Although her craft mingles pagan Ovidian myth with biblical Jewish and Christian allusions, the learning does not swamp the feeling. Ovidian elements include:
 

•     the frame itself of reciprocated letters, mirroring Ovid's heroines such as Laodamia and Ariadne
•      the intertextuality of calling Baudri a Cicero, a Homer, a David
•      the use of rhetorical topoi such as
•      the theme of taunts of "spousal" neglect
•      the lonely letter-writer and the warmth of her affection
•      the use of rhetorical tropes such as:
•      hyperbole: Baudri is a great prophet
•      anaphora: repetition of words
•      polyptoton: different forms of the same word or
•      figura etymologica: different forms of the same word, as when she offers a noun, verb, adjective and adverb from the same word-stem

•    purity
•    learning
•    spiritual and physical beauty
•    legitimate affection

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