Exploring the Theme of Impossible Love Throughout Virgil’s The Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Throughout the ages, the theme of impossible adore in literature has prevailed. Not possible enjoy is an all round broad theme generally speaking, it is a love that is forbidden, unrequired, or unable to flourish. Someplace amongst 29 and 19 B.C. the legendary Roman author Virgil wrote his epic: The Aenid. The Aenid chronicles the journey of the great hero Aeneas, who falls in love with the queen of Carthage, Dido—resulting in a tragic spell of not possible adore. Some years right after Virgil, surfaced Ovid with his classic Metamorphoses which hyperlinks a stunning array of mythological tales by way of the typical theme of change or transformation. Many of the tales told by Ovid interact with the theme of impossible love—but especially the story of Pygmalion and his ivory maiden. The theme of impossible love is timeless because it is incredibly relatable, the heart wants what the heart desires, and therein unfavorable consequences and drama forever ensue.

In fourth book of The Aeneid, the theme of impossible love presents itself when Dido and Aeneas fall deeply in adore. Initially, Dido does not want to marry Aeneas. Dido is busy being a sturdy and well-liked leader for her men and women, she is aware of his journey, and knows that in the future the Trojan descendants of Aeneas will ruin her gorgeous city of Carthage. Loyal to each her men and women and her deceased husband, Dido is an admirable lady. From the quite initial moments of Dido’s infatuation with Aeneas, the poet foreshadows to the readers that her really like will be her destruction. Nonetheless, Juno, who openly detests Aeneas, convinces Dido to marry Aeneas to interfere with his quest. Juno’s devious strategy to distract Aeneas operates for a whilst. Aeneas is content with his beautiful queen, till Jupiter hears of the union. Jupiter then dispatches Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, to discovered the great city of Rome. Aeneas is a slave to his duty, he need to stick to the Roman Cardinal Values: prudentia, fortitudo, justicia, and temperanta. Although Aeneas does adore Dido, he understands that the Gods through their divine intervention have referred to as upon him, he has a grand and divine goal, which he eventually knew all along—but he was distracted by Dido’s not possible love. Prior to Aeneas arrived in Carthage, Dido was currently a somewhat tragic character. She was a widowed lady in charge of a kingdom that will surely be overthrown. As Aeneas tells Dido he need to resume his journey, Dido becomes a lovesick wreck: So Dido pleads and so her desolate sister takes him the tale of tears once more and once again. But no tears move Aeneas now. He is deaf to all appeals. He won’t relent. The Fates bar the way. and heaven blocks his gentle, human ears. (Virgil 142-143, lines 549-554) Following getting pressured by Jupiter to total his quest, Aeneas can no longer sympathize with Dido he knows he no longer has time for his adore. The strong and intelligent queen can not bear to drop yet another husband and as a result throws herself upon a blade as Aeneas sails on. Even for a function of fiction, Dido’s sudden irrationality and act of suicide is puzzling. According to Mike McCool author of the article, “The Tragedy of Dido: An Unresolved Epistemological Crisis” Dido was, “drawn irresistibly into the globe of intrigue among Gods and guys.” (McCool). Dido was utilised as a tool for Juno’s plan to distract Aeneas their adore was not all-natural for it was formed by way of the Gods, Cupid’s poison especially. Unlike a lot of other individuals, especially most characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Dido did not openly defy the Gods or do anything to spite them, resulting in Dido and Aeneas’ connection getting a single of the most tragic and not possible in all literature.

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the sculptor Pygmalion manufactures his personal impossible enjoy. Displeased by the imperfections of genuine earthly females, Pygmalion decides to fashion his personal vision of a best woman out of ivory. Pygmalion falls madly in love with his ivory maiden, he kisses her, caresses her, dresses her, and even speaks to her. But, it is certainly impossible to love and marry an ivory statue. His ivory maiden is not a genuine human, and as a result does not exist in actual life, however she nevertheless exists in the realm of art. His beloved statue is, “white as snow,” (Ovid 394, line 49), and it is quite interesting that Ovid picked ivory rather of marble for Pygmalion’s medium, signifying that his maiden is pure—a perfect image of feminine beauty. In a sense, Pygmalion started to reside inside his own head, when he touched the statue he believed to himself, “flesh or ivory? No, it couldn’t be ivory now!” (255). Pygmalion wished so badly for his inanimate adore to stir, so he prayed to the Gods to marry a woman like his statue. Luckily for Pygmalion, Venus heard his prayers, and knew that he really wanted his statue to live so he could marry it, and so she turned his not possible adore into a reality. When Pygmalion returned residence he went to his statue and, “fondled that longed-for physique again and/ again.” (286-287). Pygmalion’s unattainable woman is now standing ahead of him, as a genuine human. Jane O’Sullivan author of the scholarly article, “Virtual Metamorphoses: Cosmetic and Cybernetic Revisions of Pygmalion’s ‘Living Doll’” argues that, “here fetishism is taken to be a method by which a concurrently feared and desired object—in this case, a woman—refashioned to conform to idealized notions of femininity in a bid to render her a compliant and familiar substitute for that unruly object and, in so performing, to tame her.” (O’Sullivan 134). Taking O’Sullivan’s argument into context, she is saying that Pygmalion was afraid of women, and of their rejection, so to hide his resentment for females, he created his own perfect lady, who would not speak back to him, displease him, or reject him. What was after a fetishized and very frankly, unsettling, adore is now a factor of reality. Pygmalion’s maiden is a actual living human becoming. Though the tension of impossible enjoy is relieved in terms of Pygmalion, it is now present with regards to his ivory maiden.

In Metamorphoses, Pygmalion’s statue is not provided a name, she is entirely Pygmalion’s possession, she is not her own particular person, and she belongs to him. Thanks to Venus, now that the statue is a actual lady she has totally no free of charge will, she is forever indebted to Pygmalion and basically turned into his own individual sex slave. She is unable to make her personal decisions and is all round unable to decide on whom she is capable to adore, which leads to yet another layer of unrequited, and impossible really like. In each Virgil’s The Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the theme of not possible really like dominates the plots of the stories and basically terrorizes the characters affected.

In The Aeneid, both Dido and Aeneas are forever changed by their short relation, Dido gave up her life for the man that she loved and Aeneas had to live with the regret of being aware of that he triggered his beloved’s suicide due to the fact that he had to comprehensive his God given duty. On the other hand, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Pygmalion’s not possible adore with his statue reaches a satisfying solution… for him, however his ivory maiden is forced into a life not of her selecting, as a result resulting in an unrequited and impossible enjoy. Although it is tragic, not possible really like will forever be a timeless staple of literature.