The Aeneid (10 page)

                Then Dido looked down at them and made a brief answer:
                ‘Have no fear, men of Troy. Put every anxious thought out of
                your hearts. This is a new kingdom, and it is harsh necessity
                that forces me to take these precautions and to post guards on
                all our frontiers. But who could fail to know about the people
                of Aeneas and his ancestry, about the city of Troy, the valour of
                its men and the flames of war that engulfed it? We here in
                Carthage are not so dull in mind as that. The sun does spare a
                glance for our Tyrian city when he yokes his horses in the
                morning. Whether you choose to go to great Hesperia and the
570         fields of Saturn, or to the land of Eryx and king Acestes, you will
                leave here safe under my protection, and I shall give you supplies
                for your voyage. Or do you wish to settle with me on an equal
                footing, even here in this kingdom of Carthage? The city which
                I am founding is yours. Draw up your ships on the beach. Trojan
                and Tyrian shall be as one in my eyes. I wish only that your king
                Aeneas had been driven by the same wind, and were here with
                you now. But what I can, I shall do. I shall send men whom I
                can trust all along the coast, and order them to cover every
                furthest corner of Libya, in case he has been shipwrecked and is
                wandering in any of the woods or cities.’

580                         The brave Achates and Father Aeneas had long been impatient
                to break out of the cloud, and at Dido’s words their eagerness
                increased. ‘Aeneas,’ said Achates, ‘son of the goddess, what
                thoughts are now rising in your heart? You see there is no
                danger. Our ships are safe. Our comrades are rescued. Only one
                of them is missing, and we saw him with our own eyes founder
                in mid-ocean. Everything else is as your mother Venus said it
                would be.’

                He had scarcely finished speaking when the cloud that was
                all about them suddenly parted and dissolved into the clear sky.
                Aeneas stood there resplendent in the bright light of day with
                the head and shoulders of a god. His own mother had breathed
590         
upon her son and given beauty to his hair and the sparkle of joy
                to his eyes, and the glow of youth shone all about him. It was
                as though skilled hands had added embellishments to ivory or
                applied gilding to silver or Parian marble. Then suddenly, to the
                surprise of all, he addressed the queen in these words: ‘The man
                you are looking for is standing before you. I am Aeneas the
                Trojan, saved from the Libyan sea, and you, Dido, alone have
                pitied the unspeakable griefs of Troy. We are the remnants left
                by the Greeks. We have suffered every calamity that land and
600         sea could inflict upon us, and have lost everything. And now
                you offer to share your city and your home with us. It is not
                within our power to repay you as you deserve, nor could whatever
                survives of the Trojan race, scattered as it is over the face
                of the wide earth. May the gods bring you the reward you
                deserve, if there are any gods who have regard for goodness, if
                there is any justice in the world, if their minds have any sense of
                right. What happy age has brought you to the light of life? What
                manner of parents have produced such a daughter? While rivers
                run into the sea, while shadows of mountains move in procession
                round the curves of valleys, while the sky feeds the stars, your
                honour, your name, and your praise will remain for ever in
610         every land to which I am called.’ As he spoke, he put out his
                right hand to his friend Ilioneus and his left to Serestus, then
                greeted the others, brave Gyas, and brave Cloanthus.

                Dido of Sidon was amazed at her first sight of him and then
                at the thought of the ill fortune he had endured. ‘What sort of
                chance is this,’ she exclaimed, ‘that hounds the son of a goddess
                through all these dangers? What power has driven you to these
                wild shores? Are you that Aeneas whom the loving goddess
                Venus bore to Dardanian Anchises in Phrygia by the river waters
                of the Simois? I myself remember the Greek Teucer coming to
620         Sidon after being exiled from his native Salamis. He was looking
                to found a new kingdom, and was helped by my father Belus,
                who in those days was laying waste the wealth of Cyprus. He
                had conquered the island and it was under his control. From
                that day on I knew all the misfortunes of the city of Troy. I
                knew your name and the names of the Greek kings. Teucer
                himself, your enemy, held the Teucrians, the people of Troy, in
                
highest respect and claimed descent from an ancient Teucrian
                family. This is why I now invite your warriors to come into my
                house. I, too, have known ill fortune like yours and been tossed
                from one wretchedness to another until at last I have been
630         allowed to settle in this land. Through my own suffering, I am
                learning to help those who suffer.’

                With these words she led Aeneas into her royal palace, and
                as she went she appointed sacrifices to be offered in the temples
                of the gods. Nor at that moment did she forget Aeneas’ comrades
                on the shore, but sent down to them twenty bulls, a hundred
                great bristling hogs’ backs and a hundred fat lambs with their
                mothers, rich gifts to celebrate the day. Meanwhile the inside
                of her palace was being prepared with all royal luxury and
                splendour. They were laying out a banquet in the central hall
                and the draperies were of proud purple, richly worked. The
640         silver was massive on the tables, with the brave deeds of their
                ancestors embossed in gold, a long tradition of feats of arms
                traced through many heroes from the ancient origins of the race.

