...de XL LLPSI usque ad finem

[pmda]

1. It clamor ad alta atria, gemitu et ululatu feminarum tecta resonant - non aliter quam si omnis Karthago ab hostibus capta esset flammaeque furentes per aedes hominum atque deorum volverentur!

Dido is seen to take her own life: '.... - non aliter quam si omnis Karthago ab hostibus capta esset.

'...- it was exactly as if all Karthage had been captured and furious flames raged through the houses of men and gods...'

2. Aeneas, seeing, the flames from Dido's pye, from his ship: '...Ille vero ignorat quae causa tantum ignem accenderit...

He truly did not know what caused such a fire to burn.

3. Cum iam nulla terra cerneretur, ventus mutatus classem in portum Siciliae compulit, ibique rex Acestes iterum Troianos fessos benigne excepit. Hic Aeneas, cum annus praeteriisset ex quo die [ex eo die quo] Anchises sepultus est, Manibus patris sacrificia fecit atque ludos magnificos apparavit, quibus iuvenes Troiani inter se certaverunt cursu ac viribus, iaculis sagittisque.

Manibus patris = Capital 'M'..this is a sacrifice to his ancestors..?

4. Hic Aeneas solus in antrum Sibyllae vatis penetravit; quae eum secum ad Inferos duxit, ubi pater Anchises multa narravit de futuro imperio Romano et de fortitudine Romanorum; tum, postquam filio miranti viros Romanos fortissimos ostendit usque ad Iulium Caesarem, his verbis Romanos admonuit: "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento! [tu memento regere = nolito oblivisci r., curato ut regas]"
Hae tibi erunt artes: pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare."

...after fortelling to his exceptional son (filio miranti (dative)), the foremost power of the Romans, up to Julius Caesar, he warned: 'Do not forget that you are destined to rule. These will be your arts: that your duty is to impose peace, to be subject to mercy and to be victorious in arms.
[/b]

[Qimmik]

1. non aliter quam si "exactly as if" is a good way to translate this. Literally, of course "not otherwise than if"

2. vero here means something like "however." See verus IIB in Lewis and Short:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.20:626.lewisandshort

quae causa is the subject of accenderit. "However, he didn't know what cause had ignited such a great fire."

3. The manes are household gods who represent the spirits of one's ancestors. Sacrificing to the manes of his father means sacrificing to his father's spirit. It's very difficult to live up the epithet pius, so Aeneas is constantly performing some sacrifice or ritual or other.

Latin funerary inscriptions sometimes read: D.M. (for dis manibus + name of X in the genitive. "To the shades of X". Sometimes you'll see this, for example, as a dedication of a modern book to a deceased person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manes

4. "...after he pointed out [ostendit] to his son, lost in admiration [miranti is an active participle], the bravest [fortissimos] men [viros, not vires!] of the Romans, up to [or maybe "down to"] Julius Caesar, he admonished the Romans with these words: 'Roman, do not forget [remember] to rule the nations [or maybe just "rule the nations'] with your imperial power [imperio]. These will be your arts: to impose the practice [morem] of peace, to be merciful to [parcere] those who are subject to you [subjectis] and to vanquish [debellare] the arrogant [superbos--you left this word out!].

tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.
hae tibi erunt artes: pacique imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

Mussolini put these lines on Italian postage stamps. Unfortunately for him, his efforts to regere imperio populos didn't come to fruition.

Incidentally, the manuscripts of the Aeneid read pacique [dative] imponere morem, which would mean something like "to impose laws [morem] on a pacified world [paci, literally, "on peace"]. The variant reading pacisque [genitive] imponere morem is found in the 4th or 5th century commentary on the Aeneid of Servius, but most editors accept the reading of the manuscripts.

Alternative punctuation:

tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes) pacique imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

[pmda]

Quimmik

Many thanks - some grist for my studies...

Paul

[pmda]

Quimmik:

You say 'quae causa is the subject of accenderit. "However, he didn't know what cause had ignited such a great fire."

Does 'ignorat' have an object. 'Ille' and 'causa' are both subjects and both in the nominative ..so how does the grammar work?

Ille vero ignorat quae causa tantum ignem accenderit...

Is it literally 'He truly does not know what (quae) [is] the cause for such a fire to burn...' ?

Or

Ille vero ignorat quae [est] causa tantum ignem accenderit...

[Qimmik]

quae causa tantum ignem accenderit... is an indirect question, the complement of ignorat.

"He does not know what cause ignited such a big fire . . . "