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Romantic Paradises : The Rôle of the Garden in the Byzantine Romance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

A. R. Littlewood
A. R. Littlewood*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Extract

Ekphraseis of gardens occur in only two of the five extant classical romances, those of Achilleus Tatios and of Longos, but in Byzantine romances they are almost de rigeur: indeed of the only three that eschew the theme two, Phlorios and Platziaphlore and Imberios and Margarona, are basically Frankish rather than Byzantine while the third, Theodore Prodromos’ Rhodanthe and Dosikles, closely follows Heliodoros’ Aithiopika, a classical romance that does not contain a description of a garden.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 5 , 1979 , pp. 95 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1979

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References

1. They are variously termed but in all instances the description of the contents belongs to the same tradition. In all but one instance (see below, p. 107) refers not to an open but to an enclosed garden-like meadow.

2. If this indeed be the name of the author of Daphnis and Chloë (see Dalmeyda, G., Longos: Pastorales (Daphnis et Chloé) 2nd ed. [Paris, 1960], pp. xif.).Google Scholar

3. References to all the ekphraseis may be found in the appendix. Those in the romantic epics, Nonnos’ Dionysiaka, Basil Digenis Akritas and the Byzantine Achilleϊs, are included, but that of Meliteniotes’ Sophrosyne, a singularly unromantic work, is omitted from the series, since, although the actual description of the garden is in the tradition, the purpose of the whole work is alien to that of the others.

4. It is not known whether or not the now fragmentary romance of Constantine Manasses contained an ekphrasis of a garden (for a possible clue see below, pp. 122f.).

5. Heliodoros was once believed to be a Byzantine bishop (and so still Nicol, D. M., ‘in the fifth century Heliodorus, Bishop of Trikkala, made a name for himself as the first Christian to write a love story’, Meteora, rev. ed. [London 1975], p. 47)Google Scholar on the basis of Sokrates, Eccl. Hist. 5.22, but he is now generally stripped of rank and religion (Achilleus Tatios also was once thus elevated). His date is third or, more likely, fourth century (see Keydell, R., ‘Zur Datierung der Aidiiopika Heliodors’, in Polychronion: Festschrift Fr. Döger, ed. Wirth, P. [Heidelberg, 1966], pp. 345-50).Google Scholar

6. See in particular, Chalk, H. H. O., ‘Eros and the Lesbian Pastorals of Longus’, JHS, LXXX (1960), 32-51 Google Scholar and Forehand, W. E., ‘Symbolic Gardens in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, Eranos, LXXIV (1976), 103-12.Google Scholar

7. Despite the traditional contumely for especially the learned Byzantine romance there is recent evidence for a more sensitive and sympathetic understanding of these works in which even the ekphrasis is partly rehabilitated (see Alexiou, M., ‘A Critical Reappraisal of Eustathios Makrembolites’ Hysmine and Hysminias’, BMGS, III [1977], 24).Google Scholar

8. The development of the tradition of the ekphrasis and the influence upon it of rhetorical dieory were extensively explored by O. Schissel, Der byzantinische Garten [Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 221.2, 1942).

9. Piehler, P., The Visionary Landscape: a Study in Medieval Allegory (Montreal, 1971), p. 71.Google Scholar

10. The outstanding example is the Ninth Similitude of the Shepherd of Hermas, wherein twelve spiritual states are allegorized by the different topographies of twelve mountains.

11. The Allegory of Love: a Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford, 1936), p. 120.

12. Achilleus Tatios II, Digenis Akritas I, II, Eustathios Makrembolites, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoë III, Belthandros and Chrysantza II, Byzantine Achilleϊs (Roman numerals refer to those given in the Appendix). In the first of these love-making is restricted to an erotic discourse sympathetically received.

