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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book IV Chapter 1: Dido falls in love | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
Now felt the Queen [Note 1] the sharp, slow-gathering pangs of love; and out of every pulsing vein nourished the wound and fed its viewless fire. Her hero's [Note 2] virtues and his lordly line keep calling to her soul; his words, his glance, cling to her heart like lingering, barbed steel, and rest and peace from her vexed body fly. A new day's dawn with Phoebus' lamp divine lit up all lands, and from the vaulted heaven Aurora had dispelled the dark and dew; when thus unto the ever-answering heart of her dear sister spoke the stricken Queen: Anna, my sister, what disturbing dreams perplex me and alarm? What guest is this new-welcomed to our house? How proud his mien! What dauntless courage and exploits of war! Sooth, I receive it for no idle tale that of the gods he sprang. T is cowardice betrays the base-born soul. Ah me! How fate has smitten him with storms! What dire extremes of war and horror in his tale he told! O, were it not immutably resolved in my fixed heart, that to no shape of man I would be wed again (since my first love left me by death abandoned and betrayed); loathed I not so the marriage torch and train, I could -- who knows? -- to this one weakness yield. Anna, I hide it not! But since the doom of my ill-starred Sichaeus, when our shrines were by a brother's [Note 3] murder dabbled o'er, this man alone has moved me; he alone has shaken my weak will. I seem to feel the motions of love's lost, familiar fire. But may the earth gape open where I tread, and may almighty Jove with thunder-scourge hurl me to Erebus' abysmal shade, to pallid ghosts and midnight fathomless, before, O Chastity! I shall offend thy holy power, or cast thy bonds away! He who first mingled his dear life with mine took with him all my heart. T is his alone -- o, let it rest beside him in the grave! She spoke: the bursting tears her breast o'erflowed. Note 1: Queen = Dido Event: Love and Death of Dido |
1-30 At regina graui iamdudum saucia cura uulnus alit uenis et caeco carpitur igni. multa uiri uirtus animo multusque recursat gentis honos; haerent infixi pectore uultus uerbaque nec placidam membris dat cura quietem. postera Phoebea lustrabat lampade terras umentemque Aurora polo dimouerat umbram, cum sic unanimam adloquitur male sana sororem: 'Anna soror, quae me suspensam insomnia terrent! quis nouus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes, quem sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis! credo equidem, nec uana fides, genus esse deorum. degeneres animos timor arguit. heu, quibus ille iactatus fatis! quae bella exhausta canebat! si mihi non animo fixum immotumque sederet ne cui me uinclo uellem sociare iugali, postquam primus amor deceptam morte fefellit; si non pertaesum thalami taedaeque fuisset, huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae. Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede penatis solus hic inflexit sensus animumque labantem impulit. agnosco ueteris uestigia flammae. sed mihi uel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat uel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, pallentis umbras Erebo noctemque profundam, ante, pudor, quam te uiolo aut tua iura resoluo. ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores abstulit; ille habeat secum seruetque sepulcro.' sic effata sinum lacrimis impleuit obortis. |