Who Is Dido In The Aeneid

Dido first falls in love with Aeneas after being infected by Cupid at Venus’ command. When Cupid first arrives in Carthage, disguised as Ascanius, Dido watches him from afar as he interacts with deceived Aeneas. As she watches, she becomes entranced with the sight and “the more she looks the more the fire grows,” signaling that Cupid’s hold over her has grown stronger (853,71). Aeneas’ tale of woe only strengthens her adoration of him until she is “consumed by the fire buried in her heart” (3, 127). Tentative thoughts of remarrying after her husband Sychaeus’ death begin to cross her mind and she finally recognizes the “old flame” that is slowly consuming her, suddenly marrying Aeneas one night (30, 128). Yet this fire is short lived and, ultimately, Dido’s downfall. Jove grows anxious for Aeneas to continue on his journey and commands Mercury to pass along the message that Aeneas and the Trojans must leave Carthage. Aeneas pleads with Dido that he leaves not of his own volition and that he must obey the gods’ wishes, but Dido is furious, alternating between pleading with him to stay and cursing him should he go. Firm in his decision, Aeneas returns to his ships while Dido is brought to her chambers. Grief stricken and “fixed on dying,” Dido begins to construct a funeral pyre in her courtyard (595, 144). As she stands before her creation, she laments her choice to trust Aeneas and the Trojans when

This curse to Aeneas and then her suicide prove just how overdramatic Dido is. Even before she goes into a great depression, Dido is exceedingly more emotional compared to Aeneas. Virgil compares Dido to an injured deer in The Aeneid “Book IV” by saying, “Unlucky Dido, burning in her madness

Initially, Dido’s regression into sin was instigated by god willing her to fall in love with Aeneas in an attempt to delay his quest. As a refugee in her new land, she was able to create a new way of life for her people, becoming one of the most successful military powers on the coast of Africa. Her passion and dedication allowed for her to succeed in her enterprises as a leader. When this passion was directed towards Aeneas contrary to her independent nature, an internal conflict of unrequited love arose and she was driven to madness. Once he left, she was unable to externalize the internal conflict, one warrior queen against one

Thus, it is Dido who is behind the founding of Carthage, "a nation hard to

In Dido’s first approach, she is very irrational and angry. Her first words to him are “You even hoped to keep me in the dark as to this outrage, did you, two-faced man, and slip away in silence?”(Aeneid 397-399) The Queen is rash and uncaring with her words. Her words mean to keep him there to argue and argue until the fight has left him and is willing to stay just to stop the fighting. As the argument drags on, she grows furious and wishes that “If divine justice counts for

Dido has infamously been labeled the tragic literary love interest to Aeneas in Virgil's The Aeneid. Her suicide was a vital plot point in Virgil's work and he emphasizes the people who influenced her decision to eventually take her own life in order to gain sympathy for this flawed yet tragic character. There are numerous people who could in fact be held responsible for Dido's death, some of the people were completely out her control and Virgil attempts to have the reader pity her unfortunate circumstances. Dido''s suicide is classic literary trope that makes us question the way others actions fully affect the lives of others. The situations that surrounded the life of Dido appeals to the readers pathos and aids in the question as to why unseen forces can affect life so drastically in these Greek tragedies.

Despite how most reader may view her, Dido is considered to be a victim of the gods, which ultimately lead her to her own death. When introduced in book 1 of Virgil’s tale Aeneid, told to Aeneas by his mother Venus (disguised as a huntress), Dido is revealed as a dignified queen, beautiful, wealthy and respected by the people of Carthage. At the same time, she is resolute in her determination not to marry again.

In the article “Dido, Aeneas, and the Concept of Pietas,” the author Kenneth McLeish argues that Dido is in the Aeneid, because Virgil, a careful writer, saw her as a necessary piece of the epic--“Everything she says or does is part of the design, and her presence in the Aeneid must deepen our understanding, not lessen it.” McLeish explains that Virgil described her as being a real person with emotions, actions, and wholeness that real people possess (McLeish 127). In Virgil’s time, any Roman would look at Dido as weak (McLeish 130). She was married to a king that died and left all the power to her. Romans would immediately move from love to duty as they searched for a new ruler to protect their land. Dido, on the other hand, vowed against that very thing, placing devotion to romance over devotion to duty and government. Because of this, pious Romans would have urged Aeneas to move away from the weak ruler in pursuit of a greater prize, Rome. In direct contrast to Dido, Aeneas is a perfect picture of the pietas that Romans aimed to exemplify in their lives as citizens. He mourns for the fallen Troy when sees the Trojan War depicted in Dido’s temple, showing his deep care for his city (McLeish 128). Dido’s stark contrast to the Roman belief system at the time was specifically designed by Virgil to pull the support of the Romans to the divine mission of Rome and to encourage pious behavior among them (McLeish 131). Had Virgil depicted Dido as a role model after Aeneas left her, the purpose of the epic to encourage patriotism would have been compromised. Dido’s purpose was to rally the allegiance to Rome and a sense of Romanness. Dido’s very first encounter with Aeneas shows how she will lead to her own destruction (McLeish 129). Her first thought of Aeneas was purely smitten for his beauty, so she was already planting a seed in her own mind that she might have found the next king of Carthage even before Cupid’s influence took hold of her mind. McLeish’s view shows that Virgil did not write Dido to be glorified or even sympathized with, but that she was written as a bad example (McLeish 132).

