The Aeneid (23 page)

630         Even as she spoke Dido was casting about in her mind how
                she could most quickly put an end to the life she hated. She then
                addressed these few words to Sychaeus’ nurse, Barce, for the
                black ashes of her own now lay far away in her ancient homeland:
                ‘My dear nurse, send my sister Anna quickly to me, telling
                her to sprinkle her body with river water and take with her the
                animals and the other offerings as instructed. That is how she is
                to come, and your own forehead must be veiled with a sacred
                ribbon. I have prepared with due care offerings to Jupiter of the
                Styx and I am now of a mind to complete them and put an end
640         to the pain of love by giving the pyre of this Trojan to the
                flames.’

                The old woman bustled away leaving Dido full of wild fears
                at the thought of what she was about to do. Her cheeks trembling
                and flecked with red, her bloodshot eyes rolling, she was pale
                with the pallor of approaching death. Rushing through the door
                into the inner courtyard, she climbed the high pyre in a frenzy
                and unsheathed the Trojan sword for which she had asked –
                though not for this purpose. Then her eyes lit on the Trojan
                clothes and the bed she knew so well, and pausing for a moment
650         
to weep and to remember, she lay down on the bed and spoke
                these last words: ‘These are the possessions of Aeneas which I
                so loved while God and the Fates allowed it. Let them receive
                my spirit and free me from this anguish. I have lived my life and
                completed the course that Fortune has set before me, and now
                my great spirit will go beneath the earth. I have founded a
                glorious city and lived to see the building of my own walls. I
                have avenged my husband and punished his enemy who was my
                brother. I would have been happy, more than happy, if only
                Trojan keels had never grounded on our shores.’ She then buried
                her face for a moment in the bed and cried: ‘We shall die
660         unavenged. But let us die. This, this, is how it pleases me to go
                down among the shades. Let the Trojan who knows no pity
                gaze his fill upon this fire from the high seas and take with him
                the omen of my death.’

                So she spoke and while speaking fell upon the sword. Her
                attendants saw her fall. They saw the blood foaming on the
                blade and staining her hands, and filled the high walls of the
                palace with their screaming. Rumour ran raving like a Bacchant
                through the stricken city. The palace rang with lamentation and
                groaning and the wailing of women and the heavens gave back
                the sound of mourning. It was as though the enemy were within
670         the gates and the whole of Carthage or old Tyre were falling
                with flames raging and rolling over the roofs of men and gods.
                Anna heard and was beside herself. She came rushing in terror
                through the middle of the crowd, tearing her face and beating
                her breast, calling out her sister’s name as she lay dying: ‘So this
                is what it meant? It was all to deceive your sister! This was the
                purpose of the pyre and the flames and the altars! You have
                abandoned me. I do not know how to begin to reproach you.
                Did you not want your sister’s company when you were dying?
                You could have called me to share your fate and we would both
680         have died in the same moment of the same grief. To think it was
                my hands that built the pyre, and my voice that called upon the
                gods of our fathers, so that you could be so cruel as to lay
                yourself down here to die without me. It is not only yourself
                you have destroyed, but also your sister and your people, their
                leaders who came with you from Sidon and the city you have
                
built. Give me water. I shall wash her wounds and catch any
                last lingering breath with my lips.’

                Saying these words, she had climbed to the top of the pyre
                and was now holding her dying sister to her breast and cherishing
                her, sobbing as she dried the dark blood with her own
                dress. Once more Dido tried to raise her heavy eyes, but failed.
690         The wound hissed round the sword beneath her breast. Three
                times she raised herself on her elbow. Three times she fell back
                on the bed. With wavering eyes she looked for light in the heights
                of heaven and groaned when she found it.

                All-powerful Juno then took pity on her long anguish and
                difficult death and sent Iris down from Olympus to free her
                struggling spirit and loosen the fastenings of her limbs. For since
                she was dying not by the decree of Fate or by her own deserts
                but pitiably and before her time, in a sudden blaze of madness,
                Proserpina had not yet taken a lock of her golden hair or
700         consigned her to Stygian Orcus. So Iris, bathed in dew, flew
                down on her saffron wings, trailing all her colours across the
                sky opposite the sun, and hovered over Dido’s head to say: ‘I
                am commanded to take this lock of hair as a solemn offering to
                Dis, and now I free you from your body.’

                With these words she raised her hand and cut the hair, and
                as she cut, all warmth went out of Dido’s body and her life
                passed into the winds.

             Meanwhile Aeneas, without slackening in his resolve, kept his
                fleet on course in mid-ocean, as he cut through waves darkened
                by the north wind and looked back at the walls of Carthage,
                glowing now in the flames of poor Dido’s pyre. No one understood
                what had lit such a blaze, but since they well knew what
                bitter suffering is caused when a great love is desecrated and
                what a woman is capable of when driven to madness, the minds
                of the Trojans were filled with dark foreboding. The ships were
                now in mid-ocean, with no land in sight. All around was sky
10           and all around was sea, when there came a cloud like lead and
                stood over Aeneas bringing storm and black night and the waves
                shivered in the darkness. Even Palinurus himself called out from
                the high stern: ‘What can be the meaning of these great clouds
                filling the sky? What have you in mind for us, Father Neptune?’
                Not till then did he give orders to shorten sail and bend to the
                stout oars. Then, setting the canvas aslant to the winds, he
                turned to Aeneas and said: ‘Great-hearted Aeneas, not if Jupiter
                himself gave me his guarantee, would I expect to reach Italy
20           under a sky like this. The wind has changed and is freshening,
                howling across us from the west where the sky is black. We
                cannot struggle against it or make any real headway. Since
                Fortune is too strong for us to resist, let us follow her. Let us
                change course and go where she calls. I do not think we are far
                from the safety of the shores of your brother Eryx and the
                harbours of Sicily, if only my memory serves me right, and I
                plot our course back by the stars I observed on the way out.’

