imagery of the sea only intensifies Aeneas’ tempo-
rary immobility: his tunic is like a sea that has
stopped its continuous motion, his lips resemble a
seashell, the horizon reflected in his goblet is the
sea horizon, and he himself is a ship which Dido
(the fish) is ready to follow. The contrast to this
picture of his immobility is immediately followed
by the description of her emotional state. Her love
is full of motion, speed, and impulsiveness. But as
his plans are set into motion, her mobility will
freeze. The phrase ‘‘whole world ends with the
border of his tunic’’ acquires both temporal and
spatial meaning. The folds of his tunic on which
her adoring eyes linger reflect his temporary halt in
time and space contrary to his predestined duty.
The imagery of the tunic also predicts Dido’s lim-
itations and her future inability to follow Aeneas
on his journey. The Vergilian Dido who confronts
Aeneas after his attempt to leave her secretly with-
out any explanation is replaced by the Dido of
Brodsky’s poem who only gazes speechlessly as a
fish which moves its lips but is unable to utter a
sound. Brodsky juxtaposes ‘‘he already strode
upon the land’’ with the comparison of Dido to a
fish. Fish don’t live on land; thus Aeneas belongs
to a realm where Dido has no natural place. The
sea which he is about to embark upon turns out to
be a sea of tears, and the tears are Dido’s.
Aeneas of Brodsky’s poem is departing on
an important journey where there is no place for
her. In fact, Dido is referred to only as ‘‘she,’’
whereas Aeneas is twice described as a ‘‘great
man.’’ The Aeneas of Vergil is known by his
epithet ‘‘pius,’’ for his dedication to destiny and
divine will enables him to endure the vicissitudes
of life. However, Aeneas’ predestined fate leaves
very little room for individual choice. Otis
observes that ‘‘there could have been no Rome,
as Vergil conceived it, without men like Aeneas,
men of supreme pietas.’’ His human side is
revealed only in very few instances during the
course of theAeneidand every time his humanity
is dominated by his sense of duty which sup-
presses his vulnerability to love or pain. This
aspect of Aeneas is his most attractive yet most
ambivalent trait in Vergil. However, greatness of
character, at least in Book IV of theAeneid,is
attributed not to Aeneas but Dido. At the end of
the book, embittered and suicidal, she exclaims:
... This is what I pray for, these last words I
utter with the last of my blood. You, o Tyrians,
treat with hatred the offspring and all of the
future progeny of the Trojans, and bestow this
duty on my ashes. Let there be no love and no
pact between our people. There will be some
avenger born out of my bones, who will pursue
the Dardanian settlers with burning torch and
sword, now, later on, and as long as the
strength allows. I pray that our shores be
against theirs, the waves against the waves,
the arms against the arms. They themselves
will fight and their descendants will.
In her darkest hour, Vergil’s Dido sees an
everlasting rivalry and hostility between Carth-
age and the future city of Rome as she struggles
to regain her dignity as a Carthaginian queen.
Dido, and subsequently Carthage, are defeated
by destiny, and the failed love between Aeneas
and Dido is only a casualty in the process. But
the Aeneas of Book IV emerges as less of a hero
because of his sense of duty when measured
against the intensity of Dido’s character. It is
Dido who fits the reader’s preconceptions of
the heroic because she is more articulate in her
choices and her legacy.
Brodsky’s Dido acquires a different dimen-
sion. The Vergilian bonfire upon which she will
throw herself in her final hour of ultimate
despair becomes a conflagration that will con-
sume Carthage. In the departure of Aeneas, she
does not foresee the Punic Wars and foresees
even further the undoing of her own Carthage,
reduced to ashes. Her vision foreshadowing
Cato’s ‘‘Carthagodelenda est’’ is consistent with
the Dido of the whole poem. Without Aeneas
there is no Dido, and without Dido there is no
Carthage. The dramatic destruction of the
woman foretells the historical catastrophe of
the city. The theme of revenge is notably absent.
In this brief poem, Dido becomes the passive
victim of the ‘‘great man’s’’ decisions. On a
purely lyrical level, a common theme of poetry
is the instability of human relationships, which
are too often defined by betrayal, abandonment,
loss, and suffering. The Vergilian grandiosity of
epic design has no place in Brodsky’s lyric
intending to show the final separation between
a man and a woman. Aeneas pays a private price
for national greatness, one of personal loss and
forsaken love. Aeneas’ choice, however, is never
questioned, which conveys the inescapability of
Brodsky’s own choices.
The theme of Aeneas betraying his savior
Dido is closely connected with his mission as a
founder of Rome. Accordingly, Brodsky’s Dido
foresees Carthage crumbling in the fire that is
her own funeral pyre. The achievement of the
supreme goal is possible only through ultimateOdysseus to Telemachus