Anchises' valour mixt with Venus' charms

The story of Dido and Aeneas is based on a short episode in Virgil's Aeneid. The following is a lovely synopsis of the literary source... of course, the opera varies slightly. (ps. I took this synopsis from a nice little site on the Aeneid. You can find it here.)

In the course of Aeneas' wanderings around the Mediterranean before he arrived in Italy, he landed at Carthage on the shores of North Africa. There he fell in love with the Carthaginian queen, Dido. The story of the love affair between Aeneas and Dido is one of the most moving and poignant books in The Aeneid and earned for Virgil the epithet 'the worlds poet of sorrow'.

Dido was by birth a Phoenician from the city of Tyre. Forced to flee her homeland after the murder of her husband, she was completing the building of a new city at Carthage when Aeneas and his men were washed ashore. She received them lavishly, and almost at once fell deeply in love with Aeneas. Encouraged by her sister, Anna, she began to accept her desire for Aeneas and to hope for marriage.

One day when she and Aeneas were on a hunting trip together, a storm blew up, and they found themselves sheltering alone in a cave. While the storm raged they made love. From then on, they lived together as man and wife, and Aeneas behaved almost as if he were king of Carthage.
When the messenger of the Gods came to remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new Troy in Italy, Aeneas decided that he must leave his beloved and continue on his journey. Dido soon discovered what his intentions were, and confronted him with his treachery. Though himself deeply upset, Aeneas could only plead that the gods had compelled him, and begged Dido not to make their parting doubly difficult.

In despair, Dido resolved on death. She built a vast funeral pyre for herself, pretending it was for a magical rite to bring Aeneas back, or at least to cure her love. After a sleepless night she rose to sea Aeneas' ship already at sea. Cursing him and praying for everlasting enmity between Carthage and Aeneas' descendants, she climbed the pyre and , taking her lovers sword, mortally stabbed herself.

The book is dominated by a series of passionate speeches by Dido, of reproach, entreaty, bitterness and curses. Aeneas speaks only once and that to quote his duty. There is nothing else he can say. He leaves Dido but looks shabby as he steals off into the night.

Aeneas did not escape Dido entirely. On his visit to the underworld he met her ghost and attempted once more to justify his conduct. But Dido would not speak with him, and slunk away to be with the ghost of her husband 'who answered her cares and matched her love'. This is the only happy marriage we see in The Aeneid; and it is amongst the dead. Aeneas is left in no doubt that he destroyed Dido.