By these same means, unwittingly has Æneas stirred the love in Dido's heart. She goes to her bed, but not to sleep. All night she tosses restlessly, picturing the hero's face and recalling his words; and in the morning, sick of soul, she pours her tears and cares into her sister Anna's bosom.
Anna advises her sister to yield to this new love, and argues that policy as well as inclination is on her side. Such a union as this would strengthen her against her brother, and exalt the sway of Carthage to unhoped for glory.
Thus advised, Dido gives herself up to passion's sway. Her city is forgotten, her queenly ambition gone. In hospitality, in feasting, and the dalliance of love the days go by. And seemingly Æneas, too, has forgotten his glorious destiny, his promised land of Italy, and is sunk in a languorous dream of present bliss.
But the fates of future Rome must not be thwarted. He is rudely awakened from his dream by Mercury, who at the command of Jove suddenly appears before him as he is engaged in urging on the walls and towers of Carthage.
Æneas is overwhelmed with astonishment and remorse. At once all his old ambitions regain their sway, and his mind is bent upon instant departure. He cries aloud:
But Dido has seen the hurrying Trojan mariners, and with her natural perceptions sharpened by suspicious fear, at once divines the meaning of this sudden stir. Maddened with the pangs of blighted love, she seeks Æneas and pours out her hot indignation mingled with pitiful pleadings.
Æneas is seemingly unmoved by this appeal. With the warnings of Jupiter still sounding in his ears, he dares not let his love answer a word to Dido's pleadings. And so he coldly answers her that he is but following the bidding of his fate, which is leading him to Italy, even as hers had led her to this land of Africa.
Dido has stood during this reply with averted face and scornful look, and now turns upon him in a passion of grief and rage. No pleadings now, but scornful denunciation and curses.
She works herself up to a frenzy, and as she finishes she turns to leave him with queenly scorn, staggers, and falls. The servants carry her from the scene, leaving Æneas in agony of soul, struggling between love and duty. Meanwhile the Trojan preparations go on with feverish haste. The ships are launched, hurried final preparations made, and all is now ready for departure. Dido sends her sister to Æneas with one last appeal, but all in vain. No tears or prayers can move him now.
The queen resolves on death. She has a huge pyre built within her palace court under the pretense of magic rites which shall free her from her unhappy love. The Trojans spend the night sleeping on their oars; the queen, in sleepless torment. As the dawn begins to brighten, the sailors are heard singing in the distance as they joyfully hoist their sails. Dido rushes to her window and beholds the fleet just putting out from shore. She cries aloud in impotent frenzy.
With this prophetic curse, to be fulfilled centuries hence, on the bloody fields of the Trebia, Trasumenus, and of Cannæ, she snatches up Æneas' sword, rushes out of the room, and mounts the pyre which she has prepared. Here have been placed all the objects which her Trojan lover has left behind. Passionately kissing these and pressing them to her breast, she utters her last words.
So saying, she falls upon the sword and perishes. The report of the queen's tragic death
runs wild through the convulsed city. With wailing and groaning, and screams of women, the palace rings; the sky resounds with mighty cries and beating of breasts—even as if the foe were to burst the gates and topple down Carthage or ancient Tyre, and the infuriate flame were leaping from roof to roof among the dwellings of men and gods.
Conington.
With the southern sky murky with the smoke and lurid with the glare of Dido's funeral pyre, Æneas sails away with sad forebodings, and comes again to Sicily. By chance this return to Sicily has fallen upon the anniversary of Anchises' death. Æneas therefore determines to hold a solemn festival in honor of his father, which he celebrates with the accustomed funeral games.
While these games are in progress, by the machinations of Juno, the Trojan women, weary of their long wanderings, attempt to burn the fleet. But the vessels are saved, with the loss of four, by the miraculous intervention of Jupiter. Æneas thereupon is advised by Nautes, a Trojan prince, to build a town here in Sicily, and to leave behind all those who have grown weak or out of sympathy with his great enterprise.
This advice is ratified by the shade of Anchises, who gives Æneas further direction for his way.
Moved by this vision, Æneas builds a town for the dispirited members of his band; and consigning these to King Acestes, sets his face once more toward Italy. This time, by Venus' aid, he reaches the Italian port of Cumæ, with no misadventure except the loss of his faithful pilot, Palinurus.
