Dissertation Title: “Woman Transformed: Images of Women in French Vernacular Translations at
the Dawn of the Renaissance”
Chapter 2: Adapting the Heroides: Text and Image in the XXI Epistres d’Ovide
This chapter examines multiple manuscript versions of Les XXI Epistres d’Ovide, underlining
how one translator, Octovien de Saint-Gelais, and one illuminator, Robinet Testard, combine their
powers of adaptation in altering the depictions of the women in Ovid’s Heroides. This manuscript
tradition provides another instance wherein translators of text and image, much like Dufour and
Pichore will do in Les Vies des femmes célèbres, are able to reinvent the women from Latin to French
through subtle adjustments. In so doing, translator and illuminator carve out spaces, albeit fictional
ones, where certain women take on more composed and elegant roles than in the Latin source text,
and where the female letter writers may serve for their readers as individual characters rather than as
moral exempla.
The Heroides in Context: Medieval Commentaries and Academic Uses of Ovid’s Work
Between 1492 and 1497,1 Octovien de Saint-Gelais offered his translation of Ovid’s Heroides
to Charles VIII. The translation was a huge success: we know of at least fourteen manuscript
versions before 1550, and more than fifteen printed editions between 1500 and 1546.2 The XXI
Epistres d’Ovide contains twenty-one fictional letters ostensibly written by famous mythological
figures from Antiquity. In three cases, a male lover initiates the correspondence, and the woman
responds; in the remaining 15 letters, a woman writes an unanswered letter to an absent lover.
From the 11th century onward Ovid’s Heroides were often described by commentators as
containing material for moral instruction.3 For example, the anonymous author of the Accessus ad
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2 auctores, in a manuscript from the 12th century, writes that Ovid created the Heroides to put forth three
types of love:
....intentio sua est legitimum commendare conubium vel amorem, et secundum hoc triplici
modo tractat de ipso amore, scilicet de legitimo, de illicito et stulto, de legitimo per
Penlopen, de illicito per Canacen, de stulto per Phillidem...Ethicae subiacet quia bonorum
morum est instructor, malorum vero extirpator. (Huygens, 30)
....his intention is to commend legitimate love or marriage, and secondly he discusses three
modes of love itself: namely, legitimate, illicit, and foolish. [He discusses] legitimate [love]
through Penelope, illicit [love] through Canace, and foolish [love] through Phyllis...He
exposes ethics because he instructs good morals, and in fact [or “indeed”] stamps out bad
ones. (my translation)
This tradition of introducing the Heroides in Latin as a work on moral instruction continued into the
15th century.4 The heroines in Ovid’s text often served as exempla in medieval schoolroom texts and
other works, providing medieval readers examples of foolish or faithful love. Fausto Ghisalberti
even points to the commentator of one 15th-century manuscript version of the Heroides who
asserted that they were written by Ovid in order to redeem himself after his morally debauched Ars
Amatoria (12 and 44, Appendix B).5 Paul White shows how the Heroides were still glossed in the late
15th and 16th centuries as rhetorical and moral models (see especially 71-85).
By the sixteenth century, however, Ovid’s Heroides had begun to play other roles as well.
Yvonne LeBlanc cites examples such as André La Vigne’s Quatre Epistres d’Ovide (c. 1500) and Fausto
Andrelini’s verse epistles for Anne of Brittany (1509-1511), to show how these works adapted the
Latin text to serve purposes relevant to the cultural and political contexts of their time:
For these writers, Ovid provided not only the authority of his name and dramatic
monologues, but a genre, the verse love epistle written in the voice of another. In the hands
of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century writers, Ovid’s heroines left the realm of myth
for a Christian world in transition between two ages...Their rewriting of the Heroides, like
modern criticism of this work, sheds as much light on their own culture and aspirations as it
does on their interpretation of Ovid. (85)
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3 Saint-Gelais’ translation appeared just before that of La Vigne and Andrelini, and could perhaps
have functioned as a sort of bridge between the interpretation of Ovid’s Latin Heroides found in the
works studied by Yvonne LeBlanc,6 and the earlier medieval conception of Ovid’s epistles as
didactic ethical tools. The French translator transformed Ovid’s original Latin and thus the verbal
portraits of women within the text, and, in turn, the illuminators of certain manuscripts inserted
images of women into Saint-Gelais’ text that further altered readings of the original Ovidian work.7
In contrast to Chapter 1’s discussion of Antoine Dufour’s Vies des femmes célèbres,8 and the
brief overview of commentaries and schoolroom uses of the Heroides just provided, Saint-Gelais
does not specify a moral aim for his rendering of the Heroides into the vernacular.9 Instead, the
Middle French translator very clearly specifies his intended noble audience (Charles VIII) and
purpose in his Prologue, thus marking a break from the medieval tradition surrounding Ovid’s
Heroides. Stating that he searched for something “qui donnast plaisir a vostre [Charles VIII] oeil [et]
recreation de cueur” (f. 5), the translator shifts his source text from its former ethical, didactic form
to one of recreation and pleasure.10
Although Saint-Gelais claims in his Prologue to offer the king pleasure and distraction, his
work is nonetheless inscribed in a general dialogue about the role and nature of women. This
dialogue, addressed also by Antoine Dufour in his Vies des femmes célèbres, is brought to the fore in the
many versions of Les XXI Epistres produced in the years preceding and following 1500, whether by
the various patrons of its manuscript versions, its publishers, its readers, or even its illuminators.
Saint-Gelais’ text shows us how a translator is able not only to transfer linguistic material from Latin
to French but also to transform this material from Ovid’s depictions of women to his own. Finally,
an examination of selected manuscripts reveals how the presentation of women in the images
accompanying Saint-Gelais’ translation further modify possible readings of the text.
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4 The Textual Adaptation of Ovid’s Heroides
The arguments of two critics set the stage for my analysis of Saint-Gelais’ translation of
Ovid’s Heroides. Elizabeth Harvey writes of the so-called woman’s voice in English Renaissance
texts: “Ventriloquism,” she writes, “is an appropriation of the feminine voice...that reflects and
contributes to a larger cultural silencing of women” (12). While Harvey writes of English
Renaissance texts, I see Sara Lindheim’s argument concerning the Heroides as describing a similar
process: that of a male author taking on a woman’s voice in order to silence her.
Discussing the objectification of Ovid’s heroines, Lindheim shows how the female letter
writers construct themselves as objects of the male gaze. Lindheim discusses Ovid’s Penelope, who
“closes out her own narrative by portraying herself solely as the object of the gaze of others” (50),
and reveals a similar process in Ariadne’s letter.11 According to Lindheim, Ovid’s female letterwriters, through carefully crafted verbal narratives, present themselves as objects by providing for
their male lovers vivid textual descriptions of their own bodies. This view of women as analyzed by
Lindheim is contrasted with that constructed by Octovien de Saint-Gelais, who effectively unravels
the carefully constructed tapestry of masculine gaze woven into the source text, and substitutes a
space in which female protagonists write themselves and their own actions to be read, not regarded,
by their male and female audiences.
In the discussion that follows, I focus on one way in which Saint-Gelais translates Ovid’s
Heroides, specifically honing in on certain omissions made by the translator, namely, the fact that
Saint-Gelais often omits details referring to body parts found in Ovid’s original work. Where Ovid
often uses a description of a heroine’s physical traits in order to convey her emotions, focusing on a
specific section of her physique in order to express an emotion, Saint-Gelais, while carefully
preserving the emotion described in the Ovidian source text, often translates these descriptions of
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5 particular body parts into more general images using adjectives. The result of this translation
depends on which letter we are reading, but the initial overall effect is a less vivid description of the
heroine’s emotions and of her body. While Ovid emphasizes women’s bodies, Saint-Gelais centers
his reader’s focus on their emotions, and even the act of letter-writing which, while present in the
Ovid, is often overpowered by the striking corporal images provided by the Ancient author.
The evocation of specific body parts serves two purposes in the Latin text of the Heroides.
First, as Lindheim has shown, these vivid descriptions of the protagonists’ bodies construct the
female characters as objects of the male gaze, and second, they are one way in which Ovid associates
his heroines, writing into existence not sixteen individual women but Woman with a capital “w”—a
unified textual vision of the female sex. A few comparative examples of the motif of hair will permit
us to better understand the textual fashioning of female characters in both source and translation.
