Majestic to the grave.
A glorious city I have built,
Have seen my walls ascend,
Chastised for blood of husband spilt
A brother, yet no friend.
Blest lot! yet lacked one blessing more,
That Troy had never touched my shore.’
Then, as she kissed the darling bed,
‘To die! and unrevenged!’ she said,
‘Yet let me die: thus, thus I go
Rejoicing to the shades below.
Let the false Dardan feel the blaze
That burns me pouring on his gaze,
And bear along, to cheer his way,
The funeral presage of to-day.’
Behold her writhing as in pain,
Her hands with slaughter sprinkled o’er,
And the fell weapon spouting gore.
Loud clamours thrill the lofty halls:
Fame shakes the town, confounds, appals:
Each house resounds with women’s cries,
And funeral-wails assault the skies:
E’en as one day should war o’erthrow
Proud Carthage or her parent Tyre,
And fire-flood stream with furious glow
O’er roof, and battlement, and spire.
Her sister hears, and, wild with fears,
All breathless through the throng she flies:
Rends cheek of rose, beats breast of snows,
And loud on dying Dido cries:
‘Ah, sister! was it this you meant,
And am I trapped by guile?
Was this the innocent intent
Of altar-fire and pile?
What first arraign when all is drear?
And might not Anna tarry near
Her Dido’s dying bed?
You should have bid me share your doom:
One pang had borne us to the tomb,
One hour the twain had sped.
Nay, with these hands the pile I reared,
And called the gods our father feared,
That you might lay you down to die,
And I be absent, heartless I!
See here, yourself and me foredone,
Town, people, princes, all in one!
Bring water from yon running wave:
These bleeding wounds I yet can lave,
And fondly catch whate’er of breath
Is flickering on the lips of death.’
She spoke, and speaking mounts the stair,
Clasps to her breast the expiring fair,
Enfolds her in her robe, and dries
The purple that her bosom dyes.
The dull eyes ope, as drowsed by sleep,
Then close: the death-wound gurgles deep.
Thrice on her arm she raised her head,
Thrice sank exhausted on the bed,
Stared with blank gaze aloft, around
For light, and groaned as light she found.
Then Juno, pitying her long pain,
And all that agony of death,
Sent Iris down to part in twain
The clinging limbs and struggling breath.
For since she perished not by fate,
Nor fell by alien stroke deserved,
But rushed on death before her date,
By sudden spasm of frenzy nerved,
Not yet Proserpina had shred
The ringlet from her auburn head,
Whose severance man from earth withdraws,
And yields him up to Pluto’s laws.
So down from Heaven fair Iris flies
On saffron wings impearled with dews,
That flash against the sunlit skies
A thousand variegated hues;
Then stands at Dido’s head, and cries:
‘This lock to Dis I bear away
And free you from your load of clay:’
So shears the lock: the vital heats
Disperse, and breath in air retreats.
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