Dido Do You Love Me?
Dido Do you Love Me?
“Dido, do you love me? Are you riding, say you’ll never ever leave from beside me..” Now, I certainly don’t think that Virgil would have ever imagined that a song by Drake would be used to describe anything from his work, The Aeneid. But in this day and time I think it does uniquely sum up the thought most of us had when reading about the Tragic Queen of Carthage and her downfall for the so called “love” she had for Aeneas, found in Virgil’s The Aeneid. The more I thought about this so called “love “ the more I began to ponder if Dido truly loved Aeneas or not.
Now that is not to say that I doubt even the existence of feelings. There were definitely feelings and emotions at first glance of Aeneas as seen in, “She marveled first at the sight of him.” (1.68) If nothing else she thought Aeneas was quite the stud, if you know what I’m saying. Honestly I can’t disagree with her, who could? If I had a guy like Aeneas: handsome, strong, warrior kind of guy just walk up to me out of nowhere I’d probably marvel at him too, if I’m being completely honest. The line would be drawn at thinking he was handsome though. Anything further would take time and building a relationship. But we see Queen Dido, have quite the push in one direction by Cupid, when he disguises himself as little Ascanius and works at Dido’s heart little by little to push her over the edge.
We then see the outcome of this in “too long she has suffered the pain of love/ consumed by the fire buried in her heart.” (4.127) Poor Queen Dido, tosses and turns struggling with the wildness of such emotions. Even talking to her sister, Anna, does not aid her very well as she in turn goes to the altar to honor many of the gods. Later in this passage though, it is said “what good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love.” (4.128) Queen Dido being the person “mad with love” that is being referenced to, by Virgil. Her “love” for Aeneas is also referred to as a “silent wound” (4.129) which does not paint a pretty picture of true love, does it? While love is not all “butterflies, rainbows, and happiness”, I’m fairly sure that it isn’t everything we’ve seen it said to be in their relationship, so far either. These things don’t sound like love at all, if anything they sound like infatuation gone wrong, really. One could even call it an obsession.
Several times we see the gods work to manipulate Dido and/or Aenea, but in this particular instance it is Juno, and she decides to marry Dido and Aeneas, during a storm. In a cave. Because who doesn’t love a good ‘hole in the wall’ location? When reading over this piece in the story I found it interesting that neither character seemed to be certain on whether they were married or not, which doesn’t speak of a very involved relationship. Nevertheless Dido seems much more intent on calling their relationship a marriage yet they show no signs of having true affections for each other during their time of supposedly being married. The only time referenced was when it was said they, “warm the winter with obscene desire/ abject thralls of lust.” (4.134) This does not speak of love to me, but more of their relationship being purely lust filled.
Furthermore I found Dido to be understandably very upset with Aeneas when she discovers he is leaving, but then her pleas for him to stay, appear to be centered around this main concept of selfishness, in my opinion. In her pleas for him to stay she lists off all her bordering enemies that she needed him to protect her from and then she cries that he could at least have left her a child. Again, this doesn’t seem very love filled. Her main focus was not on missing Aeneas or worrying for him, but the fact that she was going to be left without the advantages she had hope for with him by her side.
Lastly, after Dido ends her own life and is in The Fields of Mourning, she sees Aeneas one last time. Aeneas seemingly overwrought with emotion upon seeing her, but Dido could seem to care less about seeing him. “Her features no more moved by his words than stony flint.” (6.198) That’s quite the imagery there isn’t it? That she was so unphased, that she was like a rock, which is about as still and unmoving as you can get. Right after that sentence it speaks of her being with Sychaeus again and saying that he “meets her love with love” and “answers all her anguish” (6.198) This speaks of a real relationship, of real love to me so much more than her affections for Aeneas ever did. Food for thought: maybe Dido could never truly love another because Sychaeus would always come first in her heart, just like the City of Troy comes first for Aeneas. This, to me, shows what Dido’s true affections looked like when they weren’t tainted by any hurt or Cupid’s poison.
All in all, given the evidence shown above, I found it to be true that while Dido may have had lust filled feelings for Aeneas, I do not believe that she ever truly and purely loved him with all her heart.
- Erin Olivia Vansandt
“Dido, do you love me? Are you riding, say you’ll never ever leave from beside me..” Now, I certainly don’t think that Virgil would have ever imagined that a song by Drake would be used to describe anything from his work, The Aeneid. But in this day and time I think it does uniquely sum up the thought most of us had when reading about the Tragic Queen of Carthage and her downfall for the so called “love” she had for Aeneas, found in Virgil’s The Aeneid. The more I thought about this so called “love “ the more I began to ponder if Dido truly loved Aeneas or not.
Now that is not to say that I doubt even the existence of feelings. There were definitely feelings and emotions at first glance of Aeneas as seen in, “She marveled first at the sight of him.” (1.68) If nothing else she thought Aeneas was quite the stud, if you know what I’m saying. Honestly I can’t disagree with her, who could? If I had a guy like Aeneas: handsome, strong, warrior kind of guy just walk up to me out of nowhere I’d probably marvel at him too, if I’m being completely honest. The line would be drawn at thinking he was handsome though. Anything further would take time and building a relationship. But we see Queen Dido, have quite the push in one direction by Cupid, when he disguises himself as little Ascanius and works at Dido’s heart little by little to push her over the edge.
