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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book IV Chapter 20: Dido deceives Anna | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Now sorrow-crazed and by her grief undone, resolved on death, the manner and the time her secret soul prepares, and, speaking to her sister sad, she [Note 1] masks in cheerful calm her fatal will: I know a way -- O, wish thy sister joy! -- to bring him [Note 2] back to love, or set me free. On Ocean's bound and next the setting sun lies the last Aethiop land, where Atlas tall lifts on his shoulder the wide wheel of heaven, studded with burning stars. From thence is come a witch, a priestess, a Numidian crone, who guards the shrine of the Hesperides and feeds the dragon; she protects the fruit of that enchanting tree, and scatters there her slumb'rous poppies mixed with honey-dew. Her spells and magic promise to set free what hearts she will, or visit cruel woes on men afar. She stops the downward flow of rivers, and turns back the rolling stars; on midnight ghosts she calls: her vot'ries hear earth bellowing loud below, while from the hills the ash-trees travel down. But, sister mine, thou knowest, and the gods their witness give, how little mind have I to don the garb of sorcery. Depart in secret, thou, and bid them build a lofty funeral pyre inside our palace-wall, and heap thereon the hero's arms, which that blasphemer hung within my chamber; every relic bring, and chiefly that ill-omened nuptial bed, my death and ruin! For I must blot out all sight and token of this husband vile. T is what the witch commands. She spoke no more, and pallid was her brow. Yet Anna's mind knew not what web of death her sister wove by these strange rites, nor what such frenzy dares; nor feared she worse than when Sichaeus died, but tried her forth the errand to fulfil. Note 1: she = Dido Event: Love and Death of Dido |
474-503 Ergo ubi concepit furias euicta dolore decreuitque mori, tempus secum ipsa modumque exigit, et maestam dictis adgressa sororem consilium uultu tegit ac spem fronte serenat: 'inueni, germana, uiam (gratare sorori) quae mihi reddat eum uel eo me soluat amantem. Oceani finem iuxta solemque cadentem ultimus Aethiopum locus est, ubi maximus Atlas axem umero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum: hinc mihi Massylae gentis monstrata sacerdos, Hesperidum templi custos, epulasque draconi quae dabat et sacros seruabat in arbore ramos, spargens umida mella soporiferumque papauer. haec se carminibus promittit soluere mentes quas uelit, ast aliis duras immittere curas, sistere aquam fluuiis et uertere sidera retro, nocturnosque mouet Manis: mugire uidebis sub pedibus terram et descendere montibus ornos. testor, cara, deos et te, germana, tuumque dulce caput, magicas inuitam accingier artis. tu secreta pyram tecto interiore sub auras erige, et arma uiri thalamo quae fixa reliquit impius exuuiasque omnis lectumque iugalem, quo perii, super imponas: abolere nefandi cuncta uiri monimenta iuuat monstratque sacerdos.' haec effata silet, pallor simul occupat ora. non tamen Anna nouis praetexere funera sacris germanam credit, nec tantos mente furores concipit aut grauiora timet quam morte Sychaei. ergo iussa parat. |