Not that I want to get involved in the “Vergil Bee Discourse,” but it did get me thinking…why merely associate Vergil with bees when you could associate Queen Dido with bees, as her city (Carthage) is the one he describes with the allegory of a hive…especially since she is a queen, just like matriarch of a beehive.
Either way, I couldn’t resist and had to draw a monumental Dido tending to her hive city.
Iura magistratusque legunt sanctumque senatum;
hic portus alii effodiunt; hic alta theatris
fundamenta locant alii, immanisque columnas
rupibus excidunt, scaenis decora alta futuris.
Qualis apes aestate nova per florea rura
exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos
educunt fetus, aut cum liquentia mella
stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas,
aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto
ignavom fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent:
fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
“O fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt!”
Aeneas ait, et fastigia suspicit urbis.
Infert se saeptus nebula, mirabile dictu,
per medios, miscetque viris, neque cernitur ulli.
Lucus in urbe fuit media, laetissimus umbra,
quo primum iactati undis et turbine Poeni
effodere loco signum, quod regia Iuno
monstrarat, caput acris equi; sic nam fore bello
egregiam et facilem victu per saecula gentem.
Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae,
aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.
Hoc primum in luco nova res oblata timorem
leniit, hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem
ausus, et adflictis melius confidere rebus.
— P. Virgilius Maro “Aeneid” Lib. I, 426–452
Laws, offices, a sacred senate formed.
A port was being dug, the high foundations
Of a theater laid, great columns carved from cliffs
To ornament the stage that would be built there:
Like bees in spring across the blossoming land,
Busy beneath the sun, leading their offspring,
Full grown now, from the hive, or loading cells
Until they swell with honey and sweet nectar,
Or taking shipments in, or lining up
To guard the fodder from the lazy drones;
The teeming work breathes thyme and fragrant honey
“What luck they have—their walls grow high already!”
Aeneas cried, his eyes on those great roofs.
Still covered by the cloud—a miracle—
He went in through the crowds, and no one saw him.
Deep in the city is the verdant shade
Where the Phoenicians, tired from stony waves,
Dug up the sign that Juno said would be there:
A horses’s head, foretelling martial glory
And easy livelihood through future ages.
Dido was building Juno a vast shrine here
Filled with rich offerings and holy power.
The stairs soared to a threshold made of bronze;
Bronze joined the beams; the doors had shrill bronze henges.
Here a strange sight relieved Aeneas’ fear
For the first time, and lured him into hope
Of better things to follow all his torments.
“Aeneid,” Book 1, lines 426–452, Translated by Sarah Ruden, 2008
dededos
prguitarman
romaincrisis
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
stormborns
dailybridgerton
theartofmadeline
