The Heroides ( The Heroines),[Usually abbreviated Her. or H. in citations of Ovid's works.] or Epistulae Heroidum ( Letters of Heroines), is a collection of fifteen poems composed by Ovid in Latin and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them. A further set of six poems, widely known as the Double Heroides and numbered 16 to 21 in modern scholarly editions, follows these individual letters and presents three separate exchanges of paired epistles: one each from a heroic lover to his absent beloved and from the heroine in return.
The Heroides were long held in low esteem by literary scholars but, like other works by Ovid, were re-evaluated more positively in the late 20th century.[Kenney (1996) 1, n. 3.] In spite of various interpretations of Propertius 4.3, consensus nevertheless concedes to Ovid much of the credit in the thorough exploration of what was then a highly innovative poetic form.
Dating and authenticity
The exact dating of the
Heroides, as with the overall chronology of the Ovidian corpus, remains a matter of debate. As Peter E. Knox notes, "there is no consensus about the relative chronology of this
sc. phase of Ovid's career," a position which has not advanced significantly since that comment was made.
[Knox (1995) 3.] Exact dating is hindered not only by a lack of evidence, but by the fact that much of what is known at all comes from Ovid's own poetry. One passage in the second book of Ovid's
Amores (
Am.) has been adduced especially often in this context:
Knox notes that "this passage ... provides the only external evidence for the date of composition of the Heroides listed here. The only collection of Heroides attested by Ovid therefore antedates at least the second edition of the Amores (c. 2 BC), and probably the first (c. 16 BC) ..."[Knox (1995) 6. He also provides (p. 6, n. 9) a cautionary note, with references, on the use of modern terminology such as publication to refer to "the circumstances of ancient book production and circulation."] On this view, the most probable date of composition for at least the majority of the collection of single Heroides ranges between c. 25 and 16 BC, if indeed their eventual publication predated that of the assumed first edition of the Amores in that latter year.[Like many other aspects of Ovidian studies, what is known about the publication of multiple editions of the Amores is derived almost solely from Ovid himself, who opens those early poems with the preface:
Qui modo Nasonis fueramus quinque libelli,
tres sumus; hoc illi praetulit auctor opus.
ut iam nulla tibi nos sit legisse uoluptas,
at levior demptis poena duobus erit
We who were (not so long ago) the five little books of Naso
Are now three; their author preferred his work this way over that.
Though even now you may take little pleasure in reading us,
With two books swept away your pain will be lighter
With Ovid's word as the only viable evidence on the matter, the existence of a second edition of the Amores is widely regarded as potentially questionable (cf. the arguments of, e.g. Holzberg 1997).] Regardless of absolute dating, the evidence nonetheless suggests that the single Heroides represent some of Ovid's earliest poetic efforts.
Questions of authenticity, however, have often inhibited the literary appreciation of these poems.[For a fuller overview of the authenticity debate than can be offered here, see, among others, Lachmann (1876), Palmer (1898), Courtney (1965) and (1998), Anderson (1973), Reeve (1973), Jacobson (1974), Tarrant (1981), Knox (1986), (1995, esp. the introduction), and (2002), Kennedy (2002), and Lingenberg (2003).] Joseph Farrell identifies three distinct issues of importance to the collection in this regard: (1) individual interpolations within single poems, (2) the authorship of entire poems by a possible Ovidian impersonator, and (3) the relation of the Double Heroides to the singles, coupled with the authenticity of that secondary collection. Discussion of these issues has been a focus, even if tangentially, of many treatments of the Heroides.
