Classics and the Western Canon discussion

The story of Dido and Aeneas almost stands on its own and has been adapted a number of times, perhaps most famously by Purcell for his opera "Dido and Aeneas." In Book 4 we see duty pitted against passion and the enormous suffering that results. Operatic material indeed!

The first two lines outline in poetic terms the drama about to unfold:

Now the queen's lifeblood fed her brutal love wound;
A flame, unseen, gnawed at her hour by hour.
His martial manhood and his family's glory
Came back to her...

On the one hand, we have Dido's towering passion, sparked and fed by Cupid, the instrument of Venus; on the other hand, we have Aeneas' duty and call to destiny, equally driven by the gods.

When Aeneas emerges from the cloud in Book One, he thanks Dido for giving the Trojans shelter and says, " Surely divine powers honor selflessness, and justice does exist."

Aeneas is conflicted about leaving Dido, but he has no choice. He says "Italy is against my will," but he knows he must do what is against his will. Dido seems to be cast as a figure from Greek tragedy -- she seems in her anger and madness to evoke Medea in particular.

How do you relate to her suffering? Does she deserve to suffer for breaking her vow to Sychaeus that she would not marry? Is what happens to her just? Is she at fault for failing to rein in her passions? Is Aeneas at fault for leading her on?

As Book Four closes, Vergil writes: "There was no fate or justice in her death."

How should we read that?

Thomas wrote: "Dido seems to be cast as a figure from Greek tragedy -- she seems in her anger and madness to evoke Medea in particular."

I think there is a distinction to be made between Dido and Greek females in terms of male/female relationships.

In the Odyssey, for example, we have Circe who takes care of Odysseus for a year. She doesn’t fall apart when it’s time for him to leave. She guides him, helps him, and after his return from the Underworld, she packs his bags and sends him on his merry way. Similarly, Calypso. She justifiably rages against the double standard of the gods when Hermes tells her she must release Odysseus. She tries to seduce Odysseus with a promise of immortality and when that fails, she sends him off. One doesn’t get the sense that either female has collapsed because of Odysseus’ departure. Their identity and self-esteem is not wrapped up in having him around.

Skip a couple of hundred years and we get to Medea. Hell hath no fury like a Medea scorned. Whatever else one says about Medea, one must admit she is absolutely brilliant in strategizing and manipulating men to achieve her revenge. She is like a general planning her moves with precision.

And now we come to Dido. Poor Dido. She views her relationship with Aeneas as a marriage. Her begging and pleading and wanting to have a child by him is like something out of a soap opera. Her whole identity is tied up with him. She has Medea’s rage, but unlike Medea who manifests her rage externally, Dido turns her rage inward against herself. She commits the ultimate act of self-effacement through her suicide.

It seems to me there has been a change in the depiction of females in the interim from Homer to Virgil. Their sense of an independent identity, self-esteem, and agency has experienced an erosion.

Possibly something to think about as we move forward.

What an incredible episode from this book!

One particular passage's emotion just struck me as one of the most forceful I've seen in literature in my life.

From Fitzgerald (III.529-538), when Dido rages:

If divine justice counts for anything,
I hope and pray that on some grinding reef
Midway at sea you'll drink your punishment
And call and call on Dido's name!
From far away I sahll come after you
With my black fires, and when cold death has parted
Body from soul I shall be everywhere
A shade to haunt you! You will pay for this,
Unconscionable! I shall hear! The news will reach me
Even among the lowest of the dead!

I should have quoted this passage during my college days after experiencing a rough breakup.

I think a closer parallel to Dido is Phaedra in Euripides' Hippolytos. Aphrodite, for her own reasons, causes Phaedra to fall madly in love with Hippolytos. Hippolytos spurns her and she commits suicide.
However, there are some notable differences. Phaedra, like Dido, wants the lover who has rejected her to suffer, but unlike Dido, she has a way to bring this about: she leaves a note saying she was raped by Hippolytos causing Theseus to call on Poseidon to destroy him. Also, Hippolytos, unlike Aeneas, never gave her any reason to think he loved her. When Dido and Aeneas were together in the cave, did Aeneas refuse her advances? It's implied that he did not. At least, Dido came away from the encounter convinced they were married.
Virgil very carefully does not tell us exactly what happened, nor does he give us Aeneas' s side of the story. He wants to set this as the basis for the later Punic Wars, but he does so at the risk of making Aeneas look fickle.
Aeneas is clearly torn. Juno and Venus (his mother) are collaborating in the scheme to make them fall in love. Jove, however, sends Mercury with a message to leave Dido and get on with his destiny. This is what he ultimately does, in despite of his mother.