In Heroides V, Ovid includes a vivid textual image of a crazed Cassandra. Writing to Paris,
Œnone recounts the prophecies of his sister, Cassandra: “Hoc tua--nam recolo--quondam germana
canebat,⏐sic mihi diffusis vaticinata comis:⏐ ‘quid facis, Œnone ? quid harenae seminia mandas ? ⏐ non
profecturis litora bubus aras.⏐Graia iuvenca venit, quae te patriamque domumque ⏐ perdat!,,,Dixerat ; in cursu
famulae rapuere furentem” (66, l. 113-121).12 In this citation, Cassandra’s disordered locks mark her
madness and emotional instability. In Saint-Gelais’ text, by contrast, Cassandra’s same actions are
carried out without reference either to her hair or even to her emotions: “Que Cassandra, ta seur,
par son exhorde, ⏐Me souloit dire et souvent reciter ⏐ Telles parolles pour mon ceur inciter …” (72,
l. 292-294).13 Thus, a description of a crazed Cassandra in the Latin Heroides, accompanied by the
textual image of her hair, underlines her instability as well as her physical feminine presence. The
French translation, on the other hand, simply recounts her actions, effectively creating a Cassandra
stripped of Ovid’s feminine, corporal and incensed characteristics.
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6 Directly following this description of Cassandra, Œnone evokes her own emotional
response, noting that her hair stood up on end upon hearing Cassandra’s prophecy: “Dixerat; in cursu
famulae rapuere furentem; ⏐ at mihi flaventes diriguere comae…” (66, l. 121-122).14 Saint-Gelais chooses to
describe Œnone’s emotive response without adopting the image of hair: “Par ses femmes fut prise et
emmenee⏐Et je, lasse, de crainte demenee, ⏐Commençay tost fremir et tressaillir⏐Comme pour vray
se je deusse faillir” (73, l. 317-320). Saint-Gelais thus strips another female character of a striking
physical image, but also omits Ovid’s association between Œnone and Cassandra through their
mutual emotional distress and the dramatic verbal depiction of their hair.
Ovid also highlights Medea’s hair in Hypsipyle’s epistle, in which the letter-writer paints an
image of Jason’s new mistress. Bringing to the fore her own vision of her villified rival, Hypsipyle
describes Medea wandering among tombs, hair undone: “per tumulos errat passis distincta capillis ⏐
certaque de tepidis colligit ossa rogis” (76, l. 89-90).15 Yet when Saint-Gelais’ Hypsipyle describes Medea,
she excludes any reference to Medea’s hair: “Elle, souvent, es obscures nuytz erre⏐Par les sepulcres
et fosses de la terre…” (86, l. 209-210).
By presenting the emotions of Cassandra, Medea and Œnone through the same part of their
bodies—their hair in disorder—, Ovid establishes an association among the three women that
includes their shared emotional distraught. However, Saint-Gelais’ choice not to include these three
striking descriptions in his translation of these very passages excludes from his text the physical
associations created by Ovid among Cassandra, Œnone, and Medea. Thus, where Ovid foregrounds
these three womens’ bodies and their similarities, the French translator underlines rather their
actions as independent characters.
Another striking example of Saint-Gelais’ omission of descriptions of hair is that of the
heroine Ariadne, who describes herself with unkempt hair four times in Ovid’s Heroides (122, l. 16;
124, l. 47; 130, l. 137; 132, l. 149), all of which Saint-Gelais includes in his translation.16 In the Ovid,
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7 Ariadne’s hair could implicitly allude to Cassandra, Medea, and Œnone as well, linking all four
heroines through a shared characteristic. However, remembering that Saint-Gelais’ translation omits
Ovid’s descriptions of Cassandra’s, Medea’s, and Œnone’s hair, the emphasis on Ariadne’s hair in
Saint-Gelais’ text, instead of creating an association between her and other heroines in the series
with whom she shares attributes and situations, underlines her uniqueness.
Yet another case of dramatic reference to a correspondent’s hair occurs in Medea’s letter
while she watches Jason escort his new wife, Creusa, into the city. In the Latin version of this
episode, Medea rips her cloak, beats her breast, and tears into her cheeks with her nails.17 She then
feels impelled to rush into the crowd, pulling wreaths off her hair, and grabbing Jason with her
hand.18 Although the sentiment conveyed could easily be that of anger towards her wayward lover,
Ovid describes Medea conjuring up an image of her own body and of her own emotional distress
while addressing Jason.
Saint-Gelais alters this passage from a feminine self-description into an action-driven picture
not only of Medea’s body but also of Jason’s. In addition to Medea’s potentially scratched and scarred
face,19 it is now the flowers in Jason’s hair she wishes to ravage; 20 it is now Jason’s “proud” face and
“inhuman eyes” that are imagined torn by Medea’s nails.21 Saint-Gelais, turning the reader’s attention
from Medea onto Jason, de-centers Ovid’s carefully constructed heroine as object of the male gaze,
and places Medea in the scene not as an object but as an acting, albeit vengeful, subject on an equal
plane with her wandering husband.
Ovid also evokes female protagonists’ body parts to make associations within one and the
same letter. Penelope’s epistle is an interesting example of the phenomenon by which the female
protagonist describes a particular body part, her hands, in two different situations, using the second
textual image as an implicit reference back to the first. Ovid’s Penelope presents her hands and/or
fingers in two instances: once when weaving late at night22 and once when giving the letter she has
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8 written to a messenger.23 Although Ovid uses manus to refer to weaving and digitus to evoke the act
of writing, the double image rendered is the same, that of a woman’s hands, which thus conflates
Penelope’s acts of writing and weaving.24
Saint-Gelais’ Penelope describes her own weaving in the following manner: “Ja ne feroye
quenoille ne fusse...En ce labeur passer les longues nuytz,” (4, l. 23-25); her act of writing is rendered
in this way: “Si prens papier et encre” (10, l. 174). While these passages convey the message that
Penelope is both trying to stay occupied at night and writes to her husband, the conflation of the
two acts is omitted here. While Ovid’s Penelope creates herself as an object by calling upon images
of her hands on these two occasions, thus conflating the act of weaving and the act of writing into
the single act of waiting for her husband’s return, Saint-Gelais’ Penelope presents herself as a
woman of varied activity. Rather than emphasizing the parts of her body, she highlights the objects
she uses (quenoille, papier, encre), thus shifting the reader’s attention away from her body as object
and onto real objects and the actions she carries out through them.
Ovid’s Penelope also links herself with other Ovidian heroines through repeated references
to another body part, the eyes. In her letter, she urges Ulysses to return home so that their son may
be the one to close his eyes, and later so that Ulysses may close his own father’s eyes.25 Saint-Gelais’
Penelope expresses the same wish, that their son might outlive them,26 and that Ulysses might see
his father’s last days,27 but neither of these passages renders an image of the eyes of the deceased
being closed by (implied) loving hands.
When Ovid’s Ariadne asks who will close her eyes after she dies,28 she refers back to
Penelope’s same question and links the two female letter-writers. This makes Ariadne’s situation
much more complex than a simple abandoned woman. By associating herself with a woman whose
husband does eventually return, Ovid implicitly raises the following question: how do we
differentiate a heroine whose lover has truly abandoned her (Ariadne) from one whose husband is
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9 slow in returning (Penelope)?29 However, in Saint-Gelais’ translation, Penelope does not refer to
anyone closing her loved ones’ eyes. Thus, when Ariadne asks “ou est celle qui me clorra les
yeulx⏐Quant ie seray trespassee en ces lieux” (146, l. 239-240), no implicit association with Penelope
and her situation is made.
Ovid reinforces the affinity among various heroines—and among their amorous and often
morbid emotions—through the image of bones to signal alternatively or conjunctively the themes of
love and death, an association often absent in Saint-Gelais’ text. For example, Ovid’s Briseis feels
fear in her bones (38, l. 82), which associates her with Phaedra’s reference to love in her bones (48, l.
70), and Œnone’s trembling in her bones (27, l. 38). While Saint-Gelais’ translations of these three
images do convey the same emotions, they do not employ the same body parts. Briseis’ fear restrains
her heart, body, and hands (34, l. 184), Phaedra is taken by ardent desire and pain (49, l. 182), and
Œnone is made weak by fear and foreboding (64, l. 92-93).
