet tolerating of Phoebus, the prophetess, monstrous, in the cave
raves wildly, if it were possible to shake from her heart
the great god; so much more he wearies
80 the frenzied mouthpiece, taming her wild heart, and he trains her by controlling.
And already the hundred huge mouths of the house have lain open
of their own accord, and they bear the responses of the prophetess through the breezes:
“O you finally finished from the great dangers of the sea
(but graver of the land remain), into the realms of Lavinium
85 the Dandanidae will come (send this concern from your heart),
but they will wish, too, that they had not come.  Wars, horrible wars,
and the Tiber foaming with much blood I do see.
You will not have lacked a Simois, nor a Xanthus, nor a Greek camp;
already in Latium has been born another Achilles,
90 himself also born of a goddess; and Juno, having been added in,
will not ever be absent from the Trojans, while in needy affairs
what tribes and what cities of the Italians will you not have beseeched, as a suppliant!
The reason for such evil will again be a wife foreign to the Trojans
and again foreign bridal chambers.
95 You, do not retreat from evils, but facing you shall go, bolder,
where your future permits you.  The first way of safety,
a thing which you would scarcely suppose, will be opened from a Greek city.”
 Out of the shrine with such words the Cumaean Sibyl
sings horrifying mysteries and bellows from the cave,
100 rolling true things into obscure things:  these reins
Apollo shakes from her furying and turns (away) the goads beneath her heart.
As soon as the madness retreated and the raving mouths have rested,
hero Aeneas begins:  “Not any appearance of labors,
o maiden, new or unexpected rises for me;
105 I have foreseen and have traversed everything to myself in my mind before.
I pray for one thing: since here the doorway of the nether kingdom
is said to be, and the gloomy swamp with Acheron having flowed out,
would that it befall (me) to go to the sight and face of my dear father;
may you teach the route and lay open the holy entrances.
110 Him through the flames and a thousand following missiles I
snatched away on these shoulders and rescued from the middle of the enemy;
He, having accompanied my journey, was bearing all the seas with me,
and all the menaces of sea and sky,
weak, beyond his strength and the lot of old age.
115 Indeed that same one, beseeching, gave the commands
that I seek you as a suppliant and approach your thresholds.  Pity, kindly woman,
both son and father, I pray (indeed you can avail everything, and
Hecate has not set you over the groves of Lake Avernus in vain),
if Orpheus was able to summon the soul of his wife,
120 relying on a Thracian lyre and tuneful strings,
if Pollux redeemed his brother with an alternating death
and goes and returns way so often.  Why should I recall Theseus,
why great Hercules?  I, too, have birth from Jupiter most high.”
 He was praying with such words and was holding the altars,
125 when thus the prophetess began to speak:  “Begotten from the blood of the gods,
Trojan descendant of Anchises, easy is the descent to Avernus:
by nights and days the doorway of black Dis lies open;
but to recall your step and to escape to the breezes above,
this is the deed, this the labor.  Few, whom impartial Jupiter has loved
130 or burning valor has borne to the upper airs,
begotten of gods, have been able (to do this).  Woods hold all the middle,
and flowing Cocytus surrounds it with a black bay.
But if your mind has such love, if it has such desire
twice to swim into the Stygian marshes, twice to see black
135 Tartarus, and it pleases to indulge in an insane task,
receive what things must be done prior.  There lies hidden on a shady tree
a bough, golden in both leaves and flexible twig,
said to be holy to nether Juno; the whole grove protects it,
and the shadows close it in with dark valleys.
140 But it is not granted to enter the hidden places of the earth
before one will have plucked the golden-leaved growth from a tree.
Beautiful Proserpina has ordained that this, her gift, be brought to her.
At once the one having been torn off does not lack another
golden (branch), and the twig with like metal sprouts.
145 Therefore, search for it with your eyes on high, and pluck it,
duly found, with your hand; indeed willing and easy it will itself follow,
if the fates call you; otherwise not with any strength
will you have been able to conquer it, nor tear it off with hard iron.
