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(1.657f) Dido and Aeneas fall in love by the management of Juno and Venus, acting in concert, though for different reasons. (4.198f) When the rumour of the love affair comes to King Iarbas the Gaetulian, "a son of Jupiter Ammon by a raped Garamantian nymph", Iarbas prays to his father, blaming Dido who has scorned marriage with him yet now ...
Dido and Aeneas, from a Roman fresco, Pompeian Third Style (10 BC – 45 AD), Pompeii, Italy. Before Dido and Aeneas, Purcell had composed music for several stage works, including nine pieces for Nathaniel Lee's Theodosius, or The Force of Love (1680) and eight songs for Thomas d'Urfey's A Fool's Preferment (1688).
Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a small cave in which Aeneas and Dido make love, after which Juno presides over what Dido considers a marriage ceremony. Fama (the personification of rumour) spreads the news of Aeneas and Dido's marriage, which eventually reaches king Iarbas.
Among the souls that Aeneas meets in the fields of sorrow are several princesses and mythical figures, including Eriphyle, who is seen to bear the wounds inflicted by her son, and Phaedra, who caused the death of her love interest, Hippolytus. Other figures that are mentioned to bide in the fields are Procris, Pasiphaë, Laodamia, and Caeneus. [2]
Aeneas falls in love with their queen, Dido, but dutifully departs for Italy, leaving her. Distraught at his betrayal, she orders a pyre to be built and set ablaze so that Aeneas will see from his ship that she has killed herself. She sings the lament before stabbing herself as Aeneas sails on.
Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 (Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy). In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/ ɪ ˈ n iː ə s / ih-NEE-əs, [1] Latin: [äe̯ˈneːäːs̠]; from Ancient Greek: Αἰνείας, romanized: Aineíās) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). [2]
Iarbas appears disguised as "Arbace" to warn Dido that Aeneas cannot become King of Carthage. Nevertheless, Dido refuses to marry Iarbas. Although Aeneas is now in love with Dido, he asks her sister Selene to tell her of his plans to leave Carthage for Italy. War then breaks out between Aeneas and Iarbas in which the Trojan is triumphant.
Welcomed by Dido, Carthage's Queen, with a feast, Aeneas tells the tale of Troy's fall "With Words so sweet and Sighs so deep, / that oft he made them all to Weep" (lines 23–24). Following Aeneas's grand tale, all leave the feast and go to sleep, save for Dido who finds herself unable to sleep, kept awake by her desire for Aeneas.