Medea and Dido
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CPAL PD.2
Response #2
May 24th 2013 Medea and Dido
“Love is like a friendship caught on fire.” (Bruce Lee para. 1). Love can burn. Whether the burn is pleasant or ruthless is for your own experience. However, two women in the ancient societies can demonstrate the uglier side of love quite easily. The women are Medea and Dido. They each fall in love with great heros with the help of gods, and each of them made great sacrifices for the men.
Medea kills her brother for Jason, which ensures that she will not be able to return back home to her family. Dido doesn’t exactly kill anyone, but she does neglect her city. She says to Aeneas, “… because of you the tribes of Libya, all the Nomad princes hate me, even my own Tyrians are hostile…” (Virgil 4. 429-431). This shows just how much her love for Aeneas disrupted everything she had been working on. She’s the queen of Tyre and she neglected her city, just because she fell in love with a hero. She also ruined the chances of finding another king, to help her rule Tyre, because none of the other princes are willing to marry her anymore. Dido gave up so much for Aeneas for what seemed like nothing.
Just like Medea, Dido’s love for Aeneas starts out as an unwanted obstacle. Upon seeing Aeneas for the first time, she is struck by Cupid’s arrow. “The queen is caught between love’s pain and press… she is eaten by a secret flame.” (Virgil 4. 1-3). Her reaction to the poison of the arrow is completely involuntary. She had no intention of feeling such an intense infatuation with Aeneas, especially since she just met the man. However, it is a love induced by a god, so she can’t exactly fight it. It is completely unfair for a god to have such a power over a person, to make a perfectly sane women become crazy over a man. But that’s what happened, and it eventually ends in disaster.
Medea’s and Dido’s stories both end with deaths. The difference is that Medea ends
CPAL PD.2
Response #2
May 24th 2013 Medea and Dido
“Love is like a friendship caught on fire.” (Bruce Lee para. 1). Love can burn. Whether the burn is pleasant or ruthless is for your own experience. However, two women in the ancient societies can demonstrate the uglier side of love quite easily. The women are Medea and Dido. They each fall in love with great heros with the help of gods, and each of them made great sacrifices for the men.
Medea kills her brother for Jason, which ensures that she will not be able to return back home to her family. Dido doesn’t exactly kill anyone, but she does neglect her city. She says to Aeneas, “… because of you the tribes of Libya, all the Nomad princes hate me, even my own Tyrians are hostile…” (Virgil 4. 429-431). This shows just how much her love for Aeneas disrupted everything she had been working on. She’s the queen of Tyre and she neglected her city, just because she fell in love with a hero. She also ruined the chances of finding another king, to help her rule Tyre, because none of the other princes are willing to marry her anymore. Dido gave up so much for Aeneas for what seemed like nothing.
Just like Medea, Dido’s love for Aeneas starts out as an unwanted obstacle. Upon seeing Aeneas for the first time, she is struck by Cupid’s arrow. “The queen is caught between love’s pain and press… she is eaten by a secret flame.” (Virgil 4. 1-3). Her reaction to the poison of the arrow is completely involuntary. She had no intention of feeling such an intense infatuation with Aeneas, especially since she just met the man. However, it is a love induced by a god, so she can’t exactly fight it. It is completely unfair for a god to have such a power over a person, to make a perfectly sane women become crazy over a man. But that’s what happened, and it eventually ends in disaster.
Medea’s and Dido’s stories both end with deaths. The difference is that Medea ends