No More Learning

Could I not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the
waves? and slain with the sword his comrades and his dear Ascanius, and
served him for the banquet at his father's table? But the chance of
battle had been dubious. If it had! whom did I fear [604-635]with my
death upon me? I should have borne firebrands into his camp and filled
his decks with flame, blotted out father and son and race together, and
flung myself atop of all. Sun, whose fires lighten all the works of the
world, and thou, Juno, mediatress and witness of these my distresses,
and Hecate, cried on by night in crossways of cities, and you, fatal
avenging sisters and gods of dying Elissa, hear me now; bend your just
deity to my woes, and listen to our prayers. If it must needs be that
the accursed one touch his haven and float up to land, if thus Jove's
decrees demand, and this is the appointed term,--yet, distressed in war
by an armed and gallant nation, driven homeless from his borders, rent
from Iulus' embrace, let him sue for succour and see death on death
untimely on his people; nor when he hath yielded him to the terms of a
harsh peace, may he have joy of his kingdom or the pleasant light; but
let him fall before his day and without burial on a waste of sand. This
I pray; this and my blood with it I pour for the last utterance. And
you, O Tyrians, hunt his seed with your hatred for all ages to come;
send this guerdon to our ashes. Let no kindness nor truce be between the
nations. Arise out of our dust, O unnamed avenger, to pursue the
Dardanian settlement with firebrand and steel. Now, then, whensoever
strength shall be given, I invoke the enmity of shore to shore, wave to
water, sword to sword; let their battles go down to their children's
children. '

So speaks she as she kept turning her mind round about, seeking how
soonest to break away from the hateful light. Thereon she speaks briefly
to Barce, nurse of Sychaeus; for a heap of dusky ashes held her own, in
her country of long ago:

'Sweet nurse, bring Anna my sister hither to me.
Bid her haste and
sprinkle river water over her body, and bring [636-667]with her the
beasts ordained for expiation: so let her come: and thou likewise veil
thy brows with a pure chaplet. I would fulfil the rites of Stygian Jove
that I have fitly ordered and begun, so to set the limit to my
distresses and give over to the flames the funeral pyre of the
Dardanian. '

So speaks she; the old woman went eagerly with quickened pace. But Dido,
fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze,
and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent
death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness
the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of Dardania, a gift
asked for no use like this. Then after her eyes fell on the Ilian
raiment and the bed she knew, dallying a little with her purpose through
her tears, she sank on the pillow and spoke the last words of all:

'Dress he wore, sweet while doom and deity allowed! receive my spirit
now, and release me from my distresses. I have lived and fulfilled
Fortune's allotted course; and now shall I go a queenly phantom under
the earth. I have built a renowned city; I have seen my ramparts rise;
by my brother's punishment I have avenged my husband of his enemy;
happy, ah me! and over happy, had but the keels of Dardania never
touched our shores! ' She spoke; and burying her face in the pillow,
'Death it will be,' she cries, 'and unavenged; but death be it. Thus,
thus is it good to pass into the dark. Let the pitiless Dardanian's gaze
drink in this fire out at sea, and my death be the omen he carries on
his way. '

She ceased; and even as she spoke her people see her sunk on the steel,
and blood reeking on the sword and spattered on her hands. A cry rises
in the high halls; Rumour riots down the quaking city. The house
resounds with lamentation and sobbing and bitter crying of women;
[668-700]heaven echoes their loud wails; even as though all Carthage or
ancient Tyre went down as the foe poured in, and the flames rolled
furious over the roofs of house and temple. Swooning at the sound, her
sister runs in a flutter of dismay, with torn face and smitten bosom,
and darts through them all, and calls the dying woman by her name.