This Place Where Love And Death Embrace Analysis

This Place Where Love and Death Embrace
By Daniel Hodges The newly-founded city of Carthage is a bustling place, brimming with innovation, and creation. It was a place of beauty, culture, and a home to a goddess. That is until a particular Trojan man washed up onto their shores. How swift then was the fall, both for the kingdom and for its Queen. Dido had once been a woman of stature, deserving of the respect given to her by the citizens of Carthage. Then, with one fell shot of his bow, Cupid ended that woman’s life, cutting it short with the power of love. It was not Cupid that drove the blade into Dido’s breast, though. Dido herself is the one to deal the fatal blow that was only given a beginning due to Cupid’s arrow. Love and death, they seem to be opposites, but too often in works of literature, they are brought together in a matrimony that causes only sorrow for those there to witness it. It does not always start out sorrowful, of course. In the case of Dido and Aeneas, the reader sees them enjoying …show more content…
One is Love on the right, an angel with wings crushed, attempting to hold back the specter of Death from entering the home that he is guarding. Around the two figures are roses that encroach up the walls, and even fall under the feet of Death. This creates an image in which Death would be seen as an antagonist to love, if not for the way that Death looks at the angel of Love. This is all just my interpretation, but I will give you my impression of Death given his actions in work. The specter of Death has his hand in the doorway just above Love’s head, neglecting to touch him or force his way into the home. He looks down at the angel-backed into the corner, his stance giving the impression that he is almost trying to reason with the frightened angel of Love. To me, the fact of Death then is not angry, or vengeful, rather, sorrowful for having to carry out his