20

‘WORDS FILLED WITH TEARS’:

AMOROUS DISCOURSE AS
LAMENTATION IN THE PALAIOLOGAN
ROMANCES

Panagiotis Agapitos

The combination of love and suffering is one of the oldest emo-

tional conventions of erotic literature, since the ‘mental disturbance’
created by desire was viewed as a pathological sickness that acquired
a personal as well as a social character.1 One might refer to such
different examples as the portrayal of Deianeira in Sophocles’
Trachinian Women, the Bride in the Song of Songs or Dido in Vergil’s
Aeneid. This disturbance is often expressed through the form of a
sorrowful discourse, be it the complaint of the lover at the closed
door of the beloved (the Hellenistic and Roman paraklausithyron),2
or the gloomy visions of unrequited or betrayed love, as in the case
of Phyllis and Phaedra in Ovid’s Heroides (2 and 4). Assisted by
school rhetoric, the Greek novels cunningly explored this sorrow-
ful discourse. One telling example is the nocturnal monologue of
Charikleia in Heliodorus’ Aethiopian Tale.3 The desperate heroine
addresses to herself a ‘ritual lament’ (thrēnos) formed as a ‘character
speech of an indefinite person’ (ēthopoiia)4 and placed in a theatrical
setting – a discursive and generic mixture of great emotional power
that explicitly impressed Michael Psellos in the eleventh century.5
For Charikleia’s threnodic soliloquy Heliodorus employed images
and vocabulary from the laments in the Iliad and from tragic model-
speeches of Attic drama, as they were taught in the schools of Roman

 1 For ancient Greek literature see, indicatively, Carson 1986; Thornton 1997;
Calame 1999; for the Italian and Greek Renaissance see Peri 1996.
  2 See Gärtner 2000.
 3 Heliod. 6.8.3–9.1 (Rattenbury and Lumb 1937: 96–8); English translation in
Morgan 1989: 479–80.
  4 So the definition in the progymnasmatic collection of Pseudo-Hermogenes (Prog.
9; Rabe 1913: 20.19–20, with English translation in Kennedy 2003: 81).
  5 For the text with an English translation see Dyck 1986: 90–9. For the essay in
general see Agapitos 1998b: 132–7; Roilos 2005: 44–5.

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 ­354 panagiotis agapitos

imperial times and, thus, immediately recognisable to the readers of

the novel.
An essential communicative element of erotic discourse is persua-
sion, since the lover needs to persuade the beloved to yield to his or
her desire. For example, persuasion is a dominating feature of Ovid’s
rhetoric in the individual epistles of the Heroides. The emergence of
book-length erotic narratives in which love is represented in action,
such as the novel, led to the formation of a typology of discourses
among which the speeches of amorous persuasion and resistance
play an important part, as, for example, in Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe
and Kleitophon, where the Ephesian ‘widow’ Melite tries to persuade
Kleitophon to sleep with her and he resists.6 Here the speeches are
formed as erotic parodies of judicial declamations confirming or refut-
ing a legal case, a type of rhetorical exercise taught systematically in
school, thus also recognisable to the readers of Tatius.7
When the writing of novels re-emerged in Byzantium during the
second quarter of the twelfth century,8 the Greek novel had been more
or less redefined by Photios and Psellos as a narrative and performa-
tive genre of rhetorical display.9 Mimesis of the ancient novels was a
major component of their Byzantine counterparts, because, within
Constantinople’s competitive literary environment, writers in search
of patronage and advancement had to present their art to a limited
but highly learned aristocratic audience through a complex intratex-
tual discourse.10 Within this context, the dramatic (qua performative)
element of novelistic discourse grew to immense proportions.11 As a
result, laments and lament-like monologues figure prominently in all
kinds of narrative situations within the plot of the Komnenian novels,
because lamentation was considered to be a prominent element of
‘tragic drama’.12 Amorous sensitivity is expressed through the use
of ‘encased’ erotic subgenres, such as the sorrowful soliloquy, the
amatory letter and the erotic song. One such extended and complex
sequence is found in Niketas Eugenianos’ Drosilla and Charikles,
written in c. 1140–5.13 Kleandros, the supporting male character,
  6 Ach. Tat. 5.15–16 (Vilborg 1955: 98–100); English translation in Winkler 1989:
240–1.
 7 See, for example, the relevant sections ‘On refutation and confirmation’ in
Pseudo-Hermogenes (Prog. 5; Rabe 1913: 11) and Aphthonios (Prog. 5–6; Rabe
1926: 10–16); English translations in Kennedy 2003: 79, 101–5 respectively.
  8 For this date see Agapitos 2000, along with the objections of Cupane 2000.
  9 See Agapitos 1998b: 128–39.
10 See Mullett 1984; Agapitos 2012: 279–84.
11 See Agapitos 1998b: 144–56; Nilsson 2001: 224–7; Roilos 2005: 61–79.
12 Agapitos 1991: 209–12; 1998b: 140–4.
13 Nik. Eug. D&C 2.57–385 (Conca 1990: 55–73); English translations by Burton
2004: 25–41 and Jeffreys 2012: 363–73.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 355

having been struck by the ‘disease’ (nosos) of Eros, delivers to

himself a lament-like erotic soliloquy, and then addresses to his
beloved Kalligone four amorous letters of persuasion and sorrow,
and a strophic paraklausithyron with refrain. All six poems are clearly
marked as to their generic identity. Kleandros speaks through a
didactic, amorously moralising discourse looking back to Theocritus,
the Greek Anthology and the Anacreontea, as these were read since the
ninth century.14 However, the emotions expressed are static and – so
to speak – frontally displayed.
We should not be too quick to criticise this rhetorical approach to
composition based on intertextual authorisation and learned didacti-
cism. Eugenianos was not alone in employing this technique within an
erotic narrative. We find the same approach used by French writers,
such as the anonymous poet of the Aeneas Romance from the middle
of the twelfth century,15 where Lavinia delivers a complex lament-
like erotic soliloquy (Enéas 8141–388), closely modelled on Ovid’s
Deianeira and Medea in the Heroides and on Seneca’s Phaedra, which
were major school texts in the Latin west. The young heroine’s conflict-
ing emotions for Aeneas are displayed in argumentative s­ elf-dialogue
and introverted self-examination, discursive devices prominently
found in Ovid and Seneca, thus being a case of intertextual authorisa-
tion similar to the practice of the Komnenian novels. We also find
this approach among Persian writers, such as Fakhruddin Gurgani,
who wrote his famous verse romance Vis and Ramin in the eleventh
century.16 There, Prince Ramin, while falling in love with his cousin
Vis, delivers to himself an erotic lament-like soliloquy (V&R §32)
using handbook medical terminology and Persian love poetry of the
late tenth and early eleventh century as his authorising intertexts. It is
therefore important to understand that mimesis as dynamic intertex-
tuality within a coded discourse of authority is a general characteristic
of narrative composition in medieval times.17
Older scholarship easily pointed to the Greek novels as the actual
‘models’ of the Komnenian ‘descendants’ within a process of failed
imitation and, thus, criticised Byzantine writers as unoriginal, though
originality in our modern sense of the term was completely unknown,
not to say incomprehensible for most pre-modern literary cultures.18

14 See Burton 2003.

15 Most recent critical edition with French translation by Petit 1997.
16 See the exact prose translation by Morrison 1972, but also the poetically inspired
rendering by Davis 2008.
17 See Agapitos 2012: 276–96.
18 See Littlewood 1995 for a number of essays on various aspects of ‘originality’ in
Byzantine culture.

