Editing Dido (section)

==Continuing tradition==

[[File:10_TND_-_2005_-_obverse.jpg|thumb|[[Tunisian dinar]] banknote issued in 2005, with a portrait of Elissa]]

In the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', Dante puts the shade of Dido in the second circle of Hell, where she is condemned (on account of her consuming lust) to be blasted for eternity in a fierce [[whirlwind]].

This legend inspired the Renaissance drama ''[[Dido, Queen of Carthage (play)|Dido, Queen of Carthage]]'' by [[Christopher Marlowe]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dido-Queen-of-Carthage|title=Dido, Queen of Carthage {{!}} play by Marlowe and Nashe|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2017-08-04}}</ref>

[[William Shakespeare]] refers to Dido twelve times in his plays: four times in ''[[The Tempest]]'', albeit all in one dialogue, twice in ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'', and also in ''[[Henry VI Part 2]]'', ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'', ''[[Hamlet]]'', ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' and, most famously, in ''[[The Merchant of Venice]]'', in Lorenzo's and Jessica's mutual wooing:{{poemquote|
In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.<ref>''[[The Merchant of Venice]]'', Act 5, Scene 1</ref>}}

[[File:Henry Purcell "Dido & Aeneas" (extrait) - Les Arts Florissants, William Christie.webm|thumb|upright=1.4|[[Lea Desandre]] performs the "[[Dido's Lament]]" aria from [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]]'s ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]'' with [[Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)|Les Arts Florissants]] in 2020]]

The story of Dido and Aeneas remained popular throughout the post-Renaissance era and was the basis for many operas, with the libretto by [[Metastasio]], ''[[Didone abbandonata]]'', proving especially popular with composers throughout the eighteenth century and beyond:

* 1641: ''[[Didone (opera)|La Didone]]'' by [[Francesco Cavalli]]
* 1656: ''La Didone'' by Andrea Mattioli
* 1689: ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]'' by [[Henry Purcell]]
* 1693: ''[[Didon (Desmarets)|Didon]]'' by [[Henry Desmarets]]
* 1707: ''Dido, Königin von Carthago'' by [[Christoph Graupner]]
* 1724: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Domenico Sarro]]
* 1726: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Leonardo Vinci]]
* 1740: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Baldassare Galuppi]]
* 1742: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Johann Adolph Hasse]]
* 1747: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Niccolò Jommelli]]
* 1762: ''[[Didone abbandonata (Sarti)|Didone abbandonata]]'' by [[Giuseppe Sarti]]
* 1770: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Niccolò Piccinni]]
* 1783: ''[[Didon (Piccinni)|Didon]]'' by Niccolò Piccinni
* 1823: ''Didone abbandonata'' by [[Saverio Mercadante]]
* 1860: ''[[Les Troyens]]'' by [[Hector Berlioz]]
* 2007: ''Aeneas and Dido'' by [[James Rolfe (composer)]]

Also from the 17th century is a [[ballad]] inspired by the relationship between Dido and Aeneas. The ballad, often printed on a [[broadside (music)|broadside]], is called "[[The Wandering Prince of Troy]]", and it alters the end of the relationship between the two lovers, rethinking Dido's final sentiment for Aeneas and rewriting Aeneas's visit to the underworld as Dido's choice to haunt him.<ref>[http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/search_combined/?ss=the+wandering+prince+of+troy English Broadside Ballad Archive], ballad facsimile and full text</ref>

[[File:Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland - The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas]]'' by [[Nathaniel Dance-Holland]], 1766]]
In 1794 Germany, [[Charlotte von Stein]] wrote her own drama named ''Dido'', with an autobiographical element—as von Stein had been forsaken by her own lover, the famous [[Goethe]], in a manner which she found reminiscent of [[Aeneas]].

Will Adams' 2014 [[Thriller (genre)|thriller]] ''The City of the Lost''<ref>Will Adams,''The City of the Lost'', [[HarperCollins]], London, 2014, ISBN 978-0-00-742427-6</ref> assumes that Dido fled only as far as [[Cyprus]] and founded a city on the site of modern [[Famagusta]], that she died there and that Carthage was founded later, when Dido's followers fled further west after a vengeful expedition arrived from Tyre. In this interpretation, the two flights - from Tyre to Cyprus and from Cyprus to Carthage - were combined in later historical memory and all attributed to Dido. In Adams' account, the startling discovery of Dido's hideout and her well-preserved body happens accidentally during an attempted [[Coup D'etat]] by [[Turkish Army]] officers based in Cyprus.        

In another modern interpretation, Dido appears in [[Sid Meier]]'s strategy games ''[[Civilization II]]'' and ''[[Civilization V]]'', as the leader of the Carthaginian civilization, although she appears alongside Hannibal in the former. In [[Civilization V]], she speaks Phoenician, with a modern Israeli accent. In 2019, Dido was made the leader of [[Phoenicia]] in ''[[Civilization VI: Gathering Storm]]'', with Tyre as its capital and Carthage as an available name for subsequent cities.

In honor of Dido, the asteroid [[209 Dido]], discovered in 1879, was named after her. Another dedication of Queen Dido is the [[Mount Dido]] in [[Antarctica]].<ref name=gnis>{{cite gnis | type = antarid | id = 3853| name = Dido, Mount| access-date = 2012-01-19}}</ref>

Remembrance of the story of the bull's hide and the foundation of Carthage is preserved in mathematics in connection with the [[Isoperimetry|Isoperimetric problem]] of enclosing the maximum area within a fixed boundary, which is sometimes called Dido's Problem  in modern [[calculus of variations]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wiegert |first=Jennifer |title=The Sagacity of Circles: A History of the Isoperimetric Problem - The Isoperimetric Problem in Literature {{!}} Mathematical Association of America |url=https://old.maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/the-sagacity-of-circles-a-history-of-the-isoperimetric-problem-the-isoperimetric-problem-in |access-date=2025-03-10 |website=old.maa.org}}</ref> (Similarly, the [[Isoperimetric theorem]] is sometimes called Dido's Theorem.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}) It is sometimes stated in such discussion that Dido caused her thong to be placed as a half circle touching the sea coast at each end (which would add greatly to the area) but the sources mention the thong only and say nothing about the sea.

Carthage was the [[Roman Republic]]'s greatest rival and enemy, and Virgil's Dido in part symbolises this. Even though no Rome existed in her day, Virgil's Dido curses the future progeny of the Trojans. In [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Italy during the Fascist administration]] of the 1920s to 1940s, she was regarded as a rival and sometimes negative figure, perhaps not only as a symbol of Rome's nemesis, but because she represented together at least three other unpleasant qualities: her reputation for promiscuity, her [[Semitic people|"Semitic race"]], and for being a symbol of Rome's erstwhile rival Carthage. As an example, when the streets of new quarters in Rome were named after the characters of Virgil's ''Aeneid'', only the name ''Dido'' did not appear.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025|reason=Can't find a source for this easily}}

[[Tunisian dinar|Tunisian currency]] depicting Dido (Elissa) was issued in 2006.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Masri |first1=Safwan M. |chapter=Carthage |pages=93–107 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sBgwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT145 |jstor=10.7312/masr17950.13 |title=Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly |date=2017 |publisher=Columbia University Press |doi=10.7312/masr17950 |isbn=978-0-231-54502-0 }}</ref>