Dido and Aeneas In a poem of about 1686, Tate alluded to James II as Aeneas, who is misled by the evil machinations of the Sorceress and her witches (representing Roman Catholicism, a common metaphor at the time) into abandoning Dido, who symbolises the British people. The same symbolism may apply to the opera. This explains the addition of the characters of the Sorceress and the witches, which do not appear in the original "Aeneid". It would be noble, or at least acceptable, for Aeneas to follow the decree of the Gods, but not so acceptable for him to be tricked by ill-meaning
Ripheus make him survive to found the ancient Gauls and Franks). Ripheus Ripheus (also Rifeo and Rupheo) was a Trojan hero and the name of a figure from the "Aeneid" of Virgil. A comrade of Aeneas, he was a Trojan who was killed defending his city against the Greeks. "Ripheus also fell," Virgil writes, "uniquely the most just of all the Trojans, the most faithful preserver of equity; but the gods decided otherwise" (Virgil, "Aeneid" II, 426–8). Ripheus's righteousness was not rewarded by the gods. In his "Divine Comedy", Dante placed Ripheus in Heaven, in the sixth sphere of Jupiter, the