"Then Juno in all her power, filled with pity
for Dido's agonizing death, her labor long and hard,
sped Iris down from Olympus to release her spirit
wrestling now in a deathlock with her limbs.
Since she was dying a death not fated or deserved,
no, tormented, before her day, in a blaze of passion--
Proserpina had yet to pluck a golden lock from her head
and commit her life to the Styx and the dark world below.
So Iris, glistening dew, comes skimming down from the sky
on gilded wings, trailing showers of iridescence shimmering
into the sun, and hovering over Dido's head declares:
"So commanded, I take this lock as a sacred gift
to the God of Death, and I release you from your body."
With that, she cut the lock with her hand and all at once
the warmth slipped away, the life dissolved in the winds."
The end of Book four, has a poetic device that is interesting, when deciphered. "Labor long," is a use of alliteration, and could mean a number of possibilities. It could mean that Dido, suffered trying to stay alive, or that she suffered in trying to kill herself. One is never really willing to purposefully kill oneself, so, her labor in deciding to go through with it, must have been long, difficult, and ominous.
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