this chapter focuses on the deaths of dido and turnus. I treat these figures separately because of their paramount importance for the development of both the narrative and the ritual plot. Moreover, they share a key ritual link, which rests mainly on their association with the specifically Roman rite of devotio. Dido performs a complicated ritual that, among other things, includes elements akin to the devotio, while Turnus is the victim of a distorted devotio. Dido's suicide may thus be read as a perverted sacrifice that creates the expectation of ritual purity, an expectation that Turnus' death promises but eventually fails to fulfill. As a result, the tragic pattern of sacrificial perversion is also at work in the case of these two heroes but is ultimately transformed because it does not lead to restoration. The chapter ends with a consideration of the concept of closure as it pertains to the ritual plot and its impact on the poem's narrative ending.

DIDO'S RITUAL SLAUGHTER

The rituals that Dido performs in Book 4 occur in a discernible pattern, so that one may speak of a ritual plot existing side by side with the narrative plot. Unlike the other sacrifices examined, which mostly consist of sacrificial symbolism or adopt sacrifice as a metaphor, Dido's sacrifices are part of the fabric of the narrative. As a result, ritual and narrative plot merge in the scene of the supernatural wedding and in Dido's death on the pyre.