Cui mater media sese tulit obvia silva,

virginis os habitumque gerens, et virginis arma               1.315
Spartanae, vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalyce, volucremque fuga praevertitur Hebrum.
Namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum
venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis,
nuda genu, nodoque sinus collecta fluentis.               1.320

Aeneas is wandering around lost in the middle of a forest when Venus comes to his aid, much as Dido moves aimlessly through the Lugentes Campi when Aeneas comes upon her in Aeneid 6. If you track other links, you will note how he is described as “wandering” (errantem), just as Dido is after death. Aeneas’s arrival strips Dido of her purpose. I hope to develop these more suggestive links later.

It is also noteworthy that Venus’s appearance prefigures that of the famous Dido-as-Diana simile still to come. Here, too, there is both outward description and comparative simile. As Roger A. Hornsby notes, “Both similes stress the beauty of the women, their virginal appearance with its undertone of sexuality, and the notion of the huntress” (Patterns of Action in Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretation of Vergil’s Epic Similes. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1970. 90. Comment: this work is indispensable for studying and appreciating the magnitude and interrelatedness of Vergil’s similes, although I disagree with his reading of the epic’s ending.). Also worth further consideration, Hornsby notes that “the revelation of Venus’ false appearance suggests that Dido, too, may ultimately reveal herself as different from her initial appearance” (90). I might add that in light of the sexual relation that will develop between Dido and Aeneas, one may wonder whether Vergil is exploring the Oedipal tensions of the Venus-Aeneas relationship by casting Aeneas’s mother in the same role of huntress that so clearly appeals to him.