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 ­356 panagiotis agapitos

Imitation also played a major role in evaluating the production

of erotic verse narratives in the vernacular idiom, a group of eight
texts conventionally called the Palaiologan love romances.19 Here,
however, imitation took on a different form, since these romances
appeared to nineteenth-century scholars either as direct transla-
tions of Old French romances or as patchworks generally made
up of themes and motifs from chivalric romance – whatever this
modern generic term might have meant.20 The vernacular idiom of
the Palaiologan romances (as contrasted with the learned idiom of
the Komnenian novels) led to the belief that these fresh-looking nar-
ratives were popular literature governed primarily by oral composi-
tion. Scholarship of the past forty years has changed this particular
image to a substantial extent.21 Nonetheless, the presence within
the romances of various types of encased songs that appear to have
strong similarities to Modern Greek folksongs is viewed as a clear
indicator  of the broader folkloric and neo-Hellenic character of
these texts.22
In fact, the largest presence of such encased poems is to be found
in The Tale of Livistros and Rodamne (Ἀφήγησις Λιβίστρου καὶ
Ροδάμνης). With its 4,650 verses, L&R is the longest among the sur-
viving love romances.23 It was most probably composed around the
middle of the thirteenth century at the Laskarid court of Nicaea.24
The romance displays an extremely strong performative character. We

19 For a good overview see Cupane 2004; for some interpretative approaches with
substantial bibliography see Agapitos 2004; 2006b; 2012; Cupane 2013.
20 See Bruckner 2000 on problems of categorisation and generalisation for the
western romances.
21 See Cupane 2003; Agapitos 2004: 7–16 with further bibliography.
22 See, for example, the statements of Politis 1973: 30–1, with reference to an
‘advance of modern Greek feeling’ concerning especially the encased songs.
23 For a critical edition of redaction alpha – the romance’s oldest ­surviving text – see
Agapitos 2006a; it is this text that is used here. For all other redactions, versions
and fragments, see the introduction in Agapitos 2006a: 160–233. For a critical
edition with commentary of the Vatican redaction (c. 1475–80) see Lendari 2007.
The English translation of L&R by Betts 1995: 95–192, which is not based on any
critical edition of the text, is in many points inexact or even outright erroneous.
24 For this date of L&R see Agapitos 1993: 130–1; 2006a: 50–5. Carolina Cupane
has in a number of papers (most recently in Cupane 2013) expressed her disagree-
ment with my proposal and believes that a date of c. 1300–40 is more probable.
Lendari 2007: 65–71 believes that the romance was composed in Constantinople
between the late thirteenth and the early fourteenth century. In my opinion, the
arguments of both scholars are too hypothetical. The recent proposal of Jeffreys
(2013a: 17–20; 2013b), that the anonymous War of Troy should be dated between
1267 and 1281 and that L&R imitated this Greek adaptation of Benoit de Saint-
Maure’s Roman de Troye (and therefore postdates the end of the thirteenth
century), is not convincing on textual and historical grounds; see Agapitos 2012:
291–2 for a case where the Greek WoT clearly uses L&R.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 357

find the continuous use of first-person narrative distributed among

five different characters, an intricate ‘Chinese box’ narrative struc-
ture, a high incidence of letters and songs, as well as an impressive
­open-ended epilogue by the main narrator inviting any later readers to
re-tell the story according to their taste. L&R emphatically adheres to
major structural features and rhetorical typologies of the Komnenian
novels, such as division into books; first-person narrative perspective;
in medias res narrative structure; night-and-day narrative sequences;
the presence of a leading and a supporting couple of lovers; extended
dream sequences; artfully crafted descriptions; the rhetorical system
of organising the discursive mode and the inclusion of amorous
soliloquies, amorous letters and songs; the use of a different metre
from that of the main narrative for encased songs; and finally, the use
of a poetological metalanguage to describe the craft of writing and
the art of the poet. At the same time, L&R presents us with a series of
wholly new features, such as a contemporary aristocratic setting; a set
of characters whose ethnic origins are Latin (i.e. French and Italian),
Armenian and Saracen but not Byzantine; elements of ‘Latin’ chiv-
alric practice (oath of vassalage, jousting, hawk hunting, dress); and
the presence of allegorical characters and allegorical exegesis. This
apparatus led previous scholars to believe that the romance was com-
posed in a Latin-occupied territory of Greece, such as Crete, Rhodes
or Cyprus. In many ways, L&R is a text whose hybridity has caused a
sense of uneasiness concerning its form, content and language, as well
as its textual transmission.
Amorous discourse as lamentation forms a prominent element of
the romance’s complex poetic style and is primarily to be found in
the second ‘chapter’,25 where the leading couple exchange letters and
songs, while they also examine their feelings in internal monologues.
In contrast to the Komnenian novelists, Eugenianos in particular,
the exchange of letters and songs in L&R ceases to present a static
discourse of rhetorical display, because it becomes a dynamic dis-
course of ritual initiation, in which the hero and the heroine develop
emotionally by learning the ‘art of love’ (L&R 1237 ἐρωτοτέχνη).26 It is
important to note that the exchange of letters, whose texts are written
by the leading couple’s own hands, presupposes a fully literate and,
therefore, aristocratic Byzantine society. No such writing of letters is
to be found in Old French and Middle High German romance, a fact

25 The romance was composed in four chapters (logoi in the original), as the surviv-
ing headings for two such chapters indicate; see Agapitos 1991: 269–71; 2006a:
110–31.
26 For a detailed analysis of this scene (L&R 1252–2291 and 4072–275) see Agapitos
1996.

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 ­358 panagiotis agapitos

that reflects the different level of literacy among western aristocracy

during the twelfth century.27
In his discourses of persuasion, Livistros uses images that we find in
Modern Greek folksongs. For example, in his sixth letter to Rodamne
(1716–39), the young king first introduces the image of death as a
result of amorous despair and then expounds the notion of consola-
tion in relation to amorous bitterness and sufferance. Directly follow-
ing this letter is Livistros’ seventh letter (1742–65):

Λέγουν εἰς πέτρα ἂν σταλαγμὸς συχνάσῃ νὰ σταλάζῃ,

κἂν οἷος ἔνι ὁ σταλαγμὸς καὶ οἷον τὸ λιθάριν,
<τὸ κατολίγον ὀλιγὸν τρυπᾶ το τὸ λιθάριν>
ἐκ τοῦ νεροῦ τὸν σταλαγμὸν τὸν ἔχει ἀπαραιτήτως·
καὶ εἶχα τοῦτο φοβερὸν καὶ πάντα ἐθαύμαζά το 1745
πῶς τὸ λιθάριν δύναται ὁ σταλαγμὸς τρυπήσειν.
Kαὶ ὡς βλέπω ἀπὸ τοῦ πράγματος, τὸ ἔλεγον ἀπιστῶ το
καὶ οὐκ ἔχω ὅτι ὁ σταλαγμὸς τρυπᾶ το τὸ λιθάριν·
<ἂν γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ σταλαγμοῦ λιθάριν νὰ ἐτρυπᾶτον,>
ὁ σταλαγμὸς τοῦ πόθου μου τὴν πέτραν τῆς ψυχῆς σου
χάρβαλον νὰ τὴν ἔποικεν ἀπὸ τὰ τὴν προσδέρει, 1750
ὁποὺ ἔχει ἀντὶ σταλάγματος πιττάκια τοσοῦτα,
γραφάς μου πανεξαίρετας, λόγους ἐρωτικούς μου·
ὅτι νομίζω ἂν ἔπεσαν τὰ λόγια τῆς γραφῆς μου
εἰς πέτραν νὰ εἶναι ριζωτή, οἱ ρίζες της εἰς ἅδην,
νὰ ἐξανεσπάσθην ἀπεκεῖ, νὰ αἰστάνθην τὸ πιττάκιν, 1755
καὶ ὅσα νὰ ἦτον ἄψυχος εἰς νοῦν νὰ μετεβλήθην.
Λοιπὸν ἀπάρτι ὁ σταλαγμὸς ἀμηχανεῖ τῆς πέτρας,
οὐκ ἔχει φύσιν τὸ λαλοῦν, ψεύδονται εἰς τὰ λέγουν·
νικᾶ <ἡ> καρδία τῆς ἠθικῆς τὸν στερεωμὸν τοῦ λίθου,
καὶ ἀποτουνῦν ἀμηχανεῖ καὶ ἡ δρόσος τῆς ψυχῆς μου 1760
καὶ ἀδυνατεῖ εἰς τὸν σταλαγμὸν καὶ τῆς καρδίας μου ἡ βρύσις.
Tοῦτο λοιπὸν ἀπέμεινε, τὸ νὰ σὲ παρακαλέσω,
τὰς θλίψεις τῆς καρδίας μου νὰ σὲ τὰς ἐγκαλέσω,
καὶ ἀπέμεινεν εἰς διάκρισιν τοῦ πόθου σου, φουδούλα,
καὶ εἰς τὸ εὐδιακριτόθετον τῆς ἰδικῆς σου γνώμης. 1765

