Rick

Couldn't he have just liked the way the Italian sounded? No allusion, just
word borrowing.

Concerning Dido; remember the quote from the Aeneid is what Aeneas says
when first faced with his mother. Any guilt here over man's treatment of
women would have to be left over from TSE not having taken out the trash
when instructed unless someone wants to posit, from this revealing
evidence(?), TSE's mother having sexually abused TSE. I can just see the
biography now. Perhaps I shouldn't have made the suggestion.

The poem reads to me as a man's rejection by a woman. Perhaps even
rejection of the man by his mother. Before we light off all the Freudian
pipes and start breaking out the poetry couches, rejection does not have to
be sexual to hurt. I know TSE was a much favored child but then I am not
fixated by biographical readings.

Rick Seddon
McIntosh, NM, USA