This book offers a new English translation of Musaeus' poem Hero and Leander, with the original Greek on the facing page, a substantial introduction and a detailed commentary. The tragic romance of Hero and Leander has had and still has a great appeal, inspiring countless writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians. The Introduction aims at situating the poem within its literary tradition and cultural context as well as at drawing its major themes and describing the salient features of its style. Because Hero and Leander enjoyed an immense and uninterrupted popularity, the Introduction also devotes a large section to the poem's reception in literature, which crosses paths with the reception of the other main ancient poetic treatment of the legend, Ovid's Heroides 18 and 19. The commentary, which follows the Greek text and its translation, is addressed to a variety of readers: the student and the scholar of Greek literature, as well as those of other literatures in which the poem has been inspirational. This work has no precedent in the English language. This new translation will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek and late antique literature, as well as those working on mythology and classical reception.

This book offers a new English translation of Musaeus' poem Hero and Leander, with the original Greek on the facing page, a substantial introduction and a detailed commentary. The tragic romance of Hero and Leander has had and still has a great appeal, inspiring countless writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians. The Introduction aims at situating the poem within its literary tradition and cultural context as well as at drawing its major themes and describing the salient features of its style. Because Hero and Leander enjoyed an immense and uninterrupted popularity, the Introduction also devotes a large section to the poem's reception in literature, which crosses paths with the reception of the other main ancient poetic treatment of the legend, Ovid's Heroides 18 and 19. The commentary, which follows the Greek text and its translation, is addressed to a variety of readers: the student and the scholar of Greek literature, as well as those of other literatures in which the poem has been inspirational. This work has no precedent in the English language. This new translation will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek and late antique literature, as well as those working on mythology and classical reception.

From the Odyssey and King Lear to modern novels by Umberto Eco and John le Carre, the recognition scene has enjoyed a long life in western literature. It first became a regular feature of prose literature in the Greek novels of the first century CE. In these examples, it is the event that ensures the happy ending for the hero and heroine, and as such, it seems, was as pleasing for Greek readers as the canonical Hollywood kiss is for contemporary movie goers. Recognitions are particularly gratifying in the context of the ancient novels because the genre as a whole celebrates the idyllic social order to which the heroes and heroines belong and from which they have been harshly severed. In spite of their high frequency and thematic importance, novelistic recognitions have attracted little critical attention, especially in relation to epic and tragedy. With Love andProvidence, Silvia Montiglio seeks to fill this gap. She begins by introducing the meaning of recognitions in the ancient novel both within the novels' narrative structure and thought world--that is, the values and ideals propounded in the narrative. She pursues these goals while examining novels by Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, Heliodorus, Apuleius, and Petronius, as well as the Life of Apollonius of Tyre, the pseudo-Clementine recognitions, and the Jewish novel Joseph and Aseneth. In addition to addressing questions brought about by the recognitions--What does it mean for lovers to recognize each other at the end of their adventures? Is recognition the confirmation of sameness or an acknowledgement of change?--Montiglio addresses the rapport novelists entertain with their literary tradition, epic and drama. The book concludes by emphasizing the originality of the novels for the development of the recognition motif, and by explaining its influence in early-modern European literature."

Hero and Leander are the protagonists in a classical tale of epic but tragic love. Hero lives secluded in a tower on the European shore of the Hellespont, and Leander on the opposite side of the passage. Since they cannot hope to marry, the couple resolves to meet in secret: each night he swims across to her, guided by the light of her torch. But the time comes when a winter storm kills both the light and Leander. At dawn, Hero sees her lover's mangled body washed ashore, and so hurls herself from the tower to meet him in death. Silvia Montiglio here shows how and why this affecting story has proved to be one of the most popular and perennial mythologies in the history of the West. Discussing its singular drama, danger, pathos and eroticism, the author explores the origin of the legend and its rich and varied afterlives. She shows how it was used by Greek and Latin writers; how it developed in the Middle Ages - notably in the writings of Christine de Pizan - and Renaissance; how it inspired Byron to swim the Dardanelles; and how it has lived on in representations by artists including Rubens and Frederic Leighton.