They say that if a water drop will often drop on a rock,

of whatever kind the drop might be and of whatever kind the
stone,
<gradually, even if slowly, the stone will be pierced>
by necessity from the dripping of the water it receives.

27 On this matter see Agapitos 2006b: 126–34.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 359

This was for me an awe-inspiring thing and I always

wondered 1745
how the drop of water is able to pierce the stone.
But judging from the situation at hand, what I said I now
doubt
and I do not believe that the drop actually pierces the stone.
<For if from the water drop the stone would be pierced,>
the drop of my desire would erode the rock of your soul
and turn into a wreck by the force of its blows, 1750
since, instead of drops, my desire has all these epistles,
my most exquisite letters, my amorous discourses.
I think that should the words of my letter fall
on a deep-rooted rock, its roots planted in the netherworld,
it would be uprooted from there, it would have felt the
letter, 1755
and even though inanimate, it would turn into a sensible
being.
Well, then, the water drop is powerless against the rock,
there is no substance in what people say, they lie in what
they maintain;
the heart of the noble lady conquers the stone’s solidity,
and as of now the dew of my soul is powerless 1760
and the fountain of my heart has only a weak drop
of water.
Only this, then, has been left to me, to beseech you,
to present to you as a complaint the sorrows of my heart;
all has been left to the discernment of your desire, fair
maiden,
and to the fair judgement of your own pronouncement. 1765

The rhetorical complexity of the letter as a poem of love is quite

astonishing. The text’s argumentative framework is based on the
‘­confirmation–refutation’ device: the accepted opinion is that water
can in time pierce a stone, but this proves false in the case of the lady,
because the power of the amorous letters fails to pierce her stone-like
heart. The stone withstanding external pressure is a symbolic image
for patience in suffering.28 It is here connected to the image of water
(the dew of the lover’s soul and the fountain of his heart), evoking the
image of heat in the beloved one’s heart – a sense of sizzling discreetly
creating sexual associations. Thus, Livistros begs Rodamne to show
her good sense of justice and free him of his sorrows.

28 On this image see Politi 2002: 463–5.

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 ­360 panagiotis agapitos

Amorous repartee is well represented in the exchange of letters scene,

but also in the series of letters narrated towards the end of the romance.
For example, we find a pair of letters reported by Rodamne (4085–
118), wherein the vegetal imagery of desire and pain is fully developed.
The complex use of this imagery does not reflect ‘Hellenic’ sources,
but again captures the similar imagery found in folksongs, though it is
expressed by the use of a highly crafted, ‘learned’ rhetoric; for example,
in the following letter of Livistros to Rodamne (4087–105):

Κλωνάριν πόθου εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἐφύτρωσεν καρδίαν

καὶ πόνου ἐρρίζωσεν δενδρόν, ἔδε παραδικία·
ἀνθεῖ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν καὶ τὸ δενδρὸν τοῦ πόνου,
ἐκεῖνο πόνου ὑπωρικὰ καὶ τοῦτο πόθου φύλλα. 4090
Tρυγῶ ἐκ τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν ὑπωρικὰ πικρίας
καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν φύλλα γλυκέας ἀγάπης·
γλυκαίνει ὁ πόθος ὀλιγόν, πικραίνει ὁ πόνος πλέον,
καὶ ἔναι ὁ πόθος λιγοστὸς καὶ πλεονάζει ὁ πόνος.
Kαὶ ἔναι τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν καὶ τὸ κλαδὶν τοῦ πόθου 4095
κόρης ὡραίας ἀσχόλησις καὶ μυριοτυραννεῖ με·
θέλω τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν τοῦ νὰ τὸ ἐξανασπάσω
καὶ εὐθὺς ἐπαίρνει σύρριζον καὶ τὸ κλαδὶν τοῦ πόθου,
ἐκεῖνον ὁποὺ ἐρίζωσε μὲ τὴν ἐμὴν καρδίαν,
ἐπαίρνει τὴν καρδίαν μου, ἐβγαίνει μετὰ κείνην. 4100
Ἐγὼ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν ἐλεῶ νὰ τὸ ἀνασπάσω
καὶ λέγω: ‘Ἂς ἔναι μετ’ αὐτὸ <καὶ τὸ δενδρὸν τοῦ πόνου·
ἐδάρε ἂς κεῖται ἀποτουνῦν> εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν καρδίαν
πόθος καὶ πόνος ὀδιὰ σὲν καὶ τὸ ποθῶ πονῶ το,
καὶ ἰδέ το ἀπάρτι τὸ πονῶ μὴ τυραννοῦμαι ἀδίκως.’ 4105

A branch of desire sprung up in my heart,

and a tree of pain took root: what an injustice!
The twig of desire blossoms and so does the tree of pain,
the latter bearing fruits of pain, the former leaves of desire. 4090
From the tree of pain I harvest fruits of bitterness
and from the twig of desire I gather leaves of sweet love,
desire sweetens me a little, but bitter pain grieves me even more;
thus, desire is meagre, while pain is in abundance.
The tree of pain and the twig of desire are the amorous
concern 4095
for a fair maiden, and this torments me deeply;
I want to uproot the tree of pain
and immediately it also pulls the twig of desire from its roots,
the one that took roots deep in my heart –
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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 361

the twig takes away my heart, it comes off with it! 4100
I feel pity to pull out the twig of desire
and say: ‘Let the tree of pain be together with this one;
let then from now on desire and pain for you
lie in my heart, and let me ache for what I desire;
but you behold now what I ache for, lest I be unjustly
tormented.’ 4105

The letter is built upon the idea that desire (pothos) and pain (ponos)
are inextricably bound together as if having their root (riza) inter-
twined. This old notion is presented through vegetal imagery which is
strongly connected to the life-giving forces of nature but also related
to death.29 The finely executed figures of assonance around key words
such as pothos/ponos and riza are combined with syntactical figures
such as parallelisms (4987–8, 4091–2, 4104), chiasms (4089, 4095,
4097–8) or even a tricolon abundans (4093–4). Moreover, the letter
begins and ends with the same imagery incorporating the notion of
injustice (4087–8 ≈ 4104–5).
L&R includes an impressive array of songs, two of them composed
in octosyllabic couplets and not in fifteen-syllable verse.30 Most of
these songs are characterised as a tragoudēman (‘song’),31 katalogin or
katalegma (‘love song’).32 However, a pair of songs performed towards
the end of the romance by the two heroes (3928–59) are called moiro-
logia (‘laments’),33 even though they concern the amorous sufferings
of the two men. In a desert-like landscape, Livistros and Klitovon
(the Armenian prince who became Livistros’ friend) are on their way
to meet Rodamne at her inn in Egypt, while Livistros has not seen his
wife for two years after her abduction by Verderichos, the menacing
Saracen emperor. The imagery and phrasing of the two songs, which
combine the themes of love, exile and a sympathetic nature, bear strong
resemblances to the style and vocabulary of Modern Greek folksongs
of exile and lamentation.34 The first of the two songs, wherein Livistros
sings his ‘lament’ to his friend, runs as follows (3930–41):

