Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/134

 Dido shall pass underground. I have built a splendid city. I have seen my walls completed. In vengeance for a husband, I have punished a brother that hated me—blest, ah! blest beyond human bliss, if only Dardan ships had never touched coast of ours!" She spoke—and kissing        5 the couch: "Is it to be death without revenge? But be it death," she cries—"this, this is the road by which I love to pass to the shades. Let the heartless Dardanian's eyes drink in this flame from the deep, and let him carry with him the presage of my death."        10

She spoke, and even while she was yet speaking, her attendants see her fallen on the sword, the blade spouting blood, and her hands dabbled in it. Their shrieks rise to the lofty roof; Fame runs wild through the convulsed city. With wailing and groaning, and screams of women, the        15 palace rings; the sky resounds with mighty cries and beating of breasts—even as if the foe were to burst the gates and topple down Carthage or ancient Tyre, and the infuriate flame were leaping from roof to roof among the dwellings of men and gods. 20

Her sister heard it. Breathless and frantic, with wild speed, disfiguring her cheeks with her nails, her bosom with her fists, she bursts through the press, and calls by name on the dying queen: "Was this your secret, sister? Were you plotting to cheat me? Was this what        25 your pile was preparing for me, your fires, and your altars? What should a lone heart grieve for first? Did you disdain your sister's company in death? You should have called me to share your fate—the same keen sword-pang, the same hour, should have been the end of both. And         30 did these hands build the pile, this voice call on the gods of our house, that you might lie there, while I, hard-*hearted wretch, was away? Yes, sister, you have destroyed yourself and me, the people and the elders of Sidon, and your own fair city. Let in the water to the wounds;         35 let me cleanse them, and if any remains of breath be still flickering, catch them in my mouth!" As she thus spoke, she was at the top of the lofty steps, and was em