Scholars have documented that women are biologically superior to men in a variety of ways, including communicatively. However, within the disastrous tradition of epic violence against men, Homer’s Aeneas trivialized women flyting — women fighting with words. Fighting with words is superior to fighting physically, especially in modern bureaucratic societies with extensive institutions of penal punishment. Moreover, Achilles and Aeneas in Homer’s Iliad fight less vigorously and less viciously with words than do Rose and Lily in Sedulius Scottus’s ninth-century debate poem.
The Greek and Trojan armies, masses of armor-clad men and war horses, closed for battle on the plain outside Troy. Out from the lines of the two armies came the preeminent Greek warrior Achilles and the Trojan hero Aeneas. Achilles struck first with words. He taunted Aeneas for daring to have the courage to face him. Achilles reminded Aeneas that the last time they met in combat, Aeneas had fled. Achilles advised Aeneas to flee again: “a fool sees something after it’s done {ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω}.”[1] Achilles didn’t attack Aeneas with hate speech, as Facebook defines it. Achilles provided Aeneas with specific advice, coupled with valid general wisdom, based on a sound forecast of likely future events.
Aeneas responded defensively to Achilles’s words. He accused Achilles of acting like an unknowing child toward another child:
Son of Peleus, do not expect to frighten me with words
as if I were a child, since I myself know well
both taunts and improper words to say.{ Πηλεΐδη, μὴ δή μ᾿ ἐπέεσσί γε νηπύτιον ὣς
ἔλπεο δειδίξεσθαι, ἐπεὶ σάφα οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς
ἠμὲν κερτομίας ἠδ᾿ αἴσυλα μυθήσασθαι. } [2]
Aeneas then engaged in subtle, indirect aggression against Achilles — a verbal tactic far more sophisticated than those that children typically employ:
We know each other’s lineage, we know each other’s parents,
for we have heard the words told of old by mortals,
but by sight you have never seen my parents nor I yours.
They say that you were the issue of blameless Peleus,
and your mother was Thetis of lovely hair, the sea’s daughter.{ ἴδμεν δ᾿ ἀλλήλων γενεήν, ἴδμεν δὲ τοκῆας,
πρόκλυτ᾿ ἀκούοντες ἔπεα θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων·
ὄψει δ᾿οὔτ᾿ ἄρ πω σὺ ἐμοὺς ἴδες οὔτ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐγὼ σούς.
φασὶ σὲ μὲν Πηλῆος ἀμύμονος ἔκγονον εἶναι,
μητρὸς δ᾿ ἐκ Θέτιδος καλλιπλοκάμου ἁλοσύδνης }
Later literary texts indicate that Thetis and Peleus had a rocky marriage. Achilles was left with Chiron as a foster-father and had little contact with either of his biological parents. Experiencing the love of both a mother and a father from birth helps a child become an emotionally stable adult. The difficult family history of Achilles was probably known to the Homeric author composing Aeneas’s response to Achilles. Aeneas implicitly taunted Achilles about his broken parental relations.
Confronting the battle-ready Achilles between the Greek and Trojan warrior lines, Aeneas spoke a long-winded account of his own lineage. The Iliad doesn’t indicate that Achilles stood with a puzzled look, yawned, or mockingly rolled his eyes. Perhaps sensing that such a response would be appropriate, Aeneas questioned the point of their words:
But come, let us thus talk like children no longer,
standing in the middle of the battle’s combat.
Reproaches are there for both of us to utter against each other,
many of them. A ship of a hundred benches could not bear the load.
Twisty is the tongue of mortals, abounding in many words
of all kinds, and the field of speech is wide on this and that side.
Whatever word you speak, such you could also hear.{ ἀλλ᾿ ἄγε μηκέτι ταῦτα λεγώμεθα νηπύτιοι ὥς,
ἑσταότ᾿ ἐν μέσσῃ ὑσμίνῃ δηιοτῆτος.