Are we to make any thing out of the description of the burning and destruction of Troy and the similar description of burning passion and ultimate self destruction of Dido?

Dido said: "If divine justice counts for anything,
I hope and pray that on some grinding reef
Midway at sea you'll drink your punishment
And call and call on Dido's name!
"

This is where Dido sounds most Medea-like to me. Most of her rage is internal, as Tamara says, but she also has an external expression: the curse. She prays that " a bold and warlike people drive him out of his realm and tear his Iulus from him... my curse is war for Trojans and their children." We shall have to see how effective that curse is!

Mike wrote: "Are we to make any thing out of the description of the burning and destruction of Troy and the similar description of burning passion and ultimate self destruction of Dido?"

I think we should see a connection there. In fact, your comment reminds me of Plato's Republic, where the City that Socrates describes is supposed to be a large-scale projection of the Soul. It makes me wonder if the world and history of the Trojans as seen through Vergil's myth is similarly a description of the Roman soul. Dido's suffering and self destruction are part of that, as are the repercussions to follow.

in Book 4, I see the whole scenein Carthage come to life. As if I am looking at a still painting of the pageantry, and then it starts to move. The figures become real and begin to act their parts. It's like a movie, I mean very cinematic, in Vergil's description. Dido is perhaps Ava Gardner, beautiful and then distraught, but she doesn't lose that beauty, does not become Medea. Aeneas is The Cad, of course.
I do love this section, have read it in 3 translations, and now to go to a forth.

OH, and Ditto Purcell's Opera Dido and Aeneas

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?li...

I did not say "Ditto, Dido",

Ditto, widow Dido.

Noteworthy, this is Aeneas' first time w/o the advice of his father.
.
Notes from somewhere pointed out that in this chapter Aeneas is not referred to as "pius" until he sails away ..

Adelle wrote: "Noteworthy, this is Aeneas' first time w/o the advice of his father."

Can you expand on this a little? I'm curious because Vergil borrows so much from the Odyssey, but he leaves out the first four books of the Odyssey, which address the father-son relationship as Telemachus searches for news of Odysseus. Telemachus needs Odysseus, but for Aeneas his father is a burden. Aeneas obviously loves Anchises and saves him from Troy as it burns, but Vergil casts this relationship in a totally different light than Homer does.

Thomas wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Noteworthy, this is Aeneas' first time w/o the advice of his father."

Can you expand on this a little? I'm curious because Vergil borrows so much from the Odyssey, but he leaves out..... his father is a burden"

Yes, in leaving Troy, he was a burden in the physical sense. Aeneas had to carry him. But it seems to me that the importance of the father is not in what he can physically contribute to the group.

Anchises has advised the group on what courses they should take. He's been interpreting the signs. Granted, he's not always been right. But he's the one with the experience.

And symbolically, while the son of Aeneas represents the future, the father of Aeneas represents the Trojans' rich past and he's the best qualified to pass on Troy's cultural heritage.

Not supported directly by the text... but I would imagine that with Anchises physically frail and most knowledgeable about Trojan culture, and Anascalus (sp?) not yet physically able to do a grown man's work... I would imagine that over the years of travel Anchises has sat with Anasculus (sp?) and passed on story after story.

Suddenly, here in Book 4, Aeneas has to start making his own decisions without counsel, and, at a point in his life when he is emotionally bereft.

Don't you think Anchises would have counseled to recover quickly and then continue towards their future.? I think he would have shut down any Dido-Aeneas love affair. And as Venus's ex, he might have had additional insights that Aeneas lacked.


(the Odyssey. Maybe it's assumed we'll remember that father/son relationship. And that Telemachus needed his father. Without his father, Telemachus might not have inherited his ...kingdom... seems an overly big word ...)

