Dido, 'fortuna' and the Oedipus at Colonus: learning sorrow, teaching sorrow (a note on Aen. 4, 433-434)

This article points to an echo of the Oedipus at Colonus in Aen. 4 and its relation to one already known in Aen. 1 : Dido's final prayer to Aeneas, through Anna, recalls the disgraced Oedipus' words in the opening of the drama, while the queen's first speech echoed the welcome offered to Oedipus by Theseus, king of Athens. Nobility in the face of misfortune, both one's own and others', connects Dido to the two Sophoclean heroes, and the internal reference that marks the peripeteia is underlined by the echo of the tragedy.