Dido in the Underworld

Throughout the Aeneid, depictions of women can easily be interpreted as sexist and degrading, but in the final scene with Dido, she is endowed with an amount of honor and dignity that no other charater, leastly Aeneas, has yet to display.

Although much of the descriptions of the underworld are horrific and disgusting (mutlilated limbs, wailing infants), the scene of Dido is fairly placid. She is wandering, drifting like a fog, not suffering or wailing. Her appearance is compared to that of a raising moon. In this sense the tone associated with her is calm, and new. Moon is also a symbol of femininity, and while it was the control of her heart and emotions by a man that lead to her suicide, the moon could be symbolic of her independence from men and passions. This seems to enforce the idea that she has achieved redemption in death.

While Aeneas is crying, throwing a tangent, utterly unstoic in her presence, she maintains her control. Her 'fiery glance' is doubtfully due to an angry grudge, but disappointment in his new appearance. Compared to the Aeneas that arrived on her shores, so full of purpose, and stole her heart, this blubbering child-like mound of pity must be a disgrace, and insult to the dignity she still retains. Forests are traditionally places of mystic freedom, the uncontrolled. The fact that Dido returns to the forest, as stoic as marble, enforces the idea that in the underworld she has achieved freedom at last. She is not doomed to infinite suffering, but subjected to a final place of peace.