Dido’s Demise: A Comparison of the Laments

In 1689 Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas debuted at Josias Priest’s girls’ school in London. The words “When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create/ no trouble, no trouble in thy breast” of Dido’s Lament floated up through the rafters, later becoming the most famous aria from the opera. A woeful Dido sulks onto the stage, heartbroken over Aeneas’s return to Italy. These lyrics “Remember me but ah! forget my fate” are her last words before she plunges a knife into her chest.

Fast-forward a few hundred years to Lynette humming these very notes while sitting on the couch of her own Aeneas after he came crashing — literally — back into her life. The connections between the short story and the story surrounding the aria are remarkable. A key component of the aria is its use of passus duriusculus or chromatic fourth, a musical technique where each half note is played from the one to the four or from four to the one in either ascending or descending order, respectively. Upon further investigation, passus duriusculusmeans “difficult step” which can be taken literally and figuratively when relating it to the short story. In a literal sense, when Toby bumps into Lynette she twists her ankle causing her to have a difficulty walking around. In a figurative sense, the entire experience — meeting face to face again after a difficult divorce and so many years apart — that they dealt with was a huge, difficult step for them to overcome. Not only did they get along, they laughed together for the first time in many years. This is a huge change from when they were married. After leaving his house, Lynette recalls “a scene quite unlike all the steadying, consoling stories that she and Toby had exchanged upstairs… she hardly knew what she was packing, and Toby’s ranting behind her was terrible because it was so uncharacteristic, as if something in him that should never have come to light had been broken open and exposed.” Putting all of their past hurts behind them was a huge, and quite difficult, step, even if, in the end, they reverted back to their old view of each other.

A second correlation between the laments is the scene in which a stranger runs into Lynette. She chases after a man she assumes she has never met because he caused her immense pain. After finding out who the person actually was, her ex-husband Toby, she felt like she had lost him so she rejected the idea of them being together again. She says “She might not tell him anything, might not even get back to him at all, in fact.” Seeing Toby brought up all the terrible memories she had, causing her to not want to keep in touch. When Aeneas disappears, Dido becomes distraught, but when he reappears she rejects him for ever thinking of leaving her. She was infuriated at his unfaithfulness to her. Lynette and Dido are both dealing with the loss of love and rejecting the idea of forgiving the person who has hurt them. While it may not have been the same exact situation, the connection is still there.

Along with the correlation between the relationship between Dido and Aeneas and Lynette and Toby another connection between the two stories are the words “May my wrongs create/ No trouble, no trouble in thy breast.” Lynette didn’t want to trouble Toby with her problems she had faced since they had become divorced. Not only did she not want to bother him with her past problems, she didn’t want to bother him with her current problems. For instance, she doesn’t want to tell him how “Her voice hadn’t been as good as she’d hoped, she had failed to make a career out of it…” and she lies about having a boyfriend when he asks. She avoids telling him anything negative about her life to a point where as soon as he closed the door, she went tumbling down because of her hurt ankle, and instead of taking the easy route by going back inside and getting help from Toby she “wouldn’t, she couldn’t, climb the steps to that front door again…” All of the pain reminded her of the tumultuous relationship they had had and how it ended abruptly. She couldn’t bare taking those few steps back up to get help from Toby.

Similarly, Dido couldn’t walk through the metaphorical door back to Aeneas. He left Dido for his home country and she felt absolutely betrayed. How could someone love her and leave her so easily? And how could she stay with someone who can’t commit to staying with her? This is similar to the struggle that Lynette is dealing with only she’s struggling with herself. Her last thoughts were “It really was better to be free. Or, if it wasn’t better, it was necessary.” It was as if she were trying to convince herself that she was better off without him. She feels betrayed and lonely, all because he moved on and became a happier person. The only difference between Dido and Lynette was that Dido ultimately succumbed to the pain and killed herself whereas Lynette was stubborn and walked to a bar to have a glass of wine.

Even though the two stories were written during very different — and very distant — times, they certainly share particularly strong connections. Lynette and Dido are both noticeably strong characters who are driven by love, or the lack thereof. The pain and sorrow link the two women together through hundreds of years and so many different cultural changes. Yet the story has such a relevant and relatable element. Whether it was a conscious thought or simple happenstance, the author makes some interesting connections. Between the meaning of the Latin term for a chromatic fourth and its relation to the difficult steps taken by Toby and Lynette, and the strong lyrics from the aria and their correlation with the pattern of the story, the author did an incredible job intertwining Purcell’s famous opera with a modern, accessible story. Dido’s story can surpass a multitude of generations, societal changes, and cultural differences and still be relatable to the average reader.