Ovid previews the death of two heroines in particular by havig them write their predicted
epitaphs at the end of their letters in analogous fashion. In examining Phyllis and Dido’s epitaphs,
we can see similarities in both the formats and vocabulary employed by Ovid. Both epitaphs are two
lines long, referencing the male lover in the first line and laying out the situation, and then describing
the female lover’s death in the second verse:
Phyllida Demophoon leto dedit hospes amantem;
Ille necis causam praebuit, ipsa manum. (30, l. 147-148)
Demophoon ‘twas sent Phyllis to her doom;
Her guest was he, she loved him well.
He was the cause that brought her death to pass;
Her own the hand by which she fell. (31)
Praebuit Aeneas et causam mortis et ensem;
Ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu. (98, l. 195-196)
From Aeneas came the cause of her death,
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10 And from him came the blade; from the hand of
Dido herself came the stroke by which she fell. (99)
Both epitaphs use the words causa and manu, both ascribing the causam of the death to the male lover,
and to the woman the manu that ultimately carries it out. The similarities between the two epitaphs,
both linguistic and psychological, associate the two women: reading Dido’s epitaph, readers recall
Phyllis’ epitaph in her earlier letter.
Phyllis’ epitaph as translated by Saint-Gelais is different than the Ovidian text both in terms
of vocabulary and psychology:
Cy gist Philis, laquelle Demophon
A fait mourir en piteuse destresse,
Trop le cherist comme soigneuse hostesse
Dont de ce crime et mal qu’elle porta
Bailla l’œuvre et elle executa. (26, l. 292-296)
We note immediately that no reference is made to Phyllis’ hand, thus excluding an important textual
image from Saint-Gelais’ translation. Paul White has suggested that the “crime” involved here is that
of Phyllis’ too-strong love for Demophoon, an idea altogether lacking in the Latin source text (166).
As for Dido’s epitaph, it adheres more closely to Ovid’s version:
Cy gist Dido, a qui le faulx Enee
Cause de mort et l’espee a donnee;
La malheureuse s’occist de propre main
Pour le depart de l’amant inhumain. (110, l. 431-434)
In transferring into French the reference to Dido’s hand carrying out her death and the source of
her death being the sword of her male lover, Saint-Gelais retains the important textual image of
Dido’s hand in the epitaph. He does, however, insert a negative perspective about Ae neas in adding
“le faulx” and “inhumain” as qualifiers of the male lover.
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11 Although the lovers act in the same manner in each text (Aeneas causes Dido’s death,
Demophoon causes that of Phyllis, and the two females actually execute the act themselves), SaintGelais, in excluding from his text the image of Phyllis’ hand, reduces the physical associations
between the two women so carefully fashioned by Ovid. Finally, Dido’s and Phyllis’ Middle French
epitaphs conserve the actions of Ovid’s text, but neither the parallel structures, nor the physical and
psychological links between the two heroines are recreated by Saint-Gelais.
Saint-Gelais’ effaced body parts create two important results in Les XXI Epistres d’Ovide.
First, the reader is not invited to visualize the heroines’ bodies or parts of them, in the dramatic way
that Ovid’s rendition does. Second, by not translating all references to body parts, Saint-Gelais
leaves out expressions in Ovid’s text that are repeated in several letters and that thus create
important links among Ovid’s heroines.
We can never say with any certitude why Saint-Gelais chose to adapt his translation as he
did. As a Catholic bishop, he may not have found it appropriate to include such detailed descriptions
of feminine body parts in a text written in the vernacular and thus more likely to be read by
individuals outside the church.30 A second possible explanation for these omissions relates to his
translation style and effort in creating an intelligible text. In describing the literal emotion of a
heroine instead of er sentiment through a reference to her body, Saint-Gelais renders the text less
metaphorical, thus making the text more accessible to a wider readership. Alternatively, our French
translator may not have grasped the importance of the metaphors and corporal references he did not
preserve from Ovid’s original text, believing that to simply recount Cassandra’s devastating
prophecies served the same narrative function as to describe Cassandra’s hair in the process. Finally,
it is possible that Saint-Gelais, having completely understood the complexities of the heroines, their
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12 bodies, and their emotions in Ovid’s text, wanted to diminish the crazed, unstable, and objectified
dimension of his correspondents that Sara Lindheim has so aptly exposed.
Whatever Saint-Gelais’ reasons were for his choices, his translation of the XXI Epistres
d’Ovide creates women who draw attention to their actions more often than to their bodies. This
shift in focus from the Ovidian source text paints less visual pictures of women, ones that underline
less the women’s emotional distress as wronged lovers, and more their status as actors. Additionally,
while Ovid’s text draws parallels among his heroines through their use of repeated images, the
French vernacular translation instead hones in on separate women and their individual actions.
Ultimately, Ovid’s fictional women letter writers are employed as Lindheim argues in order
to construct a unified, objectified vision of the female sex. On the other hand, the textual and visual
portraits crafted and adapted from the Latin by Octovien de Saint-Gelais, while still effecting an
appropriation of the feminine voice, do so not in tandem with Elizabeth Harvey’s “larger cultural
silencing” but rather in service of the larger cultural phenomenon this book seeks to trace: that of
women’s’ active and implicit participation in literary production, and the larger cultural and historical
context of active and implicit expansion of women’s roles in manuscripts and printed books. SaintGelais’ translation and his ventriloquism of the feminine voice in fact contributes not to a silencing of
women but to a larger process of granting them roles and voices in literary texts.
A Study of Four Manuscript Versions of the XXI Epistres d’Ovide
The textual distinctions in Saint-Gelais’ translation are accompanied by a variety of visual
representations of the women letter-writers in the extant manuscripts of Saint-Gelais’ text, with
several of the miniatures contained in manuscripts made for women in particular highlighting the act
of letter-writing rather than the emotional distress or passive roles established by Ovid’s meticulous
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13 description of their bodies. Four manuscript versions of the XXI Epistres d’Ovide, BnF fr. 873, BnF
fr. 875, San Marino Huntington Library manuscript 60, and Oxford, Balliol College manuscript 383,
will serve as examples of the differing ways in which Saint-Gelais’ textual translation was
accompanied by miniatures, and how these images were, in a sense, “translations” of earlier
representations of certain heroines.31
BnF fr. 873, once belonging to Louise of Savoy,32 and illuminated by Jean Pichore,33 can be
dated between 149734 and 1502, the year of Saint-Gelais’ death. The manuscript’s illustrations
generally comprise a full-page miniature of the female letter-writer at its center engaged in an action
described in her text.35 Some of the illuminations also include two or three smaller scenes in the
margins of the folio.36 Oxford Balliol 383 belonging to Jean de Chabannes37 was fabricated most
likely between 1497 and 1503.38 The manuscript’s illustrations generally take up half a folio at the
beginning of a letter, portraying the heroine awaiting on shore the return of her lover,39 interacting
with other individuals mentioned in the text,40 or participating in another action described in the
translation.41
I have chosen BnF fr. 873 and Oxford, Balliol 383 as examples of manuscripts in which the
illustrations portray the woman’s full body as she carries out an action or participates in a scene.
These images, although typical of most miniatures in the fourteen extant XXI Epistres manuscripts,
are strikingly different from those contained in Huntington Library manuscript 60 and BnF fr. 875,
where the heroines are most often portrayed from the torso up engaged in the act of writing. These
two distinct manners of presenting the female letter-writers visually invite two contrasting readings
of Saint-Gelais’ text: while the women portrayed in full body convey action and emotional distress,
the second category of visualizations of female correspondents presents a calm and collected woman
in the middle of the act of writing.
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14 This more collected version of Saint-Gelais’ heroines found in our second two manuscripts
serves to counterbalance the effects I have just discussed concerning his translation: while the text
has effaced certain parallels Ovid had created among the heroines, some miniatures, especially those
in HM 60, serve to tie them back together, echoing, most likely unconsciously, those verbal
associations of the original Latin version. In Balliol 383 and BnF fr. 873, by contrast, the heroines’
engagement in actions described in their individual letters sometimes serves to differentiate the
female letter-writers one from another, endorsing, although not necessarily consciously, elements of
Saint-Gelais’ translation discussed above. In both cases, however, the fact that some women are
presented in similar poses or are engaged in similar actions circles back to the original Ovidian text,
wherein the heroines were linked by these topoi, such as the act of waiting by the shore to either
watch a boat depart or look for ones arriving.42
BnF fr. 875 was commissioned by Louise of Savoy;43 a sentence in BnF ms. fr. 8815, f. 29v
confirms that the scribe Jean Michel was paid in 1497 “pour faire le livre des Espistres d’Ovyde que
mad. Dame lui fait present fere.”44 The manuscript was illuminated by Robinet Testard (Durrieu, 5),
the “artiste maison” of Louise of Savoy and Charles of Angoulême (Avril and Reynaud, 408).
