There being, however, no middle course, Aeneas directed his chiefs to get ready the ships, call together the crews, and prepare their arms, and to do all as quietly and secretly as possible. Meanwhile he himself would watch for a favorable opportunity of obtaining the queen's consent to their departure.
Himself, meantime, the softest hours would choose,
Before the love-sick lady heard the news,
And move her tender mind, by slow degrees
To suffer what the sovereign power decrees.
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK IV.
But Dido soon discovered what the Trojans were about, and she sent for AEneas and reproached him in angry words for his deception and ingratitude. Then her anger gave way to grief and tears, and she implored him to alter his resolution, declaring that if he would thus suddenly leave her she must surely die. AEneas was in deep distress at the spectacle of the sorrowing queen, yet he dared not yield to her entreaties, since it was the decree of the fates and the command of Jupiter that he should remain no longer in Carthage.
The Trojans therefore hastened their preparations and were soon ready to set sail; but there came another warning conveyed to them by the god Mercury, who, while AEneas was asleep in his ship, appeared to him in a dream, bidding him to speed away that very night, for if he waited until morning he would find the harbor filled with queen Dido's fleet to prevent his departure. Starting from his couch AEneas quickly roused his companions and gave the order for instantly putting to sea.
"Haste to your oars! your crooked anchors weigh,
And speed your flying sails, and stand to sea!
A god commands! he stood before my sight,
And urged me once again to speedy flight."
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK IV.
Promptly the order of the chief was obeyed, and soon the Trojan vessels were sailing away from the city of Dido. And at dawn of morning the unhappy queen, looking forth from her watch tower, beheld them far out at sea. Then she prayed that there might be eternal enmity between the descendants of AEneas and the people of Carthage, and that a man would come of her nation who would persecute the Trojan race with fire and sword.
"These are my prayers, and this my dying will;
And you, my Tyrians, every curse fulfill:
Perpetual hate and mortal wars proclaim
Against the prince, the people, and the name.
These grateful offerings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now and from hence in every future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage,
Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood;
With fire and sword pursue the perjured brood:
Our arms, our seas, our shores, opposed to theirs;
And the same hate descend on all our heirs!"
DRYDEN, AEneid, BOOK IV.
Vergil thus makes Dido prophesy the long conflict between Rome and
Carthage, (known as the Punic wars) and the achievements of the famous
Carthaginian general, Han'ni-bal, who carried the war into the heart
of Italy (218 B. C.) and defeated the Romans in several great battles.
In her grief at the departure of AEneas, the unhappy queen resolved to put an end to her life. She bade her servants erect in the inner court yard of her palace a lofty pile of wood, called a funeral pyre, and upon it to place an image of AEneas as well as the arms he had left behind him. Then mounting the pyre, to which flaming torches had been applied, she stabbed herself with her false lover's sword, and so died.
The Trojans from their ships, saw the smoke and flame ascending from the palace of Dido. They knew not the cause, yet AEneas, suspecting what had happened, deeply lamented the fate of the unhappy queen.