Study Guide

The Aeneid, Books 4 and 6

Who is Dido?

The Greek Mythology Link gives an excellent background that explains all about Dido and what she and the Tyrians are doing in Africa. It explains how she came to possess the land on which Carthage is being built, what the problem is with Iarbus, and what happens to Anna after Dido's death.

Understanding the dilemma in which Dido is placed by Aeneas's desertion will help you understand why she considers suicide her only option, and the only way to save Carthage.

Pay attention to the part about the "Bull's Hide" bargain. According to Virgil, the bargain was struck with Iarbus. Despite the fact that Dido thoroughly outsmarted him, or perhaps because of that fact, he feels he has some kind of claim to her.

For an explanation of why Dido is so important that Virgil dedicated the first four books of his epic to Aeneas's relationship with her, and to look at some really interesting images and maps, try the University of Virginia's multimedia path.

Juno and Venus plot together to join Aeneas and Dido as lovers, but for different reasons. Venus is hoping that Dido will give aid to Aeneas and his men, thus enabling them to complete their mission, and she is willing to use the hapless widow to do it. Juno, who loves Dido (ironically, this is probably because of Dido's fidelity to her dead husband) and Carthage, decides to fall in with Venus's plan when in fact she has no choice.

Juno's remarks to Venus are quite similar to Anna's persuasive arguments to Dido: if the Trojans and the Carthaginians join forces due to a marriage between the Trojan leader and the Carthaginian queen, they will create a glorious civilization. This actually is a great idea and it should have pleased all parties, but unfortunately it's counter to the will of the Fates, and Venus realizes that Juno is trying to subvert Aeneas's destiny. Thus, Venus double-crosses the would-be double-crosser: she pretends to agree to Juno's proposal, when all along she plans for Aeneas to leave Carthage behind as soon as the time is right.

Don't you just love the description of the goddess Rumor? The description of her, with a hundred eyes and a hundred tongues covered by her feathery body, is just too evocative. I find myself trying to imagine how a Hollywood costume designer would cope with her.

Iarbus is an African nobleman whose love was scorned by Dido on the grounds that she was unwilling to be unfaithful to the memory of her late husband. Not surprisingly, he is now furious to discover that not only has she gone back on her vow, but Aeneas hasn't even married her! Although he himself had offered her honorable marriage, she prefers living in sin with one of those effeminate eastern Trojans (Iarbus seems to have the same opinion of Troy and its soft living that the Greeks did). It's an outrageous insult to his honor.

Iarbus mentions the "Bull's Hide" bargain here. What happened was this: when Dido and her Tyrians came to Iarbus and asked for land, he offered her as much as she could cover with an ox hide, secretly hoping that she would give up her plan to found a new city and would instead settle down as his wife. Instead, she and the rest of the Tyrians took a very sharp blade and sliced the ox hide into incredibly fine slivers, then put the slivers end to end to circle the land they wanted. In that way, they were able to claim a very large chunk of real estate according to the terms of the deal.

Unfortunately for Dido, Iarbus is a proven devotee of Jupiter--and not even Juno's patronage can protect somebody from Jupiter's wrath. Because he has built many temples and made many sacrifices, Jupiter answers his prayer by sending down Mercury to recall Aeneas.

Mercury shames Aeneas by making fun of his clothes and his idleness--two very Roman arguments. The Romans were proud of their straightforward manner and simple dress, and they would have considered Aeneas's outfit, described in such detail by Virgil, to be quite "over the top." They also plumed themselves on their energy and their devotion to duty, the characteristic of pietas. The so-called "pius Aeneas" is not acting very pius. In essence, Mercury calls him a "girly man," a servant to a woman's whims.

Rumor doesn't play favorites; she next visits Dido herself and we find the Queen behaving like a crazed Bacchante. It's at this point that she seems to realize just how much she has to lose. Iarbus, who might have been a buffer between herself and her murderous, greedy brother, has now become her enemy. Even the Tyrians have turned against her; they've watched her heap honors on a relative stranger from a foreign country, putting themselves at risk against the Libyans under Iarbus's sway and the Tyrians back home led by Dido's brother. Ever since Aeneas and his Trojans showed up, work on the city has been almost at a standstill while its Queen has been distracted by her new lover.