Testard painted many images of women for Louise in a style similar to the illuminations in HM 60:
the women, elegantly dressed, appear from the waist up with their heads often disproportionately
large in comparison to their shoulders.45 François Avril and Nicole Reynaud (408) write that this was
the first known work in which Testard employed this style. I believe that Testard likely illuminated
BnF fr. 875 with Louise of Savoy in mind, as other scholars have shown him to do in other
manuscripts.46 Another manuscript attributed to Robinet Testard47 c. 1500 is believed to have
belonged to Anne of Brittany and/or to her husband, Louis XII,48 whom she married in 1499. If
manuscript HM 60, now housed at the Huntington Library in San Marino, did indeed belong to
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15 Anne, it could have been a wedding present from Louis XII, or a gift from her first husband,
Charles VIII, for whom Saint-Gelais’ translation had been composed.49
HM 60 contains miniatures similar in style to those of BnF fr. 875, which is not surprising,
given that the illustrations in both have been attributed to Testard and that both manuscripts were
ostensibly made for women of high political and social standing. The female correspondents are
often seated, torso and head alone visible, in the process of writing their letters.50 While BnF fr. 875
sometimes includes attributes to identify the letter-writer in the illustration, such as the sword that
pierces Canace’s breast as she writes (f. 58), the placement of Ariadne drafting her letter as she sits
on the shore (f. 53), or the fact that Œnone, surrounded by animals, carves her epistle on a piece of
wood (f. 23v), HM 60 presents even fewer details that would distinguish one heroine from another
in its images.
A comparison of the miniatures that decorate BnF fr. 873 and Balliol 383 with those of BnF
fr. 875 and HM 60 reveals that the first group of manuscripts invites a reading that is more centered
on the heroines’ roles and actions in the narrative than on their status as letter-writers, and
frequently displays their emotional distress. By contrast, the second group of manuscript miniatures
centers on elegantly dressed, composed women engaged in the act of writing. These images not only
serve to link the heroines by pointing to their similar action and behavior, but they also distance
them from their emotional distress by highlighting their elegant composure. The examples of
Penelope and Dejanira will help flush out some of these very similarities and differences found in
the four manuscripts and suggest the kinds of readings these differing portraits of the heroines
encourage.
Certain compositional similarities emerge when comparing BnF fr. 873’s Penelope (f. 1v)
and her counterpart pictured in Balliol 383 (f. 6v) [Figures 1-2]. Both women are portrayed in the act
of passing a letter to a messenger who holds an oar crooked under his left arm, his boat waiting
Pollock, Writing Sample,
16 behind him to the right. In both illuminations, Penelope wears red with blue trim, and has her hair
bound in a braid that wraps around the top of her head. This exterior scene is a somewhat unusual
portrayal of Penelope, who is typically painted throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in an
interior setting, engaged in the act of weaving,51 writing,52 or reading,53
In the BnF fr. 873 miniature, the margins contain smaller scenes that convey other aspects of
Penelope’s story. In the left margin, Penelope sits in a grand hall penning her letter to Ulysses; in the
lower margin, the messenger pictured in the primary scene passes her epistle to another man, while
two others look on in the background.54 Although both depictions of Penelope contain many of the
same compositional elements, ms. 873 proves to be a much more complex image than that found in
Balliol 383.55 In addition to the secondary themes in its margins, BnF fr. 873’s central heroine has a
slit in her dress running dangerously close to her more personal areas. Could this display imply a
less-than-chaste Penelope or is it another example of the elaborate styles of dress in each and every
miniature in this manuscript?
BnF. fr. 875 (f. 1) and HM 60 (f. 3) [Figures 3-4] present a very different image of Penelope
than that contained in our first two manuscripts:56 rather than participating in an exterior scene with
other actors, Penelope is seated in both manuscripts in an interior setting, writing her letter to
Ulysses. Although Testard adds a few more details in BnF fr. 875 than in HM 60, which may help
the reader identify more easily the particular heroine,57 the two images remain fairly similar, even
including details such as Penelope’s headwear.58 In contrast to the two earlier miniatures, these two
illuminations portray a woman in the process of writing a letter: elegantly dressed and self-possessed,
she presents a picture of calm and intelligence which is absent in the visuals centered on action, and,
as we will see in the case of Dejanira, emotional distress.
The vast majority of the correspondents in HM 60 and BnF fr. 875 are painted in relative
states of composure. For the most part, in BnF fr. 875, their hair is bound or covered by a scarf,
Pollock, Writing Sample,
17 turban, or other sort of headdress; in HM 60, many women have their hair covered,59 or it flows
down along their back with a garland atop it.60 This sign of self-control and composure in BnF fr.
875 corresponds with Saint-Gelais’ text, where Ovid’s descriptions of unkempt hair are notably
absent.
For example, in three manuscripts, Bnf. fr. 873 (f. 74v), Balliol 383 (f. 84v), and HM 60 (f.
62), Medea is pictured with her hair covered or bound neatly on top of her head.61 Ariadne,
however, appears in all four manuscripts with her hair loose behind her back (BnF fr. 873, f. 62v;
HM 60, f. 52; BnF fr. 875, f. 53; Balliol 383, f. 72). These differing treatments of the two heroines'
hair may suggest an engagement on the part of some of the artists with Saint-Gelais’ text, as they
correspond nicely with Saint-Gelais’ textual depictions of Medea, which, as demonstrated above,
lack reference to her unkempt hair in Ovid’s version and to the Latin author’s repeated references to
Ariadne’s disordered coiffure.
On a more general plane, however, there is a definite tendency on the part of Testard to
portray his heroines in a more dignified and composed manner in HM 60 and BnF fr. 875 than the
artists have done in the other two manuscripts. Saint-Gelais’ omission of the associations of
unkempt hair and madness found in Ovid’s text is thus reflected in Testard’s images,62 for his
females appear with their hair either braided, bound, or covered. In Balliol 383 and BnF fr. 873,
however, many of the correspondents are presented with hair undone or in varying states of
disorder.63
One final example highlights the differing portrayals of the female correspondents in the
four manuscripts I have chosen to discuss. Dejanira’s letter describes the emotional outrage of an
abandoned woman, and her description of her lover, Hercules, and his new mistress.64 At the end of
the letter, Dejanira learns that the poisoned cloak she has sent to Hercules has killed him, and she
writes that she intends to commit suicide.65 While Balliol 383 and BnF fr. 873 choose to portray
Pollock, Writing Sample,
18 Dejanira in a moment of distress consistent with the emotion conveyed in her epistle, the strikingly
calm portraits of the heroine in BnF fr. 875 and HM 60 exemplify Robinet Testard’s emphasis on
the heroines’ composure and elegance throughout these two manuscripts, even though such a
portrayal diverges from her own narrative.
In Oxford Balliol 383 [Figure 5], Dejanira receives a letter from a messenger. Learning of
Hercules’ death, she expresses her despair:
Mais que me vault tout ce ramentevoir,
Quant renommee me vient faire assavoir
En escrivant ceste letre piteuse,
Que tu es mort en fin trop angosseuse?
Et je mesme suis cause du meffait,
Par ignorance toutesfoiz l’ay je fait, (Deschamps, 133-134, l. 323-327)
It is this very moment that the illuminator of ms. 383 has chosen to display. Dejanira is dressed
simply, although nobly, in bright colors of blue, green, and red. Her hair is bound in a tail behind her
back. Most significant is the shocked expression on her face, and the stern countenance of the two
onlookers pictured in the upper right quadrant. Indeed, even the messenger is cautiously uneasy.
Thus, the heroine, pictured participating in a scene corresponding to a specific moment in the text,
displays her emotional distress and her status not as the sole focus of the miniature but as one of
several participants in the narrative.
