purple motes – Artifacts to help you imagine more.

“O admirabile Veneris idolum”: on losing beloved to love rival

Women tend to regard men instrumentally, e.g. what will he give me or what will he do for me. Men’s intrinsic virtue and beauty tends to be socially devalued. But consider “O admirabile Veneris idolum,” a poem from tenth-century Verona. It addresses a young man:

O marvelous idol of love,
in whose substance there is no defect,
may the prime-mover, who created stars and sky,
founded seas and land, protect you.
May you not sense deception through the guile of a thief.
May Clotho, who bears the distaff, delight in you.
{ O admirabile Veneris idolum,
cuius materie nihil est frivolum,
archos te protegat, qui stellas et polum
fecit et maria condidit et solum.
Furis ingenio non sentias dolum,
Cloto te diligat, que baiolat colum. }[1]

In medieval Christian understanding, idolatry is a sin. Moreover, the prime-mover to medieval Christians wasn’t an impersonal abstraction, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Composing a contrafactum to a Christian chant honoring the Roman tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the poet of “O admirabile Veneris idolum” posed on the poem’s surface as a tenth-century adherent to traditional Greco-Roman religion.

This poet apparently appreciated women. Clotho was a female figure who spun the fabric of human lives in traditional Greco-Roman religion. The guile of a thief might be interpreted as the action of a woman-rival competing for the beautiful young man’s love. Women understand their own gender’s strength in guile. Ostentatiously displaying classical learning was perhaps a clever love distinction:

“Keep this young man safe!” not by supposition,
but with resolute heart I implore Lachesis,
sister of Atropos, that she not seize the thread.
May you have Neptune and Thetis as companions
when you are carried over the river Adige.
{ “Salvato puerum” non per ipotesim,
sed firmo pectore deprecor Lachesim,
sororem Atropos, ne curet heresim.
Neptunum comitem habeas et Tetim,
cum vectus fueris per fluvium Tesim. }[2]

Not a cleric engaged in learned suppositions, this poet spoke from the heart. Most classically learned persons in medieval Europe were men. The classical learning displayed in this poem would impress a medieval young man much more if it came from a woman than from a man.

"O admirabile Veneris idolum" in Cambridge Songs manuscript

While women in general are amorously privileged relative to men, women compete intensely for men that they love. This poet suffered amorous loss:

Please tell: why do you flee, even though I love you?
What shall I do, wretched one, since I cannot see you?
Hard material from the bones of mother-earth
created humans when stones were cast.
Of these, this dear young man is one,
one who shows no compassion for my tearful moans.
While I am sad, my rival will rejoice.
I roar like a female deer when her fawn takes flight.
{ Quo fugis, amabo, cum te dilexerim?
Miser, quid faciam, cum te non viderim?
Dura materies ex matris ossibus
creavit homines iactis lapidibus,
ex quibus unus est iste puerulus,
qui lacrimabiles non curat gemitus.
Cum tristis fuero, gaudebit emulus.
Ut cerva rugio, cum fugit hinnulus. }

The wretched one could be the poet, or her epithet for the beautiful, hard-hearted young man who left her. The final verse, with its figure of a female deer roaring for its lost fawn, encapsulates the poem’s heart. Nothing is more profoundly Christian than the wounded praying for the good of the harm-perpetrating other.[3] This poem’s Christian macro-structure encompasses its traditional Greco-Roman ornament. Its unfamiliar surface makes more poignant its Christian moral orientation. As a woman’s poem, this poem is as ordinary as a female deer loving her fawn, and as extraordinary as a female deer roaring.

Medieval Galician-Portuguese “songs about a beloved man {cantigas d’amigo}” provide examples of a woman addressing a beloved man about a woman-rival. Like in “O admirabile Veneris idolum,” but in a much narrower poetic field, a woman in a cantiga d’amigo expressed her love for her boyfriend who left her for a rival:

It’s been a long time, my boyfriend,
since you went away from me
in Valongo and didn’t see me again.
Nor did I ever again have
pleasure in anything,
for never was a boyfriend
so desired by a girlfriend.
Nor will any woman
who speaks truly ever tell you,
nor can you ever find out
from somebody else, if it please God,
or if I have any truth in me,
that you ever saw a boyfriend
so desired by a woman.
Although you had a girlfriend
whom you really loved,
still, come back to me
if you find anyone who says
anything other than I say:
that they never saw a boyfriend
so desired by a girlfriend.
{ Gran sazon á, meu amigo,
que vos vós de mi partistes
en Valong’ e non m’ ar vistes
nen ar ouv’ eu depois migo
de nulha ren gasalhado,
mais nunca tan desejado
d’ amiga fostes amigo
Nen vos dirá nunca molher
que verdade queira dizer
nen vós non podedes saber
nunca per outren, se Deus quer,
ou se eu verdad’ ei migo,
que nunca vistes amigo
tan desejado de molher
Pero ouvestes amiga
a que quisestes mui gran ben,
a min vos tornade por en,
se achardes quen vos diga
se non assi com’ eu digo:
que nunca vissen amigo
tan desejado d’ amiga }[4]

This woman insists that she loves her man more than any other woman ever has. The first-verse phrase “my boyfriend {meu amigo}” contrasts with subsequent, less personally assertive relations between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, or a boyfriend and a woman. Just as God for medieval Christians is a prime-mover within a unique personal covenant, this woman insisted that she was personally unique to her boyfriend.

Another cantiga d’amigo shows a woman struggling to take revenge on the boyfriend who left her. The song is self-consciously ironic:

Listen, boyfriend, to what I heard today
said about you, so help me God:
that you love another and not me.
And if it’s true, I’ll get revenge this way:
I’ll try not to love you, beginning now,
and it’ll hurt me more than anything.
I heard it said that, just to cause me pain,
you love another, my treacherous one,
and if it’s true, by Our Lord,
I’ll tell you how I think to take revenge:
I’ll try not to love you, beginning now,
and it’ll hurt me more than anything.
And if I find out that this is true
what they’re telling me, my boyfriend, by God,
I’ll cry out these eyes of mine,
and I’ll tell you how I’ll take my revenge:
I’ll try not to love you, beginning now,
and it’ll hurt me more than anything.
{ Vedes, amigo, o que oj’ oí
dizer de vós, assi Deus mi perdon,
que amades ja outra e mi non,
mais, se verdad’ é, vingar m’ ei assi:
punharei ja de vos non querer ben;
e pesar mh á én mais que outra ren
Oí dizer por me fazer pesar
amades vós outra, meu traedor,
e, se verdad’ é, par Nostro Senhor,
direi vos como me cuid’ a vingar:
punharei ja de vos non querer ben;
e pesar mh á én mais que outra ren
E, se eu esto por verdade sei
que mi dizen, meu amigo, par Deus,
chorarei muito destes olhos meus,
e direi vos como me vingarei:
punharei ja de vos non querer ben;
e pesar mh á én mais que outra ren }[5]

God is invoked in each stanza, but only in a formulaic way. This woman will try not to love her enemy ex-boyfriend. She knows that not loving that enemy will hurt her more than anything. That’s a mistake that the poet of “O admirabile Veneris idolum” didn’t make.

Life is complicated, and so too is not loving. A woman in another cantiga d’amigo vehemently rejected her ex-boyfriend:

What eyes are those that have no shame?
Tell me, boyfriend of another girl, not mine!
And tell me now, so help you God,
since they say that now you are another’s,
how do you dare to come before
my eyes, boyfriend, for the love of God?
Because you really should have remembered
how sad I saw you for my sake,
liar, and how I went to you then.
But since now you’ve taken up with another,
how do you dare to come before
my eyes, boyfriend, for the love of God?
By God, liar, what little thanks I got
when you were about to die
if I hadn’t visited, and I went to see you.
But since now another has won you from me,
how do you dare to come before
my eyes, boyfriend, for the love of God?
I don’t want your pledges any more.
Just go away right now, by Our Lord!
And wherever I am, never come there again!
Since you’ve taken up with another woman,
how do you dare to come before
my eyes, boyfriend, for the love of God?
{ Que olhos son que vergonha non an,
dized’, amigo d’ outra, ca meu non,
e dized’ ora, se Deus vos pardon,
pois que vos ja con outra preço dan,
com ousastes viir ant’ os meus
olhos, amigo, por amor de Deus?
Ca vós ben vos deviades nembrar
en qual coita vos eu ja por mi vi,
fals’, e nembrar vos qual vos fui eu i;
mais, pois con outra fostes começar,
como ousastes viir ant’ os meus
olhos, amigo, por amor de Deus?
Par Deus, falso, mal se mi gradeceu,
quando vós ouverades de morrer
se eu non fosse, que vos fui veer;
mais, pois vos outra ja de min venceu,
como ousastes viir ant’ os meus
olhos, amigo, por amor de Deus?
Non mi á mais vosso preito mester,
e ide vos ja, por Nostro Senhor,
e non venhades nunca u eu for;
pois começastes con outra molher,
como ousastes viir ant’ os meus
olhos, amigo, por amor de Deus? }[6]

This woman apparently rescued her boyfriend from dying of lovesickness. He subsequently sought healthcare with another woman. In ancient Greece and in many cultures throughout history, honor and shame are moral fundamentals, and hurting those who help you is morally wrong. “What eyes are those that have no shame?” Those eyes might be understood as the emphatically repeated “my eyes” — the woman’s eyes that see her ex-boyfriend. She could be an ancient Greek woman speaking to herself in exasperation about still loving her lying ex-boyfriend.