13. Achilleus Tatios I.

14. Eustathios Makrembolites, Belthandros and Chrysantza I, Libistros and Rhodamne I, II.

15. Byzantine Achilleϊs.

16. Libistros and Rhodamne III.

17. Longos I, Eustathios Makrembolites, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoë III, Belthandros and Chrysantza I, Libistros and Rhodamne I, II, Byzantine Achilleϊs.

18. Longos II, Niketas Eugenianos.

19. See below, pp. 100-7.

20. For the important rôle of the wall see below, p. 107.

21. 3.1-2. A splendid example occurs in the cycle of the Life of the Virgin in the narthex of Kariye Djami ( Underwood, P. A., The Kariye Djami, II [Bollingen Series no. LXX, New York, 1966], plates 92-5).Google Scholar

22. In the Byzantine Achilleϊs we learn that the heroine’s father constructed the garden specifically for her private enjoyment (cod. Neap. 709-11). That of Belthandros and Chrysantza II also belongs to the heroine.

23. In the Palaiologan romances the ekphrasis of the garden often merges into one of the associated buildings to form a composite setting of beauty for the girl.

24. Even in Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoë the gardens of the Dragon’s castle serve as natural settings rather for beautiful girl than for ugly monster.

25. Frag. 39 (Mueller, F.H.G. II, pp. 315f.) apud Athen. 12.553e-554b. Klearchos ponders why lovers carry ripe fruits and beautiful flowers: he concludes by asking,

26. Even earlier than Theophilos these mechanical toys appear in Nonnos (3.169-79). The palm in this respect is earned by Eusthathios Makrembolites (1.5.1-8) for his fountain wherein an eagle on a shell of Thessalian marble balanced upon a pillar squirts water onto his wings, while below a goat drinks as a goatherd milks her, a hare washes his chin with a jet of water and various birds, all man-made like the other creatures, disport diemselves around the pool.

27. Pavlovskis, Z., Man in an Artificial Landscape: the Marvels of Civilization in Imperial Roman Literature (Mnemosyne Suppl. XXV, Leiden, 1973).Google Scholar

28. This is well illustrated by Schissel, op. cit. (n. 8). I know of no thorough study of the Byzantine garden, but see Gothein, M. L., Geschichte der Gartenskunst, I (Jena, 1926), cap. 5 Google Scholar. Some relevant information with a bearing on Byzantium may be found in Curtis, E. R., Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern, 1948), cap. 1O Google Scholar, Motte, A., Prairies et Jardins de la Grèce antique (Académie Royale de Belgique, Mémoires de la Classe des Lettres LXI.5, Brussels, 1973) and The Islamic Garden, ed. MacDougall, E. B. and Ettinghausen, R. (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, IV [Washington, D.C., 1976]).Google Scholar

29. Piehler, op. cit. (n. 9), p. 78. His whole section on ‘The Psychology of Landscape: Wilderness and City’ (pp. 72-8) is of interest here.

30. The survey below is not complete, but correlations can also be satisfactorily made in each omitted instance.

31. Most recently by Alexiou, op. cit. (n. 7).

32. Longos II happens to have all nine in its total of eighteen.

33. (frag. 24 Mazal). According to the prose paraphrase of Planudes, Eros chose the vine as the most beautiful of plants since wine was his ally. In marked contrast with the scenes in the romantic gardens is that in one of Alkiphron (Ep. 4.13) whose courtesans are greatly indebted to their potations.

34. Op. cit. (n. 8), p. 33.

35. Cf. Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoë, (279, of the garden) and, (808-810). In the Achilleϊs the introductory words of the ekphraseis of garden and girl are very similar (cod. Neap. 716f., 798f.).

36. Similarly, though his reasons are different, Hysminias’ initial reactions to the beauties of the garden and the antics of the girl are the same – speechlessness (1.7.1, 1.8.4).

37. This is a variation of the far less decorous imagery which is found in the Pervigilium Veneris (19-26) and enjoys its supreme glory in the intricate allegory of both Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun in Le Roman de la Rose.

