The story of Dido and Aeneas in The Aeneid, is a story of a queen that fell in love with a Trojan hero. In The Aeneid, Venus, the goddess of love, sends down her son, Eros, disguised as Ascanius, Aeneas’ son, so that Eros who is the god of sexual love can work his charm around the queen making her fall in love with Aeneas. Venus succeeds in making Dido fall in love with her son, the Trojan hero, but Dido’s passion for Aeneas ruled over her reason and leads her to her destruction.
In the contrary, the story of Sita and Rama in The Ramayana, is a story of a young prince who falls in love-at-first-sight with a young women who also falls in love-at-first-sight with him. In The Ramayana, Rama and Sita are gods that descended down to earth in human form. On earth Rama and Sita were unaware that they were reincarnated as human beings and the moment the laid eyes on each other they fell in love, but unlike the story of Dido and Aeneas the love Rama and Sita fell was a heavenly one and not merely a sexual desire.
In both stories, the story of Dido and Aeneas in The Aeneid and the story of Sita and Rama in The Ramayana, the lovers are forcefully separated. In The Aeneid, Mercury, the son and messenger of Jupiter, was sent down to earth to tell Aeneas that he can no longer remain in Carthage because he was “losing sight of future towns the fate ordain” (p.103). Aeneas had to proceed to Italy because it was the fate of his son to be ruler of that land and if he stayed in Carthage he would be disobeying what was proposed by Jupiter. In The Ramayana, Sita was captured in the forest and was taken to Ravana’s island where she was being held prisoner by the demon king.
In The Aeneid, Dido felt betrayed by Aeneas because after all the love she showed him and publicly made him her lover bringing shame to her kingdom he decided to sail to Italy leaving her behind. The burning passion, the embarrassment she would face, and knowing that she would no longer spent time with Aeneas or even a seed planted in her, lead her to a suicidal death.
In The Ramayana, since Sita was held hostage and had to reside in a stranger’s home Rama decided to free her from all her marriage duties and let her be free to do what she wants; however, Sita is not ready to let go of Rama and to proof her loyalty to him she jumped into a pile of sticks which fire reached the size of a tree. (p.149)
Both, Dido and Sita, were prepared to give their lives in the absence of their lovers. Dido, that was pierced by the common love and desired Aeneas jumped into the fire because she couldn’t bear the flame that was burning her inside. Sita too jumped into the fire because if she wasn’t worthy for Rama she would rather not be alive, however, the love that Sita felt for Rama wasn’t common but heavenly and the god of fire recognized her loyalty and took Sita out of the fire and “presented her to Rama with words of blessing” (Ramayana 149).
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