Dido Deserved Better
The Trojan hero Aeneas tells Dido of the Trojan War (Guérin, 1815)
“sed merita et famam corpusque animumque pudicum cum male perdiderim, perdere uerba leue est. Certus es ire tamen miseramque relinquere Dido, atque idem uenti uela fidemque ferent? Certus es, Aenea, cum foedere soluere naues, quaeque ubi sint nescis, Itala regna sequi?... facta fugis, facienda petis; quaerenda per orbem altera, quaesita est altera terra tibi... Scilicet alter amor tibi restat et altera Dido, quamque iterum fallas, altera danda fides.”
“But deservedly I ruined my reputation and body and chaste mind with wicked words, wasting words is easy. Are you certain to go nevertheless and leave behind unfortunate Dido, and will the same winds carry away your sails and faith? Are you certain, Aeneas, to unbind your ships with your promise, to follow an Italian Kingdom when you do not even know where it is... You flee what is done, you seek what is to do; searching for another kingdom in the world, it's already found... Doubtless another stands firm for you and another Dido, another trust to be given you will deceive.”
Heroidvm Epistvla VII “Dido Aeneae” - Lines 5-19
“uror ut inducto ceratae sulpure taedae, ut pia fumosis addita tura focis. Aeneas oculis uigilantis semper inhaeret, Aenean animo noxque quiesque refert. Ille quidem male gratus et ad mea munera surdus, et quo, si non sim stulta, carere uelim; non tamen Aenean, quamuis male cogitat, odi, sed queror infidum questaque peius amo. . . qut ego, quae coepi (neque enim dedignor), amorem, materiam curae praebeat ille meae! Fallor, et ista mihi false iactatur imago: matris ab ingenio dissidet ille suae.”
“I burn like wax-covered torches introduced to sulfur, like holy incense inserted into the smokey altars. Aeneas always clings to (my) sleepless eyes, the quiet and night bring Aeneas to my mind. That man is certainly ungrateful and deaf to my gifts, and who, if I were not stupid, I would want to be without. Nevertheless, I do not hate Aeneas, although he thinks bad (of me), but I complain about his infidelity and having complained, I love (him) more badly... Or I will provide love (I do not mind), just let that man provide the materials for my care! I am deceived, and that image is thrown to me falsely: that man is nothing like the goddess of Love who bore him.”
Heroidvm Epistvla VII “Dido Aeneae” - Lines 23-36
As I was translating these passages, the one thing I wondered was if fate is ever fortunate to women, especially those who are hapless enough to give their hearts to the great heroes of legend and the charismatic men ambitious enough to seek to carve their names into history. There is almost a poetic understanding among writers across all centuries that love and glory, partnership and individuality, cannot be in marriage peacefully. As Madeline Miller writes in her novel, The Song of Achilles, “Name one hero who was happy. You can’t. They never let you be a hero and happy.”
Icarus, no matter how fruitful and giving the earth is, will always fly too close to the sun and burn the ever-reaching branches to ash as he falls. Achilles, despite youthful promises of being able to have both his war renown (his kleos) and whatever intimacy existed between him and Patroclus, was always destined to let his companion walk out dressed in his armor because of his pride. He loses himself to raging, maddening grief while simultaneously gaining the starring role for epics to come.
Perhaps the price for lasting remembrance is to relinquish the parts of oneself that make us more human; to burn off every bit of mortality like iron being shaped into steel until one is so separate from the everyday weakness of human sentiment they are like a god. If we descended into Hades or Hell and asked these figures if it was worth it, I imagine their shaded response would echo the lyrics of James Arthur’s song “Impossible:” “Tell them I was happy/And my heart is broken.” Or perhaps the Mumford & Sons song “Little Lion Man:” “But it was not your fault but mine/And it was your heart on the lion/I really fucked it up this time/Didn’t I my dear?”
I focus specifically on the man being the main actor not because I think loving an ambitious woman would be any less of a struggle, but moreso because women are often never allowed to occupy this role. Before they are able to glance up at the sun and wonder how nice the rays would feel up close, their wings are clipped. From the moment their gender is revealed post-delivery, their story is already conceived with expectations lowered to that of the damsel, the love interest, or a breeder; nothing worth remembering unless they fall into the unfortunate category of loving or being loved by the great men of history, myth or legend. Their dreams are burdened by the guilt men often only reflect on after death, and are told to focus on the consequences to their children and other matters of their home.
