by Daisy Dunn
Obeyed the gods, returning to his ships,
While he continued groaning, deeply lovesick.
The Trojans fell to work and pulled the vessels
Down from the beach in one long line. Tarred hulls
Floated. The busy crews brought leafy oars
And logs with bark still on.
That rush from everywhere in town resembled
Ants plundering a giant heap of spelt
To store at home in readiness for winter.
Over the grass the thin black phalanx goes,
Loaded with booty. Some are heaving huge grains
Forward, and some are marshaling and prodding,
So the entire pathway hums with work.
What did you feel then, Dido, when you saw?
How did you sob when all that shoreline seethed?
You looked out from your tower, and the sea
Was an industrious uproar and commotion.
Reprobate Love, wrencher of mortal hearts!
He drives her now to tears, and now to beg
And cravenly submit her pride to love—
Whatever leaves her with a hope of life.
“Anna, you see the whole shore in a tumult.
They come from everywhere. Sails draw the breeze.
Sailors in joy hang garlands on the sterns.
As surely as I saw this great grief coming,
So surely I’ll endure. But do one favor
In pity, since the traitor was your friend—
Yours only: you were trusted with his secrets;
You know how to approach him when he’s weak.
Go, sister, kneel to my proud enemy.
I was no Greek at Aulis when they swore
To smash his race. I sent no fleet to Troy,
Nor made his father’s ghost and ashes homeless.
How can he block his ears against my words?
Where is he running? As a last sad love gift,
He ought to wait for winds that make it easy.
I do not plead the marriage he betrayed.
Let the man go be king in charming Latium.
I just want time, a pause to heal my mind
And teach myself to mourn in my defeat.
I ask this final wretched favor, sister—
A loan—and I will give my death as interest.”
Weeping, she made this plea. Her grieving sister
Delivered it repeatedly. No tears
Could move him; no words found his sympathy.
His fate and Jove were barriers to his ears,
As in the Alps, the North Wind’s blasts assault
A solid, tough, and venerable oak,
Competing to uproot it; with a creak
At the blows, it strews its high leaves on the ground
But clasps the cliff with roots that go as far
Toward hell as its top reaches into heaven:
Just as relentless were the words that battered
The hero. In his noble heart he suffered,
But tears did nothing. His resolve endured.
Appalled now by her fate, poor Dido prayed
For death; she wished to see the sky no longer.
Other things also drove her from the daylight:
Her gifts on incense-burning altars rotted,
Horrible to describe: wine turned to black
And filthy gore the second that she poured it.
No one was told. Her sister did not know it.
There stood inside her home a marble shrine
To her late husband: there she worshiped him,
Spreading white fleece and hanging holy wreaths.
She thought she heard his voice there, echoing, calling.
When the night’s darkness covered all the earth,
She listened to a lone owl on the rooftree
Whose song of death kept trailing into sobs.
Many grim warnings of the long-dead seers
Panicked her too. In dreams a fierce Aeneas
Chased her. She raved in fear or was abandoned,
Friendless, forever walking a long road,
Seeking her Tyrians in a lifeless land.
It was like Pentheus seeing bands of Furies,
And a pair of Thebes, and a sun split in two;
As in a play the son of Agamemnon
Runs from his mother’s torches and black snakes
While vengeful demons lurk outside the door.
Madness and grief filled her defeated heart,
And she chose death. She had a time and method,
But hid her plan behind a face of peace
And hope, in speaking to her wretched sister.
“Anna, I’ve found a way—congratulate me!—
To bring him back or set me free from love.
Next to the setting sun and Ocean’s boundary,
In Ethiopia, where giant Atlas
Turns the star-blazing heavens on his shoulder,
Lived a Massylian priestess I’ve now found,
Who guarded the Hesperides’ temple there,
Nourished the snake, preserved the sacred branches,
And strewed sleep-bringing poppy and moist honey.
She says her spells soothe any minds she wishes
Or else bring grueling troubles into others,
Stop rivers and turn stars back in their courses,
And call out ghosts at night. The earth will roar
Beneath your feet, ash trees will rush down mountains.
Sister, I swear it by your darling life
And by the gods—I would not choose such weapons.
Build me a pyre in secret in the courtyard.
The arms that evil man hung in our bedroom—
The clothes I stripped from him, our bed of union,
My death—put it all there. I want the leavings
Of the criminal destroyed. She’s shown me how.”
Now she was silent, and her face went pale.
But Anna did not guess her sister’s funeral
Hid in these strange rites, or suspect such frenzy—
What could be worse than when Sychaeus died?
She did as she was told.
Deep in the house, beneath the sky, a pyre
Now towered high with logs of pine and oak.
The queen festooned the walls with funeral garlands.
