When Sinon, favour’d by the partial gods,

Unlock’d the horse, and op’d his dark abodes;

Restor’d to vital air our hidden foes,

Who joyful from their long confinement rose.

DIDO AND AENEAS

Aeneid, Book IV

Virgil

Translated by Sarah Ruden, 2008

The Trojan refugees, led by Aeneas, travelled to Carthage in North Africa, and met its queen, Dido. She had arrived here from Phoenician Tyre after her brother Pygmalion killed her husband Sychaeus because he coveted his gold. Naturally she fell in love with Aeneas and hoped he might stay on with her. He would not. Like many a hero, Aeneas loved her and left her to continue in his quest. The gods were calling him onwards. It was his destiny to found a new home for his people. One cannot help but pity poor Dido, whose melancholy story inspired opera composers from Henry Purcell in the seventeenth century (Dido and Aeneas) to Hector Berlioz in the nineteenth (Les Troyens).

He burned to run—however sweet this land was.

The gods’ august command had terrified him.

But how? What would he dare say to the queen

In her passion? What beginning could he make?

His mind kept darting and his thoughts dividing

Through the whole matter and each baffling question.

After much wavering, this seemed the best plan:

He called Mnestheus and brave Serestus

And Sergestus: they must get the men together

Quietly, rig the fleet, and hide the reason

For the stirring. Meanwhile the good lady Dido

Would not expect such strong love could be broken.

He would approach her, seeking out the best words

At the kindest time. With great alacrity,

These men obeyed in everything he ordered.

But who can fool a lover? Soon the queen—

Even in safety anxious—sensed the trick,

Though no ship moved yet. Evil Rumor told her

The fleet was being fitted for a journey.

She raved all through the town in helpless passion,

Like a Bacchant the biennial mysteries rouse

With shrieks of ritual and brandished emblems

And shouts that summon her to dark Cithaeron.

She faced off with Aeneas and accused him:

“You traitor, did you think that you could hide

Such a great crime, that you could sneak away?

The pledge you made, our passion for each other,

Even your Dido’s brutal death won’t keep you?

Monster, you toil beneath these winter skies

And rush to cross the deep through northern blasts,

For a strange home on someone else’s land?

If ancient Troy still stood today to sail to,

Would you make off across that surging plain?

You run from me? By your pledged hand, my tears

(Since I am stripped of everything but these),

Our union, and the wedding we embarked on—

If I have ever earned it through my kindness,

Have pity on my tottering house and me.

If pleading has a chance still, change your mind.

The Libyan clans and Nomad rulers hate me;