1 Their lord himself pours courage and prosperous strength on the Grecians, himself stirs the gods against the arms of Dardania.
2 You too may now unforbidden spare the nation of Pergama, gods and goddesses to whomsoever Ilium and the great glory of Dardania did wrong.
3 From Jove hath our race beginning; in Jove the men of Dardania rejoice as ancestor; our King himself of Jove's supreme race, Aeneas of Troy, hath sent us to thy courts.
4 Never will I look on the proud homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, or go to be the slave of Greek matrons, I a daughter of Dardania, a daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess.
5 This Polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless Priam sent in secret to the nurture of the Thracian king, when now he was losing trust in the arms of Dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about.
6 We who followed thee and thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city.
7 The whole battle-lines gather up, all Latium and all Dardania, Mnestheus and valiant Serestus, with Messapus, tamer of horses, and brave Asilas, the Tuscan battalion and Evander's Arcadian squadrons; man by man they struggle with all their might; no rest nor pause in the vast strain of conflict.
8 But Dido, fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze, and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of Dardania, a gift asked for no use like this.