The Aeneid Read online

  Aeneas—a father’s love would give the man no rest—

  quickly sends Achates down to the ships to take

  the news to Ascanius, bring him back to Carthage.

  All his paternal care is focused on his son.

  He tells Achates to fetch some gifts as well,

  plucked from the ruins of Troy: a gown stiff

  with figures stitched in gold, and a woven veil

  with yellow sprays of acanthus round the border.

  Helen’s glory, gifts she carried out of Mycenae,

  fleeing Argos for Troy to seal her wicked marriage—

  the marvelous handiwork of Helen’s mother, Leda.

  Aeneas adds the scepter Ilione used to bear,

  the eldest daughter of Priam; a necklace too,

  strung with pearls, and a crown of double bands,

  one studded with gems, the other, gold. Achates,

  following orders, hurries toward the ships.

  But now Venus is mulling over some new schemes,

  new intrigues. Altered in face and figure, Cupid

  would go in place of the captivating Ascanius,

  using his gifts to fire the queen to madness,

  weaving a lover’s ardor through her bones.

  No doubt Venus fears that treacherous house

  and the Tyrians’ forked tongues,

  and brutal Juno inflames her anguish too

  and her cares keep coming back as night draws on.

  So Venus makes an appeal to Love, her winged son:

  “You, my son, are my strength, my greatest power—

  you alone, my son, can scoff at the lightning bolts

  the high and mighty Father hurled against Typhoeus.

  Help me, I beg you. I need all your immortal force.

  Your brother Aeneas is tossed round every coast on earth,

  thanks to Juno’s ruthless hatred, as you well know,

  and time and again you’ve grieved to see my grief.

  But now Phoenician Dido has him in her clutches,

  holding him back with smooth, seductive words,

  and I fear the outcome of Juno’s welcome here . . .

  She won’t sit tight while Fate is turning on its hinge.

  So I plan to forestall her with ruses of my own

  and besiege the queen with flames,

  and no goddess will change her mood—she’s mine,

  my ally-in-arms in my great love for Aeneas.

  “Now how can you go about this? Hear my plan.

  His dear father has just sent for the young prince—

  he means the world to me—and he’s bound for Carthage now,

  bearing presents saved from the sea, the flames of Troy.

  I’ll lull him into a deep sleep and hide him far away

  on Cythera’s heights or high Idalium, my shrines,

  so he cannot learn of my trap or spring it open

  while it’s being set. And you with your cunning,

  forge his appearance—just one night, no more—put on

  the familiar features of the boy, boy that you are,

  so when the wine flows free at the royal board

  and Dido, lost in joy, cradles you in her lap,

  caressing, kissing you gently, you can breathe

  your secret fire into her, poison the queen

  and she will never know.”

  Cupid leaps at once

  to his loving mother’s orders. Shedding his wings

  he masquerades as Iulus, prancing with his stride.

  But now Venus distills a deep, soothing sleep

  into Iulus’ limbs, and warming him in her breast

  the goddess spirits him off to her high Idalian grove

  where beds of marjoram breathe and embrace him with aromatic

  flowers and rustling shade.

  Now Cupid is on the move,

  under her orders, bringing the Tyrians royal gifts,

  his spirits high as Achates leads him on.

  Arriving, he finds the queen already poised

  on a golden throne beneath the sumptuous hangings,

  commanding the very center of her palace. Now Aeneas,

  the good captain, enters, then the Trojan soldiers,

  taking their seats on couches draped in purple.

  Servants pour them water to rinse their hands,

  quickly serving them bread from baskets, spreading

  their laps with linens, napkins clipped and smooth.

  In the kitchens are fifty serving-maids assigned

  to lay out foods in a long line, course by course,

  and honor the household gods by building fires high.

  A hundred other maids and a hundred men, all matched in age,

  are spreading the feast on trestles, setting out the cups.

  And Tyrians join them, bustling through the doors,

  filling the hall with joy, to take invited seats

  on brocaded couches. They admire Aeneas’ gifts,

  admire Iulus now—the glowing face of the god

  and the god’s dissembling words—and Helen’s gown

  and the veil adorned with a yellow acanthus border.

  But above all, tragic Dido, doomed to a plague

  about to strike, cannot feast her eyes enough,

  thrilled both by the boy and gifts he brings

  and the more she looks the more the fire grows.

  But once he’s embraced Aeneas, clung to his neck

  to sate the deep love of his father, deluded father,

  Cupid makes for the queen. Her gaze, her whole heart

  is riveted on him now, and at times she even warms him

  snugly in her breast, for how can she know, poor Dido,

  what a mighty god is sinking into her, to her grief?

  But he, recalling the wishes of his mother Venus,

  blots out the memory of Sychaeus bit by bit,

  trying to seize with a fresh, living love

  a heart at rest for long—long numb to passion.

  Then,

  with the first lull in the feast, the tables cleared away,

  they set out massive bowls and crown the wine with wreaths.

