Why aeneas left dido

Knowing that the familial relationship between father and son is of great importance to Aeneas — as it is to Virgil — Jupiter questions Aeneas's honor as a progenitor who has seemingly forgotten his son's rightful ancestry.

In addition to Aeneas's irresponsible behavior toward his son, his leadership abilities are also dubious in Book IV. His infatuation with Dido affects not only himself but his people, who languish in Carthage.

Although Virgil never directly addresses the Trojans's concern for their leader's welfare, he offers clues that indicate the discomfort Aeneas's people feel. When Aeneas informs three Trojan crewmen responsible for readying the fleet to prepare all ships for departure, they gladly obey and eagerly begin stockpiling the vessels.

Metaphorically, Virgil compares the Trojans to ants, who work incessantly and without any rest to collect the food that will enable their colony to survive.

The image recalls the Carthaginians in Book I, who built their city like bees constructing a hive. Both metaphors emphasize the organization and order needed if a community — such as Rome — is to prosper and run efficiently. The well-organized society that Dido had created prior to Aeneas's arrival is drastically changed once she becomes infatuated with him. The building of Carthage comes to a complete stop. Even worse, the city's defense against enemy invasion — a concern that Anna uses to urge her sister to pursue Aeneas — is not maintained.

In one of the poem's few instances of overtly moral proselytizing, Virgil warns that passion — love out of control — causes disorder, both physically and emotionally, and even affects one impiously: "What good are shrines and vows to maddened lovers?

Her faithlessness in the gods and destiny demonstrates just how psychologically mad she has become. Virgil's portrayal of Dido in Book IV is one of the great literary character studies in all of literature. Dido finally knows, as do we, that she is doomed to fail in her conquest of Aeneas, yet we applaud her resourcefulness in facing down her destiny. Her begging at the beginning of Book IV for the earth to swallow her before she falls deeper into passion's indomitable grip is balanced by a similar self-recognition of her plight toward the book's end, when she asks of herself, "What am I saying?

Where am I? In some ways, Dido, like Turnus, her male counterpart in the second half of the Aeneid , is even more heroic than Aeneas. After all, Aeneas eventually learns that fate is on his side no matter how difficult his journey may be. Dido and Turnus, however, are heroic without this assurance, most of all at the moment of their deaths.

Stylistically, Virgil reinforces Dido's inability to control her passion by imagining her as a fire that grows and cannot be quenched. Fittingly, she dies on a pyre, used for burning corpses in funeral rites. However, her inner flame has been extinguished by her own hand; there is no reason to light the pyre now.

The Carthaginian queen is the plaything, the pawn, of both Juno and Venus. She has no freedom except in her choice to kill herself, an act of courage that proves she is a tragic — as well as a romantic — heroine. Indeed, Dido loses, but the cruel goddesses who use her lose also.

In trying against their better judgment to alter the will of fate, they only serve it: The passion that Venus inspires and Juno sanctions is, as fate decrees, frustrated, causing Dido to put a curse on the Trojans, which, in turn, will lead to the Punic Wars.

Fated to be an exile, he was the first to sail from the land of Troy and reach Italy. Not only is his fate determined, but Venus interferes with their love. She decided to make Cupid…give Dido the presents, and as he did so enflame her with a distraction of love, and entwine the fire of it about her very bones.

Though, Aeneas has his fate to endure, he is forced to leave Dido. He realizes that the love he has for her is very important yet, he has to leave her. Aeneas does have true feelings for her, but he decides to remain stoic and follow his fate. There is an overwhelming difference between true love and lust. Dido seems to be in love with Aeneas, as for Aeneas who id just interested in a fling.

Dido asks Aeneas in their final conversation in the cave his feelings about everything and his response is definitely not what she wanted to hear. This quote proves that all relationships will not be equal. Dido was giving up a lot on her part as Queen of Carthage by spending a numerous amount of time with Aeneas.

Thus, Aeneas did not act as though she was doing anything for their relationship,. This message shocks Aeneas—he must obey, but he does not know how to tell Dido of his departure. He tries to prepare his fleet to set sail in secret, but the queen suspects his ploy and confronts him. In a rage, she insults him and accuses him of stealing her honor. As a last effort, Dido sends Anna to try to persuade the Trojan hero to stay, but to no avail. Dido writhes between fierce love and bitter anger.

Suddenly, she appears calm and instructs Anna to build a great fire in the courtyard. There, Dido says, she can rid Aeneas from her mind by burning all the clothes and weapons he has left behind and even the bed they slept on. Anna obeys, not realizing that Dido is in fact planning her own death—by making the fire her own funeral pyre.

Aeneas does sleep, but in his dreams, Mercury visits him again to tell him that he has delayed too long already and must leave at once. Aeneas awakens and calls his men to the ships, and they set sail. Dido sees the fleet leaving and falls into her final despair.