With one strong blow she smote herself to the heart, and fell dead upon the
pile she had erected.
[Illustration]
"Then swiftly to the fatal place she passed,
And mounts the funeral pile with furious haste;
Unsheathes the sword the Trojan left behind,
Not for so dire an enterprize designed;
But when she viewed the garb so loosely spread,
Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed,
She saw and with a sigh the robes embraced,
Then on the couch her trembling body cast,
Repressed the ready tears and spoke her last;
'Dear pledges of my love, while heaven so pleased,
Receive a soul of mortal anguish eased.
My fatal course is finished, and I go,
A glorious name among the ghosts below,'
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Then kissed the couch 'and must I die,' she said,
'And unrevenged, 'tis doubly to be dead;
Yet even this death with pleasure I receive,
On any terms 'tis better than to live;
These flames from far, may the false Trojan view,
These boding omens, his false flight pursue!'
She said and struck; deep entered in her side,
The piercing steel, with reeking purple dyed,
Clogged in the wound, the cruel weapon stands;
The spouting blood came streaming on her hands;
Her sad attendants saw the deadly stroke
And with loud cries, the sounding palace shook.
Thrice Dido tried to raise her drooping head,
And, panting, thrice fell grovelling on the bed.
Thrice ope'd her heavy eyes, and saw the light,
But having found it, sickened at the sight,
And closed her lids at last in endless night."