Moreover, you may be interested, the lifeless body of a friend lies
150 (alas, you are not aware) and pollutes the entire fleet with death,
while you seek oracles and tarry on our threshold.
Carry him back to his proper home and bury him in a tomb.
Lead black animals (to sacrifice); these expiations shall be first.
Thus at last the groves of Styx and the realms pathless to the living
155 you will behold.”  She spoke, and she became silent with mouth having been controlled.
 Aeneas, having cast down his eyes with a sad expression
advances, leaving the cave, and turns the dark
events in his mind to himself.  For him, faithful Achates
goes as a companion and plants his footsteps with equal anxiety.
160 They discuss many things between themselves in varying conversation,
what comrade the prophetess was saying was lifeless, what body she was saying
needed to be buried.  And on the dry shore
as they came, they see Misenus, robbed by an undeserved death,
Misenus, descendant of Aeolus, whom no other was more excellent
165 to stir up men with bronze and to kindle Mars with song.
He had been a companion of great Hector, around Hector,
marked with both trumpet and spear, he used to enter battles.
After victorious Achilles despoiled him of life,
to Dardanian Aeneas the very brave hero
170 had joined himself as an ally, not having followed lesser things.
But then, by chance when he sounds the waters through a hollow shell,
crazy, and calls the gods into a contest with his song,
jealous Triton, if it is fit to believe,
had plunged the man, having been caught away, among the rocks in a foamy wave.
175 Therefore everyone was lamenting with a great shout all around,
especially devout Aeneas.  Then, scarcely a delay, they speed the orders of the Sibyl,
weeping, and they strive to heap up an altar at the tomb
with wood and to lead it up to the sky.
They go into the old forest, the tall lairs of beasts,
180 pitch-pines fall, the holm-oak, struck with axes, resounds,
and with wedges ashen beams and easily split oar
is split, they roll huge ash trees from the mountains.
 Nor is Aeneas not the first among such tasks
to encourage his comrades and to gird himself with like weapons.
185 And he himself revolves these things with his own sad heart,
beholding the measureless forest, and thus by chance he prays:
“If only that golden bough on a tree would now display itself to me
in so great a grove!  Since the prophetess spoke everything truly,
alas, too much concerning you, Misenus.”
190 Scarcely had he spoken these things when by chance twin doves
flying from heaven came under the very face of the man,
and they settled on the green ground.  Then the very great hero
recognizes his mother’s birds and happy he prays:
“You shall be leaders, O, if there is any way, and through the breezes
195 direct a course into the groves where a rich bough shadows
fertile soil.  And you, O, do not fail from doubtful matters,
divine parent.”  Thus having spoken, he pressed his footsteps
watching what signs they give, where they proceed to extend.
Feeding, they advance by flying only as far
200 as the eyes of the ones following could keep them in eyesight.
Next when they came to the throat of heavily smelling Avernus,
they lift themselves swift, and having glided through the clear air,
the twins settle on the desired seats on the top of the tree,
from where a different-colored light of gold gleamed through the branches.
205 As mistletoe in the woods is accustomed in mid-winter cold
to be green with new foliage, which its tree does not produce,
and to surround the rounded trunks with yellow fruit,
so was the appearance of the leafy gold on the dark
holm-oak, thus the foil rustled in the light wind.
210 At once Aeneas snatches it, and eager he breaks it off,
211 hesitating, and he carries it to the foot of the house of the prophetess Sibyl.

450 Among them, fresh from her wound, Phoenician Dido
was wandering in the great forest; the Trojan hero,
as soon as he stood near her and through the shadows recognized
the dark woman, just as one who, at the first of the month,
either sees or thinks to have seen the moon rise through the clouds,
455 he sent down tears and addressed her with sweet love:
“Ill-omened Dido, therefore had a true message to me
come that you had been destroyed and had pursued death with iron?
