國立暨南國際大學外國語文學系

碩士論文

Master’s Thesis Presented to

Department of Foreign Languages and Literature,

National Chi Nan University

歐洲史詩的女英雄

Hero/Heroine: The Role of Gender in European Epics

指導教授：周曉青

Advisor: Paul Chow

研究生：許瑞琪

Student: Raquel Lynne Estrada

中華民國九十八年五月二十四日
 Acknowledgments

To God the Father, the Holy Spirit, His Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ, the
source of all life, creation, artistry, and joy. Full of wisdom, love, and power, in His
enduring mercy, He blesses all the peoples of Taiwan with the knowledge of His love
and saving grace. Ron and I love the Taiwanese people very much. Thanks to all our
friends. We cherish you!

To Dr. Paul H. C. Chow, you touched my heart with your deep love of the
English classics, European culture, and especially the Bible. For this I am extremely
grateful.

To Dr. Robert Reynolds, who mentored me in surviving in the academic world

with great experience, expertise, humor, and love. Thank you very much!

To Professor Cecilia Liu of Fu Jen University, who gave me wise counsel,

inspired me with her academic writing, and demonstrated great kindness.

To my father Aaron Givan, the scholar who inspires my soul.

To my mother Beth, whose practical wisdom keeps my feet on the ground.

To my beautiful daughter Jaime Marie, whose intelligence, academic prowess,

and unwavering determination are lifting her to eagles' flight. I'm very proud of you.
Thank you for always being the very best that you can be.

To my husband Ron, who always sees in me more than I see in myself. Thank
you for encouraging me to engage in this course of study. The time we shared
together discussing, editing, and preparing this Master's thesis, deepened our love for
each other. When wild mustangs meet, they run passionately together to the heights of
mountains and to the depths of canyons. Their hooves dig and fly, the landscape bares
their tracks, and the passionate sounds of their love echoes for eternity.
論文名稱： 歐洲史詩的女英雄
校院系： 國立暨南國際大學外國語文學系 頁數： 67
畢業時間： 2009 年 6 月 學位別： 碩士
研究生： Raquel Lynne Estrada 指導教授：周曉青

論文摘要

本論文旨在探討歐洲古典史詩的發展及其同時的社會、文化、歷史
所發的變化。討論所涵蓋的範圍上自古典希臘，下至文藝復興。其
主要著眼在史詩中的女性角色，而女性角色的界定主要依各女性與
詩中的男性英雄搭配或對立的情形。這兩種角色的主要文學或社會
功能可以分為神話傳統中的代罪羔羊以及社會關係中的匹配，但後
者到文藝復興時代已發生變化，變成權力鬥爭所爭奪的目標。這兩
種角色的主要特性系透過若干作品的分析；最主要的包括維吉爾的
《埃涅阿斯紀》, 塔索的《耶路撒冷得救記》以及莎士比亞的《安
東尼與克麗奧佩托拉》。《埃涅阿斯紀》這部作品是古典史詩的鼻
祖，以及創出女英雄的第一部作品。《耶路撒冷得救記》可以說是
古典史詩演變中的高潮，也是把女英雄刻畫得最深切的作品。此作
特別值得留意是「女性的俇妄」(feminine furor) 以及「女壯士」
(virago) 兩個特性的發展。莎士比亞的《安東尼與克麗奧佩托拉》並
非史詩，然而在莎翁的劇作中，是受到史詩影響比較多的作品，而
且所反映的社會情形足以說明女英雄到後世有衰微的趨勢。

關鍵字：史詩、文類、女性角色、女英雄、女壯士、女性的俇

妄、維吉爾、塔索、莎士比亞、埃涅阿斯紀、耶路撒冷

得救記、安東尼與克麗奧佩托拉
Title of Thesis: Hero/Heroine: The Role of Gender in European Epics

Name of Institution: Department of Foreign Language and Literature, Pages: 67

National Chi Nan University

Graduation Date: June, 2009 Degree Conferred: M.A.

Student Name: Raquel Lynne Estrada Advisor Name: Paul Chow

Abstract

This thesis examines the development of the classical Epic during the
evolution of European society, culture, and literature from the Medieval to the
Renaissance eras. It focuses on the role of women in the Epic, which it characterizes
in terms of their relations to the central figure of the Epic, the hero. As a result, it
identifies two roles that serve as either auxiliary or counterpart to the hero: the heroine
and the female hero. These roles serve a mythopoeic function as scapegoat and a
social function as helpmates and later as the object of political struggle and power.
The features of these roles are identified by examining a wide range of literary works,
but three works are central to the analysis: the Aeneid of Virgil and the roles played
by Dido and Camilla, Jerusalem Delivered by Tasso and the role played by the
Muslim female warrior Clorinda, and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and the
role played by Cleopatra. The Aeneid is identified as the foundational work of the
classical Epic genre, in part through its introduction of the female hero. Jerusalem
Delivered is a high point of this phase of the epic and shows the role of female hero at
its highest development, where it is associated in particular with the psychological
qualities of feminine furor and the social identity of virago (athletic virgin).
Shakespeare’s non-Epic drama Antony and Cleopatra shows many points of
correspondence with the heroine and female hero roles of the Epic, but also reflects
the social changes which eventually diminished these female roles in later Epics.

Key words: epic, literary genre, heroine, virago, feminine furor, virago, Virgil, Tasso,
Shakespeare, Aeneid, Jerusalem Delivered, Antony and Cleopatra
 CHAPTER I:
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................1

OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................1
EPIC FORM AND EPIC CONTENT....................................................................................................2
EPIC POET AS SPOKESMAN OF AN ERA: MILTON..............................................................................4
EPIC POET AS SPOKESMAN OF AN ERA: DRYDEN.............................................................................5
SOCIAL MEANING OF THE EPIC: WOMEN AND SOCIETY....................................................................6

CHAPTER II:
FEMALE TYPES IN THE EPIC...........................................................................................................8

FEMALE EPIC PROTAGONISTS: HEROINES VS. FEMALE HEROES..........................................................8

EPIC HEROINES: SCANDINAVIAN /BRITISH.......................................................................................9
EPIC HEROINES: THE ILIAD..........................................................................................................9
EPIC HEROINES: THE ODYSSEY...................................................................................................11
FEMALE HERO: ORIGINS AND ARGUMENTS...................................................................................12
VIRGIL AND THE FEMALE HERO: QUEEN DIDO.............................................................................14

CHAPTER III:
CAMILLA AS SCAPEGOAT WARRIOR.........................................................................................17

THE SCAPEGOAT ......................................................................................................................17

THE SCAPEGOAT IN ROMAN CULTURE..........................................................................................17
FRAZIER AND GIRARD ON THE SCAPEGOAT....................................................................................18
ELIOT’S USE OF THE SCAPEGOAT IN THE WASTE LAND.................................................................20
THE COST OF PIETAS: WOMEN WARRIORS AND VIRGIN PRIESTESSES ..............................................21
CAMILLA AS A FEMALE HERO.....................................................................................................22
FEMININE FUROR AND THE VIRAGO.............................................................................................23
CAMILLA AND THE SEMI-DIVINE.................................................................................................27
FATE AND TRADITION IN THE AENEID..........................................................................................29

CHAPTER IV:
CLORINDA AND THE ROMANCE OF THE OTHER...................................................................32

CLORINDA AND THE “OTHER”.....................................................................................................32

THE HERO’S GAZE...................................................................................................................34
THE HEROINE RETURNS THE GAZE .............................................................................................36
SOCIETY AND THE HERO/HEROINE...............................................................................................37
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE HERO/HEROINE COUNTERPARTS....................................................................38

CHAPTER V:
ECHOES OF THE EPIC IN ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA...........................................................40

EPIC INFLUENCES ON SHAKESPEARE.............................................................................................40

POINTS OF CONTACT: ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA AND THE EPIC.......................................................40
 THE FAILED HERO....................................................................................................................43
SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.................................................................44
POINTS OF DEPARTURE BETWEEN ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA AND THE EPIC.......................................50

CHAPTER VI:
CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................................................................51

DEFINITIONS: HERO, HEROINE, FEMALE HERO..............................................................................51

THE FLAWS OF QUEENS AND WARRIORS......................................................................................56
THOUGHTS ON THE EPIC HEROINE...............................................................................................58

WORKS CITED......................................................................................................................63
 Chapter I:
Introduction

Overview

This thesis is divided into six chapters. Following this overview, the first
chapter begins by discussing the shortcomings of content based and formal definitions
of the epic, and proposes instead to focus on the mythological function of the epic, in
particular the role of the scapegoat, and the social role of the epic poet as spokesman
for his era. These two views allow the thesis to examine more carefully how women
fit into the epic, both as literary types and as exemplars of the epic's social function.
The chapter continues with an examination of how two typical Epic poets, Milton and
Dryden, attempt to adopt the role of Epic poet, and concludes with a discussion of
how women fit into the Epic genre.

The second chapter examines the role of specific women in various epic
poems and develops an important distinction between the roles they play when they
function as auxiliaries or counterparts to the male hero who is almost always the
center of the classical Epic. These roles are identified as either heroines or female
heroes.

The third chapter expands on the roles of heroine and female hero by
introducing several key concepts, including the important role of the “scapegoat,” the
idea of “feminine furor” and the nature of the “virago.” These concepts are then used
to uncover some of the ambiguities underlying two key figures in the Aeneid: Dido
and Camilla.

The fourth chapter takes up what is perhaps the masterwork of the classical
Epic, Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, and examines one of the most appealing of all
female characters in this genre, the great Muslim warrior Clorinda. This chapter
particularly focuses on Clorinda as a very striking example of “the Other” in Western
literature, and the romance that this involves, by comparing the “gaze” of the Other
between several pairs of characters.

The fifth chapter steps outside the genre boundaries of the classical Epic and
examines Shakespeare’s drama Anthony and Cleopatra. It is suggested that there is a

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particularly strong influence of the Epic on this work. This influence is useful in
examining how the social changes at work in English society at this time have altered
readers’ and authors’ views of warrior queens. These changes mark the decline of the
female hero in the Epic. After this, the female hero appears only in a metaphorical or
symbolic role, as for example in the character of Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

The sixth and final chapter closes the thesis by first considering some
terminological problems with key concepts such as hero, heroine and female hero.
The flawed nature of some of the queens and women warriors is then examined,
providing further insight into the social contradictions that the roles introduce into
literary representations of societal environments in different eras. Finally, some
thoughts on further research on women in heroic literary modes close the thesis.

Epic Form and Epic Content

The nature of the Epic is central to this thesis. However, defining a

fundamental genre such as the Epic is a difficult task. Literary handbooks such as
Abrams and Benet usually offer simple content based definitions that fail in a number
of important ways. Thus Abrams (53-54) defines the Western Epic as a “long,
serious, narrative poem told in a formal, elevated style.” Abrams then claims that an
Epic poem centers on “a hero or semi-divine figure” whose actions may determine the
“fate of a group, a nation, or an entire race.”

According to Benet's Encyclopedia, an Epic is “a very long narrative poem

presenting adventures on a grand, heroic scale organically united through a central
figure of heroic proportions. The adventures are made up of episodes which
contribute to the formation of a race or nation” (324).

One problem with these definitions is that they are broad enough to include
not only Western epics, but also such folk works as the Finnish Kaleva, or the
culturally very different East Indian Mahabharata.

Another approach to defining the Epic is to look for common cultural and
formal elements. This is somewhat more success in that it does allow us to establish a
category which is sometimes called the classical Epic. Culturally, these works come
from a common tradition, which can be traced back to Virgil's Aeneid. Formally, they
also have several similar characteristics. These include beginning in media res, the

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invocation of the muse, and the statement of the Epic’s purpose. This group of works
includes Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered,
Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

This simple formalism still does not offer much room for critical analysis,
however, particularly if we are interested in matters such as the various social roles
that women sometimes play in the Epic. This thesis therefore puts aside the simplistic
content and formal criteria for the Epic and instead concentrates on two different
approaches.

The first of these is the mythopoeic approach of Northrop Frye. Dissatisfied

with traditional approaches, the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye examined the
Epic through the mythology that forms the background and sources for many of the
earliest Epics. Central to Frye's idea is the concept of the Hero. For Frye, Heroes
have great powers “acting out or near the limits of desire”. Epics thus center around a
heroic action such as a battle, a long arduous journey or a quest. As myth critic, Frye
identifies the quest-myth as the central or “mono-myth” of literature. Part of the myth
Epic is the divine fulfilling an active, interested role in humanity. Frye states Western
literature as “massively funded by the powerful myths of the Bible, Classical Greek
and Roman culture.”

Frye's use of myth in discussing epic allows us to bring out an important but
neglected aspect of the female characters in the epic: their function as scapegoat. The
theme of the scapegoat comes into play as female heroes are martyred. To understand
this particular aspect of the epic, we will make use of the work of Rene Girard.
Girard’s work focuses on the central role of ritual sacrifice and its relation to myths as
an integrated part of classical Greek tragedy. Girard describes society’s efforts to use
ritual sacrifice to deflect violence that would otherwise be poured out on the whole
community. Ritual sacrifice heaps this violence on a relatively “sacrificeable victim”,
in our case the Epic's female “hero.”

The second approach to the Epic in this thesis comes from a series of
discussions with Prof. Paul. H.C. Chow. Prof. Chow argues that “Epic is a genre that
articulates the aspirations of a people over an extended period of time, crystallizing a
race’s loves and fears. Epics are foundational to all great civilizations, including the
Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Muslim, and Early English-Scandinavian. Primarily
primitive literature, they deal with raw emotions.”

3
 How then does an Epic articulate a people's aspirations? This thesis will argue
that this was the role that an Epic poet took. For poetry to be Epic, the poet must see
his role as the spokesman of his era or generation, weaving his tale from the varied
tapestry threads of the past. The Western Epic is thus as much a social document as a
literary document. It records the development of aspirations, moral and social, of
Western culture over the centuries, and indeed even today.

To examine the importance of this thesis, the remainder of this chapter

proposes to examine two Epic poets, Milton and Dryden. Each poet's Epic is briefly
discussed, divining the poet’s purpose in penning his Epic by discussing the opening
lines of his work. The poet questions the reader of his generation with the following:
What is your destiny? What challenge are you personally facing? How will you
overcome this challenge? In his opening lines, the Epic poet often justifies himself as
the public spokesman of his generation. He speaks as one who understands and
presents a solution to his reader’s dilemma.

