Soon as the funeral pyre was builded highin a sequestered garden, Iooming huge with boughs of pine and faggots of cleft oak,the queen herself enwreathed it with sad flowersand boughs of mournful shade; and crowning allshe laid on nuptial bed the robes and swordby him abandoned; and stretched out thereona mock Aeneas;—but her doom she knew.Altars were there; and with loose locks unboundthe priestess with a voice of thunder calledthree hundred gods, Hell, Chaos, the three shapesof triple Hecate, the faces threeof virgin Dian. She aspersed a streamfrom dark Avernus drawn, she said; soft herbswere cut by moonlight with a blade of bronze,oozing black poison-sap; and she had pluckedthat philter from the forehead of new foalbefore its dam devours. Dido herself,sprinkling the salt meal, at the altar stands;one foot unsandalled, and with cincture free,on all the gods and fate-instructed stars,foreseeing death, she calls. But if there besome just and not oblivious power on high,who heeds when lovers plight unequal vow,to that god first her supplications rise.

Soon fell the night, and peaceful slumbers breathedon all earth's weary creatures; the loud seasand babbling forests entered on repose;now midway in their heavenly course the starswheeled silent on; the outspread lands belowlay voiceless; all the birds of tinted wing,and flocks that haunt the merge of waters wideor keep the thorny wold, oblivious laybeneath the night so still; the stings of careceased troubling, and no heart its burden knew.Not so the Tyrian Queen's deep-grieving soul!To sleep she could not yield; her eyes and heartrefused the gift of night; her sufferingredoubled, and in full returning tideher love rebelled, while on wild waves of rageshe drifted to and fro. So, ceasing notfrom sorrow, thus she brooded on her wrongs:“What refuge now? Shall I invite the scornof my rejected wooers, or entreatof some disdainful, nomad blackamoorto take me to his bed—though many a timesuch husbands I made mock of? Shall I sailon Ilian ships away, and sink to bethe Trojans' humble thrall? Do they rejoicethat once I gave them bread? Lives gratitudein hearts like theirs for bygone kindnesses?O, who, if so I stooped, would deign to bearon yon proud ships the scorned and fallen Queen?Lost creature! Woe betide thee! Knowest thou not the perjured children of Laomedon?What way is left? Should I take flight aloneand join the revelling sailors? Or departwith Tyrians, the whole attending trainof my own people? Hard the task to forcetheir hearts from Sidon's towers; how once morecompel to sea, and bid them spread the sail?Nay, perish! Thou hast earned it. Let the swordfrom sorrow save thee! Sister of my blood—who else but thee,—my own tears borne down,didst heap disaster on my frantic soul,and fling me to this foe? Why could I notpass wedlock by, and live a blameless lifeas wild things do, nor taste of passion's pain?But I broke faith! I cast the vows awaymade at Sichaeus' grave.” Such loud lamentburst from her breaking heart with doleful sound.Meanwhile Aeneas on his lofty ship,having made ready all, and fixed his mindto launch away upon brief slumher fell.But the god came; and in the self-same guiseonce more in monitory vision spoke,all guised as Mercury,—his voice, his hue,his golden locks, and young limbs strong and fair.“Hail, goddess-born! Wouldst linger on in sleepat such an hour? Nor seest thou the snaresthat hem thee round? Nor hearest thou the voiceof friendly zephyrs calling? Senseless man!That woman's breast contrives some treacheryand horrid stroke; for, resolute to die,she drifts on swollen floods of wrath and scorn. Wilt thou not fly before the hastening hourof flight is gone? To-morrow thou wilt seeyon waters thronged with ships, the cruel glareof fire-brands, and yonder shore all flame,if but the light of morn again surprisethee loitering in this land. Away! Away!Stay not! A mutable and shifting thingis woman ever.” Such command he spoke,then melted in the midnight dark away.

