Virgil: the Aeneid pt 7: the passion & death of Dido

Now that Aeneas has wrapped up the story of the fall of Troy and all that befell him since its capture by the Greeks, Virgil brings us back into the present.  Aeneas has been telling the story at the request of Dido, the queen of newly founded Carthage.  And Virgil opens book IV by telling us that the work which Venus asked her divine son (not Aeneas, but Amor) to accomplish is well underway.  Back in book I Venus was worried that Juno had something up her sleeve, and would do all in her power to deter Aeneas from his destiny.  And so Venus sent her other son, Amor (think Cupid and his arrows) to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas:  "You'll breathe invisible fire into her/ And dupe her with your sorcery" (I.939)  And so here at the beginning of book IV we see that Dido is becoming consumed with this - what exactly shall we call it?  I suppose modern readers will say that she (and perhaps even he for a time at least) "fell in love".  Or maybe fell in lust might be closer.  Or infatuation.  Or any combination of the above.  Or perhaps something else beside.  But whatever it was that was driven into her from the god does not seem to be something which leaves one happy, to say the least.  Nor does Virgil introduce her experience in any positive way:

The queen, for her part, all that evening ached
With longing that her heart's blood fed, a wound
Or inward fire eating her away.  (IV.1)

Dido still thinks of the vow she made to the ashes of her deceased husband (IV.33), but even there she recognizes the "signs of the old flame, of old desire".  Her sister Anna advises her that there may be good fortune in joining the two families, and Dido in encouraged in her passion.  And maybe passion, in the ancient sense of the word, is the best that we can do.  Passions are powerful, but irrational things;  they need to be governed by reason, by a higher purpose, or they will run amok and end up consuming and destroying the passionate one, and perhaps others in their wake.  We might tend to make "passion" a rather glamourous thing, and many a Hollywood ending depends upon it.  However, in real life, many a broken relationship also depends upon it.  Passion alone is not "good".  It can certainly be used for good, but if passion alone is allowed to dictate the rules, it will end up simply serving itself, regardless of who gets in its way.

This section of the Aeneid is full of some very complex ideas about human relationship.  Dido seeks out the advice of the gods.  She looks for signs from Ceres, Phoebus Apollo, and "Juno most of all/ Who has the bonds of marriage in her keeping" (IV.82).  Now we are getting to some tricky territory:  what does "passion" have to do with marriage? And how will Venus and Juno be reconciled?  Or will they?  Dido seems to be seeking the will of the gods, but Virgil (go ahead and call him unromantic) tells us:

What good are shrines and vows to maddened lovers?
The inward fire eats the soft marrow away,
And the internal would bleeds on in silence. (IV.91)

Virgil uses some great poetic images to describe what is happening to Dido.  She roams about the city like a doe hit by an arrow (indeed, Cupid’s arrow), and she can think of nothing else but Aeneas, and her passion for him.  Then we see that all her duties as queen are being forgotten:  the care of her own city is falling away as she is consumed by her desire:

Towers, half built, rose
No further, men no longer trained in arms
Or toiled to make harbors and battlements
Impregnable.  Projects were broken off… (121)

You get the picture.  Dido is so concerned with this new passion of hers that she has allowed her governing of the city to be completely forgotten.  All the things which she was overseeing have ground to a halt.  Excess or misdirected, passion has that effect.  Perhaps Virgil wants to say that it is the nature of the thing itself - it is ultimately a self-directed kind of thing.  Duties toward others are neglected. 

Next we have Venus and Juno giving us a bit of back and forth.  Juno is willing to do anything to keep Aeneas from founding Rome, and so Juno contrives a bit of a plan – she will arrange for Dido and Aeneas to find just the right place to, err, “get married” (IV.165).  The witnesses will be the thunder and the rain, all of nature.  For after all, isn’t that what matters?  “There I shall marry them and call her his.  A wedding this will be.” (IV. 176).  And so Juno, the goddess of marriage, arranges things so that the two lovers do indeed find themselves together

...to the selfsame cave
Came Dido and the captain of the Trojans.
Primal earth herself and Nuptial Juno
Opened the ritual, torches of lightening blazed,
High heaven became witness to the marriage,
And nymphs cried out wild hymns from a mountain top.
That day was the first cause of death, and first
Of sorrow.  Dido had no further qualms
As to impressions given and set abroad;
She thought no longer of a secret love
But called it marriage.  Thus, under that name
She hid her fault.  (IV.227)

Well, Virgil asks us by those last few lines, is this really a marriage?  Does Juno, the goddess of marriage, stay true to the institution of which she is patroness?  Can it be a marriage if it is only sanctified and witnessed by the forces of nature?  Dido called it marriage, and even Juno called it a marriage, but, Virgil tells us, it was not a real marriage, whatever they may have called it.  It was mere "passion", it had negative consequences for the city of Carthage, the wider community.  And Virgil tells us what the real state of affairs was: 

Then how they reveled all the winter long
Unmindful of the realm, prisoners of lust. (IV. 264)

Instead of being free, they are prisoners.
Next:  things go sour...

Virgil's Aeneid entire post series here.

Comments

[Tim]

I noticed that 'what good are shrines and vows' line too - and it seemed to me that Virgil was saying that, although Dido thought she was consulting the gods, she really wasn't. She was deluding herself and was really only prepared to listen to her passion, as you say, Joe. Makes me wonder how many Christians who have 'prayed about getting married to so-and-so', because their background tells them they should do that, have really prayed about it with their ears and hearts wide open.

[joseph]

Tim - I think you are right; Virgil seems to me to be saying that once the passion has decided the course, it will only look for and see those signs which confirm what it wants.