Lis and the "Mad Flight"

7. "Is there a love to dying for?"

February 13, 2013

San Marcello Pistoiese, Italy

By quoting the fast apparition of Dido's soul in the book of the dead from Aeneid (cfr. supra) we have marked how the frowning spirit of the suicided queen engineers into Aeneas a strong regret.

However, it is worth focusing a moment on this tormented love story and on its tragic reveals, usually considered to be precursors of the proverbial hostility between Rome and Carthage.

In the Virgilian play, Aeneas arrives with the fleet of Trojan exiles near the Punic city at the behest of the goddess Juno, who, after having persuaded Aeolus, sets off a storm on the hero and his companions. To welcome Aeneas, in the city dear to Juno, the queen will be Dido, exiled from Tyre and the virtuous Sichaeus widow.

An overwhelming passion begins between the two, by the will of the goddess Venus, which is destined to a tragic outcome, since Fate does not allow the fusion of the two peoples by a marriage. The hero begins to prepare secretly the start thinking in this way to weaken Dido's inevitable pain of separation.

But the queen guesses that and Fame confirms that the preparations are full-swinging for departure: she spent the last night in a sleepless restlessness.

So at the sunrise, after some long night suffering, Dido sees the vacuum port and the leaving ships. Then she curses Aeneas and his descendants, hoping that an eternal hatred divides forever the two peoples. The love suffering of Dido, which makes her similar to a "cerva da freccia piagata (deer wounded by an arrow)", it will find peace at last in a painful and self-induced death, after a slow agony.

It is perhaps for this reason that his brief appearance, now as a spirit from shadow, in Aeneid VI is so touching: instead Aeneas that was appeared insensitive in Aeneid IV shows his very strong love for Dido, although they can not join in marriage pact against the wishes of Fate.

If he could, he would have gladly stopped on the shores of Carthage, but as he sadly

says, "la legge dei numi […] con la sua forza mi urgeva -the law of the gods [...] urged me with his strength-" (Aeneid VI, 461-463).

What emerges from that is a deeply pessimistic view of human existence: the two unfortunate lovers are configured as unaware of their destiny and manipulated like puppets by the gods to achieve some purposes which, however they exist, are characterized as inscrutable.

On a closer inspection there is a truly tragic perspective, whose echoes can still be marked in a contemporary artistic and literary production (cfr. infra, in this regard, the considerations raised-up on the play "Paladini di Francia -Paladins of France-").

Martina Castelli, Alice Guerrini, Maria Ferrari.