The Love of Dido and Aeneas

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The love of Dido and Aeneas: Could it have been viable? As one hopes to have a long-term relationship, one cannot assure its existence or permanence. Some relationships are destined to fail from the start. Dido and Aeneas’s relationship exemplifies this. When Dido and Aeneas engage in their relationship, they fail to realize how they each perceive their love for each other. Dido perceives their relationship as a marriage, whereas Aeneas perceives their relationship as something merely sexual. By failing to understand their love for each other, their relationship was doomed from the start. In addition, their relationship could have never lasted because Aeneas was fated to marry Lavinia and not Dido. Aeneas had to marry Lavinia because it was his duty to ensure the success of Rome. The love of Dido and Aeneas was doomed to fail because Dido and Aeneas perceive their love for each other differently and because Aeneas has to fulfill his obligations.
After Dido and Aeneas sleep in a cave together, she justifies their sexual union as a “marriage,” even though proper ceremonial rites were not made. Dido’s declaration of her sexual union with Aeneas as a marriage is noteworthy because she “set [her] face against remarriage/After her first love died.” (IV, 22-23). By breaking her vow of never remarrying, she reveals how enamored she was about Aeneas. Breaking her vow not only meant betraying her word, but also betraying the trust of others. She points out her loss of integrity to Aeneas as he prepares to leave for Italy:
Have pity now on a declining house!
Put this plan by, I beg you, if a prayer
Is not yet out of place.
Because of you, Libyans and nomad kings
Detest me, my own Tyrians are hostile;
Because of you, I lost my integrity
And ...

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...ves. Dido wanted Aeneas to stay by her side so that she could have a companion, whereas Aeneas wanted a passing relationship that he could leave to fulfill his goals. Because they each had different aims as to where they wanted their relationship to be, their love was bound to fail. Furthermore, the love of Dido and Aeneas could have never lasted because it was fated for Aeneas to marry Lavinia and found the city of Rome. As soon as Mercury reminded Aeneas of his duty to fulfill the prophecy of Rome, he left Carthage as soon as possible, even though it meant leaving a distraught Dido. In Aeneas’s action to fulfill his obligations, Virgil highlights the importance of duty as it relates to Roman culture. He stresses the universal truth that fulfilling one’s goals or duties has more priority over temporal relationships.

Works Cited

Virgil. The Aeneid. Vintage, print.

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