The Myth of Hero and Leander: The History and Reception of an Enduring Greek Legend by Silvia Montiglio

Author:Silvia Montiglio [Montiglio, Silvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Ancient, Greece, Drama, Ancient & Classical, Fiction, Fairy Tales; Folk Tales; Legends & Mythology, General, Europe, Medieval, Literary Criticism, art, social history, philosophy, History & Surveys, Religion
ISBN: 9781786722904
Google: TdWLDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-11-01T23:28:39.263449+00:00

PART FOUR: ITALIAN AND IBERIAN LITERATURE

Ovid recreated: Leander and Hero in Boccaccio

Some 70 years earlier than Dirc Potter, Giovanni Boccaccio produced the first extended account of the legend in Italian. He made substantial use of it in his early vernacular works: works, that is, the main subject of which is the religion of love as sung in medieval poetry and romance, where exploitations of the tale are commonplace. In his poem Teseida, it serves to identify the Hellespont, which ‘was sweet, then cruel to Leander of Abydos’ (1. 40. 8).110 The myth provides a landmark; it is the highlight of the region through which Theseus travels. The writer further expatiates on the legend in a lengthy gloss, wherein he gives the background to explain why the Hellespont was at first friendly, then harsh to the swimmer, and offers geographical detail, replacing ancient with modern place names (‘the sea strait that some now call of Constantinople’; ‘Abydos, which sailors today call Aveo’). Boccaccio's emphasis on the location might have resonated with those of his contemporaries who were aware of the ongoing traffic between Italian cities and the Levant. Imagining that some of his readers will recognize the area, he updates the toponyms.

This care for geography, however, is exceptional in Boccaccio's applications of the tale and fits its use in a travel itinerary. By contrast, he makes a gross geographic mistake in his most extensive retelling of the legend, calling both Sestos and Abydos ‘islands’ (perhaps following his compatriot Filippo Ceffi, who makes the same error three times in his translation of Heroides 18 and 19).111 Boccaccio's narrative is in the Amorosa Visione (1342), an allegorical poem that purports to record a dream in which the narrator sees paintings illustrating Triumphs of various personifications of earthly goods and desires. Hero and Leander belong in Love's train:

In back of him [Achilles] could also be made out Sestos and Abydos, little islands, and the sea which separates them as well. I recalled the time when Helle and her brother fell there from the gilded ram; she gave the narrow sea its name. Swimming there, naked, was Leander, making his way toward her whom he loved so much for her lovely face. Advancing then to the bank, I saw that Hero, in a charming posture, was welcoming him, drying him from his head to his feet; and then I saw there the two of them embracing with such great happiness that a like was never seen in anyone else. Then I saw him returning home through his customary maritime path, and on that road his limbs did not seem even to be weary.112

This painting is placed after the image of Achilles tortured with passion for Polyxena. Was Boccaccio inspired to pair the two stories by the Roman de Troie, where Leander serves as a term of comparison for Achilles fretting with desire? Or could the proximity of the legends' respective settings, Troy and the Hellespont, have suggested to the poet that they be described together?113

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