As soon as day comes, she begins with deliberate care to make all ready for her death. Under her directions, a great pyre is built within the courtyard, on which the queen announces that she intends to offer a solemn sacrifice. Every relic of Æneas is gathered and laid upon it; his armour, his cloak and his sword; while all about it Dido herself hangs garlands and funeral chaplets. Her sister and her women wonder, but have no hint of her intention. When night falls and all the palace is sunk in sleep, Dido stands again before the altar and consecrates herself for the sacrifice. But she cannot yet take the fatal step. She longs for one more look from her watch-tower, down upon the ships that are so soon to carry her lover away. So she strains her eyes through the darkness, only to find, with the first gleam of light, that the harbour is bare. The fleet has sailed: Æneas, warned by a vision from Jove, has fled in the night. A bitter cry escapes her: “_Oh rare Fidelity and honour! And they say, He takes his household gods about with him, And on his shoulders bore his aged sire!_“[34] She calls upon the great powers of Earth and Sky and the dreadful Underworld to avenge her wrongs; and looking forward to the years that are to come, she invokes upon Æneas and his descendants the curse that followed the Roman race through many generations: “_So then do you, My Tyrians, harry with envenomed hate His race and kin through ages yet to come: Be this your tribute to my timeless death!... Let coast conflict with coast, and sea with sea. Embattled host with host, and endless war Be waged, ‘twixt their and your posterity!_“[34] Then, rushing to the courtyard, she climbs the great pyre, and grasps Æneas’ sword. For one moment, ere she falls upon it, the frenzy lifts from her brain and shows her all the course of her troubled life. “_Lo! I have lived my life, have run the course Assigned to me by fate; now ‘neath the earth I go, the queenly shade of what I was. I have built a goodly city; I have seen Its walls complete; I have avenged my spouse, And struck my cruel brother blow for blow!..._ “_This heartless Trojan, let him from the waves Drink in with startled eyes the funeral fires, And bear with him the presage of my death!_”[34] So the founder of Carthage died; and the father of great Rome, looking back with remorseful eyes from his fleeing ship, saw the flames of her pyre reddening the dawn. ----- Footnote 34: From Sir Theodore Martin’s translation of the _Æneid_ (Wm. Blackwood & Sons). _Index_ Absyrtus, 229, 230 Achilles, 24, 30, 33, 34, 40, 41, 139, 140, 257, 266, 274 Admetus, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226