  A vast din swells in the palace, voices reverberating

  through the echoing halls. They light the lamps,

  hung from the coffered ceilings sheathed in gilt,

  and blazing torches burn the night away.

  The queen calls for a heavy golden bowl,

  studded with jewels and brimmed with unmixed wine,

  the bowl that Belus and all of Belus’ sons had brimmed,

  and the hall falls hushed as Dido lifts a prayer:

  “Jupiter, you, they say, are the god who grants

  the laws of host and guest. May this day be one

  of joy for Tyrians here and exiles come from Troy,

  a day our sons will long remember. Bacchus,

  giver of bliss, and Juno, generous Juno,

  bless us now. And come, my people, celebrate

  with all good will this feast that makes us one!”

  With that prayer, she poured a libation to the gods,

  tipping wine on the board, and tipping it, she was first

  to take the bowl, brushing it lightly with her lips,

  then gave it to Bitias—laughing, goading him on

  and he took the plunge, draining the foaming bowl,

  drenching himself in its brimming, overflowing gold,

  and the other princes drank in turn. Then Iopas,

  long-haired bard, strikes up his golden lyre

  resounding through the halls. Giant Atlas

  had been his teacher once, and now he sings

  the wandering moon and laboring sun eclipsed,

  the roots of the human race and the wild beasts,

  the source of storms and the lightning bolts on high,

  Arcturus, the rainy Hyades and the Great and Little Bears,

  and why the winter su
ns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea

  and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl . . .

  And time and again the Tyrians burst into applause

  and the Trojans took their lead. So Dido, doomed,

  was lengthening out the night by trading tales

  as she drank long draughts of love—asking Aeneas

  question on question, now about Priam, now Hector,

  what armor Memnon, son of the Morning, wore at Troy,

  how swift were the horses of Diomedes? How strong was Achilles?

  “Wait, come, my guest,” she urges, “tell us your own story,

  start to finish—the ambush laid by the Greeks, the pain

  your people suffered, the wanderings you have faced.

  For now is the seventh summer that has borne you

  wandering all the lands and seas on earth.”

  BOOK TWO

  The Final Hours of Troy

  Silence. All fell hushed, their eyes fixed on Aeneas now

  as the founder of his people, high on a seat of honor,

  set out on his story: “Sorrow, unspeakable sorrow,

  my queen, you ask me to bring to life once more,

  how the Greeks uprooted Troy in all her power,

  our kingdom mourned forever. What horrors I saw,

  a tragedy where I played a leading role myself.

  Who could tell such things—not even a Myrmidon,

  a Dolopian, or comrade of iron-hearted Ulysses—

  and still refrain from tears? And now, too,

  the dank night is sweeping down from the sky

  and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.

  But if you long so deeply to know what we went through,

  to hear, in brief, the last great agony of Troy,

  much as I shudder at the memory of it all—

  I shrank back in grief—I’ll try to tell it now . . .

  “Ground down by the war and driven back by Fate,

  the Greek captains had watched the years slip by

  until, helped by Minerva’s superhuman skill,

  they built that mammoth horse, immense as a mountain,

  lining its ribs with ship timbers hewn from pine.

  An offering to secure safe passage home, or so

  they pretend, and the story spreads through Troy.

  But they pick by lot the best, most able-bodied men

  and stealthily lock them into the horse’s dark flanks

  till the vast hold of the monster’s womb is packed

  with soldiers bristling weapons.

  “Just in sight of Troy

  an island rises, Tenedos, famed in the old songs,

  powerful, rich, while Priam’s realm stood fast.

  Now it’s only a bay, a treacherous cove for ships.

  Well there they sail, hiding out on its lonely coast

  while we thought—gone! Sped home on the winds to Greece.

  So all Troy breathes free, relieved of her endless sorrow.

  We fling open the gates and stream out, elated to see

  the Greeks’ abandoned camp, the deserted beachhead.

  Here the Dolopians formed ranks—

  “Here savage Achilles

  pitched his tents—

  “Over there the armada moored

  and here the familiar killing-fields of battle.

  Some gaze wonderstruck at the gift for Pallas,

  the virgin never wed—transfixed by the horse,

  its looming mass, our doom. Thymoetes leads the way.

  ‘Drag it inside the walls,’ he urges, ‘plant it high

  on the city heights!’ Inspired by treachery now

  or the fate of Troy was moving toward this end.

  But Capys with other saner heads who take his side,

  suspecting a trap in any gift the Greeks might offer,

  tells us: ‘Fling it into the sea or torch the thing to ash

  or bore into the depths of its womb where men can hide!’

  The common people are split into warring factions.

  “But now, out in the lead with a troop of comrades,

  down Laocoön runs from the heights in full fury,

  calling out from a distance: ‘Poor doomed fools,

  have you gone mad, you Trojans?

  You really believe the enemy’s sailed away?

