Artifact 4: Sword

Virgil’s Aeneid: Book 4 depicts Dido’s obsessive love for a Trojan hero, Aeneas, who leaves for Italy to follow his quest from the gods. Dido sees Aeneas leaving in the middle of the night, and resorts to throwing herself on Aeneas’s sword, killing herself and cursing Aeneas: “Dido strikes the fatal blow with a sword—indeed, very probably with the very sword which she had once given Aeneas as a present” (Edgeworth 129). The sword, as stated by Edgeworth, is likely a sword that Dido gave to Aeneas as a present. The art in her act of suicide is that she uses element to display her internal suffering of love for Aeneas, like the use of this gift that he left behind. The sword symbolizes the love that Aeneas has left, and is now killing Dido mentally. Dido has been suffering from love melancholy throughout the book and can only save herself by ending her life, so that she no longer must feel the emotions of sadness, fear, and anger; “Dido’s death by the double means of pyre and sword wound represents an externalization of the internal condition under which she has been suffering thought the book” (Edgeworth 130). Her death is drawn out, as she does not die immediately, which replicates her endless and constant internal suffering of grief, “Dido’s drawn-out passage from life to death, hurt by hurt, grief by grief, with mental pain combined with physical in a concatenation of suffering” (Putnam 104). The wound that the sword causes is mimicking the metaphorical wound that Dido feels in her heart, which is creating her love melancholy, “Literal wounds have now been added to a single, metaphorical hurt, forcing us to contemplate the arc of this very development as one type of suffering leads to, and is piled upon, another during the approach of death” (Putnam 104).

Suicide and death by sword are not uncommon practices in literature, and culture. In literature, suicide by hanging is commonly used to portray suicide, but Virgil chooses a second way to depict suicide, by sword: “The canonical mode of suicide for heroines in classical literature (particularly for tragic queens) is death by hanging… There is a second means of exit in literature: death by the sword” (Edgeworth 129). Suicide by sword had an element of virtue and respect. In Japanese culture, suicide by sword, called Seppuku, was seen an honorable act, although it was a slow and agonizing death (Fuse 1). In Athenian culture, suicide was seen as a crime committed by the object, rather than the person, “Instead, the Athenians regarded suicide as a crime committed by the instrument that the victim used, or by the victim’s hand as opposed to the victim himself… In Sophocles’ Ajax, for example, the sword that the hero turned upon himself was blamed for his death” (Naiden 85). Athenian culture went as far as “punishing’ the object as if it were a murderer by destroying or disposing of it (Naiden 90). Athenians believed that the gods had special powers and abilities to allow for the object to murder the person “In Homer and elsewhere, gods bring about human deaths by imparting special power to a weapon, such as a spear or sword” (Naiden 92). Only the worthiest people were victims of suicide because the gods deemed them as chosen. Additionally, Roman culture perceived death by sword as an honorable way of suicide, “Images of death and the act of suicide by the sword are standard vocabulary in élite cultures in which the sword represents male aristocratic identity” (Deist 1). Roman men were expected to be noble and face death with a form of calmness, courage, and lack of fear. Because the act of throwing oneself on a sword is a painful and long death, which Dido experience, it was seen as even more noble because it proved that the man was actualizing death; “The wound of the sword is the essence of manhood. Choosing death at a particular time by means of the sword is an act of self-fashioning, of being self-conscious of one’s name and accomplishment. This is the Stoic virtues of the distinguished Roman élite.” (Deist 1). With Japanese, Athenian, and Roman culture, all acts of falling on ones sword are actionable by the elite and followed by respect. Death by sword was seen as more honorable than other forms of suicide like hanging in Roman culture. Suicide by hanging was seen as an act only done by a female, but Dido, in contrast had a death by sword, “Hanging was disgraceful and unbecoming of a distinguished hero. Because it does not require constantia, it implies moral weakness and is reserved for women” (Deist 1). Dido took ownership of her death, melancholy, and emotions by falling on the sword rather than other forms of suicide. “The sword is a symbol of justice exercised by an élite group of men. The poet uses the sword as a memento of female passion and the usurpation of feudal power by female engine.”(Deist 1). The art in Dido’s suicide is that she was creating a public display of her emotions. All viewing and hearing of her sad death experience these emotions with her.