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
Aeneid free will. Several of the gods try to intervene against the powers of fate, even though they know what the eventual outcome will be. The interventions are really just distractions to continue the conflict and postpone the inevitable. If the gods represent humans, just as the human characters engage in conflicts and power struggles, so too do the gods. Fate, described as a preordained destiny that men and gods have to follow, is a major theme in the "Aeneid". One example is when Aeneas is reminded of his fate through Jupiter and Mercury while he is falling in love with