Re: VIRGIL: Dido -----> Desdemona?

[Bob Cowan]

I suspect you _are_ out on a limb, though it's a very attractive one, and 
Marlowe's Dido - if not Virgil's - must have been fresh in the memory. I 
guess it depends whether one traces any similarities to the source - an 
Italian novella, if I remember right - or Shakespeare's treatment of it.

If the said limb can bear a little more weight, might one note that Dido is 
repeatedly 'infelix', while Othello's wife is also - etymologically - 
unfortunate, 'dysdaimon'?

Just a thought
Bob

From: "Ambros Hieronymus Prechtl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: VIRGIL: Dido -----> Desdemona?
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:42:51 -0400
The intriguing similarity of Dido falling in love with Aeneas as he tells
his story and Desdemona falling in love with Othello as he tells his
story -- I am sure people have noticed it but has anyone written about it?
We have two strangers, heroes both of them, who have travelled far,
encountered many adventures and faced many horrid dangers.  There is
something in the setting of each woman that argues against their falling in
love and yet they do fall in love..  And both ended up dead after only a
short period of happiness, both killed by their husbands: Desdemona 
directly
and Dido indirectly, her man

    Aeneas [who] praebuit et causam mortis et ensem :
Though Shakespeare may have had little Latin, he knew more than most people
alive then of Greek mythology and ancient history and literature.  It would
be quite unreasonable to assume that he did not know the story of Dido.
 Any opinion on this anyone?  Am I out on a limb?
Ambros

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