[466]
At other times the thought that
is present in her dreams is that of her
loneliness. She seems to be undertaking
a long solitary journey, looking for her
Tyrian subjects, whom she cannot find:
they have forsaken her, and she has to be
queen of a desolate country, like Creon in
Soph. Ant. 739. This latter feeling throws
light on v. 320, “infensi Tyrii.” The notion
of loneliness is thus enforced in two
ways, which with great psychological
truth are made to blend together confusedly:
she loses Aeneas, and she loses
her own subjects too. Thus we see that
Schrader's plausible conjecture ‘Teucros’
for ‘Tyrios’ would be no gain but a loss.
In her waking moments Dido thinks of
following Aeneas alone in his flight, below,
v. 543. The same image of a long
fruitless wandering occurs in Ilia's dream
in Enn. A. 1. fr. 38:
“Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena
salicta
Et ripas raptare locosque novos: ita
sola
Postilla, germana soror, errare videbar
Tardaque vestigare et quaerere te, neque
posse
Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem
stabilibat.
”
This text is part of:
John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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