Ἀναστενάζουν τὰ βουνά, πάσχουν δι’ ἐμὲν οἱ κάμποι, 3930

θρηνοῦσιν τὰ παράπλαγα, βροντοῦν οἱ λιβαδίες,
29 On the latter see Roilos 1998.
30 L&R 1641–6 (15-syll.), 1846–54 (15-syll.), 2044–65 (8-syll.), 2265–72 (15-syll.),
4205–24 (8-syll.), 4228–35 (15-syll.).
31 L&R 1640, 2264 + 2273, 4227.
32 L&R 1845 and 2043 (ἐρωτικὸν κατάλεγμα), 4204 (καταλόγιν).
33 L&R 3929 and 3945 respectively, while the act of singing is described as ‘lament-
ing’ (3942 ἐμοιρολόγειν, sc. Livistros).
34 For a brief comment on these two songs see Lendari 2007: 417.

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 ­362 panagiotis agapitos

καὶ δένδρη τὰ ἐπαρέδραμα καὶ οἱ ραχωτὲς κλεισοῦρες

ἔχουν τοὺς πόνους μου ἀκομὴ καὶ ἀντίς μου ἀναστενάζουν·
λέγουν: ‘Ἐδιέβην ἀπεδῶ στρατιώτης πονεμένος,
ἄγουρος ποθοφλόγιστος διὰ πόθον ὡραιωμένης· 3935
τὰ δάκρυά του εἶχεν ποταμούς, βροντὰς τοὺς στεναγμούς του,
καπνὸν ἀπάνω εἰς τὰ βουνὰ τὸν πονοανασασμόν του·
τὸν ἥλιον εἶχεν μάρτυραν, καὶ εἰς τόπους μετ’ ἐκεῖνον
τὰ σύννεφα ἐσκεπάζαν τον, συνέπασχαν μετ’ αὖτον.’
Aἲ πόνος, φίλε Kλιτοβών, ἔδε καρδίας ὀδύνη, 3940
τὸν συμπονοῦσιν τὰ βουνὰ καὶ τὰ ἄψυχα συμπάσχουν.

The mountains sigh, the plains suffer for me, 3930

the slopes lament, the meadows thunder,
while trees I passed by and narrow mountain passes
still hold my achings and sigh instead of me;
they say: ‘An aching warrior passed by this place,
a young man passionburned35 for the desire of a beauty. 3935
He took his tears for rivers, his sighs for thunders,
the fog upon the mountains he took for his aching respiration;
the sun he had as his witness, and in various places together
with sun
the clouds would cover him too, suffering along with him.’
O what pain and sorrow of the heart, my friend Klitovon, 3940
for which mountains and inanimate nature feel compassion
and pity.

The second of the two moirologia, wherein Klitovon sings about his
lost love and his exile from Armenia, was excerpted by Nikolaos Politis
in his anthology of Greek folksongs as an actual medieval folksong
integrated into the romance.36 The song runs as follows (3946–56):

Ἄγουρος μυριόθλιβος, ξένος ἐκ τὰ δικά του,

τὸν ἐκατεβασάνισεν κόρης ὡραίας ἀγάπη
καὶ ἔφυγεν ἐκ τὴν χώραν του καὶ ἀπὸ τὰ γονικά του
καὶ εἰς ξένον κόσμον καὶ οὐρανὸν αἰχμάλωτος διαβαίνει,
πόνους του ἡγεῖται τὰ δεντρά, θλίψεις τὰς λιβαδίας, 3950
35 The adjective ποθοφλόγιστος (‘inflamed by desire’), which I have freely rendered
here as ‘passionburned’ (parallel to ‘sunburned’), is used by Klitovon to character-
ise Livistros at 2727–8, two verses whose imagery is very close to Livistros’ lament
here.
36 See Politis 1914: 247–8, quoting from the Naples version, edited by Wagner 1881.
Politis writes Ἆσμα δημοτικὸν παρεμβεβλημένον εὶς τὸ μεσαιωνικὸν ἔπος τοῦ ΙΔ΄
αἰῶνος πιθανῶς, “Τὰ κατὰ Λύβιστρον καὶ ῾Ροδάμνην”, while he titles the moirologin
as καταλόγιν τοῦ ξένου στρατιώτου (‘song of the wandering soldier’).

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 363

καὶ ποταμοὺς τὰ δάκρυά του, βουνὰ τοὺς στεναγμούς του·

ἀηδόνιν εἰς τὴν στράταν του νὰ κιλαδῇ ἂν ἀκούσῃ,
οἱ κτύποι τῆς καρδίας του καὶ οἱ βροντοστεναγμοί του
σιγίζουν τον νὰ μὴ λαλῇ, καρδιοφωνοκρατοῦσιν.
Ἔδε στρατιώτου συμφορὰ τὴν πάσχει διὰ φουδούλαν, 3955
οὕτως ἔνι αἰχμάλωτος, ξένος εἰς ἄγριον τόπον.

A young man overgrieved, a stranger from his own land,

whom the love of a beautiful maiden has tormented
and so he left his country and his parental land,
wanders now as a captive through a foreign place and sky;
he considers the trees to be his pains, the meadows his
sorrows, 3950
the rivers his tears and mountains his sighs.
Should he on his path hear a nightingale warble,
the beats of his heart and his thundering sighs
silence him so as not to sing, restrain his heart from shouting.
Behold a warrior’s misfortune suffered for an amorous
lady: 3955
thus is he a captive and a stranger in a wild place.

Politis’ suggestion does not withstand scrutiny, since Klitovon’s song

picks up and develops the imagery of sympathetic nature used by
his friend. In Livistros’ ‘lament’ the mountains sigh and the meadows
thunder on account of his amorous pains, and then these parts of nature
speak and suggest that the young man’s tears were like rivers, his sighs
like thunder. In Klitovon’s ‘lament’ the exiled warrior imagines that
the trees were literally his sufferings and the meadows were his sorrows.
Moreover, Klitovon’s lament includes words and images specifically
related by Klitovon to himself in two earlier instances of the narra-
tive.37 This is a most complex example of rhetorical interlacing between
the two encased poems within the broader frame of this particular
episode, but it is certainly not the way oral poetry was composed and
performed.
In the later romances amorous discourse as lamentation becomes
more stylised. In The Amorous Story of Kallimachos and Chrysorroe
(Τὸ κατὰ Καλλίμαχον καὶ Χρυσορρόην ἐρωτικὸν διήγημα), written

37 The adjective μυριόθλιβος (‘suffering sorrows ten thousand times’), which I have
rendered as ‘overgrieved’ (parallel to ‘overjoyed’), is used by Klitovon about
himself at 3685 (καὶ ὡς ἤμην μυριόθλιβος καὶ ἐγὼ ἐκ τὰ γονικά μου), when he talks
to Rodamne about his exile from Armenia. Furthermore, 3948–51 echo similar
images used by Klitovon when talking to Rodamne about his flight from home
and his wandering along the narrow path where he met Livistros (3672–6).