Tamara wrote: " She views her relationship with Aeneas as a marriage...."

I don't think she was totally wrong about that. Yes, "she called it a marriage" ((F 236)... but what was actually needed to make it a marriage? At least one of the goddesses--Juno--called it a marriage. "And if I can be certain you are willing, There I shall marry them and call her his" (Fitz 175).

Those pesky "if"s. Venus smiles. She doesn't actually say "yes."

Aeneas says, untruthfully, "Do not think I meant to be deceitful and slip away" (F 465). Please.

He says, "I never held the torches of a bridegroom. Never entered upon the pact of marriage."

The gods themselves held the torches! "Torches of lightening blazed" (F 230).

1) I always view Aeneas here as being super legalistic.... i.e. Roman. I didn't ACTUALLY say. So he excuses himself on a technicality.

2) Aeneas must have been aware that he was much more experienced than Dido. Some notes somewhere said that when Anna (Dido's romance advisor) said Dido hadn't known "the crown of joy that Venus brings" she was saying that Dido was still a virgin.

3) After Aeneas says, no, I didn't REALLY marry you, he immediately rubs salt in the wounds. {Wounds} First of all, he says, is his love for Troy. Next I love Italy. Then he changes the argument... You founded Carthage, so why deny us our travel to Italy. Then he mentions his nightly dreams... which he's never mentioned before and which apparently didn't keep him from Dido's bed. Then he lies... he says, he has been "commanded" to leave. (Not true. Jupiter had said, "What has he in mind? ... That man should sail... ' Mercury tries to persuade him Aeneas ... but still... not a command. "What have you in mind? Think of honor, think of your son ... " Not an order. And then at the close, Aeneas says to Dido, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." (497). "So please, no more of these appeals that set us BOTH--- afire. Yes! I'm leaving for Italy!" And then his men help themselves to wood from Dido's lands.

Aboout line 511, Fitzgerald. Dido seems to be questioning, losing faith in the gods. Carthage being Dido's city, does this imply that Carthage doesn't have the faith in the gods that Aeneas and Rome have? Carthage is somehow deserving of its future fate. And Rome supreme?

"If divine justice counts for anything ... "

Adelle wrote: "Aboout line 511, Fitzgerald. Dido seems to be questioning, losing faith in the gods. Carthage being Dido's city, does this imply that Carthage doesn't have the faith in the gods that Aeneas and Rom..."

Seems like she is, at least, hoping that the gods at least overhear. Almost as if she is speaking to a third party without directly speaking to them. To me, super passive aggressive, which quickly transforms into sheer aggression.

I read this book a little late and just finished tonight. I agree Tamara that she turns her rage inward, and her whole identity gets wrapped up in this "marriage." She doesn't have the competence and power of some others that you mentioned.

But I don't fully blame her. There is something practical going on here too: she has been left in an awful position. It's not just grief and spurned love only; she also sees that she has no viable course of action left that can spare her.

Her behavior with Aeneas has angered King Iarbas, who is jealous since she refused him and took Aneas instead. And Iarbas seems sure to invade; if she is lucky, maybe she can beg him to take her as his wife, though not on the equal footing she might have enjoyed before. Likewise, she has infuriated the Tyrians, and they seem sure to invade as well.

Juno and Venus directly cause this situation; they concoct the "wedding" in the cavern during the storm. And this is precisely what makes Dido stop thinking practically about the consequences of her actions.

In Fitzgerald's translation:
(lines 229-231, 233-238)
"Primal Earth herself and Nuptial Juno
Opened the ritual, torches of lightning blazed,
High Heaven became witness to the marriage . . . .
That day was the first cause of death, and first
Of sorrow. Dido had no further qualms
As to impressions given and set abroad;
She thought no longer of a secret love
But called it marriage. Thus, under that name,
She hid her fault."

Juno and Venus preside over this marriage personally. Doesn't it make sense that Dido would fall prey to it? And this ceremony is precisely what makes her stop thinking practically of her situation, of how the other tribes and peoples will see her actions "abroad." She stops thinking practically because she is deceived into believing it is a true marriage. This deception "hides her fault" to herself.

