Fate And Counter Fate In The Aeneid
...fate. A certain fate is attached to a certain person (or peoples) and follows him all of his life. These fates are referred to as the fates of the person. Most of the events of the Aeneid are instigated by the gods and fate. The connection between the gods and fate is a complex one and the two seem to be inexorably linked. Juno, wife of Jupiter and queen of the gods can be viewed as "the embodiment of the hostile power in opposition to which Aeneas with his people has to prove himself and fight his way as a man called by fate to a great mission." In doing this, she blocks the progress' of Aeneas' and the Trojan's Fate. She is thus the counter fate. Jupiter, the king of the gods represents fate in the Aeneid, in that he uses various methods to hasten the progress' of fate. Juno acts in opposition to the necessary path of the fates. She knows perfectly well what must come to pass, because Jupiter who has already foreseen everything that will happen tells her so, but she has her own passionate agenda, a raw frenzied hatred of the Trojans.
This hatred arises from the fact that the descendants of the Trojans would destroy her beloved Carthage. This can be clearly seen early in Book one, "
And Juno, we are told, cared more for Carthage Than for any walled city of the earth
But she had heard long since That generations of Trojan blood Would one day overthrow her Tyrian walls..." And as if this was not enough, Juno was still angry at the judgment Paris gave on the day the golden apple was given to Venus for her gift of Helen, the most beautiful mortal woman on the earth. Paris, being from Troy, gave Juno another reason to loathe the Trojans.
The first instance in the Aeneid during which the fates, so to speak clash, occurs early in book one. Juno knows that the Trojans are leaving Sicily for Italy and she wants to prevent Aeneas and his men from reaching...
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