We then see the outcome of this in “too long she has suffered the pain of love/ consumed by the fire buried in her heart.” (4.127) Poor Queen Dido, tosses and turns struggling with the wildness of such emotions. Even talking to her sister, Anna, does not aid her very well as she in turn goes to the altar to honor many of the gods. Later in this passage though, it is said “what good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love.” (4.128) Queen Dido being the person “mad with love” that is being referenced to, by Virgil. Her “love” for Aeneas is also referred to as a “silent wound” (4.129) which does not paint a pretty picture of true love, does it? While love is not all “butterflies, rainbows, and happiness”, I’m fairly sure that it isn’t everything we’ve seen it said to be in their relationship, so far either. These things don’t sound like love at all, if anything they sound like infatuation gone wrong, really. One could even call it an obsession.
Several times we see the gods work to manipulate Dido and/or Aenea, but in this particular instance it is Juno, and she decides to marry Dido and Aeneas, during a storm. In a cave. Because who doesn’t love a good ‘hole in the wall’ location? When reading over this piece in the story I found it interesting that neither character seemed to be certain on whether they were married or not, which doesn’t speak of a very involved relationship. Nevertheless Dido seems much more intent on calling their relationship a marriage yet they show no signs of having true affections for each other during their time of supposedly being married. The only time referenced was when it was said they, “warm the winter with obscene desire/ abject thralls of lust.” (4.134) This does not speak of love to me, but more of their relationship being purely lust filled.
Furthermore I found Dido to be understandably very upset with Aeneas when she discovers he is leaving, but then her pleas for him to stay, appear to be centered around this main concept of selfishness, in my opinion. In her pleas for him to stay she lists off all her bordering enemies that she needed him to protect her from and then she cries that he could at least have left her a child. Again, this doesn’t seem very love filled. Her main focus was not on missing Aeneas or worrying for him, but the fact that she was going to be left without the advantages she had hope for with him by her side.
Lastly, after Dido ends her own life and is in The Fields of Mourning, she sees Aeneas one last time. Aeneas seemingly overwrought with emotion upon seeing her, but Dido could seem to care less about seeing him. “Her features no more moved by his words than stony flint.” (6.198) That’s quite the imagery there isn’t it? That she was so unphased, that she was like a rock, which is about as still and unmoving as you can get. Right after that sentence it speaks of her being with Sychaeus again and saying that he “meets her love with love” and “answers all her anguish” (6.198) This speaks of a real relationship, of real love to me so much more than her affections for Aeneas ever did. Food for thought: maybe Dido could never truly love another because Sychaeus would always come first in her heart, just like the City of Troy comes first for Aeneas. This, to me, shows what Dido’s true affections looked like when they weren’t tainted by any hurt or Cupid’s poison.
All in all, given the evidence shown above, I found it to be true that while Dido may have had lust filled feelings for Aeneas, I do not believe that she ever truly and purely loved him with all her heart.
- Erin Olivia Vansandt
Erin, your essay was great! It raised some excellent points! However, while I can admit that Cupid did more than just persuade Dido to ‘love’ Aeneas, I believe that it slowly evolved into real love. As you stated in the second paragraph, Dido already fancied him at first sight. Cupid merely amplified that feeling by his actions. After Dido went mad with love and killed herself, she was seen again in the underworld by Aeneas. You said that she kept her face unmoved because she didn’t feel anything for him, but it could also be interpreted as her having to put on a poker face, since her late husband is there with her now. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t give an obvious definitive answer, so we must infer.
ReplyDeleteErin, you pose an interesting question that I have also been wondering myself. I personally believe that the whole reason Dido and Aeneas had a “relationship” was because of Cupid. There are also multiple instances of the gods interfering with Aeneas and Dido. I do believe that there was some type of feelings between them however, there was never a point that made me think, “Wow. Dido really does love him.” You have given very strong evidence that has supported your claim and has reassured my opinion. I can not wait to see more of your work. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteErin, I loved your insights on whether Dido's love for Aeneas was real! You brought in a lot of the same references that made me question the reality of their love as well: the interference from Cupid, Venus, and Juno; her reaction in the Land of the Dead. I also found it odd that when Aeneas leaves Dido, she berates him for not at least leaving her with a child, and that seems selfish. Do you think her selfishness could actually provide evidence that she does love him? If she did love him, I think it would make sense that she would want at least the child to have some part of him with her after he has left, even though she'd have to raise the child on her own (but with the help of royal servants, which probably makes things way easier). While her actions may be questionable, I think it's plausible that Dido may have had a selfish sort of love for Aeneas, whether we believe it to be true or not. I'm still on the fence about it myself, to be completely honest.
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ReplyDeleteDear Erin, I want to start by saying that i loved reading this paper. The wording and style of the paper was very captivating. I think that in Moliere's The Misanthrope and Tartuff there is a very similar story lust disguised as love. If Moliere were here to read this paper, I do believe that he would respond with this,"Erin, you have seemed to make an accurate observation concerning a hopeless love story. In the paper you say that you do not think that the connection between Dido and Aneas is love. Rather, you say that it is quite lustful instead. The fact that the word 'love' is used as a cover word for the word 'lust' in this story takes me back to memory of mine in which I a mn named Alceste accumulated serious and meaningful feelings of love and intimacy for a young lady by the name of Celimene. The feelings of lust portrayed in your essay were expressed similarly in my story. After a time Celimene professed her love for Alceste, but it turned out to be nothing but youthful lust. Celimene was a beautiful woman. She had every man in town after her, and she loved it. She would have any man that she so desired even after professing her love for Alceste. When Alceste came to her and asked that she give up her childish ways she responded with, 'Is it my fault that all these men pursue me? Am I to blame if they're attracted to me? And when they gently beg an audience, ought I to take a stick and drive them hence?' (Moliere, 50) Her words proved her selfish intentions. Dido lusted for Aneas but only showed signs of being involved with him for selfish reasons like Celimene."
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