Yes, she breaks her vow to the dead Sychaeus, but I don't blame her too much given how she has been manipulated here. Her reactions later are extreme - it clearly goes way beyond just the practical, as Cupid has driven her half mad. But the gods have backed her into an awful corner. I take this as more of the capriciousness of the gods, rather than blaming Dido entirely.

Thomas, where does your translation say "There was no fate or justice in her death"? I didn't notice that in the Fitzgerald translation. I does say:

(lines 963-965)
"For since she died, not at her fated span
Nor as she merited, but before her time
Enflamed and driven mad . . . ."

That does indicate that she was not fated to die, but she didn't merit this end either. She was enflamed, presumably by Cupid and the actions of Juno and Venus. I guess if she was not fated, she did have a choice to avoid this end, even if the gods and goddesses applied a fair amount of coercion.

I feel a little sorry for her.

The ironic part is that the person she most blames and curses, Aeneas, doesn't seem to really deserve the blame for this. As you say Thomas, he has no choice.

I like that he actually does care, and once again, he has to put duty above his own feelings.

(line 456-457)
"The man by Jove's command held fast his eyes
And fought down the emotion in his heart."

* * * *

On a completely different topic, I loved the wonderful description of the diety "Rumor." I had never been exposed to this diety before, but the description is so evocative, strange, and fitting:

(lines 249-255)
"Monstrous, deformed, titanic. Pinioned, with
An eye beneath for every body feather,
And strange to say, as many tongues and buzzing
Mouths as eyes, as many pricked-up ears,
By night she flies between the earth and heaven
Shrieking through darkness, and she never turns
Her eye-lids down to sleep."

Adelle wrote: "(the Odyssey. Maybe it's assumed we'll remember that father/son relationship. And that Telemachus needed his father. Without his father, Telemachus might not have inherited his ...kingdom... seems an overly big word ..."

Thanks, and we'll see Anchises pop up again with more advice. (I know, he's dead, but this is epic poetry!) As for the Odyssey, I think we are expected to remember Telemachus and see the difference between his problem and Aeneas'. Telemachus needs his father to preserve his power; Aeneas doesn't need his father in that way, but he needs to fulfill his fate for Ascanius (Iulus -->Caesar--->Augustus.)

In a lot of ways I think the Aeneid works in reverse of the odyssey, and we are supposed to see Aeneas as the mirror image of Odysseus -- a very similar image, but his opposite. Aeneas is trying to build something new (with great difficulty) whereas Odysseus is trying to return to the old (with great difficulty.) Which is not to say that Aeneas doesn't respect the past, or his father, but he abandons his wife as Troy burns because his thought is for the future and his fate. Whereas Odysseus undergoes all of his trials to get back to Penelope and Telemachus, to return to his old way of life.

Adelle wrote: "Aboout line 511, Fitzgerald. Dido seems to be questioning, losing faith in the gods. Carthage being Dido's city, does this imply that Carthage doesn't have the faith in the gods that Aeneas and Rom..."

I don't know if she's losing faith in the gods, or if the gods have lost faith in her. She believes, and we know, that they are against her. A few pages after this passage there's an extraordinary description of how her offerings on sacred altars start to rot, and wine turns to "black and filthy gore" when she pours it. And soon after that she is calling on the goddesses of the underworld -- Erebus, Chaos, Hecate -- to help in her witchcraft to curse Aeneas.

Greg wrote: Thomas, where does your translation say "There was no fate or justice in her death"? I didn't notice that in the Fitzgerald translation. I does say:

(lines 963-965)
"For since she died, not at her fated span
Nor as she merited, but before her time
Enflamed and driven mad . . . ."

That does indicate that she was not fated to die, but she didn't merit this end either.."

It looks like a difference in translation -- you're quoting the same passage, but Ruden is much more succinct than Fitzgerald. The original Latin is Nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat, For another example, Dryden translates:

For since she died, not doom'd by Heav'n's decree,
Or her own crime, but human casualty,

I am enjoying this conversation, not only because "Dido and Aeneas" is one of my favorite operas.
I question that the interpretations here so far may be anachronistic regarding "love." Our own view may be strongly covered by Medieval Courtly love, and any "romance" in the marriage seems to avoid that there is only fate. We do see passion I admit but from Dido. From Aeneas, only duty.

