Allusions in Paradiso 9: Folco and Rahab

Dante was not going to leave the sphere of Venus without some dalliance with love stories from the ancient world and, in a different way, from the Old Testament. A few quick pointers to allusions in Paradiso 9:

Folquet de Marselha, or Folco, brings in both the Aeneid and Ovid's Heroides in speaking of Dido and of Demophon and Phyllis, both of whom were abandoned and perished by their own hand, and of Heracles and Iole, with whom our Sarasota group spent much time when reading Women of Trachis. Dante would not have known Sophocles' play, but thanks to Ovid, all these tales were in some form available to him.

Folco

Folco was a troubadour associated with a few famous love affairs. After experiencing a conversion, he joined the Cistercians and later was made Bishop of Toulouse. The city was a hotbed, so to speak, of heretics -- the Cathars, who preached against the corruption of the Church.

Folco's support of the Albingensian Crusade made him very unpopular with the people of his diocese.

His predicament with his own flock may be seen in two vignettes cited here:

St Bernard of Clairvaux, . . . although opposed to the Cathars, said of them in Sermon 65 on the Song of Songs:

If you question the heretic about his faith, nothing is more Christian; if about his daily converse, nothing more blameless; and what he says he proves by his actions ... As regards his life and conduct, he cheats no one, pushes ahead of no one, does violence to no one. Moreover, his cheeks are pale with fasting; he does not eat the bread of idleness; he labours with his hands and thus makes his living. Women are leaving their husbands, men are putting aside their wives, and they all flock to those heretics! Clerics and priests, the youthful and the adult among them, are leaving their congregations and churches and are often found in the company of weavers of both sexes.[21]

When Bishop Fulk [aka Folco], a key leader of the anti-Cathar persecutions, excoriated the Languedoc Knights for not pursuing the heretics more diligently, he received the reply:

We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection.[22]

As his final words show, Folco's campaign against the Cathars did not blind him to the "adultery" they decried in the corrupt Church.

The story of Rahab and the spies begins in Joshua 2. Other scriptural mentions of the prostitute of Jericho are noted here.

Rending through rendering: Deianira's caustic tongue

Ovid's letter from Deianira to Hercules (Heroides #9) recounts the standard list of the hero's mighty deeds:

. . . of enormous serpents, throttled and coiling their lengths about your infant hand; how the Tegeaean boar has his lair on cypress-bearing Erymanthus, and afflicts the ground with his vast weight. You do not omit the skulls nailed up in Thracian homes, nor the mares made fat with the flesh of slain men; nor the triple prodigy, Geryones, rich in Iberian cattle, who was one in three; nor Cerberus, branching from one trunk into a three-fold dog, his hair inwoven with the threatening snake; nor the fertile serpent that sprang forth again from the fruitful wound, grown rich from her own hurt; nor him whose mass hung heavy between your left side and left arm as your hand clutched his throat; nor the equestrian array that put ill trust in their feet and dual form, confounded by you on the ridges of Thessaly. (Showalter translation, 85ff).

Only here, the hero, dressed as a slave girl at the feet of Omphale, is the one speaking them . . .

Deianira goes further than the painter to imagine the Lydian nymph in an exchange of Hercules' famed attire:

These deeds can you recount, gaily arrayed in a Sidonian gown? Does not your dress rob from your tongue all utterance? The nymph-daughter of Jardanus has even tricked herself out in your arms, and won famous triumphs from the vanquished hero. Go now, puff up your spirit and recount your brave deeds done; . . .  O shame, that the rough skin stripped from the flanks of the shaggy lion has covered a woman’s delicate side! You are mistaken, and know it not – that spoil is not from the lion, but from you; you are victor over the beast, but she over you. A woman has borne the darts blackened with the venom of Lerna, a woman scarce strong enough to carry the spindle heavy with wool; a woman has taken in her hand the club that overcame wild beasts, and in the mirror gazed upon the armor of her lord!

The queen's scathing image combines moral force with witheringly vivid reflection. The imagined mirror in which Omphale admires herself is designed to burn Heracles' conscience to the ground.

