Thus, when the fates call, cast down upon the wet grass, the white swan sings at the shallows of Maeander.
§7.3Nec quia te nostra sperem prece posse moveri, §7.4Adloquor — adverso movimus ista deo; §7.5Sed merita et famam corpusque animumque pudicum §7.6Cum male perdiderim, perdere verba leve est.
Not because I hope that you can be moved by our prayer do I address you — we have begun this under an unfavorable god; but since I have wretchedly lost merits, reputation, and a chaste body and mind, to lose words is a light thing.
Are you resolved, nevertheless, to go and abandon wretched Dido, and will the same winds carry away both your sails and your pledge?
Are you resolved, Aeneas, to loose your ships along with your compact, and to pursue the Italian kingdoms, which you know not where they are?
Does neither new Carthage, nor its rising walls touch you, nor the supreme power delivered to your sceptre?
You flee what is done, you seek what is to be done; another land is to be sought by you through the world, while another has already been found.
§7.15Ut terram invenias, quis eam tibi tradet habendam?
Even if you should find the land, who will hand it over to you to be held?
§7.16Quis sua non notis arva tenenda dabit?
Who will give his fields to be possessed by strangers?
Surely another love remains for you, and another Dido, and another pledge to be given, which you may break again.
When will it be that you build a city like Carthage and look down upon your people from a high citadel?
Even if all things should happen, and your vows should not delay you, whence will you have a wife who would love you so?
I burn, like waxed torches coated with sulphur, like holy incense added to smoking altars.
Aeneas always clings to my eyes as I watch; night and rest bring Aeneas back to my mind.
§7.27Ille quidem male gratus et ad mea munera surdus, §7.28Et quo, si non sim stulta, carere velim; §7.29Non tamen Aenean, quamvis male cogitat, odi, §7.30Sed queror infidum questaque peius amo.
He indeed is ungrateful and deaf to my gifts, and one whom, if I were not foolish, I would wish to be without; yet I do not hate Aeneas, although he plans poorly, but I complain of his unfaithfulness, and having complained, I love him all the worse.
Spare, Venus, your daughter-in-law, and embrace your cruel brother, brother Cupid; let him serve in your camp!
Or let him, whom I have begun to love (for indeed I do not disdain it), provide the material for my love's distress!
I am deceived, and that image is falsely tossed to me; he differs from the nature of his mother.
§7.37Te lapis et montes innataque rupibus altis §7.38Robora, te saevae progenuere ferae, §7.39Aut mare, quale vides agitari nunc quoque ventis, §7.40Qua tamen adversis fluctibus ire paras.
Stone and mountains and oaks born on high cliffs, and fierce wild beasts begot you, or the sea, such as you see even now tossed by the winds, on which, nevertheless, you prepare to go with opposing waves.
§7.41Quo fugis? obstat hiemps.
Whither do you flee? Winter obstructs you.
hiemis mihi gratia prosit!
Let the favor of winter profit me!
§7.42Adspice, ut eversas concitet Eurus aquas!
Look how the East Wind stirs up the overturned waters!
What I had preferred to grant you, let me owe to the tempests; the wind and the wave are more just than your heart.
I am not of such worth — why are you not unfairly estimated? — that you should perish while you flee me through the wide seas.
You practice expensive hatred and constant at great cost, if, as long as you are free of me, dying is cheap to you.
Soon the winds will fall, and with the wave spread evenly, Triton will run through the sea with his blue horses.
§7.51Tu quoque cum ventis utinam mutabilis esses!
Would that you too were changeable with the winds!
§7.52Et, nisi duritia robora vincis, eris.
And, unless you surpass oaks in hardness, you will be.
§7.53Quid, quasi nescires, insana quid aequora possint, §7.54Expertae totiens tam male credis aquae?
Why, as if you did not know what the mad seas can do, do you trust so poorly the water you have experienced so many times?
Even if you loose the cables with the sea persuading the way, yet the wide deep has many sad misfortunes.
§7.57Nec violasse fidem temptantibus aequora prodest; §7.58Perfidiae poenas exigit ille locus, §7.59Praecipue cum laesus amor, quia mater Amorum §7.60Nuda Cytheriacis edita fertur aquis.
Nor does it profit those attempting the seas to have violated a pledge; that place exacts penalties for perfidy, especially when love is harmed, because the mother of Loves is said to have risen naked from the Cytherean waters.
I fear lest, ruined, I ruin you, or harm him who harms me, or lest my shipwrecked enemy drink the sea waters.
§7.63Vive, precor! sic te melius quam funere perdam.
Live, I pray! Thus I shall lose you better than by your death.