Maybe passion properly belongs to women and the gods. For men there is war and the state.

Could the whole affair with Dido be Venus's revenge on Juno for all humiliations in Troy?

I know it hardly fits Virgil's depiction of events, but once discovered this thought, I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

Alexey wrote: "Could the whole affair with Dido be Venus's revenge on Juno for all humiliations in Troy?

I know it hardly fits Virgil's depiction of events, but once discovered this thought, I haven't been able..."

Can you expand on this a little?

To me, it looks like Aeneas is getting comfortable in Carthage, and Venus wants him to remember his destiny and get moving. Juno wants to prevent this, but she also wants the Trojans to suffer. They seem to both get their wishes in Dido, at least partially. It's a power struggle that neither of them wins outright, and the end result is suffering for the mortals that they play like chess pieces.

Juno is Aeneas' divine antagonist. She is transgressive throughout, and even wants to turn the narrator against Aeneas. In Rome 1st Century BCE, Odysseus is the hero model and that's what Vergil wants for Aeneas. But Juno wanted the destruction of Troy to be the end of all the Trojans, every last one. She wanted it to end with Troy. I get this from a really interesting book, Juno's Aeneid by Joseph Farrell. He has a lot about Vergil combining both of Homer's masterpieces into one.

Sam wrote: "She is transgressive throughout, and even wants to turn the narrator against Aeneas.."

Juno had a part in the writing of the poem? Is that right? Or did Vergil just want it to have that appearance? An ambitious interpretation either way. I'm also curious about Odysseus as a hero model. Aeneas seems to me to be cut from an entirely different cloth. Pietas doesn't fit Odysseus very well at all.

The entire love scene is primal on multiple levels: the hunt, the weather, the cave, the passion. The progression of these suggests a complete letting go of all inhibitions. This is dangerous territory. Dido gives more than she realizes and completely falls apart when Aeneas leaves. Dido calls her relationship with Aeneas a marriage, but in reality she is deluding herself, they are just shacking up. Aeneas is not without sympathy for her feelings, but even if he doesn't want to leave her bed, he knows he has a duty to fulfill.

Gods or no gods, the hard lesson of Dido and Aeneas is that heedless love affairs usually end up a mess. We love to romanticize the primal forces in play, but Dido pays a high price.

Thomas wrote: "Alexey wrote: "Could the whole affair with Dido be Venus's revenge on Juno for all humiliations in Troy?

I know it hardly fits Virgil's depiction of events, but once discovered this thought, I ha..."

It is not what Virgil wrote, but the deduction from the text. Venus had grunge against Juno after Troy; Juno was to destroy trojans remnants and favoured Dido and Carthage (I am not sure how strong). When Juno offered her plan, it amused Venus. Certainly, she knew how it should turn out, and her son would achieve his great destiny, which could make her happy by itself, but, I believe, enraging Juno was a bonus for Venus. And it should enrage Juno: she assisted Aeneas’ quest; her favourite committed suicide, and she deceived herself with her clever plan.

Just a passing thought: the Freudian symbolism of the cave.

Thomas wrote: "I'm also curious about Odysseus as a hero model. Aeneas seems to me to be cut from an entirely different cloth. Pietas doesn't fit Odysseus very well at all."

The face that launched a thousand ships casts a long shadow. Helen, married to King Menelaus of Sparta, is abducted by Paris and taken to his home, Troy. Why is this such a monumental event? In this interpretation I would say it is because it tears at the very fabric of society, of stability, and human flourishing. It takes an enormous effort to restore the status quo.

As heroes Odysseus and Aeneas have many parallels, but different journeys. Odysseus seeks to return to a normal life after the upheaval and experience of war. It takes him a long time to get there, because these events are the very opposite of human flourishing. In the geography of the poem the adventures with the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, etc. are on the edge or the margin of the world, the places fraught with dangers, strange encounters, often depicted as monsters on old renderings of maps. His adventure with Circe is the experience of meaningless passion. After a time it is no longer satisfying because it is barren both physically and spiritually. Odysseus yearns to go back to the stability of the center, to Ithaka. At home is his fruitful marriage bed, literally rooted into the very foundation of the earth. Here at the center is the place where life has the fertile ground to flourish, where there is meaning and purpose.