The miniaturist of BnF fr. 873 also chose to paint the moment at which Dejanira learns of
Hercules’ death [Figure 6], but this time through a double scene in which Hercules is transported
outside Dejanira’s window, and she watches his body burn – or imagines this disastrous turn of
events. This Dejanira also wears red, blue, and green, and a dress with similar sleeves. However, the
miniaturist here conveys much more of the heroine’s emotion than did the artist of Balliol 383:
Dejanira, hands clasped in dismay, mouth partially open and hair flowing freely, turns towards her
window in despair.
Pollock, Writing Sample,
19 Where Balliol 383 and BnF fr. 873 portrayed an emotionally distraught Dejanira as a
participant in a developed scene, BnF fr. 875 and HM 60 picture a very different heroine [Figures 78]. In both of Testard’s miniatures, the female correspondent sits at a desk, engaged in writing her
epistle. Her head is covered by a veil, her shoulders surrounded by a cloak. Yet again, this vision of
Dejanira serves to underline the elegance and composure of Robinet Testard’s heroines in both
manuscripts in contrast to the despair presented in her letter.
The heroines portrayed by Testard distinguish themselves from women protagonists
pictured in other manuscript versions, who evolve in relation to other characters in the narrative,
and who are frequently painted in a state of agitation or distress, as in the example of Dejanira.
Testard paints the heroines at the center of each image in the two manuscripts he illuminated, BnF
fr. 875 and HM 60, emphasizing three identical characteristics in each woman: she is represented
alone, elegantly dressed, and engaged in writing.66 The court illuminator’s miniatures announce what
the reader of Saint-Gelais’ translation will soon discover: his heroines, although described less
dramatically than Ovid’s heroines, are less often constructed verbally from distinct parts of their
bodies—their hair, their bones, their necks —, or as women associated with each other through
their emotional distress, but rather as noble women who write and who recount their differing
narratives. The neater presence and dignified comportment worthy of noble women at the end of
the Middle Ages of Testard’s heroines perhaps points to the illuminator’s desire to direct his work
towards his female patrons. The manner in which Robinet Testard focalizes his images of SaintGelais’ women, situating the face and torso of his elegantly-dressed correspondents in the act of
writing in the center of the miniature, would likely have been appreciated by Louise of Savoy and
Anne of Brittany.67
Pollock, Writing Sample,
20 The women patronesses would also have appreciated the varied styles of dress pictured in
Testard’s miniatures. John Block Friedman argues that Testard often dressed these women in
turbans “to indicate that these women were persons of a certain gravitas indicated as much by their
headgear as by their rich costume” (183). Ultimately, Block Friedman’s study of turbans in Testard’s
work points to the elegant, varied, and exotic nature of his female figures’ dress, all of which would
have pleased Louise of Savoy in particular and women readers in France more generally, creating
female portraits emerging as blends of contemporary and historical, of noble and exotic, and
conferring “nobility and strangeness on his [Testard’s] women at a time when outward identity was
under siege and threatening social fluidity needed to be fixed by sumptuary laws regulating color,
fabric, and costume” (191).
According to Block Friedman, Testard’s use of turbans creates a space in which the women
pictured in Louise’s manuscripts (such as BnF fr. 599, Des cleres et nobles femmes, and 875, Les XXI
Epistres d’Ovide) ever-so-slightly defy sumptuary laws, thus subtly questioning the limits of women’s
roles in society. In fact, this idea of threatening social fluidity can be linked to the threatening nature
of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, and Antoine Dufour’s translation of this Latin work in which he
sought to further expand the acceptable roles women played, socially or politically, in his text.
In other words, at a time when certain segments of society were trying to fix women’s roles,
be they cultural, political, or social, through measures such as sumptuary laws and readings of Latin
texts seen as moral instruction presenting their overly incestuous or amorous tendencies, other
segments of society, or at least individuals, expanded women’s literary roles by crafting translations
that were favorable to women,68 or by producing manuscripts that portrayed fictional women in
more favorable or expansive manners than current norms or laws allowed in France around 1500.69
In this chapter specifically, we saw the cases of three individuals in particular, Octovien de SaintGelais, Robinet Testard, and Louise of Savoy, whose roles in the confection of various manuscript
Pollock, Writing Sample,
21 versions of the XXI Epistres d’Ovide produced a textual depiction of women which diminished the
objectification of women found in its Latin source, and miniatures in which these female characters
were presented in modes of dress which ever-so-subtly challenged the limitations of typical female
roles in France around 1500.
In conclusion, the role of books themselves in this process of expansion and constriction of
woman’s place in French society merits some attention. The question as to whether these ornate
manuscripts were often read, or whether they acted more as status symbols for their noble
possessors, is a valid question, and one that can only be answered on a case by case basis. In the case
of Louise of Savoy, the fact that Mary Beth Winn and Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier have noted 86
works in Louise’s collection, all in French with the exception of her books of hours,70 points to
someone’s assumption, either hers or that of the individuals who produced the manuscripts and
printed books for her, that she would indeed read the books in her collection. On the other hand,
books were clearly a sort of status symbol by the end of the 15th century, a fact to which the
presence of Louise’s arms in 20 or so of her books and her portrait in 15 printed books and 13
manuscripts can attest.71 These marks were not always merely assertions of ownership, but also of
agency in the process of literary production. In short, Louise’s library can attest to both her identity as
an avid reader, but also to her usage of these physical objects as symbols of her education, her
nobility, and her role society at large in an intellectual capacity.
Richard and Mary Rouse describe how prostitutes in 1420s Paris carried books in trying to
appear to be good and rich women. Rouse and Rouse write:
prostitutes accused at the Châtelet of violating the sumptuary laws, so that their dress did not
differentiate them from virtuous women, were also said to ‘carry, or have someone carry for
them, large books which they do not know how to read—in which they recognize not a
single word, nor even the letters—to the point that one can scarcely distinguish them from
the good honest women and notable bourgeoises of the city of Paris, whose privilege it is to carry
such things.’ (Manuscripts and their makers, 304 [my emphasis])
Pollock, Writing Sample,
22 For these prostitutes in the early 15th century, books were also a status symbol, one that connected
their identities to ideals of feminine honesty and virtue. Fast forward to the late 15th century, and the
makers and female possessors of certain books were also trying to use books to reevaluate these
ideals in an attempt to expand what it meant to be feminine and virtuous. It is perhaps a strange
irony, then, that these prostitutes, unable to read the words contained in their props, nonetheless
used them for similar aims as a few noble and learned women would attempt to do decades later.
1
See H.-J. Molinier, who dates one manuscript version of Saint-Gelais’ translation, BnF fr. 873, to
1496. On the first folio of 873, Molinier cites the following anouncement: “cy commencent les
Espistres d’Ovide translatées de latin en françois, le XVIe jour de febvrier mil CCCC IIIIxx XVI,
par Révérend Père en Dieu, maistre Octovian de Saint-Gelès, à présent évesque d’Angoulesme”
(67). Molinier suggests that Saint-Gelais began his translation of the Heroides in 1492, when he was
finishing his composition of the Séjour d’Honneur. Molinier also posits that the reference to the
transcription of manuscript 873 is to the date of its transcription rather than the date of Saint-Gelais’
translation. However, the rubric on folio 1r of BnF fr. 25397 reads: “[T]Able de ce petit livre es
epistres dovide translatees en rime de latin en francois le xvie jour de fevrier lan mil CCCC iiiixx et
xvi Par Reverend pere en dieu Monsieur Octovian de St. Gelaiz a present evesque dangolesme.” The
fact that these two manuscripts, BnF fr. 873 and BnF fr. 25397, contain the same date makes it
unlikely that two manuscripts were transcribed with this date in mind, but rather that this was indeed
the date Saint-Gelais presented his translation to the king. Cynthia Brown, The Queen’s Library, dates
Saint-Gelais’ translation to 1497 (n.s.) rather than 1496 (o.s) (350).
2
Cynthia Brown, “Du manuscrit à l’imprimé,” 73.
3
See Leblanc, 71-72. Rita Copeland notes that the Heroides were often used in the twelfth century
“to praise chaste and to censure unchaste love” (Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, 77); Minnis states that
medieval scholars interpreted the significance of the Heroides as “its contribution to a system of
morality which, while non-Christian in historical terms, was not incompatible with Christian ethics”
(56).
