| Receive, Dardanian, the song of dying Elissa; |
| What you read from me are the final words I have read. |
| As, when the fates call, cast down among damp plants, |
| The white swan sings on the streams of the Maeander, |
And not that I hope to move you by my prayer, |
5 |
| So do I speak: I have said these things, even though God is contrary. |
But since I have undeservedly lost my good name |
And my body and my chaste soul, it is nothing to lose words. |
| But you are determined to go and to leave behind an unhappy Dido, |
| And the same wind that blew your ship away, also blew away your faith. |
10 |
| You are determined, Aeneas, to untie your ships along with you promises |
| And to pursue some Italian kingdom, you know not where. |
| And neither a new Carthage nor its rising battlements |
| Nor the supreme power handed over to your command moves you. |
| You flee what's done, you seek out what is to be done. Throughout the world |
15 |
| You go to find one land, another you have already found. |
| Suppose you find this land: who will give it over to you that you might have it? |
| Who will give over their fields to be controlled by nobodies? |
| Another love is to be held by you, and another Dido |
| Whom you will again betray, with another promise. |
20 |
| When will you build a city as good as Carthage |
| And when will you look down on your people from a high citadel? |
| Suppose all these things happen and the gods do not hinder your prayers, |
| Where will there be a wife for you who will love you as I do? |
| I burn like wax-covered torches covered in sulfur; |
25 |
| Like holy incense added to smoky funeral pyres. |
25a |
| Aeneas will always be firmly fixed in the eyes of her who watches for him, |
25b |
| Both night and day bring back Aeneas to her mind. |
| But he, ingrate and deaf to my gifts |
| And one whom I would wish to be without — if I were not a fool. |
| Yet I do not hate Aeneas, although he has wicked intentions, |
| But I complain against his infidelity and, having complained, I love him more. |
30 |
| Venus, have pity on your daughter-in-law and, brother Amor, embrace |
| Your hardhearted brother; let him fight in your army. |
| But he whom I began to love — for I do not deny it — |
| Supplies the cause for my grief. |
| I deceive myself and that image beats back and forth before my deceived eyes: |
35 |
| He diverges from the natural inclination of his mother. |
| Rock and mountains and oaktrees native to high cliffs, |
| Fierce wild beasts gave you birth, |
| Or the sea, such as you now see beaten, like yourself, by the winds: |
| Where are you preparing to go against opposing waves? Where are you fleeing to? |
40 |
| Stormy weather blocks the way. May the friendship of the storm do me good! |
| Notice how Eurus whips up the turbulent waters. |
| What I would have preferred for you, you rush to obtain without me. |
| Wind and waves are more just than your spirit. |
| I am not so important, that you will not leave off, traitor, |
45 |
| So that you perish, while you flee from me across the broad seas. |
| You occupy yourself with a too costly and unchanging hatred |
| If, while you are away from me, dying is of no worth to you. |
| Now that the winds and the waves, made uniformly smooth, are dying down |
| Triton rides through the sea on his sea-green horses. |
50 |
| Would that you also might be as changeable as the winds, |
| And you will be — unless you exceed the oak in hardness. |
| What if you were not to know what the raging sea can do? |
| Do you so little trust the waters you have so often experienced? |
| Suppose, at the sea's persuasion, you even loosen the cables — |
55 |
| Many sorrows still does the wide sea contain. |
| There is no advantage for those testing the sea to have broken faith: |
| That place exacts penalties for perfidy, |
| Especially when love has been hurt, because the mother of Love |
| Was said to have been born naked from the waters of Cythera. |