38. In two instances the imagery is made expressly to vie with (Achilleus Tatios II) or outshine [Digenis Akritas I) its prototypes in the garden.

39. For vegetal imagery in meta-Byzantine demotic see Petropoulos, D., La Comparaison dans la Chanson Populaire Grecque (Collection de l’Institut Français d’Athènes, LXXXVI [Athens, 1954]), especially pp. 30-47.Google Scholar

40. Highly sensual imagery, both vegetal and other, is exhibited by the Mu‘allaqāt, particularly in the ode attributed to the Himyarite noble Imr-el-Káis, ‘… On her shoulders fallen thick lie the locks of her, / dark as the dark date-clusters hung from the palm branches. /… Slim her waist, – a well-cord scarce has its slenderness. / Smooth are her legs as reed-stems stripped at a water-head. /… Soft her touch, – her fingers fluted as water-worms, / sleek as the snakes of Thóbya, tooth-sticks of Ishali…’) (A. and Blunt, W. S., The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia [London, 1903], pp. 5f.).Google Scholar

41. A mine of information is Fouchécour, C.-H. de, La Description de la Nature dans la Poésie Lyrique Persane du XIe Siècle (Travaux de l’Institut d’Études Iraniennes de l’Université de Paris, IV [Paris, 1969])Google Scholar. De Fouchécour deals principally with the three lyric poets at the Ghaznavid court of Mahmūd in Khurasan, ‘Unsuri, Farrukhī and Manūchihrī, of whom Farrukī has the most wide-ranging relevant examples. A convenient list of the parts of the body symbolized by plants in Persian literature is given by W. L. Hanaway, Jr, ‘Paradise on Earth’, in McDougall and Ettinghausen, op. cit. (n. 28), pp. 64-7. In his essay (pp. 43-63), Hanaway translates many apposite passages, including the famous description of Rudäba, Rostam’s mother, in Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma (1.157). It is interesting to note the rôle of the garden in the romance Varqa u Gul-shāh of ‘Ayyūqī, itself apparently dependent upon Arabic versions of the seventh to eighth centuries. A Persian MS. of the thirteenth century in Topkapi Sarayi contains an illustration of the couple in the garden (reproduced in Ettinghausen, R., Ipsiroğlu, M. S. and Eyuboğlu, S., Turkey: Ancient Miniatures [New York Graphic Society/Unesco, 1961], plate I).Google Scholar

42. This is not, of course, to deny the importance of vegetal imagery in classical or in western European mediaeval poetry. It should be added that the association of moral qualities with plants, illustrated by the anonymous opusculum edited by M. H. Thomson (Le Jardin Symbolique, Paris, 1960) and paralleled in both east and west, appears to play no part in the romances.

43. 1223-1226. The metaphor of for a girl’s breasts, found also in Niketas 4.275F.) is found first (probably as slang) in the fifth century B.C. For its use in early Byzantium see A. R. Littlewood, ‘The Symbolism of the Apple in Byzantine Literature’, JÖB, XXIII (1974), 35F.

44. Consideration should be given also to the expressions and in Manasses’ romance (frag. 11) discussed by Mazal (pp. 89f.).

45. Pernot, H., Chansons Populaires Grecques des XVe et XVIe Siècles (Paris, 1931), p. 36 Google Scholar, no. 17.

46. Ep. 1.3. Cf. 2.1 where he argues why a woman is like a meadow.

47. See Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (New Haven and London, 1975), pp. 20, 27, 135f., 160 Google Scholar. For brief discussions of a garden representing a woman in Greek tragedy see Segal, C. P., ‘The Tragedy of the “Hippolytus”: the Waters of Ocean and the Untouched Meadow’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, LXX (1965), 124f Google Scholar. and n. 21, Caldwell, R. S., ‘The Psychology of Aeschylus’ “Supplices”’, Arethusa, VII (1974), 59 Google Scholar and A. V. Rankin, ‘Euripides’ Hippolytus: a Psychopathological Hero’, ibid., 84.

