Human Interaction In The Aeneid By Virgil

Regular human interaction is a very normal part of life. People interact with each other throughout the entire day, they just do not think about it. But if that human interaction is taken away by loneliness or loss, it has a major effect on our sanity. Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, was born in 70 B.C. near Mantua, Italy. Born into a peasant family, Virgil had many hardships faced early on in his life, which he reflects in his many poetic works. His most notable work was the epic poem, the Aeneid. Book IV of this epic poem introduces Aeneas, our epic hero, to Dido, Queen of Carthage. Dido, struck with grief over her husband, has become captivated with Aeneas. Unwilling to let go of him because of her frequent loss and loneliness in her kingdom,

After Dido’s husband died, she was very grief stricken, and was trying to stay away from others. “I had not set my face against remarriage. After my first love died and failed me, left me barren and bereaved.”(Virgil 20-22) Dido speaks of how her anger from her husband’s death has caused her to want Aeneas more, because of how brave he is. Her husband had left her, and she blamed her loneliness on the loss of him himself. “Dido in love, Dido consumed with passion to her core.”(Virgil 135-136) This quote shows how, because of her loss of her husband and her loneliness he left her to, she is desperate to marry Aeneas. The loss caused her mind to be shrouded with finding a replacement, someone who could be with her. But along with this came the passion that she had, obsessing over the one she wants, and eventually getting her way: marriage. She may seem desperate for a “rebound”, but her judgement blurred by replacement was a step higher in her sanity going. She is desperate for someone to fill the hole in her heart, but the hole was created by her loneliness, and her

As written by Virgil, ”Mercury took him to task at once: ‘Is it for you to lay the stones of Carthage’s high walls, tame husband that you are, and build their city? Oblivious of your own world, your own kingdom! From bright Olympus he that rules the gods and turns the earth and heaven by his power—he and no other sent me to you, told me...Think of expectations of your heir, Iulus, to whom the Italian realm, the land of Rome, are due.”(Virgil 343-358) Mercury tells Aeneas that he must not be occupied with Dido and her kingdom, but set sail to build his own. He tells Aeneas that he must create Rome, and to forget about Carthage and trying to make it his shared rule with Dido. And so Aeneas agrees, and decides to secretly get ready to set sail, and leave Dido behind. As Dido finds out about his plan to leave, Aeneas explains that the gods have sent him on a journey to found Rome in Italy. This is where we finally see Dido, Queen of Carthage, snap. After the loss of her husband, the grief and loneliness he brought with his death, and now her loss of the one she believed was her savior from desolation, her sanity snaps. She becomes furious with Aeneas, detonating everything she was holding in. “No goddess was your mother. Dardanus was not the founder of your family. Liar and cheat! Some rough Caucasian cliff begot you on flint.”(Virgil 479-482) This is where Dido loses her grip on sanity,