Noble, dancer with castanets, and musician with concave-sided psaltery from medieval Cancioneiro da Ajuda

Privileged, middle-aged women occasionally love much less privileged, young, beautiful men. That power imbalance allows the woman to make the man successful, but it can also threaten him:

They told me a thing about you now,
my boyfriend, which upsets me very much,
but I’m thinking to better that thing,
if I can do it, and I can very well,
because I have the power I always had,
and I made you, and now I will unmake you.
They tell me you went and chose a lady
for whom you thought that you would leave me,
and that’s just fine, if it turns out well,
but I will turn that ‘well’ of yours into ill,
because I have the power I always had,
and I made you, and now I will unmake you.
You chose a lady, I heard it said,
to my distress, and you’ll lose out there,
if I can do it, and do it I can,
as I always could, and I have the power,
because I have the power I always had,
and I made you, and now I will unmake you.
And once I turn you back into what you were,
that’ll upset me, but I’ll get back at you.
{ Disseron mh ora de vós ũa ren,
meu amigo, de que ei gran pesar,
mais eu mho cuido mui ben melhorar,
se eu poder, e poderei mui ben,
ca o poder, que eu sempre ouvi, m’ ei,
e eu vos fiz e eu vos desfarei
Dizen mi que filhastes senhor tal
per que vos cuidastes de min partir,
e ben vos é, se vos a ben sair,
mais deste ben farei vos end’ eu mal,
ca o poder, que eu sempre ouvi, m’ ei,
e eu vos fiz e eu vos desfarei
Senhor filhastes, com’ oí dizer
a meu pesar, e perderedes i,
se eu poder, e poderei assi
como fiz sempr’ e posso me poder,
ca o poder, que eu sempre ouvi, m’ ei,
e eu vos fiz e eu vos desfarei
E, pois vos eu tornar qual vos achei,
pesar mh á en, mais pero vingar m’ ei }[7]

This woman, very upset at her ex-boyfriend moving on to a rival woman, wants to hurt him. That’s probably common for status-disparate love relationships that go bad. Jealousy, after all, is a powerful motivation, and the capability to harm is heightened with a large power differential. Nonetheless, that’s not the only possible outcome in such a situation. Despite being older and undoubtedly more learned that the lost beloved young man, the speaker of “O admirabile Veneris idolum” wants to protect him from harm.

“O admirabile Veneris idolum” is “among the pearls of medieval poetry” within the rich treasure of medieval literature generally. Yet it has been under-interpreted:

It has been understood most often as a love poem composed by a male teacher for a boy — a medieval version of the genre of homoerotic poems known in antiquity as paidikon.[8]

Rather than looking back to antiquity and traditional Greco-Roman values, readers can more fully appreciate “O admirabile Veneris idolum” by appreciating its Christian context and looking forward to the Galician-Portuguese cantigas d’amigo of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In medieval Europe, Christian holy love and incarnate love in ordinary life could readily be regarded as essentially the same form. Learned medieval women teachers — Hildegard of Bingen, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, Heloise of the Paraclete, and undoubtedly others — in various ways loved men. As medieval Christians understood, the Christian imperative to love one’s enemies applies even within the specific circumstances of personal betrayal in love. “O admirabile Veneris idolum” should prompt readers today to ponder how they can love men well.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Cambridge Songs {Carmina cantabrigiensia} 48, “O marvelous idol of love {O admirabile Veneris idolum / O admirabile Veneris ydolum},” stanza 1, Latin text (editorial marks elided; v used for ease in recognizing sounds) and English translation (modified) from Ziolkowski (1994). Subsequent quotes from this poem are similarly sourced and comprise sequentially the whole poem. Here’s an alternate translation of the poem.

This poem has survived in the mid-eleventh-century C = Carmina cantabrigiensia (University of Cambridge, MS Gg.5.35, folio 441v) and in the late-eleventh-century V = Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, MS Vaticanus latinus 3227, folio 80v. The composition of the poem dates to the ninth or tenth century. Giovini (1999) (tenth); Curius (1953) p. 114 (ninth).

“O admirabile Veneris idolum” in manuscript in Ms Vaticanus latinus 3227, folio 80v

Music for a Christian pilgrimage song fits this poem. In C, stanzas 1-2 are neumed. In V, “O admirabile Veneris ydolum” is followed by the metrically and rhythmically identical poem, “O noble Rome, lady-lord of the world {O Roma nobilis orbis et domina}.” The latter poem survives in another manuscript with musically interpretable notation. Ziolkowski (1994) p. 307; Nardini (2021) p. 147.

[2] The words “archos {prime-mover},” “ipothesis {supposition},” and “haeresis {a taking}” are learned words with Greek origin. Ziolkowski (1994) p. 307. “Amabo,” meaning “please” is an unusual word that occurs in the early Latin playwrights Plautus and Terence. Id. p. 308. The poem also includes allusions to Juvenal, Virgil, and Ovid. Giovini (1999).

[3] From a Christian perspective, Christ’s incarnation and crucifixion to redeem sinful humanity is a preeminent expression of divine love. As specific Christian teachings, Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27-38 (love your enemies); Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31 (do to others as you would have them do to you).

[4] Martin Padrozelos 2, song about a beloved man {cantiga de amigo}, “It’s been a long time, my boyfriend {Gran sazon á, meu amigo}” (B 1239, V 844), Galician-Portuguese text (editorial marks eliminated) from Cohen (2003), English translation (modified slightly) from Cohen (2010). Here’s this song at Galician-Portuguese Medieval Songs. Martin / Martim Padrozelos apparently flourished in the middle and late thirteenth century.

For an analysis and complete enumeration of cantigas d’amigo concerning a rival woman, Cohen (2011) 67-83 (“The Other Girl: Outra”) and pp. 85-6 (Appendix: Other Lovers in the Cantigas d’Amigo). Rip Cohen should be honored for his enormous sacrifice in working on cantigas de amigo and making much of his work freely available worldwide on the Internet.

[5] Fernan Velho 1, song about a beloved man {cantiga de amigo}, “Listen, boyfriend, to what I heard today {Vedes, amigo, o que oj’ oí}” (B 819, V 403, C 819), Galician-Portuguese text (editorial marks eliminated) from Cohen (2003), English translation (modified slightly) from Cohen (2010). Here’s this song at Universo Cantigas and at Galician-Portuguese Medieval Songs. The electro-medieval band Qntal recorded an adaptation of this song on its 2004 album Illuminate (Noir Records).

[6] Juião Bolseiro 6, song about a beloved man {cantiga de amigo}, “What eyes are those that have no shame? {Que olhos son que vergonha non an}” (B 1170, V 776), Galician-Portuguese text (editorial marks eliminated) from Cohen (2003), English translation (modified slightly) from Cohen (2010). Here’s this song at Galician-Portuguese Medieval Songs.

[7] Johan Perez d’Avoin 7, song about a beloved man {cantiga de amigo}, “They told me a thing about you now {Disseron mh ora de vós ũa ren}” (B 670, V 273), Galician-Portuguese text (editorial marks eliminated) from Cohen (2003), English translation (modified slightly) from Cohen (2010). Here’s this song at Universo Cantigas and at Galician-Portuguese Medieval Songs.

[8] Ziolkoski (1994). The previous short quote (“among the pearls of medieval poetry”) is from Curtius 1953) p. 114. For an argument that the poetic voice is a woman’s, Vollmann (1988). Jaeger perceived in this poem “the lack of any Christian coloring.” Jaeger (1999) p. 56. The music of the poem surely provided Christian coloring in its time. More importantly, its emotional macro-structure is also Christian. Nardini, who examines its music in detail, calls it a “secular parody.” Nardini (2021) p. 147. The poem seems to me a secular parody in the sense of parodying a paidikon.

A reviewer of Stephen Gaselee’s An Anthology of Medieval Latin (1925) stated:

A classical student, for example, might welcome the suggestion that the accentual dactylic tetrameter of O admirabile Veneris ydolum was ultimately derived from the classical Lesser Asclepiadic.

Merrill (1926) p. 308. Classical students would be better directed to think comparatively about the Christian understanding of love and ponder classical philology’s gender problem.

