Dido In Cupid

Dido, the queen of the newly rising city of Carthage, was once married but her brother betrayed her by murdering her husband for power. The ghost of her husband came to her after his murder and told her to run and not look back, and so she took some of her people and started over on an island. Aeneas and his men wash up on the shores of her island where she gives them food and shelter, Dido takes an interest in Aeneas but knows it would not be for the good of her people to get involved with him. But the gods have already decided her fate and there is nothing that Dido can do because humans cannot fight the will of the gods.

I believe that Dido is a passionate yet strong leader and women, she uprooted her whole life to ensure the safety of

Dido was a very level-headed leader before Venus decided to interfere with her life. Venus wants to make sure that Aeneas will be safe at this stop by telling Cupid, “But now Phoenician Dido has him in her clutches, /holding him back with smooth, seductive words, /and I fear the outcome of Juno’s welcome here … /She won’t sit tight while Fate is turning on its hinge. / So, I plan to forestall her with ruses on my own / and besiege the queen with flames, /and no goddess will change her mood – she’s mine, / my ally-in-arms in my great love for Aeneas” (1.799-807). Venus’s love for Aeneas to succeed because he is her son caused her to blindly sabotage a woman’s life just because her son happened to be on her land. And this piece of evidence shows that Dido would not just abandon the good of her people for a fling with a man she hardly knows. Dido even says she promised to not love another man after her husband’s death, “If my heart had not been fixed, dead set against /embracing another man in the bonds of marriage – /ever since my first love deceived me, cheated me /by his death” (IV.19-22). Dido even though she is extremely passionate to the ones she loves she would not have considered loving Aeneas the way she did if it was not for Cupid’s influence on her emotions. And she is so distraught to feel these emotions for Aeneas even though she promised to not love another, “I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down /or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades, / the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night, / before I dishonor you, my consciences, break your laws” (IV.31-34). And Venus wanted to doom Carthage because it was the nation that Juno wanted to be great. Cupid has turned Dido into a woman frenzied by love, “Dido burns with love – the tragic queen. /She wanders in frenzy through her city streets /like a