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Yet danger in the strife bad been:—
Who prates of danger here?
A death-devoted, desperate queen,
What foe had I to fear?
No, I had sown the flame broadcast,
Had fired the fleet from keel to mast,
Slain son and sire, stamped out the race,
And thrown at length with stedfast face
Myself upon the bier.
Eye of the world, majestic Sun,
Who see'st whate'er on earth is done,
Thou, Juno, too, interpreter
And witness of the heart's fond stir,
And Hecate, tremendous power,
In cross-ways howled at midnight hour,
Avenging fiends, and gods of death
Who breathe in dying Dido's breath,
Stoop your great powers to ills that plead
To heaven, and my petition heed.
If needs must be that wretch abhorred
Attain the port and float to land;
If such the fate of heaven's high lord,
And so the moveless pillars stand;
Scourged by a savage enemy,
An exile from his son's embrace,
So let him sue for aid, and see
His people slain before his face;
Nor, when to humbling peace at length
He stoops, be his or life or land,
But let him fall in manhood's strength
And welter tombless on the sand.
Such malison to heaven I pour,
A last libation with my gore.
And, Tyrians, you through time to come
His seed with deathless hatred chase:
Be that your gift to Dido's tomb:
No love, no league 'twixt race and race.