Admittedly, this is an unconventional Valentine’s Day post, but in this series of excerpts from Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid, we are privileged to get a delightful and enlightening glimpse of an all too familiar dalliance with “love.”
But, far above the rest, the royal dame,
(Already doom’d to love’s disastrous flame,)
With eyes insatiate, and tumultuous joy,
Beholds the presents, and admires the boy.
The guileful god about the hero long,
With children’s play, and false embraces, hung;
Then sought the queen: she took him to her arms
With greedy pleasure, and devour’d his charms.
Unhappy Dido little thought what guest,
How dire a god, she drew so near her breast;
But he, not mindless of his mother’s pray’r,
Works in the pliant bosom of the fair,
And molds her heart anew, and blots her former care.
The dead is to the living love resign’d;
And all Æneas enters in her mind…Th’ unhappy queen with talk prolong’d the night,
And drank large draughts of love with vast delight…BUT anxious cares already seiz’d the queen:
She fed within her veins a flame unseen;
The hero’s valor, acts, and birth inspire
Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.
His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,
Improve the passion, and increase the smart…Sick with desire, and seeking him she loves,
From street to street the raving Dido roves.
So when the watchful shepherd, from the blind,
Wounds with a random shaft the careless hind,
Distracted with her pain she flies the woods,
Bounds o’er the lawn, and seeks the silent floods,
With fruitless care; for still the fatal dart
Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart.
And now she leads the Trojan chief along
The lofty walls, amidst the busy throng;
Displays her Tyrian wealth, and rising town,
Which love, without his labor, makes his own.
This pomp she shows, to tempt her wand’ring guest;
Her falt’ring tongue forbids to speak the rest.
When day declines, and feasts renew the night,
Still on his face she feeds her famish’d sight;
She longs again to hear the prince relate
His own adventures and the Trojan fate.
He tells it o’er and o’er; but still in vain,
For still she begs to hear it once again.
The hearer on the speaker’s mouth depends,
And thus the tragic story never ends.
Then, when they part, when Phœbe’s paler light
Withdraws, and falling stars to sleep invite,
She last remains, when ev’ry guest is gone,
Sits on the bed he press’d, and sighs alone;
Absent, her absent hero sees and hears;
Or in her bosom young Ascanius bears,
And seeks the father’s image in the child,
If love by likeness might be so beguil’d.
Meantime the rising tow’rs are at a stand;
No labors exercise the youthful band,
Nor use of arts, nor toils of arms they know;
The mole is left unfinish’d to the foe;
The mounds, the works, the walls, neglected lie,
Short of their promis’d heighth, that seem’d to threat the sky…When next the Sun his rising light displays,
And gilds the world below with purple rays,
The queen, Æneas, and the Tyrian court
Shall to the shady woods, for sylvan game, resort.
There, while the huntsmen pitch their toils around,
And cheerful horns from side to side resound,
A pitchy cloud shall cover all the plain
With hail, and thunder, and tempestuous rain;
The fearful train shall take their speedy flight,
Dispers’d, and all involv’d in gloomy night;
One cave a grateful shelter shall afford
To the fair princess and the Trojan lord.
I will myself the bridal bed prepare,
If you, to bless the nuptials, will be there:
So shall their loves be crown’d with due delights,
And Hymen shall be present at the rites.”
The Queen of Love consents, and closely smiles
At her vain project, and discover’d wiles…Meantime, the gath’ring clouds obscure the skies:
From pole to pole the forky lightning flies;
The rattling thunders roll; and Juno pours
A wintry deluge down, and sounding show’rs.
The company, dispers’d, to converts ride,
And seek the homely cots, or mountain’s hollow side.
The rapid rains, descending from the hills,
To rolling torrents raise the creeping rills.
The queen and prince, as love or fortune guides,
One common cavern in her bosom hides.
Then first the trembling earth the signal gave,
And flashing fires enlighten all the cave;
Hell from below, and Juno from above,
And howling nymphs, were conscious of their love.
From this ill-omen’d hour in time arose
Debate and death, and all succeeding woes.
The queen, whom sense of honor could not move,
No longer made a secret of her love,
But call’d it marriage, by that specious name
To veil the crime and sanctify the shame.
Virgil., The Harvard Classics 13: Virgil’s Aeneid, Translated by John Dryden, ed. Charles W. Eliot, trans. John. Dryden (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909), 100.