If Aeneas and his faithful Trojans go away, Dido will be left undefended. Carthage will be in a situation of unrest from within and without, rather like Thebes right after the death of Eteocles and Polynices. The only way to keep stability in the city will be for its disgraced leader to commit suicide in order to make room for someone who can inspire confidence and draw people together. So it isn't just a broken heart that leads her to this decision, though no doubt brokenheartedness had something to do with it.

As has been pointed out before, Virgil is making a parallel here between Dido and Cleopatra, a parallel that no Roman would have missed at the time. Like Dido, Cleopatra was an exotic and wealthy woman who seduced a man away from his "destiny"--in Cleopatra's case, Julius Caesar. Caesar became so fond of the easy life in Egypt the Romans began to fear he would never return, and then when he did return Cleopatra followed him. She was a disturbing presence and the Senate worried that she had too much influence on Caesar, making him forget the old Roman values.

Worse yet, Cleopatra had a son by Caesar. He had already named an heir, his adopted son Octavian Augustus (who would later become Caesar Augustus), but there was fear that he might set aside pius Augustus in favor of his biological son--whose loyalties would, naturally, be divided between Rome and Egypt. Accordingly, an assassination plot was hatched and carried out.

But that wasn't the end of Cleopatra. Taking up with Julius Caesar's supporter (and Augustus's brother-in-law) Mark Antony, she openly challenged Octavian Augustus, a move that led to war. Augustus's troops won and the rest is history.

Virgil's message here is clear: beware of exotic women from north Africa!

I know, I didn't assign this one. But I just had to mention the conversation at the end of the book between Venus and Neptune. It's just so charming--I love the way Neptune soothes her by reminding her that he has a fondness for her because she came from the sea: "O Cytherean, you have every right to put your trust in this my kingdom; you yourself were born here." It's one of the very few literary references to these two, who are not usually seen together, talking to each other directly.

Also, the image that follows of Neptune galloping over the waves to soothe them for Aeneas and his men is really neat.

Cumae

Aeneas and his crew have finally made it to the promised land: Hesperia. See the map of Aeneas's voyage to see the route they took.

There's bad news, though. When they get to the Temple of Apollo, they meet the Sibyl (another priestess of Apollo who, like her Trojan counterpart Cassandra, traded her virginity to the god for a gift and then went back on her promise--only her curse is similar to that of Tithonus, a ridiculously extended lifespan with no extension of youth). She prophesies that the Trojans have yet more trials ahead, as many by land as they've just been through by sea.

The Sibyl tells them that there is "a new Achilles" in the Latium region, and that yet more trouble is in store for them from a "foreign bride." It seems like we've just moved from an echo of the Odyssey to an echo of the Iliad! The "new Achilles" refers to Turnus, whom Aeneas will have to overcome before he can marry Lavinia (the "foreign bride"), the future mother of the Latin race. In this case, the foreign bride is a virtuous young woman. In fact, she's so virtuous she's kind of boring. Although she's described as very beautiful, most readers find her a real disappointment after the powerful character of Dido.

Preparation for the trip to the underworld

It's interesting that pius Aeneas is willing to use his connection with Venus for leverage here. He asks to see his father--unlike Odysseus, he is eager to visit the underworld and doesn't have to be forced--and he reels off a list of other children of gods who visited Hades' realm and returned to tell about it: Orpheus, Polydeuces (who went to the underworld to retrieve his twin, Castor), Theseus, and Heracles.

The idea of the golden bough is remarkably similar to the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone, isn't it? It will break off easily for whoever is fated to have it, but for anybody else it will be impossible to remove. Note that there is a condition attached to it. Although it is an incredibly valuable and tempting object, the bough must be sacrificed to Proserpina (Persephone) and cannot be kept. This is yet another test of Aeneas's pietas. If he were to be overcome by greed and attempt to take the bough home with him, he would never make it back. Imagine how difficult that renunciation would be for somebody like Odysseus or Menelaus! Those two seem to be in the habit of trying to take everything that isn't nailed down and cart it back to decorate the palace.

