Dido: “Did you really hope, you traitor, to be able to hide so foul a crime and to sneak quietly away from my land? Does not our love, or my right hand which once I gave you, or Dido destined to die a cruel death deter you? Even worse,do you struggle to prepare the fleet in the wintry season, and hurry to cross the sea when the North Winds blow, you savage? If you were not making for foreign fields and an unknown home, and ancient Troy still stood, would you be heading for Troy in your ships across the stormy sea? Is it me that you flee? I beg you, by these tears, and by your right hand - since I have left myself with nothing else - by our wedding, by our marriage that we began,I beg you, if I ever deserved well of you, or anything of mine was sweet to you, have pity on my failing house and, if there is any room still for prayers, give up your intention. It is because of you that the nations of Africa and the Numidian rulers hate me, and my own people are hostile; It is because of you again that my honour and my former reputation - my only route to heaven - have been destroyed. Who are you abandoning me to, to die, my “guest” - since this is the only name for you instead of “husband”? Why do I delay? Until my brother Pygmalion destroys my walls or Gaetulian Iarbas leads me off a captive? At least if I could have conceived a child for you before your desertion, if I had a baby Aeneas to play in the palace, whose expression could remind me of you, I should not seem so utterly lost and abandoned.”
Aeneas: “I shall never, my queen, deny that you did with kindness all the many things you were able to list, nor shall I be ashamed to remember Dido, as long as my memory lasts, while there is breath in my body. I shall speak briefly and to the point. I did not intend to hide my escape with secrecy - don't imagine I did, and I never held out the wedding-torch or entered into this contract. If the fates allowed me to lead my life according to my own choice and to settle my worries to my own liking, I should be caring for the city of Troy first and the dear remains of my household, Priam's high roofs would remain and I would have restored the citadel of Troy for the conquered.But now it is great Italy that Apollo of Gryneum, it is Italy that the Lycian oracles have ordered me to make for; this is my love, this is my homeland. If it is the citadels of Carthage and the sight of an African city that captivate you, a Phoenician, what is your objection, tell me, to Trojans settling in an Italian land? It is right for us to to seek kingdoms abroad. Whenever night hides the earth with its damp shadows, whenever the fiery stars come out, the troubled ghost of my father Anchises rebukes me in my dreams and terrifies me; so to does my boy Ascanius, and the wrong I do to one so dear, whom I am robbing of the kingship of Italy and the lands ordained by destiny. Now indeed the messenger of the gods sent by Jupiter himself - I swear on both our lives - has brought orders through the racing winds: I saw the god in a clear light entering the walls and drank in his words with these ears. Stop inflaming us both with your complaints; I do not seek Italy of my free will.”
