Dido to Aeneas (Ovid, Heroides 7.1–120)

In the Aeneid, Vergil depicts Aeneas as dutiful and pious, which justifies his abandoning his lover, Dido, queen of Carthage. However, in Heroides 7—a verse letter written from Dido to Aeneas—Ovid contradicts the canonical narrative established by Vergil. Ovid's Dido calls Aeneas unfaithful, dishonest, and worse in this impassioned letter written immediately before her suicide. Ovid's poetry is rich with allusions to the Aeneid, and exhibits his characteristic wit and cleverness with the Latin language.

This reader includes several appendices, including:

• The remainder of Heroides 7, in Latin and English
• Some passages from Aeneid book 4 which Ovid alludes to in this extract, in Latin and English 
• A 12th-century medieval poem inspired by Heroides 7, in Latin and English 

See the about page for more information about this series based on the IB companion texts.

I am releasing this reader under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, meaning that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format with attribution and for non-commercial purposes. Find out more about this license here.

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AP* vocab version ✅ Facing vocabulary on each page ❌ A glossary of common words found in the passage ✅ Notes on linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural details ✅ Questions for comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion ✅ Appendices for additional reading	Macrons	No Macrons
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No-vocab, no-notes version ❌ Facing vocabulary on each page ❌ A glossary of common words found in the passage ❌ Notes on linguistic, literary, historical, and cultural details ✅ Questions for comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion ✅ Appendices for additional reading	Macrons	No Macrons
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