Epic Poet as Spokesman of an Era: Milton

Milton and his composition of Paradise Lost center on the theme of justifying
God’s way to man. This is spelled out in the very beginning of the poem, when Milton
invokes the muse:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing Heavenly Muse ...
(17)

Milton calls on the Muse to sing, but sing to whom? Anne Ferry presents the
following relationship between the poet, the Epic and the reader:

Criticism of Milton in the last two decades has ... departed from earlier
writing in assimilating ... new interests to the theoretical approach that
stresses the location of meanings in the interpretive acts of the reader,
rather than in the poem as a created object. This critical approach has

4
 been directed to Paradise Lost with especial appropriateness because
the part assigned to the reader’s experiences of the poem is particularly
suited to describe Milton’s Epic. The grounds for this appropriateness
consist in the special relationship created in the poem between reader
and poet by the way it complexly characterized narrative voice tells its
unique story . . . According to my argument, the interpretive acts of the
reader are in this sense the poem’s meaning. (x)

This point was originally meant to apply to the modern reader. I suggest,
however, that it is equally applicable in a historical sense. Milton after all was writing
for his own time, and as Ferry points out, Milton's work claims to present a vision
“profoundly relevant to all men and to all experiences.” Thus, Ferry states, Milton’s
poem "of all poems demands to be taken seriously, and we must consciously attend to
its meaning as we read it; our response to it must depend on its fullest vision of
existence” (2).

If this “demand” applies to modern readers, how much more so would it apply
to Milton's own time. When Milton makes this demand, he takes on a role: the role of
an encompassing spokesman for his generation and time.

Epic Poet as Spokesman of an Era: Dryden

Almost a generation after Milton, John Dryden lived in a world of challenging

religious proclamations and differences, and sought a solution of religious certainty.
There can be no doubt that Dryden's research and study of the classics affected the
way he saw his role to his own generation. Dryden's own translation of the opening of
Virgil's Aeneid speaks with an almost personal force:

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,

And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

Virgil's Aeneid is full of the tension that Aeneas suffers between his personal
desires, his logic, and his duties to his gods and family. This tension is transferred to
Dryden's own writing, which explores the tensions he sees between tradition, private
reason, and religious confusion. As the spokesman par excellence for his generation,

5
Dryden can guide his people out of their confusion and into the proper religious
attitude. This is clearest in one of Dryden's most personal works, The Hind and the
Panther. In summing up his belief in an omnipotent God (lines 64-65), and
demonstrating God's ineffable nature, Dryden clearly is speaking not just for himself
but to his era, defending how the faithful discover an equilibrium between tradition
and private reason:

But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide

For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. (lines 64-67)

Dryden portrays God as “Truth” in his poem, and as the solution to England's
intellectual dilemma. He states that private reason is only valid when maintained
within the balance of reformed conscience, respect for tradition, and man’s finitude.
In this way the people's greatest fear is allayed by a resolution; Dryden's omnipotent
provider is God with the people's answer.

O teach me to believe Thee thus conceal'd,

And search no farther than Thyself reveal'd;
But her alone for my director take,
Whom Thou hast promis'd never to forsake! (lines 68-71)

Social Meaning of the Epic: Women and Society

The Epic poet's belief in his role as spokesman for an era gives the Epic a
unique importance in understanding the social constructs of his time. This is
particularly so in the case of women's role in society. Reading and excavating the
lives of famous literary queens, heroines, and warrior-maidens through the Epic can
show us how different European cultures viewed women in a wide range of historical
settings. Aspects of the evolution of society, culture, and literature from the medieval
to Renaissance eras can thus be seen in the development of the Epic.

Changes in the literary form of the Epic reflect social factors that marginalized
the role of women: the transformation of civilization’s central powers from the lords
of hunter-gatherer’s to the lords of city-states, the transformative affects of religion
and society’s change and development. The Epic’s development traces the evolution
of women from a powerful role as their husband’s consort (politically and socially

6
affluent) to the marginalized role of hostess and decoration at social functions. Two
worlds come into contrast, the primeval world of Genesis where man and woman are
equal, and the civilized world where they are not.

Using the lens of genre and gender to interpret the Epic, the roles assigned to
women undergo a transformation through the historical development of the Epic.
Compared to the minimalist role of the Scandinavian queens in Beowulf, Homer's
royal women, Andromache, and Penelope, (as well as Mallory’s Guinevere) all show
growth in the role of the royal heroine. Differences in each heroine’s role are
influenced by where along the span of literary history the heroine emerged. The later
female protagonists are expanded beyond a flat, cookie-cutter character as a greater
textual portion of the Epic is devoted to their deeper development.

Two female heroes will be explored in depth later in this thesis. Virgil’s
Camilla and Tasso’s Clorinda, in the roles of huntress and women-warrior, relate to
the social and literary background of their time. Each male author is romanticizing a
previous era. Virgil looks back to the time of Homer. Tasso looks back to the First
Crusade. Virgil knows that Augustan Rome has triumphed and in Empire, the
colonizer subdues the colonized. Although Virgil must portray both Camilla and
Queen Dido as marginalized, minority figures, his knowledge of the historical Dido,
and his idealized vision of a woman, combine as he pens his creation of a new,
transformed Dido, whose story captivated European imagination from St. Augustine
onward. Similarly, in the construction of the Muslim warrior Clorinda, Tasso cannot
resist imagining and writing the woman he desires, although finally he must baptize
and lose her in a flood of tears.

Women's roles were also impacted by ethics in Augustan Rome as witnessed

by Virgil's employment of Pallas Athena as a deus ex machina, to tear down and then
redefine acceptable male and female behavior. Pietas and feminine furor synthesize
as Virgil employs Camilla’s complex role as a locus, a venatrix, virginal huntress, and
warrior-princess. This coagulation of roles and Camilla’s demise show Virgil’s
admiration and empathy for the vanquished minority, the marginalized female hero.
Despite differences in how female heroes are martyred, their similarities as scapegoats
are evaluated as defined by Girard, Frazer, and Eliot.

7
 Chapter II:
Female Types in the Epic

Female Epic Protagonists: Heroines vs. Female Heroes

The female characters in the epic come in a wide range of types. In this
chapter, however, we are interested in female protagonists who contrast with or are a
direct counterpart of the main male protagonist, the Hero.

Two types of female protagonists in the epic are proposed here: the heroine
and the female hero. The heroine is an auxiliary to the hero. She is feminine, sweet,
and often intelligent. Typically a queen, or a woman of royalty surrounded by ladies-
in-waiting, the feminine heroine's role is defined by the cultural parameters of her
society. Such heroines are usually highly desired and loved, and usually survive the
plot of the epic. These heroines are desired as the “prize of honor” or a type of trophy-
wife. Examples are the Scandinavian queen of Beowulf, Guinevere of the Arthurian
tales, and Andromache and Penelope of the Homeric Epics..

Contrary to heroines, female heroes have attained independence. The female

hero may have physical skills and strengths atypical of heroines, or may be skilled in
the typically “male” world of politics and warfare. She is creative, versatile, and
intelligent. As queen, she develops a team of male experts to advise her and follows
their advice when she deems it best. Often multi-cultural and multi-lingual, the female
hero defines herself and does not shrink from challenging or breaking social
stereotypes.

The female hero knows how to evaluate her circumstances and the men in her
circle of influence. She adjusts her disposition, appearance, and communication style
accordingly, based on the prevailing social, political, or military environment. Female
heroes created and developed by male authors are often scapegoated and then
destroyed in the classical Epic. Queen Dido serves as a good example of a female
hero. The female hero is also often stereotyped as the woman-warrior.

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Epic Heroines: Scandinavian/British

The Epic heroine is a common type, appearing in many early Epics,

particularly the “folk Epics” discussed in Chapter I. In Beowulf, Hrothgar's wife and
queen, Wealtheow, is a typical example of the Scandinavian heroine. Wealtheow co-
hosts the banquets held by her husband-king in his mead hall. She pours a goblet of
mead, a blend of wine and honey, and then toasts each warrior individually. The
queen thus directly communicated her desires to the warriors and lords in her and her
husband’s kingdom. Publicly socializing afforded the queen the opportunity to
directly communicate her desires to men of means and also access valuable political
information useful for strengthening her influence and power from the ground floor.

Early pagan queens performed in the wooden mead-hall to support the

complex role they played in co-ruling their kingdoms. The mead-hall was both the
throne room and the feasting hall, giving these early queens the stage necessary to
powerfully co-host banquets. A banquet at the mead-hall meant feasting and wine,
Epics sang, warmth and laughter. The hero was rewarded and toasted by both queen
and king.

Although England is geographically close to Scandinavia and historically

linked with it, later English epic tales do not often feature such heroines. In
catholicized Europe, the queen had to play a more decorative role. Thus, unlike the
Scandinavian queens, Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d'Arthur shows Queen
Guinevere not as joint ruler, nor does she co-host the king’s banquets. She is rarely
present in the throne room during political discussions or state proceedings and has no
seat at the Round Table. Instead, Guinevere is relegated to the role of royal
“castlewife”. Epitomizing the queen of chivalric code, Guinevere is royal wife and
knightly inspiration. In the early years Queen Guinevere's support of Arthur increased
his power. Her dependency on the knights’ strength inspires dreams of entanglement
in the triangle of amor inspired by the chivalric code. Ascending to the throne by
marriage, influencing the high king, Guinevere in her later years contributed to
Camelot’s chaos and destruction.

Epic Heroines: The Iliad

Greek Epics depict two extremes of heroines. These two extremes are

9
prominent in the Iliad, one appearing on the Greek side and the other on the Trojan
side. The representative heroine of the Greek side is Briseis, and the representative
heroine of the Trojan side is Andromache.

Briseis is actually a minor figure in the Iliad, but she is the closest thing we
can find to a female protagonist for Achilles. Captured by the Greek army, she is
given to Achilles as a prize of war, a slave. Her main narrative role is as the cause of
the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon which drives much of the plot of the
Iliad.

However, Briseis's status as a prize of war is perhaps not as debased a role as

one might expect. According to Pomeroy, in the local patrilocal pattern of the
Greeks, the suitor brought back a bride to his own house, and the bride was used to
ally the houses of her husband and her father. Gifts were customarily exchanged at the
wedding; brides were not usually purchased by grooms. A variation of this form of
patrilocal marriage was marriage by capture. Thus Briseis was captured and became
Achilles’ prized war possession. As Pomeroy observes, “He referred to her as his
‘bedmate, but she was led to expect to celebrate a ceremony of legal marriage with
him when the couple returned to Achilles’ home in Greece” (19).

In Troy where women are in a besieged city and in an army camp, certainly a
situation where women would be dependent on their warrior sons and husbands, and
other male protectors. As Pomeroy notes, Briseis declares her dependence on Achilles
as complete because of the death of all other members of her family (29). Although
Greek slaves were property, and male or female had no choice of whom they served
or had sex with, they still had feelings that were openly displayed. The weeping of
Briseis as Patroclus tenderly delivers her into the hands of Agamemnon’s heralds,
thus involuntarily separating her from Achilles, is famous (27). Despite her
disappearance from the story after this, the feud that begins through their separation is
a frequently repeated narrative reminder of her social role.

The situation on the Trojan side is strikingly different. Consider, for instance,
the elegant manners but blunt honesty of Hector’s wife Andromache. As Pomeroy
notes, Her boldness in giving Hector military advice has to do with her childhood, and
the role of her queen-mother. Andromache’s mother ruled as an active queen under
her husband-king’s authority (23).

10
 Another important factor that does much to put men and women in the Trojan
camp on an equal footing is the war. Troy is a city besieged, and the Greeks are
camped out on the beach in tents. Andromache is thus naturally firm in telling her
husband not to make her a widow and forthright in her wish to die if Hector dies. Nor
is Hector able to reject his wife’s advice and resolution. The idea of Andromache
being dragged off as a slave by a Greek conqueror haunts Hector (Pomeroy 28-29).

Andromache was also known for her fine weaving and embroidery, a very
important symbol of the pure, loyal Greek wife in Hellenistic society:

Hector's wife had as yet heard nothing, for no one had come to tell her
that her husband had remained without the gates. She was at her loom
in an inner part of the house, weaving a double purple web, and
embroidering it with many flowers. (The Iliad, Book 12)

Compared with later Greek literature, the Iliad gives a generally, enjoyable
impression of Greek women’s lives. Modest, but not completely secluded,
Andromache walks freely with escorts through the Trojan streets. Women are also
shown on Achilles’ shield helping to defend Trojan city walls. The dating rendezvous
of a boy and girl meeting outside the city walls is mentioned.

In the end, Andromache survives the burning of Troy, the death of her infant
son Astyanax, who is thrown from the walls of Troy on the city’s defeat, pirate
attacks, and slavery. In the Aeneid, Aeneas sees her again free. She is queen of a new
Troy named Buchotum, married to another of Priam’s sons who is prophet as well as
king. According to Pomeroy (21), the plight of Penelope and Telemachus in the
absence of a man of heroic stature is comparable to the wretched widowhood
envisioned by Hector’s wife Andromache. Andromache also married in a patrilocal
arrangement and was stranded after Hector died. When she laments her husband’s
death, she compares the life of her son to that of a boy whose parents are still living.
Evidently “parents” really means father, for without a father the son loses his friends,
his share in the men’s banquets, and the lands he stands to inherit.

Epic Heroines: The Odyssey

The Odyssey presents yet another side of the Greek Epic heroine. Penelope is
the protagonist of Odysseus, as clever in employing ruses to fend off the dangerous

11
suitors that plague her as Odysseus is in fending off the Cyclops. Penelope is an
example of areté. This is a vital philosophy that all Greeks live by in the land of the
living. As Richard Hooker observes,

In the Homeric poems, arête is frequently associated with bravery, but

more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of arête is a person
of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength,
bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results.

Penelope contrasts with Odysseus in another way, however. Unlike Odysseus,

who has few scruples about sleeping with Circe, Penelope is a paragon of virtuous
loyalty. As Pomeroy notes, this is why such queens may remain within the public
rooms of the king’s palace in the presence of male guests without scandal. Not only
concubines but legitimate wives are considered desirable, and there is little trace of
the misogyny that taints later Greek literature (31). However, if her husband were to
die, Penelope and her child would lose their privileged status. The plight of Penelope
and Telemachus in the absence of a man of heroic stature is comparable to the
wretched widowhood of Hector’s wife Andromache (21).

The Homeric Epics are notable for their lack of the woman-warrior type.
Different Epics occur in different eras and different cultures. In the Iliad and also the
Odyssey. the characters of Briseis, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen fit into one of the
two extremes we have discussed. In the Odyssey, Penelope diverges from this
extreme, but is not a match for Odysseus in terms of physical prowess or political
power. They are definitely not women-warriors or female heroes.

Female Hero: Origins and Arguments

A female hero differs from these women who are either primarily auxiliaries
to men or who are dependent on men for their physical safety or political power. She
is instead a true female counterpart of the male hero.

The female hero is an unusual type in world literature, and its origins are not
clear. It is tempting to look to mythology and the female deities for its sources, since
the male hero, such as Achilles, is often a demi-god. However, the Greco-Roman
world of myth did not include all-powerful goddesses. Even in the pantheon of Mt.
Olympus, the power of each goddess is limited because each has some weakness or

12
restricted area of influence. The Ithacan warrior and judge Mentor is one side of the
virgin goddess of wisdom Athena. Her masculinity denies her both sexual activity and
motherhood. The other two virgin goddesses are Artemis and Hestia. Hestia role plays
the virgin spinstress. The virgin Artemis is also huntress and warrior. Being sexually
active, however, does not increase a goddess’ power sphere. Aphrodite is
irresponsible and irritating in her designated box of solely, shallow sexual love. Hera
is Zeus’ wife, mother, and powerful queen, but she must remain faithful and suffer the
promiscuity of her husband (Pomeroy 8-9).

