True Tragedy of Dido
What is the true tragedy of Dido? Scholars have debated various perspectives over the years. One could argue that Dido's major tragedy was losing a love that the Gods had forced her to feel and had also stolen from her (Farron). Another essay argues that her death in the end of Book IV, or more specifically dying by her own hand was her downfall (Fenik). However, the most convincing argument is that Dido's true tragedy was her lack of piety. Piety had very specific rules in Roman society. For example, the fact that Dido was willing to sacrifice her public duties to the state for the sake of a private infatuation was completely against the rules of society. Her distancing from power in order to pursue personal interests is itself a kind of death in the Roman world, and scholars argue that suicide was just a secondary method of self-punishment (McLeish). In order to define piety more clearly, it encompasses a few main ideas, which include devotion to God, to family, to the rules of the state, and to one's duty to fulfill his destiny. If Dido is just another obstacle for Aeneas to overcome in order to show the importance of finding Rome, her episode would have been as significant as Charybdis, Scylla, or Polyphemus, but Dido is much more important (McLeish). We can come to the conclusion that though those other obstacles proved the importance of following one's destiny, the Dido episode showed a character who drowned in her emotions and lost her sense of duty contrasting to Aeneas' character who enters Book V as a stronger, more-focused character. In this paper, I will try to prove that Virgil is using Book IV to show that Dido's, or any Roman's, ultimate tragedy is forgoing piety for selfish reasons.
Virgil portrays both Dido and Aeneas as strong, heroic, clever characters and there are numerous similarities between them. Our impression of Aeneas is compatible with the Roman male ideal. He obeys the Gods, stays on his destined path, and has an overwhelming
Virgil portrays both Dido and Aeneas as strong, heroic, clever characters and there are numerous similarities between them. Our impression of Aeneas is compatible with the Roman male ideal. He obeys the Gods, stays on his destined path, and has an overwhelming