Conscious of what must be, she put his picture
On the bed, above his sword and cast-off clothes.
Altars encircled her. The loose-haired priestess
Shouted three hundred gods’ names—Erebus, Chaos,
Three-faced Diana, who is triple Hecate.
She sprinkled drops she said were from Avernus.
Herbs appeared, cut with bronze knives at the full moon,
Swollen and oozing coal-black milk of poison;
A love charm too, torn from a new foal’s forehead
Before the mare could get it.
Dido, with sacred meal in clean hands, robes loose,
One sandal off, now stood at the high altar,
Called gods, called fate-wise stars as witnesses.
She prayed to anything in heaven that sees
And punishes a broken bond of love.
Now it was night, and all earth’s weary creatures
Slept peacefully. The woods and savage waters
Were still. The stars were halfway through their journeys
Above the tranquil fields. Cattle and bright birds
Of the broad lakes and brambly wilderness
All lay asleep beneath the noiseless sky,
Their troubles soothed, their sufferings forgotten—
But not the desolate Phoenician queen.
Her heart and eyes shunned darkness and the ease
Of sleep. Her torments thronged, her love ran wild—
They came and went on seething tides of madness.
Her heart was churning with unceasing questions:
“What should I do? Go back w
here I’ll be laughed at,
And beg to marry a Numidian prince
After I turned those suitors all away?
Follow the Trojan ships and do whatever
The Trojans order? Surely they’ll recall
The help I gave and, for the past’s sake, help me.
But then again, would they allow the outcast
On their proud ships? Poor fool, you’re not familiar
With the treachery of Laomedon’s descendants?
Would I trail those cheering sailors all alone,
A deserter? Would I take my Tyrian ranks
As escorts? Would those barely torn from Sidon
Endure another sea voyage on my orders?
No, die—you’ve earned it. Give the sword your sorrow.
But you, my sister, weakened by my tears,
Turned folly to disaster and defeat.
I could not live a blameless life, unmarried,
Like a wild thing, and be spared this agony:
I broke my promise to the dead Sychaeus.”
Out of her heart these words of sorrow broke.
Aeneas was asleep on the high stern,
In confidence that everything was ready—
When in a dream he saw the god again:
The form had Mercury’s face and his complexion,
His yellow hair and handsome young man’s body.
And it renewed the warning from before:
“You sleep, child of the goddess, while disaster
Teeters above, and perils lurk around?
Fool, can’t you hear your guide, the West Wind, breathing?
The woman, who now knows that she will die,
Is tossed in scheming, heaving tides of rage.
While you still can, you need to run for it,
Or you’ll see storms of wreckage and the glare
Of brutal torches. Flames will fill the beach
If the dawn finds you loitering in this land.
Be quick and go! A woman is a changing
And fitful thing.” The form ebbed into black night.
The sudden vision of this chilling shade
Ripped him from sleep. He shook his comrades too.
“Wake—now!—and take your places on the benches.
Hurry! Unfurl the sails. Once more from heaven
A god’s come, driving our escape: start cutting
The twisted ropes! We follow you, whichever
God you might be—again we cheer your orders.
Be with us, guide us graciously, and bring us
Favoring stars.” He drew his flashing sword
And struck the mooring line. A single passion
Seized all of them. They ran and snatched their gear up
And quit the beach. The blue plain now was hidden
By skimming ships. The oars raised twists of foam.
Dawn, risen from her husband’s saffron bed,
Was scattering her light across the world.
The sky grew white above the queen’s high tower.
Below, the sails went forward in a row.
The port, the shore were bare, the sailors gone.
Repeatedly she struck her lovely breast
And tore her gold hair. “Jupiter! He’s leaving?
A stranger comes—and goes—and mocks my power?
Why doesn’t the whole city arm and follow
On ships torn madly from their moorings? Hurry!
Bring torches, pass out arms, ram the oars forward!
What? Where is this new madness taking me?
Poor thing. Your crimes—you feel them only now?
Not when you made him king? This is his pledged word!
They say he brought his household gods with him,
And hauled his frail old father on his shoulders.
I could have scattered the torn pieces of him
Across the waves. I could have killed his friends—
His son—and made a banquet for the father—
A struggle I might not have won—no matter:
I still would die. My torches should have swarmed
His camp and gangways till they made a pyre
For father and son, the whole race, and myself.
Come, Sun, the blazing lamp of all creation—
Juno, the witness and the go-between—
And Hecate, a name shrieked at the crossroads—
Avenging Furies—and my own death demons:
Turn heaven’s justice where it should be turned.
This is my prayer now: if that living curse
Must skim his way to harbor in that country,
If Jove and fate require this to happen,
Then let a bold and warlike people drive him
Out of his realm and tear his Iulus from him.
