Dido, Queen of Carthage (play) Dido, Queen of Carthage (play) Dido, Queen of Carthage (full title: The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage) is a short play written by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe, with possible contributions by Thomas Nashe. The story of the play focuses on the classical figure of Dido, the Queen of Carthage. It tells an intense dramatic tale of Dido and her fanatical love for Aeneas (induced by Cupid), Aeneas' betrayal of her and her eventual suicide on his departure for Italy. The playwrights depended upon Books 1, 2, and 4 of Virgil's "Aeneid" as their main source. "Dido" is based
Dido "Fasti" (3.545f) Ovid introduced a kind of sequel involving Aeneas and Dido's sister Anna. See Anna Perenna. The Barcids, the family to which Hannibal belonged, claimed descent from a younger brother of Dido according to Silius Italicus in his "Punica" (1.71–7). The "Augustan History" ("Tyrrani Triginta" 27, 30) claims that Zenobia queen of Palmyra in the late third century was descended from Cleopatra, Dido and Semiramis. In "The Divine Comedy" Dante sees the shade of Dido in the second circle of Hell, where she is condemned (on account of her consuming lust) to be blasted for eternity in a fierce