Written around 1405, The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan is a response to the less favorable interpretations of women worthies that were circulating at the time, some by famous writers such as Boccaccio. The immediate audience of this work was the French court, where Christine de Pisan was a court writer. Progressive in its interpretation of women in a way that is more similar to the way modern women conceptualize female power, the women included in The Book of the City of Ladies stand out as counter-culturally interpreted classical women. The depiction of Dido, for example, is rooted more historically and is dedicated to explaining why Dido was an incredible ruler, rather than her relationship with Aeneas. By emphasizing desirable female attributes of the time such as chastity, de Pisan frames Dido as a powerful woman whose steadfastness, loyalty and dedication are her best qualities rather than focusing on the factors that led to her tragic suicide.
In many ways Christine de Pisan is in a similar position to Dido. While de Pisan is not in a tumultuous relationship full of burning desire that culminates with suicide on a pyre, it was highly unusual for a woman to be such a successful and self-sufficient writer, much like it was unusual to have a queen as the sole ruler of a large and successful city. Because de Pisan is in such a unique position, she reinterprets Dido in a way that is focused on sources of her legitimacy and power, rather than on her death. And even when de Pisan focuses on the death of Dido, she interprets it in a way that highlights the virtues of Dido rather than her sexual vices.
According to Christine de Pisan, Dido is a legitimate ruler in her own right because of her intelligence and capability. Dido “founded and built a city in Africa called Carthage and was its queen and ruler,” and the way the city was built "demonstrated her great courage and nobility and virtue” (82). de Pisan refers to her as “Elissa” as she describes her early life and accomplishments, which contributes to the notion that Dido was an extraordinary woman and capable leader. Before Dido can found her city, she must outsmart her evil brother who kills her husband and tries to steal his treasure. Dido, despite the grief she feels for the loss of her husband, is able to gather his treasure, devise a plan to trick her brother and flee for her life. Those who Dido is able to convince to join her do so because “she outlined her plans to them in such a persuasive way that they declared their loyalty to her and agreed to go with her” (83). This begins to hint at her capabilities as queen. While Dido is trying to escape from her brother, “whose men come racing to stop her” to seize the treasure that she had taken with her, she tricks these men rather than hand it over and gives them “the great chests, trunks and boxes secretly filled up with heavy worthless objects to make it look as if they contained treasure” (83). This is another way that de Pisan legitimizes the rule of Dido by detailing how she was able to maintain her fortune for herself and not give in to the demands of her evil brother.
Dido is also clever in how she buys land to build Carthage on once she arrives. Dido makes a deal with the local population that involves buying a “piece of land by the coast that was no bigger than the hide of a cow;” and then she cuts the hide “into the tiniest strips possible, which were then tied into the strips of a rope” which was “laid out on the ground by the sea shore where it enclosed a huge plot of a land” (84). According to de Pisan, this is how Dido bought the land for Carthage and how she was able to make the most of her money for the largest plot of land by outsmarting the locals. The careful attention to the details of how Dido came to rule legitimizes why Dido is the rightful and capable queen of Carthage.
Once Carthage was established, Dido “established rules and laws for her people to live an honest and just existence” (85). Maintaining legitimacy like Dido did is as important as being to establish legitimacy in the first place. The most powerful way this is done is by changing her name from Elissa to Dido “which means ‘virago’ in Latin: in other words, a woman who has the valor of a man” (85). de Pisan’s narrative style clearly established Dido’s ability and right to reign as a queen of Carthage, which was a powerful nation. Her legitimacy and capability as a ruler came from her intelligence, not her gender.
The classical and medieval interpretations of Dido contrast in several ways. Dido in the Aeneid and Dido in The Book of the City of Ladies seem to be opposites of each other; the Aeneid focuses on Dido’s death and The Book of the City of Ladies on her life. However, this does not mean that The Book of the City of Ladies totally ignores Dido’s death, instead, de Pisan interprets it in a completely different way. Rather than seeing Dido's suicide as weak, the blame is shifted to Aeneas as a faithless lover and Dido’s suicide becomes a sign of her constancy in her love to Aeneas. Rather than being a selfish lover, Dido is a loyal lover. de Pisan writes that after Aeneas gave his “word that he would marry no other woman but her and would love her forever” he “still abandoned her after all she had done not only to make him rich again but also to repair his ships and make them sea worthy” (173). This is a violation of a personal and professional agreement. Despite the great lengths that Dido went to care for Aeneas, he still left her. de Pisan interprets this as a violation and a strike against Aeneas’s character, whom she describes as a “thief” (173). Dido was “so devastated by his departure that she lost all interest in life and joy, consumed as she was by her passion for Aeneas” (174). In this interpretation, the blame rests squarely on shoulders of Aeneas for the pain he caused with his departure. Her accomplishments in the founding and ruling of Carthage demonstrate that Dido was capable of claiming power and legitimacy in the public realm, and as a lover she is an example of “women’s constancy in love” (173). Her suicide demonstrates her commitment and love for Aeneas.
The classical and medieval interpretations of Dido vary greatly, yet the authors keep important plot elements the same. The emphasis put on different things is indicative of the different time periods. Both authors are able to make statements about power and legitimacy and both utilize similar imagery: fire. The combination of texts and visuals broadens the opportunity to compare and contrast the interpretations and their evolution. In the classical text, Dido is used to establish the superior legitimacy and power of Italy; but in the medieval text, Dido is used as an example to illustrate that women can be powerful and legitimate rulers. What made Dido weak in the Aeneid made her strong in The Book of the City of Ladies. The attention that Virgil pays to Dido’s origin is short and episodic compared to the more expansive approach de Pisan takes. This shows that Virgil saw Dido as a means to an end, rather than someone worth elevating for her own sake. Because of these differing interpretations and portrayals, Dido becomes a more fluid and dynamic character with more depth than any one author could give.
Literary and artistic interpretations of Dido do not stop in the medieval period. She continues to be interpreted in the modern era as well. Even though times have dramatically changed, the most prominent elements of her narrative that were expressed in the classical and medieval interpretations remain the same. Her suicide on the pyre seems to capture the imagination of artists who depict the moment of her suicide with the Trojan sword plunged into her body, while flames begin to swallow her. Writers are more focused on the power structure and relationship between Dido and Aeneas and choose to delve further into that dynamic and explore its implications and final results that way.