Alas, was I the cause of death for you?  I swear by the stars,
by the gods and if there is any pledge under the bottom of the earth,
460 unwilling, queen, did I retreat from your shore.
But the orders of the gods, which now compel me to go through these shades,
through places rough with neglect and deep night,
drove me to their commands; and I was not able to believe
that I would bear this so great pain to you by me departure.
465 Stay your step and do not withdraw yourself from our sight.
Whom are you fleeing?  This is the last by fate that I speak to you.”
With such words, Aeneas her soul, burning and grimly watching
was calming and he was stirring up tears.
She, turned away, was holding her eyes fixed on the ground
470 nor is she moved in expression by the conversation begun more
than if she were remaining as harsh flint or Marpesian rock.
Finally she snatched herself up and as an enemy she fled back
into the shade-bearing grove, where her former husband
sympathizes with her sorrows and Sychaeus matches her love.
475 Nevertheless, Aeneas, shattered by her unjust misfortune,
476 from afar attends and pities the going woman with his tears.

847 “Others will strike out breathing bronze more gracefully
(surely I believe), they will draw living expressions out of marble,
they will plead cases better, and they will mark out the motion of the sky
850 with a rod and will (fore)tell the rising stars:
You, Roman, shall remember to rule nations with sway
(you will have these skills), and to impose the custom of peace,
to spare the vanquished and to war down the proud.”
And so father Anchises also adds these things to the marveling (listeners):
855 Behold, how marked with the ‘splendid spoils’ Marcellus
strides in and as a victor towers over all the men.
He will support the Roman state, with a great tumult shaking,
as a knight he will lay low Carthaginians and the rebellious Gaul,
and to father Quirinus will hang the third captured arms.”
860 And here Aeneas (asks) (indeed at the same time he saw
that a young man extraordinary in form and in gleaming arms was going,
but his brow was little joyful and his eyes were of downcast expression)
“Who, father, is that, who thus accompanies the going hero?
A son, or someone of the descendants from the great lineage?
865 What an uproar of attendants there is around (him)!  How much dignity i him!
But black night encircles his head with a sad shadow.”
Then father Anchises began with tears having arisen:
“O son, do not inquire about the huge grief for your people;
the fates will only show him to the lands, and not
870 permit him to exist farther.  The Roman race
would seem too powerful to you, gods, if this gift had been its own.
How many groans of men to the great city
will the famous field of Mars raise!  Or what a funeral you will see, Tiber,
when you will have glided by the fresh tomb!
875 Neither will any boy from Italian stock
lift Latin ancestors in such (greatness) with hope, nor will the Roman earth ever
boast itself so great from any child.
Alas devotion, alas former honor and an unconquered in war
right hand!  No one would have borne himself before him in arms
880 with impunity, either if he went against the enemy as a footman,
or if he dug the sides of a frothing horse with spurs.
Alas, boy to be pitied, if in some way you should break the harsh fates,
you will be a Marcellus.  Give lilies from full hands,
let me scatter purple flowers and
885 at least let me heap up a descendant’s spirit with these gifts, and let me perform
an empty duty.”  Thus they wander in the whole region
on the wide plains of mist and they survey everything.
After Anchises has led his son through these one by one
and has kindled his mind with love for coming fame,
890 next he retells to the hero wars which then needed to be waged,
and the teaches (him) about the Laurentine nations and the city of Latinus,
and in what way he should escape and bear each task.
 There are twin gates of Sleep, of which one is said
to be horn, where easy exit is given to true shadows,
895 the other gleaming, finished with shining ivory,
but the souls sent false dreams to the sky.
With these words Anchises then escorts his son and at the same time the Sibyl
and he send them forth from the ivory gate;
He cleaves the way to his ships and revisits his comrades.
900 Then he bears himself to the port of Caieta directly along the coast.
Anchor is thrown from the prow; the ships stand on the shore.