60 |
| Lost, I fear that I may lose, or injure him who injures me, |
| And not that my enemy, shipwrecked, will drink the waters of the sea. |
| Live, I pray! It is better that I lose you in that way than by your death, — |
| May you rather be thought the cause of my death. |
| Imagine, do!, that you are caught by a sudden whirlwind — |
65 |
| May there be no power in the omen — what will be in your mind? |
| The perjuries of your lying tongue will immediately rush forward |
| And Dido will be forced to die by Phrygian deceit; |
| The image of your deceived wife will stand before your eyes |
| Sad and bloodstained, with scattered locks. |
70 |
| Whatever it is, "This much," you may say, "I have deserved depart!" |
| And the thunderbolts which strike you will think have been sent against you! |
| Give a brief space to the sea's madness — and your own; |
| A safe path will be the grand prize for your delay. |
| And have no anxiety about me; cease for the sake of you son Julus! |
75 |
| It is enough that you can claim credit for my death. |
| What does you son Ascanius, what do the Penate gods deserve? |
| Will waves drown gods that were snatched from the flames? |
| But you do not carry them with you nor do the sacred objects and your father |
| Weigh down your shoulders, as you, liar, boasted to me. |
80 |
| You lied about everything; for your tongue does not begin to deceive, |
| Deceiving us, and I am not the first to be afflicted: |
| If you ask where the mother of lovely Julus may be — |
| She died, left behind, alone, by her stony-hearted husband. |
| You told me these things, but to move me to sadness. |
85 |
| Therefore your punishment will not be as much as your guilt deserves. |
| There is no doubt in my mind that your own gods damn you: |
| Over sea, over lands a seventh winter hurls you. |
| I received you, cast up by the waves, into a safe harbor |
| And, barely having heard your name, I handed over my kingdom. |
90 |
| Yet I wish that I had been content with these services |
| And that the report of my sleeping with you had been buried! |
| That was a harmful day, in which a dark storm, |
| With its sudden downpour, forced us into the sloping cave. |
| I had heard voices, I thought nymphs were warbling. |
95 |
| The Furies marked the signposts for my fate. |
| Exact penalties, betrayed modesty!, and do not let the violated vows |
| Of themarriage bed nor my reputation be preserved for my ashes! |
| And you, my own angels, and the spirits and ashes of Sychaeus, |
| To whom I go full of shame and misery. |
100 |
| Sychaeus was honored as sacred by me in a noble sanctuary; |
| Intertwined Branches and white fleeces cover it. |
| Here I felt myself summoned four times by a familiar voice; |
| It spoke in a quiet tone: "Elissa, come!" |
| There is no delay; I am coming, I am coming, your own devoted wife, — |
105 |
| But I am yet held back by my lost modesty! |
| Pardon my fault; its capable author deceived me; |
| He removes the ill-will due for my offense. |
| His goddess mother and aged father, the pious burden of a son, |
| Gave me hope of a husband who would stay with me. |
110 |
| If there had to be fall into error, it was an error that had honorable causes. |
| Add to it only faithfulness, and there would not have been any need for regrets. |
| The curse of fate, which existed before, lasts to the end |
| And accompanies the final events of my life: |
| As my slaughtered spouse falls at the Tyrian altars |
115 |
| And my brother receives the reward for his great crime, |
| I am driven off, an exile, and I leave the ashes of my husband and my homeland, |
| And I am driven along hard paths with enemies at my heels; |
| I am brought to unknown peoples, having escaped both my brother and the sea; |
| I gain the shore, which I gave you, traitor. |
120 |
| I built a city and erected walls spreading out far and near, |
| Walls raising the envy of its neighbors.
