By Meghan Reedy
When we last encountered Dido, it was late in the evening, and she was asking Aeneas to tell the story of the fall of Troy and his travels since then. Now, two books later, Aeneas has just finished speaking: Sic pater Aeneas … fata renarrabat divom, cursusque docebat. Conticuit tandem, factoque hic fine quievit (3.716–18).
Now, we encounter Dido still caught up in that long, long night of food and drink and talk with Aeneas––and she has, through Venus’ intervention at the start of the evening, by now fallen in love with him.
In the opening 53 lines of Book 4, we get to hear three views, so to speak, of Dido’s feelings. We hear about it from Vergil first (1–8), then we hear Dido describe her state of mind to her sister Anna (9–30), and lastly, we hear Anna giving her opinion on what Dido has revealed (31–53).
As we are being told that Dido, after a night tossing and turning (1–5), speaks to her sister in the morning (6–7), we are led to expect that the sisters will be in agreement, of one mind: sic unanimam adloquitur … sororem (8). However, as first Dido, then Anna, actually speak, it becomes clear that in important respects they in fact differ widely. Although they are ostensibly discussing the same thing––the possibility of an intimate relationship between Dido and Aeneas––each of them has a distinct set of concerns.
Dido, on the one hand, is concerned first and foremost with her pudor (which she personifies and swears to in 27), which hinges on her own personal behavior, her own emotional orientation towards her late husband, Sychaeus (20–21, 28–29), and her new guest, Aeneas (10–14, 19, 22). For Dido, this is personal.
Anna, on the other hand, focuses on pragmatic and political concerns. She sees benefits to love, dulcis natos … praemia (33), and pragmatically points out that such benefits can only come from a living partner (34). In Dido’s position, children may be personal––but they are also politically relevant, and it is to the fractious politics of their region that Anna turns next (35–44). Dido has thus far maintained an uneasy independence in the Libya by refusing to ally herself through marriage to any of the several local kings and leaders (Iarbas ductoresque alii, 36–37), and Anna sees a marriage between Dido and Aeneas as a means of stabilizing the political position of Carthage. Moreover, Anna sees the bigger picture: such a marriage would not only strengthen Carthage within Libya, but would also protect Dido and Carthage from their parent city, Tyre, where Dido’s evil brother still holds power (43–44). She goes further still: together Dido and Aeneas could make Carthage truly great, now and for generations to come (47–49).
Dido makes pudor an elaborate promise in 24–27, to the effect that she would rather the earth would swallow her (vel Tellus optem ima … dehiscat, 24), or Jupiter strike her down with lightning (vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine, 25) before she would violate pudor. She even speaks the later part of her speech a little bit like Jupiter. In line 20, shortly before she makes this ‘prophecy,’ Dido says, Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei …, which echoes something Jupiter said to Venus in Book 1, shortly before he made his prophecy about the Romans. There Jupiter said, Hic tibi (fabor enim, … longius et volvens fatorum arcana movebo)… (1.261–62).
For her part, Anna mentions Juno just as she is about to envision the future and lay plans for how to get there. She anticipates the gods’ general approval, but in particular the favor of Juno’s, dis equidem auspicibus reor et Iunone secunda (45), and she speaks a little bit like Juno too. Anna’s speech is focused not on herself but on Dido, but on the whole, it is structured in much the same way as Juno’s very first speech, focused very much on herself. They both open with a question that throws doubt on the legitimacy of something withheld: Juno asks in 1.37–38 … mene incepto desistere victam / nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem? and Anna asks in 4.32–33 solane perpetua maerens carpere iuventa / nec dulcis natos Veneris nec praemia noris? Both follow with a pertinent comparison: Juno brings up Pallas, starting with another question (1.39–41), followed by a statement that further explains it (1.42–45), and Anna brings up Dido’s other suitors, starting with a question (4.35–38), and followed by a statement that further explains it (4.40–43).
At the end of her speech in Book 1, Juno asks one last, petulant question (et quisquam numen Iunonis adorat praeterea aut supplex aris imponet honorem? 1.48–49), and then she goes off to get Aeolus’ help in furthering her aims by creating a storm. Anna too asks one last question (quid bella Tyro surgentia dicam germanique minas? 4.43–44), but she keeps talking a little longer. However, what she says is interesting in light of Juno and her storm, because the very next thing she does is invoke Juno, Iunone secunda (45) … and then she expresses her hope that Dido’s aims will be furthered by storms. She is very explicit about the storms: causasque innecte morandi, dum pelago desaevit hiems et aquosus Orion, quassataeque rates, dum on tractabile caelum (51–53).
