This section of Eliot's poem deals with the relations between men and women. Eliot describes a rendez-vous using various famous literary predecessors, in this opening fragment most notably Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and Virgil's Aeneid, from the section in Book I where Dido and Aeneas first meet, and later also from Book II's description of the banquet at which Aeneas gives an account of what happened to him in Troje.

Eliot has made good use of the resemblance in atmosphere between Antony and Cleopatra's meeting in Shakespeare's play and that of Aeneas and Dido in the Aeneid; compare Enobarbus description, for instance, with the passage from the Aeneid where Aeneas first sees Dido. Similarly, there is a description of a banquet that Dido prepares for Aeneas which resembles in tone and style Enobarbus description.

from Virgil's Aeneid, book II
Antony and Cleopatra II.ii.187-255

see also