Dido, during this speech, has gone to her husband’s shrine. There is a mighty struggle in her soul between love and duty.
Barce, wakened from her sleep and seeing her mistress pale and anguish-stricken, throws herself before her. Dido finally yields and reaches her trembling hand to quench the censer. The old nurse clings to her in terrified appeal. Dido frees herself from her. She quenches the flame and draws the curtain before the shrine. Old Barce sits sobbing before the darkened altar.
Meanwhile the light has been changing into dawn and the sea and harbor begin to be visible through the open window. Dido crosses the chamber, and after a moment’s struggle draws back the curtains from before the recess where hang the brilliant garments laid aside during her widowhood. She takes down a purple mantle, and standing before a mirror, girds it about her with a golden girdle.
The sound of a trumpet and the shouts of the sailors are heard in the distance. Anna goes to the window, and seeing Æneas and his men below on the shore, draws Dido to the window. Dido gazes for a minute and then, filled with her new passion, goes forth with her sister to meet Æneas. Curtain.
Act II. Scene 2
A fragrant nook on Mount Ida. Across the stage at the first wing a low, broad marble wall (1), forming one end of a colonnade which leads back to an arch (2), through which the distant sea is visible (3). The columns at the first wing (4) and the wall between them are over-clambered by a flowering vine, which has strewn its delicate yellow petals over the wall and the marble floor before it. Behind the wall (5) a garden of brilliant blossoms, with a path leading through it to the arch in the background. There is the pleasant sound of falling water.
Venus, seated upon the low marble wall is discovered keeping watch over Ascanius who lies asleep before her his pink body hidden in a drift of yellow petals. The deep blue himation, which has fallen in graceful folds across the wall behind her, forms a rich contrast in color to the delicate tints of the marble, of the flowers, and of her own dress of tender pink. Juno in a brilliant purple dress, approaching through the garden, comes upon her in a fury of wrath.
Juno (93-104):
Fair fame, in sooth, and booty rich thou shalt obtain,