Book X

420 Pallas sought him after having prayed in this way:
“Grant now, father Tiber, to the iron, which, ready to be thrown, I am balancing,
fortune and a way through the breast of harsh Halaesus.
Your oak will have these arms and the spoils of the man.”
The god heard those [words]; while Halaesus protected Imaon,
425 the ill-fortuned man gives his unarmed breast to the Arcadian weapon.
   But Lausus, a huge part of the battle does not desert his battle lines
thoroughly frightened by so great a slaughter of the man: first
he kills Abas, having been set against [him], both a knot and a delay of the fight.
The offspring of Arcadia is laid low, the Etruscans are laid low
430 and you Trojans, O bodies not destroyed by the Greeks.
The battle lines run together, with both equal leaders and strength;
The rear ranks pack densely the battle lines and the crowd does not
allow weapons or hands to be moved.  On this side Pallas presses on and drives,
on that side opposite Lausus, and his age does not differ much,
435 [both] distinguished in form, but to whom Fortune had denied
returns into the fatherland.  Scarcely, however, did the ruler of great Olympus
allow that they themselves run together between themselves;
soon their own fates await them under a greater enemy.

Meanwhile, his kind sister advises Turnus, who cuts the middle of the battle line
440 with his winged chariot, to approach Lausus.
As he saw his comrades: “It is time to cease from the fight;
I alone am borne against Pallas, to me alone Pallas
is owed; I wish [that] his father himself were present as a spectator.”
He said these things, and his comrades withdrew from the level [plain] by his command.
445 But at the departure of the Rutulians the young man, having marveled at the haughty commands,
then is stupefied at Turnus, and along his huge body
he rolls his eyes, and he surveys everything far off with a wild sight,
and with such words he goes in reply to the words of the king:
“Either I shall now be praised by the abundant spoils snatched away
450 or by a distinguished death: equal is my father at each lot.
Raise your threats.”  Having spoken, he proceeded onto the middle of the level [plain];
cold blood collects into the heart for the Arcadians.
Turnus leapt down from the chariot, he prepares his feet to go
hand-to-hand; and as a lion, when he sees from his tall lookout
455 that far off that a bull is standing on the plains, practicing for battle,
swoops near, scarcely is there another image of coming Turnus.
When he believed that he would be close for a spear going to be sent,
Pallas was the earlier to go, if any luck would help him having dared
with unequal strength, and thus he speaks a great [word] to the upper air:
460 “By the hospitality of my father and his tables, which you attended as a stranger,
I beseech you, Hercules, that you be present at mighty undertakings.
Let him perceive me snatch away from him, half-dead, his bloody arms
and may the dying eyes of Turnus carry me as victor.”
Hercules heard the young man, and at the bottom of his heart
465 he represses a great groan, and he pours out empty tears.
Then his father addresses his son with friendly words:
“For each his own day remains, short and irretrievable
is the time of life for everyone; but to extend [one’s] fame with deeds,
this is the achievement of courage.  Under the lofty walls of Troy
470 so many men born of the gods fell, in fact together (with the rest) fell
Sarpedon, my offspring; and his own fates call Turnus,
and he has approached the turning-posts of his given life-span.”
Thus he speaks, and he turns away his eyes from the farmlands of the Rutlians.
But Pallas sends forth the spear with great strength
475 and he snatches his gleaming sword from its hollow sheath.
Flying, it struck where the upper-most protection of the shoulder rises,
and, having forced a way through the rim of the shield,
finally it even grazed from the great body of Turnus.
At this, Turnus, long balancing his oak tipped with sharp iron
480 against Pallas, he throws, and he spoke thus:
“Consider whether my weapon is more able to penetrate.”
He had spoken; but the shield, the so many skins of iron, so many of bronze,
which as many times the hide of a bull having been put around surrounds,
the spear-point pierces through the middle with a shaking blow
485 and perforates the delays of the breastplate and his mighty breast.