As an example following these lines, for some time scholars debated over whether this passage from the Amores—corroborating, as it does, only the existence of Her. 1–2, 4–7, 10–11, and very possibly of 12, 13,[ Am. 2.18.38 reads et comes extincto Laodamia viro ("and Laodamia, companion to her deceased husband"), which could refer solely to a subject of the poetry of Aemilius Macer, who is addressed in Am. 2.18, or could as easily be relating Macer's works to Ovid's own compositions, serving as evidence, therefore, for the authenticity of Her. 13.] and 15—could be cited fairly as evidence for the inauthenticity of at least the letters of Briseis (3), Hermione (8), Deianira (9), and Hypermnestra (14), if not also those of Medea (12), Laodamia (13), and Sappho (15).[Some critics have argued that the passage in cruces in line 26—together with its partner at line 34 ( det votam Phoebo Lesbis amata lyram – "the woman of Lesbos, loved in return, might offer Phoebus the promised lyre")—is in fact an interpolation.] Stephen Hinds argues, however, that this list constitutes only a poetic catalogue, in which there was no need for Ovid to have enumerated every individual epistle.[Hinds (1993) 30 f., a suggestion cited by scholars since almost as a matter of reflex. Cf. also, on Her. 12, Knox (1986) and Heinze (1991–93). For a more recent discussion of the broad implications of this passage from the Amores, see Knox (2002) 118–21.] This assertion has been widely persuasive, and the tendency amongst scholarly readings of the later 1990s and following has been towards careful and insightful literary explication of individual letters, either proceeding under the assumption of, or with an eye towards proving, Ovidian authorship. Other studies, eschewing direct engagement with this issue in favour of highlighting the more ingenious elements—and thereby demonstrating the high value—of individual poems in the collection, have essentially subsumed the authenticity debate, implicating it through a tacit equation of high literary quality with Ovidian authorship. This trend is visible especially in the most recent monographs on the Heroides.[Cf. in particular the recent dissertations-turned-published-monographs of Lindheim (2003), Spentzou (2003), and Fulkerson (2005).] On the other hand, some scholars have taken a completely different route, ascribing the whole collection to one[Zwierlein (1999).] or two[Lingenberg (2003) regards the single letters as a coherently structured work by one author, published some years after Ovid's death at latest and believed to be authentic Ovid already by Seneca; the double letters are by a different author, but probably roughly contemporary.] Ovidian imitators (the catalogue in Am. 2.18, as well as Ars am. 3.345–6 and Epistulae ex Ponto 4.16.13–14, would then be interpolations introduced to establish the imitations as authentic Ovid).
The collection
The paired letters of the
Double Heroides are not outlined here: see the article
Double Heroides for the double epistles (16–21).
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Epistula I. Penelope writes to her famed husband, Odysseus, a hero of the Trojan War, towards the end of his long absence (the subject of Homer Odyssey).
[See esp. Kennedy (1984) and Hinds (1999).]
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Epistula II. Phyllis, the daughter of Lycurgus, writes to her lover Demophoon, the son of Theseus, king of Athens, after he fails in his promised return from his homeland.
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Epistula III. Briseis, the daughter of Briseus, writes to Achilles, the central hero of the Trojan War and focal character of Homer's Iliad, urging him to accept her as part of a package-deal from Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces at Troy, and to return to battle against the Trojans.
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Epistula IV. Phaedra, wife of Theseus, writes to her stepson, Hippolytus, confessing her semi-incestuous and illicit love for him.
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Epistula V. The nymph Oenone, by Hellenistic tradition Paris' first wife, writes to Paris, son of Priam King of Troy, after he abandoned her to go on his famed journey to Sparta, and then returned with the abducted Helen of Sparta as a wife.
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Epistula VI. Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos, to Jason, after he abandoned her for Medea.
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Epistula VII. Dido to Aeneas, on his departure to Italy.
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Epistula VIII. Hermione, daughter of Menelaus, to Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, urging him to save her from marriage to Achilles' son, Neoptolemus.
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Epistula IX. Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, king of Aetolia, to her husband Hercules, after he laid down his weapons to be with Iole, the daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia.
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Epistula X. Ariadne to Theseus after he abandoned her on the island of Naxos on his way back to Athens. He does not marry Phaedra until later (see Epistle IV).
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Epistula XI. Canace, daughter of Aeolus, to her brother and lover, Macareus, before killing herself following the death of their baby at the hands of their father.
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Epistula XII. Medea to Jason, after he abandoned her to marry Creusa (also known as Glauce).
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Epistula XIII. Laodamia, the daughter of Acastus, to her husband Protesilaus, urging him not to take too many risks in the Greeks' attack on Troy.
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Epistula XIV. Hypermnestra to her husband, Lynceus, calling for him to save her from death at the hands of her father, Danaus.
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Epistula XV. Sappho to her ex-lover Phaon, after he left her.
Translations and influence
The
Heroides were popularized by the Loire valley poet Baudri of Bourgueil in the late eleventh century, and Héloïse used them as models in her famous letters to
Peter Abelard.
[Peter Dronke, "Heloise," in Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984).] A translation,
Les Vingt et Une Epistres d'Ovide, was made of this work at the end of the 15th century by the French poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais, who later became Bishop of Angoulême. While Saint-Gelais' translation does not do full justice to the original, it introduced many non-Latin readers to Ovid's fictional letters and inspired many of them to compose their own Heroidean-style epistles. Perhaps the most successful of these were the
Quatre Epistres d'Ovide (c. 1500) by , a friend and colleague of Saint-Gelais. Later translations and creative responses to the
Heroides include Jean Lemaire de Belges's
Premiere Epître de l'Amant vert (1505), Fausto Andrelini's verse epistles (1509–1511; written in the name of Anne de Bretagne),
Contrepistres d'Ovide (1546), and Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara's
Bursario, a partial translation of the
Heroides.