Before he dons the shirt of Nessus, Heracles is already sizzling. Prior to putting on the blood-smeared texta, Ovid finds the poetic equivalent of the Lernaean Hydra's blood in the caustic sarcasm of Deianira's text:

Inlita Nesseo misi tibi texta veneno.

Deianira to Heracles - Ovid's Heroides

Next time, we'll pause our reading of Sophocles' Women of Trachis to have a look at Deianira's letter to Heracles from Ovid's Heroides. A few sources:

Grant Showerman's translation (used in the Loeb edition).


The Perseus site: English and hyperlinked Latin, as well as notes.


The Latin Library has the Latin text on one page.


Tony Kline's translation, which early on sounds the queen's dismay:

Gratulor Oechaliam titulis accedere nostris,
victorem victae succubuisse queror. 

fama Pelasgiadas subito pervenit in urbes
decolor et factis infitianda tuis,
quem numquam Iuno seriesque inmensa laborum
fregerit, huic Iolen inposuisse iugum.

 
I give thanks that Oechalia is added to our titles,
I lament that the victor succumbs to his victory.  

A sudden rumour spreads through the Pelasgian cities
tarnishing, and denying, your deeds:
you, whom neither Juno nor her succession of mighty labours
could crush: Iole has placed the yoke on you.

Hercules in chains - of gold

Ovid offered another perspective on Hercules and Iole in Heroides 9, a letter from Deianira to the hero, with a sly dig - here's Kline's translation:

Now a foreign rival is brought before my eyes,
and I cannot hide from myself what I suffer!
You won’t let me avoid her: she walks like a captive
through the middle of the city to be seen by unwilling eyes.
But not with unbound hair in the manner of a captive:
she confesses her good fortune by her seemly looks,
walking, visible far and wide, covered with gold,
just as you yourself were dressed in Phrygia:

Omphale in Hercules' garb

Helen at play

Two more marvels from the ever beguiling Helen. The passages have been reworked from Perseus and Showerman (Loeb) to approach their complexity. Thanks to Peter d'Epiro for his very helpful suggestions.

Utilis interdum est ipsis iniuria passis.

     Sic certe felix esse coacta forem.

Dum novus est, potius coepto pugnemus amori!

190

     Flamma recens parva sparsa residit aqua.

Certus in hospitibus non est amor; errat, ut ipsi,

     Cumque nihil speres firmius esse, fugit.

Wrongs can grace those who suffer them. I surely could have been compelled to happiness. While it's new, let's struggle against this love barely begun! The kindling spark will abate with a little water. Love isn't steadfast in travelers; it wanders like themselves, and just when you feel that nothing could be more firm, it flees.

Quod bene te iactes et fortia facta loquaris,

     A verbis facies dissidet ista tuis.

Apta magis Veneri, quam sunt tua corpora Marti.

     Bella gerant fortes, tu, Pari, semper ama!

255

Hectora, quem laudas, pro te pugnare iubeto;

     Militia est operis altera digna tuis.

His ego, si saperem pauloque audacior essem,

     Uterer; utetur, siqua puella sapit — 

Aut ego deposito sapiam fortasse pudore

260

     Et dabo cunctatas tempore victa manus.

You vaunt your valor, and recount your mighty acts: those looks betray your words. Your limbs are more apt for the delights of Venus than for the rude encounters of Mars. Let the strong wage war; you, Paris, always love! Assign Hector, whom you praise, to fight in your place. A different warfare suits those graceful motions. If I were bolder and savvier, I'd use them; any girl with taste would use them! Perhaps, conquered by time, I'll savor them yet -- casting off modesty, I'll give my hot yet hesitant hands to you.

Helen and Aphrodite

The greatest glory: Helen to Paris (II)

...picking up the thread from here...

Ovid of course was familiar with the allegorization of the Judgment of Paris as a parable of choice. At stake is nothing less than one's fate, since the choice concerns the human values assigned to the pursuits of politics (action) philosophy (contemplation) and pleasure (aesthetics) -- a standard theme within the Greek and Roman thought about education (paideia). How one orders these values has everything to do with the kind of life one will live.