If Earth is a mother, then perhaps women are bound by nature to focus more on the now, to be creators instead of conquerors. They are in touch, like goddesses and witches, with the world beneath their feet and maybe this is why they feel little need to leave. Then again, they are never really asked. Look at what writers and fate did to Ariadne and Medea when they left their homes.
Instead, the idols of romantic literature women are enjoined to emulate are the Penelopes, Didos, and Elizas. Models of perfect, feminine virtue, loyalty, and skill. The pillars of home who “stand firm,” beside their husbands against outside attackers so that they have a foundation on which to build their kingdom once they return. The end to someone else's tale.
Then again, even the most virtuous of women are not safe from being coated with the dust kicked up behind men as they run towards their battlefield glory. Written to stand firm like trees in a violent storm, withstanding the lashes of lighting and bruises of wind, in the name of boundless love. Excepting, afterwards, to share their fruit and feed the men who broke their branches.
What truly amazes me about Dido as a character is how much her lament over Aeneas is reflective of the mentality that exists in abusive relationships even in contemporary society. I know multiple women from personal experience who would never think to read the Aeneid, viewing the epic as nothing more than a Western, overly masculine, dusty tale of a culture that didn’t consider women any more human than a cow, let alone one which had any context that depicted genuine female experiences.
However, as I was translating Dido’s words, I could hear their voices detailing their own mistreatment. For example, Dido acknowledges Aeneas’s faults; I have never met a woman who was completely blind to their love’s foibles. Aeneas is “ungrateful” for everything she sacrificed to devote herself to him, going as far as to relinquish control of her city through marriage. Carthage could only be ruled by Dido in strength as log as she was not married - the vow is her undoing.
Of course, Aeneas is “deaf,” to her affection, instead acting under main character syndrome, whereas Dido is nothing more than a background prop to him, to be utilized and then left behind. I would say that Dido’s words being included in the final work suggest even Virgil was uncomfortable with Aeneas’s actions, were it not for the fact that his story concludes with Dido committing suicide after suffering the humiliation and blame of letting her “chastity” be ruined by the Trojan stranger. Aeneas goes off to gain a Latin kingdom and a new bride. What could have been a literary testament to the mercilessness of heroes and the chaos they caused as they traveled around the Mediterranean searching for eternal renown was instead used to underline the lack of consequences to men in romantic relationships in comparison to the condemning of women for “having known better.”
Dido internalizes this self-deprecation, stating “...if I were not stupid, I would want to be without.” This infuriates me because it's this ignorance of the complexity of abusive relationship psychology that leads to victim-blaming and silence. I have heard people tell a close friend of mine (whose boyfriend got her hooked-on drugs, used her, and beat her) that she is at fault for all her bruises because she “should have known better”, that “she was an honor student,” or - my favorite - that “she whored herself into the mess.” Nobody, especially men, who have not experienced firsthand abuse from someone who was supposed to be a source of love has any right to enter the conversation. They do not know how damaging it is to even the strongest mind to love someone who can be simultaneously a wonder and a monster.
Death of Dido, by Guercino, AD 1631.
Nobody blessed to have a stable foundation has any idea how hard it is to stand on a crumbling one, how existing in an environment of toxicity can distort thoughts, teaching one to recognize misuse as affection, damages one's self-worth, incites fear/anxiety/depression, and leaves one feeling guilty for wanting to leave. Dido was a grieving widow. I’m sure the loss of her partner had some impact on her emotional stability, as any trauma can result in deep-seated fears of loneliness, abandonment, or a feeling of being unworthy. She could have had the fear of age and growing old without a child. She confirmed her worry of looking like a failure to her government and people. Because her culture ignored the experience of women, perhaps even she lacked the words to truly comprehend herself and her quick infatuation with Aeneas. Still, there is more to Dido than was written.
Explaining the paradox of complaining about Aeneas leads Dido to realize that she loves him more, and arguably this is the most valid experience in the passage. People often equate complaints with annoyance and grievance. However, they can also be a verbal sign of hurt because someone has failed to meet an expectation. Dido had conjured a future with Aeneas that she truly desired, one where the two would live together for the rest of their lives, ruling over a prosperous city with their children, a dream Aeneas symbolically upheld in the marriage ceremony.
Verbally expressing every trespass he inflicted against her only reminds Dido of how much love and hope she invested in their relationship, and all the possible things they could have had together that were crushed in infancy when Aeneas raised his sails. If she cared little for him, she would not devote her physical and mental energy to crying over him. If he meant little to her he would not consume so much of her mind.
