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

All's fair in love and war. Their passion drove them to do the things that were done. Both Dido and Medea did whatever they could to get revenge. It didn't matter who was in the way or how it came to be. All that mattered in the end was that the goal was achieved.

Virgil. "The Aeneid." The Norton Anthology World Masterpieces. Expanded Edition

Volume I. Ed. Maynard Mack. W.W. Norton and Company, 1995. 669-700

Euripides. "Medea." The Norton Anthology World Masterpieces. Expanded Edition

Whatever started it, this excessive passion destroys Dido. For one thing it makes her irrational. " 'I die unavenged,' she said, 'but let me die this way, this way, a blessed relief to go into the undergloom.'" (Virgil 1048) Let the cold Trojan, far at sea, drink in this conflagration and take with him the omen of my death Aeneas' story should have warned her that he would leave eventually leave for Italy. A more rational person would at least have asked him what his plans were. Instead, Dido gets "married" in a mock ceremony in a cave-something only she believes is a real marriage.

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Approximate Word count = 831
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)