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 ­364 panagiotis agapitos

around 1320–40,38 we find two songs performed by Kallimachos dis-

guised as a day labourer. The first song is referred to as ‘song’ (K&C
1670 tragoudēman) and ‘lament’ (1671, 1693 moirologin);39 it has a
bipartite structure with an address first to Tyche and then to the moon
(1673–92):40

Στῆσον ἀπάρτι, Τύχη μου, πλάνησιν τὴν τοσαύτην,

στῆσον τὴν κακοπάθειαν καὶ τὸν παραδαρμόν μου,
στῆσον τὸ τόσον μανικὸν καὶ τὸ κακόγνωμόν σου. 1675
Ἀρκοῦν σε τὰ μ’ ἐλύπησες, ἀρκοῦν οἱ συμφορές μου.
Τύχη, καὶ τί τὸ σ’ ἔπταισα, Τύχη μου, τί σ’ ἐποῖκα
καὶ τί παράλογον πρὸς σὲ ποτέ μου ἐνεθυμήθην
καὶ τόσον τυραννίζεις με καὶ τόσον κακουχεῖς με;
Καὶ τὸ νεροκουβάλημαν καὶ τὸ μιστάργωμά μου 1680
ἔχεις τα σὺ πρὸς ἔλεγχον καὶ χόρτασιν ἀπάρτι.
Σελήνη μου καλόφωτε, βλέπεις τί τυραννοῦμαι.
Καὶ γὰρ βραδύ, παρακαλῶ, πέμψον μικρὰν ἀκτῖναν,
εἰς τὸ παλάτιν ἂς σεβῇ, κανεὶς μηδὲν τὴν ἴδῃ,
τὴν Χρυσορρόην ἂς εἰπῇ τὸ συχαρίκιν τοῦτο: 1685
‘Τὸν ἀγαπᾷς εὑρέθηκεν, ἀνέστη τὸν ἐξεύρεις
καὶ σήμερον ὡς μισθαργὸς κηπεύει πρὸς τὸν κῆπον,
νερὸν καὶ τὴν βισκίναν σου γεμίζει την καθ’ ὥραν
φλόγα νὰ σβήσῃ τῆς ψυχῆς, κόρη, τῆς ἰδικῆς σου.
Ἀλλὰ τὴν δρόσον τῆς φλογὸς τῆς ἐρωτοκαμίνου 1690
τὰ χείλη του τὴν γέμουσιν, τὸ σῶμαν του τὴν γέμει.’
Ποῖσε, σελήνη, μηχανήν, ποῖσε, σελήνη, πρᾶξιν.

Cease now, Fortune of mine, this long wandering.

Cease the wrongs and tortures you have inflicted on me.
Cease this your rage and your malice; 1675
sufficient the sorrow you have caused me, sufficient my
misfortunes.
Fortune, how did I offend you? What did I do to you?

38 Critical edition with French translation by Pichard 1956, but with many problems.
The text is quoted from Cupane 1995: 58–213, who offers a revised text with an
annotated Italian translation; English translation by Betts 1995: 37–90.
39 Cupane 1995: 159 n.114 considers that the word here does not mean ‘funerary
lament’ in its technical sense but, more generally, ‘song full of sadness’. However,
as the terms in L&R suggest, it is difficult to distinguish two different meanings.
For example, in K&C 1670 the narrator states that Kallimachos μοιρολογεῖ
τραγώδημαν (‘performs a lament-like song’), whereas at 1693 he states that the
young prince πολλάκις ἔλεγεν τὸ μοιρολόγιν (‘repeated the lament many times’).
40 Cupane 1995: 158–60; I have in a few cases changed the spelling and the
punctuation.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 365

What madness did I conceive against you

to make you persecute and abuse me so much?
Now, the water I carry and my status as hired servant 1680
you have them as a test of me and to your satisfaction.
O moon with your fair light, you see what I endure.
In the evening, I beseech you, send down a tiny beam,
let it enter the palace without being observed
and let it tell Chrysorroe the good news: 1685
‘The one you love has been found, the one you know
has revived
and today tends the garden as a hired labourer.
All the time he fills your basin with water
to quench, oh maiden, the flame of your soul.
But his body, his lips, are charged with the dew 1690
which quells the flame of Love’s furnace.’
Perform this trick for me, O moon. Do me this service.41

The second song (2044–55), characterised as a katalogin (2043), picks

up the imagery of the moirologin and turns it into a song of ‘happy con-
clusion’. Both songs are less ‘folkloric’ in style than those in L&R, while
the moirologin seems to use two letters of Livistros, the one addressed
to Tyche (L&R 1565–86) and the other to the moon (1862–78).42
In the Tale of Achilles (Διήγησις περὶ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως) from the middle
of the fourteenth century,43 we find a different kind of encased per-
formative text that has an amorous-threnodic character. Achilles
orders a painting of Eros to be made in his tent and addresses the god
‘with many tears’ (N 905 πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ἔλεγεν μετὰ πολλῶν δακρύων).
This prayer-like soliloquy of the young warrior hero is specifically
marked by a rubric (N 906–20):

Λόγια μετὰ δακρύων ὁ μέγας Ἀχιλλεὺς

εἰς τὸν φρικτὸν τὸν Ἔρωτα καὶ πλάστην τῆς ἀγάπης.
‘Ἔρω μου, τί σὲ ἔπταισα καὶ τί κακὸν σὲ ἐποῖκα
καὶ τὴν καρδίαν μου σύρριζον καθόλου ἐξανασπᾷς την;
Ἐμὲ σπαθία οὐκ ἔντρεψαν, κοντάρια οὐδὲ ὅλως, 910
καὶ ἀπὸ μόνου βλέμματος ἔσφαξές με ἐξάφνης;
41 Betts 1995: 70 (with modifications).
42 The moon, of course, is as of old a companion of lovers; see Cupane 1995: 161
n.116 on Theocritus’ second Idyll, possibly echoed in Nik. Eug. D&C 2.326–85
(Conca 1990: 69–73), where Kleandros sings a song addressed to the moon as he is
about to visit his beloved Kalligone in the night.
43 Critical edition of the Naples redaction (Ach. N) with introduction and com-
mentary by Smith 1999; unrevised text with Italian translation by Cupane 1995:
324–442.

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 ­366 panagiotis agapitos

Ἔχεις με, Ἔρω, τρίδουλον, δοῦλον δεδουλωμένον·

ἂν οὐ μ’ εὕρεις τοῦ θελήματος καὶ ἔξω τοῦ ὁρισμοῦ σου
τὸν ἐμαυτόν μου δίδω τον μεθ’ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας,
καὶ ὡς ἄδικον καὶ ἀλλότριον ὅρισε καὶ ἂς μὲ φονεύσουν· 915
εἰ δὲ εἶμαι τοῦ θελήματος καὶ τοῦ ὁρισμοῦ σου δοῦλος,
διατί νὰ πάσχω, νὰ πονῶ, νὰ θλίβωμαι τοσοῦτον,
νὰ ἀρνοῦμαι καὶ τὰς χάριτας, τοὺς συγγενεῖς καὶ φίλους;
Τὸν ἐμαυτόν μου δίδω τον εἰς ἐδικάς σου χεῖρας
καὶ εἴτι θέλεις ὅρισε, αὐθέντη, καὶ ἂς μὲ ποιήσουν.’ 920

Words filled with tears the great Achilles <addresses>

to horrifying Eros and creator of love.
‘O Eros, for what am I to blame and what did I do to you,
that you pull up all of my heart along with its roots?
Swords did not put me into flight, nor any lances
whatsoever, 910
and you have suddenly butchered me on account of only one
glance?
You hold me, Eros, thrice your slave, a servant all-enslaved.
Should you not find me of your will and outside your command,
I give myself willingly to you and with all my heart,
and you give orders to kill me as being unjust and alien.44 915
But if I am the servant of your will and your command,
why should I suffer, ache and be thus afflicted,
why deny life’s pleasantries, my relatives and friends?
I give myself into your hands and whatever you wish,
my lord, give your command and let them do it to me.’ 920