4
For example, the commentator Ubertinus Clericus frames the Heroides (1481) as a work containing
ethical and moral examples of chaste love and excessive lust:
Materia uero est ethica, id est moralis, quia describit uarios uirorum mulierumque mores.
Intentio poetae est exercendo ingenium et quaerendo famam amoris affectus demonstrare &
ostendere quantum hi differant in mulieribus pudicis & impudicis: qua in aliis casti amoris
pietatem, in aliis libidinis et furoris incontinentiam probant. Itaque aliae ad laudem &
imitationem: aliae ad libidinis & impudiciae detestationem memorantur. (sig. a. iiiv)
Pollock, Writing Sample,
23 The matter is, then, ethical, that is to say moral, since it describes the diverse morals of men
and women. The poet’s intention is, in exercising his talent and seeking fame, to
demonstrate the effects of love and to show how much they differ in virtuous and immoral
women: since in some they demonstrate the devotion of chaste love, in others the excesses
of lust and madness. Therefore some of their stories are told to make us praise and imitate
them, others to make us despise lust and immorality. (quoted and translated in White, 77-78)
For elaboration on commentators of the Heroides, see White, 77-85.
5
Ghisalberti includes a transcription of some of this commentary in his appendices, in which we can
read sentiments similar to the earlier commentaries I have cited. For example, the commentator
asserts that Ovid composed this book in which many chaste women are commended, and many
unchaste women are chastised: “Et tunc composuit hunc librum in quo multum commendat
mulieries castas et pudicas, et reprehendit incestas et impudicas” (44).
6
LeBlanc notes that Saint-Gelais’s translation “introduced many non-Latin readers to Ovid’s
fictional letters and fired the creative juices of his contemporaries to compose their own Heroidianstyle epistles” (73).
7
See below for my discussion of four manuscript versions of the XXI Epistres: BnF fr. 873, BnF fr.
875, Huntington ms. 60, and Oxford Balliol 383.
8
See Chapter 1, in which I discuss Antoine Dufour’s Prologue to Les Vies des femmes célèbres as an
insertion into a larger debate concerning the vices and virtues of women. See also The Queen’s Library,
where Cynthia J. Brown discusses: “the continuing debate over female virtues that is raised in the
prologue of the Nobles et cleres dames, the Vies des femmes célèbres, and the Advocate des dames,” and asserts
that “such discussions at the court of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany, although never explored in
depth, thus figure as a heretofore unidentified stage of the Querelle des femmes” (190).
9
I am in slight disagreement with Paul White, who points to a difference between Ovid’s Heroides
and Saint-Gelais’ translation wherein the heroines are presented by the French translator as less
morally ambiguous than in the Latin text (157-170). In the following chapter, I show that this lack of
moral ambiguity, coupled with the absence of a moral message in the translator’s Prologue, results in
a text that invites readers to enjoy the stories of each individual heroine, instead of reflecting on the
heroines’ morality. In contrast to my analysis of Boccaccio’s, Foresti’s and Dufour’s texts, in which
the authors inserted moralizing comments into many heroines’ biographies, Saint-Gelais’
presentation of morally unambiguous Heroides heroines actually creates a text in which readers are
less often asked to reflect upon questions of morality.
10
By shifting the use of the Heroides from moral instruction to noble recreation, Saint-Gelais both
breaks from the specific early medieval tradition in France surrounding Ovid’s work, but also
inscribes himself into a larger tradition in the late Middle Ages in France, that of justifying
translation through Aristotelian ideas surrounding princely recreation rather than through
didacticism. For more elaboration on this development in the later Middle Ages, see Jean-Jacques
Vincensini’s article, where he convincingly shows how an introduction of Aristotelian ideas related
to the value of leisure and recreation (ideas brought to French nobility in part through Nicole
Oresme’s translation, see Chapter 1) became a traditional manner of justifying translation in the later
Middle Ages. Joël Blanchard, explaining how this “valorisation du loisir...se fait à partir d’une
réflexion sur l’idée de ‘recreation’” (199), argues that this idea of recreation as a valorisation of loisir,
“à condition qu’il ne soit pas excessif, entre dans un équilibre nouveau des activités du prince”
around the time of Charles V (202).
Pollock, Writing Sample,
24 11
Lindheim writes: “Ariadne chooses, as a principal strategy, to manipulate the medium of sight.
Feminist and deconstructionist theory of the gaze divides looking into two positions of unequal
power—the commanding subject who views, and the object who is viewed. Ariadne exploits this
hierarchical dichotomy, establishing a visual image of herself before Theseus’ mind’s eye.
Meticulously she constructs Theseus as the active, all-controlling looker, almost literally laying
herself bare, a vulnerable object of his gaze, characterizing herself rather strikingly with verbs in the
passive voice. In a disconcerting manner, underscoring her self-constructed powerlessness, she
reduces herself to a composite sketch of her various body parts, vividly describing each one so that
she presents herself as an object for Theseus’ visual pleasure.” (111-112)
12
All Latin citations and English translations come from Grant Showerman’s edition of the Heroides.
Showerman’s English translation reads: “This, once upon a time—for I call it back to mind—your
sister sang to me, with locks let loose, foreseeing what should come: ‘What art thou doing, Œnone?
Why commit seeds to sand? Thou art plouging the shores with oxen that will accomplish naught. A
Greek heifer is on the way, to ruin thee, thy homeland, and thy house!...She ceased to speak; her
slaves seized on her as she madly ran” (67) (my emphasis).
13
All French citations from Les XXI Epistres d’Ovide are taken from Maryse Deschamps’ Masters
Thesis, in which she includes a transcription based primarily on BnF fr. 875, a manuscript belonging
to Louise of Savoy (see page 16-17 of this chapter for more information on this manuscript version)
and secondarily on an edition published in 1525 (Deschamps, 369).
14
English translation: “She ceased to speak; her slaves seized on her as she madly ran. And I—my
golden locks stood stiffly up…” (67) (my emphasis).
15
Showerman’s English translation: “Among sepulchres she stalks, ungirded, with hair flowing loose,
and gathers from the yet warm funeral pyre the appointed bones” (77) (my emphasis).
16
See page 38, l. 138 which corresponds with Ovid l. 16, 141, l. 107 to go with Ovid l. 47, 148, l.
282-284 to go with Ovid l. 137, and 149, 301 to go with l. 149.
17
“protinus abscissa planxi mea pectora veste,/tuta nec a digitis ora fuere meis. (154, l. 153-154).
The English translation reads: “Then straight I rent my cloak and beat my breast and cried aloud,
and my cheeks were at the mercy of my nails.” (155)
18
“ire animus mediae suadebat in agmina turbae/sertaque conpositis demere rapta comis;/ vix me
continui, quin sic laniata capillos/clamarem “meus est!” iniceremque manus.” (154, l. 155-158).
Showerman’s translation reads: “My heart impelled me to rush into the midst of the moving throng,
to tear off the wreaths from my ordered locks; I scarce could keep from crying out, thus with hair all
torn, ‘He is mine!’ and laying hold on you” (155) (my emphasis).
19
“Et ja ne fut asseuree ma face,/Que par mes doyz ne me tue ou defface,” (177, l. 367-368)
20
“Et de ravyr sur voz parez cheveulx/Les violettes et chappeaulx de vous deux.” (177, l. 373-374)
21
“Mais qui me tint que je n’alasse a l’heure/Te courir sus promptement sans demeure,/ Et
detrancher par mes ongles et mains/ Ta fiere face et tex yeulx inhumains?” (178, l. 379-382)
22
“nec mihi quaerenti spatiosam fallere noctem⏐lassaret viduas pendula tela manus” (10, l. 9-10). Showerman’s
English translation reads: “nor would the hanging web be wearying now my widowed hands as I
seek to beguile the hours of spacious night” (11).
23
“traditur huic digitis charta nota meis” (14, l. 62). English translation: “into his [the messenger’s] hand
is given the sheet written by these fingers of mine” (15).
24
The theme of women writing is very important in both the original Latin and the French
translation of the Heroides. This is not simply because the very notion of the work is that women
write letters to their beloveds, but also because the female letter writers refer to their own act of
writing throughout the letters. Weaving was a traditional and common activity for women of both
Pollock, Writing Sample,
25 ancient and medieval time periods. As such, it would be interesting to see if this parallel can be
drawn in other letters within the Heroides, or in other contemporary French works.
