The figure of Orpheus in antiquity and the Middle Ages

472 Pages·1965·6.4 MB·English

by  John Block Friedman

65-14,215
FRIEDMAN, John Block, 1934-
THE FIGURE OF ORPHEUS IN ANTIQUITY
AND THE MIDDLE AGES.
Michigan State University, Ph.D., 1965
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
THE FIGURE OF ORPHEUS IN ANTIQUITY
AND THE MIDDLE AGES
By
John Block Friedman
A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English
1965
ABSTRACT
THE FIGURE OF ORPHEUS IN ANTIQUITY
AND THE MIDDLE AGES
by John Block Friedman
In this study I have tried to outline the ways
in which writers and artists— from Hellenic antiquity
through the high Middle Ages— have regarded the legend
of Orpheus and Eurydice and the ways in which they have
modified this legend to express certain religious, phil­
osophical and literary beliefs of their own times.
The Introduction offers a "biography" of Orpheus
assembled from representative classical authors. Chapter
One deals with the way in which the Orpheus legend was
used by Jewish and Christian apologetic writers. Chapter
Two deals with the legend of Orpheus in Antique art, most
particularly as a metaphor for the soul's ascent to the
heavens in funerary art and magical gems. Chapter Three
deals with the legend as it was allegorically interpreted
by commentators on Boethius, on Ovid, and on various
John Block Friedman
ancient authors known to the Middle Ages. In the work
of the medieval commentators Orpheus emerges as a figure
representing reason and eloquence and Eurydice as the
carnal concupiscence of man's nature. Chapter Four
treats Orpheus and Eurydice as romance hero and heroine
in medieval manuscript illustration and in Latin and
English poetry, with special attention to the anonymous
romance Sir Orfeo and to Robert Henryson's "Orpheus and
Eurydice."
Perhaps the most interesting finding of my study
lies in the interrelatedness of art and literature during
late antiquity and the Middle Ages. During the period
with which I have been concerned, iconography served as
a source for some of the most imaginative modifications
of the Orpheus legend, as for example, the identification
of Orpheus with Christ. In the transmission of the Or­
pheus legend the picture was not only more memorable
than the written word, it also had, upon occasion, the
power to change the word to conform to a visual motif.
PREFACE
One day while looking through.a moralized Ovid
in order to find out what a 14th-century writer thought
about the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, I saw the
word pomum and stopped to read the context. I learned
that Eurydice had been tempted by a forbidden fruit
*
while gathering flowers, had been bitten by the devil
in the form of a serpent and had been taken to the
underworld. Reading on, I learned that someone called
Orpheus-Christus went down to the lower world and took
back his wife, that is, human nature, from the ruler
of hell, greeting Eurydice with these words from the
Canticles: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come
away."
Not long after this I had occasion to look at
a picture bock of late Antique art. On one page was
a picture of a Roman mosaic of Orpheus. He was perched
on a rock, his tiny legs dangling; his eyes were large
and compelling; his hand was raised as though to bless
his lyre. The whole composition was studiedly two­
dimensional and frontal. This page slipped past and I
was looking at a manuscript illustration of Christ
seated on a throne, his tiny legs dangling, his eyes
lentile, his right hand raised as though to bless a
book tucked up under his left arm. Christ, too, was
flat, frontal and stylized. Were these works of art
related to the story of Orpheus-Christus which I had
read in Bersuire's moralized Ovid? I began the present
study intan attempt to answer this question.
The friends of a man who is writing a book on
an exotic subject tend to hide, X think, when they see
him coming with a page in his hand. Like Casaubon, he
thinks his work on fish-worship among the Urundi is the
key to all mythologies— or one of the four pillars upon
which Western civilization rests. But the friends are
usually wrong and the author right, or apparently right.
For as he examines an image or a commonplace of a cul­
ture he begins to see two things. First, he is amazed
at the prevalence of the detail he is studying. He
finds a fish-worshiper at every stream, who has been
waiting patiently to be looked at for the last thousand
years. Second, he sees that the object of his study is
like an iceberg or a weed; its great mass is submerged
below the surface of history; past students have seen
only the tip. Moreover, like a weed, an object of
scholarly study, though it may have an insignificant
stalk, has many roots, all intertwined with those of
other weeds, and even roses, nearby. In writing this
study I was struck by the number of places in which
Orpheus was to be found and by the variety of other
ideas with which his legend was intertwined. To trace
the growth of his legend it was necessary to learn
something about art history, archeology, Greek magic,
Roman burial customs, Jewish and Christian apologists,
Boethius and his commentators, musical cosmology, myth-
ography, the medieval romance and Celtic legend. The
study of Orpheus, therefore, has shown me much about
antiquity and the Middle Ages as well.
I should like to express my appreciation to a
number of people who have helped me in this study.
Lawrence Ross of Washington University first taught
me that poets looked at pictures. The late Adolph
Katzenellenbogen of The Johns Hopkins University helped
my understanding of medieval art. A grant from the
iv
College of Arts and Letters of Michigan State University
enabled me to go to the Warburg Institute for a summer
of research. The staff of that institute were all help­
ful, most particularly A. A. Barb. The staff of the
British Museum allowed me to take valuable photographs,
and the librarians of the University of Michigan and
Michigan State University aided me in getting the books
I needed. The Director of this study, Arnold Williams,
as a man and as a scholar, will always be for me a
person to emulate. Any stylistic grace this work may
have was provided by my wife.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE .............. ii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............... vii
INTRODUCTION.......... 1
Chapter
I. ORPHEUS IN CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY......... 60
II. ORPHEUS IN ANTIQUE ART................. 115
III. ORPHEUS EXPOUNDED: MEDIEVAL COMMENTA­
TORS ON THE LEGEND 213
IV. ORPHEUS IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE......... 313
*
ABBREVIATIONS ............................... 396
SOURCES................................... .. 398
STUDIES....................... ............. 415
vi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Introduction
Figure Plate
1. Metope from Delphi, 5th century B.C, . . I
2. Roman copy of an Hellenistic relief,
Naples Museum, 5th century B.C. ... I
Chapter Two
1. Orpheus Mosaic. Blanzy-Les-Fimes. 3rd-
4th century A.D.................. I
2. Orpheus Mosaic. Perugia. 2d century A.D. I
3. Orpheus Mosaic. Piazza Amerina, Sicily.
3rd century A.D........................ I
4. Orpheus Mosaic. Ptolemais. 4th century
A.D.......................... II
5. Orpheus Mosaic. Edessa, Syria. 3rd-4th
century A.D........................ II
6. Orpheus Mosaic. Jerusalem. 6th century
A.D..................................... II
7. Fresco. House of Orpheus. Pompei. 1st
century B.C...............................Ill
8. Orpheus Mosaic. Woodchester Villa, Eng­
land. 4th century A.D................... Ill