Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Metamorphoses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Metamorphosis
Humanity vs. Nature
Love and Destruction
Gods and Humans
Time, Fate, and Poetry
Summary
Analysis
The Trojans steer their ship past Scylla’s rock, but a storm blows them to an island off the Italian coast. When Aeneas leaves this island with his companions, a woman named Dido is so heartbroken that she kills herself. Then the Trojan ships are almost burned to ash by Juno, who is angry at how Aeneas treated Dido. After that the Trojans pass an island called Apetown, inhabited by creatures called Cercopians. The Cercopians had been so deceitful and wicked that Jupiter had transformed them into ugly human-like creatures who can only screech.
Similar to the previous story, this passage describes another destructive chain of heartbreak and revenge. This chain spurs the Trojans forward on their journey, turning them out of certain places and delaying them in others. In this way, the destructive action of love—like war—creates division but also causes momentum which, in this case, leads the Trojans closer to their “kindred shores.”
Themes