25
Ovid’s text reads “ille meos oculos conprimat, ille tuos,” (18, l. 102) which Showerman translates as
“that he [Telemachus] be the one to close my eyes, the one to close yours !”; and “respice Laerten; ut
iam sua lumina condas⏐ extremum fati sustenit ille diem,” (18, l. 113) translated as “have regard for Laertes;
in the hope that you will come at last to close his eyes, he is withstanding the final day of fate” (19).
26
“Si prye aux dieux que vivre [Thelemacus] puisse tant,⏐ Que toy et moy selon cours de
nature⏐Puisse passer et mettre en sepulture⏐Tous noz deux corps quant mort nous aura pris” (13, l.
242-245).
27
“Avance toy si tu as or envie⏐De jamais veoir plus Laertes en vie⏐Car Atropos appreste sans
sejour⏐Luy faire offre de son derrenier jour!” (14, l. 259-262)
28
“nec, mea qui digitus lumina condat, erit?” (130, l. 120)
29
The answer to this question, I believe, is simple: we can’t differentiate until we see the end result.
By drawing subtle parallels between Penelope and Ariadne, Ovid effectively signals to the reader that
perhaps abandonment is a sentiment felt by an overly emotional woman, in this case, Ariadne, rather
than a reality, leaving it to the readers apply the principle that the woman who waits, Penelope, is
rewarded, and the woman who does not, Ariadne, is abandoned but perhaps only in her own eyes,
to all the female letter writers.
30
I find this possibility less convincing, as numerous other translations of Saint Gelais’ include very
detailed, even erotic, descriptions of women. See, for example, his translation of the story of
Eurialus and Lucretia (c. 1489), in Eneas Silvivs Piccolomini, Œuvres Érotiques.
31
This examination of the images accompanying Saint-Gelais’ text parallels in some manner Cynthia
Brown’s article, “Les images récurrentes de femmes à l’aube de la Renaissance: Les XXI Epistres
d’Ovide.” However, in order to demonstrate the ways in which the illustrations may have modified
readings of Saint-Gelais’ text, it is necessary to go into some detail regarding the illuminations of
four of the XXI Epistres manuscripts.
32
According to Paul Durrieu (8), this manuscript was made for Louis XII, but Cynthia Brown
asserts that the manuscript “bears another set of symbols related to Louise of Savoy (rather than
Louis XII, as some earlier critics have suggested)” (The Queen’s Library, 200). See also Caroline Zöhl,
France 1500, 126. Maxime Hermant (France 1500, 202) points out that Louise’s symbols were added
to this manuscript “après coup” and suggests that the manuscript originally belonged to Louis XII.
Based upon my examination, the manuscript’s borders have clearly been retouched: while the
windmills and wings, symbols of Louise de Savoy, appear on the last layer of paint, the L’s which
could have originally existed as references to Louis XII are sometimes partially painted over. Mary
Beth Winn and Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier are currently researching Louise’s library and the
provenance of BnF fr. 873. See their forthcoming article “Louise de Savoie, ses livres, sa
bibliothèque.”
33
According to Caroline Zöhl (France 1500, 126).
34
See note 1.
35
For example, Phyllis (f. 6v) stands at the shoreline and raises her right hand to her forehead,
searching the sea for Demophoon. Phaedra passes a letter to a messenger (f. 19v), while an image in
the background shows her hunting a stag. Hypsipyle (f. 35v) and Dido (f. 42v) are both pictured in
an interior space, writing letters to their absent lovers.
36
See my description of Penelope (f. 1v) below.
37
Jean’s arms appear on folios 3v, 6v, 59, and 64, although the upper right quadrant contains a coat
of arms as of yet unidentified. On folios 103 and 161, Jean’s arms appear impaling those of his
Pollock, Writing Sample,
26 second wife, Suzanne of Bourbon-Roussillon (Mynors, 360). I am most grateful to Elizabeth A. R.
Brown and Marc-Edouard Gautier for sharing their insights with me.
38
Although the date Saint-Gelais finished his translation remains uncertain (see footnote 1), I
surmise that the redaction of Jean’s manuscript was started after 16 February 1497, the date SaintGelais’ presented his translation to the king, and was finished before Jean’s death in 1503. For more
information on this manuscript, see R.A.B. Mynors, 360-361.
39
Here I am referring to the miniatures of Phyllis (f. 12), Œnone (f. 34v), Ariadne (f. 72), and
Sappho (f. 167v) in Balliol 383.
40
Penelope (f. 6v) passes a letter to a messenger, Briseis (f. 108) is brought by two soldiers to
Agamemnon, Hypsipyle (f. 43), holding her two babes, is addressed by a man, probably a messenger,
Hermione (f. 59) is dragged by the hair by Pyhrrus, Dejanira (f. 64) receives a letter from a
messenger, Canace (f. 78) receives a sword from a messenger, Medea, (f. 84v) accompanied by two
small children, hands a letter to a man and woman seated on a throne, and Helen (f. 120v) writes a
letter while two handmaidens look on.
41
Phaedra (f. 25v) is pictured hunting.
42
Indeed, there is a repetition of images both between and within the manuscripts examined here.
For example, in BnF fr. 873, Penelope (f. 1v) and Phaedra (f. 19v) are both pictured passing letters
to messengers, although Penelope is in an exterior scene and Phaedra in an exterior setting. In the
same manuscript, Phyllis (f. 6v), Ariadne (f. 62v), and Laodamia (f. 83v) are pictured standing at the
shoreline. Images are also repeated between manuscripts. Ariadne, for example, is pictured in at least
eight manuscripts (Harley 4867, f. 74; BnF fr. 873, f. 62v; BnF fr. 874, f. 179v and 182; Bibliothèque
de la Chambre des Députés, 1466, f. 166; HM 60 f. f. 52; BnF fr. 875 f. 53) outside on the water’s
edge. In four of these cases (BnF fr. 873, BnF fr. 874, Chambre des Députés 1466, and Balliol 383),
she waves a white cloth to attract Theseus’ attention, in keeping with the text, while in 875 she
passes a letter to a messenger, in HM 60 she sits on the shoreline with her hands clasped in her lap
and she writes a letter in one of the three miniatures depicting her in Chambre des Députés 1466.
For a more in-depth discussion of visual and textual repetitions in the XXI Epistres manuscripts and
printed editions, see Brown, “Les images récurrentes de femmes à l’aube de la Renaissance: Les XXI
Epistres d’Ovide.”
43
Louise of Savoy’s arms appear on folios 1, 16v, and 117v, in addition to her “L”s on folio 5v
(Brown, Queen’s Library, 200).
44
Cited from Gallica. See also Avril and Reynaud (407-408), who believe the manuscript was
probably finished before 1498.
45
See also Huntington Library, HM 60.
46
For a more detailed analysis of this claim and of BnF fr. 875, see my article “Traduction et
adaptation d’un manuscrit des XXI Epistres d’Ovide appartenant à Louise de Savoie (BnF fr. 875)”
(forthcoming). John Block Friedman (181) writes that “Testard was closely connected with Louise
for over thirty years, and [...] his output presumably reflected—and was dictated by—her personal
taste.” Deborah McGrady, in “Reinventing the Roman de la Rose for a Woman Reader,” convincingly
demonstrates how Testard adapted the images in a copy of the Roman de la rose for Louise.
47
Dutschke, “HM 60,” in which the author notes thanks to Nicole Reynaud; see also Avril and
Reynaud (408).
48
On folio 46, Dejanira sits at the window while writing a letter. As she is crowned and wears red
and blue, preferred colors of Anne of Britanny, In 1895, O.A. Bierstadt presented the idea that this
miniature bears a very close resemblance to another depiction of Anne of Brittany in her “Hours of
Anne of Brittany” (17). See also Brown’s discussion of this manuscript and the miniature on folio 46
Pollock, Writing Sample,
27 in particular in The Queen’s Library (192-197). Brown also points to the Sotheby Catalogue of 25 July
1862, which proclaims that “there cannot be the slightest doubt of its [manuscript HM 60] being
executed for the illustrious couple, Louis XII and Anne of Brittany,” (quoted in Queen’s Library, 353,
n. 36)
49
I should also note the existence of manuscript Christies 42, a 1492 compilation likely made for
Anne of Brittany, which contained five of Saint-Gelais’ Heroides. For a detailed examination of this
manuscript, see C. Brown, “Celebration and Controversy at a Late Medieval French Court: A Poetic Anthology
For and About Anne of Brittany and Her Female Entourage” and “Famous Women in Mourning: Trials
and Tribulations” in The Queen’s Library (181-244).
