Writing in the Mother-Tongue: Hermione and Helen in Heroides 8 (A Tomitan Approach)

Abstract

‘This poem is the feeblest and least poetical of all theHeroides, and has certain solecisms in diction and metre, which are either spurious or show that the epistle is an unfinished and careless performance.’ So Arthur Palmer in the preface to his commentary onHeroides8, Hermione's letter to Orestes imploring him to rescue her from Neoptolemus, her abductor; and Peter Knox fans the flames of doubt about the authenticity of the letter (or at least parts of it) in his analysis of lines 65-74, where Hermione locates herself alongside Leda, Hippodamia and Helen in a Tantalid tradition of rape-victims: num generis fato, quod nostros durat in annos, Tantalides mattes apta rapina sumus? non ego fluminei referam mendacia cygni nee querar in plumis delituisse Iouem. qua duo porrectus longe freta distinet Isthmos, uecta peregrinis Hippodamia rotis; [Castori Amyclaeo et Amyclaeo Polluci reddita Mopsopia Taenaris urbe soror;] Taenaris Idaeo trans aequor ab hospite rapta Argolicas pro se uertit in arma manus. (Her.8.65-74)

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