Many of the greatest stories ever written include a death that occurs out of love. Virgil’s “The Passion Queen” which comes from book 4 of the Aeneid is one of them. A long story full of action and heartbreak leads to a surprising ending. Virgil uses the death of Queen Dido to show that humans are too emotionally weak to deal with tough emotional situations.
One way to prove that humans are too weak to withstand emotional pain is when Queen Dido disobeys her husband’s dying wish to remarry. Queen Dido’s brother had killed her husband and before her husband had died, he told Dido not to remarry after his death. Dido proves this when she says, “Had I not set my face against remarriage, after my first love died and failed me...”.(20-21) She is
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trying to cope with the orders of her husband and she is struggling. But the Queen could not resist love when she confesses to her sister, “I recognize the signs of old flame, of old desire.”(29-30). The queen knew what she wanted even though it was wrong. Despite the fact that the king, her husband, disapproved her remarrying, passion was her weakness and she had to find love. Queen Dido does what she feels is necessary to keep Aeneas with her so she does not feel like he abandoned her. The first thing that she does is have a marriage ceremony to Aeneas by herself so that she considers them married. Virgil describes the queen as love struck when he writes, "Unlucky Dido, burning, in her madness roamed through all the city, like a doe hit by an arrow shot from far away..."(91-93). The poor queen did not know what to do with herself. It seems as if she would have done anything for Aeneas at this point. Although Aeneas did not love Dido the way that she loved him. Dido would dress up for Aeneas, convinced that he was in love with her. A scene in the book describes Dido as, “Caught about her, at her back a quiver sheathed in gold, and a brooch of gold pinning her scarlet dress."(181-184). In this scene Dido had dressed up for an occasion that Aeneas was attending, even though it was small. She believed that they were in love despite her having to go out of her way for him. The need for love had driven her crazy, she did things that were out of proportion because she had to keep Aeneas with her. Eventually, Queen Dido has her heart broken by Aeneas and when this happened, she is too weak to deal with the heartache and she kills herself.
Before her death, the Queen had given out an epitaph. She did not want to live a life without love. She states, “Take this breath and give me respite from these agonies.”.(872-873) When she says this, she is hoping to find peace for her broken heart. She thinks of it as exchanging life for peace. Although when she kills herself, her death is not peaceful. When she commits suicide, witnesses describe it as “Crumpled over the steel blade, and the blade aflush with red blood, drench her hands, A scream…”.(888-889) Her scream lets others know that she was in pain. This proves that the queen had gone through with the suicide because of heartbreak. The Queen took her own life instead of having to deal with her emotions.
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Like anybody else, even the queen is too weak to deal with her emotions and Virgil proves that in the Aeneid: Book 4. The queen went against her husband's dying wish to fix her broken heart. But the man she had fallen in love with did not love her the same way, so she tried and tried to keep him near. When her efforts failed and Aeneas breaks her heart, she commits suicide. What this whole story proves is that emotional pain weakens a person to the point where they can no longer deal with tough situations. Virgil must have seen all humans in need of love and used a story like this to show what happens without
it.
In The Aeneid there are rich implemented principles such as fate, discipline, and competition which greatly influenced the Roman empire causing it’s rise from obedience to the principles as well as it’s fall from disobedience. Virgil lived during the dawn of the rising sRoman empire, and his book was a catalyst to the greatness that grew within the nation. The Aeneid focused around the principle that fate’s power and dominance overrule human life, which in turn would bring indolence or proactivity depending on the individual’s capacity. Although fate can easily be ripped down as a belief it did many great things for the Romans whether it is real or not. Unfortunately the themes of deceit and trickery also crept into the book’s contents, which
Though easier to consider The Aeneid as a work which clearly defines the roles of man and woman, with men upholding traits of stability, rationality, and containment of oneself, with the women acting irrational and without jurisdiction, this is not quite the case. Gender is not quite the cookie cutter structure one is accustomed to, instead it acts as a much more complicated force within the interactions of the characters. The masculine and feminine become combined within individuals, blended to the point where perhaps sometimes understanding a character is far more complicated than knowing whether it is a 'he' or 'she'.
A twenty-first century reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey will highlight a seeming lack of justice: hundreds of men die because of an adulteress, the most honorable characters are killed, the cowards survive, and everyone eventually goes to hell. Due to the difference in the time period, culture, prominent religions and values, the modern idea of justice is much different than that of Greece around 750 B.C. The idea of justice in Virgil’s the Aeneid is easier for us to recognize. As in our own culture, “justice” in the epic is based on a system of punishment for wrongs and rewards for honorable acts. Time and time again, Virgil provides his readers with examples of justice in the lives of his characters. Interestingly, the meaning of justice in the Aeneid transforms when applied to Fate and the actions of the gods. Unlike our modern (American) idea of blind, immutable Justice, the meanings and effects of justice shift, depending on whether its subject is mortal or immortal.