50
C.W. Dutschke notes, however, that the faces and hands were repainted in the eighteenth century.
51
For example, in BnF fr. 874, f. 3v; Musée Dobrée 17, f. 23v, BnF fr. 598, f. 58; BnF fr. 12420, f.
58; British Library 20CV, f. 61v.
52
As in the case of Vienna 2624, f. 2, BnF fr. 875 (f. 1), and HM 60 (f. 3)
53
This depiction of Penelope is a rarer one, but can be found in BnF fr. 599, f. 34.
54
Perhaps he represents Ulysses, a scene that would thus imply his receipt of Penelope’s letter. If so,
this is one case in which the miniature not only complements the written narrative but also adds to it
by introducing new elements.
55
I note in passing that these compositional similarities, coupled with an increased complexity in
BnF. fr. 873, occur in many other illuminations found in these two manuscripts. Œnone, for
example, is pictured in both BnF fr. 873 (f. 27v) and Balliol 383 (f. 34v) on the shoreline dressed in
red and blue. A ship, which approaches land, bears a man wearing a red hat, and a woman who rests
her head on his lap. In BnF fr. 873, three additional secondary scenes appear in the margins. The
artists of Balliol 383 and BnF fr. 873 place the boat that brings back Paris and Helen on the same
plane as the figure of Œnone , thereby emphasizing Œnone’s situation as an abandoned woman
replaced by her rival. However, ms. HM 60 (f. 23v) and BnF fr. 875 (f. 23v) display Œnone alone
writing a letter, thus underlining her role as correspondent.
56
These similar scenes are a constant throughout these two manuscripts: both picture the heroines’
torsos, the vast majority of whom are engaged in writing their letters. The women’s elegant clothing,
coupled with the emotional composure the women display on their faces, places the emphasis on
their intellectual pursuits; the viewer, focused on their heads and shoulders, is not invited to
contemplate their bodies. Another example highlighting the similarities between the two
manuscripts’ illuminations is that of Helen (BnF fr. 875, f. 92; HM 60, f. 88v). In both manuscripts,
she is placed in the exterior, pen in her right hand, window behind her right shoulder. In both
images, she is dressed in red, and her hair is covered with a black piece of fabric. As in Penelope’s
illuminations, BnF. fr. 875’s image is slightly more detailed: there is gold embroidery on her scarf,
and a scene displaying the coast in the window, where the window pictured in HM 60 shows only
the bars of its structure.
57
In particular, the window with two ships behind her right shoulder.
58
Both Penelopes wear turbans. John Block Friedman studies in detail the turbans used by Robinet
Testard and argues that the late medieval illuminator “uses turbans to create an aura of exotic beauty
in historical women” and that this turban on women often “helps to focus our attention on the
central figure’s slightly off-key exoticism, not quite contemporary and not yet quite historical” (191).
Thus, Testard creates a woman who is neither contemporary nor historical, neither completely
French nor entirely exotic, but a mixture of these two. I argued in Chapter 1 that Jean Pichore
adopted a similar technique to simultaneously present the women in his illuminations as noble and
Pollock, Writing Sample,
28 similar to his female readers but also to signal a certain distance between the women on the page and
the women viewing it.
59
Here I am referring to Penelope (f. 3), who wears a turban, Phyllis (f. 7), whose hair is covered by
a veil, Briseis (f. 11v) and Phaedra (f. 17), who wear black veils, and Oenone (f. 23v), Dido (f. 25v),
Dejanira (f. 46v), Ariadne (f. 52), Canace (f. 57), Medea (f. 62), Hypermenestra (f. 75v), Helen (f.
88v), and Sappho (f. 123), all of whose hair is covered by some form of veil or turban.
60
The women who wear garlands or have their hair flowing along their backs are Hypsipyle (f. 30),
Laodamia (f. 69v), Hero (f. 105), and Cydippe (f. 118v). Hermione (f. 42) wears a headdress and her
hair flows down her back as well.
61
BnF fr. 875 is missing at least two folios: folio 63, which would be the end of Canace’s letter and
the beginning of Medea’s, with, presumably, a miniature at the beginning, as is the case for the first
folio of all other heroines’ epistles in the manuscript except for that of Sapho, whose first page is
missing as well as the end of Cydippe’s discourse. It seems as if Medea’s image was removed from
the manuscript after its confection, as the table of contents (f. Cr) notes that Medea’s epistle starts
on folio 63, but the manuscript’s red Roman numeral page numbers go from 62 to 64. As for
Sapho’s missing miniature and text, the catchword in the bottom corner of folio 128v does not
match with the first line of folio 129r, suggesting either an error by the compiler of the quires, or,
more likely, a page removed at a later date.
62
With the exception of Ariadne in BnF fr. 875 (f. 53) and in HM 60 (f. 52), Laodamia in HM 60 (f.
69v), Hypsipyle in HM 60 (f. 30), and Hero in HM 60 (f. 105), whose hair is pictured in varying
states of disarray.
63
In Balliol 383, see Phyllis (f. 12), Briseis (f. 18), Phaedra (f. 25v), Hypsipyle (f. 43), Dido (f. 50v),
Hermione (f. 59), Ariadne (f. 72), and Sappho (f. 167v). In BnF fr. 873, Hypsipyle (f. 35v), Dido (f.
42v), Hermione (f. 50v), Dejanira (f. 55v), Ariadne (f. 62v), Hypermenestra (f. 90v), Helen (106v),
Hero (f. 125v), and Sappho (f. 146v) are pictured with their hair in total or partial disarray. These
heroines often have braids on top of or around their heads, and pieces of hair falling from these
originally neat arrangements.
64
See also note 49 for discussion of the scholarship surrounding Dejanira’s portrait in HM 60.
65
This version of events remains consistent between Ovid and Saint-Gelais’ texts. See Showerman,
108-120 and Deschamps, 121-148.
66
Of 16 women presented in the images of BnF fr. 875, only Hypermenestra is not presented
engaged in letter writing (f. 78), but, as in all the other manuscript miniatures, she is situated at the
center of the image, and we only see the top half of her body. As for HM 60, only Ariadne (f. 52),
Hypermenestra (f. 75v) and Hero (f. 105) are pictured without any evidence whatsoever of letterwriting while Hypsipyle (f. 30), Medea (f. 62), and Cydippe (f. 118v) are depicted with letters in their
illuminations although they are not painted in the act of writing itself.
67
In the case of Anne of Brittany, see Chapter 1 for my discussion of Jean Pichore’s miniatures and
Anne’s role in the production of Les Vies des femmes célèbres, where I argue that there is an increased
presentation of women engaged in scholarly pursuits in this manuscript, most likely due to the
Queen’s status as patroness.
68
See the 1493 printed edition De la louenge et vertus des cleres et nobles dames, in which the anonymous
translator dedicates his work to Anne of Brittany and states that he wishes to give Anne material
with which to respond to attacks against women (see also my discussion of this edition’s prologue in
Chapter 1).
69
As I am arguing to be the case in the text of Les XXI Epistres and the images of BnF fr. 875 and
HM 60, but also in the case of Antoine Dufour’s Vies des femmes célèbres.
Pollock, Writing Sample,
70
“Louise de Savoie,” 1.
71
“Louise de Savoie,” 1.
FIGURES
Figure 1: Penelope, Oxford, Balliol 383, f. 6v
29 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 2: Penelope, BnF fr. 873, f. 1v
30 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 3, Penelope, BnF fr. 875, f. 1
31 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 4, Penelope, HM 60, f. 3
32 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 5, Dejanira, Oxford, Balliol 383, f. 64
33 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 6, Dejanira, BnF. fr. 873, f. 55v
34 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 7, Dejanira, BnF. fr. 875, f. 47
35 Pollock, Writing Sample,
Figure 8, Dejanira, HM 60, f. 46
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