Aeneid 4.659-705 Translation

Dixit, et os impressa toro "Moriemur inultae,

sed moriamur" ait. "Sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras.

Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto

Dardanus, et nostrae secum ferat omnia mortis."

Dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro

conlapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore

spumantem sparsasque manus. It clamor ad alta

atria: concussam bacchatur Fama per urbem.

She spoke and, having been pressed with respect to her mouth on the bed, she says, "We will die unavenged, but let us die. Thus, thus it is pleasing to go under the shades. Let the cruel Dardanian drink in this fire with his eyes from the deep, and let him carry the omens of our death with himself." She had spoken, and her comrades look at her, having collapsed on the iron among the middle of such things, and the sword, foaming with blood, and her hands, having been spattered. A shout goes to the high halls: Rumor raves through the city, having been shaken.

Lamentis gemituque et femineo ululatu

tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus aether,

non aliter quam si immissis ruat hostibus omnis

Karthago aut antiqua Tyros, flammaeque furentes

culmina perque hominum volvantur perque deorum.

Audiit exanimis trepidoque exterrita cursu

unguibus ora soror foedans et pectora pugnis

per medios ruit, ac morientem nomine clamat:

The roofs roar with laments and groaning and feminine wailing, the upper air resounds with great beatings, not otherwise than if all Carthage or ancient Tyre should fall with the enemies having been sent in, and raging flames should be rolled both through the roofs of people and through [the roofs] of gods. Her breathless sister heard, and having been terrified, defiling her faces with her nails and her breasts with her fists, she rushed through the middle of the people with a trembling course, and she shouts the dying woman by name:

"Hoc illud, germana, fuit? Me fraude petebas?

Hoc rogus iste mihi, hoc ignes araeque parabant?

Quid primum deserta querar? Comitemne sororem

sprevisti moriens? Eadem me ad fata vocasses:

idem ambas ferro dolor atque eadem hora tulisset.

His etiam struxi manibus patriosque vocavi

voce, deos, sic te ut posita, crudelis, abessem?

Exstinxti te meque, soror, populumque patresque

Sidonios urbemque tuam. Date, vulnera lymphis

abluam et, extremus si quis super halitus errat,

ore legam."

"Was this that, sister? Were you seeking me with deceit? Was that funeral pyre of yours preparing this for me, were the fires and the altars preparing this [for me]? What should I, having been deserted, complain about first? Did you, dying, scorn your sister as comrade? If only you had called me to the same fates: If only the same pain and the same hour had carried both [of us] with iron. Did I also build [your pyre] with these hands and did I call the paternal gods with my voice, in order that, with you having been placed in such a way, cruel one, I might be away [from you]? You extinguished yourself and me, sister, and your people and your Sidonian fathers and your city. Give [her to me in order that] I may wash her wounds with waters and, if any last breath wanders above, I may gather [it] with my mouth."

Sic fata gradus evaserat altos,

semianimemque sinu germanam amplexa fovebat

cum gemitu atque atros siccabat veste cruores.

Illa graves oculos conata attollere rursus

deficit; infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus.

Ter sese attollens cubitoque adnixa levavit,

ter revoluta toro est oculisque errantibus alto

quaesivit caelo lucem ingemuitque reperta.

Thus having spoken, she had passed over the high steps and she, having embraced her half-dead sister in her lap, was cherishing [her] with a groan and she was drying the dark bloods with her clothing. She, having tried to lift her heavy eyes, faints again; the wound, having been pierced under her chest, gurgled. She, raising herself three times and having leaned on her elbow, lifted [herself], three times she was rolled back on the bed and she sought the light with her wandering eyes in the high sky and she groaned with [the light], having been found.

Tum Iuno omnipotens longum miserata dolorem

difficilesque obitus Irim demisit Olympo

quae luctantem animam nexosque resolveret artus.

Nam quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat,

sed misera ante diem subitoque accensa furore,

nondum illi flavum Proserpina vertice crinem

abstulerat Stygioque caput damnaverat Orco.

Then all powerful Juno, having pitied her long pain and her difficult deaths, sent Iris down from Olympus to loosen her struggling soul and her limbs, having been bound. For because she was dying neither by fate nor by a deserved death, but miserable before her day and having been inflamed by sudden madness, Proserpina had not yet taken a blond hair away from the head for her and had [not yet] condemned her head to Stygian Orcus.

Ergo Iris croceis per caelum roscida pennis

mille trahens varios adverso sole colores

devolat et supra caput astitit. "Hunc ego Diti

sacrum iussa fero teque isto corpore solvo":

Sic ait et dextra crinem secat, omnis et una

dilapsus calor atque in ventos vita recessit.

Therefore dewy Iris, dragging a thousand different colors with the sun being opposite through the sky with yellow wings, flies down and stood over her head. "I, having been ordered, bear this sacred [lock of hair] for Dis, and I loosen you from that body of yours": Thus she speaks and she cuts her hair with her right [hand], and together all her heat slipped away and her life departed into the winds.