Dido Vs. Medea

3 Pages 774 Words

Virgil’s Dido vs. Euripides’ Medea



Euripides’ Medea was much more of a vengeful person than Virgil’s Dido. Medea performed some serious acts of revenge because she was so heartbroken, while Dido just didn’t want to live anymore. To begin with Medea killed everyone who stood in the way of her happiness with Jason. She killed everyone who had a part in their separation including her children. Although Dido killed herself, leaving her people with no one to lead them, I don’t think she was revengeful towards Aeneas in any way. She was just so heartbroken that she thought she would not be able to go on living.
Medea and Dido are alike in several ways. Both women fall deeply in love with men and are eventually abandoned. They both felt that they were left with nothing, and decided to take some sort of desperate action for retribution. Although the situations were completely different, both women committed some exceptionally irrational acts. Medea’s love, Jason, leaves her for another woman; so she decides to kill everyone except Jason. Dido’s love, Aeneas, leaves her because he has a predestined path set for him by the gods, and she decided to just kill herself. Both women committed dreadful acts because they felt the pain of a broken heart. Both women at first wanted to just die and no longer feel the pain. Although Medea didn’t kill herself, she spoke about it several times. For example in her first speech she mentions it several times. She says; “It has my broken heart. I am finished. I let go all my life’s joy. My friends, I only want to die”. She also says; “Then life is enviable. If not, I’d rather die.” Medea speaks several times about just killing herself, but she never actually goes through with it.
Although both women have thoughts of killing themselves, Medea definitely had alternate plans for dealing with her broken heart. Medea was a psychotic lover that would do just about anything to...