Post-war British Fiction as 'Metaphysical Ethography' Ikonomakis, R.

Citation Ikonomakis, R. (2005, April 21). Post-war British Fiction as 'Metaphysical Ethography'. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3390

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Page 152, footnote 22.

Besides being a wood nymph in Greek mythology, Arethusa or Aretousa is also the name of the heroine of one of the most famous Cretan epic poems, (URWRFULWRV, written by Vintzentzo Kornaro (1553-1613) in the sixteenth century and published in the seventeenth century in Venice, which was translated into English by Theodore Ph. Stephanides (Athens: Papazissis Publishers, 1984). Fowles was possibly aware of this poem and its symbolism when writing 7KH 0DJXV. Aretousa indeed embodies the ideal of sacrifice for love; she is the symbol of the virtue of virtues, of ‘the virginal purity in woman’ as Stephanides has it in his introduction. Arethusa’s virtue and fidelity can be compared to Penelope’s, who waited twenty years for Ulysses to return in Homer’s 2G\VVH\Erotocritos (his name literally meaning the ‘judge or umpire of love’), son of Pezostratos, the counsellor of king Heracles of Athens, falls in love with Aretousa, the king’s daughter, and travels the world in order to forget her. When he returns to see his bedridden father, Erotocritos realizes Aretousa is also secretly in love with him and participates in a tournament organized by the king. Victorious, he receives his prize from Aretousa’s hands and asks her in marriage, which infuriates the king who forces Erotocritos to exile. The king indeed plans to give his daughter in marriage to the king of Byzantium, but she refuses and is cast into a dark dungeon for three years, until the king of Wallachia, Vlandistratos, attacks Athens. Erotocritos, transformed into a dark-skinned man by a magic potion, kills the king of Wallachia, and asks for the hand of Aretousa, which king Heracles now happily accepts. After first testing Aretousa’s fidelity, Erotocritos recovers his original appearance, and they are finally united to reign as king and queen over Athens.