Use Of Dido In The Book I Of The Aeneid

Dido in Three Translations

After Aeneas leaves Dido in Book IV of the Aeneid, the Carthaginian queen’s infatuation with him transforms into hatred and insanity. In a series of monologues, Dido voices her complex reaction to Aeneas’s betrayal, which includes both her personal heartache (Virgil, IV.479) and her political fear her subjects will regard her as someone of whom they can take advantage (VI.591-3). While the content of Dido’s words makes her fury patently obvious, the subtler qualities of her plight vary depending on translation. The three translations of the Aeneid to be discussed each have a different literary form: John Dryden’s colonial-era Aeneid is comprised entirely of rhymed couplets, Sarah Ruden’s contemporary translation uses

This structure results in a chantlike quality to the text and is conducive to being read at a rapid pace. Furthermore, Dryden uses contractions liberally to maintain the meter, which also speeds up the text. For example, when Dido says “And unreveng'd? 'T is doubly to be dead! / Yet ev'n this death with pleasure I receive: / On any terms, 't is better than to live,” (VI, Dryden), the many contractions allow Dryden to increase the number of words per line. This creates the illusion Dido is speaking quickly and highlights her desperation. Those same lines, however, are translated by Ruden: “I die without revenge– / But let me die. I like this path to darkness” (VI.559-61, Ruden). More spacious that Dryden’s verses, Ruden’s translation of these lines is free from exclamations, rhetorical questions, or complex clauses. At this much slower pace, Dido’s words highlight her sorrow. Indeed, without the predictability of rhymed verses, Ruden’s version progresses at a statelier pace. This is especially apparent in Dido’s monologues, where Ruden liberally uses ellipses to create pauses in her speech: “I could have killed his friends— / His son—and made a banquet…I may not have one—no matter: / I still would die” (VI.601-4, Ruden). Dido is deeply shaken, one thought interrupting another. Depending on the translation, she can appear to be in a frenzy or in a

Without needing to preserve the line-by-line structure Virgil established, Fairclough is free to be concise at some points and more verbose at others. Where Dido muses, “Poor thing. Your crimes—do you feel them only now? / Not when you made him king?” in Ruden’s version (VI.596-7), her words are “Unhappy Dido, do only now your sinful deeds come home to you? Then was the time, when you gave your crown away” in Fairclough’s (VI). While Ruden’s language is more direct, Fairclough’s descriptive embellishments—such as the image of her crown being given away—make Dido’s self-loathing more tangible. Conversely, Ruden is more descriptive than Fairclough when Dido says her “torches should have swarmed / His camp and gangways till they made a pyre” (VI.605-6, Ruden) rather than that she simply “should have carried fire into his camp, filled his decks with flame” (VI, Fairclough). Without obfuscating her intentions with the imagery of the torches, Dido sounds more forceful in Fairclough’s version, explicit about the destructive acts she wishes to do. While the meaning of her words is equivalent across translations, Dido’s heartbreak, spite, and vengefulness vary in shades within each translator’s