Read Dido for Free Online Page B

to Ascanius. She sobbed into her scarf. She could tell that her eyes (
Oh, Elissa, I could drown in your eyes
– that was what he’d said to her, that night) would by now be rimmed with scarlet and bloodshot and surrounded by puffy flesh. She touched her eyelids and of course they were disgustingly swollen after so many tears but still she couldn’t stop crying.
    She made her way back through the silent streets. The sun was lower in the sky now, and in the marketplace she could hear the stallholders talking and laughing among themselves as they cleared up the mess left after a morning’s trading. A scattering ofsquashed fruit and vegetables was all that remained of the fresh produce that the farmers had brought from the terraces west of the city. Everything good had been sold early in the day, before the sun was at its highest, and now only the worst quality produce remained: flabby-looking fish, bruised fruit and fatty meat. Elissa sat down on a bench near the flower stalls, suddenly feeling sick. She’d been feeling ill on and off for a few days, and wondered how soon she’d be well again. Taking two or three deep breaths, she tried to calm herself. How different, she thought, my life would have been if I’d never come to Carthage and to Dido’s glorious palace.
    The queen had been kind to her from the very first time they’d met, and part of Elissa’s present anguish sprang from that. How beautiful she was when she spoke to me, Elissa thought, on that day four summers ago! Her hair, like burnished copper, was bound up and plaited with silver threads, but Elissa knew that it would spring into waves and ringlets the moment it was untied, set free. Dido’s skin was like ivory and her eyes like dark green glass when you held it up to the sun: a deep, rich colour but full of light.
    Someone from the palace guard had brought her into the great hall and pushed her to her knees in front of the queen.
    â€˜We found her hiding behind the stables, lady,’ he said. ‘She says she’s run away from home. Can’t be more than twelve summers old, I’d say.’
    â€˜Stand up, child. What’s your name?’
    â€˜Elissa, lady. And I’m not a child. I was twelve three moons ago.’
    The queen smiled, and Elissa remembered how she’d felt at the time: as though she’d been cold and uncomfortable and was suddenly in the warmth again, as though the sun were shining on her.
    â€˜How strange,’ she said, ‘that we are both named Elissa, even though I have chosen to call myself Dido.
Elissa
was the name I was given at birth and it reminds me of another life, another time, when I was happy and young and living with a husband who loved me.’
    Those were the queen’s first words to me, Elissa thought, and since then there’s been something between us: some connection. I didn’t say very much when she spoke to me that first day. I was too shy, too scared. But I knew the story of how she’d come to Carthage. Everyone, even in our village, high up in the mountains, knew how the city had been founded.
    Dido’s – Elissa’s – husband, Sychaeus, had been killed – murdered by her own brother. This wicked man wanted Sychaeus’ gold and treasure for himself, and was quite ready to kill his own sister to get it, but the ghost of Sychaeus appeared to Dido in a dream and warned her, telling her where the treasure was hidden. She fled by night on ships laden with gold and jewels, accompanied by her sister, Anna, and many followers. And now, even though she had created the city of Carthage, which was a wonder among the rulers of the surrounding lands, Elissa knew she yearned for Tyre, her real home. Before Aeneas arrived she was sadfor the loss of the man she loved and always aware that she had the duties of a monarch to fulfil. She had to act in every way so as to further the interests of her new city and make it as