In the Aeneid, Virgil presents many different characters in the life of Aeneas. From gods and goddesses to mortal men and women, every character has some definite part in Aeneas’s impersonal fate. Most of these different people are women. In fact, after reading the Aeneid it becomes clear that women women play important roles. in the life of Aeneas. From Juno to Venus, and Penelope to Lavinia, the women of Aeneas seem to influence fate for better or for worse. However, it can also be seen that despite how strongly women are affected, they are consistently portrayed in a negative light. For women, whether mortal or immortal, seem to have the same destinies, which are portrayed as irrational by negation, governed entirely by their desires, their passions.
This negative description first shows itself in mortal women. Indeed, we see an example of this woman’s “irrationality” in one of the first scenes. At the beginning of the poem, when Troy is burning and under attack, Aeneas sees Penelope and has the opportunity to kill her. Was it not Penelope who, for the sake of such a thing, had brought this evil upon Aeneas? It was she who had come with Paris to Troy in the name of love, not duty. He declined his duties and responsibilities, and left Greece for Troy, and hence all this war between Troy and the Greeks. It doesn’t end up killing her, but more importantly, it introduces a larger theme of women and irrationality into the story.
This theme is then picked up and propagated through the rest of the female characters in the poem. For example, a man is going to explore the next manifest female character of Dido. Dido is given a strong leadership at first, but as soon as she shows Aeneas, she immediately begins to fall towards being like the other female characters in the poem. The main way Virgil seems to portray him as a girl in love who makes everything wrong. From the beginning he allows Aeneas to preside over all the projects of his city, which seems an unreasonable decision, since he has only known him for a short time. Further, it seems to signify that Virgilian constant, by which agreement Dido, who had previously done good to the people, began to decline her office as ruler of her people. Both she and Aeneas seem to be wrapped up in themselves, so much so that it is said that Dido no longer acts as ruler over her people: ‘Singing Aeneas.’ she had come alone, full of Trojan blood, and dear to him she deigned to join herself to Dido, and now with the desire of the kingdom she had forgotten, the long pleasure, the grave through the winter, the lust of the servants’ shame. (Book IV, lines 254-257). Dido’s poem will perish with this liquid. Which together with Aeneas “forgot his kingdom” and instead of “long pleasure”, it is clear that nothing good will come of this relationship. In fact, nothing good comes of it, except for more events of Dido’s irrationality and responsibility in the performance of the scene. Dido learns that Aeneas is leaving to fulfill his destiny, and tries to delay, but at this point it is too late. Thus Aeneas departs, and Virgil completes the image of Dido by denying it, showing her to “furious fates” and “to call at last to death” (book IV, lines 620-621). He then proceeds to renounce all his duties to his people and kill himself. As Virgil describes, “When madness oppressed this mind/ and, shaken by grief, it decided to die,/ and the present was devised for itself” (book IV, lines 654-656). Full of such rage and irrationality, Dido becomes aware of her death, and once again propagates the negation of women already in history.
The second and last mortal woman to be examined is Queen Amata. It is the queen who is troubled about Lavinia, her daughter, who is to marry Aeneas instead of Turnus. Juno knows this and makes capital, by sending Allectus to the Beloved Queen and Turnus, to try to provoke them to war. Allecto is sent to the Beloved “with women’s cares and anger” (book VII, lines 455-456) and “Then the goddess, hidden by her blue hair / the snake, completely demanding the secrets of the Beloved; the monster steals with rage, and takes off all his own with Discrimination (Book VII, lines 458-461). , / exciting monsters with fantasies, / a miserable queen, nay hysterical, / rages through the city” (Book VII, lin. 497-502). Hence Amata is depicted in a completely negative light and Virgil describes her as “miserable” and “hysterical ” he expresses, giving us yet another example of how women are portrayed as hysterical and irrational. In addition, Amata is shown that another woman is easily overcome by emotion, when she suddenly becomes aware of death while she sees the Trojans entering the war. If she had waited, she would not have seen the battle finished, but He completely despairs and chooses death, which, as Virgil describes, “suddenly trembles with grief” and “maddened, roaring with rage, is ready to die” (lib. 12, lin. 805-809). So we have another woman who commits “sudden” death to herself and ends her life irrationally
However, the negative image of women is not limited to mortals, even in the realm of the immortal gods, both Venus and Juno are depicted in a very negative light. In fact, Juno can be expressed as the irrationality of both mortals and goddesses. For almost all the problems and struggles of Aeneas in his entire quest arose because Juno held a grudge against Troy. It is scarcely reasonable, but the moon is only rational. Then, angry with Aeneas, he ends Venus, the mother of Aeneas, whom he helps, and thus begins, as it were, a fetus between two goddesses. Indeed, the goddesses act like children, and Virgil thus portrays them. After all, both the goddesses know the fate of Aeneas and they know that they cannot stop it whether they want to or not. But this moon does not cease, lest the fates of Aeneas die unwillingly. This, in fact, will be at all. He irrationally tries to stop fate, even though he knows it’s impossible. Throughout his whole life it is difficult for Aeneas to do without reason, because he has no end, but a means. Until the end he fights against fate. For together, she and Venus conspire to make Aeneas and Dido fall in love, who know that Aeneas cannot remain with Dido. Furthermore, he sends Juno Allectus to stir up a war between the Latins and the Trojans, again only postponing the inevitable event. Then at last the battle intervened, and Turnus in an attempt to take away life, but in the end the necessary death was delayed. It is not until the very end that Juno finally gives in to his incredibly irrational war against fate, but even so he insists on his names, that the Trojans leave the Latin language and their name Trojans once upon a time. Jupiter, the god weighed down by fate, wishing, He tries to stop the madman and everything to fate. ) and thus when Juno’s anger finally ends and Aeneas can finally fulfill his destiny.
Thus, by the end of the investigation of Aeneas, it becomes clear that, whether mortal women or goddesses, women in the poem are constantly associated with irrationality and many other negative aspects, such as the abdication of responsibility and the tendency to “hysterical” movements. “all Aeneas’ different cases and all contribute to fate; but most of all they complete the negation of the stereotype of the irrational woman. On the other hand, Virgil leaves some doubts about the stereotypes of women. The truest example is when Aeneas says, “You wait enough. “A woman is always uncertain and unstable,” which is a clear stereotype, and soon follows with this description: “He said, he slept with the dark night” (book IV, lines 786-788). it seems to women, it will be nothing. So perhaps they are not represented in a completely negative light, but the negative aspects of irrationality are, nevertheless, clearly there.