Aeneas, by that fleeting vision struckwith an exceeding awe, straightway leaped forthfrom slumber's power, and to his followers cried :“Awake, my men! Away! Each to his placeupon the thwarts! Unfurl at once the sails!A god from heaven a second time sent downurges our instant flight and bids us cutthe twisted cords. Whatever be thy name,behold, we come, O venerated Power!Again with joy we follow! Let thy graceassist us as we go! And may thy powerbring none but stars benign across our sky.”So saying, from its scabbard forth he flashedthe lightning of his sword, with naked bladestriking the hawsers free. Like ardor seizedon all his willing men, who raced and ran;and, while their galleys shadowed all the sea,clean from the shore they scudded, with strong strokessweeping the purple waves and crested foam.

Aurora's first young beams to earth were pouringas from Tithonus' saffron bed she sprang;while from her battlements the wakeful Queenwatched the sky brighten, saw the mated sailspush forth to sea, till all her port and strandheld not an oar or keel. Thrice and four timesshe smote her lovely breast with wrathful hand,and tore her golden hair. “Great Jove,” she cries,“Shall that departing fugitive make mockof me, a queen? Will not my men-at-armsdraw sword, give chase, from all my city thronging?Down from the docks, my ships! Out, out! Begone!Take fire and sword! Bend to your oars, ye slaves!What have I said? Where am I? What mad thoughtsdelude this ruined mind? Woe unto thee,thou wretched Dido, now thy impious deedsstrike back upon thee. Wherefore struck they not,as was most fit, when thou didst fling awaythy sceptre from thy hand? O Iying oaths!O faith forsworn! of him who brings, they boast,his father's gods along, and bowed his backto lift an age-worn sire! Why dared I notseize on him, rend his body limb from limb,and hurl him piecemeal on the rolling sea?Or put his troop of followers to the sword,ascanius too, and set his flesh beforethat father for a feast? Such fearful warhad been of doubtful issue. Be it so!What fears a woman dying? Would I hadattacked their camp with torches, kindled flamefrom ship to ship, until that son and sire,with that whole tribe, were unto ashes burnedin one huge holocaust—myself its crown!Great orb of light whose holy beam surveysall earthly deeds! Great Juno, patronessof conjugal distress, who knowest all!Pale Hecate, whose name the witches cryat midnight crossways! O avenging furies!O gods that guard Queen Dido's dying breath!Give ear, and to my guiltless miseryextend your power. Hear me what I pray!If it be fated that yon creature curstdrift to the shore and happy haven find,if Father Iove's irrevocable wordsuch goal decree—there may he be assailedby peoples fierce and bold. A banished man,from his Iulus' kisses sundered far,may his own eyes see miserably slainhis kin and kind, and sue for alien arms.nor when he basely bows him to receiveterms of unequal peace, shall he be blestwith sceptre or with life; but perish therebefore his time, and lie without a graveupon the barren sand. For this I pray.This dying word is flowing from my heartwith my spilt blood. And—O ye Tyrians! Isting with your hatred all his seed and tribe forevermore. This is the offering my ashes ask. Betwixt our nations twain, No Iove! No truce or amity! Arise, Out of my dust, unknown Avenger, rise!To harry and lay waste with sword and flamethose Dardan settlers, and to vex them sore,to-day, to-morrow, and as long as poweris thine to use! My dying curse arraysshore against shore and the opposing seasin shock of arms with arms. May living foespass down from sire to son insatiate war!”