The rubric’s indication ‘words filled with tears’ suggests a threnodic

content. The text is composed as a prayer in the form of a formal act
of submission. The prayer is organised around images of death con-
nected to the loss of male social status as a result of love, here appear-
ing as the desirous gaze of the male subject upon the female object.
Having thus lamented his downfall and subjugation to Eros, Achilles
takes up his quill and begins writing his first ‘pain-inflamed letter’
(πονόφλογον πιττάκιν) to his beloved (N 921–3).45
How then is the use of a ‘folkloric style’, particularly in amorous
discourse as lamentation, to be explained? The romances, especially
those up to the middle of the fourteenth century, are composed with

44 ‘Alien’ (sc. to your power or domain). In Ach. N 65 the narrator uses almost the
same phrase for the threat adressed to Achilles’ father by his wife’s brothers.
45 On this scene of letter-writing see Agapitos 2006b: 160–1.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 367

all the means of school rhetoric, often in close dialogue with the
twelfth-century novels and the other romances. Until the middle of
the twelfth century the Komnenian court showed a special interest
in erotic literature, but also a growing taste for performative texts
composed in the vernacular idiom. In fact, the latter are texts in an
innovative mixed style; for example, the Ptochoprodromika or some
of Prodromos’ prose grammatical exercises.46 This interest in court
poetry and erotic literature was picked up at the Nicaean court, where
we even find the young emperor and passionate writer Theodore II
Laskaris exploring literary plays with colloquial discourse in some of
his letters, for example no. 216 in the modern edition.47
It should be pointed out that the vernacular idiom of poems like
the Digenis Akritis or the Ptochoprodromika is not to be equated
with ἰδιῶτις γλῶττα or ‘everyday language’, as Anna Komnene called
colloquial discourse in a well-known passage of the Alexiad (2.4.9).
This poetic idiom does not reflect the way people spoke on the
street or at home, or even on semi-formal occasions.48 We do have
some documents from the eleventh and the twelfth century preserv-
ing this everyday language as it was written down at the moment a
wittness gave his oral testimony; for example, a document kept in the
Iviron Monastery Archive and dated to 22 May 1008. Because such
documents are not usually read by literary scholars, it will be useful to
quote from the aforementioned document, in which the boundaries of
a field (χωράφιον) are defined:49

+ Εν ονοματι του πατρος και του υου και του αγιου πνευματος.
Ημεις υ προαναφέρόμενυ ο τε Παυλος πρεσβυτερος ο Πλαβητζις και
Ιωαννης παπας ο Σφεσδίτζις και Ιωαννης εξαρχος ο Στωγινας, υ και
τους τειμίους και ζωοποιου<ς> σταυρους μετα παντὸς του οἰφους
ηδιοχιρως πυησαντες, ευλογιτος ο Θεος και πατηρ του κυριου ημον
Ιησου Χριστου ο ων ευλογιτος ης τους εῶνας, τουτο ύδαμεν και
μαρτυρουμεν, οτι το χοραφιον, ὁπὲρ καταφυτευγι ο αρχιδιάκονος,
του Φσεζέλι ῆτων και εδεσποζετον παρ’ αυτου και τον αυτου
κλιρονομον· και ο μεν Παυλος πρεσβυτερος εκαμνεν αυτο και ετέλι
τας μουρτὰς προς τον αυτον Φσεζελι και τους αυτου κλιρονόμους επει

46 See Agapitos 2014b.

47 See the text in Festa 1898: 268–70.
48 See my remarks on this passage from the Alexiad in Agapitos 2014a.
49 Actes d’Iviron I, 188–9 (no. 15): lines 10–13, 28–35, 39–46. The non-normalised
text is printed in a simplified version from the diplomatic edition of Lefort,
Oikonomidès and Papachryssanthou 1985; line separations, line numerations
and indications of abbreviations are omitted; accents and breathings are placed
as found in the document. The document is quoted purely to illustrate the gulf
between everyday language and that of the poems discussed in this chapter.

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 ­368 panagiotis agapitos

χρόνυς πολυς, ος επι Θεω μαρτυρι . . . Καγω Γεωργιος πρεσβυτερος,

ο υος του μοναχου Νικηφορου του Τζετειριλεχα, ακήκοα παρα
του μακαριτου μου πατρος και πρεσβυτέρου λεγωντος, και προς
με και προς πολους, οτι, ευλογιτος ο Θεος και ευλογιμενι υπαρχει
η βασιλεια αυτου, το χοραφιον, οπερ καταφυτευγι ο αρχιδιακονος
Κωνσταντινος, του Φσεζελι του Αραβηνικιώτου ητον εκπαλε τον
χρόνον και εδεσπωζετο παρ’ αυτου· μετα δε τιν αυτου τελευτ<η>ν
κατελιπεν αυτο και την απασαν αυτου υποστασιν Θεωφανους και
Σιρας, τις αυτής θυγατρος, προσταξας αυτυς δουνε αυτο ψυχικον
οπου δ’ αν θελισουν και βοῦλουνται, ος ελευθέρον ωντον τον
πραγμάτον αυτου και κλιρονόμον αίτερον μι εχοντον . . . Εγράφι η
παροῦσα δῶσις τον ζοντον φονον του τε Παύλου πρεσβυτέρου [and
of the remaining four testifiers] δια χηρος Ανδρέου πρεσβυτέρου και
δευτερεύοντος της καθωλικις εκλισίας, μηνι Μαηο κβ΄ ινδικτιωνος
ϛ΄ έτους ϛφιϛ΄, παρουσία τον παρευρεθεντον και υπογραψαντον επι
τη δωσι τον φονον αξιοπείστον και ενυπογράφον μαρτυρον +

There follow the signatures of eight witnesses of which the last is

the scribe himself; the witnesses certify that they have heard the oral
testimonies as written; two indicative examples of such signatures are
(lines 48 and 51):

+ Γεοργιος ο του μακαριωτατου επισκοπου ανεψιος ακικὼς τὰς

ανοτερω γεγραμενας φονας υπεγραψα ειδη<οχειρως>
+ Βασιλιος αποδρογαριος ω Ελαδικος ακηκος τὰς φωνὰς τὰς
προγεγράμαινὰς υκηα χηρι υπεγραψα

This is a very good specimen of colloquial discourse, but it neither

looks like (Early) Modern Greek nor resembles the idiom of the ver-
nacular poems. The latter is a gradually crafted style fitted for ambi-
tious literary compositions.50 We happen to have one case where we
can see how a socially defined speech act is transposed into a literary
formulaic device of marked narrative importance. John Tzetzes in
c. 1150 and Neophytos the Recluse in c. 1180 list the questions that a
local person will ask a traveller just arriving at a specific place. In the
case of Tzetzes, this is done to show the author’s dexterity in using
foreign languages. Neophytos talks to his monks about a person who,
contemplating the garden of Eden, starts lamenting and is being asked
about his place of origin:

50 Though Jeffreys 2007: 72 is aware of such documents, he prefers to omit

them  from  his discussion of what in his opinion is Modern Greek in Byzantine
times.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 369

καλῶς ἦλθες, αὐθέντα μου, καλῶς ἦλθες, ἀδελφέ·

πόθεν εἶσαι καὶ ἀπὸ ποίου θέματος ἦλθες;
πῶς, ἀδελφέ, ἦλθες εἰς τοιαύτην τὴν πόλιν;
πεζός, καβαλλάριος, διὰ θαλάσσης; θέλεις ἀργῆσαι;51

Welcome, my master, welcome, my brother.

From where are you and from what province have you come?
In what manner, brother, did you come to this here city?
On foot, on horse, by sea? Do you wish to stay?

