Influences |
Although her craft mingles pagan Ovidian myth with biblical Jewish and
Christian allusions, the learning does not swamp the feeling. Ovidian elements
include:
Pagan influences
The cathedral schools of Constantia's day allowed more secular influence than earlier or later Christian institutions of learning. Fulgentius' mythology as well as Ovid's was read and imitated (Raby 343-48).
Catullus
The disclaimer topos that distinguishes
frivolous verse from the versifier's pure heart and mind flourishes. Constantia
writes sed quicquid dicam, teneant mea facta pudorem cor mundum vigeat,
mens pudica mihi. Cf. (=confer) the classical Latin of Catullus's hendecasyllabics
16.3-6, esp. nam castum esse decet pium poetam ipsum, versiculos nihil
necesse est.
This self-disclaimer was imitated by Ovid
(Tristia 2.354) and Martial Epigrams 1.4.8, among others.
Constance's poem derives inspiration from
Catullus, at least indirectly. Catullus, born in North Italy in the town
of Verona later to become famous as Shakespeare's home of Romeo
and Juliet ca. 80 BCE, died young, ca. 54 BCE. He enjoyed or suffered
a tumultuous life in Rome and the intern or "gopher" of a legate in Bithynia.
He metaphorically accuses his superior (poem 28) of non-consensual sexual
contact known to us recently from Monica Lewinsky's consensual relationship
with President William Clinton. He wrote love poetry in lyric and elegiac
meters and "poetry poetry," poems about what poetry does to us and how
it does it.
One of these (#50) is addressed to his fellow
poet Licinius. Homoerotic themes emerge from his day with his friend and
competitor and from his sleepless night following. He tossed and turned
until half-dead (semimortuus) from thinking over their orgy of poetic
creativity, itself modulated by wine and other games. The poem itself proclaims
the exhausted Catullus' desire to speak with Licinius once more, to share
his company. It is, in effect, an invitation, but it ends with a prayer
and a warning not to despise the poet-author, lest Nemesis attack
him.
Note that this poem has parallels aplenty
to Constantia's: the poem as example of the author's poetic skills, the
language of illicit love (homosexuality in Rome was not something to boast
of, judging by Julius Caesar's troops' graffiti; Suet. Vita Caes. 49; bisexuality
seems to have been common), the invitation to continue and develop the
poetic friendship, etc.
Ovid
Constantia's learned allusions are not all
equally obvious and I am still finding more. Blushing is, of course, a
physiological reality for the human race putting on our skin evidence for
internal confusion (see Lateiner 1998). It also furnishes a literary metaphor
for opportunities and consequences of long-distance communication. Constance
says, "Wax cannot blush" an example. The literary metaphor expresses a
sly shame at the words she is writing. The blush, often arising often from
sexual ardor can be found in Ovid's Phaedra (Her. 4.10??) and in
the lovely princess in a short and late Latin novel, The History of
Apollonius (20; link or ref. Konstan).
Constantia fears that Baudri's travels will
lead to trouble or delay in Rome or Mainz. The topos of female fear
for a male faring forth to foreign places for fame or fortune reflects
reality and literature. So Hero warns Leander and Laodamia her new husband
Protesilaus in Ovid's Heroides. Travel in antiquity and the Middle
Ages was dangerous, but for Constantia, it is a permissible way to express
her strong positive feelings. For antiquity, Ovid provides the ultimate
epical-comical version in his telling of the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone (Metam.
11.410 ff.)
Constantia's daring in following out sexual
innuendo extends to the ancient sexual metaphor of women as tillable agricultural
fields (see Sophocles Oedipus Rex , Vergil , Ovid , and others). Should
Baudri linger afar, "another man might snatch the acres that you have now
cultivated" ( ). Although the ground of the metaphor here refers to her
mind and friendship, no reader of ancient literature could ignore the usual,
more physical referent. Transgressive language regularly substitutes for
taboo acts. She confines her flirting to words, but the very facts of the
flirting are noteworthy.
The Ovidian dialect of the language of high
passion clearly appealed to both Baudri and the maiden Constantia. Both
vocabulary and phrases are lifted from his varied output. Baudri's suggestive
language refers to Jupiter, Diana, and Hercules, among other. His punning
declarations of constancy to Constance both parallel Ovid's lies and half-truths
and are suitably contradicted by other, identical claims to Muriel and
admissions of homoerotic love-verses (Dronke 85-87).
Impish wit has Baudri assert that their amor
must be fedus (mutual , foedus, foederis, a treaty)
not fedus (lascivious, impure < foedus/a/um, foul).
Biblical Influences
All her life, presumably, Constance had heard
Jewish and Christian Bible stories. So references to the Hebrew David,
the Christian Jesus, and the common prophets cause no surprise. The sensual
and godless (in terms of specific mention) Hebrew Song of Songs had long
been allegorized by anxious Jews and Christians as a description of the
care of god for his Chosen People or the marriage of Jesus and the assembly
of Christians. The assumption that Constance must remain chaste, and Baudri
too, are part of the Christian cult of Virginity, the asceticism recommended
by Paul in II Corinthians. Such sentiments are unremarkable, but the unsubtle
introduction of sexual passion requires some notice.
"Bride of God," a medieval mystical
metaphor ultimately arising from the Song of Solomon (2:5, 5:8)
and the Hebrew Psalms, is not enough, even, for Constance's passions. Her
mischievous muse also sports with Jesus' golden rule about loving one's
neighbor as oneself (John ).
One conduit for Ovid was the collection
of Heroides created by Venantius Fortunatus, a fifth-century Christianized
mystic. His discussion of Christian conceits such as human-divine connections
and religious ecstasy are applied to pagan themes and secular erotic language
(Dronke 85-87). Constantia's response to her teacher and fantasy-beloved's
verse is more intimate than the poems of Ovid or Baudri that provoked it
(cf. Manitius 3.888).
CONSTANTIA'S LETTER TO BALDERICUS
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT:
Our Heroine | Constantia's
Classical Model | Constantia's Beloved |
Introduction | Language
& Conclusions