Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

A Dictionary of Allegorical Meanings

H. David Brumble

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN:
  9781579580209
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136797378
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

While numerous classical dictionaries identify the figures and tales of Greek and Roman mythology, this reference book explains the allegorical significance attached to the myths by Medieval and Renaissance authors. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries for the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and places of classical myth a

The Dictionary

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ACHILLES was the son of Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis. He was the greatest of the Greek warriors, according to Homer’s Iliad (see also Ovid, Metamorphoses: 12, 13; Statius, Achilleid, and this poem’s medieval commentaries listed in Clogan 1968; Hyginus, Fabulae: 96, 101, 106, 107, 112). Sometimes Medieval and Renaissance poets also remembered him as an exemplum of valor. Here is Sidney, for example: “See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulisses and Diomedes, valure in Achilles…even to an ignorant man carry not an apparant shining” (Defense of Poesy: 15; see also Tritonio, Mythologia: 22).

With the rise of Renaissance Neo-Platonism, Achilles sometimes served as an example of Platonic love/friendship because of his devotion to Patroclus. Ficino (Commentary on Plato’s Symposium: 1.4) mentions him in this sense, as do Brant (Ship of Fools: 10) and Spenser (“Hymne of Love”: 232); and in a masque staged for Elizabeth in 1594 there was “erected an altar to the Goddess of Amity….Then issued forth…the first pair of friends, which were Theseus and Perithous; they came arm in arm….Then likewise came Achilles and Patroclus” (in Nichols 1823, vol. 3: 281).

But more commonly Achilles was interpreted in one way or another as a negative example (for more on Renaissance ambivalence toward Achilles, see Briggs 1981). Sometimes he was an example of wrath. Thus Erasmus wrote that Achilles was “shamefully overcome by anger” (Enchiridion: 44). And here is Ross: “a Souldier…must be heated by Choler as Achilles was by Fire, but too much Choler is naught, as it was in Achilles, who by it did undo his Country” (Mystagogus Poeticus: 1). But Achilles was also known to have had his troubles with the venerian passions. He was often interpreted as a figure for lust during the Middle Ages (King 1987: 171-217). His sojourn in the court of Lycomedes (where his mother disguised him as a girl to prevent his going to war at Troy) was seen as a perversion of nature: manly virtue succumbing to womanly passions (for male/female allegory, see AMAZONS). The court of Lycomedes was “the kingdom of lust,” according to Fulgentius (Mythologies: 3.7; see also Alanus, Complaint of Nature: mt. 1; Anticlaudian: 9.5). Achilles was consequently often mentioned as a de casibus love figure; he was a great hero who fell because of his love or lust for Priam’s daughter Polyxena, for whom he was lured inside the walls of Troy, where he was shot in the heel by Paris (e.g., Petrarch, Rime: 391-392). In another version of the story, he suffers because of his love for the Amazon Pentheseleia. Dante thus places Achilles among the lustful in the Inferno (5.65), and Chaucer includes Achilles among the profane lovers pictured on the walls of the Temple of Brass (Parliament of Fowls: 290). Ross also mentions Achilles as a de casibus love figure (Mystagogus Poeticus: 3).

Spenser has a related tradition in mind when he has Cupid shoot an arrow into Thomalin’s heel (Shepheardes Calender: March, 95-100; see Nohrnberg 1976: 587-588). Spenser’s poem was published with glosses by a certain “E. K.,” whose gloss on these lines summarizes the main lines of the interpretative tradition:

in Homer it is sayd of Thetis, that shee tooke her young babe Achilles being newely borne, and holding him by the heele, dipped him in the River of Styx. The vertue whereof is, to defend and keepe the bodyes washed therein from any mortall wound. So Achilles being washed all over, save onely his hele, by which his mother held, was in the rest invulnerable: therefore by Paris was feyned to be shotte with a poysoned arrowe in the heele, whiles he was busie about the marying of Polyxena in the temple of Apollo. Which mystical fable Eustathius vnfolding, sayth: that by wounding in the hele, is meant lustfull love. For from the heele…to the privie partes there passe certaine veines and slender synnewes, as also the lyke come from the head…so that…yf those veynes there be cut a sonder, the partie straighte becommeth cold and unfruitful.

E. K. cites Eustathius’s twelfth-century commentary on Homer, but he could have found the same interpretation in Fulgentius (Mythologies: 3.7), Vatican Mythographer II (208), Vatican Mythographer III (11.24), Boccaccio (Genealogie Deorum: 12.52), Conti (Mythologie: 9.12), and others. Later, Fraunce (Countesse of Pembrokes Yvychurch: 47v), Valeriano (Hieroglyphica: 367), and Sandys (Ovid: 567-568) wrote in the same vein.