Καὶ ὡς ἐξ ἑτέρου δῆθεν προσώπου ἀποκρινόμενος ἔλεγε: ‘Καὶ ποίας

χώρας ἦς, ἄνθρωπε, ἢ ἐκ ποίου λαοῦ, καὶ ποῦ τὰ σὰ ἴδια πεφύκασι;
Καὶ τίς μέν σου ὁ πατήρ, τίς δέ σου ἡ πατρίς;’52

And answering as if he were another person, he was saying:

‘And of what country are you, my fellow, or of what race, and
where is your home? And who is your father, what is your
fatherland?’

These questions are expressed in χύδην ῥέουσα γλῶσσα or ‘disorderly

flowing language’, as Eustathios of Thessaloniki characterised col-
loquial discourse.53 From the thirteenth century onwards we find this
set of questions included in the romances and other related verse texts.
However, the questions are now shaped into a recognisable literary
idiom.54 Here are four examples ranging from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century:

Livistros and Rodamne 3261–2 (c. 1240–60)55

πρῶτον ἐσὺ ἀφηγήσου με τὸ πῶς εὑρέθης ὧδε,
γένους ἐγένου ποταποῦ καὶ χώρας ἀπὸ ποίας.

51 Tzetzes, Theogony 775, 777, 779, 781 (Hunger 1953: 305). These phrases render in
colloquial Greek the original Latin questions asked by Tzetzes of the imaginary
Italian traveller. These are: βένε βενίστι, δόμινε, βένε βενίστι, φράτερ. / οὖνδε ἒς ἒτ
δεκουάλε προβίντζια βενέστι; / κόμοδο, φράτερ, βενέστι ἰσίσταν τζιβιτάτεμ; / πεδόνε,
καβαλλάριους, περμάρε; βὶς μοράρε; (Theogony 776, 778, 780, 782).
52 Neophytos, Fifty-Chapter Book 23.1 (Sotiroudis 1996: 287).
53 On Eustathios and everyday language see now Agapitos 2015c.
54 This phenomenon has led some scholars to assume that such phrases are formulaic
in an oral sense (Jeffreys 1973; Jeffreys and Jeffreys 1986; Eideneier 1991: 41–68) or
that one author literally copies another (Spadaro 1977/8). However, these phrases
represent conventions of literary composition that reflect social codes of behav-
iour and communication in a medieval literate society, not vestiges of orality or
direct quotation; see briefly Agapitos 2006a: 171–5.
55 Agapitos 2006a: 383.

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 ­370 panagiotis agapitos

first, you narrate to me how you found yourself here,

of what lineage you are and from what country you come.

Consolatory Fable, Leipzig Redaction 89–92 (second half of

fourteenth century)56
Καὶ τότε πάλιν λέγει τον: ‘Λέγε με πῶς ἀκούεις
καὶ ποῖον ἔνι τὸ κάστρον σου καὶ τίνες οἱ γονεῖς σου;’
Ὁ ξένος ὁλοπρόθυμα λέγει τον τ’ ὄνομάν του
καὶ πόθεν ἦν καὶ ποταπὸς καὶ ποιοὶ ἦσαν οἱ γονεῖς του

And then again he tells him: ‘Tell me how you are called,
and which is your home town and who are your parents?’
The stranger willingly tells him his name,
from where he is, who he is and who were his parents.

Florios and Platziaflore, London Redaction 1380–1 (second half

of fourteenth century)57
ἀναρωτᾷ τον, λέγει τον: ‘Τίς εἶσαι, πόθεν ἔρχεις;
Καὶ χώρας ποίας καὶ ποταπῆς καὶ τί γενεᾶς ὑπάρχεις;’

he asks him and tells him: ‘Who are you, from whence do you
come?
And from what sort of country are you and of what lineage?’

Imberios and Margarona, Naples Redaction, f. 95v (c. 1450–70)58

‘Πλὴν λέγω καὶ παρακαλῶ, ἀλλότριε καὶ ξένε,
νὰ πῇς καὶ νὰ ἀφηγηθῇς τὸ ἀπὸ πόθεν εἶσαι,
τὸ ἀπὸ ποῦ ἐγεννήθηκες καὶ ποῦ ’ν’ τὰ γονικά σου
καὶ χώρας ποίας ποταπῆς καὶ γενεᾶς ὑπάρχεις.’

‘But I say to you and beseech you, foreigner and stranger,

to tell and to narrate from where you are,
where have you been born and where is your paternal land,
from what sort of country you are and of what lineage.’

In my opinion, Livistros and Rodamne represents a key moment in the

new direction the genre of erotic fiction was taking in Byzantium. On

56 Cupane 1995: 652.

57 Cupane 1995: 542 for the text of the London redaction; the verses correspond to
vv. 1407–8 in the ‘mixed’ text edited by Kriaras 1955: 168.
58 The text quoted here comes from the oldest, but still unedited Naples redaction
(Neap. gr. B-III-27 of the early sixteenth century); it corresponds to vv. 760–3 of
the ‘mixed’ text edited by Kriaras 1955: 230.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 371

the one hand, the ideological and literary system of the Komnenian
novels forms the structural scaffold that holds the romance’s build-
ing blocks together. However, the abandonment of the learned idiom
and its intertextual ‘Hellenic’ discourse for the composition of larger
verse narratives; the continuing use of basic everyday language in the
schoolroom, as can be seen from schedographic collections of the thir-
teenth century and surviving dictionaries;59 the growing interest in folk
wisdom through the collection of proverbs for school practice;60 the
probable acquaintance in Nicaea with Old French romances in some
oral form;61 and the close familiarity with the performative staging
of the Komnenian novels were some factors that led poets to choose
the literary vernacular idiom, and to use ‘contemporary aristocratic’
settings and the folksongs as another recognisable form of authorita-
tive discourse. In other words, the Latin aristocratic setting and the
folkloric style are the textiles used to dress the Komnenian scaffolding,
thus forming part of the modernist aesthetics of vernacular romance.
Luckily, there survives a striking text from Nicaea, where we can
observe exactly how the mixed language of ritual court poetry and
the images and phrasing of folk poetry are blended into a new liter-
ary entity. Nicholas Eirenikos, an otherwise unknown official at the
Nicaean court, composed a set of ‘quatrains’ (tetrasticha) in fifteen-
syllable verse with a framing couplet ‘refrain’ (katalegma) for the
wedding of emperor John Vatatzes and the young Princess Constance
von Hohenstaufen in 1250.62 The song is organised in two pairs of
three eight-verse stanzas. I quote here the first stanzas of each pair
(vv. 1–8 and 28–35):

Εἰς εὐφυῆ κυπάριττον κιττὸς συνανατρέχει,

ἡ βασιλὶς κυπάριττος, κιττὸς ὁ βασιλεύς μου,
59 See Agapitos 2015b on such a dictionary, composed in the later twelfth century
but surviving in a manuscript of 1343/4.
60 See Agapitos 2015a: 31–9 (Byzantine collections of Middle Greek proverbs).
61 Jeffreys 2013a and 2013b has argued for the Morea as the place for the transfer
of romance material from Old French to Middle Greek. This is plausibly the case
with some types of narrative, such as chronicles or antiquarian romances, but not
with others, such as the love romances. Cupane 2013 believes that Constantinople
alone was the place for this transfer, but there is no documentation for such a
hypothesis.
62 Edited by Heisenberg 1920: 100–2. The full heading runs as follows: Τοῦ λογιοτάτου
χαρτοφύλακος κυροῦ Νικολάου τοῦ Εἰρηνικοῦ τετράστιχα εἰς τὸν ἀρραβῶνα τῶν
εὐσεβεστάτων καὶ ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐστεμμένων μεγάλων βασιλέων Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δούκα καὶ
Ἄννης τῆς εὐγενεστάτης αὐγούστης, ἄνευ τῶν πρώτων δύο στίχων τοῦ καταλέγματος,
οἷς καὶ τὰ τέλη ὅμοια (‘By the most learned chartophylax Nicholas Eirenikos quat-
rains on the betrothal of the most pious and by God crowned grand emperors
John Doukas and Anna the most noble augusta, without the first two verses of the
refrain, to which the last two are similar’).

