P. VERGILI MARONIS AENEIDOS LIBER QVARTVS
Virgil Aeneid Book iv
Lines 1-30
At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura
But the queen, now for a long time, wounded by her grave love-sickness,
(i) Notice the emphatic place that regina holds, right at the start, for Dido is queen of Carthage and no ordinary woman, and this episode is all about her.)
(ii) iamdudum is always used for something that’s been going on for a long time; hence my translations of cura (basic meaning ‘anxiety’) in lines 1 and 5.
vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni.
feeds the wound with (her) life-blood (lit. with veins) and is gnawed by an unseen fire (ie she’s keeping her feelings hidden).
(i) Of course fire – line 2 - and flame – line 23- are both ancient and modern metaphors for love.
(ii) caecus is an interesting word for it means ‘blind, unseeing’, as well as ‘unseen, hidden’. Virgil may well intend for it to have both meanings simultaneously. This is called intensive meaning. For she is blind to the consequences as well, though we know what is going to happen, a case of dramatic irony.
multa viri virtus animo multusque recursat
(in) her mind (there) keeps on returning (recursat) the hero’s great (lit. much) courage
gentis honos; haerent infixi pectore vultus
and (-que in the line above) the great nobility of his race; in her heart, (there) stick, impaled, (infixus is a metaphoric word, for it is as if she has been knifed by the memories!) his face
So she is wounded by her love for Aeneas, and this image looks forward to the simile of the wounded deer in lines 69-73 - as well as to the tragic end of the affair.
verbaque nec placidam membris dat cura quietem. 5
and his words and (her) obsession (cura) does not give calming peace to her body (lit. limbs). (NB nec/neque = and…..not….)
What imagery is Virgil using when he uses saucia, vulnus, caeco…igni, haerent infixi? Link your initial idea with what you know about Aeneas’ life so far - and create the perfect answer.
Dido’s experience of attraction to Aeneas is not a pleasant one. What happens to this love affair? So what is Virgil anticipating?
postera Phoebea lustrabat lampade terras
The following Dawn (Aurora – in the next line) was purifying the earth (terras pl. for sg.) with Phoebus’ lamp,
(Phoebus is another name for the god Apollo, who was the god of the sun who brings daylight. Shakespeare talked about ‘when Phoebus ‘gins to rise…’ and so Phoebus can also mean the sun itself.)
umentemque Aurora polo dimoverat umbram,
and had removed the damp shadow from the heavens,
cum sic unanimam adloquitur male sana sororem:
when, barely in her right mind (male sana), she spoke thus to her soulmate, (unanimam = sharing the one soul) her sister:
(ie Anna acts as her confidante.)
'Anna soror, quae me suspensam insomnia terrent!
“My sister Anna, what dreams (quae ..insomnia) terrify me in my anxiety! (An alternative way of putting it could be ‘Oh the dreams that….!)
(The PPP suspensus is connected with our expression ‘to be in suspense’ – and has the same meaning – ‘to be uncertain/ agitated/on tenterhooks’. It’s actually a metaphor from flogging, when you were ‘suspended’/hung up to be flogged. So it also has the meaning to be ‘on tip-toe’ sometimes.)
quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes, 10
What a fantastic (novus connected with novel, novelty) guest has come to our house, (sedibus is plural for singular – because sedibus provides Virgil with the dactyl he needs here)
quem sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis!
How he carries (lit. carrying – present participle) himself (sese = the reflexive
se, just the same as in French), how strong in his chest and shoulders!
(lit. how with strong chest and …; arma should mean weapons, but armis could come from armus, a shoulder. It is connected with the Greek word arqron ‘ar-thron’ for joint or shoulder, from which the English ‘arthritis’ comes. ‘Shoulders’ seems better in this context. ie “how distinguished are his looks!”.)
But you can decide she is referring to his arma = weapons. Both shoulders and weapons are correct translations of armis.
credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse deorum.
I truly (equidem) believe, (and (my) confidence (is) not vain), that (his) race is of the gods. (Dido’s instinct has hit upon the truth, for Aeneas’ mother is Venus, the goddess of Love.)
degeneres animos timor arguit. heu, quibus ille
Fear shows up base-born souls. (She means that by the courage Aeneas has shown in his ability to survive the sack of Troy and his endurance on his wanderings, that he must be of high birth.)
Alas (in poetry eheu loses its first syllable), by what
iactatus fatis! quae bella exhausta canebat!
fates has he (ille in the previous line) been tossed! (iactatus has ‘est understood with it, to turn it into a perfect passive) What wars that he’s endured (lit. exhausta = having been endured) did he tell of! (cano = literally ‘sing’. Aeneas has been describing his tragic adventures, in and after the Trojan War. A minstrel would have sung such exploits in Homer’s time.)
si mihi non animo fixum immotumque sederet 15
If I hadn’t got it fixed in my mind and it wasn’t sitting immoveable (lit. if it was not sitting fixed and immoveable in my mind)
ne cui me vinclo vellem sociare iugali,
not to want to join (sociari deponent infinitive) myself to anyone (ne…cui) in a marriage tie,
(ie she doesn’t want to remarry anyone. Perhaps she feels she would lose her people’s respect, for the Romans much admired a woman who had only been married to one man. They called such a woman univira = “a one-man woman” and she was a propitious (lucky) person to have at a wedding. univirae formed the bride’s attendants, rather like bridesmaids today.
