Many characters show up in Virgil’s Aeneid, but none provide as much insight into the character of Aeneas as Dido, the Phrygian queen of Carthage. Pious Aeneas was the proto-Roman that demonstrated the classical definition of piety through his hardships and struggles to found Rome. Aeneas’s relationship with Dido is not the least of the many trials he faces, but how can the reader best understand her? This paper argues that Dido’s relationship with Aeneas can only be understood fully using the comparison to Diana made by the poet himself.
Seeing Aeneas safe at Carthage for the moment, Venus devises a scheme to preemptively protect Aeneas from Juno’s plotting after his plight at sea. His mother reasons that if the Phrygian queen falls in …show more content…
“In those days Rumor took an evil joy / At filling countrysides with whispers, / Gossip of what was done, and never done” (IV.259-261). In the end, Jove himself commands Aeneas to abandon Dido and pursue what he knows to be his true destiny. Obedient to high Jove, pious Aeneas orders his crews to prepare the boats in secret; nevertheless, Dido senses that something is wrong and confronts him. Her previous goodwill to him spoils, and her ardent love turns into burning hatred. When Aeneas and his crews leave the city by night, Dido commits …show more content…
In the first place, while Diana is a virgin goddess, Dido is a widow. The difference highlights the similarity; both live chastely, even if for distinct reasons. Diana is also the goddess of the hunt and so is often represented with a bow and “at her back a quiver” (IV.192). A double irony plays in this comparison, for it is “Diana” who gets shot by Cupid. It is also during a hunt that she marries Aeneas and thus loses her aforementioned similarity to Diana. Finally, Diana is the twin sister of Apollo, the god of the sun, which naturally makes Diana goddess of the moon; “and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her
Seeing Aeneas safe at Carthage for the moment, Venus devises a scheme to preemptively protect Aeneas from Juno’s plotting after his plight at sea. His mother reasons that if the Phrygian queen falls in …show more content…
“In those days Rumor took an evil joy / At filling countrysides with whispers, / Gossip of what was done, and never done” (IV.259-261). In the end, Jove himself commands Aeneas to abandon Dido and pursue what he knows to be his true destiny. Obedient to high Jove, pious Aeneas orders his crews to prepare the boats in secret; nevertheless, Dido senses that something is wrong and confronts him. Her previous goodwill to him spoils, and her ardent love turns into burning hatred. When Aeneas and his crews leave the city by night, Dido commits …show more content…
In the first place, while Diana is a virgin goddess, Dido is a widow. The difference highlights the similarity; both live chastely, even if for distinct reasons. Diana is also the goddess of the hunt and so is often represented with a bow and “at her back a quiver” (IV.192). A double irony plays in this comparison, for it is “Diana” who gets shot by Cupid. It is also during a hunt that she marries Aeneas and thus loses her aforementioned similarity to Diana. Finally, Diana is the twin sister of Apollo, the god of the sun, which naturally makes Diana goddess of the moon; “and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her