ἔστι γὰρ ἀμφοτέροισιν ὀνείδεα μυθήσασθαι
πολλὰ μάλ’, οὐδ’ ἂν νηῦς ἑκατόζυγος ἄχθος ἄροιτο.
στρεπτὴ δὲ γλῶσσ’ ἐστὶ βροτῶν, πολέες δ’ ἔνι μῦθοι
παντοῖοι, ἐπέων δὲ πολὺς νομὸς ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα.
ὁπποῖόν κ’ εἴπῃσθα ἔπος, τοῖόν κ’ ἐπακούσαις. } [3]
These aren’t vicious words. These words probably wouldn’t even count as hate speech under Facebook’s capacious and capricious standards. The great classicist John Tzetzes castigated his scholarly rivals much more harshly than Achilles and Aeneas reproached each other on the battlefield before Troy.
Apparently unaware of his own inferiority as a man, Aeneas went on to belittle women’s aggressiveness in battling with words:
But what need have the two of us for strife and insulting,
to exchange insults with one another like women,
who when they have grown angry in soul-devouring strife
go out into the street-center and exchange insults,
saying much that is true and much false, for their rage drives them.
Yet you will not by words turn me back from my eagerness for combat,
not till we have fought face to face with our bronze tools. Come now,
let us test each other’s strength with our bronze spearheads.{ ἀλλὰ τί ἢ ἔριδας καὶ νείκεα νῶϊν ἀνάγκη
νεικεῖν ἀλλήλοισιν ἐναντίον ὥς τε γυναῖκας,
αἵ τε χολωσάμεναι ἔριδος πέρι θυμοβόροιο
νεικεῦσ’ ἀλλήλῃσι μέσην ἐς ἄγυιαν ἰοῦσαι
πόλλ’ ἐτεά τε καὶ οὐκί· χόλος δέ τε καὶ τὰ κελεύει
ἀλκῆς δ᾽ οὔ μ᾽ ἐπέεσσιν ἀποτρέψεις μεμαῶτα
πρὶν χαλκῷ μαχέσασθαι ἐναντίον· ἀλλ᾿ ἄγε θᾶσσον
γευσόμεθ᾿ ἀλλήλων χαλκήρεσιν ἐγχείῃσιν. }
Women insult each other with vigor and rage and vicious falsehoods. Aeneas associated women’s verbal battling with childish behavior. Men instead seek to kill each other. Aeneas sought to end his exchange of feeble insults with Achilles and instead engage in deadly physical violence.[4] That’s foolish.
Compared to Achilles and Aeneas’s soft flyting, medieval Latin literature documents women’s stronger fighting with words. Consider Rose hatefully disparaging Lily:
Purple signifies kingly power, purple makes the king’s glory;
dull white is a shabby and unattractive color to kings.
Dull white is pale, run-down, and wretched in the face;
purple is the color revered throughout all the world.{ Purpura dat regnum, fit purpura gloria regni;
Regibus ingrato vilescunt alba colore.
Albida pallescunt misero marcentia vultu;
Puniceus color est toto venerabilis orbe. } [5]
In short, the purple Rose makes a racist attack on the white Lily. She disparages her for her color. That’s hate speech.
Lily responds with a vicious attack on Rose. Despite gynocentric belittling of men’s interests in paternity confidence, women know that men typically disfavor promiscuity in women with whom they would like to have an enduring, intimate bond. Lily thus alludes to Rose’s failure to secure the love of a man-god, impugns Rose’s sexual fidelity, and suggests that Rose is so withered and faded that she no longer shows a blush:
I, the earth’s golden-haired beauty, handsome Apollo
loves, he who has clothed my face in snow-white glory.
Rose, why do you so greatly proclaim, smeared with shameful pretense,
aware of your failings? Does your face not blush?{ Me decus auricomum telluris pulcher Apollo
Diligit ac niveo faciem vestivit honore.
Quid, rosa, tanta refers pudibundo perlita fuco,
Conscia delicti? vultus tibi nonne rubescit? }
In response to Lily’s vicious attack on her, Rose asserts her nobility, denies everything, and declares that Apollo is actually her illustrious boyfriend-god:
I am Dawn’s sister, kin to the celestial gods,
and bright Apollo loves me; I am bright-red Apollo’s herald.