Shakespeare suspected something sexual (and thus unseemly) in Achilles’ love for Patroclus: thus in Troilus and Cressida Patroclus is Achilles’ “masculine whore” (5.1.17; see also 2.1.114).

Bernardus understood Achilles to be a figure for mankind, because, according to Bernardus’s etymology, Achilles meant “joyless hardship” (On Martianus Capella: 6.668).

For the education of Achilles, see CHIRON.

Bibliography: John C. Briggs, “Chapman’s Seaven Bookes of the Iliades: Mirror for Essex,” SEL, 21 (1981): 59-73; Paul M. Clogan, The Medieval Achilleid of Statius (1968); Katherine C. King, Achilles: Paradigms of the War Hero from Homer to the Middle Ages (1987); John Nichols, The Progresses and Public…Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 3 vols. (1823); James Nohrnberg, The Analogy of The Faerie Queene (1976).

ACTAEON, son of Aristaeus and Autonoe and grandson of Cadmus, was out hunting when he happened upon Diana bathing in a stream (Ovid, Metamorphoses: 3.173-252; Apollodorus, Library: 3.4.4; Hyginus, Fabulae: 180-181). Angry at being so discovered, Diana changed Actaeon into a stag. He was then set upon and killed by his own hounds. Fraunce suggests two allegorical interpretations, first that

we ought not to be over curious and inquisitive in spying and prying into those matters, which be above our reache….Or lastly, thus, a wiseman ought to refraine his eyes, from beholding sensible and corporall bewty, figured by Diana: least, as Actaeon was devoured of his owne doggs, so he be distracted and torne in peeces with his own affections, and perturbations. (Countesse of Pembrokes Yvychurch: 43r)

The first interpretation, that the story is a warning against curiosity as to the mysteries, was not unusual (see, e.g, Fulgentius, Mythologies: 3.3; Conti, Mythologie: 6.25; Dinet, Hieroglyphiques: 389; Viana, Ovidio: 2.8; Sandys, Ovid: 151; and Ross, Mystagogus Poeticus: 7). But more common was the second allegorization: Actaeon exemplified the self-destructive consequences of the loss of rational control over the passions. We find this interpretation, with some variations, in Vatican Mythographer III (7.3), the Ovide Moralisé (3.571-603), Conti (Mythologie: 6.25), Golding (“Epistle”: 96-102), Dinet (Hieroglyphiques: 390), and Ross (Mystagogus Poeticus: 7). Elizabethan painters also made use of this allegory (Evett 1989), as did Dutch painters from the same period (Blankert et al.: 58-59). Whitney makes explicit the idea of bestiality, which is often at least implicit in other versions of this interpretation (see Appendix B, “Bestialization”). According to Whitney, the story means

That those whoe do pursue

Their fancies fonde, and things unlawfull crave,

Like brutishe beastes appeare unto the viewe,

And shall at lengthe, Actaeons guerdon have:

And as his houndes, soe theire affections base,

Shall them devoure, and all their deedes deface.

(Choice Book of Emblemes: 15)

Shakespeare refers to this allegory when Duke Orsino recalls the first time he saw the lovely Olivia:

That instant was I turn’d into a hart,

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

E’er since pursue me.

(Twelfth Night: 1.1.20-22)

Boccaccio’s Diana’s Hunt is a self-conscious reversal of this allegory: The lover begins as a stag and is then hunted by the virtuous Diana and her votaries, in something like the way Dante was hunted and spiritually transformed by Beatrice (e.g., Barkan 1986: 153). Thus Boccaccio is “changed beyond doubt from a stag into a human being and a rational creature” (Diana’s Hunt: 18.11-12).

Petrarch likens himself to Actaeon, transformed as he has been by his love for his insistently chaste Laura (Rime sparse: 23.147-160). This became a staple of Petrarchan love poetry (Murphey 1991).

Occasionally Actaeon was a figure for the persecuted Christ. Berchorius (following the Ovide Moralisé: 3.604-669) offers this as one of his interpretations: Actaeon, killed by his own dogs, “signifies the son of God who with his companions—that is the patriarchs and prophets—ruled many dogs—that is the Jewish people who were especially able to be called dogs because of their raging cruelty” (Ovidius Moralizatus: 185).

For more on the moral allegory of hunting, see ADONIS.