Medieval love poetry encompasses an astonishing range of possibilities. Baudri (Badric), who became Abbot of Bourgueil (c. 1080) and archbishop of Dol (1107) in Brittany, lightly observed:

They reproach me even with this: speaking in the way of young men,
I wrote to young women and no less to adolescent boys.
Some of what I wrote indeed concerned love,
and my songs have pleased both sexes.
{ Obiciunt etiam, iuvenum cur more loquutus
Virginibus scripsi nec minus et pueris.
Nam scripsi quedam, que complectuntur amorem,
Carminibusque meis sexus uterque placet. }

Baudri to Godfrey of Reims, written between 1081 and 1089, poem 161, vv. 183-6, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Bond (1986) p. 183. Baudri’s male addressee had to be at least old enough to read learned Latin poetry. Here are some related verses from Curtius (1953) pp. 115-6. What Baudri actually did sexually and with whom in late eleventh-century France isn’t clear. That matters less than what you are doing and thinking now about how to love men well.

[images] (1) “O admirabile Veneris idolum” in manuscript from Cambridge Songs, University of Cambridge, MS Gg.5.35, folio 441v. (2) Musical version of “O admirabile Veneris idolum” by Ensemble Sequentia from its album Lost Songs of the Rhineland Harper (2004). Via YouTube. Here are versions by Ensemble Renaissance (1984), Nuns and Roses (2013), and Trouvere Medieval Minstrels (2018). (3) Noble, dancer with castanets, and musician playing psaltery. Illumination from folio 59r in the late-thirteenth-century Cancioneiro da Ajuda (Ajuda National Palace, Lisbon, Portugal). Also available on Wikimedia Commons. (4) “O admirabile Veneris idolum” in manuscript in Vatican, MS Vaticanus latinus 3227, folio 80v.

References:

Bond, Gerald A. 1986. “‘Iocus amoris’: the Poetry of Baudri of Bourgueil and the Formation of the Ovidian Subculture.” Traditio. 42: 143-193.

Cohen, Rip. 2003. 500 Cantigas d’Amigo. Porto: Campo das Letras.

Cohen, Rip. 2010. The Cantigas d’Amigo: An English Translation. Online. Quotes are based on the 2016 edition.

Cohen, Rip. 2011. Erotic angles on the cantigas d’amigo. Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 68. London: Department of Iberian and Latin American Studies, Queen Mary, University of London.

Curtius, Ernst Robert. 1953. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Translated from the Germany by Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon Books.

Giovini, Marco. 1999. “O admirabile Veneris ydolum: un carme d’amore paidico del X secolo e il mito di Deucalione.” Studi Medievali. 40 (1): 261-278.

Jaeger, C. Stephen. 1999. Ennobling Love: in search of a lost sensibility. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Merrill, Elmer Truesdell. 1926. “Book Review: An Anthology of Medieval Latin.” The Classical Journal. 21 (4): 307-309.

Nardini, Luisa. 2021. Chants, hypertext, and prosulas: re-texting the proper of the mass in Beneventan manuscripts. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Vollmann, Benedikt K. 1988. “O admirabile Veneris idolum (Carmina Cantabrigiensia 48) – ein Mädchenlied?” Pp. 532-543 in Udo Kindermann, Wolfgang Maaz, and Fritz Wagner, eds. Festschrift für Paul Klopsch. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 492. Göppingen: Kümmerle.

Ziolkowski, Jan M. 1994. The Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia). New York: Garland. Introduction.

romance of rescuing damsel imprisoned in tower, transgressed

Bringing joy to a tearful damsel imprisoned in a tower by a bad man is an archetypal masculine hero-fantasy. Such a story occurs in many variations in medieval literature. The mid-sixteenth-century story-collector Straparola, who popularized fairy-tales, created in contrast a witty story that transgressed gender and the conventional tower romance.

In Straparola’s story, King Galafro of Spain appears to be the typical bad man. He was a fierce warrior. As an old man, he married a beautiful young woman named Feliciana. Age difference doesn’t necessarily prevent a happy marriage. But King Galafro wasn’t a strong, independent husband:

Because of her gentleness and gracious manner, the king loved his queen exceedingly, taking thought of nothing else than how he might please her.
{ e per la sua gentilezza e maniere accorte, era sommamente amata dal Re, nè ad altro pensava che compiacerle. }

After examining the king’s hand, a chiromancer told him that his wife would cuckold him. The king thus resolved to keep his wife in a strong, carefully guarded tower.

Gender inequality in parental knowledge creates the gender-distinctive issue of men being cuckolded. Modern DNA-based paternity testing could eliminate this gender inequality. However, social forces under gynocentrism suppress routine DNA paternity testing. A historical alternative has been for husbands to attempt to guard their wives to prevent them from secretly having sex with another man. Medieval literature documents that such mate-guarding frequently fails. In Straparola’s story-collection, the knowing lady Lionora declared to her woman-friends:

Again and again, loving and gracious ladies, I’ve heard it said that the cleverest stratagems of art and science are helpless when pitted against the shrewdness of women. The reason for this is that at her creation, woman sprang not from the dry, barren earth, but from the ribs of Adam our first father. Thus, from the beginning women were made of flesh and not of dust, even though in the end their bodies, like men’s, inevitably are reduced to ashes.
{ Più e più volte, amorevoli e graziose donne, ho udito dire, non valer scienza nè arte alcuna contrar astuzia delle donne, e questo prociede perchè elle non dalla trita e secca terra sono prodotte, ma dalla costa del padre nostro Adamo; e così sono di carne e non di terra, ancor che i loro corpi al fine in cenere si riducano. }

Lionora naturalized women’s superiority in guile. Rationalizations for gender inequality in parental knowledge are now much different. The specifics of oppressive rationalizations have little significance to possibilities for social change. As Straparola’s story shows, invention and ingenuity can overcome natural gender differences.

Saint George kills a dragon and saves a damsel in distress

Galeotto, the son of the king of Castille, heard that King Galafro was strictly guarding his queen Feliciana. With men’s usual compassion for women, Galeotto resolved to bring joy to Feliciana. He first gathered many luxury items. Then, dressed as a merchant, he hawked his precious wares throughout the city where Feliciana was imprisoned in royal ease.

The oppressed queen’s servant-women told her that a merchant was selling luxury goods, including cloth embroidered with silver and gold. Acquiring additional luxuries might lift the spirit of an oppressed woman of privilege. The queen thus pleaded with the working men guarding her tower to allow the merchant to enter. A married king is merely nominal ruler of the realm. Despite the king’s order to the guards, the queen persuaded them to allow the merchant to visit her.

Galeotto disguised as the merchant acted with consummate guile. He made simultaneous offers:

Having first made the due and customary obeisance to the queen, the merchant spread out his rich wares. The queen, who was sprightly and rather bold, noticed that the merchant was handsome and had a kindly nature. She began to shoot darts from the crossbows of her eyes so as to arouse his amorous feelings. This trader, who kept his eyes wide open, showed that he wanted the same and would give love for love.
{ Il qual, prima fatta la debita e convenevole riverenza, la salutò; indi mostròle le nobili sue merci. La Reina, che era festevole e baldanzosa, vedendolo bello, piacevole e di natura benigno, incominciò ballestrarlo con la coda dell’occhio e accenderlo del lei amore. Il mercatante, che non dormiva, dimostrava nel volto corresponderle in amore. }

The queen became most interested in a particular item:

After the queen had looked at a great number of his things, she said, “Master, your wares are truly very fine. That no one can deny. But among them all, this one pleases me most. I’d be happy to know the price you want for it.”
{ Vedute che ebbe la Reina molte cose, disse: Maestro, le cose vostre sono bellissime, nè hanno opposizione alcuna; ma tra tutte questa molto mi aggrada. Io volontieri saprei quello l’apprecciate. }

One must appreciate the female gaze to understand the item she sought to buy. This merchant understood that prostitution is less satisfying than freely given love:

The merchant responded, “Lady-lord, no sum of money is sufficient to purchase these things. But seeing that you nourish such great desire to possess them, rather than sell them to you, I’m willing to give them to you if by such means I could be certain of winning your grace, which I value far above all other things.”
{ Rispose il mercatante: Signora, non è danaro che sofficiente sia a sodisfamento di lei. Ma quando vi fosse in piacere, io più presto ve la donerei che venderla: pur ch’io fosse sicuro di ottener la grazia sua, la qual io reputo maggiore che ogni altra robba. }

The merchant offered himself, with all his masculine marvels, to the queen for free. The queen was delighted with this extraordinarily generous merchant. She exclaimed:

Master, what you have said shows that you aren’t a low-born man, or one who is dedicated to the search for profit, but with your presentation you demonstrate the magnanimity that reigns over your kindly heart. So, however unworthy I may appear to be, I offer myself to you so that you may use me according to your pleasure.
{ Maestro, quello che voi dite, non è atto di uomo vile, che è più delle volte dedito all’ingordo guadagno; ma con effetti dimostrate la magnanimità che nel cor vostro ben disposto regna. Io, quantunque indegna, mi offero a’ piaceri e comandi vostri. }

