February 18th, 2017: "Dido, Retold" by A. T. Greenblatt

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Please join us for our next chat in #readers_corner at 8:30 P.M. (EST) on February 18th, 2017 [01:30 A.M. (GMT), February 19th], for a discussion of the story Dido, Retold  by A. T. Greenblatt.  This story is a recent offering from the online magazine Strange Horizons.  The story tickled my fancy because of its basis in classic Roman literature (Five years studying Latin can twist your mind just enough to enjoy stories based in historical legends.

 

Dido was the legendary founder and queen of the city of Carthage (various historians disagree about the dates of her reign, but tend to agree that ancient city-state was established as a Phoenician colonly sometime in the 8th or 9th century B.C.)  Legend, reinforced by Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid, has it that Aeneas (aka Aeneus), a Trojan hero fleeing Troy after the Greeks destroyed that city, sailed to North Africa where he and his crew of Trojan refugees remained for a time while he wooed, and bedded, Dido.  Aeneas, driven by fate and the will of the gods, then continued his travels, eventually landing in Italy and founding the city of Rome.  Dido was left behind where, according to many versions of her tale, she killed herself by falling on her sword atop her funeral pyre.

 

This story gives a different slant on that story, one I think you will appreciate.  I know I will have a lot of fun discussing this story, as well as the myths and legends surrounding that period of Mediterranean history.  The story is available on line at:  http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/dido-retold/

 

The chat will be in our normal Readers' Corner chat room:

 

Webchat:  http://koach.com/chatlogin.php?chan=readers_corner

 

mIRC Users:  /server -m chat3.koach.com:6667 -j #readers_corner

 

Special thanks to Stormy for hosting our last meeting.  I will be back for this next one.  I think we will have a really interesting discussion on this topic.  Hope to see you all there.