Bibliography: Leonard Barkan, “Diana and Actaeon: The Myth as Synthesis,” ELR, 10 (1980): 317-359; Barkan, The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism (1986); Albert Blankert et al., Gods, Saints, and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt (1980); Walter R. Davis, “Actaeon in Arcadia,” SEL, 2 (1962): 95-110; David Evett, “Some Elizabethan Allegorical Paintings: A Preliminary Inquiry,” JWCI, 52 (1989): 140-166; Stephen Murphey, “The Death of Actaeon as Petrarchist Topos,” CLS, 28 (1991): 137-153; Peggy Muñoz Simonds, Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (1992): 103-108.

ADMETUS AND ALCESTE. Admetus was the king of Pherae in Thessaly and one of the Argonauts. Apollo served as his shepherd for a time; the reasons for this vary from version to version, but in some versions Apollo serves because of Admetus’s remarkable piety. Certainly he was a favorite of Apollo: Apollo helped him win his wife Alceste and even promised to release Admetus from death, if someone could be found who would be willing to die in his place. When eventually Admetus did fall deathly ill, Alceste volunteered to die for him. She was in turn rescued forth from Hades, by Proserpina in some versions of the story, by Hercules in others (following Euripides, Alcestis, and Fulgentius, Mythologies: 1.22). Plato mentions Alceste as an example of the power of love (Symposium: 179b-c). Jerome included her in his short list of virtuous wives (Dialogue against Jovinianus: 1.45). And here is Berchorius:

because Alceste…loved her husband, she subjected herself to death for him and descended to hell in his place. Afterwards, when Hercules went down to hell to bring back the dog Cerberus, he found her and moved by her virtue took her out and led her back to life.

Allegorize this about the affection of good women who love their husbands so much that for love of them they want to expose themselves to death if it be necessary. They are worthy to have Hercules—that is Christ—draw them out of hell—that is purgatory—and lead them with Him to glory. (Ovidius Moralizatus: 118)

Lydgate also refers to her as a self-sacrificing wife (Reson and Sensuallyte: 6828-6836); and we find her listed in catalogues of good wives: in Chaucer (Legend of Good Women: 203-223; “Franklin’s Tale”: 1442), for example, and Gower (Confessio Amantis: 7.1917-1949; 8.2640-2646); see also Pettie (Petite Pallace: 146). Shakespeare probably has the rescue of Alceste in mind in the “resurrection” scene of The Winter’s Tale (Simonds 1992: 56). And Milton speaks of his own deceased wife, his “late espoused Saint,” as an Alceste (“Sonnet 23”).

In another story, in order to win Alceste to wife, Admetus was required to yoke to his chariot “two different and incompatible wild beasts.” He managed this with the help of Apollo and Hercules, who brought him a wild boar and a lion to join under the yoke (Philostratus, Images: 710). According to Philostratus (and his source, Fulgentius, Mythologies: 1.22), the two beasts may be interpreted as the strength of mind and body. Clearly, these beasts had to be controlled, and so the story could be interpreted as an allegory for self-control. Thus it was that Admetus driving his yoked beasts was carved in stone over the seventeenth-century gateway of the Amsterdam House of Corrections (Langley 1990: 184).

Bibliography: T. R. Langley, “All Steened Up,” CR, 19 (1990): 183-197; Peggy Muñoz Simonds, Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (1992); DeWitt T. Starnes and E. W. Talbert, Classical Myth and Legend in Renaissance Dictionaries (1955): 40-41.

ADONIS was the son of Myrrha’s incestuous union with her father Cinyras. He grew to be a boy of such surpassing beauty that Venus fell in love with him (Ovid, Metamorphoses: 10.519-559, 708-739; Apollodorus, Library: 3.14.3-4; Hyginus, Fabulae: 58, 248, 251). Fraunce provides two interpretations, the first nature allegory, the second moral allegory:

Now, for Venus, her love to Adonis, and lamentation for his death: by Adonis, is meant the sunne, by Venus, the upper hemisphere of the earth (as by Proserpina the lower) by the boare, winter: by the death of Adonis, the absence of the sunne for the sixe wintrie moneths; all which time, the earth lamenteth: Adonis is wounded in those parts, which are the instruments of propagation: for. in winter the son seemeth impo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• The Dictionary
• Appendix A: Music
• Appendix B: Bestialization
• Appendix C: Envying the Animals
• Annotated Bibliography of Primary Sources
• Bibliography of Secondary Sources
• Index
• Photo essay appears following page 203.
• About the Authors