In literature, the theme “impossible love” has been popular throughout history. The overall theme of impossible loves is one that covers a wide range of topics. It refers to a love which is forbidden, unrequired, nor unable for it to thrive. Between 29 and 19 B.C. The Aenid was written by the Roman writer Virgil. The Aenid follows the tragic story of Aeneas’s love affair with Dido, the Carthage queen. Ovid came up with his classic Metamorphoses a few years later. This book combines a wide range of mythological stories through the common theme or change. Ovid tells many stories that deal with impossible love, including the story about Pygmalion’s ivory maiden. Because it is so relatable, impossible love has a timeless appeal. Drama and negative consequences will always follow.
The fourth book, The Aeneid’s fourth book, presents the theme “unattainable love” when Dido and Aeneas deeply fall in love. Dido initially refuses to marry Aeneas. Dido is busy leading her people as a strong and popular leader. She also knows the dangers of Aeneas’ Trojan descendants and is prepared to lose her beloved city of Carthage. Dido is a wonderful woman. The poet foreshadows her demise from the first moment Dido falls in love with Aeneas. Juno, an openly hateful Aeneas, persuades Dido to marry Aeneas. Juno’s clever plan to distract Aeneas is successful for a time. Aeneas, content with his queen, is happy until Jupiter learns about the union. Mercury is then dispatched to Jupiter by Jupiter in order to remind Aeneas he has a duty, to build the great city Rome. Aeneas, who is a slave of his duty, must follow the Roman Cardinal Values, which are prudentia. Although Aeneas loves Dido, he knows that Gods have called on him through divine intervention. He also understands that he has a grand, divine purpose. However, Dido’s unattainable love distracted him. Dido was a tragic character before Aeneas arrived at Carthage. She was a widowed woman who ran a kingdom that would be destroyed. Dido tells Aeneas he must return to his journey. Dido feels like a lost love. Aeneas is still unable to shed a tear. All appeals are ignored by him. He will not relent. The Fates block his way. Heaven blocks his human, gentle ears. (Virgil 142-143; lines 549-554). Aeneas, after being forced by Jupiter, cannot sympathize more with Dido. He realizes he does not have time for him. Aeneas sails forward, the strong and intelligent princess unable to bear another husband. It is difficult to believe that Dido’s act of suicide and sudden irrationality was a fictional work. Mike McCool is the author of “The tragedy of Dido: an unresolved epistemological crisis” Dido was “drawn inexorably into the worlds that intertwine between Gods or men.” (McCool). Juno used Dido as an instrument to distract Aeneas. Their lust was not natural. It was created through Cupid’s poison, and the Gods. Dido, unlike most other characters, especially those in Ovid’s Metamorphoses was not openly hostile to the Gods. Their relationship with Aeneas is one of the most tragically and impossible in literature. Pygmalion, Ovid’s sculptor, makes his own unattainable love. Pygmalion, disillusioned with the shortcomings of real women, decides to make his ideal vision of an ivory woman. Pygmalion falls madly enamoured with his ivory maiden. It is difficult to love and marry a statue of ivory. While his ivory maiden does not actually exist, it is possible to love and marry her. His beloved statue says, “White as Snow,” (Ovid 394, line 49). It is fascinating that Ovid selected ivory as Pygmalion’s medium. Ovid does this to show that his maiden has pure beauty. Pygmalion was able to experience his inner world, and when he touched it, he wondered if it was ivory or flesh. It couldn’t have been ivory!” (255). Pygmalion desired so much for his inanimate love, so he asked the Gods for a woman to marry him.
Pygmalion’s prayers were answered by Venus. Venus knew that Pygmalion wanted his statue alive so he could marry his statue. Pygmalion was able to return home and found his statue. (286-287). Pygmalion now sees his unattainable woman as a human. Jane O’Sullivan author the scholarly article “Virtual Metamorphoses. Chemical and Cybernetic Reviews of Pygmalion’s Living Doll”. She states that “fetishism” is “a process through which a concurrently loved and feared object–in this instance, a girl–refashioned so that she conforms to idealized notions and femininity to make it a familiar and compliant substitute for that unruly subject and, in that way, to tame.” O’Sullivan’s argument means that Pygmalion was afraid and resentful of women. O’Sullivan 134 says she meant to say that Pygmalion created his perfect woman. She would not speak back, displease him, nor reject him. The once unsettling and fetishized love of Pygmalion is now reality. Pygmalion’s maiden, a living human being, is real. Despite Pygmalion’s relief from the tension of unattainable love, it remains with his ivory maiden.
Metamorphoses doesn’t give Pygmalion a name. He is the sole owner of his statue. Now that the statue has become a woman, Pygmalion can no longer control her and makes her his slave. She is unable make her own choices and cannot choose who she will love. The story of unrequited love terrorizes both Ovid and Virgil in The Aeneid and Metamorphoses.
Dido and Aeneas’ brief relationship in The Aeneid changes their lives forever. Dido was forced to give up her life to love the man she loved, while Aeneas was left with the guilt of having caused his beloved to commit suicide because he had to fulfill his God-given duty. Ovid’s Metamorphoses shows Pygmalion and his statue’s inexplicable love. But, the solution is not what he expected. His ivory maiden is forced into an unrequited life, which results in an impossible and unrequited love. Although it’s tragic, impossible romance will be forever a staple of literature.