The morning star Venus gladdens to run before my face,
yet the nourishing loveliness of my virgin charm makes me blush.{ Sum soror Aurorae, divis cognata supernis;
Et me Phebus amat, rutili sum nuncia Phebi;
Lucifer ante meum hilarescit currere vultum:
Ast mihi virginei decoris rubet alma venustas. } [6]
Rose insinuates that her relationship with Apollo is sexually charged. She signals that he with her is bright red in arousal even in the morning. That delights the love-goddess Venus. Yet Rose is no jaded slut. She has the nourishing loveliness of virgin charm, and she still blushes.
Lily in response pretends to be unconcerned about Rose’s claim of a rival, passionate relationship with Apollo. With sexually suggestive words and allusions to sin, Lily pities Rose:
Why do you spew forth words in protuberant speeches
that bring upon you merited punishment of eternal wounds?
Indeed your crown has been penetrated with sharp thorns.
Alas — how the thorns rend the rose’s garden!{ Talia cur tumidis eructas verba loquelis,
Quae tibi dant meritas aeterno vulnere poenas?
Nam diadema tui spinis terebratur acutis:
Eheu – quam miserum laniant spineta rosetum! }
Lily suggests that Rose’s claim of a passionate relationship with Apollo is merely blustering words. But Lily also all but calls Rose a roadworn whore. That’s an extremely nasty attack on a woman.
Rose responds angrily to Lily’s nasty mock-pitying. Rose refigures herself as chaste:
You broken-down old woman, for why and what are you raving with words?
What disgraces you proclaim, all should be filled with praise.
The all-creator and preserver surrounded me with sharp thorns
and has safeguarded my rosy face with a very clear veil.{ Ut quid deleras verbis, occata vetustas?
Quae tu probra refers, plena sunt omnia laude:
Conditor omnicreans spina me sepsit acuta,
Muniit et roseos praeclaro tegmine vultus. }
Healthy heterosexual men have long been socially constructed as a danger from which women must be safeguarded. Women, in contrast, are wonderful. The illustrious veil that Rose wears is so clear that no one can see it!
Most women, no matter what age, don’t imagine themselves to be old. So it is with Lily. She even asserts that, without any artificial assistance, her reproductive capabilities are exuberant:
My kind head is adorned with beautiful gold;
I’m not enclosed in a crown of thorns.
Milk in sweet abundance flows from my snow-white breasts;
so they say that I’m the blessed lady of green vegetation.{ Aureoli decoris mihi vertex comitur almus
Nec sum spinigera crudelis septa corona,
Profluit at niveis dulci lac ubere mammis:
Sic holerum dominam me dicunt esse beatam. }
Through an implicit contrast with herself, Lily implies that Rose is a prickly, dried-up old woman. That’s very nasty. Achilles and Aeneas never stuck each other with insults that nasty.
Rose and Lily’s father intervened to resolve their vicious quarrel. Like most fathers, Spring dearly loved his children. He lamented that they were fighting. In the lived reality of family life, fathers are typically subordinate to their daughters. Yet Spring dared to counsel his daughters:
Recognize that you are twin sisters from the earth.
Is it divine law for twins to provoke prideful quarrels?
O beautiful Rose, be quiet. Your glory shines upon the world,
but let royal Lily rule with brilliant scepters.
Your distinction and beauty will thus praise you both forever.
May Rose, model of modesty, bloom in our gardens,
and you, splendid Lily, multiply with the face of radiant Apollo.
You, Rose, give to crowned martyrs their red victory;
Lily adorns the long-robed throngs of virgins.{ Gnoscite vos geminas tellure parente sorores.
Num fas germanas lites agitare superbas?
O rosa pulchra, tace: tua gloria claret in orbe;
Regia sed nitidis dominentur lilia sceptris.