In ancient Greece, the spoken word connoted power, whether in the free speech accorded to citizens or in the voice of the poet, whose song was thought to know no earthly bounds. But how did silence fit into the mental framework of a society that valued speech so highly? Here Silvia Montiglio provides the first comprehensive investigation into silence as a distinctive and meaningful phenomenon in archaic and classical Greece. Arguing that the notion of silence is not a universal given but is rather situated in a complex network of associations and values, Montiglio seeks to establish general principles for understanding silence through analyses of cultural practices, including religion, literature, and law.

Unlike the silence of a Christian before an ineffable God, which signifies the uselessness of words, silence in Greek religion paradoxically expresses the power of logos--for example, during prayer and sacrifice, it serves as a shield against words that could offend the gods. Montiglio goes on to explore silence in the world of the epic hero, where words are equated with action and their absence signals paralysis or tension in power relationships. Her other examples include oratory, a practice in which citizens must balance their words with silence in very complex ways in order to show that they do not abuse their right to speak. Inquiries into lyric poetry, drama, medical writings, and historiography round out this unprecedented study, revealing silence as a force in its own right.

Sleep was viewed as a boon by the ancient Greeks: sweet, soft, honeyed, balmy, care-loosening, as the Iliad has it. But neither was sleep straightforward, nor safe. It could be interrupted, often by a dream. It could be the site of dramatic intervention by a god or goddess. It might mark the transition in a narrative relationship, as when Penelope for the first time in weeks slumbers happily through Odysseus' vengeful slaughter of her suitors. Silvia Montiglio's imaginative and comprehensive study of the topic illuminates the various ways in which writers in antiquity used sleep to deal with major aspects of plot and character development. The author shows that sleeplessness, too, carries great weight in classical literature. Doom hangs by a thread as Agamemnon - in Iphigenia in Aulis - paces, restless and sleepless, while around him everyone else dozes on. Exploring recurring tropes of somnolence and wakefulness in the Iliad, the Odyssey, Athenian drama, the Argonautica and ancient novels by Xenophon, Chariton, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, this is a unique contribution to better understandings of ancient Greek writing.

Sleep was viewed as a boon by the ancient Greeks: sweet, soft, honeyed, balmy, care-loosening, as the Iliad has it. But neither was sleep straightforward, nor safe. It could be interrupted, often by a dream. It could be the site of dramatic intervention by a god or goddess. It might mark the transition in a narrative relationship, as when Penelope for the first time in weeks slumbers happily through Odysseus' vengeful slaughter of her suitors. Silvia Montiglio's imaginative and comprehensive study of the topic illuminates the various ways in which writers in antiquity used sleep to deal with major aspects of plot and character development. The author shows that sleeplessness, too, carries great weight in classical literature. Doom hangs by a thread as Agamemnon - in Iphigenia in Aulis - paces, restless and sleepless, while around him everyone else dozes on. Exploring recurring tropes of somnolence and wakefulness in the Iliad, the Odyssey, Athenian drama, the Argonautica and ancient novels by Xenophon, Chariton, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, this is a unique contribution to better understandings of ancient Greek writing.

The papers assembled in this volume explore a relatively new area in scholarship on the ancient novel: the relationship between an ostensibly non-philosophical genre and philosophy. This approach opens up several original themes for further research and debate. Platonising fiction was popular in the Second Sophistic and it took a variety of forms, ranging from the intertextual to the allegorical, and discussions of the origins of the novel-genre in antiquity have centred on the role of Socratic dialogue in general and Plato's dialogues in particular as important precursors. The papers in this collection cover a variety of genres, ranging from the Greek and Roman novels to utopian narratives and fictional biographies, and seek by diverse methods to detect philosophical resonances in these texts.