Once more on land, the Trojans joyfully scour the woods, seek out fresh springs of water, and collect fuel for their fires. Æneas, however, turns his steps to the temple of Apollo upon a neighboring height, and prays the guidance of the god upon his further way. But most of all it is upon the hero's heart to visit his father in the underworld according to the mandate of his father's shade in Sicily. At the advice of the Sibyl who presides over the temple of Apollo, Æneas performs the necessary rites preliminary to this journey, and entering the dread cave near Lake Avernus, they take their gloomy way below.
They reach at last the gates of Hades, where hover the dreadful shapes of Cares, Disease and Death, Want, Famine, Toil and Strife. Through these they fare, and stand upon the sedgy bank of the river of death. They see approaching them across the stream the old boatman Charon, who in his frail skiff ferries souls across the water.
The unsubstantial shades throng down to Charon's boat, where some are accepted for passage, and some rejected. Æneas in wonder turns to his guide for an explanation of this. She replies:
Æneas and his guide now present themselves for passage, but the old boatman refuses his boat to mortal bodies, until he is appeased by the Sibyl. Grim Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the farther bank of the stream and blocks their onward way, is next appeased. And on they go, past where the cries of wailing infants fill their ears; where Minos sits in judgment on the shades and assigns to each his place of punishment; past the abode of suicides, who rushed so rashly out of life, but now sigh vainly for the life which they threw away; past the Mourning Fields, dark groves where wander those who died of love. Here Æneas meets the shade of Dido, and learns what he had only feared before. With tears of love and pity he approaches and addresses her; but she, in indignant silence, turns away.
They reach the fields where souls of slain warriors dwell, still handling their shadowy arms and ghostly chariots. With empty, voiceless shouts the Trojan dead greet their hero, in wonder that he comes still living among them, while the Grecian shades flee gibbering away.
Still on the Sibyl leads her charge, and pausing before the horrid gates of Tartarus, the abode of lost souls, they listen to the dreadful sounds within, "the groans of ghosts, the pains of sounding lashes and of dragging chains." Standing before the gates, Æneas is told of the suffering which these must undergo whose souls, by reason of impious lives on earth, are past all reach of cure. What are the crimes that brought them here? What does Vergil regard as unpardonable sins?
As they turn away from this dread place, a tortured voice sounds after them:
Learn righteousness, and dread th' avenging deities.
Far off from here they reach the abode of the blessed—the Elysian Fields,
Seeking Anchises among these happy shades, the two are directed to a remote valley, where, beside the waters of Oblivion, old Anchises is passing in review the long train of his posterity, marshaled in the order of their birth into the world. When Anchises sees his son approaching, he cries out joyfully to him:
And are you come at last? Has love fulfilled a father's hopes and surmounted the perils of the way? Is it mine to look on your face, my son, and listen and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even thinking so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would be, counting over the days. Nor has my longing played me false. Oh, the lands and the mighty seas from which you have come to my presence! the dangers, my son, that have tossed and smitten you! Oh, how I have feared lest you should come to harm in that realm of Libya!
Conington.
Then follows a revelation of the mysteries of transmigration of souls, the nature of soul essence, its purgation after years of contact with its old body, and its ages of preparation for another mortal habitation.
Anchises now calls his son's attention to his own posterity, standing in majestic review before him—noble shades, some of whom are destined to go to the upper world at once, and some to wait long centuries in the land of preëxistent souls. The mighty host of Roman worthies are marshaled here, who, as yet unknown, are to make the name of Rome known and feared or honored to the farthest bounds of earth. Here stalk the shadowy forms of kings, consuls, generals, and statesmen, who on earth shall be Romulus, Numa, and Tarquin; Brutus, Decius, Camillus, Cato, and the Gracchi; the Scipios, the Fabii; Cæsar and Pompey, and he whose brow shall be first to wear the imperial crown as ruler of the world—Augustus Cæsar.
And now Æneas, fortified for any hardships upon earth by these glorious visions of his posterity, turns his face back to the upper world.
There are two gates of Sleep: the one, as story tells, of horn, supplying a ready exit for true spirits; the other gleaming with the polish of dazzling ivory, but through it the powers below send false dreams to the world above. Thither Anchises, talking thus, conducts his son and the Sibyl, and dismisses them by the gate of ivory. Æneas traces his way to the fleet, and returns to his comrades; then sails along the shore for Caieta's haven. The anchor is cast from the prow; the keels are ranged on the beach.
Conington.
The Trojans sail up the coast, touch once more upon the land, skirt wide past Circe's realm of dreadful magic, and then they come to where a wide-mouthed river pours out into the sea.
