Stirrings of Modern Love in Ancient Greek, Latin Literature

The relationships between Odysseus and Penelope in Homer's The Odyssey and Dido and Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid remain among the most powerful, enduring love stories in Western literature. Odysseus and Aeneas are archetypal heroes, men distinguished by their enterprising bravery, piercing intelligence, and sense of duty. In other words, each of these male protagonists, in his own way, epitomizes masculine virtue as it was understood and celebrated in ancient times. The women who love them, on the other hand, present very different versions of the heartbroken and neglected wife; each deals differently with the necessity of sharing her man with the demands of public service and wartime glory. Penelope is the paragon of female patience and devotion, remaining loyal to her beloved husband despite the passage of twenty years and the attentions of multitudes of tenacious suitors Dido, however, responds to Aeneas's choice of duty over love through a stunning act of vengeance and self-destruction. Her love is so passionate and all-consuming that it can accept no compromise. She is both the ultimate victim of her own lust and the legendary "scorned woman."

Although these love stories still capture readers' and critics' imagination millennia after they were written, these romances are somewhat repugnant to the ideal of male-female relationships we treasure today. Ancient literature presents a mercilessly patriarchal world where men must choose the public arena or political service and noble deeds over home and hearth. Meanwhile, their wives are confined to the domestic sphere and expected to be content there no matter the intensity of the suffering inflicted upon them by the men they love. The lives of heroes such as Odysseus and Aeneas are dictated by the whims and ambitions of the gods, as are, in a more indirect manner, the fates of their female companions. Odysseus and Aeneas have no choice but to venture out on the glorious quests and battles which separate them from their women, and the women have no choice but to suffer heartbreak, betrayal, and loneliness as a result. These rigid, uncompromising gender roles are hardly compatible with today's notions of feminist values and notions of gender equality. Nonetheless, these romantic relationships, despite the outdated gender stereotypes that they promote, can be seen as prototypes for some of the most familiar, even cherished, notions of modern love as we view it in today's world.

When Homer's The Odyssey opens, Penelope is already besieged by suitors who urge her to accept that her husband Odysseus, who left Ithaca ten years earlier to fight in the Trojan War, is dead. Penelope deters her suitors through a series of clever ruses, most notably her claim that she will choose her new husband as soon as she finishes weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law. Every night, Penelope unravels the weaving she finished during the day, and her suitors, too distracted with their greedy dreams of obtaining Odysseus's wealth and power by wedding his widow, are so ignorant of the feminine arts that they do not realize that she is making no progress. Penelope's deft methods of deflecting her suitors' attentions reveal her as possessing an intelligence as cunning as Odysseus's own. The reader admires her craftiness and sees her as her husband's intellectual and strategic equal. However, Penelope, unlike Odysseus, will never have the opportunity to test her wits as a battle leader or adventurer. Rather, she must satisfy herself with weaving and other women's work. Her efforts to protect herself from her unsavory suitors are defensive and passive, rather than aggressive. Moreover, Penelope must resort to being sly, even underhanded, in rebuffing the boisterous young men who seek to replace her husband as ruler of Ithaca. As a woman, she is presumed to be weak, physically and mentally, and she is not is not allowed to step outside her female role to directly banish the suitors by telling them to leave or physically forcing them to quit the premises. In fact, it seems that Penelope is expected to endure their attentions simply because she is a woman. One senses that it would be unacceptable, even dangerous, for Penelope to speak her mind to these men and demand their departure.

Ultimately, it is not Penelope, but her son Telemachus who is seen as the authority of the household, and he is reluctant to banish the suitors because he believes his father is dead after so many years away. It is only when the goddess Athena assures him that Odysseus still lives that Telemachus takes action. Thus, even though Penelope has committed herself to waiting for Odysseus, the task of finding him and attempting to rescue him falls to her son. Modern readers may be disappointed by Penelope's passivity and her confinement to the dull domestic sphere even as they cheer her clever stratagems for avoiding an unwanted marriage. The plucky heroines of today's novels and romantic comedies on film would no doubt speak her mind more directly, and in the post-sexual revolution era, where "no" means "no," the suitors would be expected to accede to Penelope's wishes or else possibly find themselves in court for sexual assault. Moreover, young women who have grown up in an era the role of the action hero is no longer exclusively male may with that Penelope could procure her own ship and search for Odysseus. At the same time, Penelope's steadfastness despite her prolonged separation from Odysseus speaks to a cherished romantic ideal that has survived from ancient to modern times: that unflagging faithfulness is a marker of true love and that a destined romantic partner will stay loyal to his or her beloved through any obstacle.

