Reflection on Love: The Aeneid and the the Tabula Cebelis

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True love in a story must be acted on by two different people. It cannot be made to happen by an outside force or it will be doomed to fail. In this essay we will look at two different texts. The first being The Aeneid and the second book being the Tabula Cebelis. We’ll look at different instances of love that are highlighted between both texts and discuss rather it is an instance of true love or a deceitful love. Deceitful love being one that is influenced by an outside source or a person that is just using love to further their own desires. Where true love is one that is evident when two characters meet and are truly committed to each other.
The Aeneid is story that follows the travels of Aenenas the main protagonist of the book. The scene starts with Aenenas arriving in the city of Carthage on his way to construct a great city in Italy. He meets the widow Dido who is the queen of Carthage. Dido instantly falls in love with Aeneas because, cupid places an enchantment on her while he is disguised as Aeneas. Here we already have a case where love is being influenced by an outside source instead of being allowed to flourish on its own between the couple. As the scene progresses you can see instances where Dido is starting to fall deeper in love with Aeneas. In a quote by Virgil he states; “And Dido, fated queen, drew out the night with talk of various matters, while she drank long draughts of love. Often she asked of Priam, often of Hector, now of the armor Memnon, the son of Dawn, had worn” (1.1021-1025). What Virgil seems to be portraying here that Dido doesn’t really pay attention to what Aeneas is saying. As much as she just wants to be around him as much as possible even if she has to listen to all of his stories. This is mor...

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... love to Aeneas time and time again. Even up to Dido’s last breath where she committed suicide to purge herself of Aeneas very memory. Aeneas never was able to show Dido this kind of true love. He was more worried about his own self-interest and what benefitted him more then how it made others feel. Aeneas could have told Dido that when he was finished with his father’s work he would return for her to take her away. This was just not the case. All that Aeneas offered dido towards the end of his stay was pain and deceit. He never intended to marry her or even stay with her longer then he had to. When true love is seen in a story or poem. It will be an obvious because, the character will want more than just pleasure. They will want to spend their lives together and make something of their relationship. This was just not the case in the story between Aeneas and Dido.

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