30 Ovid, Heroides 7.1–14
Sīc ubi fāta vocant, ūdīs abiectus in herbīs 1
ad vada Maeandrī concinit albus olor.
Nec quia tē nostrā spērem prece posse movērī,
adloquor—adversō mōvimus ista deō;
sed merita et fāmam corpusque animumque pudīcum 5
cum male perdiderim, perdere verba leve est.
Certus es īre tamen miseramque relinquere Dīdō,
atque īdem ventī vēla fidemque ferent?
certus es, Aenēā, cum foedere solvere nāvēs,
quaeque ubi sint nescīs, Ītala rēgna sequī? 10
nec nova Carthāgō, nec tē crēscentia tangunt
moenia nec scēptrō trādita summa tuō?
facta fugis, facienda petis; quaerenda per orbem
altera, quaesīta est altera terra tibi.
METER
elegiac couplet
DDSSDS
DSx|DDx
DSSDDS
DSx|DDx
DSSDDS
DDx|DDx
1-6 The letter opens with a (challenging) surprise. Dido avoids the expected epistolary opening (X writes to Y) and plunges in with an erudite simile comparing the words she will waste in this letter with the fatal song of a dying swan.
1 abiectus: is it a man (Aeneas?) who lies despondent? The next line reveals the subject of the simile.
2 Maeandrī: the Meander was a river in Asia Minor, famous for its winding course. The connection to swans is obscure; we may be meant only to think of a river in Asia Minor, near Aeneas’ Troy.
olor: the native Latin word for swan was largely supplanted by the Greek loanword, cycnus. As early as the fifth century BCE, we find the conceit that swans sang a fatal song when they foresaw their death.
3 Note the alliteration in this line and next. nec quia…spērem: quia regularly introduces a fact (and so the indicative) but when it introduces a reason expressly to deny it, it takes the subjunctive (A&G 540.2 n.3)
tē: accusative subject of the passive verb, movērī.
4 adloquor: it is conventional in ancient letters to pretend as though the author were speaking to the (present) addressee.
ista: generically, Dido’s letter or her prayers; which god is opposing her (adversō… deō)?
5 merita: the first of many pointed ambiguities in the poem; merita could be neuter plural—“favors, kindnesses, services”—the first in the series of precious things that Dido has lost and wasted or it might agree with the subject of first-person verb (perdiderim, i.e., Dido); since the Heroides often oscillate between condemnation and confession, it is not unusual for the narrator to acknowledge (or even exaggerate) their guilt.
6 male: not “badly” so as to diminish the loss, but “miserably, completely, exceedingly.”
leve est: “it is trivial…”
7-22 Dido cannot believe that Aeneas really plans to leave the security of Carthage for the unknown risks of Italy.
7 Certus es: introduces the first of three indignant questions (7-12), each of which spans a couplet.
Dīdō (miseram): accusative; Dīdō can be declined like a third declension noun (Dīdōnem) but is usually indeclinable apart from the genitive; Ovid uses Dīdō for the nominative and accusative but Elissa in the vocative and other cases.
8 īdem (ventī); vēla fidemque: a zeugma or syllepsis, in which a word (ferent) applies to different words in different ways, here both literally (the winds will carry away the sails (of Aeneas’ ship, vela) and figuratively (they will blow away his empty promises, fidem).
9 Aenēā: vocative; cum foedere solvere nāvēs: another syllepsis, Aeneas unties his ships (from their docks) along with his pledge (or marriage).
10 quaeque: not a form of quisque but the relative quae + the enclitic –que; a version of this line with less stylized word order might appear as: et [certus es] Ītala rēgna sequī quae nescīs ubi sint? Ovid nests the indirect question (ubi sint) inside the relative clause.
11 nova: wordplay on Carthāgō, whose name means “New Town” in Punic.
12 summa: the highest (fortunes or command) of Carthage. Vergil shows Aeneas directing the construction of Carthage’s walls.
12-13 pay special attention to the tenses of verbs and participles in this couple, as they are crucial to understanding Dido’s argument.
quaerenda (est terra): part of the periphrastic verb and the subject are stated only in the second of the parallel sentences, as often in Latin.
