Good Dido, stint thy tears,
  and sorrows all resign;
Lo, me, that born was to augment
  misfortune's luckless line.
Or using still the same,			5
  good Dido do thy best
In helping to bewail the hap
  that furthereth mine unrest.
For though thy Troyan mate,
  that Lord Aeneas hight,			10
Requiting ill thy steadfast love,
  from Carthage took his flight
And foully broke his oath
  and promise made before,
Whose falsehood finished thy delight		15
  before thy hairs were hoar;
Yet greater cause of grief
  compels me to complain,
For Fortune fell converted hath
  My health to heaps of pain.			20
And that she swears my death,
  too plain it is (alas),
Whose end let malice still attempt,
  to bring the same to pass.
O Dido thou hadst lived,			25
  a happy Woman still,
If fickle fancy had not thralled
  thy wits to reckless will.
For as the man by whom
  thy deadly dolors bred,			30
Without regard of plighted troth			
  from Carthage City fled,
So might thy care in time
  be banished out of thought;
His absence might well salve the sore		35
  that erst his presence wrought.
For fire no longer burns
  than faggots feed the flame:
The want of things that breed annoy
  may soon redress the same.			40
But I unhappy most,
  and gripped with endless griefs,
Despair (alas) amid my hope,
  and hope without relief.
And as the swelting heat			45
  consumes the wax away,				
So do the heaps of deadly harms
  still threaten my decay.
O death, delay not long
  thy duty to declare.				50
Ye Sisters three, dispatch my days			
  and finish all my care.