One thing I find so heartbreaking about Dido’s above words is her mental state of self-blame for the humiliation of being publicly used by Aeneas. She flagellates herself with literary lashes as she laments how she “deserves,” her “ruined reputation,” despite her playing her female role perfectly. There was nothing more she could have done to be a better romantic interest in the ancient epic. It suggests the existence of the troubling state of victim-bashing (especially woman-bashing) that is seen even in contemporary society regarding victims of rape, divorce, domestic violence, and regular heartbreak. It is always the woman whose character is assessed for violations of her “chaste body or mind.” What did she do to push the man away? How was she the “slut,” or “whore,” or “bitch?” The only thing of which Dido was guilty was loving. However, her emotional drive to hate herself is likely the reason she resorted to suicide, as there was no other path written for her in ancient stories. She was used and tossed away.
I feel even more hurt when Dido begs Aeneas’s mother Venus to at least let him stay to provide her material care and in return, she would be okay with being the only one feeling love. To me, this is a verbal concession to everything she embodied before the Trojans came to her city: independence, strength, and partnership. She was a woman who recognized her ability and value and dreamed that her next lover would rule beside her, not over her, lest she be satisfied being alone. However, this prayer reveals how desperate, reliant, and co-dependent she has become on Aeneas, praying to live the meager life of a piece of property as long as he would keep her. To be a dog who views their owner as the center of the universe for simply providing their daily bread while to the master it is nothing more than an animal only as valuable as its body’s condition.
Dido went from living the life of female empowerment seen in many African cities to being broken like a horse, content to be the obedient prize that was Greek and Trojan women. Like a pet dog suddenly abandoned by its keeper, unable to survive alone, it simply lays in the spot it was left and dies of starvation and heartbreak. In that brief marriage, what did Aeneas do to her that would tear her apart like this? It hints at horrors of domestic abuse and conditional affection.
Fate is fickle, and human nature is not Disney, heroes are not DC or Marvel. Dido was not alone when she gave up everything from her heart to her inherited state for Aeneas, only for him to leave the second he remembered something "greater" awaited. I guess he could always just blame the gods for that one, just as Theseus blamed Dionysus when he abandoned Ariadne on the beach. It seems, men love to blame whatever gods exist in their time for their own fall, almost as much as they enjoy blaming women. There is a version of the myth where Theseus attributes his tragic life to Ariadne placing a curse on him.
Speaking of miscellaneous myths, highlighted in Madeline Miller’s other novel “Circe,” is the version of the after events of Odysseus returning home. In this tale, Odysseus grows increasingly bored, restless, and mad with the mundanity of daily tasks, entering an insane state that leads him to kill the son he conceived with the goddess Circe, whom he abandoned when he grew bored of her hospitality and island. Interestingly, just like the Theseus myth, this version is not popularly mentioned in society today. At least Dido had her chance to speak in the Aeneid. Dido and Penelope are joined in their sad states by Eliza, the wife of the founding father Alexander Hamilton who, despite her being historically noted as the most angelic, docile, doting wife, Hamilton cheated on her publicly when it became politically beneficial. Some echoing quotes from her role in Lin Miranda’s play “Hamilton,” are, “You will never be satisfied,” “Be careful with that one love, he will do what it takes to survive,” and “I’m erasing myself from the narrative/Let future historians wonder how Eliza/Reacted when you broke her heart.”
There is symbolic imagery in some of the words and how the images mirror the mindset of the man verses the woman. “Faith,” and “promise,” are opposed to “sails,” and “unbound ships,” which compares how Dido’s focus was on the loyalty and the potential growth of her relationship with Aeneas, however, his was on being gone. Dido compares herself to “torches,” introduced to fire or incense burned at altars. Women seem to embody this ritual element of something beautiful, pure, or sacred needing to be destroyed to bring about a response from the gods. A torch sadly must become ash for the world to be lightened, incense is only as valuable as the smoke it emits as it is engulfed in flames, and even the sexual act of a girl losing her virginity to an “insertion,” from a man is considered something a sacrifice on her part. She is the one whose body bleeds and will never be the same again. In every Greek myth I have read, besides Patroclus dying in place of Achilles or Apollo’s lover Hyacinthus, it is a woman who must suffer to provide the tragedy needed to complete the beauty of the story.
The Greeks and Trojans fighting over Helen was far more romantic than if they were fighting solely over territory and resources. Orpheus’s song was only heartening after it was played at the grave of Eurydice. To achieve greatness, it seems, men need the blood and tears of women.
About the author
Arianna Baggett is a senior undergraduate student at Marshall University. She majors in history, minors in Latin and International Affairs. She is currently applying for an English master's program. Arianna loves the transformative power of books, and hopes to work in publishing one day.