Higher Latin - Virgil, Aeneid - Extract 11 - Notes

'i, sequere Italiam ventis, pete regna per undas.

"'Go, head for Italy with the winds, seek your kingdom through the waves."

'i, sequere, pete: ascending tricolon of imperative verbs emphaise the direct and how emotional Dido has become.

si quid pia numina possunt,

"if the holy powers can do anything,"

pia numina: the holy powers are gods who reward or punish deeds of piety or impiety. Aeneas' special quality is his pietas however Dido here is suggesting that Aeneas' dutifulness is a sham, as is shown by his treatment of her. She believes he has treated her so wrongly that the spirits who watch over such things should bring him to account.

supplicia hausurum

"you will drink the cup of punishment"

supplicia hausurum: metaphorical language: Dido curses Aeneas, calling on the gods to sink his ship as punishment

et nomine Dido

saepe vocaturum. sequar atris ignibusabsens

"and that you will often call with the name 'Dido'. I shall follow with black fires though I am not present"

saepe vocaturum: (you will often call): Dido is imagining a shipwrecked Aeneas calling out her name as he flounders on the rocks

vocaturum. sequar: strong, dramatic sense break in the middle of line.

sequar atris ignibus: ominous statement- black fires are associated with the Furies, the spirits of vengeance, but the image also foreshadows the real flames of Dido's funeral pyre which Aeneas will see when looks back as he sails away from Carthage

et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,

"and when cold death has separated my limbs from the breath of life"

Aeneas does not know at this point how soon Dido will be experiencing 'cold death'. Foreshadows her violent suicide.

omnibus umbra locis adero

"in all places as a ghost I shall be present."

umbra (ghost): her spirit will haunt him everywhere. This word foreshadows their future meeting in the underworld (in Book 6)

dabis, improbe, poenas.

"You will pay the penalty, wicked man."

improbe: word choice. Dido seeks to wound Aeneas by calling him improbus, which suggests 'not capable of entertaining considerations of right and wrong'. She loses the heart to go on.

et haec Manes veniet mihi fama sub imos.'

"and news of this will come to me in the very depths of the Underworld.'"

Manes here 'the underworld'. Dido's ghost is to be found not in the lowest pit of Hades but amoght the first of those seen by Aeneas in Book 6. Again foreshadowing her own death.