That’s a counter-offer similar to the merchant’s offer of all of himself in exchange for her love. He in response gave a speech of pure courtly love:

Lady-lord, most truly you are the one firm and enduring support of my life. Your angelic beauty, joined to the sweet and kindly welcome that you have extended to me, has bound me with so strong a chain that I find it vain to hope that I shall ever again be able to free myself. I’m all afire with love for you. All the water in the world could never extinguish the ardent flames that consume my heart. I am a wanderer come from a distant land with no other purpose than to look upon that rare and radiant beauty that raises you far above every other living lady. As kindly and courteous as you are, if you would take me into your favor, you would thereby gain a devoted servant whom you may employ as though a part of yourself.
{ Signora, vera e salda colonna della vita mia, l’angelica bellezza vostra, congiunta con quelle dolci e benigne accoglienze, mi ha sì fortemente legato, che io non spero potermi mai più da lei dissogliere. Io per voi ardo, nè trovo acqua che estinguer possa sì ardente fuoco in cui mi trovo. Io da lontani paesi sono partito, e non per altro se non per veder la rara e singolar bellezza, la quale ad ogni altra donna vi fa superiore. Se voi, come benigna e cortese, nella grazia vostra mi accetterete, arrete un servo di cui potrete disporre come di voi stessa. La Reina, udite tai parole, stette sopra di sè, e prese ammirazione non picciola che ’l mercatante avesse tanto ardire; ma pur vedendolo bello e leggiadro, e considerando l’ingiuria che le faceva il marito tenendola chiusa nella torre, dispose al tutto seguire il piacer suo. }

Women, like men, should realize that courtly love is utterly unrealistic and profoundly false to the mud-made nature of women and men. But the queen, knowing that in courtly love men are effectively sexual serfs to lordly women, sought to exploit her gender privilege. She imposed as an additional condition for her love that he give her all the luxury wares that he had brought with him. What he had previously given her was all of himself. That wasn’t enough for this acquisitive queen.

The merchant gave the queen all his material goods. Then she led him into a bedroom. There he “took the ultimate fruit of love {prese gli ultimi frutti d’amore}.” So too did she.

Man kills another man to become hero to damsel in distress

After they finished enjoying sex, Galeotto demanded that the queen give him back his merchandise. He thus ironically insisted on the value of his masculine sexual gift. The queen chided him for allegedly acting juvenile:

Surely it does not become a noble-minded and liberal gentleman to demand the return of anything that he has faithfully bestowed upon another. This is the way of children, who in their tender ages lack sense and understanding. But to tell you frankly, since you are a man wise and understanding and have no need of a guardian, I do not intend to return your wares.
{ Non conviensi ad uomo magnifico e liberale addimandare in dietro la cosa lealmente donata. Questo fanno i fanciulli, che per la tenella età sono di senno e d’intelletto privi. Ma a voi, uomo savio e accorto, a cui non fa bisogno curatore, io la robba restituir non intendo. }

Galeotto declared that if she didn’t return his wares, he would remain there until the king returned. Then he would ask the king to administer justice. Recognizing Galeotto’s clever move, the queen returned his wares. This is the lover’s gift regained, a gender-transgressive motif in folklore.

Galeotto happily left the queen’s tower. He passed through the streets proclaiming loudly:

I know it, and I don’t want to tell it. I know it, and I don’t want to tell it!
{ Io il so, e non lo voglio dire: io il so e non lo voglio dire! }

King Galafro, returning from hunting, heard Galeotto’s cries and was amused. When he entered his wife’s tower, he said to her in jest, “Madame, I know it, and I don’t want to tell it {Madonna, io il so, e non lo voglio dire}.” Mistakenly thinking that her husband spoke in earnest, she fell at his feet, confessed her sexual infidelity, and begged him for forgiveness.

King Galafro, the typical bad man of medieval romance, revealed himself to be a good man. He told his wife:

Madame, be of good cheer. Don’t torment yourself. Whatever Heaven wills, so that will come to be.
{ Madama, sta di buona voglia, nè ti smarrire; perciò che quello che vuole il cielo, convien che sia. }

The king ordered that the tower imprisoning his wife be demolished. He gave his wife complete freedom to do whatever she desired. She and her husband then lived together joyfully. Some might think that with her freedom she engaged in polyamory. In the context of Straparola’s story, almost surely she was faithful to her husband.

damsel in distress chained to a railroad track

Let us count the ways that Straparola’s story transgresses gender and romance stereotypes. The lovely young woman Feliciana fails to gain material goods in exchange for having sex with a man. She is also revealed to be inferior in guile to Galeotto. Moreover, Galeotto, who pretended to be a merchant, enacted the lesson that men’s sexuality is a highly beneficial gift beyond any material price. In addition, the stereotypical bad man King Galafro becomes a good man who graciously forgives his wife. He essentially communicates to her that he doesn’t care if she has sex with other men. This is a story that women and men today should tell and retell to liberate themselves from gender and romance stereotypes.

* * * * *

Notes:

The quotes above are from Giovanni (Zoan) Francesco Straparola, The Pleasant Nights {Le Piacevoli Notti}, Italian text from Rua (1899), English translation (modified) from Beecher (2012). All the quotes above except one are from Night 9, Story 1 (“King Galafro’s Vain Precautions”). The lady Diana tells this story. Lionora’s naturalization of women’s superiority in guile comes from the introduction to Night 12, Story 1 (“How Florio’s Wife Cures His Jealousy”).

While this story includes well-recognized motifs in folklore, its over-all structure is unique. Beecher observed:

The creative agency responsible for putting them together may have been Straparola himself, or more probably the collective oral tradition from which the tale was surely derived.

Beecher (2012) vol. 2, p. 269. The deliberate transgression of gender and romance conventions seems to me to point to Straparola himself as the creative agency. Beecher further observed:

Either this story is thematically savvy and self-aware, deconstructing its own romantic facade through mutual exploitation and trickery brought to situational blackmail amid hollow and bankrupted sentiments, or the tale, in its impromptu combination of motifs, simply lost track of itself.

Id. p. 270. The story seems to me surely thematically savvy and self-aware. It’s like the thirteenth-century Old Occitan Romance of Flamenca, which has long been under-appreciated.

A central motif of this story is a husband’s mate-guarding. An influential instance of this motif is the “confined woman {inclusa}” story in The Romance of the Seven Sages of Rome {Le roman des Sept Sages de Rome}. In Inclusa, a knight out of jealousy keeps his wife imprisoned in a tower. Another knight feels compassion for the wife’s plight. He builds a tower next to hers and then a tunnel connecting the two towers. The wife and knight secretly cuckold the husband using this tunnel of love. They ultimately flee from the “bad man” husband. The thirteenth-century Old French romance Joufroi de Poitiers tells a structurally similar story.

Medieval literature documents a variety of means by which men are cuckolded. Beecher observed:

Nearly all the conventional means are represented in Straparola’s own stories: digging underground from castle to castle (‘Erminione and Filenia,’ IV.2), the lover transformed into a bird who then flies in through the window (‘Fortunio, the King’s Daughter, and the Mermaid,’ III.4), an intruder disguised as a merchant in the manner of Doralice’s father — a potential model for the lover in the present story — or entry to the lady’s chamber inside a coffer or large work of art (‘Doralice,’ I.4); or carried out (as in ‘The Physician’s Wife,’ IV.4).

Beecher (2012) vol. 2, p. 271. Progress in science (DNA paternity testing) and public policy (reproductive rights for men) could make the large corpus of stories about men being cuckolded into mainly a historical curiosity. In contrast, not only does cuckolding continue, but stories and discussion about cuckolding are now sternly repressed through institutions of censorship.

[images] (1) Saint George kills a dragon and saves a damsel in distress. Painted by Paolo Uccello from 1456 to 1460. Preserved in the Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, France). Via Wikimedia Commons. (2) Man kills another man to become hero to damsel in distress. Painted by Frank Bernard Dicksee in 1885. Image via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Damsel in distress chained to a railroad track. Photo still from the 1917 silent film Teddy at the Throttle (directed by Clarence G. Badger). Via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Beecher, Donald. 2012. Giovanni Francesco Straparola. The Pleasant Nights. 2 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Rua, Giuseppe. 1899. Le piacevoli notti di M. Giovanfrancesco Straparola da Caravaggio nelle quali si contengono le favole con i loro enimmi da dieci donne e duo giovani raccontate. 2 vols. Bologna: Romagnoli-Dall’ Acqua. Alternate presentation of 1927 edition.

Waters, W.G., trans. 1894. Giovanni Francesco Straparola. The Nights. Vol. 1. Vol. 2. London: Lawrence and Bullen. Alternate presentation: vol. 1, vol. 2.

Hellish bureaucracy in man giving soul to devil for woman’s love

Some men are willing to give their souls to the devil in exchange for women’s love. They don’t think there’s any harm in doing that. They don’t understand Hellish bureaucracy. Studying medieval literature can help to save such foolish men.

