The Tragic Queen of Carthage (book4)

In this book, we see that Dido is reluctant to become involved with Aeneas, and she has a good reason to be worried. What she doesn't know is that the gods are messing with her fate. Juno's and Venus' "deal" to create a marriage between Aeneas and Dido starts out when the two are out hunting with their friends and a storm hits. They find themselves trapped in the same cave together. This reinforces 2 things: the idea that Aeneas is hunting Dido, and the war between the gods. When we first see Aeneas, he is shooting deer, then in this book, Dido is compared to a doe, and there is a line about "the shaft that takes her life." This refers to Cupid's arrow that makes Dido fall in love with Aeneas, and that love eventually makes her kill herself. Cupid and his arrow falls into the category of the war between the gods, especailly the one between Juno and Venus. Venus knows that Aeneas will have to leave Carthage, and she probably agrees to the "marriage" between Dido and Aeneas because she knows that it will kill Dido if he has to leave. If Dido kills herself, then Juno will be losing one of her most faithful worshipers, and Venus will have won one of the many battles between these two.

Landfalls, Ports of Call (book 3)

This book sets up two of the major themes of the novel: journey to found a new empire and death to rebirth. It is hard to tell from the way that Aeneas tells his story that a lot of time has passed from the time when Troy fell until now, when they are in Carthage. We see, through the places that Aeneas and the Trojans travel, how Virgil is trying to connect the Aeneid with the Odyssey. We also find out all of the suffering that the Trojans have to go through just to get to this point where they are in a friendly city. Even though Virgil describes all of the suffering that the Trojans go through, his tone tells us that it is necessary for the Trojans to not be happy anywhere else than Italy. If they had good luck in other places, Aeneas wouldn't have wanted to keep going so he could found Rome for his family to rule for centuries.

Safe Haven After Storm

The first book is setting up what is to come in the rest of the Aeneid. It shows us the fighting between the gods, especially between Juno and Venus. Venus comes down and sends Aeneas to Carthage where he will meet Dido. What is ironic about this situation is that Dido and Aeneas can get along so well when Dido worships Juno, who hates all Trojans. This situation foreshadows the rage that Juno will have when she loses one of her biggest worshipers, Dido, because of her unrequited love for Aeneas. We are also shown, by a conversation between a couple of the gods, that Aeneas will infact make it to Italy to found Rome because it is what the Fates predicted. There is nothing that Juno can do that can stop him for forever. The end of the first book also serves as a transition to the beginning of Aeneas' voyage to the founding of Rome.