|
| Wars are ready to break out. A stranger and a woman, I am threatened by wars, |
| And am scarcely able to prepare the rough gates of my city and my weapons. |
| I have pleased a thousand wooers, who have joined together in their complaints |
125 |
| That I have preferred I know no whom to their marriage beds. |
| Why do you hesitate to hand me over in chains to the Gaetulian Iarbas? |
| I would surrender my arms to your crime. |
| There is also my brother, whose impious hand, stained |
| With the blood of my husband, demands also to be spattered with mine. |
130 |
| Put down your gods and those sacred objects which you profane by touching! |
| Your impious right hand does not rightly reverence the heavenly gods. |
| If you were about to become a priest of those who escaped the fire, |
| The gods would regret having escaped the fires. |
| Perhaps also, you criminal, you leave Dido pregnant |
135 |
| And part of you lies hidden, shut up in my body. |
| A wretched infant will emulate the fate of its wretched mother, |
| And you will cause the death of one not yet born. |
| And along with his mother the brother of Iulus will die, |
| And one torment will carry two away joined together. |
140 |
| "But a god orders me to go!" I wish he had forbidden you to come |
| And the Punic earth had not been trod upon by Trojans. |
| At this god's command, I'm sure, you are being battered by wicked winds |
| And you wear away the slowly passing time in a rushing sea. |
| Pergama (the Trojan citadel) would scarcely have had to be sought out again by you |
145 |
| With such great labor if it had been as great while Hector was alive. |
| You do not look for your native Simois, but for the Tiber's waves; |
| Suppose you arrive where you wish, you will be nothing but a stranger. |
| And since a safe path lies concealed from your ships, |
| The land you seek will hardly be achieved by the time you're an old man. |
150 |
| So, without any ambiguity about the terms, accept as my dowry this people |
| And the wealth of Pygmalion carried off (by me). |
| Convert Ilion into a Tyre, a more blessed city |
| And hold the place you already rule and its sacred scepter! |
| If your mind is set on war, if Iulus seeks, |
155 |
| Where he might go triumphing, begotten by his own Mars, |
| One whom he might conquer, we will find an enemy so that nothing may be wanting; |
| Here thelaws of peace, this place embraces the weapons of war. |
| ??? If only it had been you — because of your mother and your brother's shafts, his arrows, |
| And because of the companions of your flight, the Dardanian holy objects, the gods! — |
160 |
| Thus they might win victory, those whatevers you are bringing back from your people, |
| Fierce Mars may also set the limit to the damage you do |
| And Ascanius may live out his years in happiness |
| And the old bones of Anchises rest softly! — |
| Spare, I beg, the home which gives itself up to be possessed by you! |
165 |
| What crime have I committed except to have loved? |
| I am not a Phthian and descended from great Mycenis (i.e., Iphigenia), |
| Nor have both my husband and father stood against you. |
| If you are ashamed of me as a wife let me not be called spouse but house-guest; |
| While Dido is yours, she will bear to be anything at all. |
170 |
| The seas which beat against the African shore are known to me; |
| At times they offer, and at times refuse, passage: |
| When the breezes will offer passage, you will surrender your sails to the winds; |
| Now slippery seaweed holds your vessel, thrown up on the shore. |
| Leave it to me, that I might watch for the right time: you will go more confidently |
175 |
| And I myself will not allow you to remain, if you wish it. |
| And your companions demand rest and your tattered fleet, |
| Half-repaired, requires a short respite. |
| We will be indebted to you for what we deserve, and if at all more, |
| I beg a little time because there was some hope of marriage. |
180 |
| When the seas grow calm and when love balances the lessons of experience, |
| I will learn to be able to suffer sorrows bravely. |
| If that doesn't happen, I am determined to pour out my life; |
| You will not for long be able to be cruel toward me. |
| I wish that you could see how the one who writes this appears; |
185 |
| I am writing with your Trojan sword lying in my lap; |
| And from my cheeks the tears drip down upon the drawn sword, |
| Which soon will be stained with blood instead of tears. |
| How well your gifts are fashioned for my fate! |
| You adorn my sepulchre at very little expense. |
190 |
| And my breast is not now being pierced for the first time by a weapon of yours: |
| That place already bears the wound of your fierce love. |
| Anna my sister, my sister Anna, sad confidante of my sin, |
| Soon you will give to my ashes their final gifts, |
| And, consumed by the funeral pyre, I will not be accounted "Elissa, wife of Sychaeus." |
195 |
| Yet this song will be on the marble of my tomb: |
| "Aeneas provided both the reason for my death, and the sword. |
| Dido fell, struck down by her own hand." |