Vergil 4 - Building Carthage

Context

At the start of this passage, Dido has fallen deeply in love with Aeneas, and is doting on him attentively. As they explore Carthage, we don’t get much of a view into how Aeneas is feeling. He has his fate to settle in Italy, yes, but it must be quite tempting to stay in Carthage, a city already founded and growing under Dido’s good leadership.

• Steadman Commentaries for Pliny/Vergil.
  • click on the link under 1.

Building Carthage

nunc media Aenean secum per moenia ducit

Sidoniasque ostentat opes urbemque paratam, 75

incipit effari mediaque in voce resistit;

nunc eadem labente die convivia quaerit,

Iliacosque iterum demens audire labores

exposcit pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore.

post ubi digressi, lumenque obscura vicissim 80

luna premit suadentque cadentia sidera somnos,

sola domo maeret vacua stratisque relictis

incubat. illum absens absentem auditque videtque,

aut gremio Ascanium genitoris imagine capta

detinet, infandum si fallere possit amorem. 85

non coeptae adsurgunt turres, non arma iuventus

exercet portusve aut propugnacula bello

tuta parant: pendent opera interrupta minaeque

murorum ingentes aequataque machina caelo.