With Aeneas you have the perspective of being conquered by outside forces. The dangers from the edge have invaded the center. He had a stable life of wife, family, and community, which was destroyed before his very eyes. His journey is not that of Odysseus, Aeneas has nothing to return to. He is a refugee and has to rebuild in a foreign place, create a new center of stability for human flourishing. It is here where Pietas comes in, he is not only responsible for himself, but for the remnant of Troy. He has to have faith to see the mission through. Like Odysseus he travels through the unknown with the added twist of never having been to his final destination. In the Aeneid’s geography the landing at Carthage is at the edge of the world. Dido is a great distraction, but in the end their union is barren too because of Dido’s volatility and self-destructiveness. These can never be the basis to found a new civilization on. It is quite easy for Aeneas to leave Carthage, for he knows exactly what he is looking for, and Dido can never fulfill this tall order.

While working up my responses to Thomas's questions on Juno and Aeneas being a model, let me respond a little here. Kerstin is getting much closer to the themes I am following.

First of all, "pious," "pietas" translates as much more than our English "pious." It means faithful, loyal, benevolent, true, constant, dutiful, etc. Carrying Anchises and the gods is only one example. (You wouldn't catch Achilles doing this.)

Journey. Aeneas's destination is not just anywhere; he is going home, to the Home that Jove has promised him, much like Odysseus heading for Ithaca. When Aeneas arrives in Latium, he will have to fight a lot when he first gets home, as Odysseus, cannot reveal himself to Telemachus, and has to fight off Penelope's suitors. These are precise parallels between Homer's all-encompassing "classics." (In fact, he "wrote the book" on just what classics are.)

Also, in a way, Carthage is a sort of home, where he might linger if it were not for his being dutiful to his mission. Odysseus has a similar problem with Circe, where he'd rather lay about until someone (Venus?) pushes him on.

Back to Odysseus, he has a cloaking device, a disguise when he gets to Ithaca.

With his friend Achates in the woods near Carthage, Aeneas meets his mother, Venus. She first appears as a young girl with a bow and quiver, the folds of her dress held up in a knot. He knows she is a goddess, but not which one. He says
"...my blood is Jove's. I head for Italy, my home."
He recognizes her. She tells him to follow the trail back to town, where he'll find his crew. She cloaks him in a cloud so no one will detain him.
A whole lot o' cloakin' goin' on.

Another thing to mention here. The Iliad ends before the collapse of Troy, but both Aeneas and Odysseus set out at this time. Odysseus takes ten years to get home. Aeneas takes seven years to get to Carthage. Thus he's there even before a lot of Odysseus's adventures occur.

So now I've gotten Virgil, Aeneas, Homer, the Odyssey, and the Iliad clumping up. Damn this discussion, it's got me spending all my time deep-diving into the realm of the classical world, and it gets much deeper. These secondary sources I am reading have introduced me to the term "intertextuality," which is all these sources talking to each other, especially what Vergil is doing with Homer.

I will get to what I meant about Juno as a character, even outside our narrator.

Kerstin wrote: "Gods or no gods, the hard lesson of Dido and Aeneas is that heedless love affairs usually end up a mess. We love to romanticize the primal forces in play, but Dido pays a high price."

Might not Aeneas' desire for Italy also be a primal force? Dido is certainly in thrall to Eros -- she has been poisoned by Cupid -- but doesn't Aeneas also have a desire steered by the gods? Aeneas has a desire for a home. He says that he would have stayed in Troy and built a new home for the defeated, but Jupiter and fate drive him onward to Italy. From a Platonic perspective it looks like Aeneas' desire is more noble, but I'm not sure that his desire is any less a primal force for him.

Sam wrote: "It means faithful, loyal, benevolent, true, constant, dutiful, etc. Carrying Anchises and the gods is only one example. (You wouldn't catch Achilles doing this.)

