Aeneid Book Four
Audiences, reception, interpretations
An anomalous book…
Role of the incipit (beginning) in setting out expectations:
Iliad: The wrath sing, o Goddess, of Achilles son of Peleus,
the lethal wrath that brought countless woes upon the
Greeks
Odyssey: The man of many resources, Muse, tell me of
him who wandered far, after sacking the holy city of Troy.
Many the men whose cities he saw, whose ways he
learned. Many the sorrows he suffered at sea, while trying
to bring himself and his friends back alive.
Incipit of the Aeneid
Of arms and of the man I sing, the man fated to be an exile, who long since
left the land of Troy and came to Italy to the shores of Lavinium; and a great
pounding he took by land and sea at the hands of the heavenly gods
because of the fierce and unforgetting anger of Juno. Great too where his
sufferings in war before he could found his city and carry his gods into
Latium. This was the beginning of the Latin race, the Alban fathers and the
high walls of Rome. Tell me, Muse, the causes of her anger. How did he
violate the will of the Queen of the Gods? What was his offence? Why did
she drive a man famous for his piety to such endless hardship and such
suffering? Can there be so much anger in the hearts of the heavenly gods?
Book 4 as a… tragedy. Is there evidence for it?
Status of the protagonists (Aristotle)
Introductory dialogue: a tragic situation
Confrontation Dido/Aeneas
Portents of doom
Suicide
Goddess intervention at the end
What has Dido’s image been like, in reception?
Death of
Dido
Codex
Vergilius
Vaticanus,
circa 400
CE
The hunt. In the cave.
Mosaic, Low Ham Villa,
4th c.
Francesco di Giorgio Martini, tempera on wood, circa 1480
The Meeting of
Dido and
Aeneas by Sir
Nathaniel
DanceHolland,
exhibited 1766,
via Tate,
London
Landscape
with the Union
of Dido and
Aeneas by
Gaspard
Dughet and
Carlo Maratta,
ca. 1664-68,
via the
National
Gallery,
London
Turner, Mercury
sent to admonish
Aeneas, 1850
Purcell, Dido and Aeneas
Listen to Dido’s Lament, sung by Anna Dennis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H--Z9UzQYE
Any remarks?
How would you compare Virgil’s
Dido with Purcell’s Dido?
Some scholarship:
Harrison, Tragedy in Aen book 4 (Omnibus 15)
https://archive.org/details/omnibus15/01Aeneid4/page/n1/mode/2up
Hardie, The Masks of Dido (Omnibus 21)
https://archive.org/details/omnibus21/05HardieDido/page/n3/mode/2up?view=thea
ter
Nelis, Dido (Omnibus 30)
https://archive.org/details/omnibus30/03NelisDido/mode/2up?view=theater
Explain how Passage C is a vivid piece of writing. Use references to the passage to
support your answer [10 marks]
Passage C Virgil, Aeneid, 4.68–88
The flame was eating the soft marrow of her bones and the wound lived quietly under her breast. Dido was on fire
with love and wandered all over the city in her misery and madness and like a wounded doe which a shepherd
hunting in the woods of Crete has caught off guard, striking her from long range with steel-tipped shaft; the arrow
flies and is left in her body without his knowing it; she runs away over all the wooded slopes of Mount Dicte, and
sticking in her side is the arrow that will bring her death. Sometimes she would take Aeneas through the middle of
Carthage, showing him the wealth of Sidon and the city waiting for him, and she would be on the point of
speaking her mind to him but checked the words on her lips. Sometimes, as the day was ending, she would call
for more feasting and ask in her infatuation to hear once more about the sufferings of Troy and once more she
would hang on his lips as he told the story. Then, after they had parted, when the fading moon was dimming her
light and the setting stars seemed to speak of sleep, alone and wretched in her empty house she would cling to
the couch Aeneas had left. There she would lie long after he had gone and she would see him and hear him when
he was not there for her to see or hear. Or she would keep back Ascanius and take him on her knee, overcome
by the likeness to his father, trying to beguile the love she could not declare. The towers she was building ceased
to rise. (D. West)
‘Admirable but unlikeable.’ Explain whether Dido deserves this description.
You may use Passage C as a starting point in your answer. Justify your
response.
Virgil, ‘Aeneid’, 4.Lines 68–88
‘The flame was eating the soft marrow of her bones and the wound lived quietly under her breast. Dido was
on fire with love and wandered all over the city in her misery and madness and like a wounded doe which a
shepherd hunting in the woods of Crete has caught off guard, striking her from long range with steel-tipped
shaft; the arrow flies and is left in her body without his knowing it; she runs away over all the wooded slopes
of Mount Dicte, and sticking in her side is the arrow that will bring her death.
Sometimes she would take Aeneas through the middle of Carthage, showing him the wealth of Sidon and
the city waiting for him, and she would be on the point of speaking her mind to him but checked the words
on her lips. Sometimes, as the day was ending, she would call for more feasting and ask in her infatuation
to hear once more about the sufferings of Troy and once more she would hang on his lips as he told the
story. Then, after they had parted, when the fading moon was dimming her light and the setting stars
seemed to speak of sleep, alone and wretched in her empty house she would cling to the couch Aeneas
had left. There she would lie long after he had gone and she would see him and hear him when he was not
there for her to see or hear. Or she would keep back Ascanius and take him on her knee, overcome by the
likeness to his father, trying to beguile the love she could not declare. The towers she was building ceased
to rise.’
Translation: D. West