Mythology
Delahoyde
VIRGIL'S
AENEID:
BOOK IV
In the arts, love tends to be best represented by what looks like infatuation, or obsessive lust. This is because infatuation is externally more dramatic. It's a state that makes for good drama when manifested in a character's behavior. Most good sitcom relationships are successful when they read like infatuation, rather than what we think we know to be "real love."
Aeneas gives his poor excuses to Dido -- he's pseudo-cheated, pseudo-selfless, pseudo-victimized -- and her irrationality is blamed on the fact of her being a woman. Phrases echo his cheesy parting from the ghost of his wife Creusa. The guy's a cheese-weenie who we're supposed to sympathize with because of his big bloody Roman mission. Dido kills herself.