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Not having slept during the night, Dido seeks out her sister Anna the following morning and tries to articulate her thoughts and feelings. Despite her emotional turmoil, her speech is well structured, in two different….
Anna's counsel increases Dido's lust for Aeneas, but, unable to act on this passion, the queen languishes helplessly, neglecting her once-paramount project, the half-built new city of Carthage. Dido and Aeneas's relationship catches the attention of Juno and Venus.
When Jupiter learns of Dido and Aeneas’s affair, he dispatches Mercury to Carthage to remind Aeneas that his destiny lies elsewhere and that he must leave for Italy. This message shocks Aeneas—he must obey, but he does not know how to tell Dido of his departure.
Anna encourages Dido to keep Aeneas in Carthage by warning him of the dangers of sailing in winter storms. Dido's doubts easily vanish, and she gives herself to passion. Though Venus didn't enchant Anna, Anna unknowingly helps Venus's plan. This passage illustrates the limits of divine intervention.
Dido's sister Anna is a relatively minor character in the Aeneid, but she plays a crucial role. If it were not for her, it is possible that Dido, the queen of Carthage, would not have formed an...
The story of Dido and Aeneas shows the determination of both Aeneas, and Jupiter, in ensuring that the Trojan hero fulfils his destiny and founds Rome. Alexander Pope famously described Virgil’s Aeneid as a ‘political puff’, written to praise the Roman Empire under the emperor Augustus.
Aeneas does wander into the foundation story of another city, Dido’s Carthage, carried there, almost by accident, by the storm of Book 1. In doing so, Aeneas and the Aeneid transform the tale of Dido, the Punic city’s own national myth.
