Out of the Wings

Dido y Eneas (1613-1616), Guillén de Castro

Dido and Aeneas : ACT THREE Scene Three

Dido and Aeneas, translated by Kathleen Jeffs (née Mountjoy)

ACT THREE Scene Three

Sample text

Enter AENEAS and his CAPTAINS [ACATES etc.]
ACATES:: This, sir, is true.
AENEAS:: Oh, my Elisa! Go now,
but bind me first; for I’m driven insane
bury me, for I am dead.
DIDO:: Enemy... !
ALCINO:: He’s not alone.
DIDO:: Come here. What do I see?
ALCINO:: Is someone there still alive?
AENEAS:: He who arrives already dying.
DIDO:: Who comes?
AENEAS:: A wretched man.
DIDO:: Traitor! You thought you’d just continue
on your way, in cowardly flight,
hidden from my frenzied soul
and from my eyes?
Traitor!
AENEAS:: Hear me, I’m dying.
DIDO:: Respond to me in silence.
While others conquer and kill their enemy,
only you kill by fleeing from them.
Did you not give your word,
in firm faith, to honour me as my husband,
first to take me as your wife
and then never to leave me?
Is this how princes handle important matters?
Is this how they deceive their lovers?
Is this how honourable men lie?
Are famous captains false?
Are they unfaithful?
And this ingratitude,
this from a noble heart?
See how you triumphed over me;
how you were my master
How you conquered my chastity
and annihilated my honour.
My reputation flies on the wind,
with whom you compare yourself,
and although the wind is strong for you,
my virtue travels far with damaged wings.
Look at me, because I am your wife,
whispered about by my people,
threatened by my brother,
and fearful of Hiarbas.
Be prudent, be pious,
come back to yourself,
for your sanity rests in me.
Dear ‘guest’, where are you going?
For now I don’t dare
to put the sweet name
of ‘husband’ in my mouth,
out of fear of the offense it gives you,
since you are fleeing from it;
but I will change it back, if you want me to,
though it is at odds with my honour,
in exchange for being yours
I will be whatever you want.
AENEAS:: My Queen, I cannot deny what you have said,
but I can, with a soul that feels foreign to itself,
hear you as I die from the pain,
and speak while trembling with fear,
to respond to what your tongue has spoken;
because, who knows better
than I what I owe your worth,
what I lose in your beauty?
I confess that in treating you badly
instead of being your husband
I have been an unfaithful guest
and I am an ungrateful lover;
and that my fortune would be
better blessed to be placed in you;
but what can I do, my deceived friend?
What can I do, my ill-gotten spouse,
for it is an unjust order
from the powerful gods,
who are more envious of my pleasure with you
than jealous of my good fortune?
My father, in a rage, as a ghost,
has acted as minister to the gods,
holding his sword to my chest
and threatening me.
He appears to me constantly,
in more forms than Proteus,
as Mercury with his caduceus* (staff, or rod)
and Neptune his trident.
So that I say farewell to you,
the one throws me from land,
the other invites me to the sea despite my grief
They order me to go to Italy,
without seeing that if I do that,
in leaving you here in Carthage,
I will be dead upon your shores.
DIDO:: Is it possible that you can compose
more false truths,
behaving with such cruelty,
inventing such betrayal?
the gods wish you
to break your word, to mar your name?
And is it ‘honour’ to deceive a woman
in order to pay homage to a man?
This god who wants to guide you to Italy
would do better if he led you
somewhere else, where your fleet
would be more successful.
And if it weren’t a trick,
this dreamt-up illusion,
what does reason have to do with love?
Lovers, what do they have to fear?
Wouldn’t the glory be even greater
to die, so as not to split two lives?
Do you not see this? Oh!
Listen to me, Aeneas;
if you won’t care for me,
at least take care of yourself.
Look, pious Trojan,
the dangerous winter
has set upon the sea,
without law or governance,
and the sea is now turbulent and white-capped.
Where are you going? Who obliges you
to kill and lose yourself?
I go now to my death,
but you do not go to yours.
At least wait until the spring comes,
for you will not face the fierceness and damage
of the stormy winter
in the peaceful spring;
You will incur fewer risks
if you depart then,
and if I must see you go,
I will by that time be accustomed to suffering,
and better able to bear it;
and what’s more, by that time
there could be another Aeneas with me,
though he be small and unborn.
Aeneas, do not say no;
I ask you for only a brief moment
of life, no more.
AENEAS:: Oh, Dido! I am no longer in charge of myself.
My soldiers are already waiting for me;
what will they say if you detain me?
DIDO:: Do you have a soul?
Do you have honourable thoughts?
Are you the son of a goddess?
Are you the brother of a god?
You have the Trojan Anquises’s noble blood?

* From the Oxford English Dictionary on ‘caduceus’: ‘The wand carried by an ancient Greek or Roman herald. spec. The fabled wand carried by Hermes or Mercury as the messenger of the gods; usually represented with two serpents twined round it.’

Copyright