  Or any gift of the Greeks is free of guile?

  Is that how well you know Ulysses? Trust me,

  either the Greeks are hiding, shut inside those beams,

  or the horse is a battle-engine geared to breach our walls,

  spy on our homes, come down on our city, overwhelm us—

  or some other deception’s lurking deep inside it.

  Trojans, never trust that horse. Whatever it is,

  I fear the Greeks, especially bearing gifts.’

  “In that spirit, with all his might he hurled

  a huge spear straight into the monster’s flanks,

  the mortised timberwork of its swollen belly.

  Quivering, there it stuck, and the stricken womb

  came booming back from its depths with echoing groans.

  If Fate and our own wits had not gone against us,

  surely Laocoön would have driven us on, now,

  to rip the Greek lair open with iron spears

  and Troy would still be standing—

  proud fortress of Priam, you would tower still!

  “Suddenly, in the thick of it all, a young soldier,

  hands shackled behind his back, with much shouting

  Trojan shepherds were haling him toward the king.

  They’d come on the man by chance, a total stranger.

  He’d given himself up, with one goal in mind:

  to open Troy to the Greeks and lay her waste.

  He trusted to courage, nerved for either end,

  to weave his lies or face his certain death.

  Young Trojan recruits, keen to have a look,

  came scurrying up from all sides, crowding round,

  outdoing each other to make a mockery of the captive.

  Now, hear the treachery of the Greeks and learn

  from a single crime the nature of the beast . . .

  Haggard, helpless, there in our midst he stood,

  all eyes riveted on him now, and turning a wary glance

  at the lines of Trojan troops he groaned and spoke:

  ‘Where can I find some refuge, where on land, on sea?

  What’s left for me now? A man of so much misery!

  Nothing among the Greeks, no place at all. And worse,

  I see my Trojan enemies crying for my blood.’

  “His groans

  convince us, cutting all our show of violence short.

  We press him: ‘Tell us where you were born, your family.

  What news do you bring? Tell us what you trust to,

  such a willing captive.’

  “‘All of it, my king,

  I’ll tell you, come what may, the whole true story.

  Greek I am, I don’t deny it. No, that first.

  Fortune may have made me a man of misery

  but, wicked as she is,

  she can’t make Sinon a lying fraud as well.

  “‘Now,

  perhaps you’ve caught some rumor of Palamedes,

  Belus’ son, and his shining fame that rings in song.

  The Greeks charged him with treason, a trumped-up charge,

  an innocent man, and just because he opposed the war

  they put him to death, but once he’s robbed of the light,

  they mourn him sorely. Now I was his blood kin,

  a youngster when my father, a poor man, sent me

  off to the war at Troy as Palamedes’ comrade.

  Long as he kept his royal status, holding forth

  in the councils of the kings, I had some standing too,

  some pride of place. But once he left the land of the liv
ing,

  thanks to the jealous, forked tongue of our Ulysses—

  you’re no stranger to his story—I was shattered,

  I dragged out my life in the shadows, grieving,

  seething alone, in silence . . .

  outraged by my innocent friend’s demise until

  I burst out like a madman, swore if I ever returned

  in triumph to our native Argos, ever got the chance

  I’d take revenge, and my oath provoked a storm of hatred.

  That was my first step on the slippery road to ruin.

  From then on, Ulysses kept tormenting me, pressing

  charge on charge; from then on, he bruited about

  his two-edged rumors among the rank and file.

  Driven by guilt, he looked for ways to kill me,

  he never rested until, making Calchas his henchman—

  but why now? Why go over that unforgiving ground again?

  Why waste words? If you think all Greeks are one,

  if hearing the name Greek is enough for you,

  it’s high time you made me pay the price.

  How that would please the man of Ithaca,

  how the sons of Atreus would repay you!’

  “Now, of course,

  we burn to question him, urge him to explain—

  blind to how false the cunning Greeks could be.

  All atremble, he carries on with his tale,

  lying from the cockles of his heart:

  “‘Time and again

  the Greeks had yearned to abandon Troy—bone-tired

  from a long hard war—to put it far behind and

  beat a clean retreat. Would to god they had.

  But time and again, as they were setting sail,

  the heavy seas would keep them confined to port

  and the Southwind filled their hearts with dread

  and worst of all, once this horse, this mass of timber

  with locking planks, stood stationed here at last,

  the thunderheads rumbled up and down the sky.

  So, at our wit’s end, we send Eurypylus off

  to question Apollo’s oracle now, and back

  he comes from the god’s shrine with these bleak words:

  “With blood you appeased the winds, with a virgin’s sacrifice

  when you, you Greeks, first sought the shores of Troy.

  With blood you must seek fair winds to sail you home,

  must sacrifice one more Greek life in return.”

  “‘As the word spread, the ranks were struck dumb

  and icy fear sent shivers down their spines.

  Whom did the god demand? Who’d meet his doom?