sentences:  Word painting is applied on the text "darkness" and "death" which is presented with chromaticism, symbolic of death.Dido's Lament opens with a descending chromatic fourth line, the ground bass,
  
  \time 3/2
  \clef bass
  \key g \minor
  
  which is repeated eleven times throughout the aria, thus structuring the piece in the form of a ciaccona.The meter is in the key of G minor.