The Dido Episode

ARTHUR L. KEITH

Carleton College.

It has been said of Vergil's Aeneid that his incidents run away with him. This is preeminently true of the Dido episode. It is no exaggeration to say that for the great majority of readers Dido looms up far above Aeneas and her melancholy story far outweighs the interest felt in the founding of imperial Rome. How has it happened that the poet has lost all sense of perspective and permitted the degradation of his hero? Or is the perversion due only to our modern points of view and not apparent to Vergil's own generation? What was his conception of Dido as woman and as queen? What part did he intend that she should have in a Roman epic and how far did he succeed in his intention?

These questions have been much discussed but with no unanimity as to the conclusions. Some regard the Dido affair as a real blemish on the story as a whole, while others maintain that every rhetorical principle is observed. One editor asserts that Vergil had no intention to carry the reader's sympathy with Dido while another declares that it was his deliberate intention so to do. And as for certain facts of the story lying back of the method, those who claim that Aeneas really loved Dido are met by angry protestations to the effect that he never had a spark of affection for her. I have taken more than twenty classes of students through their Vergil, students good, bad, and indifferent. No matter how dull the students, they never fail to show some interest in the story of Dido. They come to it with unprepudiced minds and it is curious to note their varied reactions. I recall one of the better type of students whose voice choked with emotion as the story developed to its climax; and when I sought the cause of her feeling I found she was weeping not for Dido but for Aeneas because he was compelled to make the great sacrifice of his love when duty called. In the same class another young lady, who later proved to be of Phi Beta Kappa calibre, said, "Dido is getting only what she deserves; she has brought all this upon herself." Behold a woman's inhumanity

to woman. And then, of course, I recall the young lady who cried out passionately, "I hate Aeneas, I hate him." Such words come from unbiased minds. I am not so sanguine as to expect that among the more sophisticated my interpretation of this old story is going to meet with general approval.

It is quite evident that blame, if any, for the Dido episode is to be laid at Vergil's door. The story of Dido was not so involved in legend that the poet had to use it thus whether or no. Her part in the Punica of Naevius could not have been important. Nor is there any prototype of Dido to be found in Greek literature. She has not the slightest resemblance to Homer's Helen, Andromache, or Penelope. Among the many women characters in Euripides one might expect to find Dido's prototype, if it existed; but none except of the most general kind is found. Servius has a curious note to the effect that Apollonius in the third book of the Argonautica has depicted Medea in love, and that Vergil has transferred his entire fourth book from that. How little reliable this statement is may be seen from the fact that Servius calls the Dido episode a comedy. There are undoubtedly in this book certain passages strongly reminiscent of Apollonius, showing that Vergil was familiar with Apollonius's story. The vivid description of the night when Dido lay awake consumed by passion was written under the influence of Apollonius. Hera and Cytherea devise that Meda shall fall in love with Jason in much the same way Venus plots that Cupid shall turn Dido's heart toward Aeneas. But otherwise the resemblances are of the most general sort and about the only thing that may be said of them in common is that here are two women, Meda and Dido, who are madly in love. Surely, Servius has overdrawn his statement. Indications are not lacking that Vergil was deeply versed in earlier literature, both Greek and Latin. He certainly would not hesitate to appropriate suggestions from his predecessors but in doing so he never surrendered his own independence. It must be admitted that the Dido of the Aeneid is essentially a new creation and whatever blame or credit there is for it belongs wholly to Vergil. It is the recognition that it was something new that caused its popularity from the first. That it is to be regarded as a new creation is implied in statements of modern critics who say that

the story of Dido strikes a new note, that it marks the dawn of

romance.

Vergil's analysis of the character of Dido shows a surprising penetration. We have been led by tradition to believe that he was ill at ease in the presence of ladies. I cannot understand the point of view of those who claim that Vergil had nothing but a sort of good natured contempt for the fair sex. True, he never married but his celibacy was not due to the fact that he saw nothing charming about womankind. His descriptions of Dido, Lavinia, and Camilla, not to mention numerous touches here and there, show a high regard for woman. In fact we may believe that it was a sort of superstitious reverence, related to his shyness and awkwardness, that kept him from marrying. He saw the weakness of woman as he did of man, but in representing those of Dido he attempts to some extent to justify and palliate. The sum total of our impressions of Dido from Vergil's description is that she is more sinned against than sinning. Vergil's description of Dido is a study in character. However, I see no indications that she is intended as a special 'study, as one of the primitive type or of the Oriental or Semitic type. He intended the characterization varium et mutabile semper femina and furens quid femina possit to be broadly applicable to womankind. The poet has intended to deal with universal principles involving woman in her relation to the social order and to destiny. Because his Dido episode is of this sort, its appeal is universal.

