time and lie unburied amid the sand! This is my prayer; this last utterance I pour out with my blood. Then do ye, O Tyrians, pursue with hate his whole stock and the race to come, and to my dust offer this tribute! Let no love nor league be between the nations. Arise from my ashes, unknown avenger! to chase with fire and sword the Dardan settlers, to-day, hereafter, whenever strength be given! May shore with shore clash, I pray, waters with waters, arms with arms; may they have war, they and their children's children!" 1

630 So she spoke, and on all sides turned her mind, seeking how with all speed to cut short the hateful life. Then briefly she spoke to Barce, nurse of Sychaeus, for the pyre's black ashes held her own in the olden land:

634"Dear nurse, fetch me Anna my sister hither. Bid her hasten to sprinkle her body with river-water, and bring with her the victims and offerings ordained for atonement. So let her come, and do thou, too, veil thy brows with a pure chaplet. I am minded to fulfil the rites of Stygian Jove that I have duly ordered and begun, to put an end to my woes, and give over to the flames the pyre of that Dardan wretch."

641 So she spoke; the nurse hastened her steps with an old dame's zeal. But Dido, trembling and frenzied with her awful purpose, rolling her bloodshot eyes, her quivering cheeks flecked with burning spots, and pale at the coming of death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, mounts in madness the high pyre

1 The curse involves a prophecy of the later fortunes of Aeneas, as told in the second half of the Aeneid, and of the Roman people, who in the course of time engaged in the famous Punic wars. The "unknown avenger" is Hannibal.

650

FMP

655

Dardanium, non hos quaesitum munus in usus. hic, postquam Iliacas vestis notumque cubile conspexit, paulum lacrimis et mente morata incubuitque toro dixitque novissima verba : "dulces exuviae, dum fata deusque sinebat, accipite hanc animam meque his exsolvite curis. vixi et, quem dederat cursum Fortuna, peregi, et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago. urbem praeclaram statui, mea moenia vidi, ulta virum poenas inimico a fratre recepi, felix, heu! nimium felix, si litora tantum numquam Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae! dixit et os impressa toro, "moriemur inultae, sed moriamur," ait. "sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras. hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto Dardanus et secum nostrae ferat omina mortis." Dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro conlapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore spumantem sparsasque manus. it clamor ad alta 665 atria; concussam bacchatur Fama per urbem. lamentis gemituque et femineo ululatu

661

tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus aether, non aliter, quam si immissis ruat hostibus omnis Karthago aut antiqua Tyros, flammaeque furentes 670 culmina perque hominum volvantur perque deorum. audiit exanimis, trepidoque exterrita cursu unguibus ora soror foedans et pectora pugnis per medios ruit ac morientem nomine clamat : "hoc illud, germana, fuit? me fraude petebas? 675 hoc rogus iste mihi, hoc ignes araeque parabant?

651 sinebant FP2.

662 secum nostrae M: nostrae secum other MSS.

668 clangoribus P.

669 ruit P1.

671 volvuntur P1.

and unsheathes the Dardan sword, a gift besought for no such end! Then, as she saw the Trojan garb and the familiar bed, pausing awhile in tearful thought, she threw herself on the couch and spoke her latest words:

651 “O relics once dear, while God and Fate allowed! take my spirit, and release me from my woes! I have lived, I have finished the course that Fortune gave; and now in majesty my shade shall pass beneath the earth. A noble city I have built; my own walls I have seen; avenging my husband, I have exacted punishment from my brother and foe-happy, ah! too happy, had but the Dardan keels never touched our shores!" She spoke, and burying her face in the couch, "I shall die unavenged," she cries, "but let me die! Thus, thus I go gladly into the dark! Let the cruel Dardan's eyes drink in this fire from the deep, and carry with him the omen of my death!"

663 She ceased; and even as she spoke her handmaids see her fallen on the sword, the blade reeking with blood and her hands bespattered. A scream rises to the lofty roof; Rumour riots through the startled city. The palace rings with lamentation, with sobbing and women's shrieks, and heaven echoes with loud wails-even as though all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling before the inrushing foe, and fierce flames were rolling on over the roofs of men, over the roofs of gods. Swooning, her sister heard, and in dismay rushed through the throng, tearing her face with her nails, and beating her breast with her fists, as she called on the dying woman by name. "Was this thy purpose, sister? Didst thou aim thy fraud at me? Was this for me the meaning of thy pyre, this of thy altar and fires?

comitemne sororem

quid primum deserta querar?

680

685

sprevisti moriens ? eadem me ad fata vocasses; idem ambas ferro dolor atque eadem hora tulisset. his etiam struxi manibus patriosque vocavi voce deos, sic te ut posita, crudelis, abessem? exstinxti te meque, soror, populumque patresque Sidonios urbemque tuam. date volnera lymphis abluam et, extremus si quis super halitus errat, ore legam." sic fata gradus evaserat altos, semianimemque sinu germanam amplexa fovebat cum gemitu atque atros siccabat veste cruores. illa gravis oculos conata attollere rursus deficit; infixum stridit sub pectore volnus. ter sese attollens cubitoque adnixa levavit; ter revoluta toro est oculisque errantibus alto quaesivit caelo lucem ingemuitque reperta.

MP

690

Tum Iuno omnipotens, longum miserata dolorem difficilisque obitus, Irim demisit Olympo,

696

quae luctantem animam nexosque resolveret artus. nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat, sed misera ante diem subitoque accensa furore, nondum illi flavum Proserpina vertice crinem abstulerat Stygioque caput damnaverat Orco. ergo Iris croceis per caelum roscida pinnis,

690 attollit P1: attollet P2.

692 repertam M1.

698 necdum P.

700

.

Forlorn, what first shall I lament? In thy death didst thou scorn thy sister's company? Thou shouldst have called me to share thy doom; the same swordpang, the same hour had taken us both! Did these hands indeed build the pyre, and did my voice call on our father's gods, in order that, when thou wert lying thus, I, the cruel one, should be far away? Thou hast destroyed thyself and me, O sister, the Sidonian senate and people, and thy city!

Let

me bathe her wounds with water, and catch with my lips whatever latest breath flutters over hers!" Thus speaking, she had climbed the high steps, and, throwing her arms round her dying sister, sobbed and clasped her to her bosom, stanching with her robe the dark streams of blood. She, essaying to lift her heavy eyes, swoons again, and the deep-set wound gurgles in her breast. Thrice rising, she struggled to lift herself upon her elbow; thrice she rolled back on the couch, and with wandering eyes sought the light in high heaven, and, as she found it, moaned.

693 Then almighty Juno, pitying her long pain and hard departure, sent Iris down from Olympus to release her struggling soul from the imprisoning limbs. For since neither in the course of fate did she perish, nor by a death she had earned,1 but hapless before her day, and fired by sudden madness, not yet had Proserpine taken from her head the golden lock and consigned her to Stygian Orcus.2 So Iris, all dewy on saffron wings, flits down through the sky, 1 i.e. a violent death, such as one might incur in battle; not a self-inflicted death. cf. Aen. II, 434.

2 Before sacrifice a few hairs were plucked from the forehead of the victim, and as the dying were regarded as offerings to the nether gods, a similar custom was observed in their

case.