Hinc decus et species vestrum vos laudat in aevum:
Forma pudicitiae nostris rosa gliscat in hortis,
Splendida Phebeo vos, lilia, crescite vultu;
Tu, rosa, martyribus rutilam das stemmate palmam,
Lilia virgineas turbas decorate stolatas. } [7]
Spring then gave his quarreling daughters the kiss of peace to reconcile them. The daughters in turn kissed each other. Rose mischievously poked Lily’s mouth with one of her thorns. That’s just normal sisterly play. Lily gave Rose a drink of ambrosial milk. Rose offered Lily the gift of royal purple flowers. No one was killed, not even any men.
The deadly weight of Homer epic should be pushed aside. Men today must decisively reject the goddess Athena’s advice to Odysseus:
But you be strong, for bear it you must,
and tell no one, no man nor any woman,
that from wanderings you have returned, and silently
endure your many griefs, and submit to the violence of men.{ σὺ δὲ τετλάμεναι καὶ ἀνάγκῃ,
μηδέ τῳ ἐκφάσθαι μήτ᾿ ἀνδρῶν μήτε γυναικῶν,
πάντων, οὕνεκ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἦλθες ἀλώμενος, ἀλλὰ σιωπῇ
πάσχειν ἄλγεα πολλά, βίας ὑποδέγμενος ἀνδρῶν. } [8]
Men today must learn from medieval women. More culturally advanced persons fight with words, just like Rose and Lily did. The shift from physical fighting to verbal fighting increases women’s structural advantages under gynocentrism. That makes affirmative action to promote humanistic education for men and stimulus to overcome the gender droop in the awarding of graduate humanistic degrees vital matters of social justice. Without such action, humane society will not flourish and be fruitful.
* * * * *
Read more:
- how Homer and Hesiod used gender in hawk-dove metaphors
- Waltharius to Aymeri: how to end epic violence against men
- Tityrus the bellwether in the terrible ram vision of Sedulius Scottus
Notes:
[1] Homer, Iliad 20.198, ancient Greek text from Murray (1925), English translation (modified insubstantially) from Hesk (2006) p. 16. Iliad 20.196-8 repeats Iliad 17.30-2 (Menelaus in flyting with Euphorbus about possession of Patroclus’s dead body).
Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent quotes from the Iliad similarly have Greek text from Murray (1925). Perseus has freely available online the Greek text of the Oxford Iliad edition (1920).
Influential English translations of the Iliad by George Chapman (1616) and by Alexander Pope (1725) are freely available through Project Gutenberg.
[2] Iliad 20.200-2, English translation (modified slightly) from Murray (1925). Above I use αἴσυλα rather than αἴσιμα in v. 202. That follows the manuscript reading, the Greek texts of Oxford (1920) and Nagy (1997) 15§6, and seems to me to make better sense. The subsequent quote is from Iliad 20.203-7, with English translation from Murray (1925), modified insubstantially.
[3] Iliad 20.244-50, my English translation, benefiting from those of Murray (1925), Hesk (2006) p. 27, Lattimore (1951) via Lentini (2013) §4, and Nagy (1999) 15§8. The subsequent quote above is from Iliad 20.251-8 and is similarly sourced.
In flyting with Achilles, Aeneas also refers to talking like a child in v. 20.200, 211. Cf. Idomeneus to Meriones with respect to their comradely boasting of fighting prowess, Iliad 13.292-3.
[4] Scholars have foolishly followed Aeneas in uncritically trivializing women’s flyting. Hesk declared:
Alongside his repetition of the idea that flyting is childish, Aeneas makes the additional suggestion that flyting is an unmanly activity. If you flyte too much or for too long, you are going to sound like women having a slanging match in the street (251-55). This analogy is striking because it indirectly feminizes Achilles’ love of neikos and eris. Thus, Achilles is being insulted by Aeneas, albeit indirectly. And while heroes several times reproach each other for ‘girlish’ behaviour, no other speaker in the Iliad comes close to making this extended comparison between heroic neikos and the wrangling of women. Aeneas is being innovative again.