According to the medieval Towneley Plays, when Jesus descended into Hell to save virtuous souls imprisoned there, Isaiah, Simeon, John the Baptist, and Moses cried out with joy. Horrified, the demon Ribald exclaimed:

Since Hell was first made
and I was put in there,
never before had I such sorrow,
nor heard such din.
My heart begins to beat quickly.
My wit grows thin.
I fear that we cannot be glad
that these souls must depart from us.
{ Sen fyrst that hell was mayde
And I was put therin,
Sich sorow never ere I had,
Nor hard I sich a dyn.
My hart begynnys to brade,
My wytt waxys thyn;
I drede we cannot be glad,
Thise saules mon fro us twyn. }[1]

Ribald explained to his fellow demon Beelzubub:

They cry out to Christ, holding firmly to him,
and say that he shall save them.
{ They cry on Crist full fast,
And says he shall theym save. }

Beelzebub, an old bureaucrat in Hell, wasn’t about to allow any changes in this place:

Yes, though he won’t save them, I will,
for they are locked in a special space.
While I am prince and principal of Hell,
they shall never pass out of this place.
Call up Astharoth and Anabaal,
to give us counsel in this case, and
Baalberith and Belial,
to stop those that are making such mischief.
Call to Sir Satan, our lord,
and ask him to bring also
Sir Lucifer, lovely of face.
{ Yee, though he do not, I shall,
For they ar sparyd in specyall space;
Whils I am prynce and pryncypall
They shall never pas out of this place.
Call up Astarot and Anaball
To gyf us counsell in this case,
Bell-berith and Bellyall
To mar theym that sich mastry mase.
Say to Sir Satan, oure syre,
And byd hym bryng also
Sir Lucyfer, lufly of lyre. }

Despite this call for a large meeting of Hell’s personnel, Hell wasn’t able to withstand Christ. He broke down the gates of Hell, gathered to himself all the worthy souls there, and brought them to Heaven. Hellish bureaucracy didn’t prevail against the love of Christ.

Do not be deceived: Hellish bureaucracy still exists. Consider the paperwork involved in Proterius’s servant giving his soul to the devil to gain Proterius’s daughter’s love. First this servant went to a “sorcerer {maleficus}”:

From that one
he received on paper a wicked report
to be delivered to a demon.
The sorcerer commanded him that
in darkest night over a pagan
tomb he recite it.
{ A quo praui
suscepta scedula
nuncii
deferenda demoni
iussit eam
nocte ceca supra gentilem
recitare tumbam. }[2]

Recognizing bureaucratic authority, the servant followed this procedure. The report that the servant recited wasn’t talismanic arcana. It was text of typical bureaucratic subservience in a turf battle:

My lord and superintendent, in that it is indeed my duty to hasten the dragging away of persons from the Christian religion and lead them to your will, so as to increase your share of the population, I am sending you this one, who bears my present text. He is burning with desire for a young woman. I beg you to make this action happen for him, so that in this I would glory, and with much joy I would gather your devotees.
{ Quamquidem mi domine et procurator oportet festinare me a christianorum religione abstrahere et tuae adducere uoluntati, ut multiplicetur pars tua misi tibi hunc, qui praesentes meas defert litteras, cupiditate in puellam exarsum. Et postulo eum actionem istam consequi, ut et in isto glorier et cum multa alacritate congregem placitores tuos. }[3]

When the love-stricken servant recited this boilerplate, a troop of demons appeared. The demons in turn took the servant to their manager, “the chief of depravity {princeps prauitatis}.”

The meeting with the chief of depravity began as bureaucratic meetings typically do. The subordinate conveyed the report to the chief and provided a preliminary briefing:

To the chief was given
the text of the odious business
sent by the sorcerer
and likewise
was explained the cause of the visit
and the love’s frenzy.
{ Cui inuisi
datis commercii literis
a malefico missis,
item sui
causa aduentus expositis
amorisque furiis }[4]

Of course the chief was busy and pressed for time. He focused immediately on his primary interest:

At once discussion turned
to repudiation of Christian faith
and Christian baptism.
{ protinus fit discussio
de fidei Christi
ac baptismi repudio }

Under bureaucracy, what one says and does matters far less than what written documents document. The chief of depravity conducted a reverse baptism that recognized the importance of written documentation:

The devil-chief said to the wretched one: “Do you believe in me?” The man declared, “I believe in you.” “And do you deny your Christ?” The man responded, “I renounce him.” The devil then said to him: “You Christians are perfidious. When you have work for me, you come to me. When you attain your desire, you deny me and return to your Christ. He is kind and most merciful, and he receives you. But make for me a voluntary, hand-written renunciation of your Christ and your baptism. Write that you are mine forever by voluntary profession, and that you will be with me on the day of judgment and delighting in the everlasting torment prepared for me. Then I will fulfill your desire.”
{ dixit ad miserum: “Credis in me?” Qui ait: “Credo.” “Et negas Christum tuum?” Qui respondit: “Abnego.” Dicit ei diabolus: “Perfidi estis uos Christiani, et quandoquidem opus mei habetis uenitis ad me, quandoquidem consequimini desiderium uestrum, negatis me et acceditis ad Christum uestrum qui est benignus ac clementissumus et suscipe uos. Sed fac mihi manuscriptam Christi tui et baptismatis abrenuntiationem uoluntariam, et quae in me est in saecula uoluntaria professione, et quia mecum sis in die iudiciii condelectans mihi in praeparatis aeternis tormentis et ego statim desiderium tuum adimpleo.” }[5]

No bureaucratic procedure occurs without required documentation. The man promptly produced the required documentation and thus established his pact with the devil.

With sorcerer Cyprian's help, Aglaidas makes pact with devil in attempt to win the love of Justina

In accordance with that duly documented pact, the devil sent demons to Proterius’s daughter. They made her burn with sexual desire for her father’s servant. That’s not intrinsically demonic work. In medieval Europe, women by their own natural volition typically loved men passionately. Women often sought to marry men whom they ardently loved. After rejecting her father’s objections, Proterius’s daughter married the servant and fulfilled her sexual desire for him. That used to be a normal part of marriage.

Others soon noticed that the husband wasn’t attending church and wasn’t receiving the holy sacraments. They told his wife. She was grief-stricken to learn that her husband was no longer a Christian. He tried to comfort her by claiming he was still a Christian. She told him to prove it by coming with her to church the next day and receiving communion in her presence. He knew he couldn’t do that. “Hence he was forced to tell her the significance of his pact {tunc coactus dixit ei sententiam capituli}.” A husband who makes a pact with the devil shouldn’t foolishly believe that he can conceal such a secret from his wife.[6]

A strong, independent woman, the wife immediately sought to save her husband and herself. She ran to the pastor and disciple of Christ Basil and cried out against the impiety:

Have mercy on me, have mercy, holy one of God, have mercy, disciple of my Lord. I have gone to the side of demons. Have mercy on me, a wretched one, who did not obey her own father.
{ Miserere mihi, miserere sancte Dei, miserere mei discipule Domini, que cuae cum daemonibus causam egi. Miserere mihi miserae, proprium patrem non obaudiente. }

Even in medieval Europe, daughters tended to respect their fathers only in retrospect. After Basil had listened to the woman’s account of what her husband had done, he summoned her husband. He confessed the truth of what his wife had said. He wanted to return to Christ, but he said that he was unable because “I renounced Christ in writing, and professed the devil {scripto abnegaui Christum, et professum diablo}.” This man, who perhaps had prior work experience in a bureaucracy, knew the significance of submitting forms.

Basil, however, explained that God is kind, accepts the penitent, and has compassion for our sins. The wife threw herself at Basil feet and cried out, “Disciple of Christ Our God, help us as much as you can {discipule Christi Dei nostri, quantum potes adiuua nos}!” The devil originally made this woman burn with sexual desire for her father’s servant. She evidently came to love himwith true Christian love as her husband.