Of course, before Aeneas can possess the bough he has to find it first. Luckily Mom comes to the rescue by sending a couple of her sacred doves to show the way.

The Misenus episode is kind of weird. Here's the same theme we've seen before of challenging one of the gods to a musical competition, as Marsyas or Pan challenge Apollo, but in this case it's a guy with a horn. He challenges the sea deities, who are frequently depicted blowing on horns or conch shells, and Triton in particular.

There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for the challenge, or even for the episode. If Virgil was making a point about something here, it seems to have been lost in translation.

Triton has lost some of his popularity and his sense of awesome power; today we think of him as the Dad figure in Disney's Little Mermaid. To the ancients, however, he was a representative of the sea's awesome power. The English poet William Wordsworth regrets the loss of Triton in his sonnet "The World is Too Much with Us" (published 1807), where he laments the fact that in modern society we seem to have lost the sense of wonder that the ancients had when they gazed out at a world peopled everywhere by gods:

        ...Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The trip to the underworld

You can follow Aeneas's route on the Greek Mythology Link's map of the underworld. It's slow to load, but if you want to look at it the link will open in another window so you can wait for it while you read.

The description of the animals Aeneas sacrifices before his descent is masterful. We saw Odysseus sacrificing sheep to get blood for the ghosts (see Powell, page 285), but those were generic sheep. Aeneas and the Sibyl sacrifice four "black-backed steers" (why steers rather than bulls? Is it significant that they choose emasculated creatures as appropriate for a realm in which there is no fertility?), a "black-fleeced lamb" for the goddess Nyx, and a "barren heifer" (lack of fertility again!) for Proserpina.

Notice all the unburied souls, including Aeneas's own helmsman Palinurus. Poor Palinurus was the victim of yet another of those ambiguous prophecies of the gods: it was prophesied that he would make it safely to the shores of Italy, which he did--only to be murdered immediately by pirates. The Sibyl "comforts" him by saying that even though nobody can keep him from having to put in his time as a wanderer on the banks of the Styx, at least he has the satisfaction of knowing that the cities surrounding his murderers' home will be racked by the plague. Some comfort, huh?

Once we've crossed the Styx we see many famous characters from mythology, such as Minos in his capacity as judge of the dead, and then we come to the area where those who died for love are roaming. It's a myrtle grove. You may recall from our class Aphrodite page that myrtle is the plant sacred to Venus.

I think it's really touching that Dido's husband has chosen to join her there, don't you? He didn't die for love--he was murdered by her brother for political reasons--and he could have been in a much more pleasant place, but he seems to have chosen instead to be with her forever. Although we don't know much about him, this one choice seems to me to prove that he was worth the loyalty she gave him until she got blindsided by Venus and Juno.

Deiphobus is not so lucky. You may remember him from the Iliad as Hector's brother, the one Athena impersonated to lure him into fighting Achilles. Here we see him as the consort of Helen (the "Laconian" or Spartan woman--Sparta was also called Laconia), as according to the mythology he "inherited" her after Paris was killed in the war. In this version, treacherous Helen actually mustered and armed the Argive troops as they emerged from the wooden horse.

After wandering for a while, Aeneas finally finds his father in the laurel-fringed groves of the blessed. Laurel is appropriate, since the final destination of the blessed is described here as a realm of light and eternal summer sunshine.

After his brief explanation of how things work in the underworld, Anchises makes a prediction about the future greatness of Aeneas's descendants--a prediction that is the entire reason for this jaunt to the underworld in the first place. Don't forget: this poem is mythological propaganda. By tracing the descent of Julius and Augustus Caesar ("the son of a god"...well, at least the adopted son of a man who was deified after death), Virgil is able to further strengthen the claim of Augustus and Rome as the nation destined to be the most powerful and greatest in the world.

A final note: at the end of Book Six, Virgil mentions the gates of ivory and horn that we first saw in Homer. Aeneas is sent back through the gate of ivory--traditionally, the gate through which the false dreams are sent. Why, do you think?