Iarbus I & II

Iarbus I

Rumor, having grown after such a great distance, had arrived at my doorstep. She told how my beloved had been yolked together in marriage with a wretched Trojan, whose great walls were penetrated by the trickery of the turning one. Ha! What a low man, I am such a better lord than he. However, that one, for whom my marrow burned with everlasting flame, has betrayed that love, causing that flame of love to fill my temper with a new blood red flame of anger. Oh, how I desire to inflict a mortal wound into the chest of Dido and rip the flesh from her newly beloved foreigner. Having made the earth moist with slaughter and adorned these new altars with heaps of flowers, I call upon you oh father, almighty Jove. Clutching your altar I ask, may you curse the just married couple; inflict my pain upon Dido, whom, being so clever with the leather, I once desired. May she be punished with my fiery anger!

Iarbus II

Rumor, having grown over a great distance, has informed me of my beloved’s fate. Oh, how cruel my father can be. He has turned her to ash, inflicting a great wound upon my wretched soul. How dumb I was to desire sweet Dido’s death. Oh, how I should have cursed the trojan and his weak fleet instead, or attached the unfinished walls of Carthage myself. Father, if you can hear me, please pity your son who has caused you to punish the wrong one; take me so I may see her again. Oh! How I wish to leap in the Lethe or upon my own iron sword. Forever will I recall my evil deed. What can I do now? Should I keep busy like Polyphemus and his basket? Should I desire the same fate as the golden queen of Carthage, turning my own bones to ash? Oh, how I wish you had never snatched up my mother and forced yourself upon her Jove.