ABSTRACT
Few of the great women of antiquity exceeded "widow Dido" in historically established chastity or poetically invented tragedy. This curious double existence over the space of fifteen centuries could be attributed to her unlucky yet fortunate choice of celebrating poets. Boccaccio, the first of Dante scholars, also knew the truth, but in spite of his knowledge he divided his allegiance between the two Didos. Moral Gower in one of his Balades can list Aeneas together with Jason, Hercules, and others as among the "tricherous," but when he uses Virgil's story in the Confessio, it is as an illustration of the sin of acedia. By the end of the Middle Ages the sympathies of men of letters are usually on the side of Queen Dido, who was either traduced by Virgil or shamelessly abandoned by Aeneas. Jodelle writes about Dido and Aeneas, but these characters are only thin coverings for his dissertation on human despair and his tirade against the gods.
