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The Aeneid
The image of Dido is one of the most tragic representations in Roman literature. Virgil reminds us all - even in the most severe situations of our lives, we all stay human beings. It requires sharing the experiences and knowledge. And this is the humanitas of the poet. The tragic love of Dido begins with the libido. When the persecuted by the will of the gods, the Trojans surpassed Italy, and arrived at the coast of Libya to Carthage, which was founded and ruled by Dido, at a Banquet hosted in honor of the guests, while listening to Aeneas, the Queen "absorbed love." However, the erotic element has a sad end. Virgil notices that the unhappy Phoenician looks and cannot stop savoring the look of Aeneas, although she is doomed to the future suffering.
Although Virgil sympathizes Dido, from that moment the cruel fate takes over Dido. Love just like a disease affects the whole body of Dido. Virgil subtly conveys the suffering of the Dido, resorting to an impressive comparison. Dido is described as “a deer, wounded by the lethal arrow”. The struggles of Dido can be compared to the sufferings of Agamemnon, who should bring on an altar of sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, in the prologue of Euripides ' tragedy “Iphigenia at Aulis”. But Dido’s tragedy is growing. When the Queen saw the Trojan ships in the sea, her desire of revenge fires within her. Through violent curses against Aeneas and his descendants, she predicts the implacable enmity of the peoples and the eventual birth of the avenger (Hannibal).
The Death of Dido is her only liberation from suffering. With crazy thoughts from her terrible plan, with the bloody stains on her cheeks, pale from the thought of her death, she climbs into the fire, telling herself that death does not bring suffering. Rising to the fires, Dido kills herself with the sword Aeneas presented her once, cursing it. While dying, Dido got up three times up from the bed, trying one last time to see the light of the sun. Juno took pity on the agony of the Queen and sent to her bed the messenger of the goddess Irida, who, while flashing with different colors, has stood near the head of a dying woman. The death of Dido was not assigned to her, and the golden hair was not cut from her crown. Irida cut the hair, freeing the soul from the body, and Dido flew into the air. At last, Dido will always be remembered as a ‘poor Dido with consuming love is fir’d.’ (Virgil. and Fitzgerald 160)
Virgil equates the passion of the Queen to the disease, to the threatening disaster, to the catastrophe. Her love for Aeneas can be described in words of "anger", "heat", "ruthless", "merciless" of love; she is "unhappy" and burns from "horrible doom", "she was going mad with the bloody eyes." Throughout the fourth book of the "Aeneid", we can detect the spirit of a high tragedy. While sympathizing Dido, Virgil condemns her love for Aeneas as a pernicious, destructive force.
The poet draws a parallel between the natural wildness in the animal world and human passions: greed, selfishness, considering these emotions as parts of insatiable greed. This also applies to the crazy intensity of the passion. However, the poet does not deny a purified and perfect love in the platonic sense. He states that it starts with the love of the native land, to beauty, and prevails everywhere. This love of nature that permeates the art world of the poet, the love of parents and children, mutual friendly love between soul mates in the end – love to all things: the trees, the heavenly bodies, cosmic life.
Works Cited
Virgil., and Robert Fitzgerald. The Aeneid. New York: Random House, 1983. Print.