Once Dido falls in love with Aeneas, Virgil uses a simile to describe the wound that Dido suffers from.
Literature according to our textbook is one form of media that is an expression of attitude toward death. Literature gives us the meaning of death as it relates to society and individuals. (Lynne Ann DeSpelder, pg. 17) Novels about war depict how individuals and societies search for meaning in shattering experiences of trauma and loss. In order to concur with our textbook and the media that was chosen, Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare came to mind. Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story but also shows love in a violent way. Romeo and Juliet go against the society of their families. The lovers decided that it was better to be dead together than to be alive and apart. This type of love has been glorified to be romantic and shows strength.
Romeo and Juliet is arguably the most famous story about love in literature. This is in part because of the tension caused by the look the different characters have towards what love means and its role in life. These views were very important for the progression of the story. Their different views collided and caused much grief and sorrow for the characters throughout play. Many important events that propelled the story forward would not have happened without the various feelings towards love the characters have and how they felt of and reacted to the other characters’ view on love.
People say the mind is a very complex thing. The mind gives people different interpretations of events and situations. A person state of mind can lead to a death of another person. As we all know death is all around us in movies, plays, and stories. The best stories that survive throughout time involve death in one form or another. For example, William Shakespeare is considered as one of the greatest writers in literary history known for having written a lot of stories concerning death like Macbeth or Julius Caesar. The topic of death in stories keeps people intrigued and on the edge of their seats. Edgar Allan Poe wrote two compelling stories that deal with death “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven.” In “The
Publius Vergilis Maro, known to us as Virgil, was born Oct 15, 70 BC in Northern Italy. Octavius, who had always been a friend of Virgil, became Emperor in 27 BC, adopting the name of Augustus. He made Virgil in a sense, a court poet, "although [Virgil] always retained his independence of thought and expression" (Milch 7). However it was the Emperor's initial idea, and not Virgil's own, for him to write the Aeneid. Virgil accepted the project although he later wrote that "he thought he must have been just about mad to attempt the task" (Quinn 73).
It is clear when reading the Aeneid that Virgil was familiar with the earlier works of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Virgil, more than just being aware of these earlier works, uses themes and ideas from these poems in his own. Far more than just copying scenes and ideas, Virgil expands and alters these themes to better tell his story, unique from the Greek originals he is drawing from. Virgil reveals what qualities he regards as heroic through the juxtaposition of Aeneas’ character and the negative aspects of the underworld. By looking at which qualities are esteemed and derided respectively, we can identify the qualities that Virgil would like to emphasize positively to his readers. Also, we can argue that Virgil is indeed trying to convey a particular set or morals to those readers. Beyond the underworld, it is possible to clearly identify these traits in the other sections of the poem where Virgil is borrowing and making his own alterations. Using these distinctions we can very clearly derive Virgil's morality from the poem, and see where Virgil's ideal characters veer away from the Greek ideal that came before.
Similarly, like Dido, the goddess Juno is portrayed by Virgil as emotional and enraged. He carefully paints the picture that; not only the women are on earth are swayed by their emotion, but also the female goddesses is subject to emotions. In the opening of Book I create a picture that not only is women emotionally, but they are petty; and the smallest amount of insult or threat generates an emotional response. And Virgil justifies this reason when he states the reason for Juno’s anger towards the Trojans, especially Aeneas. And it is because the Trojan goddess voted against in the beauty contest and also because she knows that the Trojans will one day destroy her beloved city of Carthage. Even though these things are things of the distant past for Juno, it shows that
... pain" he had previously endured. He is unable to mourn appropriately, but rather accepts his suffering as part of life. His ability to show true emotion, and love deeply, was torn away from him at the hands of the "merciless plague". Through these two characters we see an exception to the general rule. As aside from a small few, majority felt their potential to love was as strong as ever.
We also see in the story what someone must sacrifice in order to fulfill their goals. Though Aeneas's destiny was much more grand than many of our own, we still must make choices that can sometimes hurt others. I really thought that Vergil captured our inner emotions with the affair between Dido and Aeneas.
...can presume that it was out of guilt. As we saw, it was plaguing her dreams, and taking a heavy toll on her mental health. The reader can assume that she saw death as the only opportunity for peace of mind. Lady Macbeth committed the ultimate crime, and this is how she payed the price.
stories of the tragic effect of a love so strong that it can kill sets the table for the
causes more pain than it does happiness. This concept of love, as portrayed by countless works,