Pr. Id. 14th
When he who bears the purple day on his swift car shall six times have lifted up his disc and as often sunk it low, thou shalt a second time behold horse races (Equirria) on that grassy plain whose side is hugged by Tiber’s winding waters. But if perchance the wave has overflowed and floods the plain, the dusty Caelian hill shall receive the horses.
Idus. 15th
On the Ides is held the jovial feast of Anna Perenna not far from thy banks, O Tiber, who comest from afar. The common folk come, and scattered here and there over the green grass they drink, every lad reclining beside his lass. Some camp under the open sky; a few pitch tents; some make a leafy hut of boughs. Others set up reeds in place of rigid pillars, and stretching out their robes place them upon the reeds. But they grow warm with sun and wine, and they pray for as many years as they take cups, and they count the cups they drink. There shall you find a man who drains as many goblets as Nestor numbered years, and a woman who would live to the Sibyl’s age if cups could work the charm. There they sing the ditties they picked up in the theatres, beating time to the words with nimble hands; they set the bowl down, and trip in dances lubberly, while the spruce sweetheart skips about with streaming hair. On the way home they reel, a spectacle for vulgar eyes, and the crowd that meets them calls them “blest.” I met the procession lately; I thought it notable; a drunk old woman lugged a drunk old man.
But since, erroneous rumours are rife as to who this goddess is, I am resolved to throw no cloak about her tale. Poor Dido had burned “with the fire of love for Aeneas; she had burned, too, on a pyre built for her doom. Her ashes were collected, and on the marble of her tomb was this short stanza, which she herself dying had left: Aeneas caused her death and lent the blade: Dido by her own hand in dust was laid.
Straightway the Numidians invaded the defenceless realm, and Iarbas the Moor “captured and took possession of the palace; and remembering how she had spurned his suit,” Lo, now,” quoth he, “I enjoy Elissa’s bridal bower, I whom she so oft repelled.” The Tyrians fled hither and thither, as each one chanced to stray, even as bees oft wander doubtingly when they have lost their king. For the third time the reaped corn had been carried to the threshing-floor to be stripped of the husk, and for the third time the new wine had poured into the hollow vats, when Anna was driven from home, and weeping left her sister’s walls; but first she paid the honours due to her dead sister. The soft ashes drank unguents mixed with tears, and they received an offering of hair clipped from her head. And thrice she said, “Farewell!” thrice she took the ashes up and pressed them to her lips, and under them she thought she saw her sister. Having found a ship and comrades to share her flight, she glided before the wind, looking back at the city walls, her sister’s darling work.
“There is a fertile island Melite, lashed by the waves of the Libyan sea and neighbour to the barren Cosyra. Anna steered for it, trusting to the king’s hospitality, which she had known of old; for Battus there was king, a wealthy host. When he learned the misfortunes of the two sisters,” This land,” said he, “small though it be, is thine,” and he would have observed the duties of hospitality to the end, but that he feared Pygmalion’s mighty power. Twice had the sun traversed the signs of the zodiac, and a third year was passing, when Anna was compelled to seek a new land of exile. Her brother came and demanded her surrender with threat of war. The king loathed arms and said to Anna, “We are unwarlike. Do thou seek safety in flight.” At his bidding she fled and committed her bark to the wind and the waves. Her brother was more cruel than any sea. Near the fishy streams of stony Crathis there is a champain small; the natives call it Camere. Thither she bent her course, and was no farther off than nine shots of a sling, when the sails at first dropped and flapped in the puffs of wind.
“Cleave the water with the oars,” the seaman said. And while they made ready to furl the sails with the ropes, the swift south wind struck the curved poop and swept the ship, despite the captain’s efforts, into the open sea; the land receded from their sight. The surge assails them, and from its lowest depths the ocean is upheaved: the hull gulps down the foaming waters. Seamanship is powerless against the wind, and the steersman no longer handles the helm; he, too, resorts to prayers for help. The Phoenician exile is tossed on the swelling waves and hides her wet eyes in her robe: then for the first time did she call her sister Dido happy, and happy any woman who anywhere did tread dry land. A mighty blast drove the ship on the Laurentine shore; she went down and perished, but all on board got safe to land.
By this time Aeneas had gained the kingdom and the daughter of Latinus and had blended the two peoples. While, accompanied by Achates alone, he paced barefoot a lonely path on the shore with which his wife had dowered him, he spied Anna wandering, nor could bring himself to think that it was she. Why should she come into the Latin land? thought he to himself. Meantime, “’Tis Anna!” cried Achates. At the sound of the name she looked up. Alas! should she flee? what should she do? where should she look for the earth to yawn for her? Her hapless sister’s fate rose up before her eyes. The Cytherean hero perceived her distress and accosted her; yet did he weep, touched by memory of thee, Elissa. “Anna, by this land which in days gone by thou usedst to hear a happier fate had granted me; and by the gods who followed me and here of late have found a home, I swear that they did often chide my loiterings. Nor yet did I dread her death; far from me was that fear. Woe’s me! her courage sm-passed belief. Tell not the tale. I saw the unseemly wounds upon her body what time I dared to visit the house of Tartarus. But thou, whether thine own resolve or some god has brought thee to our shores, do thou enjoy my kingdom’s comforts. Much our gratitude doth owe to thee, and something, too, to Elissa.
Welcome shalt thou be for thine own sake and welcome for thy sister’s.” She believed his words, for no other hope was left her, and she told her wanderings. And when she entered the palace, clad in Tyrian finery, Aeneas opened his lips, while the rest of the assembly kept silence: “My wife Lavinia, I have a dutiful reason for entrusting this lady to thy care; when I was shipwrecked I consumed her substance. She is of Tyrian descent; she owns a kingdom on the Libyan coast; I pray thee, love her as a dear sister.” Lavinia promised everything, but in the silence of her heart she hid her fancied wrong and dissembled her rage; and when she saw many presents carried openly before her eyes, she thought that many were also sent secretly. She had not decided what to do. She hated like a fury, and hatched a plot, and longed to die avenged. ’Twas night; before her sister’s bed it seemed that Dido stood, her unkempt hair dabbled in blood. “Fly, fly this dismal house,” she seemed to say, “O falter not!” At the word a blast did slam the creaking door. Up she leaped, and quick she threw herself out of the low window upon the ground: her very fear had made her bold. And where her terror
carried her, she ran, clad in her ungirt tunic, as runs a frightened doe that hears the wolves. ’Tis thought the horned Numicius swept her away in his swollen stream and hid her in his pools. Meantime with clamour loud they sought the lost Sidonian lady through the fields: traces and footprints met their eyes: on coming to the banks they found her tracks upon the banks. The conscious river checked and hushed his stream. Herself appeared to speak: “I am a nymph of the calm Numicius. In a perennial river I hide, and Anna Perenna is my name.” Straightway they feast joyfully in the fields over which they had roamed, and toast themselves and the day in deep draughts of wine.
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