Aeneas’ decision to leave his love, Dido, is completely justified due to his great sense of pietas and their uncertain relationship status. As a direct offspring of Venus, one of the more powerful gods, Aeneas is a man who values the gods’ powers deeply. His sense of pietas is intense throughout the epic, especially in book four, when he has to leave Dido in order to fulfill his duty to the gods. Dido’s furor, or passion, is a great contrast to Aeneas’ sense of duty.

Dido is now consumed by her own "inward fire" and it causes her to pledge to haunt Aeneas with "black fire," a sign of pure evil. She vows that Aeneas "will pay for this," (IV.536). Noting the transformation from the use of "inward fire" as a medium for "desire" to a more hysterical, crazed type of passion is essential in understanding the ultimate failure of romantic and lustful love in the Aeneid.

Book IV of “The Aeneid” begins with Dido talking to her sister, Anna, about how much she likes Aeneas, a Trojan hero who has landed on Carthage from his harsh journey in Troy. Dido is the queen of Carthage and she falls in love with Aeneas as he tells the story of the siege of Troy. Dido battles internally with her urge to marry him. She can see herself marrying him; however, she has made a promise to never love anyone after her late husband, Sychaeus, died. As she contemplates this thought, her sister tells her it would be a good idea to marry Aeneas because she should have love after the death of her late husband and the merging of their two armies would help their city against enemies.

Such depicts an incongruence of passion and lack of reasons, displaying a humiliation of the Queen of Carthage could be a warning once again to Her Majesty, Elizabeth I, from Marlowe; since according to Williams, “Dido becomes the victim of a spell that invests her with stereotypically "wifely" qualities: weakness, dependence, and obsession with commitment. Expressing her love for Aeneas in repeated requests that he marry her, take part in the running of the kingdom, and give her a son "that I might see Aeneas in his face" (Q, 5.1.150), it is not only Dido's loss of composure that makes her absurd” (Williams

Prior to Dido’s burning desire for Aeneas, she wasn’t completely sold on the idea of him. She was still grieving her late husband, Sychaeus. Though Dido did have some interest in Aeneas, her loyalties to Sychaeus still remained strong; she vowed to never marry again. After some coaxing from her sister Anna, Dido began to warm up to Aeneas. Aside from being drawn to his character and physique, like Anna had pointed out,

In Vergil’s version Aeneas and the other refugees’ ships crash in North Africa due to a storm Juno asks the king of the winds, Aeolus, to create. Venus, wanting her son Aeneas to be safe sends Cupid to make Queen Dido of Carthage fall in love with Aeneas. Aeneas arrives at Carthage where Dido offers them refuge, one day she and Aeneas go hunting and get caught up in a storm. Seeking shelter, they end up alone together and succumb to their passions, causing Dido to break her vow of chastity. A vow she made when her late husband, Sychaeus, was murdered by her brother causing her to flee her home kingdom and found Carthage. The news of the affair spreads and is heard by a neighboring king who the Queen had rejected due to her vow. In his anger the king asks for Jupiter’s help who sends Mercury to tell Aeneas that he needs to continue his journey to Italy. Dido is angry with Aeneas leaving, but he tells her it is not his destiny to stay, in the end she threatens to kill herself if he leaves. As Aeneas sails away, Dido curses him with her last breath, the smoke from her funeral pyre rising into the sky where Aeneas can see it. Aeneas meets Dido one last time when he travels to the underworld, but this does not come up in Henry Purcell’s retelling.

It was seen as an uncontrollable sickness; a good Roman woman would take a pre-approved, appropriate husband - not a man she was in love with. It is for this reason we can begin to understand Virgil’s viewpoint on the situation. In her attempt to ‘help’ Aeneas, Venus inadvertently cuts all ties Dido had with her people. Venus’ weapon of choice: love. Once the graceful, level-headed queen was infected by cupid’s arrow, she became irrational and irresponsible with only Aeneas in mind, breaking the relationship she had with her subjects. Dido laments, "Because of (Aeneas) I have lost all self respect and my good name, my only hope of reaching the stars," an example of the inner conflict caused by a breakdown in relationship. Once compared to the exceptionally beautiful Diana, Virgil’s last description of Dido before her suicide is as follows; “Her eyes were reddening and rolling… and she was pale with the pallor of imminent death.” This character breakdown provides the audience with excellent evidence of how love (due to the interference from the gods) ruined Dido, and subsequently the strong relationship she had once fostered with her