The Aeneid

You don't expect to read literature like The Aeneid and find something that relates so perfectly to modern day times, but in the Aeneid there is a portion of writing that speaks beautifully about rumors. With a word like 'rumor' you would expect it to come out of modern terms, but the game of 'telephone' has been an issue for people in society for ever. After Dido and Aeneas became married under the heavenly conditions with no real witnesses, it was said in the story that "Now in no time at all through all the African cites rumor goes nimble as quicksilver among evils. Rumor thrives on motion, stronger for the running, lowly at first through fear, then rearing high," (658). The rumor being spread about the two is that Dido "in her beauty graced his company, the how they reveled all the winter long unmindful of the realm, prisoners of lust." The rumor that spreads around says that they pretty much had a ton of sex during this storm with no recollection or care about the people they left behind, and because of the times this story was told in, Dido, the woman ends up being the one to get the most of the crap for the rumor once the storm passes. It reminds me of nasty high school rumors that get spread about kids having sex, or co workers and affairs. It's interesting to see that these aren't current issues, and that they don't just have to do with one kind of people, they affect all people f any gender, race, or economic class. People love to talk, and they always have.