As is typically the case with bureaucracy, the battle for the man’s soul was a battle over a document. The man prayed in a solitary cell for forty days while seeing and hearing demons taunting him with the document. Then Basil led him at dawn to a church filled with a congregation that had been praying for him all night. The devil, attempting to pull the man away, declared:

He has renounced Christ and is professed to me. Look, I have the document! On the day of judgment I will lead him to the universal judge.
{ Abnegauit Christum et professus est mihi. Et ecce manuscriptum habeo et in die iudicci ad communem iudicem eum duco. }

The holy Basil responded:

Blessed is the Lord my God! These people will not deflect their hands from praying to the heights of Heaven until you return the document.
{ Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, non deflectet populus iste manus de altitudine caeli, donec reddas manuscriptum. }

Basil turned to the people and asked them to cry out to the Lord for mercy. The people went beyond the fine print to the heart of the matter:

With the people standing many hours extending their hands in prayer to Heaven, the young man’s document floated down through the air. In the sight of all it came and was placed in the hands of our venerable father and pastor. So receiving it and giving thanks to God, he was made very happy. Openly for all the people to hear, he said to the young man: “Brother, do you recognize this text?” The young man replied to him, “Yes, holy one of God, that is my document.” Ripping up the document, the holy Basil conducted the young man into the church.
{ stante populo in horam multam extensas in caelum manus et ecce manuscripta pueri per aerem delata et ab omnibus uisa uenit et imposita est manibus memorabilis nostri patris et pastoris. Suscipiens autem eas et gratias agens Deo gauisus factus est ualde, et coram omni populo dixit ad puerum: “Cognoscis literas has frater?” Qui aid ad eum: “Etiam sancte Dei, manuscripta mea est.” Et disrumpens manuscriptam, Basilius sanctus perduxit eum ad ecclesiam }

Proterius’s daughter and his servant then lived as a holy married couple. Her sexual desire for him continued and was not at all diabolic, but holy and pleasing to God.

In making a pact with the devil for a woman’s love, Proterius’s servant encountered Hellish bureaucracy. That’s not merely the fanciful imagining of a medieval author writing perhaps in the context of Byzantine bureaucracy.[7] Writing itself developed for bureaucratic accounting roughly five thousand years ago. Scribes over time gained enough authority to rank with Pharisees in the Christian gospels. Today many persons who deny the existence of God recognize from personal experience the reality of Hellish bureaucracy.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Towneley Plays, 22, The Harrowing of Hell, beginning “Here begins the deliverance of souls etc. {Incipit extraccio animarum etc.},” vv. 89-96, Middle English text from Epp (2018), my English modernization. The subsequent two quotes above are similarly sourced from The Harrowing of Hell, vv. 107-8 (They cry out to Christ…) and 109-19 (Yes, though he won’t save them…). The Towneley Plays probably were composed in fourteenth-century northern England.

The name Beelzebub, used in 2 Kings 1:2–3, 6, 16 and Matthew 12:24, comes from the Canaanite god Baal {lord} and Baal-zebul {prince-god}. The contemptuous variant Beelzebub probably means “lord of the flies.” Lucifer {shining one} is associated with Venus. That probably accounts for the epithet “lovely of face.” Lucifer became a name for Satan in Christianity.

[2] Cambridge Songs {Carmina cantabrigiensia} 30A, “Whoever has been besieged of old {Quisquis dolosis antiqui},” vv. 2a.1-7, Latin text (editorial marks elided) and English translation (modified) from Ziolkowski (1994). Subsequent quotes from this sequence are similarly sourced.

The sequence begins by describing the general moral worth of its exemplum:

Whoever has been besieged
by the deceitful treacheries
of the ancient enemy
and has rashly entered
the profundity of great
sins,
may he be admonished
by the following exemplum,
that he should not in sorrow utterly despair,
but should trust in the Lord,
and hope to be able to be freed
from Hell,
even if dead, if he repents.
{ Quisquis dolosis antiqui
circumuentus fraudibus
inimici,
profunditatem magnorum
incautus incurrerit
peccatorum,
hoc sequenti commonitus
exemplo sit,
merens ne desperet penitus,
sed confisus in Domino
liberari posse speret
uel mortuum, si penitet,
ex inferno. }

“Quisquis dolosis antiqui,” stanza 1a. The first two stanzas of this sequence, which survives only in Carmina cantabrigiensia, are neumed. That suggests that it was recited with music.

This sequence is based on chapter 11 of the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil. This Basil, more specifically Basil of Caesarea, also known as Saint Basil the Great, lived from 330 to 379. While Basil was a very important early Christian church leader for whom a large corpus of written works has survived, he didn’t lead a sensational life:

The historical Basil performs no spectacular miracles, is involved in no supernatural interventions, accomplishes no mind-boggling feats. In brief, he seems to have been almost devoid of those marks by which a saint was {sensationally} known, and this, incidentally, may in a large measure explain the Constantinopolitans’ lack of enthusiasm for his cult.

Whortley (1980) pp. 218-9. The Bollandist Francis Baert in 1698 composed a historical-critical life of Basil and argued convincingly against the authenticity of the purported Amphilochian life of Basil. Id. p. 218.

The pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil was written in Greek, probably some time from the seventh century to the early ninth century. It consists of an infancy story, various largely unrelated hagiographic stories, and a death story. Most of it has little relation to the actual life of Basil.

Latin translations of the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil have survived in numerous copies. A Latin translation by an otherwise unknown priest Ursus, who worked in the Naples court of Gregory II, is denoted BHL 1024. Patrologia Latina 73.293-312A is an edition of BHL 1024 based on one manuscript: Monte Cassino, Archivio e Biblioteca della Badio, 139. Corona (2006) pp. 24-5. By the first quarter of the thirteenth century, the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil had reached Iceland. Jorgensen (2015) p. 57.

The earliest Latin translation of the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil, a translation identified as BHL 1023, was made by an otherwise unknown Euphemius in the ninth century no later than 843 in a monastic center north of the Alps. Corona (2006) Ch. 1, especially p. 25. At least thirteen manuscripts of BHL 1023 have survived from the ninth to the twelfth century. Jorgensen (2015) pp. 59-60.

As Corona documented, the only previous, complete printed edition of BHL 1023 is that of Laurentius Surius (1570-5). Surius’s edition is unreliable in textual detail. Corona’s edition is based on three manuscripts of English origin dated no later than circa 1100. Those manuscripts are: E = Exeter, Cathedral Library, FMS/3 (small fragments written early in the tenth century); N = London, British Library, Cotton Mero E.i, part 1 (written in the fourth quarter of the eleventh century); and S = Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 221 (written toward the end of the eleventh century). In addition to a Latin edition of BHL 1023, Corona (2006) also provides an edition and a modern English translation of Aelfric’s Old English translation of BHL 1023.

[3] BHL 1023 (earliest known Latin translation of the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil), chapter 11, “About the denial of Christ in writing {De negante christum scripto},” Latin text from Corona (2006), my English translation. Subsequent quotes from “De negante christum scripto” are similarly sourced.

In Latin translations of the pseudo-Amphilochian life of Basil, the story of Proterius’s daughter is variously titled “About the denial of Christ in writing {De negante christum scripto}” and “About the young man who denied Christ {De iuvene qui Christum negaverat}.” This story also circulated independently. In the ninth century, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim versified it to form her story known as Basil {Basilius}. “De negante christum scripto” was incorporated into The Golden Legend {Legenda aurea} and The Great Mirror of Bishops, Canons, Priests and other Clerics {Speculum magnum episcoporum, canonicorum, sacerdotum et aliorum clericorum}. It became one of the most widely circulated stories in Slavonic literature. It spawned three Slavonic adaptations: “The Tale of Eladie {Повесть о Еладии},”Word and Narration about a Certain Merchant {Слово и сказание о некоем купце},” and “The Tale of Savva Grudcyn {Повесть о Савве Грудцыне}.” Cleminson (1991) p. 3. Here’s an English translation of the story, probably from a Greek life of Basil.

[4] Carmina cantabrigiensia 30A, “Quisquis dolosis antiqui,” vv. 2b.1-7. The subsequent quote above is similarly from id., vv. 2b.8-10.

[5] BHL 1023. Subsequent quotes above are also from BHL 1023.

[6] A person making a pact with the devil has come to be known as the Faustus motif after Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1592). The story of Proterius’s daughter is an important early medieval example of this motif. The Greek legend of Theophilus attributed to Eutychianus (BHG 1320) is another early example of the Faustus motif. Paul, deacon of Naples, translated the legend of Theophilus into Latin in the ninth century. Shortly thereafter, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim produced a verse version and Aelfric of Eynsham included the legend in his first homily on the Assumption of Mary. Corona (2006) pp. 51-4. The lives of saints Cyprian and Justina from early antiquity include a pact with the devil. Here’s more on Cyprian in relation to pacts with the devil. The lives of Cyprian and Justina perhaps influenced Proterius’s servant’s pact with the devil.

Another similar pact with the devil occurs in the story of Anthemius and Maria, Virgin of Antioch. According to the Acts of the Saints {Acta Sanctorum}, Maria of Antioch was honored in the liturgical calendar on May 29. For this story, Southey (1838) vol. 7, pp. 218-24. Wortley sees this story as a source for “De negante christum scripto.” Wortley (1980) pp. 228-9. For a general study of sources for the Faustus motif, Radermacher (1927).

[7] With respect to pseudo-Amphilochius’s story of Basil helping the boy-student Philoxenus explicate verses of Homer, Wortley observed:

The is the first of many occurrences of the use of writing in these stories, an indication that, if nothing else, Pseudo-Amphilochius knew that Basil lived in an age more literate than his own.

Wortley (1980) p. 224. The textual evidence of “De negante christum scripto” seems to me better interpreted to imply that pseudo-Amphilochius lived in an age in which writing and bureaucracy were very important.