He snatches the hot missile from the wound in vain:
by one and the same way blood and spirit follow.
He falls onto the wound (his arms give a sound above)
and he seeks the land of the enemy dying with bloody mouth.
490 Turnus, standing by above him
says, “Arcadians, mindful of these things, report my words
to Evander: he has earned as much, I am sending Pallas back.
Whatever honor of a tomb there is, whatever consolation of burying,
I bestow it.  Scarcely to him will the hospitalities of Aeneas remain with little cost.”
495 And he, having spoken such things, pressed with his left foot
the lifeless man, snatching the immense weight of his baldric
and the imprinted crime: under one matrimonial night
the band of young men slaughtered foully and their bloody bedchambers,
which Clonus, son of Eurytus, had carved in much gold;
500 now Turnus exults over this spoil and rejoices having gained possession of it.
Unknowing is the mind of men for fate and future lot
and how to keep a measure having been raised by favorable things.
There will be a time for great Turnus when he will have desired
for Pallas to have been ransomed untouched, and when he will have hated those spoils of his and the day.
505 But with much groaning and tears his allies,
crowding about, bear Pallas back, placed upon his shield.
O grief and great glory about to return to your father,
This was the first day to give you to war, this same day carries you away,
509 although, however, you leave behind huge piles of Rutulians.

Book XII

791 Meanwhile, the king of all-powerful Olympus
addresses Juno, watching the battles from a tawny cloud:
What end now will there be, wife?  What at last remains?
You yourself know and confess to know that Aeneas Indiges
795 is owed to heaven and is lifted by the fates to the stars.
What are you contriving?  Of with what hope do you cling fast in the chilly clouds?
Is it fitting for a mortal to be violated by a wound of the gods?
Or for a sword (indeed what would Juturna have been capable of without you?)
snatched away to be returned and for strength to grow for the conquered?
800 Cease now at last, and be bent to our prayers,
that so great a grief not consume you, silent, and that sad concerns
not return persistently often from your sweet mouth.
There has been an arrival at the end.  You have been able to drive
the Trojans on both lands and seas, to kindle an unspeakable war,
805 to mar a house and to mingle a wedding with mourning:
I forbid you to try further.  The Jupiter began;
thus the Saturnian goddess with face lowered in return [said]:
“Because that will of yours is indeed known to me, great
Jupiter, unwilling I have abandoned both Turnus and his lands;
810 [otherwise] you would not see me alone now on my airy seat
to allow [both] worthy [and] unworthy things, but encircled with flames
I would be standing near the battle line itself, and I would be dragging the Trojans into hostile battles.
(I confess) I urged Juturna to help her wretched brother
and I have approved that she dare on behalf of a greater life,
815 not, however, that she aim a missile, not that she stretch a bow;
I swear upon the implacable head of the source of Styx,
the one object of dread which had been rendered to the divine gods.
And now I yield indeed, and detesting I abandon the battles.
I beseech you that which is held by no law of fate,
820 for Latium, for the majesty of your people:
when now they will construct peace with happy marriages (be it so!),
when now they will join laws and treaties,
that you not order the indigenous Latins to change their ancient name
nor that they become Trojans and be called Trojans
825 of that the men change their language or alter their clothes.
Let Latium be, let the Alban kings be though the ages,
let the Roman offspring be powerful in Italian virtue:
Troy fell, and may you allow it to have fallen with its name.”
Smiling at her the inventor of men and things [said]:
830 “You are the sister of Jupiter and another offspring of Saturn,
you are turning such waves of wraths under your heart.
But come, lower your madness begun in vain:
I give what you wish, and I concede myself both conquered and willing.
The Ausonians will retain their ancestral language and customs,
835 and, as it is, their name will be; mingled in body alone
will the Trojans give way.  I will add their custom and the ritual of their sacred rites,
and I will make them all Latins with one language.
From this the race, which will rise mingled with Ausonian blood,
you will see go beyond men, beyond gods in devotion,
840 and no race will celebrate your honors equally.”