Hesk (2006) p. 28 (footnote omitted). Aeneas is being innovative only in the sense of explicitly expressing a prevalent delusion of men:
Even women and children can quarrel, but only heroes can fight — a sentiment that reaffirms one of the central tenets of the heroic code.
Parks (1990) p. 124. Scholars have mis-interpreted women’s flyting to be merely a playful activity:
Aineias, however, seems to suggest that the ritual character of flyting may turn it into a ludic activity, or, at least, may weaken the aggressive charge of the insults, as Aineias’ simile describing a quarrel taking place among women suggests.
Lentini (2013) §4.
Achilles apparently was more perceptive than modern classical scholars. Distraught that Hector had killed Patroclus and lamenting that he could gain no advantage other than in violence against men, Achillles lamented his verbal incapability to his mother Thetis:
I am such as none else among the bronze-clad Achaeans
in war, but in marketplace wrangling others are truly better.{ τοῖος ἐὼν οἷος οὔ τις Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
ἐν πολέμῳ· ἀγορῇ δέ τ᾿ ἀμείνονές εἰσι καὶ ἄλλοι. }
Iliad, 18.105-6, my English translation, benefiting from that of Murray (1925) and Fagles (1990). I’ve translated ᾰ̓γορᾱ́ contextually as “marketplace wrangling”; the word encompasses both the assembly and the marketplace. In context it implies a “war of words,” a phrase that Fagles used in his translation. Murray used “counsel” with implicit reference to being in the assembly. Achilles, however, understood the power of women’s words. When he was a young man, Achilles’s mother Thetis persuaded him to pretend to be a girl.
[5] Sedulius Scottus, incipit “The cycles of the seasons were running their four-fold course {Cyclica quadrifidis currebant tempora metis}” (commonly titled “About the strife of the rose and the lily {De rosae liliique certamine}”) st. 2, Latin text from Godman (1985) pp. 282-5, my English translation, benefiting from those of id. and Rand (1926) pp. 254-5. Subsequent quotes are seriatim from this poem and are similarly sourced. The Dante Medieval Archive provides an online Latin text of “Cyclica quadrifidis currebant tempora metis.” Sedulius Scottus was a ninth-century Irish monk and scholar who spent time on continental Europe, including in Liège.
The anonymous twelfth-century Latin poem with incipit “Once a certain topic I was reflecting upon in my mind {Dum quandam materiam mente meditarer}” (commonly titled “Contest of the Rose and the Violet”) is a later example of a flower debate poem. For full Latin text, Tobler (1893). Raby (1959) pp. 316-7 (no. 210) is an abbreviated version.
Bonvensin da la Riva, the leading figure of thirteenth-century Lombardian literature, wrote in the Milanese vernacular in the 1270s a poem entitled in Latin “The debate of the rose with the violet {Disputatio rose cum viola}.” A source for Dante, Bonvensin also wrote Book of the Three Scriptures {Libro delle tre scritture} (1274), with About black scripture {De scriptura nigra}, About red scripture {De scriptura rubra}, and About Golden scripture {De scriptura aurea} describing 12 punishments in Hell, Christ’s passion, and 12 glories in Heaven, respectively. On Bonvensin de la Riva, Kleinhenz (2004) vol. 1, pp. 145-7.
Both the rose and the lily have long been favored flowers in Christian tradition. The Song of Solomon associates the lily with beauty. Song of Solomon 2:1-2. Jesus praised the beauty of lilies. Luke 12:27. By the fourth century, red roses were associated with Christian martyrdom, and Heaven with a garden of roses. Seward (1955) p. 516. Heralding the arrival of Beatrice and the departure of Virgil in Dante’s Purgatory, a choir of a hundred angels sings:
“Blessed are you who come,” they said, and all
above and round with flowers they strewed the way,
saying, “Oh give the lilies with full hands!”{ Tutti dicean: “Benedictus qui venis!”
