The group of romans antiques comprises the romans of Thèbes, Eneas, Troie and Alexandre, and the poems of Piramus et Tisbé and Narcisus. These works have two points in common: they all deal with material from Greek or Roman antiquity, and they all fall within the twelfth century. Jones studies the way in which the love theme has been treated in each of these works, the draws together the separate threads to see if it is possible to define a concept of love which may be common to all the romans antiques.
This book, originally published in 1972 and later given the ISBN 978-1-905981-23-6, was made Open Access in 2024 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.
The study pursues two main lines of enquiry. Each work is the subject of a separate chapter, which analyses the way in which the love theme or themes have been treated and these analyses are followed by a chapter which tries to draw together the separate threads and to see if it is possible to define a concept of love which may be common to all the romans antiques or to some of them. The findings of this chapter have then been extended to a comparison with the theme of love as treated by Marie de France in the Lais and by Chrétien de Troyes, in works which are presumed to have been written at a slightly later date than most of the romans antiques themselves.
The work of the French author of Piramus et Tisbé, adapted from the story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, is essentially a work of amplification. On the basis of the 111 lines which the story of Pyramus and Thisbe occupies in the Metamorphoses, the author has constructed a much longer poem of 921 lines. Examination of the two texts reveals a very striking adhesion to the general lines of Ovid's account.
In the case of Narcisus, as with Piramus et Tisbé, a useful starting-point is a comparison with the French author's source, the account of the story of Narcisus given by Ovid in order to ascertain first what elements in the Latin do not figure in the French. The mythological element has been cut down considerably. There is no mention of the nymph Liriope; Narcisus's mother is simply 'une dame de la cité' (47). The nymph Echo has become the princess Dané and in consequence there is no reference to Juno's depriving Echo of the power of voluntary speech. The goddess Nemesis is replaced by Venus, the reference to Bacchus and Apollo in line 421 of the Latin is absent from the French, and the French account ends with the death of Narcisus and Dané, thus omitting any mention of Narcisus's descent into the infernal abodes, his naiad sisters, or the funeral pyre. Nor, in the French, does Narcisus become the flower which bears his name. Besides the mythological aspect, the very slight homosexual element which appears in the Latin is very carefully treated in the French.
The love interest in the Roman de Thebes is divided among the couples Laius and Jocasta, Oedipus and Jocasta, Polynices and Argia, Tydeus and Deipyle, Parthenopeus and Antigone, Atys and Ismene, Etiocles and Salemandre, Lycurgus and Eurydice and Dare le Roux and his wife. These last two couples may in fact be discounted for the purposes of this study, since there is in their case no mention of a love relationship.
The Roman d'Eneas presents two love relationships: between Eneas and Dido, and between Eneas and Lavine. It is well known that in the depiction of the first the poet followed fairly closely the account in the Aeneid, supplementing this with elements drawn from his knowledge of Ovid. In fact, the whole basis of the story comes from Virgil: the Trojans arrive in Libya, and Dido, queen of Carthage, welcomes them to her city. By kissing Ascanius, whom Venus has invested with a special power, Dido burns with passion for Aeneas, a passion which is consummated while she and the Trojan, out hunting, take refuge in a cave from a storm. They spend the winter in Carthage together, until a message comes to Aeneas that he must leave Africa and make his way to Italy. Dido, hearing of his imminent departure, vainly tries to persuade him to stay at least until the winter is past. When he sets sail with his followers she kills herself, and their last meeting takes place in the underworld when Aeneas is on his way to see his father Anchises.
In the Roman de Troie Benoît de Sainte-Maure uses the episode of Jason and Medea to set the scene; both militarily, as it foreshadows the subsequent destruction of Troy, and psychologically, as it forms the first of the four love-stories in this work. The question of Benoit's sources for this episode has not, however, been considered in detail. Constans has commented: 'Benoît, il est vrai, a pu trouver quelques détails dans Ovide, Métam., VIl. init. et Her., XII, mais les différences et les particularités sont si nombreuses, tout en conservant un caractère antique, qu'il vaut mieux admettre soit un récit romanesque de 'expédition des Argonautes, comme le veut Koerting, soit, plus simplement, un Darès développé ayant utilisé une oeuvre de ce genre', and Dr Lumiansky suggests that Benoit was indebted to a source, probably Ovid, for his treatment of this episode, but he does not specify further.
The version of the Roman d'Alexandre followed in this study is that of Alexandre de Paris of c.1185. In this work, however, it is imperative to distinguish on the one hand the additions to the source made by Alexandre de Paris and on the other the inventions of Lambert le Tort. In both cases the line references given refer to the Alexandre de Paris version.
In the preceding chapters particular concepts have been dealt with as they occurred in the texts, with occasional reference to similar ideas appearing in other works. The aim of this chapter is a restatement of these concepts in order to point to some of the affinities and divergencies in the theme of love as shown in the different romans d'Antiquité.
Ovidian description in the Lais is seen to any extent in only three: Equitan (54 64, and Equitan's monologue, lines 65-100), Guigemar (379-84, 390-2, 393-426 476, 483-6, 499 and 501-4), and Eliduc (304-6, 315, 331-2, 341-2, 387-401 and 458-462). Levi and Hoepffner have pointed out similarities and, in some cases, identity of language with that used in Eneas, and Camilla Conigliani has touched on some of the affinities of the Lais with Thebes and Troie. Where these references relate to the love situation, they apply not to the concept of love which emerges, but simply to the way in which the lovers express themselves and the effects love has on them. Hoepffner remarks that this particular vocabulary is only found in the first part of the Lais." This, however, is hardly surprising, since the Ovidian "stock in trade" of which the poet or poetess makes use applies only to the actual falling in love of the lovers and their initial doubts and fears. In the same way, when Marie does not make use of this vocabulary in certain lais, this does not necessarily mean, as Hoepffner suggests, that these lais were written before Marie had knowledge of the technique used in the Eneas, but simply that the situation in those lais does not call for this type of development. Thus Marie's use of Ovidian language is similar to that of the authors of the romans antiques, with the exception of Thèbes and Alexandre: to express the effects of love in the first stages of a relationship.
This title is distributed on behalf of MHRA by Ingram’s. Booksellers and libraries can order direct from Ingram by setting up an ipage Account: click here for more.
