3 thoughts about Marlowe's Dido Queen of Carthage

[ricardienne]

Admittedly, I read it skimmingly.

1. Best line: "Gentle Achates, fetch the tinderbox." I suppose bronze-age peoples probably did use flint and tinder to make a fire, but even so.

2. Lesson learned: the whole damn thing could have been prevented if Aeneas had only taught his son not to take candy from strangers.

3. The end: it effectively counteracted any tragic sense induced by the introduction of Vergil's lines.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

The ending effectively anticipates the final scene of the Simpsons Hamlet, where Marge/Gertrude looks over all the dead bodies, exclaims "I'm not cleaning up this mess!", and whacks herself in the head with a mace.

When my readthrough group did Dido a couple of months ago, everyone wore feather boas, and Jupiter sang a good deal of the opening speech to the tune of "Sit On My Face." It was fun.