e fior gittando e di sopra e dintorno,
“Manibus, oh, date lilïa plenis!” }
Dante, Purgatory {Purgatorio} 30.19-21, Italian text and English translation from Esolen (2004b). Cf. Mark 11:8-10 (entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem). Here lilies replace the cloaks and leafy branches spread for Jesus’s path into Jerusalem. Dante also rewrites Virgil’s Aeneid 7.883 (cf. Purgatorio 30.21) from a mournful lament to a cry of celebration. Guiding Dante through Heaven, Beatrice instructed:
Here is the rose wherein the Word divine
was made incarnate, here the lilies blow
whose fragrance leads men on the righteous way.{ Quivi è la rosa in che ’l verbo divino
carne si fece; quivi son li gigli
al cui odor si prese il buon cammino. }
Dante, Paradise {Paradiso} 23.73-5, Italian text and English translation from Esolen (2004a). The rose refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the lilies to the apostles. Paradiso 31.112-26 describes the heavenly, eternal rose. In Siena in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, an additional six verses of terza rima were added to Simone Martini’s Maestà fresco. The first two of these verses recognized the exalted status of the rose and the lily:
The angelic flowers, the rose and the lily
with which the heavenly field is adorned
do not delight me more than good counsel{ Li angelichi fiorecti, rose e gigli,
onde s’adorna lo celeste prato,
non mi dilettan più ch i buon’ consigli. }
Inscribed verses under the Madonna’s throne in Simone Martini’s Maestà, Italian text and English translation from Jacoff (2009) p. S90.
[6] I’ve translated Phoebus, an epithet for Apollo, as “bright Apollo,” and in conjunction with the adjective rutilus {yellowish red} “bright-red Apollo.” Rand reads Rose to be suggesting that Lily is getting old, and Lily to be “getting exceeding mad” at that insinuation. Rand (1926) p. 254. The insinuation of old age comes in contrast to diction alluding to sexual vitality. Rose is declaring that handsome Apollo loves her more passionately than Apollo loves Lily. Cf. Burt (2014) p. 214, which interprets Rose to be declaring that she is “sister of Aurora and Phoebus.” Phoebus is Apollo, and Rose is his sister only in the medieval sense of lover.
[7] Sedulius uses the plural noun lilia {lilies} to refer to Lily, the twin of Rose. I’ve translated that plural form as the singular name Lily in accordance with the overall sense of the poem.
Father Spring artfully and irenically conflates among his daughters the claimed honors. He gives Lily the royal scepter that Rose claimed in stanza 2. In European literary tradition, white is typically associated with modesty / virginity and purple with passion. But Father associates his purple daughter Rose with modesty. Rose describes Apollo as being bright red, but Father associates Apollo with his white daughter Lily.
A nature debate in Greek from the third century BGC, Callimachus’s Iamb 4, has a bramble bush as an external, conciliatory party. Konstan & Landry (2008) identify the bramble bush with Callimachus’s father. He had at least two children, Callimachus and a daughter Megatime. Sedulius Scottus knew Greek; whether he read Callimachus isn’t known.
Sedulius’s De rosae liliique certamine displays considerable learning in classical Latin literature. Burt stated:
Within “About the Contest of the Rose and the Lily” Scottus uses parallels with the Aeneid, Georgics and Eclogues. For example, the first line spoken by the Rose states, “Purple gives royal power, purple becomes the glory of the kingdom” (ll.5), which reflects the phrases ‘purple of kings’ and ‘painted purple moves not the king’ from the Georgics 2.495 and Aeneid 7.251-252 respectively. Later, the Rose claims, “And Phoebus loves me, I am the messenger of rosy Phoebus” (ll.14), which echoes Aeneid 3.119 and Eclogue 3.62.
Burt (2014) p. 58. Godman detects additional parallels to Virgil’s Eclogues, as well as a parallel to Venantius Fortunatus, Carm. 8.16.3. Godman (1985) pp. 283-5, notes, esp. note to v. 8 (parallel to Fortunatus).