                But a father’s love allowed Aeneas’ mind no rest, and he asked
                Achates to go quickly ahead to the ships to take the news to
                Ascanius and bring him back to the city. All his thoughts
                were on his dear son Ascanius. He also told Achates to bring
                back with him as gifts for Dido some of the treasures that
                had been rescued from the ruins of Troy, a cloak stiff with
                gold-embroidered figures and a dress with a border woven of
                yellow acanthus flowers. These miracles of workmanship had
650         been given to Helen of Argos by her mother Leda, and she had
                taken them from Mycenae when she came to Troy for her illicit
                marriage with Paris. There was also the sceptre which had once
                been carried by Ilione, the eldest daughter of Priam, a necklace
                of pearls and a double gold coronet set with jewels. Achates set
                off for the ships in great haste to carry out his instructions.

                But Venus meanwhile was turning over new schemes in her
                mind and devising new plans. She decided to change the form
                and features of Cupid, and send him in place of the lovely
660         young Ascanius to inflame the heart of the queen, driving her to
                madness by the gifts and winding the fire of passion round
                her bones. For Venus was afraid of the treacherous house of
                
Carthage and the double-tongued people of Tyre. The thought
                of the bitterness of Juno’s hatred burned in her heart, and as
                night began to fall and her anxiety kept returning, she spoke to
                the winged god of love in these words: ‘My dear son, you are
                the source of my power. You are my great strength. Only you,
                my son, can laugh at the thunderbolts which my father, highest
                Jupiter, hurled against the Giant Typhoeus. To you I come for
                help. I am your suppliant, begging the aid of your divine power.
                You well know how Juno’s bitter hatred is tossing your own
                brother from shore to shore round all the seas of the world and
670         you have often grieved to see me grieving. Now he is in the
                hands of the Phoenician Dido, who is delaying him with honeyed
                words, and I am afraid of Juno’s hospitality and what it may
                bring. She will not stand idle when the gate of the future is
                turning. That is why I am resolved to act first, taking possession
                of the queen by a stratagem and surrounding her with fire, so
                that no power in heaven may change her, but she will be held
                fast, as I am, in love for Aeneas. As for how you are to achieve
                this, listen now and I shall tell you my mind. Aeneas has sent
                for his son, whom I so love, and the young prince is preparing
                to go to the city of Carthage, bringing gifts which have survived
680         the hazards of the sea and the burning of Troy. I shall put him
                into a deep sleep and hide him in one of my sacred shrines above
                Idalium or the heights of Cythera, so that he will not know of
                my scheme or suddenly arrive to interrupt it. You will have to
                use your cunning and take on his appearance for just one night.
                He is a boy like yourself and you know him, so put on his
                features, and when the royal table is flowing with wine that
                brings release, and Dido takes you happily on to her lap and
                gives you sweet kisses, you can then breathe fire and poison into
                her and she will not know.’

690         Cupid obeyed his beloved mother. He took off his wings and
                strutted about copying Iulus’ walk and laughing. But the goddess
                poured quiet and rest into all the limbs of Ascanius, and holding
                him to the warmth of her breast, she lifted him into the high
                Idalian woods, where the soft amaracus breathed its fragrant
                shade and twined its flowers around him.

                Now Cupid was obeying his instructions and was amused to
                
be escorted by Achates as he took the royal gifts to the Tyrians.
                When he came in, the queen was already seated under a rich
                awning on a golden couch in the middle of the palace. Presently
700         Father Aeneas and after him the men of Troy arrived and
                reclined on purple coverlets. Attendants gave them water for
                their hands, plied them with bread from baskets and brought
                them fine woollen napkins with close-cut nap. Inside were fifty
                serving-women, whose task it was to lay out the food in order
                in long lines and honour the Penates by tending their fires. There
                were a hundred other female slaves and a hundred men, all of
                the same age, to load the tables for the banquet and set out the
                drinking cups. The Tyrians, too, came thronging through the
                doors, and the palace was full of joy as they took their appointed
                places on the embroidered couches. They admired the gifts
710         Aeneas had given. They admired Iulus, the glowing face of the
                god and his false words, the cloak and the dress embroidered
                with yellow acanthus flowers. But most of all the unfortunate
                Dido, doomed to be the victim of a plague that was yet to come,
                could not have her fill of gazing, and as she gazed, moved by
                the boy as much as by the gifts, the fire within her grew. After
                he had embraced Aeneas and hung on his neck to satisfy the
                great love of his father who was not his father, he went to the
                queen. She fixed her eyes and her whole heart on him and
                sometimes dandled him on her knee, without knowing what a
                great god was sitting there marking her out to suffer. But he was
720         remembering his mother, the goddess of the Acidalian spring,
                and he began gradually to erase the memory of Sychaeus, trying
                to turn towards a living love a heart that had long been at peace
                and long unused to passion.

                As soon as the first pause came in the feasting and the tables
                were cleared away, they set up great mixing bowls full of wine
                and garlanded them with flowers. The palace was ringing with
                noise and their voices swelled through the spacious hall. Lamps
                were lit and hung from the gold-coffered ceilings and the flame
                of torches routed the darkness. The queen now asked for a
                golden bowl heavy with jewels, and filled it with wine unmixed
730         with water. From this bowl Belus had drunk, and all the royal
                line descended from Belus. Then there was silence in the hall as