"Dido's Suicide" (ca. 1635-38) Peter Paul Rubens

But the love affair is not destined to last. Jupiter (Zeus) sends Mercury (Hermes) to remind Aeneas of his destiny to found a new Troy in Italy. "I sail for Italy, not of my own free will," Aeneas reluctantly tells Dido, and under cover of night sails away. Dido's response is to build a funeral pyre, on which she sets clothing of Aeneas, his sword, his effigy, and a couch on which they had lain together. Virgil's Aeneid (4.648-65) gives us the story of her last moments:

She climbed the pyre and bared the Dardan sword–
A gift desired once, for no such need.
Her eyes now on the Trojan clothing there
And the familiar bed, she paused a little,
Weeping a little, mindful, then lay down
And spoke her last words:
                                    "Remnants dear to me
While god and fate allowed it, take this breath
And give me respite from these agonies.
I lived my life out to the very end
And passed the stages Fortune had appointed.
Now my tall shade goes to the under world.
I built a famous town, saw my great walls,
Avenged my husband, made my hostile brother
Pay for his crime. Happy, alas, too happy,
If only the Dardanian keels had never
Beached on our coast." And here she kissed the bed.
"I die unavenged," she said, "but let me die.
This way, this way, a blessed relief to go
Into the undergloom. Let the cold Trojan,
Far at sea, drink in this conflagration
And take with him the omen of my death!"

Amid these words her household people saw her
Crumbled on the steel blade, and the blade
Aflush with fresh blood, drenched her hand.

     Translation by Robert Fitzgerald

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