De rosae liliique certamine is a sophisticated, “adult” poem. Godman describes it as a “lighter conception of the idyll”; “a comedy of manners.” Godman (1985) pp. 282-3, introductory note; id. p. 54. That reading isn’t consistent with the viciousness of the flyting. According to Burt, “the quarrel takes on the appearance of a dialectical school exercise.” Burt (2014) p. 62. The poem is far more sophisticated in its gender understanding, allusive language, and relation to the epic tradition than a mere school exercise.
[8] Homer, Odyssey 13.307-10, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Murray (1919). The goddess Athena urged Odysseus to give up crafty words. Odyssey 13.291-96. That’s bad advice. Men need to acquire more guile to achieve gender equality. Men must truly swerve.
Barker perceptively observed:
experiencing debate in the Iliad helps construct an audience engaged in thinking about how people interact with each other in the context of an arena in which public concerns are raised and contested. By establishing a place in its narrative to investigate debate, the Iliad invites the audience to reflect on where they are going to draw the lines, over what they will enter the debate. We are invited to look beyond the single (imagined or real) performance context to an Iliad that operates as aetiological — or foundational — for a world of ‘today’.
Barker (2004) p. 117. Classicists should take Barker’s observations to heart in addressing epic violence against men in the Iliad and in the world today.
[images] (1) Serbian soldier and his father rest after duty in the trenches near Belgrade during World War I. Image widely available on the Internet, authorial source unclear. (2) Purple rose. Source image thanks to Jon Bragg and Wikimedia Commons. (3) White Lily. Photo made on 14 July 2012 at Main Botanical Garden of Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Photo thanks to Андрей Корзун (Kor!An) and Wikimedia Commons.
References:
Barker, Elton. 2004. “Achilles’ last stand: Institutionalising dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society. 50: 92-120.
Burt, Kathleen R. 2014. Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts. Paper 366. Ph.D. Thesis, Marquette University. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Esolen, Anthony M., trans. 2004a. Dante Alighieri. Paradise. New York: Modern Library.
Esolen, Anthony M., trans. 2004b. Dante Alighieri. Purgatory. New York: Modern Library.
Fagles, Robert, trans. and Bernard Knox, intro. and notes. 1990. The Iliad. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking.
Godman, Peter. 1985. Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance. London: Duckworth.
Hesk, Jon. 2006. “Homeric Flyting and How to Read It: Performance and Intratext in Iliad 20.83-109 and 20.178-258.” Ramus. 35 (1): 4-28 (cited to pp. 1-37 in online edition).
Jacoff, Rachel. 2009. ‘“Diligite iustitiam”: Loving Justice in Siena and Dante’s Paradiso.’ Issue in honor of John Freccero: Fifty Years with Dante and Italian Literature. MLN. 124 (5): S81-S95.
Kleinhenz, Christopher. 2004. Medieval Italy: an Encyclopedia. New York, London: Garland.
Konstan, David, and Leo Landrey. 2008. “Callimachus and the Bush in Iamb 4.” Classical World. 102 (1): 47-49.
Lentini, Giuseppe. 2013. “The Pragmatics of Verbal Abuse in Homer.” In Håkan Tell, ed. Classics@11: The Rhetoric of Abuse in Greek Literature. Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University.
Murray, A. T., ed. and trans., revised by George E. Dimock. 1919. Homer. Odyssey. Loeb Classical Library 105. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Murray, A. T., ed. and trans., revised by William F. Wyatt. 1925. Homer. Iliad. Loeb Classical Library 171. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nagy, Gregory. 1999. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Rev. ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Parks, Ward. 1990. Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative: The Homeric and Old English Traditions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Raby, Frederic James Edward. 1959. The Oxford Book of Medieval Latin Verse. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rand, Edward Kennard. 1926. “Mediaeval Gloom and Mediaeval Uniformity.” Presidential address to the Medieval Academy of America, April 24, 1926. Speculum. 1 (3): 253-268.
Seward, Barbara. 1955. “Dante’s Mystic Rose.” Studies in Philology. 52 (4): 515-523.
Tobler, Adolf. 1893. “Streit zwischen Veilchen und Rose.” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen. 90: 152-158.
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