[images] (1) With sorcerer Cyprian’s help, Aglaidas makes a pact with devil in his attempt to win the love of Justina. Illumination in a fifteenth-century instance of Jacques de Voragine’s Golden Legend {Légende dorée} as translated into French by Jean de Vignay. Detail from folio 109r of BnF, Département des Manuscrits, Français 245. (2) Saint Basil the Great. Seventeenth-century drawing preserved in the Houghton Library (Harvard University, Cambridge, USA), MS Typ 1011. Via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Cleminson, Ralph. 1991. “The miracle De juvene qui Christum negaverat in the pseudo-Amphilochian Vita Basilii and its Slavonic adaptations.” Parergon. 9 (2): 1-15.

Corona, Gabriella. 2006. Aelfric’s Life of Saint Basil the Great: Background and Context. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.

Epp, Garrett, ed. 2018. The Towneley Plays. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications.

Jorgensen, Peter. 2015. “The Life of St. Basil in Iceland {Heilagur Basilíus á Íslandi}.” Gripla (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum). 26: 57-79. Alternate source.

Radermacher, Ludwig. 1927. Griechische Quellen zur Faustsage: der Zauberer Cyprianus; die Erzählung des Helladius; Theophilus; vorgelegt in der Stizung vom 15. Juni 1927. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky. Alternately: Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Proceedings. 206 (4): 115-49.

Southey, Robert. 1838. The Poetical Works of Robert Southey. 10 vols. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

Wortley, John. 1980. “The Pseudo-Amphilochian Vita Basilii: An Apocryphal Life of Saint Basil the Great.” Florilegium. 2 (1): 217-239.

Ziolkowski, Jan M. 1994. The Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia). New York: Garland. Introduction.

continuing sadness of Heinrich von Morugen’s medieval alba

In Heinrich von Morugen’s alba (dawn song), which this minnesinger composed about the year 1200, a knight and a lady remembered at dawn separating from their mutual embrace. He remembered her lovely face shining as brightly as the full moon:

Oh! Oh!
Will nevermore the glow
of that fair form as white
as newly fallen snow
come to me through the night?
The sight deceived my eyes,
I thought I saw arise
the bright moon in the skies.
Then came the dawn!
{ Owê,
Sol aber mir iemer mê
geliuhten dur die naht
noch wîzer danne ein snê
5 ir lîp vil wol geslaht?
Der trouc diu ougen mîn.
ich wânde, ez solde sîn
des liehten mânen schîn.
Dô tagte ez. }[1]

Maybe he had seen the moon. But he hadn’t recently seen her. She lamented that she might never see him again:

Oh! Oh!
And will he never know
the daybreak here again,
nor watch the darkness go,
nor share my sorrow when
I cry: “Alas, ’tis day!”?
That he too used to say
when he beside me lay.
Then came the dawn!
{ Owê,
Sol aber er iemer mê
den morgen hie betagen?
als uns diu naht engê,
daz wir niht durfen klagen:
‘Owê, nu ist ez tac,’
als er mit klage pflac,
dô er júngest bî mir lac.
Dô tagte ez. }

In our starkly ideological age, such love between a woman and a man is scarcely imaginable. Women have been treated as men’s property, as men’s chattel, throughout all of history, so they say. In medieval Europe, the Church’s police force harshly regulated everyone’s sexual activities, women hadn’t yet fully civilized men, and the unmanageable risk of getting pregnant petrified women. Medieval women wouldn’t dare engage in illicit love affairs with men even if they were interested in doing so, which they weren’t. That’s the medieval anti-fairy tale that everyone is now taught.

The mid-thirteenth-century minnesinger Tannhäuser freely delighted in what he saw with his male gaze. It was Christmas time, and he invited beautiful young women to dance to his song:

When the pretty maid
skips forward all my troubles are allayed.
The silken sash above
her hips waves up and down and sometimes brings me thoughts of love.
You’re kind and lovely, too.
But stop a bit, joyous wonder, you!
How fair each curly tress,
red lips and eyes as I would have them be,
your cheek is like a rose,
with your white throat how well the neck brooch goes,
you doll in summer dress
with yellow ringlets, just the kind for me,
how firm and round your breasts!
Now whirl my sweet — where all my longing rests —
and show your cute behind
a moment just for me, and I shall nearly lose my mind.
Laugh at me if you will!
Whene’er you show your pretty toes I thrill,
so well-shaped and so white.
You lovely figure, darling of my heart,
dance on and on, my sweet!
There never were before such dainty feet,
and whom they don’t delight,
I tell you, really isn’t very smart.
Her legs are white and rise
to a brown and curly mound, and soft, smooth thighs.
Her bottom’s nicely curved,
and all one wants in women she possesses, I’ve observed.
{ so sich dú gůte
schreket vor so ist mir wol zemv̊te.
vnd ir gúrtel senken.
machet dc ich vnder wilent liebe mv̊s gedenken.
Dv liebes dv gv̊tes.
tv̊ hin la stan. dv wunder wol gemv̊tes.
wol stent dine loͤkel.
din múndel rot din oͤgel als ich wolde.
rose var din wengel.
din kelli blank da vor stet wol din spengel.
dv rehtes svmer toͤkel.
reit val din har. rehte als ichs wúnschen solde.
gedrat dine brúste.
nv tanze eht hin min liebes min gelúste.
la sitv́li bleken.
ein weninc dvr den willen min. da gegen mv̊s ich schreken.
Nv lachet aber min flehen.
ich schreke so dir bloͤzent dine zehen.
die sint wol gestellet.
vil schonú forme vnd herzeliebú minne.
nv tanze eht hin min svͤssel.
so hol so smal so wurden nie kein fuͤssel.
swen dc niht gevellet.
dc wisset der hat niht gv̊ter sinne.
wis sint ir beinel.
lindú diehel reit brvn ist ir meinel.
ir sizzel gedrolle.
swc man an frowen winschen sol. des hat si gar die volle. }[2]

Tannhäuser had observed closely one of the dancing women. Cuckolds laugh to hide their contempt for men, beauty, and humanity. Preventing men from dying of lovesickness has been achieved by eliminating the incidence of lovesickness. Men deserve better healthcare than being numbed to female beauty.

Of course women shouldn’t sexually harass or rape men. In Heinrich von Morugen’s alba, the knight fondly remembered:

Oh! Oh!
A thousand times, it seems,
she kissed me as I slept,
and, til I left my dreams,
how bitterly she wept.
But then I knew how best
to put her tears to rest.
She drew me to her breast.
Then came the dawn!
{ Owê,
Si kuste âne zal
in dem slâfe mich.
dô vielen hin ze tal
ir trehene nider sich.
Iedoch getrôste ich sie,
daz sî ir weinen lie
und mich al umbevie.
Dô tagte ez. }

Under modern college sex regulations, kissing a person while she’s asleep is sexual assault. Sleeping persons cannot consent to mouth-to-mouth amorous contact. Women in medieval Europe were ignorant of such modern scholastic thinking. Not seeking to invoke the penal punishment apparatus, this woman marveled in remembering her beloved knight’s male gaze:

Oh! Oh!
So many times has he
seen what he already knew
and full uncovered me.
He wanted just to view
this form all bare and bright.
I marveled that my knight
so much enjoyed the sight.
Then came the dawn!
{ Owê,
Daz er sô dicke sich
bî mir ersehen hât!
als er endahte mich,
sô wolt er sunder wât
Mîn arme schouwen blôz.
ez was ein wunder grôz,
daz in des nie verdrôz.
Dô tagte ez. }[3]

The dawn brings light. Yet before dawn, uncovering her, he could see her beautiful body naked in the darkness. She shone like the moon. Men, romantically simple and highly visual, like to see naked women. Medieval women desired to be desired and delighted in men’s desire for them.

The alba typically enacts at dawn sorrow in the man’s departure from his beloved woman in bed. Heinrich von Morugen’s alba is usual in having the woman and man alone, sadly recalling their dawn departure. Remembering is the beginning of reconnecting men and women in love.

The male gaze is gone.
The male gaze is gone away.
The male gaze is gone, baby,
the male gaze is gone away.
You know you done me wrong, baby,
and you’ll be sorry someday! [4]

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Heinrich von Morugen 30, “Alas, shall it ever again {Owê, sol aber iemer mê},” stanza 1 (of 4), Middle High German text from the medieval German faculty of Heinrich-Heine-Universität, English translation from Thomas (1963) p. 6. Here’s Leonard Cottrell’s English translation of the whole poem. The subsequent three quotes above from Heinrich von Morugen’s alba are sourced similarly, unless otherwise noted, and serially comprise the complete poem.

[2] Tannhäuser 11, “Now we should all decide {Gegen disen winnahten},” vv. 9-36, Middle High German text from the Codex Manesse, English translation (modified slightly) from Thomas (1974) p. 159.

