Friday Afternoon Education

If you prefer a musical form of the story check out urcell's "Dido and Aeneas".. a fine piece of music that will never make top divis...

Just got this by email from Andrew Nicols:

The name Dido also originates from Virgil's Aeneid, in which the Epic hero Aeneas thinks he loses all but 7 of his ships to a storm created by the Godess Juno who is Aeneas' Grandmother. Anyway, they land in Carthage and the next day they meet up with the rest of their ships in Carthage where the Queen, Dido, welcomes them. This is partially where the name originates.

Anyway... Aeneas is meant to be on a mission for the Gods to found Rome so after Dido has tragically fallen in love with Aeneas, Mercury is sent down as a messenger by Jupiter (king of the gods) and Mercury tells Aeneas that he has to get a move on and lose the baggage (Dido)... so whilst he works out how to tell the Lovestruck Dido he begins to prepare his ships... but Rumour gets round to Dido that he is leaving and she confronts him about this. He sails away anyway after being cursed by her and she tricks her sister into building a funeral pyre (don't ask how!) and she climbs it and kills herself.

The Aeneid was written by Virgil in Roman times, but set in Greek times when the Greek's took Troy with the Trojan Horse. The Aeneid is the Virgil's version of how Rome was heroically founded by the most famous of all Trojan Warriors.

Also, don't miss the BrassEye repeat on C4 tonight, if you missed it last night, and are not out celebrating a friend's birthday or anything.

pauly :: 2001 :: Comment / reply