October 19: Widow Dido

Dido’s Lament, that melody immortal,

Premiered within a girls’ school’s cloistered walls,

And functions as a chronomobile portal-

Contemporary listeners might forestall

The tragedy by asking what went wrong,

Exactly how the queen of Carthage died-

Did Dido droop to death as in the song,

Or was it star-crossed lover’s suicide?

I like to think the pyre on which she burned

To tell Aeneas “Hi!” was just a ruse,

That through enforced experience was earned,

So later she could do what she would choose.

And in m...