At first blush, Dido seems much more of a modern heroine than Penelope; she is, after all, a queen in her own right, having founded Carthage and acting as its sole ruler at the time that Aeneas and his Trojan followers wash up on her shores. However, as soon as she is pierced by Cupid's arrow, which induces her to fall in love with Aeneas, she, too, falls into the trap of traditional gender roles and become an increasingly weaker figure until she ultimately commits suicide in spite and grief over Aeneas's desertion. Notably, Dido is not a purely fictional character but is rather based upon Elissa, the historic founder and ruler of Carthage, who committed suicide out of loyalty to her deceased first husband rather than be forced into marriage with one of her political enemies. In Virgil's retelling, however, Dido's strength as a queen, as well as her sense of duty to her first husband and the people she rules, is consumed by her lust for Aeneas.

In fact, Virgil's portrayal of Dido is a subtle critique of female leaders, and it is impossible not to contrast her unfavorably with Aeneas in terms of her attitude towards the competing demands of love and duty. Fans of the modern romance may see Aeneas's choice to follow his divine fate rather than stay with Dido as evidence that he is a cold and callous cad, but Virgil wanted readers to think otherwise. Though Dido sees Aeneas's departure as a personal betrayal, Aeneas's ability to turn his back on love and accept the higher calling placed upon him by the gods is actually seen by Virgil as proof that he is worthy of the great destiny placed upon him. Unlike Aeneas, Dido is unable to accept that the duties of leadership must take precedence over the needs of the heart. When she ascends her funeral pyre at the end of Book 4 of the Aeneid and throws herself upon Aeneas's sword, she leaves the city that she single-handedly founded, as well as its people, without benefit of a ruler While modern readers will sympathize with Dido's plight and feel exasperation at Aeneas's failure to even try to work out a compromise between the gods' desire that he set sail and Dido's desire that he remain her lover. However, they are likely to feel exasperated with Dido as well. As Dido's obsession with Aeneas grows, so does her credibility as a leader and her efforts to get revenge for Aeneas's desertion fall decidedly flat. Her vain effort to torment Aeneas with guilt results only in her self-destruction. Dido's other gestures at vengeance-the curse that she utters against the descendants of Troy as she watches Aeneas and his men sail away and her refusal to speak to Aeneas when he attempts to apologize to her during his sojourn in the underworld in Book VI-are unsatisfactory because Dido is not alive to enjoy them. A modern heroine would have resolved to destroy Aeneas rather than herself and, in the spirit of today's woman who is encouraged to aspire for both family and career, she would do so without neglecting her duties of state.

Under the code of modern love, both Odysseus and Aeneas would be seen as men who fear commitment. Odysseus would be interpreted as man going through a mid-life crisis who decided to leave home to sow his last wild oats. Aeneas, on the other hand, would be seen as a "love 'em and leave 'em" playboy who throws himself into his work because he is afraid to give his heart to one woman. Thus, the modern reader would be inclined to ascribe psychological motivations to these heroes' actions. However, neither Homer nor Virgil believes that human will is the primary force behind either human action or human destiny. Rather, they see men like Odysseus and Aeneas as completely subject to the divine will of the gods.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus's efforts to return to Ithaca are repeatedly thwarted by the curse of Poseidon in revenge for Odysseus's blinding of his son, the sea-monster Polyphemus. Meanwhile, the goddess Athena, Poseidon's long-standing rival, serves as Odysseus's protector, repeatedly interceding to save him from death, urging Telemachus to search for his father, and, finally, orchestrating the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope and the resurrection of their marriage. Likewise, in The Aeneid, it is Venus who instigates the love affair between Aeneas and Dido; as Aeneas's self-appointed protector, Venus urges him to present himself to the queen when he is shipwrecked at Carthage and urges Cupid to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas so that she will keep him under her protection. Meanwhile, Juno, who hates all Trojans and is responsible for Aeneas being blown off course, wants to prevent Aeneas from sailing to Italy where he will play a role in the eventual founding of the Roman empire. To provide an incentive for Aeneas to tarry in Carthage, she conspires with Venus to cause a sudden storm which traps Dido and Aeneas alone together in a cave and provides them with the perfect opportunity to consummate their relationship. However, the gods are not really interested in romance for the sake of romance: when the danger arises that Aeneas may abandon his destiny to remain in Carthage with Dido, Juno dispatches Mercury to remind Aeneas that he has important duties to fulfill. It is as a result of this instance of "divine intervention" that Aeneas abandons Dido. Devotees of "modern love" would no doubt chafe at the idea that divine external forces, rather than desires of the heart and free will, govern human romance. At the same time, traditional notions of "soul-mates," "star-crossed lovers," and fated meetings still attract and fascinate the romantic among us and play a part even in the most modern of novels and films that portray love relationships.