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AP® Latin passage guide · Vergil, Aeneid 4.305–361
Vergil, Aeneid 4.305–361: Dido and Aeneas Quarrel
What happens
Dido has learnt that Aeneas is secretly preparing his fleet. Did you hope, traitor, that you could hide such a crime and slip away from my land in silence? Does neither our love, nor the hand you once gave, nor Dido about to die, hold you back? She begs him by her tears and his right hand: if she had at least a little Aeneas playing in her hall who looked like him, she would not feel so utterly captured and abandoned.
Aeneas, warned by Jupiter, keeps his eyes fixed and fights down his love. He will never deny her kindness, but he never pretended to be married. If fate had let him live as he chose, he would be rebuilding Troy. Now Apollo and the oracles command Italy: that is his love, that his homeland. His father's ghost warns him in dreams; Mercury himself has brought Jupiter's orders. 'I do not seek Italy of my own will.'
Grammar to look for
- Imperatives: dēsine mēque tuīs incendere tēque querēlīs, “stop inflaming me and yourself with your complaints”
- Conditional sentences: sī quis mihi parvulus aulā lūderet Aenēās, “if some little Aeneas were playing in my hall”
- Oaths with per: per cōnūbia nostra, per inceptōs hymenaeōs, “by our union, by the wedding we began”
Style
- Rhetorical questions: Mēne fugis. Dido's broken, direct appeal.
- Anaphora: nec tē noster amor nec tē data dextera quondam. Each 'nec tē' adds a bond he is breaking.
- Diminutive: parvulus. The only diminutive in the Aeneid: the child she will never have.
- Final, broken line: Ītaliam nōn sponte sequor. Aeneas ends on duty, not desire.
Themes to think about
- Pietas against love
- Two kinds of speech: passionate and controlled
- Was Aeneas married to Dido?
- Sympathy: which character does Vergil make us feel for?
Practise this passage
The Quarrel is a self-grading escape room built from this passage's own vocabulary, with a grammar lock on imperatives. It takes about one lesson.
Play the free taster (2 of 7 locks)About the room
More passage guides
- Vergil, Aeneid 1.1–33: The Proem and Juno's Anger
- Vergil, Aeneid 1.88–107 and 496–512: The Storm and Dido
- Vergil, Aeneid 2.40–56 and 201–249: Laocoön and the Wooden Horse
- Vergil, Aeneid 4.74–89 and 165–197: Dido's Love, the Cave and Fama
- Vergil, Aeneid 6.450–476, 788–800 and 847–853: Dido's Shade and Rome's Mission
- Vergil, Aeneid 7.45–58 and 783–817: Latinus, Turnus and Camilla
- Vergil, Aeneid 11.532–594: Diana's Story of Camilla
- Vergil, Aeneid 12.791–828 and 919–952: Juno's Reconciliation and the Death of Turnus
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