laquearia

Laquearia is the Latin equivalent of the "coffered ceiling" of the following line. Eliot's Notes refer us to Virgil's Aeneid:  
                            dependent lychni laquearibus aureis
                  incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt
("lighted lamps hang from the golden coffered ceiling, and torches overwhelm the night with flame").

 The scene is the newly-founded city of Carthage in North Africa. The widowed queen, Dido, gives shelter to Aeneas and his men, who are refugees after the destruction of their city, Troy. Dido and Aeneas become lovers, but Aeneas is driven by a sense of duty to leave to found his own city in Italy. Distraught, Dido commits suicide. As a consequence, Carthage and Rome will always be enemies.

The Aeneid is an epic poem, composed by Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70-19 BCE) as a Roman foundation story, and modelled on the Odyssey and Iliad of Homer.

The story of Dido and Aeneas may have been suggested by the recent deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. Both stories feature the doomed relationship of a warrior and a foreign queen: ironically, A Game of Chess will conclude with the downtrodden Lil awaiting the return of her warrior husband Albert.

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