Make him a suppliant, let him see the death
Of blameless friends. Humiliating peace terms
Will bring no happy old age in his kingdom.
He’ll fall and lie unburied in the sand.
And now my last plea, gushing with my blood:
Tyrians, hound with hatred for all time
The race he founds. My ashes call from you
This service. Let there be no pacts of friendship.
Out of my grave let an avenger rise,
With fire and iron for Dardanian settlers—
Now—someday—when the power is there to strike.
Our shores will clash, weapons and seas collide.
My curse is war for Trojans and their children.”
She finished. Now her thoughts went everywhere,
Seeking the fastest way to leave the light.
She told the old nurse of Sychaeus, Barce
(Her own had died back in the fatherland),
“Darling, please bring my sister Anna—hurry!
Have her splash river water on her body
And bring the beasts and other offerings.
Cover your own brow with a pious fillet.
I’ll now round off the ritual I began
For Jove below the earth, to end my pain,
Putting to flame this pyre—the Trojan’s life.”
Quickly the fond old woman hobbled off.
Now Dido’s own grim plans had made her frantic.
Her red eyes darted, and her cheeks were blotched
And shook—but she grew pale in facing death.
She burst into the center of the house,
Frenzied, and climbed the pyre and drew the sword
From Troy—she hadn’t asked for it for this.
Here she surveyed the bed she knew so well,
And the Trojan clothes. In tearful contemplation
She lay a little while, and spoke these last words:
“Sweet spoils—while fate and god still kept you sweet—
Receive my breath and free me from this pain.
I lived, I ran the race that fate allotted.
I’ll send the underworld a noble ghost.
I saw the walls of my great city standing,
Avenged my husband, made my brother pay.
A happy—no, a more than happy life,
If Trojan ships had never touched these shores.”
She kissed the bed. “I die without revenge—
But let me die. I like this path to darkness.
Let the cruel Trojan’s eyes take in these flames.
The omen of my death will go with him.”
Her maids now saw her falling on her sword,
Still speaking, saw her blood foam down the blade
And fleck her hands. A shout rose to the rooftop,
And through the shaken city Rumor raged.
Long-drawn-out shrieks of grief and women’s keening
Brimmed from the buildings. Anguish filled the sky.
As if invading troops brought Carthage down—
Or ancient Tyre were sacked—and flames were scaling
The rooftops of the houses and the temples.
Her sister heard
and ran to her in panic.
Clawing her cheeks, bruising her breast with blows.
As she plunged through the crowd, she called that doomed name.
“This was your purpose, sister—to deceive me?
The pyre, the flames, the altars bring me this?
How could you leave me like a cast-off thing
And go alone? You should have called me with you:
One sword, one hour, one agony for both!
I piled this wood, I called our fathers’ gods
To let you lie alone here, heartless monster?
You killed yourself and me, your city’s people,
And the Phoenician lords. Come, give me water
To wash these wounds—and if a last breath hovers,
My mouth will take it.” She had climbed the pyre,
And held her sister now, that fading life,
And moaned and mopped the black blood with her clothes.
Dido now strained to lift her heavy eyes
But failed. Around the sword, her breast’s wound hissed.
Three times she rose a little, on her elbow,
Collapsed each time, and with her wandering vision
Searched for the bright, high sky and sighed to find it.
Queen Juno cut this torture short, in pity,
Dispatching Iris earthward from Olympus
To free the struggling spirit from its bonds.
There was no fate or justice in her death.
Her madness brought a wretched, early end.
Proserpina had cut no lock of blond hair
To dedicate this life to Stygian Orcus.
So dewy Iris soared on saffron wings,
Trailing a thousand sun-reflecting colors,
And floated near her head. “I am to take
This gift to Dis and free you from your body.”
Her right hand made the stroke. All living heat
Vanished, and life dissolved into the wind.
ROMULUS AND REMUS
Ab urbe condita, Book I
Livy
Translated by Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
At the beginning of his history of Rome, Livy (64 or 59 BC–AD 17) described how Aeneas and the Trojan refugees eventually reached the west coast of Italy. Here Aeneas met King Latinus, married his daughter Lavinia, and built a new town named Lavinium. Lavinia, however, had previously been engaged to another king, who declared war. Although his people prevailed, Aeneas later died, leaving behind his son Ascanius. When he grew up, Ascanius built a new city called ‘Alba Longa’, and had a son of his own. Many generations down the line, the daughter of his descendant Numitor, Rhea Silvia, was violated, allegedly by the war god Mars, and gave birth to twin boys. In this story Livy explains what happened after her uncle Amulius, who had usurped her father to become king, ordered her infant sons, Romulus and Remus, to be thrown into the river. Livy was an historian, but the early centuries of Rome’s history were so steeped in legend that he had little choice but to embrace foundation myths like this one.