Athena is perhaps the most prominent goddess in Homeric Epics, and we

might wonder whether she could be a source for the female as hero. There is no doubt
that Athena is close to her father Zeus. This is connected with the unusual
circumstances of her birth. While her mother was pregnant, Zeus swallowed her and,
in time, at the stroke of the ax of Hephaestus, Athena was born, as befits a goddess of
wisdom, out of the head of Zeus, fully armed and uttering her war cry. Because she
herself was born of man, Athena is able to affirm that the father is the true parent of
any child.1 In male-female antagonism related in tragedy and epic, Athena always
sides with the male, even hinting that she is suspicious of the motives of the virtuous
Penelope (Pomeroy 5). Her function here is to strengthen and comfort the position of
Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s The Odyssey. Because of her reaffirmation of the male
hero, she can be seen as a female god, not as a goddess.

Not all the goddesses fit the human female stereotype of being highly sociable.
In contrast to the outgoing Athena, Artemis (Roman Diana) is a huntress who shoots
arrows from afar. She prefers to spend her days in mountains and forests in the
company of wild beasts, remote from gatherings of men and gods.2 The Amazons
worshiped Artemis and resembled her. Both goddess and Amazons wore short tunics,
were archers, and avoided the company of males.

The Amazons are also a possible source of the idea of the female hero.

1
This belief is strengthened by the birth of Aphrodite (Roman Venus), who, according to Hesiod,
was born out of the foam of the sea from the castrated genitals of the sky god Uranus, and by the
birth of Dionysus.
2
Atlanta and the Amazons are mortal forms of Artemis. Atlanta had been exposed to die in infancy
because her father wanted a son, and was raised in the forest by a bear. She was a huntress who
joined men in legendary expeditions and devised numerous schemes to avoid marriage, but finally
yielded to a suitor who had the aid of Aphrodite.

13
Whether the Amazons had a historical existence is debatable, though according to it is
possible that exclusively female societies existed.3 According to Herodotus, the
Amazons yielded to the Scythians partially because they preferred sex to victory.
Herodotus adds the interesting detail that the women were able to learn the language
of the men, but the men could not understand the Amazon’s language. One can
interpret this as still indicating some differences between women and men even in this
most extreme group; successful warriors were brutes in battle, and virile lovers in bed,
but poor at intellectual, verbal communication skills.

Pomeroy writes that the Amazons appear frequently in the visual arts, where
they are shown in short tunics of the type worn by the goddess Artemis, or in loose
Oriental trousers, sometimes with one breast bare but never with one missing. The
figure of the Amazon was an idiom through which the Greek artist could portray
young athletic females without offending sensibilities by suggesting they were Greeks
(24).

Virgil and the Female Hero: Queen Dido

Virgil's Aeneid is a striking innovation in Western literature. It is possible to

view the figure of Dido in Virgil's Aeneid as a partial source for the female hero. As
Desmond notes, the remarkable character of Queen Dido has a historical basis.
Desmond’s focus in the first half of her chapter “Dux Femina Facti: Virgil’s Dido in
the Historical Text” traces how Dido is transformed from a historical ruler into an
elegiac lover in Virgil. Desmond first quotes Petrarch, Seniles 4.5, who notes the
contrast between the historical Dido, and what she becomes in Virgil’s Aeneid:

And why indeed did the most learned and excellent poet of all invent
this – for it is well known that he invented it – when it had been
permitted by his own rule to choose any other out of a number of
heroines or to form a new one; why did he choose one . . . whom he
knew died out of zeal for chastity and the preservation of widowhood
and make her yield to a wanton love? (23)

Petrarch’s point is well taken. Timaeus of Tauromenium (356-260 B.C.E.).

3
Herodotus relates that the Amazons succumbed to the Scythians, whose historical reality has never
been questioned, and that the Amazons and Scythians together became the ancestors of the
Sauromatae.

14
tells us that the historical Dido fled to Libya with her entourage after her brother
Pygmalion killed her husband, the wealthy Sychaeus. Later a Libyan king wished to
marry her, and she refused. Forced to accept him by her people, she built a funeral
pyre to commemorate her dead husband, and then threw herself onto the blazing pyre
in her palace.

According to Desmond, however, Justin was the historical reference that

Virgil most closely followed in his “revision of an existing tradition regarding the
queen of Carthage” (25). In Justin’s rendition, Pygmalion is a boy-king who hears
fama (rumor) about his the wealth of his brother-in-law, Acerbas. He kills Acerbas,
showing no respect for pietas. Desmond summarizes Justin's account as follows:

[S]he pretends to her brother that she wished to move from her
husband’s house and into his. Pygmalion agrees to his plan, since he
thinks that Acerbas’ gold will be moving in with Dido. However, Dido
leads Pygmalion’s servants (sent by Pygmalion to assist her in her
move) into a ship with all her wealth, and once at sea, order them to
throw aboard packages of sand, pretending they were casting her
wealth into the sea as a funeral offering to Acerbas. She then
conscripts the servants to attend her in exile since they cannot return to
Pygmalion without the wealth (25).

Desmond argues that this displays Dido’s “agency” and is a “narrative of

political maneuvers that exemplify her resourcefulness and cunning” (25).

Justin’s Dido fits into the role of a female hero in a particularly interesting
way. She breaks societal molds when she abducts a group of virgins to distribute to
her followers. Dido knows that she needs families and offspring in order to establish
and populate her new city. Desmond comments that “Such ‘traffic in women,’ though
a standard feature of Homeric epic, is unusual for a woman, even a woman warrior.
The abduction of virgins suggests the degree to which Dido’s political behavior as
leader situates her in masculine roles” (26).

Desmond also argues that Justin’s portrayal of Dido’s suicide is another event
which marks Dido as a female counterpart of the male hero figure. Dido chooses
death by burning. Desmond interprets this as the death worthy of a male hero, a type
of political suicide. Her death “exemplifies a tragic dignity and who is later venerated
by her people as a deity. Dux femina fact.” (26).

15
 Desmond next traces the comments of Conte, who argues that “Virgil
probably found Dido in Naevius, but the Bellum Poeticum certainly did not contain
the substance of the fourth book of the Aeneid. In Naevius Dido can hardly have been
more that a device for taking the date of the historical conflict between two peoples
(Carthaginians and Romans) back to a mythical age.” Desmond credits Virgil with
transforming Queen Dido from a heroic exile, into an “abandoned woman undone by
desire” (27). Desmond then describes how initially Virgil’s Dido was a formidable,
capable ruler like the historical character of Dido. However, Dido’s royal figure, her
ambitious building of Carthage, her power, wealth and generosity all deteriorate with
her desire for Aeneas. This leads to Desmond to claim that “Aeneid departs from the
historical tradition in its treatment of Dido as a sexualized figure, a woman tempted
by amor to forsake both her oath to Sychaeus (which the historical Dido died to
preserve) and her role as leader” (28). Dido’s death by burning can also be taken as a
symbol of Virgil’s decision to sacrifice her on the altar of love.

This sacrifice of the heroine by the Epic author is a common motif running
throughout literary history. As we more closely examine the first major epic heroine,
Queen Camilla of the Volscians, the foundation of the term “scapegoat” began in the
dawn of western history with Genesis and the Garden of Eden. With the entrance of
sin into the Garden through Adam and Eve’s sin, Jesus was ordained as their hero and
redeemer, the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Hence the slaying of a
lamb beginning with the forefathers as a symbol of Jesus’ future sacrifice. This Old
Testament motif of scapegoat is further developed by Girard, Frazer and Eliot, as we
will see below.

16
 Chapter III:
Camilla as Scapegoat Warrior

The Scapegoat

Scapegoat is a very ancient word that can be defined as a kind of “blame

game.” When a person or society is facing a crisis rather than honestly discovering the
root and cause of the crisis, they choose to blame and sacrifice someone convenient.
This person or group is the scapegoat.

The Scapegoat is a frequent element in many societies. Through all the

generations of human history, there have been examples of scapegoating. The
treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany was a typical example of the scapegoat. The
scapegoat exists as a theoretical construct also in our generation. Communist
governments since World War II have offered a number of scapegoats from which all
sources of evil purportedly arise -- the Jews, clergy, nobility and monopolists. Here
the elimination of the marginalized sector appears as a general emancipation. This is
not what Marx originally believed, however. For Marx, social evils reside in the
obstacles to praxis and community rather than in a marginalized person or population
sector. Marx thought sacrificing a scapegoat, i.e. hanging capitalists, was not an
effective strategy for getting rid of class structure. Class structure could only be
directly and effectively influenced by direct changes to the system. This changes with
the increased emphasis on “Externalization,” a Marxist term that describes a society
or individual in denial of the faults of its social system; to circumvent the fundamental
problem, this society sacrifices a scapegoat.

The Scapegoat in Roman Culture

There are many theories of why societies in conflict choose a person or a

minority group as a scapegoat to relieve societal tension. This chapter begins by
looking at the practice of scapegoating first from a historical perspective. In
particular we attempt to show how this practice was present in Roman culture. We
then examine theories of how the Scapegoat functions on a mythical level in James

17
Frazer’s important work on historical mythology, in the anthropology of Rene Girard,
and in the poetry of T. S. Eliot.

In Roman culture, women were often scapegoats, especially women of an

ethnic minority or “marginal women”. They were blamed for Rome’s faults and
sacrificed. This is reflected in literature where it is the female hero, the woman-
warrior or the virgin priestess, who dies. This parallelism, between athletic woman
and priestess, is later echoed in St. Jerome’s work Adversus Jovinianum, where
Jerome catalogs virgins into two categories: the female athlete (Latin virago, female
hero or warrior) and the virgin priestess (heroine).

The scapegoat in essence is a form of pietas which serves to bind together the
patriarchal Roman system. Filial piety to the gods and the paterfamilias is a
foundational societal ethic; it also is exhibited at the demise of the Epic female hero.
The scapegoat thus helps to explicate the relations in Virgil’s Aeneid by
demonstrating the role of fertility cults in the love relationship of the earth-goddess
and priest-king. This divine love affair is a model for the human hero and heroine as
lovers in the Epic.

Frazier and Girard on the Scapegoat

Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion substantiates the
importance of Virgil by demonstrating the role of fertility cults in the love
relationship of earth-goddess and priest king, a model for the hero and heroine of the
Epic.

The title of Frazer’s book comes from a famous scene in the Aeneid, which
was even the subject of a painting titled “The Golden Bough” by the British artist
Joseph Turner (1775-1851). In this scene, Aeneas and the Sibyl present the golden
bough to the gatekeeper of Hades to gain admission.4 This excavation of religion and
mythology by a Scottish anthropologist is not a seminary dissertation, but rather a
religious exploration portrayed through the lens of culture. Golden Bough thus
functions as a time portal for twentieth-century readers to visit back into the past of
Virgil’s Aeneid.

Frazer’s exposition states that ancient religions pivoted around fertility cults.

4
Like Sibyl, the goddess Athena also serves as a divine guide, a spiritual female counselor to both
Ulysses and his son Telamachus in Homer’s The Iliad.

18
Each cult celebrated the worship and annual sacrifice of a sacred king. The
incarnation of a dying and resurrected god was typically deified as a solar deity who
underwent a mystical marriage to the earth goddess. Frazer’s prototypical example of
this is the ancient Roman priest-king at Nemi, a king-of-the-wood, whose ritual
murder by his successor is described in The Golden Bough. The priest-king died at
mid-autumn harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. He symbolizes the dying and
renewing of Earth - the change of the four seasons, as portrayed in the decaying,
falling, rebirth, and budding of leaves on a forest tree. Frazer postulates that this
legend is core to the majority of all world mythology. This is Frazer’s leitmotiv.

[R]ecent researches into the early history of man have revealed the
essential similarity with which, under many superficial differences, the
human mind has elaborated its first crude philosophy of life.
Accordingly, if we can show that a barbarous custom, like that of the
priesthood of Nemi, has existed elsewhere; if we can detect the
motives that lead to its institution; if we can prove that these motives
have operated wildly, perhaps universally, in human society, . . . that
these very motives, with some of their derivative institutions, were
actually at work in classical antiquity; then we may fairly infer that at a
remoter age the same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi. (2)

In The Golden Bough, Frazer writes that the worship of Diana in her sacred
grove at Nemi was continuous from time immemorial. Diana was “conceived as
especially as a huntress, and further as blessing men and women with offspring, and
granting expectant mothers an easy delivery.” (3) Frazer makes a number of
interesting conjectures about this grove:

[It] probably supported a round temple of Diana in character of Vesta,

like the round table of Vesta in the Roman Forum. Here the sacred fire
would seem to have been tended by Vestal Virgins . . . and the worship
of a perpetual fire, cared for by holy maidens, appears to have been
common in Latium from the earliest to the latest times. Further, at the
annual festival of the goddess, hunting dogs were crowned and wild
beasts were not molested . . . (3)

Diana had a human as her lover, a man of a royal and priestly line. The divine
was thus connected to the human through the physical, sexual intimacy of love. Diana

19
was to have copulated with an old Roman king in the sacred grove. Another name of
Diana’s male companion is Virbius; who was to her what Adonis was to Venus, or
Attis to Cybele.

Nicknamed “Diana of the Wood” in Frazer’s work, her companion and lover,
the mythical Virbius is of special note here. He is represented by a priestly line known
as “King of the Wood”. Each king of the wood’s life was bound up in a certain tree in
Diana’s sacred grove, and as long as that tree flourished – that priest-king also
flourished. Each king eventually died by the sword of his successor.

This victim of this ritual death is Frazer’s prototypical Scapegoat, a victim

who dies to preserve the social order of the priest-king.

A different viewpoint is taken in the philosophical anthropology presented in

the work of René Girard, particularly in his book, La violence et le sacré. Girard, a
scholar of anthropology, literature, and philosophy, develops a theory which states
that when society faces a “mimetic crisis,” sacrifice of an individual or group is often
chosen as the solution. Scapegoating is a form of society’s release of supreme tension;
it is like the lid of a teakettle bursting off to suddenly release the pressure. Rather
than symbolically preserving social order, as in Frazer’s view, the destruction of the
scapegoat has an emotional or social function.

Eliot’s Use of the Scapegoat in The Waste Land

The use of the scapegoat in literature can further be exemplified by examining

T.S. Eliot famous long poem, The Waste Land. In the section we are interested in,
Eliot begins a woman, Madame Sosostris, a fortuneteller:

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations (43-50).

According to several commentaries, This name is in fact a mock Egyptian

20
name (suggested to Eliot by the name 'Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana', a name
assumed by a character in Aldous Huxley's novel Chrome Yellow who dresses up as a
gypsy to tell fortunes at a fair).

Commentators on Eliot’s work also observe that he was not familiar with the
exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which he obviously departed to suit
his own convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits Eliot’s
purpose in two ways: first, because he is associated with the Hanged God of Frazer,
and second because it can be linked with the hooded figure in a later section of Eliot’s
poem on the passage of the disciples to Emmaus. The Phoenician Sailor and the
Merchant also appear later; also the 'crowds of people', and Death by Water is
executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot
pack) associated, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water (51-55).

