The Aeneid (20 page)

                Sometimes she would take Aeneas through the middle of
                Carthage, showing him the wealth of Sidon and the city waiting
                for him, and she would be on the point of speaking her mind to
                him but checked the words on her lips. Sometimes, as the day
                was ending, she would call for more feasting and ask in her
                infatuation to hear once more about the sufferings of Troy and
80           once more she would hang on his lips as he told the story. Then,
                after they had parted, when the fading moon was dimming her
                light and the setting stars seemed to speak of sleep, alone and
                wretched in her empty house she would cling to the couch
                Aeneas had left. There she would lie long after he had gone and
                she would see him and hear him when he was not there for her
                to see or hear. Or she would keep back Ascanius and take him
                on her knee, overcome by the likeness to his father, trying to
                beguile the love she could not declare. The towers she was
                building ceased to rise. Her men gave up the exercise of war and
                were no longer busy at the harbours and fortifications making
                them safe from attack. All the work that had been started, the
                threatening ramparts of the great walls and the cranes soaring
                to the sky, all stood idle.

90           As soon as Saturnian Juno, the dear wife of Jupiter, realized
                that Dido was infected by this sickness and that passion was
                sweeping away all thought for her reputation, she went and
                
spoke to Venus: ‘You are covering yourselves with glory. These
                are the supreme spoils you are bringing home, you and that boy
                of yours – and what a noble and notable specimen of the divine
                he is – one woman has been overthrown by the arts of two gods!
                I do not fail to see that you have long been afraid of our walls
                and looked askance at the homes of lofty Carthage. But how is
                this going to end? Where is all this rivalry going to lead us now?
100         Why do we not instead agree to arrange a marriage and live at
                peace for ever? You have achieved what you have set your whole
                heart on: Dido is passionately in love and the madness is working
                through her bones. So let us make one people of them and share
                authority equally over them. Let us allow her to become the
                slave of a Phrygian husband and to hand over her Tyrians to
                you as a dowry!’

                Venus realized this was all pretence in order to divert the
                empire of Italy to the shores of Libya, and made this response
                to the Queen of Heaven: ‘Who would be so insane as to reject
                such an offer and choose instead to contend with you in war? If
110         only a happy outcome could attend the plan you describe! But
                I am at the mercy of the Fates and do not know whether Jupiter
                would wish there to be one city for the Tyrians and those who
                have come from Troy or whether he would approve the merging
                of their peoples and the making of alliances. You are his wife.
                It could not be wrong for you to approach him with prayers
                and test his purpose. You proceed and I shall follow.’

                ‘That will be my task,’ replied Juno. ‘But now listen and I
                shall explain in a few words how the first part of the plan may
                be carried out. Aeneas and poor Dido are preparing to go
                hunting together in the forest as soon as tomorrow’s sun first
                rises and the rays of the Titan unveil the world. When the beaters
120         are scurrying about and putting nets round copses, I shall pour
                down a dark storm of rain and hail on them and shake the
                whole sky with thunder. Their companions will run away and
                be lost to sight in a pall of darkness. Dido and the leader of the
                Trojans will both take refuge in the same cave. I shall be there,
                and if your settled will is with me in this, I shall join them in
                lasting marriage and make her his. This will be their wedding.’
                This was what Juno asked and Venus of Cythera did not refuse
                
her but nodded in assent. She saw through the deception and
                laughed.

                Meanwhile Aurora rose from the ocean and when her light
130         came up into the sky, a picked band of men left the gates
                of Carthage carrying nets, wide-meshed and fine-meshed, and
                broad-bladed hunting spears, and with them came Massylian
                horsemen at the gallop and packs of keen-scented hounds. The
                queen was lingering in her chamber and the Carthaginian leaders
                waited at her door. There, resplendent in its purple and gold,
                stood her loud-hoofed, high-mettled horse champing its foaming
                bit. She came at last with a great entourage thronging round
                her. She was wearing a Sidonian cloak with an embroidered
                hem. Her quiver was of gold. Gold was the clasp that gathered
                up her hair and her purple tunic was fastened with a golden
140         brooch. Nor was the Trojan company slow to move forward,
                Ascanius with them in high glee. Aeneas himself marched at
                their head, the most splendid of them all, as he brought his men
                to join the queen’s. He was like Apollo leaving his winter home
                in Lycia and the waters of the river Xanthus to visit his mother
                at Delos, there to start the dancing again, while all around the
                altars gather noisy throngs of Cretans and Dryopes and painted
                Agathyrsians; the god himself strides the ridges of Mount
                Cynthus, his streaming hair caught up and shaped into a soft
                garland of green and twined round a band of gold, and the
150         arrows sound on his shoulders – with no less vigour moved
                Aeneas and his face shone with equal radiance and grace. When
                they had climbed high into the mountains above the tracks of
                men where the animals make their lairs, suddenly some wild
                goats were disturbed on the top of a crag and came running
                down from the ridge. Then on the other side there were deer
                running across the open plain. They had gathered into a herd
                and were raising the dust as they left the high ground far behind
                them. Down in the middle of the valley young Ascanius was
                riding a lively horse and revelling in it, galloping past the deer
                and the goats and praying that among these flocks of feeble
                creatures he could come across a foaming boar or that a tawny
                lion would come down from the mountains.

