The story of a scorned woman has been told in many different ways. In Medea and the Aeneid both Dido and Medea are driven by passion. The old saying that all's fair in love and war fits these stories well. While Medea handled it through revenge, Dido handled her scorn through suicide.
             Of all the characters in the Aeneid, Dido is probably the one you might relate to the most. She's the most human. She's beautiful, generous, kind and successful. She has strong emotions. She's the queen of a busy city, Carthage. When you fist see her, she offers a welcome relief from Aeneas' endless problems. But she ends up killing herself. What goes wrong?
             On the simplest level, Dido's story is the classic story of unresolved love. She loves Aeneas more than he loves her, for a year they have a passionate affair and everything is great. But then Mercury reminds Aeneas that he must find Rome. "If future history's glories do not affect you, if you will not strive for your own honor, think of Ascanius, think of the expectations of your heir, Iulus, to whom the Italian realm, the land of Rome, are due" (Virgil 1037) His respect for the gods and his duty to his people bear more weight than his love for Dido. But nothing is more important to Dido than her love for Aeneas. She burns with love. She is totally distracted. When Aeneas finally leaves, she becomes alternately bitter, vindictive, and pathetic. She curses Aeneas by saying, "let him see the unmerited deaths of those around him, and accepting peace on unjust terms, let him not, even so, enjoy his kingdom or the life he longs for, but fall in battle before his time and lie unburied on the sand." (Virgil 1047)
             Where did this passion come from? What happens to Dido is not her fault. She's the victim of the gods and of Aeneas' fate to go to Italy. Part of Virgil's theme here is simply that life is extremely unfair to ...