48. E.g. Freud, , Vorlesungen zur Einführung in the Psychoanalyse (Leipzig and Vienna, 1916), cap. 10.Google Scholar

49. The flowery meadow in which Libistros met the Erotes is also lacking a wall, but it may be doubted if this ‘garden’ really symbolizes Rhodamne who does have another behind the wall of her father’s castle. In the Palaiologan romances the wall sometimes belongs more properly to the castle than to the garden inside (a second wall is specifically mentioned in the Archilleϊs).

50. In 1250 Henry III of England instructed his bailiff at Woodstock ‘to make around about the garden of our Queen two walls, good and high, so that no one may be able to enter’ (quoted by Piehler, op. cit., p. 100).

51. Ed. Miller, B. E. C. in Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, XIX/2 (Paris, 1862), pp. 1-138 Google Scholar. An early demotic poem reads in part, (Pernot, op. cit., pp. 35f., no. 16). In Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale the aged knight Januarie married a very young girl, ‘His fresshe May, his paradys’ (578), for whom ‘He made a gardin, walled al with stoon’ (785) to which he alone had the key, ‘And thinges whiche that were nat doon a-bedde, / He in the gardin parfourned hem and spedde’ (807f.). Here, of course, the walled garden represents not a virgin but a wedded wife accessible only to her husband who has the key. Unfortunately somebody else made a second key.

52. An interesting example is the parody of Elysion in Lucian, Vera Historia, 2.4-16.

53. See also Libistros and Rhodamne cod. Neap. 199-201 compared with cod. Esc. 183-5.

54. See Hanaway, op. cit., and the preceding study in that same volume by A. Schimmel, ‘The Celestial Garden’, pp. 13-39.

55. This has been extensively documented: see Piehler, op. cit., passim and Patch, H. R., The Other World according to Descriptions in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chapter 7 on western romances, and the bibliography.

56. The primary distinction is the emphasis upon the lustrous quality of the air in the former (remarkably this comes even in Geometres’ description of his own garden [Prog. 3., pp. 10.28-11.1]).

57. The relationship between Saint’s Life and Romance was illustrated by H.-G. Beck in a paper ‘Marginalia on the Byzantine Novel’ delivered to the International Conference on the Ancient Novel (résumé in Erotica Antiqua [Bangor, 1977], pp. 59-65).

58. Published by Martini, S. C. E., ‘A Proposito d’una poesia inedita di Manuel File’, Rendiconti del R. Istituto Lombardo, Ser. 2, XXIX (Milano, 1896), 465-9 Google Scholar. Both summary and mystical allegory, considerably more complex than indicated above, are compared with the existing romance by Pichard, M., Le Roman de Callimaque et de Chrysorrhoë (Paris, 1956), pp. xvi-xxiii Google Scholar. According to Philes the author of the romance as known to him was Andronikos Komnenos (nephew of Michael VIII Palaiologos).

59. Although line numbers are given in this appendix, it is not always clear in the Palaiologan romances where the ekphrasis of the garden should end, since it tends to merge into ekphraseis of buildings which sometimes may be ‘garden-buildings’ and sometimes buildings to which the garden is attached.

60. At 1.2.1 Achilleus bluntly indicates the erotic import of the painting, and at 1.4.3. directly compares Leukippe with Europa.

61. Reardon, B. P., ‘The Greek Novel’, Phoenix, XXIII (1969), 301.Google Scholar

62. See further Forehand, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 105.

63. Ibid., p. 108.

64. For references to other versions see Mavrogordato’s concordance.

65. These are the principal descriptions of the oft-recurring garden. An accurate and clear summary of the romance is given by Alexiou, op. cit. (n. 7), pp. 26-9.

66. In the abbreviated version preserved in the Oxford MS. there is reference to the garden, but no formal ekphrasis.