Eliot’s footnote number 55 says “On his card in the Tarot pack, the Hanged
Man is shown hanging from one foot from a T-shaped cross. He symbolizes the self-
sacrifice of the fertility god who is killed in order that his resurrection may bring
fertility once again to land and people.”

Scapegoating is therefore a common motif employed by male authors. The

author deconstructing his female hero allows space for the male hero to once more
dominate the plot. This idea is illustrated through patriarchal systems such as the
Roman one; the Roman system was bound together by societal values such as pietas.
Although Virgil feels sorrow and compassion for his creations Dido and Camilla,
finally he must justify the assumption of male, patriarchal rule by the Emperor
Augustus through the Aeneid's plot.

The Cost of Pietas: Women Warriors and Virgin Priestesses

In Virgil’s scheme, Aeneas is a model of pietas, a Latin term that refers to two
things: respect for the gods, and filial piety towards the patriarchal line. This can be

21
seen through his constant care and concern for his father and son. We are also
frequently reminded of this in the descriptive passages of the Aeneid, which often
refers to him, in English translation, as “Aeneas the pious:”

Like Mars and Venus, the children of Leto are the protectors of Troy
and of Aeneas, the “pious” hero, at once a prince and priest, who
would not abandon his country’s gods, but took them with him when
he wandered from Troy to the distant West. (Strong 94)

Our definition of pietas can further be constructed employing Stefan

Weinstock's interpretation of pietas as demonstrating deference and honor to deity
and parents. In Dirus Julius, Weinstock finds that it is a quality closely associated in
the text with males, particularly with Aeneas.

Thus Aeneas, as the father of the true Rome, knows his way. When a person is
at his best, he knows confidently that for him this is the way.5 Like The Hind and the
Panther, he knows to walk in the way of truth.

Pietas is usually portrayed as a positive Italian virtue. However, within the

context of Virgil’s work, it seems that pietas is also the reason for the bloody
sacrifices of the poem’s heroines. The heroines of the Aeneid Camilla and Dido must
die for the pietas that makes Aeneas the hero of Virgil’s epic. Pietas allows Aeneas to
make only the choices that end with death, literally sacrificing the heroines for the
goals of pride, empire, and civilization. As we will see later, in La Gerusalemme
Liberata, Clorinda will suffer a complex, but similar fate.

Camilla as a Female Hero

Who is Camilla in The Aeneid? What role does Camilla play in the plot? Is she
a woman-warrior or is she a virgin heroine? How can she personify both humanity
and divinity while exulting in virginity? Why does Virgil depict a female member of
an ethnic minority as a vital hero of his Epic? Why does Virgil so vividly picture an
enemy of Aeneas? And when he does depict an intelligent, capable female
protagonist, why does he suddenly dispose of her?

In the history of the formation of the Romans as Virgil tells it, many natives of
5
“Follow your mistress, the way of walking . . . show us the way of truth.” (Dryden, The Hind
and the Panther)

22
Italia were conquered; they died fighting the victorious Trojans. Camilla was the
daughter of the king of the Volsci, one of these native groups. Although they were in
the end conquered by the Romans, the Italic ancestors of Virgil’s era were part of
current Italian bloodlines: these conquered people were thus admirable. Virgil
masterfully incorporated the history of Roman ancestry into the plot without
alienating the populace. Through this amalgam with the Trojans, he demonstrated the
defeat of such natives was paramount to the establishment of the Roman race and
Empire. In this locus, Italy was birthed by mythological experience through the
victory of the Trojan hero Aeneas over Camilla and Turnus.

In order to make this fit into the conventions of the Epic genre, however, there
must be a way to overcome the heroic origins of Camilla. The strategy that Virgil
adopts is to identify elements in Camilla that allow her to be overcome by the pietas
that empowers Aeneas in his divine mission. Two of these elements are especially
relevant to our discussion: feminine furor and the athletic virgin (virago). These
elements were essentially unnatural in the Roman social order, and so by locating
them in Camilla, Virgil was pointing towards Camilla’s failure. Yet Virgil
maintained a strangely ambiguous attitude toward these attributes, which is one of the
most interesting things in the Aeneid.

Feminine Furor and the Virago

Trudy H. Becker’s “Ambiguity and the Female Warrior: Virgil’s Camilla”

points to some strange ambiguities in Virgil’s depiction of Camilla:

Her character resonates with many Virgilian figures and Virgilian

themes of heroism and sacrifice. She is like many characters in the
Aeneid, and unlike many; she is troublesome to understand and
complex, like the Aeneid itself, and purposefully so.

Becker claims that this ambiguity is deliberate and lies in the contradictory
elements of femininity and warlike actions and nature. To Becker, Camilla’s
ambiguity is multi-layered like an onion – including her role, actions, gender, and The
Other’s reaction to her.6

6
“Through the eyes of the Other”. The concept of “the Other” is based on the psychological theory
of Lacan, the French psychoanalyst.

23
 Particularly interesting is Becker’s observation of how Virgil describes
Camilla as possessing furens, meaning madness or insanity, often translated as
“furor.”

Deacy and Villing elaborate that in this particular context it’s suggestive that
Virgil associated the feminine with the “transgressive”:

In other words, is it not potentially true that Virgil’s conception of the

epic - as he introduces it in the Georgics and plays it out in The Aeneid
entails a use of the feminine (in particular, its association with furor) as
a means of redefining both the gender and its social goals? (Deacy
336)

Deacy and Villing expound on the law of genre as it functions similarly to the
law of gender:

Examples taken from the opening book of the epic demonstrate that it
is precisely the law of gender that this genre, as Virgil presents it, both
sets up, through his male figures of pietas, and questions through the
feminine furor they maintain. (336).

Camilla, a female hero who radiates the furor of the divine force, is a paradox
in Virgil’s work. Is it because she is nearly perfect that Virgil decides to abruptly
eradicate her?

On top of this divine furor, McLeod makes some interesting points concerning
the categorization of women as virgins and the Italian idea of viragos (virile virgins),
women who transcend their gender though their chastity. Beginning with Jerome’s
catalogue of viragoes7 in Adversus Jovinianum, McLeod further subdivides them into
two categories.

Women athletes and warriors such as Atlanta and Camilla illustrate the
virgin’s manliness while women religious figures such as the Sibyls,
Cassandra, Chryseis, Vestes, and the priestesses of Apollo, Juno,
Diana, and Vesta speak to the virgin’s “knowledge of the counsel of
God.” (40)
7
Jerome’s virgins are not the “passive-priestess” archetype defined by the Sibyl and also the Vestal
Virgins who guarded the secrets of Rome. These are active, high-energy virgins, similar to women-
warriors. St. Cecilia storms heaven defeating tyranny and dominating evil. (Dryden, “Ode to St.
Cecilia”)

24
 Camilla, a virgin, does not fit the quiet and demure portrait of the Italian
Madonna. She rejects the traditional woman’s role in Italy – that of a wife, mother,
and weaver, which Andromache personified so well in the Iliad.

Camilla’s character is nothing like Andromache’s. A natural outdoorsman,

Camilla prefers the forest and hunting. She is “a handsome woman,” in the sense that
she has a beauty of poise and dignity which accents her iron will. Through her vow of
virginity to the goddess Diana, Camilla retains the appeal of chaste virginity. As
McLeod observes:

The viragoes’ virility is represented by the males of the catalog while

the piety of the women priests is echoed in the divine or prophetic
status of each member. The virgin births also associate virginity with
holiness (Buddha), wisdom (Plato and Minerva), and power (Romulus
and Remus). (85)

Jerome’s work on viragoes provides a substantial list proving that even pagans
acknowledged the intrinsic connection between virginity and physical prowess.
Physical prowess and courage, social fame, spiritual holiness, and philosophic
wisdom are all internally connected with virginity.

Dido’s erratic behavior, brought on by the influence of Juno and Venus, is

“out-of-control” not only in that she a female ruler, which the Romans view as
imbalanced and dangerous; but also she allows her passion for Aeneas to drive her to
fits, fainting, rantings and ravings, despair – and finally suicide. Camilla is not the
type of woman that Virgil sees as “out-of-control”. In Camilla there is a logical,
smart, in-control military genius, more dangerous to her enemies.

Lavinia’s mother, the Queen of Latium, is another out-of-control woman in

The Aeneid. In her favoring of Lavinia’s suitor Turnus, the king of the indigenous
tribe the Rutuli, the Queen commits bizarre acts induced by the meddling influence of
Juno, Zeus’ wife and sister. Juno, Queen of Mt. Olympus, Zeus’ consort, seems
particularly irritated by strong-willed, determined earthly queens such as Lavinia’s
mother. Thus Becker observes:

Virgil does not depict Camilla as a dux femina, a term used by some
Roman authors to indicate the female ruler, a barbarian institution
which signified a society gone awry. Other Roman authors considered

25
 a female ruler and female general, dux femina, to be un-Roman, and
expressly to be avoided.

A sign of serious malady in society, a female general served as an emblem of

female rebellion, a usurpation of male authority. In Roman society it was a sign of a
serious social disease. Virgil even applies this term to Aeneas' doomed lover, the
queen of Carthage, Dido (Aeneid 1.364). Another dux feminina from the Roman
viewpoint is Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. Camilla, on the other hand, is to be admired
for her martial prowess rather than feared as an example of a woman out of control.
Although Virgil knows he must eventually scapegoat the heroine of the ethnic,
colonized minority of the Volsci, he gives her a startling vividness and appeal which
emphasize the ambiguity of Virgil’s view of Camilla.

Camilla’s divine side is a sub-theme constructed by Virgil. Her fury and

ability as a warrior is of nearly goddess-like stature. Like Achilles’ status as a demi-
god, or Aeneas’ semi-divinity as the son of Venus, Camilla is almost beyond human;
she resembles a force of nature. Becker defines the Italian words horrenda and aspera
and applies each to Camilla’s character. Camilla is awesome and terrifying (11.507)
like the Sibyl (6.10) and like Juno (7.323). Camilla is also harsh and fierce like Juno
(1.279, 11.664). Becker finds some surprising uses of words usually applied to
immortals being transferred to the exceptional Camilla:

In The Aeneid Virgil uses the word aspera mainly to describe

inanimate forces such as nature or war, and some extraordinary
characters. Camilla, when described as aspera, finds herself in non-
mortal company; among females, only Allecto and Juno are so called.

Turnus defers to Camilla, asking her to take command of the military and
charge forward in battle, while he himself stands back in defense of their city. In this
situation, not one warrior in the entire Rutullian camp uttered an objection, thus
signifying the respect and esteem Camilla has among her comitatus. Recognizing her
brilliance they are willing to be led by a woman-at-arms, even in the defense of their
homes and loved ones.

Camilla and the Semi-Divine

As Becker observes, Virgil creates in Camilla a whole new type of woman;

26
She is, Becker suggests, a configuration of the virginal huntress and the warrior
princess:

In the Aeneid, Virgil draws connections between both of these kinds of

mythical women and Camilla; the first of these types is drawn out in
the mythical Thracian Harpalyce. Harpalyce, like Camilla, enjoyed a
rural upbringing, was motherless, was an outcast of sorts from civilized
life due to her father's 'ostracism' by his people, was a venatrix (female
hunter), bore virginal arms, and preferred to roam the forests hunting
until her death.

Virgil’s construction of Camilla develops the challenge of feminine furor to

the epic. Camilla’s multiple roles as venatrix, a motherless female hunter, a virgin
warrior, and an army general begins to break down the walls of gender in Roman
society. Camilla’s sacrifice and the blurring of gender and genre constructs require
that Virgil find some way to resolve this dilemma. He uses Pallas Athena (a female
god) as a deus ex machina to neatly unwind and rewind his tangled ball of yarn.

Returning to the sub-theme of Camilla as semi-divine, Deacy and Villing

declare that the appearance and reappearance of a woman simultaneously with the
blurring of the genre hints at the desire to redefine boundaries between male and
female, pas and nefas.

In The Aeneid this is accomplished through the delayed appearance of

Pallas-Athena. As she appears at the end of The Aeneid she represents
a simultaneous transgression and redefinition of genre and gender.
(Deacy 339)

In addition to Juno, at the conclusion of The Aeneid there is another goddess

interacting in the world of humanity. The Roman goddess Minerva, identified with the
Greek goddess Athena, is the goddess of wisdom assigned a role in the plot by Virgil
as a construct in situ. Having already blurred boundaries of gender and genre, what
better way to redefine male and female roles than through that of the respected
goddess of wisdom? When the rules of genre starts to blur, the androgynous Athena,
birthed out of Zeus’ head fully-armed and uttering her battle cry, takes control of the
action.8 Virgil uses Pallas-Athena as a strong locus to redefine boundaries of male and
8
As Stubbins notes, Athena as Virgil’s goddess-construct in situ is androgynous. Born directly of
Zeus, she supports and favors patriarchal rule.

27
female character and action.

Virgil finds it sine qua non that the virginity, intelligence, and outstanding
military command of Camilla should die in order for Aeneas to flourish. Camilla’s
character also builds on the paintings of Greek Amazons where each one is showed
wounded. The “wounded look” is sad and arouses a kind of classic admiration.
Camilla, as the defeated woman-warrior, also has this kind of appeal. Becker points
out that:

Even in death Camilla appears like one of them: her death and Turnus'
death are described by the very same line, the line which closes the
whole Epic: vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras (with a
groan her undeserving spirit fled to the shades, 11.831 and 12.952).
Rather than symbolizing closure, this line serves to signify loss. Virgil
pointedly uses Camilla to question the glories touted in epic battle, to
remind us of the lost hopes, the loss of a heroic warrior in Camilla, the
loss of Turnus to come, a focus on grief and the exacting cost of final
victory for Aeneas and Rome.

Fate and Tradition in The Aeneid

Pietas and the furor of the virago clash in the Aeneid, and as Becker observes,
it is a clash that Virgil is profoundly ambivalent over. In the end, however, Virgil is
true to history as he set out to tell it. That this does not ring false is due to Virgil’s
send of both tradition and fate.

T.S. Eliot, in his essay “Tradition and Individual Talent,” argues that tradition
is always flowing like a mighty river; it cannot be segmented.

Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited,

and if you want it you must attain it by great labor. It involves, in the
first place, the historical sense, . . . and the historical sense involves a
perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the
historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own
generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the
literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the
literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and

28
 composes a simultaneous order.

Eliot claims that this historical sense, which is “a sense of the timeless as well
as the temporal and of the timeless and temporal together”, is what makes a writer
traditional. He writes that this is what simultaneously makes a writer most acutely
conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity. No poets' or artists' work can
be interpreted in isolation. Thus Eliot explains that each poet’s significance, his
appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to other dead poets and artists. You
cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the
dead. T. S. Eliot proposes artistic interpretation as a principle of aesthetic, not merely
historical criticism.