160         While all this was happening a great rumble of thunder began
                
to stir in the sky. Down came the rain and the hail, and Tyrian
                huntsmen, men of Troy and Ascanius of the line of Dardanus
                and grandson of Venus, scattered in fright all over the fields,
                making for shelter as rivers of water came rushing down the
                mountains. Dido and the leader of the Trojans took refuge
                together in the same cave. The sign was first given by Earth and
                by Juno as matron of honour. Fires flashed and the heavens
                were witness to the marriage while nymphs wailed on the mountain
170         tops. This day was the beginning of her death, the first cause
                of all her sufferings. From now on Dido gave no thought to
                appearance or her good name and no longer kept her love as a
                secret in her own heart, but called it marriage, using the word
                to cover her guilt.

                Rumour did not take long to go through the great cities of
                Libya. Of all the ills there are, Rumour is the swiftest. She thrives
                on movement and gathers strength as she goes. From small and
                timorous beginnings she soon lifts herself up into the air, her
                feet still on the ground and her head hidden in the clouds. They
180         say she is the last daughter of Mother Earth who bore her in
                rage against the gods, a sister for Coeus and Enceladus. Rumour
                is quick of foot and swift on the wing, a huge and horrible
                monster, and under every feather of her body, strange to tell,
                there lies an eye that never sleeps, a mouth and a tongue that
                are never silent and an ear always pricked. By night she flies
                between earth and sky, squawking through the darkness, and
                never lowers her eyelids in sweet sleep. By day she keeps watch
                perched on the tops of gables or on high towers and causes fear
                in great cities, holding fast to her lies and distortions as often as
190         she tells the truth. At that time she was taking delight in plying
                the tribes with all manner of stories, fact and fiction mixed in
                equal parts: how Aeneas the Trojan had come to Carthage and
                the lovely Dido had thought fit to take him as her husband; how
                they were even now indulging themselves and keeping each
                other warm the whole winter through, forgetting about their
                kingdoms and becoming the slaves of lust. When the foul goddess
                had spread this gossip all around on the lips of men, she
                then steered her course to king Iarbas to set his mind alight and
                fuel his anger.

                
Jupiter had ravished a Garamantian nymph and Iarbas was
200         his son. Over his broad realm he had erected a hundred huge
                temples to the god and set up a hundred altars on which he
                had consecrated ever-burning fires to keep undying holy vigil,
                enriching the earth with the blood of slaughtered victims and
                draping the doors with garlands of all kinds of flowers. Iarbas,
                they say, was driven out of his mind with anger when he heard
                this bitter news. Coming into the presence of the gods before
                their altars in a passion of rage, he offered up prayer upon
                prayer to Jupiter, raising his hands palms upward in supplication:
                ‘Jupiter All-powerful, who now receive libations of wine
                from the Moorish people feasting on their embroidered couches,
                do you see all this? Or are we fools to be afraid of you, Father,
210         when you hurl your thunderbolts? Are they unaimed, these fires
                in the clouds that cow our spirits? Is there no meaning in the
                murmur of your thunder? This woman was wandering about
                our land and we allowed her at a price to found her little city.
                We gave her a piece of shore to plough and laid down the laws
                of the place for her and she has spurned our offer of marriage
                and taken Aeneas into her kingdom as lord and master, and
                now this second Paris, with eunuchs in attendance and hair
                dripping with perfume and Maeonian bonnet tied under his
                chin, is enjoying what he has stolen while we bring gifts to
                temples we think are yours and keep warm with our worship
                the reputation of a useless god.’

220         As Iarbas prayed these prayers with his hand on the altar, the
                All-powerful god heard him and turned his eyes towards the
                royal city and the lovers who had lost all recollection of their
                good name. Then he spoke to Mercury and gave him these
                instructions: ‘Up with you, my son. Call for the Zephyrs, glide
                down on your wings and speak to the Trojan leader who now
                lingers in Tyrian Carthage without a thought for the cities
                granted him by the Fates. Take these words of mine down to
                him through the swift winds and tell him that this is not the
                man promised us by his mother, the loveliest of the goddesses.
                It was not for this that she twice rescued him from the swords
230         of the Greeks. She told us he would be the man to rule an Italy
                pregnant with empire and clamouring for war, passing the high
                
blood of Teucer down to his descendants and subduing the
                whole world under his laws. If the glory of such a destiny does
                not fire his heart, if he does not strive to win fame for himself,
                ask him if he grudges the citadel of Rome to his son Ascanius.
                What does he have in mind? What does he hope to achieve
                dallying among a hostile people and sparing not a thought for
                the Lavinian fields and his descendants yet to be born in
                Ausonia? He must sail. That is all there is to say. Let that be
                our message.’

                Jupiter had finished speaking and Mercury prepared to obey
                the command of his mighty father. First of all he fastened on his
240         feet the golden sandals whose wings carry him high above land
                and sea as swiftly as the wind. Then, taking the rod which
                summons pale spirits out of Orcus or sends them down to
                gloomy Tartarus, which gives sleep and takes it away and opens
                the eyes of men in death, he drove the winds before him and
                floated through the turbulent clouds till in his flight he saw the
                crest and steep flanks of Atlas whose rocky head props up the
                sky. This is the Atlas whose head, covered in pine trees and
250         beaten by wind and rain, never loses its dark cap of cloud. The
                snow falls upon his shoulders and lies there, then rivers of water
                roll down the old man’s chin and his bristling beard is stiff with
                ice. This is where Mercury the god of Mount Cyllene first
                landed, fanning out his wings to check his flight. From here he
                let his weight take him plummeting to the wave tops, like a bird
                skimming the sea as it flies along the shore, among the rocks
                where it finds the fish. So flew the Cyllenian god between earth
                and sky to the sandy beaches of Libya, cleaving the winds as he
                swooped down from the mountain that had fathered his own
                mother, Maia.