The first thing one notices about Paris's letter to Helen (Heroides 16) is that apart from a quick nod to Juno and Athena, he only speaks of Venus and of the love she has ignited in him. Paris seems quite unreflective about the stakes, implications and ultimate consequences of his judgment. He's all about wanting to get Helen aboard his ship and out of Dodge.

Helen's response - rescribendi - (Heroides 17) is about something else.

A word both Paris and Helen use is rustĭcus. At one point, Paris calls Menelaos "that rustic" with the sneer of an aristocrat describing a boorish oaf or peasant. Paris then applies the word to Helen:

An pudet et metuis Venerem temerare maritam

     Castaque legitimi fallere iura tori?

A, nimium simplex Helene, ne rustica dicam,

     Hanc faciem culpa posse carere putas? (285-88)

Do you feel shame and fear to violate your wedded love, to be false to the chaste oath of the marriage bed? Ah, too simple, nay, too rustic Helen, do you think that beauty of yours can be free of fault?

The reader can safely be assumed to be summoning up a passel of movie scenes involving the city slicker coming on condescendingly to the lovely small town girl. 

Helen picks up the word and gives it her own twist:

Qui sic intrabas, hospes an hostis eras?

Nec dubito, quin haec, cum sit tam iusta, vocetur

     Rustica iudicio nostra querela tuo.

Rustica sim sane, dum non oblita pudoris,

     Dumque tenor vitae sit sine labe meae. (10-14)

You who entered in, were you a guest, or an enemy? I doubt not that my complaint would be called "rustic" in your judgment. Let me be rustic, so long as my chastity is not forgot, and the whole tenor of my life is without stain.

Further on in her letter, Helen uses the word once more - by now she's well past centering her response upon chastity's cold comfort:

Quod male persuades, utinam bene cogere posses!

     Vi mea rusticitas excutienda fuit. 

Utilis interdum est ipsis iniuria passis.

     Sic certe felix esse coacta forem.

What you basely urge on me, would that you could honorably compel me to! You should have vehemently taken my "rusticity" by force. A lawless act can bring gain to the one who suffers it. So I'd have been compelled to happiness.

Helen regards the predicament of Paris - his and hers - with an expansive, dispassionate clarity that dwarfs his simplicity. She shows him what to do with his view of her as the simple rural waif. Paris thought he was plucking a flower among the rubes, but he found Lauren Bacall, calmly appraising the goods.

Even more, Helen reflects upon what is at stake for her, and for them, with zero illusions. This woman understands herself, him, and all their options and the consequences of each down to the ground:

Oh that you had then visited our coasts in a nimble bark, when a thousand rivals solicited my virgin love! Had you appeared, you would have triumphed over the thousand; nor could my husband have justly blamed my choice. Now, alas! you come too late to joys that are the right of another; and your slow hope invades a plighted love. But although it would have been more to my wish to live with you, yet Menelaus does not possess me against my will.

Nor be you too much displeased, that I am rather incredulous; for things of moment are not credited with ease.

It is in fact Helen's ability to examine, to question with critical insight, that puts her in a league with Penelope, who simply refused to believe her husband had returned, despite his standing before her, until she tricked him into betraying the one secret that she knew no other man could know. Helen's mind and heart weigh everything that is happening. It is she, not Paris, who ponders the meaning of the judgment of Paris:

You chose me in place of valor, in place of a noble kingdom; it would be inhuman, not to receive a heart so wholly mine. But trust me, I am far from being inhuman; and only struggle against loving a man whom I scarcely can hope ever to possess.

And this is the wholly Ovidian irony of this pair of letters, that the philosophical choice every man faced according to the moralists and wise men, the choice of Athena, Juno, or Venus, was wasted upon poor Paris, who was too young, impetuous and dazzled to think much about anything. Helen's mind is a mirror to the perplexing, deep questions latent in the event called the Judgment of Paris. This man has commenced an invasive action upon her that echoes earlier and later assaults:

. . . it is still more that you love me, that you run such hazards for my sake, and follow hope through all the dangers of the main. Nor do I overlook the signs you make at our table, though I artfully dissemble all notice.