                The good Aeneas then replied: ‘That is what the wind wants.
                I have seen it myself for some time and watched you fighting it
                
to no effect. Change course then and adjust the sails. There is
                no land that would please me more, nowhere I would rather put
30           in with our weary ships, than the place that gives a home to the
                Trojan Acestes and holds the bones of my father Anchises in the
                lap of earth.’ As soon as this was said they set course for harbour
                and the wind blew from astern and stretched their sails. The
                fleet raced over the sea and the sailors were delighted to have
                their prows pointing at last towards a beach they knew.

                Far away, on the top of a high mountain, Acestes saw his
                friends’ ships arriving and was amazed. He came down to meet
                them bristling with javelins and the shaggy fur of a Libyan
                she-bear. Acestes had been born of a Trojan mother to the
                river-god Crinisus and he had not forgotten his ancestry, but
40           welcomed the returning Trojans and gladly received them with
                all the treasures of the countryside, comforting their weariness
                with his loving care.

                As soon as the next day had risen bright in the east and put
                the stars to flight, Aeneas called his men from all along the shore
                to a council and addressed them from a raised mound: ‘Great
                sons of Dardanus, who draw your high blood from the gods,
                the months have passed and the cycle of the year is now complete
                since we laid in the ground the bones that were all that remained
                of my divine father and consecrated an altar of mourning. This
                is now the day, if I am right, which I shall always find bitter and
50           always hold in honour, for so the gods have willed. If I were
                spending this day as an exile in the Syrtes among the Gaetulians,
                or if I had been caught in Greek waters and were a prisoner in
                the city of Mycenae, I would still offer up these annual vows,
                perform these processions in ritual order and lay due offerings
                on altars. Today we find ourselves near the very place where the
                bones and ashes of my father lie (I for one do not believe this is
                without the wish and will of the gods), and the sea has taken us
                into this friendly harbour. Come then, let us all celebrate these
60           rites with joy. Let us ask for favouring winds and may it be his
                will that we found a city and offer him this worship in it every
                year in temples dedicated to his name. Trojan-born Acestes is
                giving you two head of oxen for each ship. Call to your feast
                the Penates, the gods of your ancestral home, and those of your
                
host Acestes. After all this, when in nine days the dawn, god
                willing, lifts up her life-giving light among men and the round
                earth is revealed in her rays, I shall hold games for the Trojans,
                first a race for the ships, then for those who are fleet of foot,
                and a contest for those who take the arena in the boldness of
                their strength to compete with the javelin or the flying arrow,
70           for those too who dare to do battle in rawhide gauntlets. Let
                them all come and see who wins the prizes of victory. Keep
                holy silence, all of you, and crown your heads with shoots of
                living green.’

                When he had spoken he shaded his temples with a garland of
                his mother’s myrtle. So did Helymus. So did old Acestes. So did
                the boy Ascanius and all the men, while Aeneas, and many
                thousands with him, left the council and walked to the tomb in
                the middle of this great escort. Here he offered a libation, duly
                pouring two goblets of unmixed wine upon the ground with
                two of fresh milk and two of sacrificial blood. Then, scattering
80           red flowers, he spoke these words: ‘Once more I greet you, my
                divine father. I come to greet your sacred ashes, the spirit and
                the shade of a father rescued in vain. Without you I must search
                for the land of Italy, for the fields decreed by Fate and for the
                Thybris of Ausonia, whatever that may be.’

                When he had finished speaking, a snake slithered from under
                the shrine. Moving gently forward in seven great curves and
                seven great coils, it glided between the altars and twined itself
                round the tomb, its back flecked with blue and its scales flashing
                mottled gold like the thousand different colours cast by a rainbow
90           on the clouds opposite the sun. Aeneas was struck dumb
                at the sight. At last it dragged its long length among the polished
                bowls and goblets and tasted the offerings, then, harming no
                one, it left the altars where it had fed and went back under the
                tomb. Encouraged by this, Aeneas renewed the rites he had
                begun for his father, not knowing whether to think of the snake
                as the genius of the place or as his father’s attendant spirit. He
                slew a pair of yearling sheep as ritual prescribed, two swine,
                and as many black-backed bullocks, pouring wine from bowls
                and calling repeatedly upon the spirit of great Anchises and his
100         shade released from Acheron. His comrades, too, each brought
                
what gifts he could and gladly offered them. They heaped the
                altars and slaughtered bullocks while others laid out bronze
                vessels in due order, and all over the grass there was lighting of
                fires under spits and roasting of flesh.