The originality of the episode is due largely to the careful and sympathetic treatment of the poet in portraying Dido as woman. He has given her a personality, definite as well as lovely. His theme has called for the interaction of universal laws apart from personality, but with Dido the note of humanity is heard. I can not but feel that with such creations as Dido Vergil is quite at home. In an imperialistic age he must write the imperial theme, but his heart was with the personal. It seems impossible that he did not love this child of his fancy. She is queen but above all she is a woman. Even as a girl she had a feminine love of the heroic. Teucer's story of Troy had found no more willing listener than Dido. Aeneas's name in her heart was associated with that signal disaster. I have no

doubt that the lure of the lost cause, a powerful motive with woman, cast a glamour about Aeneas's name. In later years

when she as queen was building a new city, the woman in her asserted itself and she had works of art, commemorating the great event and Aeneas's part in it, placed on the walls of her temple. Is not such hero-worship truly feminine? How large a part this story has filled in her imagination is shown when she says, "Who does not know of the tribe of the Aeneadans, of the city of Troy, its virtues and men, and the fires of that great war?" And it is readily seen who is the hero of the struggle when she so promptly offers to despatch messengers to search for the lost Aenaes. And then when he is revealed in her presence how her real thoughts are betrayed in the words, "Art thou that Aeneas whom fostering Venus bore to Dardanian Anchises at the waters of the Phrygian Simois?" While love has not been present, Aeneas has been the center of her dreams since girlhood. But the girl survives in the woman and at the banquet scene she inquires eagerly of the deeds done at Troy; and it is at the woman's insistence that the whole story of man's adventures must be told, a story which as the days go by she was to call for again and again and ever with fresh interest. She no longer needed the corfirmation of rumor that he was of divine origin. Fear proves degenerate souls that his valor alone was sufficient to prove his lineage divine. "Alas, by what fates was he tossed and what wars experienced he sang of!" Is it not woman's way to love man for what he has suffered? Is there not here present a species of hero-worship of the most refined and delicate sort? It seems to me that the poet is exceedingly careful to bring out just this aspect of the woman's character. No wonder Iarbas made no appeal to her heart. He could boast of no adventures but only a careful performance of the conventional duties of religious worship. I suppose that Vergil began at the right place for creating genuine love in the heart of a real woman. After she has learned the story of his adventure and his various part in it, then the eloquence of his words, his noble features and carriage, and the honor of his race make their appeal to her. If the poet had reversed the process I believe the effect would be far less happy.

Dido was beautiful and loved the beautiful. She is called the pulcherrima Dido. She is compared to the goddess Diana, with the idea of beauty prominent, just as later Aeneas is compared to Apollo for the same reason. I have always thought it was more than a coincidence that Aeneas and Dido should be compared to the twin brother and sister gods, types of beauty for man and woman, just as if the two were intended each for the other, because the beautiful is attracted to the beautiful. Dido was herself beautiful and she loved the beautiful. It was an aesthetic as well as romantic sense that was satisfied by the pictures in her temple.

The appointments of the banquet were in harmony with this idea. The royal gold and purple were becoming to her. She has made with her own hands a beautiful mantle for Aeneas and was herself pleased with the beautiful presents he gave her. Her feminine heart is moved by the beauty of children. She fondles Ascanius to her bosom and fastens her eyes and whole heart upon him.

Dido has a lively sense of shame. Her precautions for safe-guarding her new city were natural enough under the circumstances, but when without her knowledge harm has been done the innocent she is abashed and speaks with downcast face. She is impulsively generous. She may follow the conventional when it suits her, but she dares the unconventional. To these men who were but strangers she proffers a share in her city. Her kindness exceeds all ordinary bounds. She is not satisfied with being gracious merely to those who came across her path; she goes out of her way to seek the opportunity for kindly service, and so she offers to send searchers after Aeneas and later she remembers his comrades at the shore with gifts. I sometimes wonder if Vergil did not mean more than he actually puts in words in representing the woman Dido as reaching out a hand to shipwrecked man. Under this as symbol may not the poet have intended to describe what he felt is the rôle that woman naturally plays in the drama of life? Dido seems almost to rejoice in the fact that she too has suffered. It creates a fine sense of comradeship. Taught by suffering she has acquired the understanding soul. I do not believe we can find a nicer feminine touch than this.