Juno, Allecto, and Ira

Edward Gutting (University of Mississippi)

Dido’s mingled hate and love for Aeneas show that ira and amor are closely linked.  The ira Dido gives voice to resembles the amor which spawned it.  Absens and adero recall a marked element of Dido’s passion for Aeneas, in which she “illum absens absentem auditque videtque” (4.83).[1]  Her amor was so great that it made Aeneas present even when absent.  Her ira now presents the same kind of absent presence, but with the situation reversed so that it will now apply to Aeneas’ experience of Dido.  Regardless of whether ira or amor governs the situation, Dido is absens in both passages.  Finally, in each passage absens shades over from its literal sense into the connotation of lacking mental focus and control.

Juno places her hopes for success in Italy on the close connection of the two passions.  Juno now seeks to replace amor with ira, and so restrict the opportunities Venus will have to exercise her amatory prowess.  Thus when the goddesses fight over the marriage of Aeneas to Lavinia things will be quite different than at Carthage.  This time Juno will have a Cupid of her own in Allecto, and the marriage will be marked not by amor but by the anger and vengeance of ira: ““hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum:/ sanguine Troiano et Rutulo dotabere, virgo, et Bellona manet te pronuba” (7.317-9).  In this brutal new world Juno can hope that, unchecked by Venus, she can again have power worthy of the queen of the gods.  If she can adulterate amor with ira, she will have a better chance of checking Venus’ erotic power. 

To this end, Allecto becomes Juno’s Cupid and the marriage of Lavinia and Aeneas are marked with anger and revenge rather than love.  The analogy between Juno/Allecto and Venus/Cupid is evident in textual echoes between Amata’s seduction by ira and Dido’s seduction by amor.[2]  Allecto’s snake moves against Amata: “fallitque furentem/ vipeream inspirans animam” (7.350-51).  Venus tells Cupid to seduce Dido: “occultum inspires ignem fallasque veneno” (1.688). Allecto uses poison as well: “Gorgoneis Allecto infecta venenis” (7.341) leads to “prima lues udo sublapsa veneno” (7.354).  Fire imagery, appropriate to inflamed passions whether of amor or ira, is used in half lines nearly identical in both scenes.  Venus plans for Cupid to burn Dido: “incendat reginam atque ossibus implicet ignem” (1.660), which is precisely what Allecto does at 7.356: “pertemptat sensus atque ossibus implicat ignem.”  The ultimate expression of the madness of both victims is described in Bacchic terms.[3]  Amata steals Lavinia away from any potential nuptial activity and takes her to the forest under the aegis of “simulato numine Bacchi”  (7.385ff.), and there the rest of the city’s matrons join her in Bacchic rites.  Dido in the full bloom of her madness is described metaphorically as a Bacchant at 4.300ff.