Aeneid Translation IV.416-705

416. Anna, you see that it is being hurried around on the whole shore;

417. they have gathered on all sides; the sail now calls the airs, and

418. happy sailors have placed golden wreaths upon the sterns.

419. If I could expect this pain so great, sister,

420. I will even be able to bear [it]. However, follow out this one thing

421. or miserable me, Anna; for that treacherous man

422. honored you alone, he even trusted hidden feelings to you;

423. you alone knew* the easy approaches of the man and the best times; (*noras = noveras. Looks pluperfect but translates perfect.)

424. Go, sister, and suppliant, address the haughty enemy:

425. I did not conspire in Aulis with the Greeks to destroy the Trojan race

426. or send a fleet to the citadel of Troy,

427. nor did I tear up the ashes of his father Anchises or the spirits of the dead.

428. Why does he refuse to lower my words into harsh ears?

429. To where is he rushing? Let him give this last gift to a miserable lover:

430. let him wait for an easy flight and carrying winds. (i.e. let him wait for spring, favorable weather.)

431. Now, I do not pray for an old marriage, which he betrayed,

432. nor that he should lack beautiful Latium and leave his kingdom:

433. I seek an empty time, rest, and a period for madness,

434. until my fortune should teach conquered me to grieve.

435. I pray for this last favor (pity your sister)

436. which I will repay with death when he will have given it to me heaped up."

437. She was beseeching with such words, and her very miserable sister

438. both reports and renews such tears. But that man is moved (i.e. Anna tells Aeneas of Dido's misery and starts crying herself in the process.)

439. by no tears, or hears any voices, gentle;

440. the fates hinder and a god blocks the calm ears of the man.

441. And as Alpine north winds fight among themselves

442. with aged strength, now from here, now from there,

443. to overthrow a strong oak; a noise goes, and high leaes strew

444. the ground after their trunk has been shattered;

445. the oak itself clings to the cliffs, and it stretches to the airy

446. airs with its top as much as* into Tartarus with its root: (*quantum...tantum = as much as)

447. not differently, the hero is beaten by unceasing voices from here and from there,

448. and he feels cares in his big heart.

642. But Dido, trembling and wild from the dreadful untertakings,

643. turning the bloody edge* and suffused as to her trembling cheeks** (*i.e. the edge of the sword. **"trementīs" is accusative, so it goes with "genās", not "maculis".)

644. and pale with the death about to be,

645. breaks into the inner thresholds and, frenzied, climbs the

646. high steps and unsheathes a Trojan sword,

647. a gift not sought toward these uses*. (i.e. it was never intended to be used as a means of Dido's suicide.)

648. Here, after she caught sight of the Trojan robes and a familiar couch,

649. having delayed a little with tears and mind*, (*she stops to cry and think before lying down.)

650. she both reclined on the couch and said the newest words:

651. "Sweet spoils, while the fates and the gods were allowing,

652. receive this spirit and free me from these cares.

653. I have lived and I have accomplished the course which fortune had given,

654. and now the great ghost of me* will go beneath the lands. (*"mei" here is the genitive of "ego", not an adjective.)

655. I founded a very renowned city, I saw my walls,

656. having avenged a man, I received punishments from my hostile brother,

657. [I would have been] happy, alas, too happy, if only Trojan

658. ships had never touched our shores."

659. She spoke, and pressed as to her face upon the couch, she says,

660. "We will die unavenged, but let us die. So, thus, it pleases

661. to go beneath the shadows. Let the cruel Trojan drink in this fire with his eyes from the deep sea,

662. and let him bring signs of our death with him."

663. She had spoken, and her comrades behold her having fainted

664. among such words* by the sword, and her sword foaming with blood, (*during her speech.)

665. and her sprinkled* hands. A shout goes to the high courts (*with blood.)

666. Rumor raves through a shaken city.

667. Houses roar with shrieks and a groan and

668. a feminine wail, heaven resounds with the great wailings,

669. not differently than if all Carthage or old Tyre

670. should fall to enemies sent in, and raging flames

671. should be rolled through the rooves of men and through [those] of the gods.

672. Her terrified sister, defiling her face with lifeless nails

673. and her chest with fists, heard and rushed through the middle of the men on a trembling course,

674. and she calls the dying one by name:

675. "Was this that, sister? Were you seeking me* with deceit? (*i.e. seeking her to build the pyre.)

676. Was that funeral pyre (preparing) this for me, were the fires and altars preparing this?

677. What am I, deserted, the complain first? Dying, have you

678. rejected our comrade sister? You should have called me to the same fates:

679. the same pain should have carried us both with iron, and at the same hour.

680. I even built [it] with these hands and called the native gods

681. with my voice, so that I might be absent in this way after you have been buried, cruel one?

682. You destroyed both yourself and me, sister, and the people

683. and the Sidonian fathers and your city. Allow that I may wash

684. your wounds with waters, and, if any* last breath wanders beyond, (*quis = aliquis)

685 that I may catch it with my mouth." Having spoken in this way, she passed over

686. the high steps, and having embraced her half-dead sister

687. in her lap, she was cherishing her with a groan and dring the black blood with her robe.