[Yvonne LeBlanc, "Queen Anne in the Lonely, Tear-Soaked Bed of Penelope: Rewriting the Heroides in Sixteenth-Century France," in The Late Medieval Epistle, ed. Carol Poster and Richard Utz (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), pp. 71–87.]
Classics scholar W. M. Spackman argues the Heroides influenced the development of the European novel: of Helen's reply to Paris, Spackman writes, "its mere 268 lines contain in embryo everything that has, since, developed into the novel of dissected motivations that is one of our glories, from La Princesse de Clèves, Manon Lescaut and Les Liaisons Dangereuses to Stendhal and Proust".[ On the Decay of Humanism (Rutgers University Press, 1967), p. 96.]
The Loeb Classical Library presents the Heroides with Amores in Ovid I. Penguin Books first published Harold Isbell's translation in 1990. Isbell's translation uses unrhymed that generally alternate between eleven and nine . A translation in Couplet by Daryl Hine appeared in 1991.
It was the inspiration for 15 monologues starring 15 separate actors, by 15 playwrights at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2020.
Notes
All notes refer to works listed in the
Bibliography, below.
Selected bibliography
For references specifically relating to that subject, please see the relevant bibliography of the
Double Heroides.
Editions
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Dörrie, H. (ed.) (1971) P. Ovidi Nasonis Epistulae Heroidum (Berlin and New York)
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Showerman, G. (ed. with an English translation) and Goold, G. P. (2nd edition revised) (1986) Ovid, Heroides and Amores (Cambridge, MA and London)
Commentaries
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Kenney, E. J. (ed.) (1996) Ovid Heroides XVI–XXI (Cambridge).
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Knox, P. E. (ed.) (1995) Ovid: Heroides. Select Epistles (Cambridge).
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Roebuck, L. T. (ed.) (1998) Heroides I w/ Notes & Comm. (Classical Association of New England)
Literary overviews and textual criticism
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Anderson, W. S. (1973) "The Heroides", in J. W. Binns (ed.) Ovid (London and Boston): 49–83.
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Arena, A. (1995) "Ovidio e l'ideologia augustea: I motivi delle Heroides ed il loro significato", Latomus 54.4: 822–41.
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Beck, M. (1996) Die Epistulae Heroidum XVIII und XIX des Corpus Ovidianum (Paderborn).
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Courtney, E. (1965) "Ovidian and Non-Ovidian Heroides", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London ( BICS) 12: 63–6.
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___. (1998) "Echtheitskritik: Ovidian and Non-Ovidian Heroides Again", CJ 93: 157–66.
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Fulkerson, L. (2005) The Ovidian Heroine as Author: Reading, Writing, and Community in the Heroides (Cambridge).
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Heinze, T. (1991–93) "The Authenticity of Ovid Heroides 12 Reconsidered", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London ( BICS) 38: 94–8.
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Jacobson, H. (1974) Ovid's Heroides (Princeton).
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Kennedy, D. F. (2002) "Epistolarity: The Heroides", in P. R. Hardie (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge): 217–32.
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Knox, P. E. (1986) "Ovid's Medea and the Authenticity of Heroides 12", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology ( HSCP) 90: 207–23.
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___. (2002) "The Heroides: Elegiac Voices", in B. W. Boyd (ed.) Brill's Companion to Ovid (Leiden): 117–39.
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Lachmann, K. (1876) Kleinere Schriften zur classischen Philologie, Bd. 2 (Berlin).
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Lindheim, S. (2003) Mail and Female: Epistolary Narrative and Desire in Ovid's Heroides (Madison, WI).
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Lingenberg, W. (2003) Das erste Buch der Heroidenbriefe. Echtheitskritische Untersuchungen (Paderborn).
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Palmer, A. (ed.) completed (1898) P. Ovidi Nasonis Heroides, with the Greek translation of Planudes (Oxford).
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Rahn, H. (1963) "Ovids elegische Epistel", Antike und Abendland ( A&A) 7: 105–120.
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Reeve, M. D. (1973) "Notes on Ovid's Heroides", Classical Quarterly ( CQ) 23: 324–338.