In the Aeneid, Virgil is after all a profoundly traditional poet in Eliot’s sense.
He constructs his Epic through a dialogue with the Epic form. Starting with the
goddess Diana, he explores the character of Harpalyce, and develops this amalgam
into his portrayal of his female hero Camilla. To Virgil, the classical Epic is not just a
stylized art form, inspired by ancient tropes. It is also an articulation of personal
hopes and fears, a probing and exploring of individual timidity about the future
unknown. Virgil’s real world of bloody war and the “Greek woman-hunter” motif9
both contributed heavily to the molding of Camilla. and the archetype of Diana the
hunter assumed qualities of the Roman warrior.10

Fate too is essential to the conclusion of the Aeneid. Fate too is a divine
principle of the gods that drives mortals. Aeneas’ submission of his fears and desires
to the will of Zeus results in the divine mandate’s consummation on the human stage.
The Roman Empire is established in Italia through the remnant of a Trojan prince’s
seed.

In The Aeneid, Virgil’s concept of Fate is a person striving after goodness and
following the mother of truth, in accord with one’s preordained course. The
foundation in Greek philosophy of this concept is arete11. Each Greek man knew that
upon death even heroes like Achilles would wander in the shades. As Hooker
9
The Amazon motif, especially as portrayed by Greek painters is a powerful, cultural icon in
traditional European literature. (“Statue of a Wounded Amazon.”)
10
Assumed originates from the Catholic concept of Assumption. In the assumption of Our Lady
Mary, she is mortal and all mortals perish. Complete reliance on God’s mercy leads to Mary being
substantially transfigured. She retains her human nature, while she acquires the merciful gift of a
godly nature. (Holweck)

29
remarks:

The most articulated value in Greek culture is areté. Translated as

"virtue," the word actually means something closer to "being the best
you can be," or "reaching your highest human potential." . . . Homer
applies the term of both the Greek and Trojan heroes as well as major
female figures, such as Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero,
Odysseus. In the Homeric poems, arête is frequently associated with
bravery, but more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of
arête is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their
faculties: strength, bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real
results.

Hooker thus interprets arête in the Homeric world as involving all of the
abilities and potentialities available to humans. He tentatively draws some
conclusions about the early Greek world view based on Homer’s frequent usage of the
term arête. This concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions
are of central importance. Here the world is a place of conflict and difficulty; human
value and meaning is measured by individual effectiveness.

The concept of arete differs from our modern concept of destiny, which can be
actively influenced. Destiny is a symbiotic relationship between the individual and his
active desire to create, mold, and enhance his own future. Artistically combining the
knowledge of one’s place in society with one's unique personality and character,
fosters dignity.

The ancient Greek pantheon, which originated on Mt. Olympus, was

dominated by the will of Zeus; his divine will was stronger than that of any of the
lesser gods. Although Aeneas meanders through various adventures on land and sea
as hero in Virgil’s work, his fate is unalterable, as his compass’ course is mandated by
Mt. Olympus. Thus, as Gardner remarks, the theme of Fate is clarified:

11
The Greek concept arete is an individual sense of honor as they have only this short, mortal
lifetime to prove themselves; there is no glory or comfort in the shades – the Greek after life of
Hades. (Hooker)

30
 Aeneas preserves his sanity, as well as his own life and those of his
men, by subordinating his own anxieties and desires to the demands of
fate and the rules of piety. Fate, to Virgil’s Roman audience, is a
divine, religious principle that determines the course of history and has
culminated in the Roman Empire.

Virgil is contrasting the Greek individual sense of honor with the Roman
collective conscience of the people, an intermingled sense of destiny and pietas. Virgil
has woven a new colorful thread into his tapestry. The paradox Virgil is struggling
with culminates in a woman being thrust into the traditional role of male warrior.

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 Chapter IV:
Clorinda and the Romance of the Other

In Chapter III, we observed the sacrifice of the heroine at the hands of the
male author. Sacrifice is a form of scapegoating, and we probed the development of
this term though Frazer, Girard, and finally Eliot. The reasons for scapegoating were
illustrated through the Roman patriarchal system, and also Virgil’s construction and
then obliteration of Camilla. Virgil finally employs a goddess as deus ex machina to
get himself out of his own tangled, imaginary web of desire. In this chapter, we
examine a second epic heroine, Clorinda, like Camilla a warrior,. The subsections of
this chapter include the hero’s first encounter with the heroine, the heroine returns the
hero’s gaze, social aspects of the hero/heroine dichotomy, and the psychology of
counterparts such as hero/heroine.

This chapter focuses on the interaction between the hero and heroine. The first
question is about the first encounter. During the first encounter, what causes the
physical attraction between the hero and heroine when they first see each other? Is
their impression of each other during that first encounter significant, and if so, how
significant? How do they each react to their view of the other? The second question
debated in this chapter is whether the hero or heroine’s character formation is based
on their social upbringing. The finale of this chapter ponders an acute desire: is the
hero’s wish for a certain kind of woman a dream or is it actually physically attainable
and sustainable?

Clorinda and the “Other”

A very striking similarity between Dido, Camilla, and Clorinda is that, like the
Amazons, they are members of a group alien to the hero. We cannot help but wonder,
historically how did the Muslims actually treat their women; how much did Tasso
know, what were his sources, how was his Clorinda formed? There is the author
creating her, molding her, and rendering her a certain prototype. While there must
have been sources, Clorinda is in many aspects unique; there does not seem to be one
single Clorinda prototype. She has no clear antecedent or precedent in literature; this

32
is a very rare accomplishment on Tasso’s part.

Based on Tasso’s writing, the Muslim rulers are portrayed as kind to their
noblewomen. Clorinda speaks openly to the emir in his court; he asks her to entertain
and greet visiting royalty in her official capacity; he appoints her as chief over his
army. Lacking historical background or clear sources, we will refer to this aspect of
Tasso’s work as the “romance of the Other.” This tendency to glorify the other is
reaches a peak in Tasso, though it is surprisingly present in some degree even in
Virgil. It is not clear however whether the highly favorable treatment of the Trojans
in the Iliad carries the same connotations. Homer seems to treat them as culturally
almost identical to the Greeks, so that the label of Other may not apply here at all.

Nor is Tasso the last example of the “romance of the Other.” In Monahan's
Kingdom of Heaven (20th Century Fox, 2005), for example, the wise Muslim king has
superior forces and shows long-term patience with the Jerusalem Christian king and
his knights until the occurrence of one event. This event is the despicable kidnapping
and rape of the Muslim king’s own sister by Reynard de Chatillon. If she had been
physically untouched and ransomed it would have been one thing, but her rape is an
insult and a direct challenge to the emir. The Muslim ruler’s rage after this is a
controlled volcano, demanding that the Jerusalem king punish his knight – which the
leper king does by publicly chastising him and then making Reynard kiss the
uncovered hand of his rotting flesh.

Tasso shows the Muslims as an educated, superior race at this point in history.
They are too kind, too good; their high civilization at this point is educated, kind,
allows women to read, to fight, to own property, to hold governmental office. All this
is an embarrassment to the concurrent developing medieval Catholic nations. They
claim to be civilized, but these infant European nations are currently harsher on their
women; they are still semi-barbaric. This is the underlying reason why the Catholics
want the Muslims’ power obliterated and a living, perfect heroine of an embarrassing,
different, religious faith dead. She exposes their weakness and is a living threat to the
complacent hum of their social system. Better that the living Renaissance women
remain ignorant and uneducated; better that the literary heroine should disappear.

Tasso’s creation of Clorinda reflects his frustration with the real Guinevere’s
of his time. The Catholic European culture of his era was too immature to allow
women physical, financial, political, or educational freedom. This desire for an Eve

33
for his Adam (himself) drove Tasso to create Clorinda based on his imagination of a
royal prototype of the Muslim high civilization. Tasso knows he must sacrifice his
“whole heroine” before the end of the epic, since his novel requires the Italian
Inquisition’s approval for formal publication.

The Hero’s Gaze

The romance of the Other is both social, as discussed above, and individual, as
we will show in this section. By personal, we mean the personal romance of man and
woman, who are still fundamental “Other” to each other. There are four works we
will examine here regarding the hero and heroine’s first sighting of each other:
Jerusalem Delivered, Le Morte D’Arthur, Cleopatra, and The Aeneid. The heroes and
heroines are Tancred and Clorinda, Arthur and his women, Cleopatra and her Caesars,
and Dido and Aeneas.

The first time that Tancred views Clorinda, she is at a well refreshing herself.
He is so intrigued by her beauty that he allows her sword to cruelly fall on him
without returning her parry. He does this purposefully, so that he can get a better view
of this foreign beauty. Naturally Tancred pays for each Clorinda close-up with some
bruises, physical pain, and buffeting. When an ungentlemanly crusader happens by
and attacks Clorinda from behind, Tancred is furious. Clorinda only bleeds a few
drops of blood on the nape of her neck, but the sight of red pinpricks next to her fair
blonde hair enrages Tancred. He yells and pursues the other Crusader. Tancred
intends to do battle with the “unknightly knight”, even though they are supposedly
fighting on the same side. In this moment, Tancred is operating from the eyes of love
and desire, not from the viewpoint of logic. It is only excusable hero-behavior in
Tancred, because the other crusader is such a common coward that he attacked an
adversary from behind – and a princess to boot.

Contrast this with King Arthur’s first view of Princess Guinevere of

Lodencranz. He visits her at the abbey where she is educated by nuns. Although
Guinevere is beautiful, she has been trained to cover her body modestly. Only her
beautiful hands, face, and hair are visible - but for Arthur, that is enough. It is obvious
that her form is also shapely.

This is shockingly different from Julius Caesar’s first view of the divine

34
Cleopatra, daughter of Isis. Cleopatra is with her army in Pellusium and is puzzling on
how to reach Julius Caesar, who is holed up in her palace at Alexandria. If she travels
openly, her sister Arsinoe and her brother (usurpers of the Egyptian throne) will order
her arrested and executed.

Cleopatra solves this dilemma by first traveling by camel to the Nile, and then
smuggling herself down the river disguised as a peasant in a fishing boat. Near the
harbor, Cleopatra bathes and prepares herself is a simple, sleeveless white Greek toga
with no jewelry and little makeup. Then she has her import-export trader roll her up in
a very priceless, Persian rug. He rows the boat past the Alexandrian palace guards,
lugs the carpet by wagon and servants into Caesar’s war room, and unrolls it at the
imperato's snapped, irritated order.

It is sundown; Julius Caesar is attempting to plot strategy with one of his aides
about his difficult position in Egypt. He has only a small, military guard with him,
and the Egyptian army at Pellusium outnumbers him. Somehow he must form an
alliance with Cleopatra, resolving the split in the ruling house of Ptolemy. Egypt must
stops bankrupting herself in a Civil War and starts feeding herself and Rome again.
Egypt is the huge breadbasket of the known Roman world of that time, an immensely,
fertile nation.

A clean Cleopatra, dizzy and slightly disheveled, appears when the rug is
unrolled. The imperato first stares down at her, then smiles a big smile and gives a
roar of laughter, and leaning over gives the princess a hand up.

Aeneas is not so confident in his first view of Dido. He views her regally
promenading into the palace with her attendants to sit on the Carthage throne and
dispense laws. At this point, Aeneas is unseen by Queen Dido as his mother Venus
covers him purposefully in a foggy cloud. The goddess of love has her own method of
preparing her cautious son for this imperial, earthly encounter. As we ponder how
four heroes view their heroine on the first encounter, the reversal must also be
researched. Attraction is a bond that may originate simultaneously in both of the souls
involved – the male and the female. The heroine usually returns the hero’s gaze, and
also reacts to her view of the handsome, intelligent Other.

35
The Heroine Returns the Gaze

Physical sight leads to the impression of the first encounter. The hero reacts to
his view of the heroine; the heroine reacts to her view of him. Three examples given
are herein discussed: Arthur and Guinevere, Arthur and Morgause during the Stag
Hunt of Beltane Fires, and Clorinda’s fatal wounding and baptism at the hands of
Tancred.

The Stag Hunt of Beltane Fires is in fact an invention of the modern writer
Marion Bradley, but it is in many ways a striking reconstruction that has as firm basis
in Mallory’s writing, and worth examining on this score.

Bradley writes that Arthur meets Guinevere at the abbey in an atmosphere that
impresses him with the ambiance of holy love, turning his thoughts towards angelic,
heavenly worship. The garden is tranquil, quiet, and orderly--a place of peace.

This is in sharp contrast to Arthur’s participation in the Beltane Fires, the Hunt
of the Stag! He runs with other young men through the chilly forest under the full
moon. The one who kills the stag in this primeval hunt is awarded the ancient tribal
prize, a night with a masked priestess in a fire lit cave. Unlike the female heroes or
priestesses of the classical Epic, the mysterious Morgause is not an angelic beauty,
but a virgin-earth-priestess.

Tasso creates the last earthly scene between Clorinda and Tancred as their
final battle. Tancred is fiercely fighting an enemy one-on-one and mortally wounds
him. The enemy takes off his helmet, and Tancred realizes that he has been fighting
Clorinda. With intense grief and shock, Tancred uses his helmet carry water for her
from a nearby stream. Now returning Tancred’s gaze at the end of her life, Clorinda
intimates her love for him, and speaks of her fear that she will be separated from him
in the afterlife. Clorinda resolves this dilemma in a surprising twist by having Tancred
baptize her before she dies. This is one of the most powerful scenes in Tasso’s poem,
a scene of unforgettable pathos, and surprising breakthrough past “the Other” into a
commonality that death does not obliterate, even though their physical love was
utterly unconsummated.

The first encounter is not the only moment when the hero and heroine first
gaze upon each other. It is the pivotal point, the climax of this youth’s life: all the
preparation of the hero or heroine’s life has been waiting for this moment of ascent.

36
Societal upbringing has formed their physique, character, and attitude in anticipation
of their grand debut.

Society and the Hero/Heroine

The entrance of the hero or heroine is like a grand exhibition of a new product.
All the preparation in a young heroine or hero’s life has been for this moment. Society
molds the protagonist’s entire person – their physique, their character, and their
attitude. The social positions of Guinevere, Arthur, and Clorinda are herein examined.

Guinevere in the cold, tranquil abbey endures the education of a chaste,

childlike nun. Living a daily, scheduled life of subdued discipline, everything about
her life is controlled. Even her clothing, her demeanor, and her manner and voice are
suppressed.

Franzoni's King Arthur portrays a contrast of Lancelot’s character versus that

of Arthur’s. Although Arthur’s mother is a Briton, he is brought up in his father’s
Roman system as a gentleman, lord, and knight. As such, he will rescue a fair maiden
even if it costs him dearly; this is the standard of chivalry. Lancelot’s moral standard
is different: he is of a conquered people who first-of-all have learned to value and
treasure their own survival. In this rendition, Lancelot is viewed as a Samation knight
born on the grasslands into a nomadic family; he is a great fighter and loyal to his
friends. The Samations (descended from the Amazons and the Scythians) were
conquered by Rome, and their cavalry and sons drafted into the Roman army.