Although Dido is Phoenician/Carthaginian, she is sometimes depicted as if she were a Roman lady. Only matronae univirae could worship the Roman goddess Pudicitia, “Chastity”, whose statue stood in the forum boarium, the Cattle Market, near the Circus Maximus in Rome.)
postquam primus amor deceptam morte fefellit;
after my first love betrayed me when I was abandoned (lit. having been abandoned/deceived) by death;
(Of course she wasn’t betrayed by her husband Sychaeus; he’d been assassinated. But the way she speaks is reminiscent of the betrayal that surrounded them, for her husband had been killed by Dido’s own brother Pygmalion!)
si non pertaesum thalami taedaeque fuisset,
If I hadn’t been thoroughly bored (by the idea) of a wedding and the ceremonial torch.
(i) taedet is an impersonal verb, lit. = it bores + genitive of the thing you’re bored with. The word ‘tedious’ comes from it. The per- prefix has the force of ‘absolutely’, ‘utterly’. Lit. ‘if it had not bored (me) of a wedding chamber and of a torch’.
ii) thalamus is an interesting word – originally from the Greek qalamoV - meaning ‘an inner room’, therefore a bedroom, therefore a room where one spends ones wedding night, and therefore for marriage itself!
iii) taeda – ‘a marriage torch’ is evocative of the torch-lit procession that accompanied the bride to her husband’s house. It is worth reading up about Roman marriage customs. Go to www.cambridgescp.com. Click on the Cambridge Latin Course. Click on Book V. Click on ‘NUPTIAE’ Stage 38. ‘Cultural Background’ at the bottom of the stage 38 page has links to very good, easy to read, websites on Roman marriage
huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae.
To this one temptation (culpae) perhaps I could have (potui) given in (succumbere) . (Think of the English ‘succumb’ = ‘give in to’, ‘yield to’. eg He eventually succumbed to his wounds. ie he died.)
Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei 20
Anna, - for I will confess (it) -, after the death (fata neuter pl. Why not mortem?) of poor Sychaeus
coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede penates
(my) husband, and (after) (our) household gods (were) scattered by murder at my brother’s hands (lit. by fraternal slaughter. See note to line 17 above.)
solus hic inflexit sensus animumque labantem
this man alone has affected my feelings (sensus is 4th declension, hence the long ‘u’ in the plural) and has nudged my wavering soul. (ie he’s so attractive she can feel her resolve never to marry again weakening! - impulit in the next line: lit. = ‘has pushed my slipping soul’.)
impulit. agnosco ueteris uestigia flammae.
I recognise the traces of an old passion.
sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat
But I would truly wish (optem) that either (vel) the bottom of the earth (tellus ima) should swallow me (lit. dehiscat =gape/split open for me)
vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, 25
or (vel) the almighty father (Juppiter) should hurl (adigat) me with (his) thunderbolt to the underworld, (lit. the shadows/ the ghosts)
pallentis umbras Erebo noctemque profundam,
to the pale shades of Erebus ( Erebus =“darkness” - one of the names of the underworld, usually referred to as ‘Hades’) and the everlasting night, (What do you think is the effect of repeating the chilling word umbras twice – in lines 25 and 26?)
ante, pudor, quam te violo aut tua iura resolvo.
Before, (antequam has been separated) my conscience, I would violate you or break your laws. (The sudden change where Dido starts talking to her “conscience” in the 2nd person, is very dramatic. It emphasises the solemnity of Dido’s vow to remain a widow always, but at the same time hints at the tragedy to come. For she will break this vow and will end up ruined. Remember the note attached to line 16 about the special respect given to women who were univirae. They attended the bride in her bridal procession, as a symbol of her faithfulness and the many years of happiness which were hoped for, for the couple.)
ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores
He who first joined me to him, (sibi is dative of se the reflexive pronoun), has taken away (abstulit in the next line) my love; (amores pl. for sg.: ie my capacity to love)
abstulit; ille habeat secum servetque sepulcro.'
Let him have (it) (ie my love) and keep (it) with him in the tomb.’ (habeat and servet are both present subjunctives, of the kind called ‘jussive’ which express a kind of command in the 1st and 3rd person. Eg ‘Let us pray’ in English – 1st pl.)
sic effata sinum lacrimis implevit obortis. 30
Having spoken thus she filled her bodice with the tears that welled up (obortis is a deponent participle from ob-orior).
(sinus is an interesting word. It is used of something that has a curved shape. So it can be a bay of the sea; a fold of a garment, so the part overhanging the chest of a toga or stola, hence the choice of “bodice” above; therefore the bosom of a person and the protection and comfort it gives - so ‘bosom’ is also a possible translation; it can also mean an inner place, so a hiding place.
If your sinuses are blocked, you have the sniffles, sometimes pain and a puffy face. Does this mean the sinuses are curved or hidden??)
This painting from the 1920’s - admittedly not a very good one! - shows Dido listening to Aeneas telling the story of his escape from Troy. Does she give any sign of being strongly attracted to him??