But Aeneas does let his wife trail behind him while he rescues his father and son. He seems to regret this later after she is lost and dies, but his action at the time shows where his duty and his loyalty lies. Is pietas always this patriarchal?

I look forward to your comments on intertextuality! Vergil clearly wrote his poem with Homer in mind, and I am convinced that the differences between the Aeneid and the Homeric epics are key to understanding his purpose.

Thomas wrote: "But Aeneas does let his wife trail behind him while he rescues his father and son. He seems to regret this later after she is lost and dies, but his action at the time shows where his duty and his loyalty lies. Is pietas always this patriarchal?"

I believe the answer to your question is ‘yes’. However, Aeneas’s actions, you questioned, don’t look patriarchal. He took care of the two most vulnerable members of his household: his disabled father and the minor son. I am not sure how little and dependent was Ascanius at that moment, but his mother definitely wouldn’t accept Aeneas’s help at the expense of her son. Later events proved he loved and valued Creusa enough to risk his life.

Thomas wrote: "Might not Aeneas' desire for Italy also be a primal force? "

I think you're right.

Thomas wrote: "But Aeneas does let his wife trail behind him while he rescues his father and son. He seems to regret this later after she is lost and dies, but his action at the time shows where his duty and his loyalty lies. Is pietas always this patriarchal?"

It is a very symbolic scene. If you include the Penaten or household gods, then all generations of Aeneas's household are linked together: Penaten, Anchises, Aeneas and Ascanius. Aeneas takes his entire inheritance and legacy with him on his journey to Italy.

In the ancient world the household gods were you're identity, almost like a citizenship. For Anchises to grab these is most important. It was the duty of the father in the household to lead in worship of them. As a male, either born into the family or adopted, these household gods were with you for life. With women the case was a little different. Growing up in her parents' home, a girl would worship and be identified with her father's household gods. Upon marriage however, she would no longer be part of her father's household, but that of her husband's. From now on she would identify with his household gods.
Even though Creusa is fully integrated into Aeneas's household, she is not part of the male generational succession upon which the Penaten and the identity of the entire household rests.

Does this description of the relation to the Penaten hold throughout the ancient world, or are there differences among Greeks, Trojans, and Phrygians? Do they all share this "olympian" religion, even when they are called different names (like Juno/Hera)?
I am enjoying this part of the discussion, but I am patiently waiting till it seems appropriate to bring in what I have been reading about "intertextuality" among the classical scholars. It seems as though that is all they do, and it is a bit like the Cat's Cradle game. Because it starts (no it doesn't "start" because it is a loop) with Homer's second epic, the Odyssey since according to some, the Iliad was the earliest and the greatest. And as we will find Vergil imitating the them, it is possible Homer in the Odyssey is imitating the Iliad. The Vergil imitates both. And there is another epic which some see as just as important to Virgil, which is Apollonius's Argonautica. All of them intertectual, that is referencing each other.
"we actually have a pair of nested bidirectional relationships. It is possible to read the internal Homeric relationship from the perspective of the Aeneid, and the Aeneid itself in relation to the Homeric poems" [Farrell]. And we will have Juno perverting Vergil's intention by jumping over his head out of the bounds of the narrative. Her aim, in this view, since she does not want Aeneas to get "home", she doesn't want Virgil to let the Aeneid to become the odyssey, in which the hero does get home.
To go on like this, though, have to have, not only read ahead, but also be very familiar with the Odyssey and the Iliad. Each one may be seen as reading the other through its "window".
Well that's why I'd like to know if we can take the play of the gods to be generally recognized throughout the Ancient Mediterranean (and the Black, Caspian, and Azov seas).

Sam wrote: "Does this description of the relation to the Penaten hold throughout the ancient world, or are there differences among Greeks, Trojans, and Phrygians?"
So far as I am aware, the Penaten were a Roman custom, which Virgil is projecting backward onto Aeneas.

Aha. I did think it was Roman and darn that Vergil, projecting backward. The Penaten are such a significant element in the story. Using them would be another instance of connecting the account to his contemporary audience (Augustus).

Yeah. There'a lot of anachronistic elements in this Book. Bit, I suppose that it's Vergil trying to make this book more appealing to his contemporaries.