This is a wary Lancelot, suffering as his father did before him, grievously
surviving during his fifteen-years of bitter service to Rome. He does nothing without
first coldly calculating the cost in sweat, manpower, risk and the odds of winning.
Sometimes the risk of rescuing one noblewoman may not be worth it, if it costs him
his life.

The early formation of Guinevere, Arthur and Clorinda are explained. This
connects with a question: what kind of woman does the hero view as his “perfect
woman”? Through this analysis of Epic, the answer is clear. Heroes desire two types
of women: the earth-priestess and the well-rounded noblewoman. They want both the
woman-warrior (female hero) and the prize trophy (the feminine princess). The hero
dreams that both sex-diva and lady could be intertwined in the flesh, character, and

37
spirit of one divine woman, but this occurrence in both literature and the real world is
probably exceptionally rare.

Psychology of the Hero/Heroine Counterparts

The hero wishes for a certain kind of woman, his dream lady. First, the answer
is intertwined in what kind of woman is initially attractive to the hero. Heroes tend to
be tempted by two types of women: either the nature-priestess or the well-rounded
noblewoman. The natural woman of primeval culture is also sometimes labeled a
witch by medieval society, patriarchal systems, or the medieval Catholic church.

The hero longs for both temptress and lady in the intertwined physical flesh,
character, and spirit of one woman. There are obstacles to this: the stamina of the lady
herself, and the obstacle of societal opposition. The young woman in question will
find it very exhausting to be both temptress and lady. Early death in such
circumstances is not surprising; the intensity must be difficult for them to maintain
long-term.

The second obstacle is the opposition of society to a beautiful, accomplished

heroine. There is both jealousy and lack of a societal niche to accommodate such a
figure in a closed, selfish world.

Another contributing factor is the historical setting of Tasso’s own writing.

Tasso lived in Italy, the land of Rome and the Inquisition. Italy is a country converted
to Catholicism, but its Catholicism has many layers underlying it. This worries both
Pope and bishops; their arbitrary control over traditional centuries of paganism and
village-folk that still retain the hidden inclinations of paganism in their natural hearts.

Tasso faces this constant tension in the Italian world he dwells in. The pure,
Catholic world of the Church and convent is diametrically opposed to the earlier
pagan society which found the women hunters and queens both “Other” and attractive
at the same time. The classical world of Catholicism attempts to regulate, to contain
this virile, active pagan world. The Church states that a good Christian must follow
certain rules. One can have statues, but shouldn’t be seen caressing them. Also one is
definitely not openly allowed to have sex with a natural, pagan woman outside of
marriage and enjoy it.

Tasso writes from his historical perspective that such Muslim ladies

38
legitimately existed and were allowed a broad scope of societal freedom. One can
surmise that during medieval times, hunter-societies and desert, nomadic tribes
needed warriors; the bows and arrows and even javelins of such warrior-women were
strongly appreciated by their countries.

The role of Camilla as queen, and Clorinda as warrior has been examined. The
hero’s desire for the perfect woman is summarily blocked by two obstacles: one is the
physical energy and stamina of the lady, the other is societal opposition to his
treasuring the love of such a perfect heroine. In the following chapter, we examine the
influence of the epic on other genres, through a discussion of Shakespeare’s Antony
and Cleopatra.

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 Chapter V:
Echoes of the Epic in Antony and Cleopatra

Epic Influences on Shakespeare

The Epic as transformed by Virgil was foundational for the development of

much renaissance and early European historical English literature. For instance,
according to Nash, it was a basis for the development of the early historical English
novels. Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata was particularly important in the history
and development of literature as it flows broadly into Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.
Although Tasso's Epic is a poem, it is written in a highly-narrative style with a main
plot, several sub-plots, themes and subthemes, main characters, and captivating minor
characters. His work resembles a colorful medieval tapestry with threads of many
expertly-woven details, structure, and subtlety lending a major contribution to the
genre of the early historical novel. Sir Walter Scott picks up the tapestry-weaving by
converting Tasso's poem to prose and building on Tasso's structure as a template for
his foundation of the revolutionary Ivanhoe.

Shakespeare was another case where we can feel this influence. As a

dramatist, Shakespeare was writing in a genre that in Greece was directly opposed to
the Epic. Yet it is interesting to notice that Shakespeare’s style, particularly in the
blank verse later works, was a direct inspiration to Milton in particular and to many
others who attempted Epics, both directly and through Milton.

In looking for female heroes, such as Clorinda or Camilla, however, it is not

immediately clear what cognates there are for such figures in Shakespeare. This
thesis will argue that the closest cognate to the female hero in Shakespeare is
Cleopatra, whose final death bears a strong structural similarity to that of Queen Dido
in the Aeneid, and echoes of the deaths of Camilla and Clorinda as well.

Points of Contact: Antony and Cleopatra and the Epic

A. C. Bradley, one of the most insightful critics of Shakespeare, believed that

Shakespeare’s vision of love and his autobiographical description of “the dark lady”
in his sonnets were the essential elements that made his characterization of Cleopatra

40
so extraordinary. Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, says Bradley, shows “effortless and
exultant mastery” As Bradley observes:

If the sonnets about the dark lady were, as need not be doubted, in
some degree autobiographical, Shakespeare may well have used his
personal experience both when he drew Cressida and when he drew
Cleopatra. And, if he did, the story in the later play was the nearer his
own; for Antony might well have said what Troilus could never say,
‘When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her,
though I know she lies.’ (281)

The dominating, passionate nature of Cleopatra’s romance with Antony is

reminiscent of Dido’s romance with Aeneas. This romance is highlighted by many
memorable scenes. As A. C. Bradley points out:

The scenes that we remember first are those that portray Cleopatra;
Cleopatra coquetting, tormenting, beguiling her lover to stay;
Cleopatra left with her women and longing for him; Cleopatra
receiving the news of his marriage; Cleopatra questioning the
messenger about Octavia’s personal appearance. (284)

It could be said that these scenes are not necessary to the plot, but in fact they
set the tone of the whole play. One in particular appears nonessential--the astonishing
scene where Cleopatra storms at the messenger, strikes him, and draws her dagger on
him. This is the one scene in the drama’s first half that contains an explosion of
passion and engaging physical interaction.

The first half of the play, with its scenes of Cleopatra is amusing and
delightful, is not yet tragic, and the revel on Pompey’s ship even offers an amusing
scene without Cleopatra center stage. It menacingly foreshadows tragedy in a
humorous way. The whipping of Thyreus (i. e., Thidias), in spite of Antony’s rage,
moves us to pitying mirth. Shakespeare’s masterful and enjoyable play is as great as
Othello or Macbeth, but of its reader it entices a different emotional response, an
almost domestic tranquility which echoes the Aeneas’s brief

In Julius Caesar, the straightforward political scenario is that of Roman

republicans led by Brutus, draining Caesar’s blood. The world order formerly held by
one is divided among the Second Triumvirate: Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius. In

41
delivering Caesar’s funeral oration, Antony promises revenge, and thereafter in
collusion with Octavius eliminates every one of Caesar’s assassins. Here Antony and
Cleopatra takes up the storyline to show the reduction of the improbable three to the
victorious one.

That Lepidus will not rise to be the one was clear in Julius Caesar; power will
fall to him who is the last standing in the boxing ring - Antony or Octavius. Both are
great men; however their temperaments are not shared. Antony is hot and passionate;
Octavius is cold and calculating. Brady again gives an insightful summary:

As it is, one of them has fixed his eyes on the end, sacrifices
everything for it, uses everything as a means to it. The other, though
far the greater soldier and worshiped by his followers, has no such
singleness of aim; nor yet is power, however desirable to him, the most
desirable thing in the world. At the beginning he is risking it for love;
at the end he has lost his half of the world, and lost his life, and
Octavius rules alone. (287)

Rather than focus on the height of Antony’s fall from prosperity, our deeper
sympathies are for Antony’s heart, on the inward fall to which the enchantment of
passion has lead, and the inward recovery that succeeds it.

The greatness of Antony and Cleopatra in their fall is so much

heightened by contrast with the world they lose and the conqueror who
wins it that the positive element in the final tragic impression, the
element of reconciliation, is strongly emphasized. The peculiar effect
of the drama depends partly, as we have seen, on the absence of
decidedly tragic scenes and events in its first half; but it depends quite
as much on this emphasis. (Bradley 292)

Shakespearean tragedy is unique because in it we watch a hero or heroine

collide, partly through human defect, with a supernatural power that tries him or her.
Yet we feel that the hero’s spirit, even in error, rises by its greatness into an ideal
union with the spiritual power that overshadows it. In Antony and Cleopatra, this
feeling of the hero overcoming through courage and spiritual fire is particularly strong
– more so than the fear, grief, and pity with which we contemplate the tragic error and
the impending doom.

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 The elect spirit of Antony and Cleopatra collides very strongly with the
supernatural power - the governmental, inhumane power that Octavius represents.
Finally, Fate intervenes in Shakespeare’s portrayal of Octavius. Shakespeare’s cold,
efficient Octavius will be master of the world and crush them; our sympathy lies with
the defective weakness of Antony and Cleopatra – with their flawed, passionate
humanity as they are obliterated.

Antony and Cleopatra’s love is clearly destructive. The two are sitting in their
paradise like gods, and its walls move inward and crush them finally to death. This is
directly in the play; and any Shakespearean reader would expect to find it there. As
Bradley observes:

[To] forget because of it the other side, to deny the name of love to this
ruinous passion, to speak as though the lovers had utterly missed the
good of life, is to mutilate the tragedy and to ignore a great part of its
effect upon us. For we sympathize with them in their passion; we feel
in it the infinity there is in a man; even while we acquiesce in their
defeat we are exulting in their victory. (293)

Antony and Cleopatra has a line in the finale where Cleopatra states: “The
odds is gone, /And there is nothing left remarkable/Beneath the visiting moon.” (4.15;
p.126)

The Failed Hero

As Bradley observes, the failure of Anthony is a failure both of his will to

power and his circumstances, despite his many talents:

The first of living soldiers, an able politician, a most persuasive orator,

Antony was nevertheless not born to rule the world. He enjoys being a
great man, but he has not the love of rule for rule’s sake. Power for
him is chiefly a means to pleasure. The pleasure he wants is so huge
that he needs a huge power; but half the world, even a third of it,
would suffice. (295)

Although Antony does not allow his enemies to wrong him without reprieve,
he shows no desire to destroy his fellow triumvirs and rule alone. With Julius Caesar,
he enjoyed friendship and didn’t mind playing second fiddle. With women he is not

43
only attracted, but also governed; the effectiveness of Cleopatra’s taunts make clear
that Antony was previously governed by Fulvia.

Lack of steadfast character is Antony’s weakness. He has neither the patience,

nor the resoluteness of a born ruler. Like a spoiled child, he fusses fitfully and
fearfully makes the moves that appear easiest. For example, his pact with Octavius to
wed Octavia – a convenient way to avoid a civil war. Antony does not intend to
treasure, love or honor her. For the sake of the obvious, immediate advantage, he
dangerously forgoes pondering the eventual consequences. Antony is too gregarious,
too trusting, too lovable, too impatient. Such weaknesses in a ruler diminish his odds
of survival.

In Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, we pondered what drives a hero: the

passion for power or the passion for love. We also delved into character weaknesses
that caused Antony to lose his empire and his life. In the next section, a perusal
follows of how these ancient Epics are recreated through film. Once again, heroines
of classical epics take center stage. They tantalize the senses of the modern audience
and sweetly fill a void in the viewer’s emotional depths.

Social Transformation in Antony and Cleopatra

Similar issues regarding both love affairs and marriages for political alliances
occurring between kings and queens though out this thesis. The Epic is the source for
many of these literary incidents based on historical accounts. The Epic’s theme is
developed through out history. Below are some specific examples that Pomeroy looks
at from the viewpoint of literary criticism, but with historical reference to Plutarch.

Octavian, in turn, had arranged a marriage between his sister Octavia and
Marc Antony. When Antony became his rival, Octavian urged his sister to divorce her
husband. She disobeyed him, and after Antony’s death even took care of his children
by his first wife and by Cleopatra. If the situation was not entirely a political game,
then Octavia’s show of disobedience to Octavian may indicate that she no longer
wanted to be used as a tool in her brother’s diplomacy, or that she felt some affection
for Antony (156).

Men’s use of their female relatives to procure political allies was nothing new
in the ancient world. Homeric kings, Greek tyrants of the Archaic period, and

44
Hellenistic monarchs did the same. But among the Romans there is a new
phenomenon: women in the late Republic at times initiated marriage alliances and
chose lovers carefully, with a view to benefiting their own families. (157).

It is difficult to analyze the fortunes and failings of famous Roman women

individually, but they can be analyzed in a general way, since the historical accounts
of women show certain patterns of moral polarity. Interestingly enough, the wives of
Marc Antony provide the paradigms: Fulvia, the historical evil wife; Octavia, the
historical virtuous wife. However, Antony’s last wife Cleopatra was unique. The
stories of all three women were distorted by the political slant emanating from
Octavian, or from historians hostile to Antony as Octavian’s rival (185).

Plutarch charges Fulvia historically with initiating the deterioration of Marc

Antony and preparing him to be dominated by Cleopatra. Fulvia wished to rule a ruler
and command a commander, and she schooled Antony to obey women. While Antony
was campaigning in the East, with Antony’s brother Fulvia maintained his interests in
Italy against Octavian until the defeat at Perusia in 40 B.C. She was devoted to her
husband’s career although Cleopatra had begun her liaison with Antony. In 40 B.C.,
soon after the birth of Cleopatra’s twins and after she herself had suffered many
rebuffs from Antony, Fulvia died. Thus Fulvia, the historical, evil wife died. Her
death prepared the way for Antony’s second marriage (186).

Octavia, the sister of Octavian, was newly widowed and hence available for a
marriage alliance with Antony. She can be used as our example of a historical heroine
of Plutarch. The marriage was the result of the agreement between Octavian and
Antony in 40 B.C., known as the Treaty of Brundisium. While Fulvia’s policy had
been to steer Antony against Octavian, Octavia’s was to mediate between the two
men, and for her efforts she won the approbation of both Octavian and later historians.

Her precedents for female intercession between factions of men were, of

course, the legendary women of the early Republic, including the Sabine women and
the delegation of women that dissuaded Coriolanus from attacking Rome. This was
the only traditionally commendable, active political role for women in Rome. Octavia
bore two children to Antony in the three years that they lived together, but he grew
bored with her sober, intellectual character. In 37 B.C. Antony married Cleopatra, and
in 36 B.C. their son Ptolemy was born. Since Cleopatra was not a Roman citizen,
Octavia, like Fulvia before her, was able to view the marriage as not legitimate. She

45
continued to aid Antony, it is claimed, despite her brother’s wishes. In 32 B.C.
Antony formally divorced Octavia, and this insult gave Octavian a reason to declare
war. Octavia was ejected from Antony’s house, weeping lest she be considered a
cause of war. After Antony’s death she raised her children by her two marriages and
Antony’s children by Fulvia and Cleopatra . . . (186)

This section is Pomeroy's brief perusal into the life of the young Octavian who
later became the Emperor Augustus. Octavian may have learned from watching Julius
Caesar that the Roman people abhorred the open claim of “emperor” as a title. During
his life, Octavian coldly and ruthlessly maintained power by stealth, informants,
banishments, and retaining the outer appearance of the Roman republic with the rights
of the Senate and the public voice of the people. He also used engagement and
marriage as a political weapon to cement his role as the ultimate ruler.