[3] Thomas’s translation of the concluding stanza interpolates moral disapprobation of the man’s gaze:

Oh! Oh!
So many times has he
seen more than was his due
and quite uncovered me;
he wanted just to view
this form all bare and bright.
I wondered that my knight
so much enjoyed the sight.
Then came the dawn!

Thomas (1963) p. 7. The close translations of Saville (1972), p. 265, and Ryan (2012), p. 24, make clear that no such moral disapprobation exists in the Middle High German text. I’ve modified the English translation to be more faithful to the Middle High German.

Regarding verse 4.5, Ryan observed:

There has been some dispute over whether the words “min arme” refer to her arm, or whether the phrase might not mean “poor me.” I prefer the first of these alternatives, according to which “arme” is a metonym for the woman’s body as a whole.

Ryan (2012), p. 24.

[4] Cf. “The Thrill is Gone,” written by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951, popularized by B.B. King’s rendition in 1970. Here’s B.B. King singing “The Thrill is Gone” at the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) in 1993.

[images] (1) Recording of Heinrich von Morungen’s “Owê sol aber mir iemer me,” music by Frank Wulff & Stephan Wulff, from Sol’s album Ougenweide (Hamburg, 1996). Via YouTube. Here’s a sparse, mournful recording by Alrun und Olaf, Corina Kuhs’s version with harp, and a lively, folk-rock version. (2) Tannhäuser with beloved woman at dawn. Painted by Gabriel von Max about 1878. Preserved as accession # M.Ob.500 in the National Museum in Warsaw. Via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Ryan, Judith. 2012. The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Saville, Jonathan. 1972. The Medieval Erotic Alba: structure as meaning. New York, London: Columbia University Press.

Thomas, John Wesley. 1963. German Verse from the 12th to the 20th Century in English Translation. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Thomas, John Wesley. 1974. Tannhäuser: poet and legend, with texts and translations of his works. University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, no.77. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1974.

wife and husband compromise for marital love

In mid-sixteenth-century Italy, the story-collector Straparola helped to popularize fairy-tales. Straparola nonetheless had a keen sense for the earthy compromises that make ordinary life possible. For example, a medieval proverb taught, “whoever minds her own business doesn’t get her hands dirty {chi fa li fatti suoi non s’imbratta le mani}.” Straparola exemplified this proverb with a story of a wife and husband compromising to promote marital love.

In Straparola’s story, Gliceria and Bigoccio were newly married. On their wedding night, Gliceria put on gloves just before they had sex. Bigoccio asked her to take them off. He desired his wife’s naked touch. But she responded:

My good husband, at such times as these I could never bring myself to touch a man with my bare hands.
{ Signor mio, io non toccherei mai così fatte cose con le mani nude. }

In short, she had internalized disparagement of sexual activity with men as “dirty.” Bigoccio fulfilled his marital sexual obligation with his gloved wife, but he felt besmirched.

The next evening before getting into bed, Bigoccio slipped onto his penis a hawk’s jesses with many little bells attached to them. He and his wife commenced marital sexual relations as married couples normally used to do:

He at once began to caress, embrace and kiss her. She as previously was wearing gloves on her hands. Because she had by now acquired a taste for marital relations, she put her hand on her husband’s penis and discovered the jesses. Then she said, “My husband, what’s this thing I’m touching? It wasn’t there last night.”
{ cominciò accarecciarla, toccarla e basciarla. Gliceria, ch’aveva i guanti in mano, e per l’addietro gustato il mattarello, pose la mano al membro di suo marito, e trovò i getti; e disse: Marito mio, che cosa è questa ch’io tocco? Ier notte non l’avevate. }

An interpersonal difficulty apparently arose along with ringing of the bells from the husband’s sexual exertions:

Bigoccio said to her: “What you feel are jesses men use in hawking.” He tried to get into her arbor and plant his spade in the shady vale. But the jesses impeded entry. Glisceria said, “I don’t want any jesses contraptions.”
{ Rispose fra Bigoccio: I’ sono i getti d’andar a spariviere; — e montato sopra l’arbore, voleva mettere il piviolo nella val pelosa, e perchè i getti impedivano il piviolo entrare, disse Gliceria; Io non voglio i getti. }

A kind and loving husband, Bigoccio pointed out an opportunity for compromise:

“If you don’t want jesses,” the husband responded, “well, as for me, I don’t want gloves.” So by mutual consent the couple cast aside both gloves and jesses. Thereafter they had much pleasure by night and day, and Gliceria became pregnant.
{ Se tu non vuoi i getti, rispose il marito, nè io voglio i guanti. Onde di commune consentimento, gettarono via i guanti ed i getti. Dandosi adunque piacere notte e giorno, la donna s’ingravidò }

In having sex with her husband, Gliceria learned the validity of the proverb, “whoever minds her own business doesn’t get her hands dirty {chi fa li fatti suoi non s’imbratta le mani}.” A wife having sex with her husband isn’t dirtying.

Straparola’s story provides more general and important lessons, particularly for our age of gender conflict. Men most recognize the value of guile, an art in which women have traditionally excelled. Moreover, women and men need to compromise in their ordinary relations. That’s no Straparola fairy-tale.

* * * * *

Notes:

The quotes above are from Giovanni (Zoan) Francesco Straparola, The Pleasant Nights {Le Piacevoli Notti}, Night 11, Story 5, Italian text from Rua (1899), English translation (modified) from Beecher (2012). The lady Vicenza tells this story. Subsequent quotes below from Le Piacevoli Notti are similarly sourced.

Beecher has traced the story of the gloves and jesses (an inset story in Straparola’s Night 11, Story 5) to Antonio Cornazano’s The Origin of Proverbs {De origine proverbiorum}, published in Milan in 1503. Drawing upon the well-established tradition of expressive freedom in medieval Latin, the wife uses her bare hands to caress her husband’s genitals while repeating the proverb “whoever minds her own business doesn’t get her hands dirty {chi fa li fatti suoi non s’imbratta le mani}.” That plot element is suppressed in Straparola’s version. Cornazano’s story was reproduced in Proverbs of Antonio Cornazano within Witty Stories {Proverbii di Antonio Cornazano in facetie}, first published in Venice in 1518. This proverb collection was republished many times in subsequent centuries, including in French and English translations. Beecher (2012) vol. 2, pp. 496-7.

Regarding men’s genitals as dirty is mild disparagement relative to the history of brutalizing men’s genitals. Straparola’s Le Piacevoli Notti includes the story of the priest and the image-carver’s wife (Night 8, Story 3). That story is similar to the fabliau The priest crucified {Du prestre crucefié}. In Straparola’s version, a naked priest hid by posing as Christ on a cross in an image-carver’s workshop (the priest had cuckolded the image-carver). Nuns entered the workshop to get a crucifix. The image-carver pointed to the living crucifix of the priest and suggested that the nuns take that “sculpture.” The nuns exclaimed:

“Certainly that one is beautiful, and will greatly please Mother and the nuns. But just one thing is rather displeasing,” they said. “It’s that nuisance there, right before our eyes and in plain sight. It might cause no little scandal to the whole convent.”
{ Certo che è bellissimo, e piacerà molto alla madre ed alle monache. Ma una sol cosa — dissero le suori, — ne dispiace assai, che voi non avete provisto che sì scopertamente non si vedesse quel fastidio che dinanzi tiene: perciò che tal cosa potrebbe partorire non picciolo scandolo a tutto il monastero. }

Despite Jesus Christ being a fully masculine man, the nuns were referring to the priest’s genitals. Showing the relationship between disparaging men’s genitals and castration culture, the image-carver went to cut off the priest’s genitals in order to please the nuns.

Straparola’s Night 13, Story 9 (“Of Filomena the Hermaphrodite Nun,” taken from Antonio Molino), underscores social disparagement of men’s genitals. That story describes the transformation of a woman into a man. A surgeon cut open a painful swelling in Filomena’s groin:

Everyone believed that from such a wound would come putrefaction and blood, but instead emerged a certain large member of the kind that women desire, but that to see is so disgusting.
{ quando si credeva che di tal buco uscir ne dovesse o sangue, o marza, ne uscì un certo grosso membro, il quale le donne desiderano e di vederlo si schifano. }

That social sense of a man’s penis associates it with putrefaction and blood. Waters’s translation of this story elided the reference to the transman Filomena’s member (penis). Tradition philology has more generally repressed representations of men’s genitals.

[images] (1) Woman putting on white latex medical gloves. Source photo by Merco Verch, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 By. (2) Hawk wearing jesses. Source photo by whiskymac (Reg McKenna) via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Beecher, Donald. 2012. Giovanni Francesco Straparola. The Pleasant Nights. 2 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Waters, W.G., trans. 1894. Giovanni Francesco Straparola. The Nights. Vol. 1. Vol. 2. London: Lawrence and Bullen. Alternate presentation: vol. 1, vol. 2.