In Book IV, Dido knows that her relationship with Aeneas is fated to fail. She realizes that her love/lust for Aeneas is her downfall; however, she is unable to change the course of events. She asks herself, "What am I saying? Where am I? What madness / Takes me out of myself? Dido poor soul, / Your evil doing has come home to you."
Virgil compares Dido's uncontrolled passion to a consuming fire that can not be extinguished: "The queen, for her part, all that evening ached / With longing that her heart's blood fed, a wound / Or inward fire eating her away." Later, when she discovers that Aeneas plans to leave Carthage, she becomes "all aflame / With rage." Fittingly, Dido dies on a pyre used for burning corpses in funeral rites by committing suicide with Aeneas's sword. Her suicide, an act of courage, proves she is a tragic, as well as a romantic heroine.