Octavian broke his engagement to Servilia when he became engaged to Marc

Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia. But he broke the engagement as well in order to marry
Scribonia, who was related to his onetime opponent Sextus Pompey, although it is not
clear that this was part of the peace arrangements between them (156).

At the precocious age of twelve, the boy who was destined to become the
Emperor Augustus followed in the footsteps of his uncle Julius Caesar by delivering
an oration in honor of his grandmother Julia. When Octavia, the sister of Augustus
died, she was honored by two orations, one delivered by Augustus himself and one by
Nero Claudius Drusus, and public mourning was declared (183).

Women were always employable for sexual purposes, either in addition to

their other domestic responsibilities, as a primary occupation. The master had access
to all his slave women. Scipio Africanus favored a particular slave girl, and when he
died, his wife Aemelia, far from being vindictive, gave the girl her freedom. Cato the
Censor, who was an authority on Roman virtue, was visited nightly by a slave girl
after his wife died, and the emperors Augustus and Claudius consorted with numerous
slave girls with their wives’ explicit approval (192).

The old-fashioned Roman bride wreathed the doorposts of her home with
wool. When Augustus wished to instill respect for old-fashioned virtues among the
sophisticated women of his household, he set them to work in wool and wore their
homespun results (Pomeroy 199).

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 Children were supported by special programs, in keeping with the state’s
policy of increasing the Italian birthrate. These programs, because they were aimed at
the future recruitment of soldiers, also favored boys over girls. Augustus included
boys under eleven among those eligible for the irregular distributions (congiaria) he
made on special occasions, and Trajan added five thousand boys of the adults on the
grain dole of the city of Rome (Pomeroy 203).

Augustus openly used religion to promote his social ideals. He restored

many temples, and as far as women were concerned, he emphasized
cults centered on childbearing, chastity, and familial bonds. Some
women, especially members of the imperial household, went through
the motions required by the religious ceremonies (Pomeroy 209).

Further evidence of the freedom from the restrictions of ordinary women is to

be found in the privileges enjoyed by the Vestals. They were the only women
permitted to drive through the city of Rome in a carpentum, a two-wheeled wagon,
which conferred high status on its occupant. Like magistrates, priests, and men of
certain distinctions, they were preceded in the streets by a lictor (attendant) who
cleared the way before them. When other women were relegated by Augustus to the
top tiers of seats at theatrical performances and games, the Vestals retained places on
the imperial podium. These privileges had such implications of status that the “rights
of Vestals” were often conferred upon female members of the imperial family, who
were frequently portrayed as Vestals on coins (Pomeroy 214).

The hostility to Egypt was intensified by the confrontation between Cleopatra

and Antony on the one hand, and Octavian on the other. Cleopatra was Isis incarnate.
Octavian had seen Cleopatra, and had viewed Egypt. He recognized the lure that had
turned Antony into a “slave of withered eunuchs.” In 28 B.C. the triumphant
Octavian, who became Augustus, forbade the building of temples to Isis within the
boundaries of the city (the pomerium), and seven years later the prohibited territory
was extended to the area close to the city of Rome. He intended to deprive the
goddess of her worshipers of whom the urban population constituted a large part
(Pomeroy 224).

Augustus, for political and economic reasons, kept the country as a private
possession, not to be administered like the other provinces of the Empire. There were
moral reasons as well: Isis, like Cleopatra, was seductive. The gods of Egypt

47
threatened to undermine the new moral foundation of society which Augustus hoped
to establish by legislation. From this vantage point, it may be suggested that Augustus
might have been more successful if instead of requesting sophisticated women to
worship archaic abstractions of female virtues, he had co-opted the cult of Isis and
exploited her as an example of a faithful wife and loving mother (224).

A comparison/contrast of the role of Cleopatra as portrayed in two different

texts, in Margaret George's The Memoirs of Cleopatra and also in Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra. George’s Cleopatra is example of gender and romantic
selection. Despite her inexperience and weak position, Cleopatra deftly overcomes
shortcomings through daring sauciness, goddess-like beauty, zealous ambition, and
profound creativity. Captivated by her sumptuous pleasures and the intriguing
possibilities she espouses, the mighty Roman hero Julius Caesar falls deeply
entangled in a romance fashioned by a brilliant twenty-year-old upstart.

Her efficacy is such that upon return to his capitol, Julius Caesar has a golden
statue fashioned of his Egyptian heroine to grace Rome’s sacred temples. The
deliberate young queen is invited to Rome where in the small talk of her host country
she is merely one of Caesar's conquered mistresses; “persona non grata”. Caesar is
much more the wiser. He provides hospitality in the privacy of his country villa where
he and Cleopatra take pleasure in each other, make love and war, and strategize grand
ambitions – especially conquering Parthia.

The Roman Caesar's love for his foreign beauty queen defies social etiquette.
When in Rome, he does not do as the Romans do, but rather, he acknowledges his
foreign guest as lover and mother of their offspring, Ptolemy XV, otherwise known as
“Ptolemy Caesar”. Notwithstanding the sentiments of the masses, eventuality makes
clear the mutual respect and love shared by hero and heroine, in life as well as in
death.

Despite his birth in a patrician family, Caesar was something of a self-made

man, and a very hardworking one. Marguerite George’s research shows him getting
up at dawn to prepare for the official business day. At night, in his private chamber,
he still carried a huge mound of scrolls to read, tons of waiting government
documents demanding his decision and his signature. Such a man was a man of
action, and a man of few words; he was a man who conquered and dominated others.
Caesar was politically adept and wily, and expected obedience.

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 Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, extending the Roman world to the Atlantic,
as well as his conducting of the first Roman invasion of Britain, earned him titles of
“Imperator”, Supreme Commander of the Roman Legions “Magister Peditum”, and
Dictator for Life “Dictator Perpetuus”. Cleopatra, having survived his assassination,
next befriends Marcus Antonius, Julius' Commander of the Cavalry “Magister
Equitum”. This title Antonius earned as a member Caesar's leadership staff over the
armies in Gaul, early Germany, and in the Gallic Wars. Under Caesar's influence
Antonius was raised to the offices of Quaestor, Augur, and Tribune of the Plebs.

Julius Caesar, having become the head of his family at sixteen when his father
died suddenly, at seventeen was nominated high priest of Jupiter, “Flamen Dialis”. At
eighteen he was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood due to
civil war, was forced to go into hiding, and voluntarily joined the army while delaying
his return to Rome. While back in Rome nearly twenty years later, Caesar ran for
election to the post of chief priest of the Roman state religion, “Pontifex Maximus”,
accumulating enormous debts to fund his campaign. He won comfortably and
acquired an official residence on the Via Sacra.

On the other hand Marcus Antonius is believed to have spent his teenage years
on the streets of Rome in riotous cohorting, gambling, drinking, and engaging in
scandalous romances. It was said that before Antony reached twenty years of age he
had accumulated 250 talents of debt through dissolute living. Antony then went to
Greece, perhaps to avoid creditors, and studied rhetoric under Athenian philosophers.
Eventually joining Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, he took part in campaigns in
Judea, and then in Egypt as support to Ptolemy XII. This is when Antony first
distinguished himself as a courageous cavalry commander, leading to further
advancement among Rome's legions. According to George’s research, it is during
Antonius’ brief time at the Egyptian court as a young man that the child-princess
Cleopatra first briefly notices him.

The next hero to fall to the Egyptian heroine, Shakespeare’s Antony in Antony
and Cleopatra, is copiously outclassed by Queen Cleopatra. While skilled at taking
advantage of luxurious privileges afforded a triumvir, Antony never can master the
political and governing skills required to advance the portion of the Empire that has
fallen to him. Cleopatra's final romantic selection falls short. Despite emphatic
maneuvering by both hero and heroine, together they reach the limits of their

49
aspirations, and their eventual demise.

Points of Departure between Antony and Cleopatra and the Epic

As noted above, despite the many echoes we can see in Antony and Cleopatra
of the classical Epic, drama, whether tragedy or comedy, is distinct from the Epic
genre. In this sense, we naturally find many differences between Shakespeare and the
Epic poet.

Equally important, Shakespeare does not observe the two approaches we

discussed as alternatives to the content or formal basis for the Epic: with a few
exceptions, he does not base his drama on myth and in particular he avoids the
elements we have traced in the discussion above of the Scapegoat. Even more
important, Shakespeare does not cast himself in the prototypical role of the Epic poet:
universal spokesman for an era.

Shakespeare is also important because he demonstrates a challenge to the

social conventions of the heroine in the Epic. His portrayal of Cleopatra declares that
a woman does not belong exclusively to herself; she has become a political pawn
fought over and desired by generals, conquerors, and kings. Cleopatra must concern
herself with producing a male heir, governing a huge, wealthy country, and gaining
political wisdom for survival.

In Shakespeare’s portrayal of woman, it thus seems that woman is

marginalized. Man has become the political and economic broker; a woman is
auxiliary. She is not a huntress equal to man; her influential place in the
Shakespearean world has shrunk to the circumference of her husband’s private home.

This is even reflected in the Elizabethan stage. All the woman in

Shakespearean drama during the play performance were actually male actors. The role
of the woman was written, played and interpreted by men during this era. In the
literary culture of the Elizabethan era, women are depicted with little political,
economic, or maternal power. They cannot create, demonstrate, or even represent
their developing true selves.

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 Chapter VI:
Conclusions

This chapter will conclude by clarifying three points: problems with the
definition of terms, flaws of the female protagonist, and some general thoughts on
researching these literary heroines for four years. The chapter begins with a summary
of the terms hero, heroine, and female hero and their usage in this thesis. A discussion
of the flaws of the female protagonists we have examined follows, based on a
comparison of two heroines and two female hero-queens. Last, some general thoughts
the research presented in this thesis are encapsulated.

Definitions: Hero, Heroine, Female Hero

The legend of the fisher king and the cult at Nemi was discussed in chapter 3
of this thesis. Here the hero’s setting was in the center of a blend of religion and
sexuality blend, a kind of fertility cult. In this swirling hurricane, the hero is in the eye
of the storm. As Curtis observes, the Nemi cult has the ambiance of a fertility cult,
where religion and sexuality blend. In the Grail legend, the young hero comes to a dry
wilderness. The sick fisher king is the ruler; he can only be sustained by the holy
Grail. The king's sickness is a loss of virility, “what is signified by the mutilation of
the Phrygian Atlis, the death wound of Adonis”.

The healing of the priest-king will save the dying land, for the king’s
sickness is the cause of the parching land. Ancient vegetation cults
seem to have coalesced with the symbolism of the Eucharist in the late
Antiquity and to have survived esoterically into the Middle Ages. This
complex then passed over into the legend of Arthur and the courtly
romance. In most (though not all) late versions it has wholly lost its
original meaning, in some cases being handed on by poets who did not
understand it, in others by being subjected to tendentious ecclesiastical
revision. (Curtis 112)

What do a hero and heroine have in common? Both often die violent deaths
But what about the relationship between two heroes? In Homer’s Iliad, the
relationship between Hector and Achilles is that of mortal enemies; yet in the end,

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Achilles survives to weep at Hector’s funeral.

What about Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey? He is clever, but he

defies two gods, Queen Juno of Heaven and Poseidon, the Earth-shaker. Odysseus
claims that he could have conquered Troy single-handedly, that a man does not need
the support or help of the divine. This is his major mistake; he even offends his patron
goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Odysseus forgets that divine inspiration gave
him the idea of the Trojan horse in the first place. Odysseus cannot deny that when he
was encased inside the Trojan horse with his men on the beach with King Priam
below, only the intervention of Poseidon’s sea serpent swallowing the soothsayer
Laocoon and his two sons saved the Greeks’ hides.

The role of Odysseus involving his heroine Penelope, his loyal wife and
queen, is the next topic. The claim that a hero and heroine have equal roles doesn’t
hold up in medieval studies. The hero must exist first before there is any need for a
heroine. There would not be a loyal, pining Penelope without a Odysseus. This view
of a Penelopian heroine is held by Blundell and Williamson. The editors state the
question very clearly and they also answer it. “Are all the functions of a male hero
open also to heroines, or (and) do heroines have roles distinct from their male
counterparts?” (75)

Epic research focuses on one precise moment in the plot, the death of the
heroine or maybe the hero's institution of a divine cult. Even though a hero exists only
for a short moment in mythical time, the outstanding actions they perform are
coloured by the heroes' humanity. The hero's human life, and after-life as a god
correspond roughly to myth and cult.

We might expect that while the human lives of heroines show them,
naturally enough, as human women, in cult they would be less
constructed by human gender roles and show a pattern much closer to
that of a goddess. But we do not need to probe very far to see that this
is not always so (76).

Male heroes sometimes tumble from their statues, such as Achilles. His hero
statue shows feet of clay when King Priam kisses Achilles’ hand to beg for Hector’s
desecrated body; Achilles weeps like a woman. Virgil and Tasso take this scene and
run with it. They further develop the Homeric hero and female hero model to a more
complex, complicated level. Virgil produces a new kind of hero, Aeneas, the

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reluctant, moral hero. In la Gerusalemme Liberata. Tasso escalates this principle to
the following level: when male pietas bumps into feminine furor there is a kind of
collision, confusion, and synergy questioning the role of gender though the role of
genre.

Like all epic writers, Tasso's view on how the heroine is constructed is
affected by society. Tasso does not write about contemporary women of his
generation; he wants something more. He writes about the fictional past so he can
dream and construct a model woman, the icon he admires in his heart. This is the kind
of woman Tasso really wants, his dream model. He imagines a woman is beautiful,
brave, physically-fit, outgoing, smart, sexy, and a fighter. This kind of woman does
not exist in his Italian, Catholic society – but this is the kind of soul mate Tasso longs
for in his heart.

It is necessary to define what and who is a hero. In the introduction to his

translation of Curtis, Trask states:

The reader can find information here on where the word literature
comes from and what meaning it had originally; what a canon of
writers is; how the concept of the classic author was formed and how it
developed. . . . Poetry is investigated in its relation to philosophy and
theology. The question is raised by what means it has idealized human
life (the hero, the shepherd) and nature (description of landscape) and
what fixed types it has developed for the purpose. (Curtis ix)

Curtis first explicates that the “founding hero (hero ktistes) of European
literature is Homer” (16). Notice he chooses the poet, and not the poet’s creation as
the hero. Curtis than goes on to explain the “angry hero” of Homer and also the
“pietas hero” of Virgil. “The epic fable of the Iliad is set in motion by the anger of
Achilles. Without the angry hero (Achilles, Roland, The Cid) or god (Poseidon in The
Odyssey, Juno in the Aeneid), there is no epic” (170).

Curtis goes on to explain that “In his Aeneid Virgil created a new ideal of the
hero, based upon moral strength. To be sure, this hero too stands the test in battle (I,
544 f)” (173).

