So sayeth she, and everywise she turns about her mind630
How ending of the loathèd light she speediest now may find.
And few words unto Barce spake, Sychæus' nurse of yore;
For the black ashes held her own upon the ancient shore:
"Dear nurse, my sister Anna now bring hither to my need,
And bid her for my sprinkling-tide the running water speed;
And bid her have the hosts with her, and due atoning things:
So let her come; but thou, thine head bind with the holy strings;
For I am minded now to end what I have set afoot,
And worship duly Stygian Jove and all my cares uproot;
Setting the flame beneath the bale of that Dardanian head."640
She spake; with hurrying of eld the nurse her footsteps sped.
But Dido, trembling, wild at heart with her most dread intent,
Rolling her blood-shot eyes about, her quivering cheeks besprent
With burning flecks, and otherwhere dead white with death drawn nigh
Burst through the inner doorways there and clomb the bale on high,
Fulfilled with utter madness now, and bared the Dardan blade,
Gift given not for such a work, for no such ending made.
There, when upon the Ilian gear her eyen had been set,
And bed well known, 'twixt tears and thoughts awhile she lingered yet;
Then brooding low upon the bed her latest word she spake:650
"O raiment dear to me while Gods and fate allowed, now take
This soul of mine and let me loose from all my woes at last!
I, I have lived, and down the way fate showed to me have passed;
And now a mighty shade of me shall go beneath the earth!
A glorious city have I raised, and brought my walls to birth,
Avenged my husband, made my foe, my brother, pay the pain:
Happy, ah, happy overmuch were all my life-days' gain,
If never those Dardanian keels had drawn our shores anigh."
She spake: her lips lay on the bed: "Ah, unavenged to die!
But let me die! Thus, thus 'tis good to go into the night!660
Now let the cruel Dardan eyes drink in the bale-fire's light,
And bear for sign across the sea this token of my death."
Her speech had end: but on the steel, amid the last word's breath,
They see her fallen; along the blade they see her blood foam out,
And all her hands besprent therewith: wild fly the shrieks about
The lofty halls, and Rumour runs mad through the smitten town.
The houses sound with women's wails and lamentable groan;
The mighty clamour of their grief rings through the upper skies.
'Twas e'en as if all Carthage fell mid flood of enemies,
Or mighty Tyre of ancient days,—as if the wildfire ran670
Rolling about the roof of God and dwelling-place of man.
Half dead her sister heard, and rushed distraught and trembling there,
With nail and fist befouling all her face and bosom fair:
She thrust amidst them, and by name called on the dying Queen:
"O was it this my sister, then! guile in thy word hath been!
And this was what the bale, the fire, the altars wrought for me!
Where shall I turn so left alone? Ah, scorned was I to be
For death-fellow! thou shouldst have called me too thy way to wend.
One sword-pang should have been for both, one hour to make an end.
Built I with hands, on Father-Gods with crying did I cry680
To be away, a cruel heart, from thee laid down to die?
O sister, me and thee, thy folk, the fathers of the land,
Thy city hast thou slain——O give, give water to my hand,
And let me wash the wound, and if some last breath linger there,
Let my mouth catch it!"
Saying so she reached the topmost stair,
And to her breast the dying one she fondled, groaning sore,
And with her raiment strove to staunch the black and flowing gore.
Then Dido strove her heavy lids to lift, but back again
They sank, and deep within her breast whispered the deadly bane:
Three times on elbow struggling up a little did she rise,690
And thrice fell back upon the bed, and sought with wandering eyes
The light of heaven aloft, and moaned when it was found at last.
Then on her long-drawn agony did Juno pity cast,
Her hard departing; Iris then she sent from heaven on high,
And bade her from the knitted limbs the struggling soul untie.
For since by fate she perished not, nor waited death-doom given,
But hapless died before her day by sudden fury driven,
Not yet the tress of yellow hair had Proserpine off-shred,
Nor unto Stygian Orcus yet had doomed her wandering head.
So Iris ran adown the sky on wings of saffron dew,700
And colours shifting thousandfold against the sun she drew,
And overhead she hung: "So bid, from off thee this I bear,
Hallowed to Dis, and charge thee now from out thy body fare."
She spake and sheared the tress away; then failed the life-heat spent
And forth away upon the wind the spirit of her went.