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Rosenmeyer, P. A. (1997) "Ovid's Heroides and Tristia: Voices from Exile", Ramus 26.1: 29–56. Reprinted
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Smith, R. A. (1994) "Fantasy, Myth, and Love Letters: Text and Tale in Ovid's Heroides", Arethusa 27: 247–73.
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Spentzou, E. (2003) Readers and Writers in Ovid's Heroides: Transgressions of Genre and Gender (Oxford).
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Steinmetz, P. (1987) "Die literarische Form der Epistulae Heroidum Ovids", Gymnasium 94: 128–45.
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Stroh, W. (1991) "Heroides Ovidianae cur epistolas scribant", in G. Papponetti (ed.) Ovidio poeta della memoria (Rome): 201–44.
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Tarrant, R. J. (1981) "The Authenticity of the Letter of Sappho to Phaon", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology ( HSCP) 85: 133–53.
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Verducci, F. (1985) Ovid's Toyshop of the Heart (Princeton).
Analyses of individual epistles
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Barchiesi, A. (1995) Review of Hintermeier (1993), Journal of Roman Studies ( JRS) 85: 325–7.
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___. (2001) Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets, eds. and trans. M. Fox and S. Marchesi (London):
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"Continuities", 9–28. Translated
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"Narrativity and Convention in the Heroides", 29–48. Translated
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"Future Reflexive: Two Modes of Allusion and the Heroides", 105–28. Reprinted
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Casali, S. (1992) "Enone, Apollo pastore, e l'amore immedicabile: giochi ovidiani su di un topos elegiaco", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ( MD) 28: 85–100.
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Fulkerson, L. (2002a) "Writing Yourself to Death: Strategies of (Mis)reading in Heroides 2", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ( MD) 48: 145–65.
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___. (2002b) "(Un)Sympathetic Magic: A Study of Heroides 13", American Journal of Philology ( AJPh) 123: 61–87.
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___. (2003) "Chain(ed) Mail: Hypermestra and the Dual Readership of Heroides 14", Transactions of the American Philological Association ( TAPA) 133: 123–146.
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Hinds, S. (1993) "Medea in Ovid: Scenes from the Life of an Intertextual Heroine", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ( MD) 30: 9–47.
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___. (1999) "First Among Women: Ovid, and the Traditions of 'Exemplary' Catalogue", in amor : roma, Susanna Braund and R. Mayer (eds.), Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society ( PCPS) Supp. 22: 123–42.
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Hintermeier, C. M. (1993) Die Briefpaare in Ovids Heroides, Palingensia 41 (Stuttgart).
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Jolivet, J.-C. (2001) Allusion et fiction epistolaire dans Les Heroïdes: Recherches sur l'intertextualité ovidienne, Collection de l' École Française de Rome 289 (Rome).
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Kennedy, D. F. (1984) "The Epistolary Mode and the First of Ovid's Heroides", Classical Quarterly ( CQ) n.s. 34: 413–22. Reprinted
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Lindheim, S. (2000) " Omnia Vincit Amor: Or, Why Oenone Should Have Known It Would Never Work Out ( Eclogue 10 and Heroides 5)", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ( MD) 44: 83–101.
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Rosati, G. (1991) "Protesilao, Paride, e l'amante elegiaco: un modello omerico in Ovidio", Maia 43.2: 103–14.
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___. (1992) "L'elegia al femminile: le Heroides di Ovidio (e altre heroides)", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ( MD) 29: 71–94.
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Vessey, D. W. T. (1976) "Humor and Humanity in Ovid's Heroides", Arethusa 9: 91–110.
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Viarre, S. (1987) "Des poèmes d'Homère aux Heroïdes d'Ovide: Le récit épique et son interpretation élégiaque", Bulletin de l'association Guillaume Budé Ser. 4: 3.
Scholarship of tangential significance
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Armstrong, R. (2005) Ovid and His Love Poetry (London) esp.
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Hardie, P. R. (2002) Ovid's Poetics of Illusion (Cambridge).
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Holzberg, N. (1997) "Playing with his Life: Ovid's 'Autobiographical' References", Lampas 30: 4–19. Reprinted
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___. (2002) Ovid: The Poet and His Work, trans. G. M. Goshgarian (Ithaca, NY and London).
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James, S. L. (2003) Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy (Berkeley). esp.
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Kauffman, L. S. (1986) Discourses of Desire: Gender, Genre, and Epistolary Fictions (Ithaca, NY).
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Knox, P. E. (ed.) (2006) Oxford Readings in Ovid (Oxford and New York).
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Zwierlein, O. (1999) Die Ovid- und Vergil-Revision in tiberischer Zeit (Berlin and New York).
External links