Blundell and Williamson’s analysis of the role of heroine in ancient Greece is

that she is subordinate to the hero and adjunct to him. They examined the sacrifice

53
calendars of the Attic demes. Here the heroine is simply adjunct to the male hero. In
particular, they researched the calendar of the Marathonian Tetrapolis from the fourth-
century. The heroes are usually named and given an epithet, and the several sacrifices
to the hero are listed (IG 11(2) 1358). Each hero is accompanied by an anonymous
heroine who received a sacrifice of lesser value. “The sacrifice to the heroine is
necessary, from the human point of view, but her subordinate position in regard to the
hero is also clear”. (76)

One conclusion of this research is that the purpose of the death of the female
hero is to create space in the Epic’s plot for a hero to mature and take the spotlight.
The death of Camilla gives Aeneas the space necessary in Virgil’s plot to take center
stage. He develops into a mature, moral hero in the latter part of the Epic.

Aeneas is “the reluctant hero”. He has to be propelled to center stage by Zeus,

with messages delivered by Hermes, and the timely deaths of bolder, beautiful female
heroes such as Dido and Camilla. Virgil is re-defining the Homeric hero into a more
specific kind of hero - one that is not only a warrior, but also one with a social
conscience that abhors war. Aeneas saw Troy burn and his wife Princess Creusa died
there; he hates blood, he shrinks from it. However, at the call of duty and the
insistence of Zeus to establish his son Ascanius’ future – Aeneas will fight. When he
finally fights, he fights like a roaring lion. Then, the comparison to his former
reluctance is incredible. This is a prince, a warrior-with-a-heart, who was driven onto
the bloodthirsty battlefield by Fate and dire necessity.

Is it necessary in every medieval literary Epic for a heroine to exist? Definitely

not, in Beowulf, there is no encounter between Beowulf and any heroine. What about
in Homer? The only female-on-a-pedestal is Penelope – she is a queen, she is a loyal
wife, she endures patiently as a great mother. She is also clever in unweaving the
funeral tapestry every night that she is weaving for Odysseus as his funeral gift in
order to stall off her suitors.

Penelope completely suits my definition of a heroine. She is an auxiliary

heroine that exists primarily to support her man. Odysseus and she are heart and soul
of each other. She does not want to live without him; to her every day without the
physical presence of her man is another agonizing day. Penelope’s passive endurance
is a quiet hopelessness, surviving by guts because she can’t think of a resolution; she
must exist completely by feminine wiles.

54
 The female hero has the heart and courage to stand alone when necessary
against the world and her challenges. She believes in the divine, in a moral code, and
she lives her life with incredible zest. She can live passionately alone with the divine
as her inspiration. Female heroes can delight in intense love, but they also have their
own independent personality apart from their lover.

The women researched all live zestfully and independently in their own round
character. This is what gives them their depth, attraction, and charm. Camilla is a
venatrix; Clorinda is a fine Saracen princess, but also a warrior, an archer, and a war
general. Cleopatra fought politically in the arena of strategy and international politics.
She employed everything at her disposal and survived several years in the tricky
world of the Roman Empire, a world of shaky kingdoms and political ascendancy. It
is a rare gift to be able to converse in seven languages and handle an invasion by
Julius Caesar, a mature imperato in his fifties, at the tender age of twenty.

Courageous and intelligent female heroes are intriguing. Cleopatra’s heart died
temporarily from the shock of Julius Caesar’s murder, but she survived. It took her a
few years, but she got back on her feet and continued living with powerful energy.
She matured, she found a new lover and legal husband in Marc Antony, and she lived
several more years with passion. Even her death was at her own instigation. Cleopatra
preferred to die with honor, rather than live with the shame of being Octavius
Caesar’s conquered queen, puppet, and political trophy.

Cleopatra created a dramatic life - a meteor shower of mysterious power,

intelligence, sex and survival. Those who employ daring and courage to succeed and
blaze intensely across the sky are remembered both in literature and history. A female
protagonist lives and succeeds because of great passion for life. The Biblical Eve was
made by the hands of God, not by the hands of Adam. God took great pleasure in
designing her as He divinely saw fit. An author cannot physically create a real-live
heroine, he can only write to create a literary icon. In our human reality in modern
times, the only way a living hero can meet his flesh-and-blood heroine or a female
hero is by divine mandate and the abundant mercy of Heaven.

In conclusion, this summary examines the heroines of Helen of Troy and

Milton’s Eve compared and contrasted with the female heroes, Queen Dido and
Queen Cleopatra.

55
The Flaws of Queens and Warriors

Given the favorable picture we have just painted, a summary of the heroines'
flaws is perhaps useful here as well. Helen of Troy and Milton's Eve have this in
common: they both allow themselves to be deceived. It has to do with their enjoyment
of compliments. They are both lured into error by their weakness for male flattery.
Tempted by Paris' flowery attentions, Helen finally succumbed and brought
destruction with her when she eloped to Troy. With her husband Menelaus occupied
with feasting, drinking, male camaraderie and the attention of every female vassal in
the feasting hall, it is understandable that Helen felt ignored and lonely. Satan,
speaking through the snake, approached Eve with humility and buttered her up with
sweet words in Paradise Lost. He was careful to do this is Adam's absence.

Originally, the key issue is that Prince Paris in more at fault than Queen Helen
for the lack of Greek unity. Persia as a tyrannical power in the East is a serious,
political threat to the autonomy and freedom of all of Greece. In the defense of
Greece, unity is very important; no mature prince would break the rules of xenia
(hospitality), to take his host’s queen “for love”. Helen of Troy lacks a wise mentor,
mortal or immortal, to advise and protect her. She makes her own inept choices
(advised and protected only by the foolish Aphrodite) and allows herself to becomes a
passive victim of Fate acted upon by others. Unlike Dido or Cleopatra, Helen does not
actively use her mind, passion, or talent to improve her social or political position.
The young Helen is so lacking in savvy that she is a bore.

The untrustworthy Helen betrays her new husband Deiphobus, son of Trojan
King Priam, to her former husband Greek King Menelaus when Troy is conquered.
Odysseus sees Prince Deiphobus in Hades and hears of his horrible torture.
Deiphobus and the murdered King Agamemnon both warn Odysseus to beware of an
ungodly, disloyal wife. Agamemnon describes to Odysseus how he had been
murdered by Aegisthus and his own wife during a banquet. "Women, I tell you, are no
longer to be trusted." (Homer, Odyssey 11.455).

Menelaus praises Helen publicly in front of Telemachus, Odysseus' son when

he comes to visit, but he doesn't actually trust her (Odyssey). She is strictly a valuable
possession. Menelaus won her over all the other Greek royal suitors, and all the kings

56
who courted her are sworn to come to her defense in the event of a threat, therefore
Helen is an important political prize for Menelaus’ Sparta (Odyssey).12

Milton's Eve is a fertile beauty who gullibly falls for a serpent's flattery,
beginning a cycle of death. Not wanting to be alone, the seductive helpmate cunningly
tempts her husband into also eating their God's forbidden fruit. Allowing herself to be
deceived by her Creator's arch-enemy causes Eve to lose her intimate relationship
with her Creator, and the respect and trust of her husband. The first man and the first
woman's relationship as soul mates is shattered.

Milton's ideal marriage is where husband and wife work together as a team
with the husband in authority. A good wife submits herself to her husband and serves
him dutifully. Milton portrays woman's social aptitude as beneath man's. Rational
only to the point of light, pleasant conversation, when Adam engages the angel
Raphael in an intellectual discussion, Eve is bored.

Are these two queens just a plot element on behalf of their inventor, the male
author? Dido dies early in Virgil's narrative, but in the case of Shakespeare's
Cleopatra, she is central to the plot until the very end. Therefore these queens are
NOT just a plot element, nor are they just a creation of the author's poetic madness.

What do these female heroes have in common? They are all foreigners to the
author in this sense: they have the exotic appeal of what is different or alien. They
have a different origin, religion, and language. Look at the Muslim Clorinda of
Tasso's creation; she is an erotic, pagan woman who fulfills many societal roles. It is
not just because of her gender, that Tasso must kill her off. It is because of the social
element; Tasso knows that there is no future place for such a brilliant woman at the
end of his epic. She can neither exist permanently in the epic, nor in Tasso's real
society. She is too complex a character, she is too good.

Virgil had to plan to kill off Dido's character from the very beginning of
outlining the plot of his epic. First, Augustus wants him to write an epic about the
founding of Rome which must center around the hero, not an active female hero.
What would August say if the whole epic centered around a woman? Second of all,

12
A similar definition of a beautiful woman as a “prized-possession” can also be cited from
the Iliad: Achilles tells King Agamemnon that he has other “prized possessions” and if that
Agamemnon tries to take them by force, Achilles will use his sword and spill Agamemnon's purple
blood. This implies the first “prized-possession” was Brisies.

57
both history and mythology demand that Queen Dido die. She represents the city of
Carthage which is the historical enemy of Rome. Also, mythologically the Romans
and Greeks are patriarchal and want to trace their imagined ancestry to an epic male
hero like Hercules, Achilles, Ajax, etc.

A theme in Virgil's Dido is that no one can oppose the all-powerful gods and
survive. The Greek gods toy with humans like mortals move the pieces on a
chessboard. Initially Queen Dido is a good ruler; she actively builds her city and
participates in the daily acts of governing. Her character shows loyalty and purity in
her vow of virginity in honor of her deceased husband, Sychaeus. However, in
Virgil's epic, due to the interference of the angry, meddling Queen of Heaven Juno
and also the goddess of love Venus, Dido's character deteriorates. After her death,
(politically and corporally) her people worship still her as a goddess.

A female hero who opposes societal norms does so at great cost. The end
result is often physical “burn-out”, being scapegoated by society, and facing
immolation or martyrdom by either murder or forced suicide. The Ptolemaic Egyptian
Queen Cleopatra matures to be politically savvy under Julius Caesar's advice and
guidance. Cleopatra's energy synthesizes with the reasoning of the masterful
strategist.

Thoughts on the Epic Heroine

The downfall of female protagonists are thus observed, with their remedies
also being revealed. The heroine Helen lacks a wise mentor – whether moral, god, or
goddess, to advise her, or otherwise protect her from harm. One should seek both
human and divine counselors and follow their wise advice.

The heroine Eve has trapped herself in a pitiful position. In reality, it is wisest
to “look before you leap”. Getting ahead by breaking the rules through lying or
cheating is not worth the cost. This so-called financial, social, or political advantage is
not worth losing the trust of one’s soul mate.

Dido initially falls into trouble by ignoring Juno's desire that she, above all
other passions, rule her people wisely. Subsequently, Dido's grand plans are thwarted
by Venus when she fails to restrain her passion for another man and she breaks her
vow to her deceased husband. One should tread very carefully in respecting and

58
worshiping the divine. If you are blessed to have a divine patron, then like Moses, it is
best to submit and “remove your sandals” when “you are treading on holy ground”
that is ruled by the divine (Ex. 3:5, RSV).

Cleopatra as a female hero opposes societal norms at great cost; the end result
is her and Antony facing “burn-out” physically. She is scapegoated by Octavian and
faces humiliation as a trophy to be marched in Octavian’s Roman triumph. Cleopatra
prefers volunteer immolation as a sacrifice to Isis using the sacred asp. Here, one
should realize that when societal norms are opposed it requires a constant drain of
energy, intelligence, and manpower. One should pre-calculate the cost before jumping
into quicksand; prepare your ropes, horses, and team to survive the muddy bogs. As
the smart penguin does, don’t be the first in line to jump off the cliff into the ocean.
Look over the edge for shark activity, and let two or three others jump off first and
wait to see if they get bloodied and eaten.

Milton “launches into social criticism, a direct attack against the faults of
mankind in lines 496-505” (310) of Paradise Lost, according to Albano. He explains
that Milton's authorial intrusion into the Epic’s plot is due to his disgust with
mankind’s vehement hostility and propensity for strife. Of all the rational creatures
that God has created: angels, devils, and men – “only men disagree and fight with one
another is such an irrational way” (Milton, lines 497-8). Commenting on Milton’s,
“the race of man has enough foes or enemies in Hell (504)”, Albano raises the
questions of why mankind persists in creating them on earth: nation against nation,
race against race, rich against poor, faith against faith. (311).

In Milton’s invocation to the classical Muse, Greek mythology's inferences to

Christianity are apparent. Urania, the Muse of Astronomy is invoked because Milton
wishes to take the reader into three spheres: heaven, earth, and hell. Albano takes the
interpretation to another level:

Of course, Paradise Lost is a Christian work. So Urania is actually a

symbol for the Holy Spirit, the voice or power of God . . . Milton, quite
simply, is asking for inspiration directly from God himself. Just as God
inspired Moses to lead his people to the true path, the path toward God,
Milton hopes that God will inspire him to lead the people of England
to God. (280)

The gentle leading of Scripture is the work of the Holy Spirit. Albano focuses

59
on Milton’s allusion comparing the Gospels to the Holy Spirit as a dove: the gentle
bird of peace sat on the universe and made it pregnant. Thus, order was born out of
chaos. As the nurturing dove is motherly and caring, so Milton suggests that God is
motherly towards all (280).

The Epic is complete; it has come full-circle to its genesis. Milton wants to
“assert Eternal Providence” and to “justify the ways of God to men” (line 25-26).
Albano interprets that “Eternal Providence” suggests the fate of man as directed by
God. God has a Divine Plan for humanity. Everything that happens on earth is related
to the plan. Milton focuses on the story of Adam and Eve because that, according to
Christian belief, is when mankind’s fate or providence begins. Milton is attempting to
prove that the plan of God devised back in the time of Adam and Eve is still in effect;
that nothing has changed. God’s plan, Divine or Eternal Providence, takes precedence
in the lives of all humanity.

The word justify means “to explain”, but Albano shows that the word also
denotes to bring to light the justice of a thing--in this case, the justice of God’s
actions. Milton perceives the necessity of demonstrating that God is Right and Just.
Despite the occurrence of horrific events on the earth (or in England specifically),
those events are a function of God’s plan. What may appear to us to be a disaster,
plays a part in the Higher Purpose of the Heavenly administration. Milton is his epic
aspires to reveal that purpose, so that his readers can discover God’s purpose (279).

Hence Milton aspires to rise above the human failures that are such essential
parts of the classical Epic. But it is social realities that have already undermined the
warrior queen and virgin huntress, and even a classicist such as Milton does not bring
in these now not just “Other” but alien figures.

As H. C. Chow remarked: “The role of artistic thirst for memories when man
and women were co-hunters together has faded in modern, public memory. Such
memory was blotted out over the past few centuries by the English emphasis on
marriage stability and children. Modern marriages often exist without intimacy, love
or teamwork. Like the Garden of Eden, the perfect world and marriage was lost
forever.

Yet, the Epic and the poet still preserve these memories and dreams of
happiness through his writing. Maybe someday, classical literature can help modern
society retrieve this loss. Future literature may provide this door of opportunity. In

60
both modern movies and video games, the joyful image of the woman warrior as co-
hunter is already resurrected.”

61
62
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