Juno nodded at these things and gladdened she changed her mind;
842 meanwhile she withdraws from the sky and abandons her cloud.

887 In return Aeneas presses on and brandishes
a huge, treelike missile, and from his savage heart he speaks thus:
“Now, at last what delay is there? Or why now, Turnus, do you draw back?
890 Not in running, it needs to be contested hand-to-hand with savage arms.
Turn yourself into every appearance and draw together whatever
you are able whether in courage or skill; desire to follow
the steep stars on wings and to bury yourself closed in the hollow earth.”
That one, shaking his head [replied]: “your fiery words do not frighten me,
895 wild man; the gods frighten me and Jupiter as an enemy.”
And not having spoken more words, he looks around for a huge rock,
an ancient huge rock, which by chance was lying on the plain,
a boundary stone placed in the field so that it could divide a lawsuit concerning farmlands.
Scarcely twice six chosen men could lift it on the neck,
900 such bodies of men as the land now produces;
That hero twisted it, having been snatched up, with anxious hand against his enemy,
rising up taller and roused in his running.
But neither did he know himself running or going
or lifting or moving the huge rock with his hand;
905 His knees give way, his icy blood congeals with cold.
Then Turnus’ stone itself, having been turned through the empty void
neither traversed the entire space nor accomplished a blow.
But as if in dreams, when sluggish rest has pressed
the eyes at night, in vain we seem to want to extend eager courses
910 and in the midst of the attempts unwell
we fall; the tongue is not powerful, the familiar strength
in the body is not sufficient, nor do voice or words follow:
thus to Turnus, wherever he sought a way with virtue,
the dire goddess denies success.  Then in his heart
915 varying feelings are turned; he gazes upon the Rutulians and his city
and hesitates with fear and shudders to be near death,
neither where he may snatch himself away, nor with what strength he may strive against his enemy
does he see, nor anywhere his chariot or his charioteer sister.
  For him hesitating, Aeneas brandishes a deadly missile,
920 having selected his opportunity with his eyes, and with his entire body
he whirls it at a distance.  Never moved violently by a siege engine of the wall
do rocks resound thus, nor with such a thunderbolt
does a crashing burst asunder.  The likeness of a black whirlwind
the spear flies bearing dreadful destruction, and it exposes the rims
925 of the breastplate and the outermost circles of the seven-fold shield;
whirring, it pierces through the middle of the thigh.  Having been struck,
Huge Turnus falls to the earth with double-over knee.
The Rutulians rise together with a groan, and the entire mountain around
bellows back and the black groves widely return the voice.
930 He, on the ground, as a suppliant stretching forth his eyes
and his beseeching right hand says: “Certainly I have earned [this], nor do I plead
you not to uses your opportunity.  If any concern of a miserable parent
is able to touch you, I beg (and you had such a
father —Anchises) pity the old age of Daunus
935 and return me, or if you prefer, my body deprived of life,
to my people.  You have conquered and the Ausonians
have seen me, defeated, extend my palms; Lavinia is your wife,
do not stretch hatred further.”  Fierce in arms,
Aeneas stood, rolling his eyes and he restrained his right hand;
940 and now, and now he began more to turn with his speech the man hesitating,
when on his high shoulder appeared the ill-fated
baldric and with familiar studs gleamed the swordbelt
of the boy Pallas, whom defeated with a wound Turnus
had laid low and [whose] unfriendly decoration he was wearing on his shoulders.
945 He, after he drank in with his eyes the reminder of a cruel grief
and the spoils, inflamed with madness and terrible in wrath:
“Hence should you, clothed in the spoils of my people
be snatched away from me  Pallas [sacrifices] you with this wound,
Pallas sacrifices and exacts the punishment from defile blood.”
950 Saying this, he buries the iron beneath the facing breast,
burning; but for that one, his limbs are slackened with chill
and his life flees with a groan, indignant, under the shades.