She said. From point to point her purpose flew,seeking without delay to quench the flameof her loathed life. Brief bidding she addressedto Barce then, Sichaeus' nurse (her ownlay dust and ashes in a lonely gravebeside the Tyrian shore), “Go, nurse, and callmy sister Anna! Bid her quickly batheher limbs in living water, and procuredue victims for our expiating fires.bid her make haste. Go, bind on thy own browthe sacred fillet. For to Stygian Joveit is my purpose now to consummatethe sacrifice ordained, ending my woe,and touch with flame the Trojan's funeral pyre.”The aged crone to do her bidding ranwith trembling zeal. But Dido (horror-struckat her own dread design, unstrung with fear,her bloodshot eyes wide-rolling, and her cheektwitching and fever-spotted, her cold browblanched with approaching death)—sped past the doorsinto the palace garden; there she leaped,a frenzied creature, on the lofty pyreand drew the Trojan's sword; a gift not askedfor use like this! When now she saw the garbof Ilian fashion, and the nuptial couchshe knew too well, she lingered yet awhilefor memory and tears, and, falling proneon that cold bed, outpoured a last farewell:“Sweet relics! Ever dear when Fate and Heavenupon me smiled, receive my parting breath,and from my woe set free! My life is done.I have accomplished what my lot allowed;and now my spirit to the world of deathin royal honor goes. The founder Iof yonder noble city, I have seenwalls at my bidding rise. I was avengedfor my slain husband: I chastised the crimesof our injurious brother. Woe is me!Blest had I been, beyond deserving blest, if but the Trojan galleys ne'er had mooredupon my kingdom's bound!”So saying, she pressedone last kiss on the couch. “Though for my deathno vengeance fall, O, give me death!” she cried.“O thus! O thus! it is my will to takethe journey to the dark. From yonder seamay his cold Trojan eyes discern the flamesthat make me ashes! Be this cruel deathhis omen as he sails!” She spoke no more.But almost ere she ceased, her maidens allthronged to obey her cry, and found their Queenprone fallen on the sword, the reeking steelstill in her bloody hands. Shrill clamor flewalong the lofty halls; wild rumor spreadthrough the whole smitten city: Ioud lament,groans and the wail of women echoed onfrom roof to roof, and to the dome of airthe noise of mourning rose. Such were the cryif a besieging host should break the wallsof Carthage or old Tyre, and wrathful flameso'er towers of kings and worshipped altars roll.Her sister heard. Half in a swoon, she ranwith trembling steps, where thickest was the throng,beating her breast, while with a desperate handshe tore at her own face, and called aloudupon the dying Queen. “Was it for thismy own true sister used me with such guile?O, was this horrid deed the dire intentof altars, Iofty couch, and funeral fires?What shall I tell for chiefest of my woes?Lost that I am! Why, though in death, cast offthy sister from thy heart? Why not inviteone mortal stroke for both, a single sword,one agony together? But these handsbuilt up thy pyre; and my voice imploredthe blessing of our gods, who granted methat thou shouldst perish thus—and I not know!In thy self-slaughter, sister, thou hast slainmyself, thy people, the grave counsellorsof Sidon, and yon city thou didst buildto be thy throne!—Go, fetch me water, there!That I may bathe those gashes! If there beone hovering breath that stays, let my fond lipsdiscover and receive!” So saying, she sprang upfrom stair to stair, and, clasping to her breasther sister's dying form, moaned grievously,and staunched the dark blood with her garment's fold.Vainly would Dido lift her sinking eyes,but backward fell, while at her heart the woundopened afresh; three times with straining armshe rose; three times dropped helpless, her dimmed eyesturned skyward, seeking the sweet light of day, —which when she saw, she groaned. Great Juno thenlooked down in mercy on that lingering painand labor to depart: from realms divineshe sent the goddess of the rainbow wing,Iris, to set the struggling spirit freeand loose its fleshly coil. For since the endcame not by destiny, nor was the doomof guilty deed, but of a hapless wightto sudden madness stung, ere ripe to die,therefore the Queen of Hades had not shornthe fair tress from her forehead, nor assignedthat soul to Stygian dark. So Iris cameon dewy, saffron pinions down from heaven,a thousand colors on her radiant way,from the opposing sun. She stayed her flightabove that pallid brow: “I come with powerto make this gift to Death. I set thee freefrom thy frail body's bound.” With her right handshe cut the tress: then through its every limbthe sinking form grew cold; the vital breathfled forth, departing on the viewless air.