The sea was just reddening in the dawn, and Aurora was shining down from heaven's height in saffron robe and rosy car, when all at once the winds were laid, and every breath sank in sudden sleep, and the oars pull slowly against the smooth unmoving wave. In the same moment Æneas, looking out from the sea, beholds a mighty forest. Among the trees Tiber, that beauteous river, with his gulfy rapids and the burden of his yellow sand, breaks into the main. Around and above, birds of all plumes, the constant tenants of bank and stream, were filling the air with their notes and flying among the woods. He bids his comrades turn aside and set their prows landward, and enters with joy the river's shadowed bed.
Conington.
Up this great stream they sail, and reach at last the spot which Fate has held in store for them. When that Italy which has so long eluded the grasp of the hero is actually reached, and he stands upon the fated ground to which prophecy and the visions of his eager fancy have long been pointing him, the poem is complete; and all that follows is another poem, actuated by another spirit. To this point Fate has led him, through the smoke of his burning city, through storms and shipwreck, and the unceasing opposition of adverse powers, and here she has finally rewarded his piety and unswerving faith in his destiny. The first six books of the Æneid present the hero as the all-enduring one, the last as the warrior king. The first six books are the story of hope and anticipation; the last, of attainment and realization.
The incidents of the last six books which constitute the second part of the Æneid may be briefly told. King Latinus, who ruled over Latium, received the Trojan prince with kindness and promised him Lavinia for his wife, the king's only daughter and heiress of his crown. But Juno's spite still pursued the Trojans, and through her machinations the Latins and their allies were aroused against these foreigners. Especially was Italian Turnus roused, a mighty prince of the Rutuli, for he had long been suitor for Lavinia, and had won the favor of the Queen Amata to his cause.
And now all Italy is ablaze with sudden war. Against his allied foes Æneas secures the aid of the Greek Evander with his Arcadians, and of the Etruscan tribes. The plains of Troy are transferred to Italy. Again are heard the clashing of arms, the trumpet's blare, the snorting of horses, the heavy tread of marching feet, hoarse challenges to conflict, the hollow groans of the wounded and dying; the air is lit with the gleam of torches; the ground is red with streams of blood. Juno and Venus are active throughout, as of old in the Homeric story, each in the interest of her own favorite.
But Juno's implacable hate is no match for destiny. Æneas must triumph, for the fates have spoken it. The interest of the whole conflict centers in the rival heroes; and when these two, after endless slaughter, on both sides, of lesser men, meet at last in single conflict, there is no doubt, even in the Italian's own heart, that he is foredoomed. And when he falls, wounded by Æneas' spear and slain by his sword, the poem ends abruptly, for the story can contain no more.
With these words, fierce as flame, he plunged the steel into the breast that lay before him. That other's frame grows chill and motionless, and the soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades.
Conington.
Roman Epic Poetry, as illustrated by Nævius (269-199 B. C.), "the first Roman who deserves to be called a poet," Bellum Punicum; Ennius (239-169 B. C.), "the father of Roman literature," the Annals; Vergil (70-19 B. C.), greatest of Roman poets, the Æneid.
1. What is known of the life of Nævius? 2. What is the nature of his Bellum Punicum? 3. What did Vergil owe to this poem? 4. Quote the epitaph of Nævius. 5. What is the significance of it? 6. What were the chief events in the life of Ennius? 7. What interesting bit of self-portraiture appears in his Annals? 8. Why does he deserve the title of "the father of Roman literature"? 9. What is the nature of the Annals? 10. Why is the loss of the great body of this work so much to be regretted? 11. What progress did Latin literature make between the time of Ennius and that of Vergil? 12. How was Vergil fitted for his career both by nature and training? 13. Into what select circle was he privileged to enter? 14. What was the nature of the Eclogues? 15. What of the Georgics? 16. Why did the Æneid never receive its finishing touches? 17. How was the poem saved from destruction? 18. What was Vergil's probable purpose in writing the Æneid? 19. Quote the lines which promise world dominion to the Romans. 20. What religious motive seems to guide Æneas? 21. How does Vergil's treatment of the gods compare with that of Ovid? 22. What in brief is the story of the Æneid? 23. What characteristic passages in the poem deal with the mystery of nature? 24. From what different sources does Æneas throughout the poem receive guidance as to his future home? 25. On what occasions do the gods interfere to influence the progress of events? 26. What characteristic customs of the times are portrayed in the poem? 27. What picture of life after death does the poem present? 28. What crimes does Vergil represent as unpardonable sins? 29. How does Vergil glorify Æneas in his descendants? 30. How many books of the poem are devoted to the wanderings of Æneas? 31. What in brief is the story of the remaining books?