For I have lived and run the course that Fortune set;
And now my stately soul to Hades shall descend.
A noble city have I built; my husband’s death
Have I avenged, and on my brother’s head my wrath
Inflicted. Happy, ah too happy, had the keels
Of Troy ne’er touched my shores!—And shall I perish thus?—
But let me perish. Thus, oh thus, ‘t is sweet to seek
The land of shadows.—May the heartless Trojan see,
As on he fares across the deep, my blazing pyre,
And bear with him the gloomy omens of my death.