Bring water! bathe the wound; while I in death Lay close my lips to hers, and catch the flying breath." This said, she mounts the pile with eager haste, And in her arms the gasping queen embraced; Her temples chafed; and her own garments tore, To staunch the streaming blood, and cleanse the gore. Thrice Dido tried to raise her drooping head, And, fainting, thrice fell grovelling on the bed; Thrice oped her heavy eyes, and saw the light, } But, having found it, sickened at the sight, } And closed her lids at last in endless night. } Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain A death so lingering, and so full of pain, Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife Of labouring nature, and dissolve her life. For, since she died, not doomed by heaven's decree, Or her own crime, but human casualty, And rage of love, that plunged her in despair, The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair, Which Proserpine and they can only know; Nor made her sacred to the shades below.-- Downward the various Goddess took her flight, And drew a thousand colours from the light; Then stood above the dying lover's head, And said, "I thus devote thee to the dead. This offering to the infernal gods I bear." } Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair: } The struggling soul was loosed, and life dissolved in air. } FOOTNOTES: [102] This is very obscurely worded, and _lest_ seems to be used unauthorisedly in the sense of _whether_. The doubt, says the goddess, is, whether Jove will prohibit or sanction the proposed alliance. The old copies placed a period after _destiny_, and a point of interrogation after _join_. EDIT. NOTE ON ÆNEÏS, BOOK IV. ----_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."_--P. 351. This is certainly the sense of Virgil, on which I have paraphrased, to make it plain. His words are these: ----_Moriemur inultæ? Sed moriamur, ait; sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras._