She rushes forth from the chamber in her frenzy. The sailors’ chorus is repeated fainter and fainter. In a moment her death cry is heard. The servants rush in, and finding their mistress gone, hasten in the direction of her cry. Their lamentation is heard. They return bearing the body of the queen upon a couch. She has fainted, and upon her bosom the wound shows red and terrible. Anna enters, beside herself with grief.
Anna, kneeling beside the couch, addresses Dido, who revives enough to smile upon her sister (676-685):
Was it for this, O sister, thou didst seek to hide
Thy heart from me? Was this the meaning of the pyre,
And this the altar fires? What plaint in my despair
Shall I offer first? And didst thou spurn me, in thy death?
Thou shouldst instead have bidden me to share thy fate;
The selfsame moment should have reft the lives of both.
And with these impious hands did I thine altar rear,
And with this voice unto our country’s gods appeal,