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 ­372 panagiotis agapitos

ὁ παραδείσου κοσμικοῦ μέσον ὡραίως θάλλων

καὶ πάντα θέων καὶ κυκλῶν ἐν εὐλυγίστοις δρόμοις
καὶ συλλαμβάνων εὐφυῶς καὶ στρέφων καὶ συμπλέκων 5
ἔθνος καὶ χῶρας καὶ φυλὰς καὶ πόλεις ὥς<περ> δένδρον.
Εἰς εὐφυῆ κυπάριττον κιττὸς συνανατρέχει,
ἡ βασιλὶς κυπάριττος, κιττὸς ὁ βασιλεύς μου.

Φιλεῖ μαγνῆτιν σίδηρος, τὴν νύμφην ὁ νυμφίος,

ὁ κραταιὸς τὴν εὐγενῆ, τὴν ἐκλεκτὴν ὁ Δούκας,
ὁ πρὸς πολέμους ἀτειρὴς τὴν ἁπαλὴν νεᾶνιν. 30
Τὸν σιδηροῦν καὶ τὸν στρεπτὸν ἀπέθετο χιτῶνα
καὶ νυμφικὴν στολίζεται καὶ χρυσανθῆ πορφύραν,
καιρὸς καὶ γὰρ φιλότητος, οὐ μάχης, οὐ πολέμου.
Φιλεῖ μαγνῆτιν σίδηρος, τὴν νύμφην ὁ νυμφίος,
ὁ κραταιὸς τὴν εὐγενῆ, τὴν ἐκλεκτὴν ὁ Δούκας. 35

Around the well-grown cypress the ivy swiftly grows,

the empress is the cypress, the ivy is my emperor,
he who blossoms handsomely in the middle of a wordly
paradise,
he who ambulates and encircles everything in well-wound paths
and who, well-grown like a tree, captures and turns towards
him 5
and entwines nations and countries and races and cities.
Around the well-grown cypress the ivy swiftly grows,
the empress is the cypress, the ivy is my emperor.

The iron loves the magnet, the bridegroom loves his bride,
the strong lord the noble lady, the Doukas sovereign his
chosen queen,
he who stubbornly pursues wars loves the soft maiden. 30
The iron and wrought cuirass he has put aside
and is adorned with nuptial, gold-shining purple,
for it is the time for love, not for battle or for war.
The iron loves the magnet, the bridegroom loves his bride,
the strong lord the noble lady, the Doukas sovereign his
chosen queen. 35

The song uses the vegetal imagery we found in Livistros and Rodamne,
as well as the term katalegma in the context of a song performance.63
The main erotic image of the refrain of the second triad is that of

63 See Katsaros 2002: 255–68 for an excellent analysis.

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 ­ ‘words filled with tears’ 373

iron desiring the magnet (28–9 ‘The iron loves the magnet, . . . the
Doukas sovereign his chosen queen’), an exemplum amoris appear-
ing in L&R,64 but also used by Eugeneianos in his novel65 and, much
earlier, by Tatius in his.66 Eirenikos’ quatrains are preserved on
ff. 20r-v of the codex Laurentianus Conventi Soppressi 627, a paper
manuscript written by a Nicaean scholarly hand around 1260.67 This
very important miscellaneous codex also preserves a number of cer-
emonial court poems of the twelfth century and a substantial selection
of Theodore Laskaris’ letters, among them the playful no. 216 with its
everyday words. The manuscript also preserves as one unit – prefaced
by a dedicatory poem to the young emperor Alexios II Komnenos
(1180–3) – the texts of four out of the five surviving ancient Greek
novels (Longus, Tatius, Chariton, Xenophon).68 In other words, the
presence of Nicaean court literature and erotica in the same book is
a clear indication of the literary interests of the Laskarid court in the
middle of the thirteenth century. This also shows what kind of texts a
writer needed to know in order to compose texts that would have been
successful at court.
Seven further manuscripts written in a Nicaean context transmit the
Greek and Byzantine novels, along with court oratory and poetry of
the Komnenian and Laskarid eras.69 It cannot, then, be a coincidence
that Theodore Laskaris alludes to the reading of erotic narratives
in a still unpublished text of his.70 Nor is it a coincidence that the
strange dream Theodore describes in a letter to his teacher Georgios
Akropolites (Ep. 49, written before 1253)71 bears striking similarities
to the ‘modern’ imagery and ‘vernacular’ vocabulary of Livistros’ first
dream (L&R 204–627).72
Having reached the end of my chapter, let me offer some concluding
thoughts. Amorous discourse as lamentation does not, in my opinion,
reflect a folkloric character of the vernacular romances. Initially,

64 L&R 177–8; Agapitos 2006a: 263.

65 Nik. Eug. D&C 4.138–9 (Conca 1990: 105).
66 Ach. Tat. L&K 1.17.2 (Vilborg 1955: 18).
67 For a basic description see Rostagno and Festa 1893: 172–6.
68 On this lost twelfth-century manuscript see Cavallo 1981: 414–15.
69 Agapitos 1998b: 126–7; 2006a: 52–3.
70 The text, bearing the heading Περὶ τῶν καθ’ αὑτόν (‘About the matters that
concern himself’), is preserved in the ms. Vind. phil. gr. 321, f. 66r-v of the second
half of the thirteenth century (Hunger 1961: 409–18). The passage in question is
quoted by Angelov 2011–12: 243 n.38. This text is part of a set of unedited short
texts of Laskaris (Hunger 1961: 412) on issues of moral philosophy, of which
Dimiter Angelov and I are preparing a critical edition with translation and notes.
71 Festa 1898: 67–71.
72 On the political and textual relation of Laskaris’ works with Livistros and
Rodamne see Andreou and Agapitos (forthcoming).

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 ­374 panagiotis agapitos

within the context of the Laskarid court and then further developed
in early Palaiologan Constantinople (two interlinked societies nego-
tiating their immediate past and redefining their identity), the use
of a ‘folkloric style’ was a conscious choice. It was made in order to
capture a new emotional sensibility by means of a newly crafted poetic
idiom that, following good Byzantine practice, required an authorita-
tive discourse of reference. The gradual broadening of the readership
of such amorous tales, and the move away from aristocratic audiences
towards a more bourgeois milieu in the second half of the fourteenth
century,73 allowed the various redactors to introduce more of such
folkloric elements, sometimes even substituting the older Byzantine
textual material, as is the case with the Vatican redaction of Livistros
and Rodamne, dated to c. 1480,74 or the Vienna redactions of Florios
and Platziaflore and Imberios and Margarona, dated to c. 1520.75
What was an aesthetic choice of poets working for a Byzantine courtly
society turned into an essential compositional characteristic of Early
Modern Greek poetry, culminating in the learned and simultane-
ously folkloric texture of Kornaros’ ‘medievalist’ Erotokritos in early
seventeenth-century Crete.76

73 See Agapitos 2006b: 173–6.

74 See the critical edition of L&R V by Lendari 2007, along with the remarks of
Agapitos 2006a: 216–19.
75 On the textual history of Florios see di Benedetto Zimbone 2000; for an edition
of the Vienna redaction see Wagner 1870: 1–56. On the textual history of the
Imberios see Jeffreys and Jeffreys 1971; for an edition of the Vienna redaction see
Wagner 1874.
76 See, indicatively, Kaplanis 2006.

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