What does noticing these echoes do for us?
One thing it does is hint at how the affair is going to turn out. Dido has every good reason to be attracted to Aeneas––he is good-looking and strong and (she guesses, rightly) of divine parentage; he is an extraordinary hero who has suffered greatly (11–14), and this is the first person she has been moved by at all since Sychaeus (2–3). Anna’s whole speech is devoted to providing cogent, plausible reasons why a relationship with Aeneas would be good for her, both personally and politically. Still, Dido swears that she would rather (optem, 24) Jupiter strike her down than betray her faithfulness to her dead husband Sychaeus. Moreover, Anna places her confidence in Juno and in the stormy weather. Therefore, we know, deep down, that however right it seems for Dido and Aeneas to be together that storms will not keep him back (because the last storm didn’t), and Dido will be struck down (because Jupiter keeps promises).
One last thing: in Vergil’s opening to the scene, 4.1–8, there is a hint of how we might think of Dido in relation to the storm. Vergil is describing in vivid terms how the queen has been wounded by love, regina … saucia cura (1); how she is being wasted by a ‘blind fire’ caeco carpitur igni (2). She keeps thinking about him (3), and in line 4 we find this phrase: haerent infixi pectore vultus / verbaque. Juno used a similar phrase in the same place in the line when she was describing Athena’s punishment of Ajax Oileus: illum … transfixo pectore flammas / … corripuit scopuloque infixit acuto (1.44–45). Athena unleashed a storm that hurt all the Greeks, but it was Ajax she singled out and killed with Jupiter’s thunderbolt.
So too Dido, when the time comes. Anna’s hope that winter storms will help Aeneas and Dido get together will shortly be fulfilled. While Dido and Aeneas are out hunting one day, a huge storm blows in, magno misceri murmure caelum incipit, insequitur commixta grandine nimbus (160–61), and forces them into a cave, where they have a ‘wedding’. Juno is there, as Anna thought she would be––but so is Tellus, whom Dido called on along with Jupiter to witness her commitment to Sychaeus. Immediately, lightning, the weapon of Zeus, flashes, and the very ether knows about this union: … et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum; fulsere ignes at conscius aether conubiis (166–67). This storm, Vergil tells us, is the cause of suffering and of her death: ille dies primus leti primusque malorum causa fuit. This storm too, it seems, might drench everyone, but Dido, like Ajax Oileus, will be singled out and struck down with fire.
Further Reading
DeGraff, T. ‘Antigone and Dido’ Classical Weekly 25 (1932) 148-50
Hersh, K. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010)
Hinds, S. ‘Essential epic: genre and gender from Macer to Statius’ in Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society, eds. M. Depew and D. Obbink (Cambridge, MA, 2000) 221-44
Horsfall, N. ‘Dido in the light of history’ Proceedings of the Virgil Society 13 (1973-4) 1-13. Reprinted in Oxford Readings in Virgil’s Aeneid, ed. S.J. Harrison (Oxford, 1990) 127-44
Johnson, W.R. Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid (Berkeley, 1976) 163 n.42
Kaster, R. ‘The Shame of the Romans’ Transactions of the American Philological Association 127 (1997) 1-19
Lyne, R.O.A.M. Words and the Poet: Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford, 1989)
Nelis, D. Vergil’s Aeneid and Apollonius’ Argonautica (Leeds, 2001) 148-9
Panoussi, V. ‘Vergil’s Ajax: Allusion, Tragedy and Heroic Identity in the Aeneid’ Classical Antiquity 21 (2002) 95-134
Rudd, N. ‘Dido’s Culpa’ in Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1976) 32-53, reprinted in Oxford Readings in Virgil’s Aeneid, ed. S.J. Harrison (Oxford, 1990) 145-90
Rudd, N. ‘Dido’s Culpa’ in Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1976) 32-53, reprinted in Oxford Readings in Virgil’s Aeneid, ed. S.J. Harrison (Oxford, 1990) 145-90
Treggiari, S. Roman Marriage. Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford, 1991) 233-7