I observe your ardent wistful looks, and those meaning eyes that almost dazzle mine. Sometimes you sigh, and, snatching the cup, fix your lips where mine had been before. Ah! how oft have I marked the hidden signs wafted from your fingers, and the lively language expressed in your eye-brow!

She's the man here, and as she reads his face and ponders all of what lies before her, she is experiencing the truth of that judgment, even as she's judging Paris himself. It is about nothing but love:

Your letter is filled with ample promises, such as might move even Goddesses to yield; but if ever I violate the laws of chastity, yourself shall be the more powerful cause of my crime.

And the campaign waged by Paris is taking its toll - foreshadowing the battles before Troy, the walls of her virtue have been wounded:

Desine molle, precor, verbis convellere pectus,

     Neve mihi, quam te dicis amare, noce;

Cease then, to pluck with your words at my faltering heart, and do not give pain to her you say you love.

Her word here for "pluck" is convellere; it's a strong word (root of "convulsion"), redolent of rape, and of the field of battle. Perhaps it reminds her of the giant creature that took her mother Leda by force. A battle is being waged, and she sees how it will end:

Sum rudis ad Veneris furtum, nullaque fidelem — 

     Di mihi sunt testes — lusimus arte virum.

Nunc quoque, quod tacito mando mea verba libello,

     Fungitur officio littera nostra novo.

I am unpracticed in the theft of love and never yet - the gods are my witnesses - have I made made wily sport of my man. Even now, as I entrust my words to the voiceless page, my letter performs a strange new service. 

It would be hard to imagine a more extraordinary image of the writer's critical consciousness of and in the act of writing - rescribendi. Just as Paris could not avoid betraying his love by merely asking if he should speak, Helen's written response commits her to a voiceless trace of an action. She is in wonder as she apprehends the uncanny way her inscription takes on a life of its own, leaving her to herald the inward choice that will launch 1000 ships, trigger the greatest song ever sung, spin the greatest web ever spun.

Ovid's Helen is not merely the precipitate cause of the Trojan war, or its final cause. Her clear eyes see it all right from the start, and her part in it, her heroic part, is to respond fully to this one great love despite all the dire prophecies and premonitions. For Ovid, the greatest glory accorded to anyone at the contest of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-clad Achaeans was not accorded either to Achilles or Hector. Only a true poet of Amor could say it, and Ovid is saying it: The greatest glory of the song of heroes goes to Helen.

Nunc oculos tua cum violarit epistula nostros,

     Non rescribendi gloria visa levis.

Helen to Paris: Appraising the goods (I)

The oldest known surviving carpet in the world belonged to a Scythian prince, and dates back to the 5th century BC.

Pazyryk carpet 

Hundreds of years earlier, another weaver was at work:

τὴν δ᾽ εὗρ᾽ ἐν μεγάρῳ: ἣ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινε

δίπλακα πορφυρέην, πολέας δ᾽ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους

Τρώων θ᾽ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων,

οὕς ἑθεν εἵνεκ᾽ ἔπασχον ὑπ᾽ Ἄρηος παλαμάων:

[Iris] found Helen in the hall, where she was weaving a great purple double-folded warp, sprinkling thereon many contests of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-clad Achaeans which they suffered for her sake under the hands of Ares. (Iliad 3.125-29)

The Helen painted by Homer is a mature, regal presence who remains mostly distant and unknowable. In Heroides 17 Ovid gives us a younger Helen, already a queen, at the moment she confronts the ardor of the most dashing prince in the world with remarkable clarity and shrewd appraisal.

Helen's letter to Paris offers yet another example of how much fun Ovid could have responding to the imaginative possibilities of a luminous cast of Greek men and women. Her unabashed riposte gamely serves up a rich stew of protest-too-much indignation, acute moral reasoning, and wily sophistication. If we wished to find the roots of the vital, dignified and witty women of Shakespeare, the characters of Ovid's Heroides provide a good a place to begin.

It's also worth noting the allegorical interpretation of the Judgment of Paris that gained currency in the ancient world and remained commonplace in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. According to that tradition (invoked later by Hannah Arendt), the young man is facing a choice among three kinds of lives, or vitae: activa, contemplativa, and voluptuaria. 

Judgment of Paris, Cranach

Continued here