Translated from french by Grok

The first to discover the main source of Kornaros’s Erotokritos was the Epirote scholar Philitas (1787–1867). It was Aggélou who brilliantly helped bring this long-forgotten fact to light in the history of scholarship. To pay tribute to this man, what better way than to reproduce in French the information gathered by Aggélou.A compatriot of K. Assopiou from Gramméno in Epirus, he studied with him as a scholarship holder of Kaplanis in Ioannina under Psalidas. He then went to Corfu, and in 1812 continued his studies in Italy. In 1817 he obtained his doctorate in medicine and, after working for a time as a teacher at the school in Trieste, went to Göttingen to pursue further studies, eventually reaching England, sent by Wilford who intended him for a professorship at the Ionian Academy. He had already met Coray while passing through Paris, and when we find him again in Corfu in 1824, among the first professors of the Ionian Academy, he had abandoned medicine and was teaching ancient Greek and Latin. After Wilford’s death he resigned from the Academy and was appointed director of the schools of Zante. In 1838 we find him again as a professor at the Academy, a position he held until its dissolution. In August 1866, at the age of 79, he was appointed professor at the University of Athens, but he did not have time to teach, as death found him in Corfu the following year.In his unpublished study, Philitas points out the French medieval romance Paris et Vienne (dated 1432) and the similarities between it and Erotokritos. As Kohler notes in his 1935 thesis, the Romanian scholar Cartojan rediscovered this forgotten and unknown fact and thus linked Erotokritos to that French romance and its Italian translations, particularly the versified version by Albani.Paris et Vienne was adapted into prose around 1432 by the Marseillais Pierre de la Cypède from the original Provençal. First printed in French in 1487 in Antwerp, this romance had at least 11 French editions in the 16th century. But it was in Italian that its fortune was most spectacular. Printed even before the first French edition, in Treviso in 1482, it saw 22 editions in Italy up to 1698. The success of this prose version prompted two poets to produce versified adaptations.The first, by Teluccini, titled Paride e Vienna, had only two editions (1571 and 1577). The second, published in Rome in 1621 under the title Innamoramento di due fedelissimi amanti, is by Albani. Albani’s version enjoyed immense success and was reissued until the end of the 19th century. For some Erotokritos scholars, such as Kohler, Albani’s version seems a direct source for Erotokritos, all the more plausible because Albani, like Kornaros, condenses and suppresses several episodes present in Paris et Vienne but absent from Erotokritos. For others, like Alexiou, this version is far too imperfect in structure and meter to have been used by Kornaros. As for Embirikos, even though at first glance it might seem likely that Kornaros knew Pierre de la Cypède’s Paris et Vienne in a Latin translation, he asserts that a careful comparison of the French, Italian, and Greek texts seems to prove that the Cretan poet drew even more from the original French than from the many printed translations from 1482 to 1622 in Venice, Milan, and Treviso, as well as the free adaptations from Venice and Rome.Cartojan claimed that the Greek adapter pruned the material of the model with a real sense of composition: episodes that disturbed the unity of the novel’s conception were very judiciously left aside. Alexiou expressed it this way: Kornaros used part of the plot of this Western romance while organizing the structure better and reducing the number of characters. Embirikos adds that the Cretan far surpasses his model through the splendor of his imagination, as well as through the maturity and accuracy of his psychology. According to Kohler, it is certain that Kornaros had studied the works of Ariosto and Tasso. The similar examples are precise and abundant enough to allow us to assert that Orlando Furioso is indeed a source for Erotokritos. In fact, it is clear that for Kornaros, Ariosto is not merely a source of disjointed themes, resemblances, and images, but also a fundamental part of the plot.The romance is divided into five parts, an arrangement whose attribution—whether to the author himself or to the first editors—is uncertain, as Embirikos notes, but which corresponds perfectly to the internal movement of the work. Erotokritos is conceived as a true drama, with each book or canto representing an act; even the tournament in Canto B can be compared to the lyrical or choreographic entertainments that dramatists of that era inserted into their plays. It is interesting to connect this idea with Tonnet’s view that Erotokritos is a sort of opera composed of long monologues. In this article we will focus particularly on Canto B, which, as Embirikos indicates, owes almost nothing to Pierre de la Cypède’s romance Paris et Vienne, where the tournament does not exceed the proportions of a brief incident. Indeed, these pages deserve study because they reveal another aspect of Kornaros’s immense talent. In this canto he gives free rein to his incomparable faculties of invention and his gift for color and movement. If we move beyond the strictly aesthetic domain to the moral and political background of the work, Canto B takes on particular importance, as it is here above all that Kornaros’s national concerns are revealed. This tournament is a colorful carrousel where the various regions of Hellenism—however fragmented by the dominations that have divided it—confront and join hands. In this regard, it is unnecessary to highlight a remark by Embirikos that sets the tone for our study. Caramania was a Turkish principality founded in the southeast of Asia Minor on the ruins of the Seljuk Empire. In the author’s eyes it represents the Turkish nation. More precisely, geographically, it is a part of Phrygia, Galatia, and Cappadocia. This could imply that he does not recognize the Greek territories occupied by the Ottomans in his time as legitimately belonging to them, since he places Hellenic principalities everywhere and relegates the Osmanlis to the depths of Anatolia.Thus, as Embirikos emphasizes, the universe of Erotokritos is the Greek world, so differentiated by history and geography. The poet, with no concern for chronology, gathers in a brilliant sheaf the most illustrious and representative elements of the nation. His poem is already—or nearly—a repertoire of Hellenic irredentism. It is therefore no mere coincidence that Athens is the site of this pan-Hellenic gathering and that its sovereign presides over the festival. In the writer’s eyes it is clear that Athens is the radiant center of Hellenism. This is already visible in the first verses of Canto A, where the author speaks of this city as a river of knowledge. Byzantium comes next, and the importance this second focus of the nation holds in the writer’s eyes is shown by the distinguished honors the king of Athens bestows on Pistophoros (literally “bearer of faith”), son of the powerful monarch who reigns on the shores of the Bosphorus. Moreover, Heraklès, father of Aretoussa, later proposes that she marry none other than Pistophoros. And it is always with the intention of marking the imperial primacy of Byzantium that Kornaros devotes an exceptionally extensive and brilliant description to the figure of Pistophoros and his splendid retinue, assigns this prince an excellent rank in the competition, and has the queen award him—amid the applause of all the people of Athens—the prize for grace and elegance.All this, moreover, is not without recalling historical events that highlight the links between Byzantium and tournaments. In this regard, the book by Barber and Juliet is particularly useful. According to the authors, when Emperor Manuel I Komnenos went to Antioch in 1159 to meet his vassal Count Renaud, who had just submitted in the most humiliating manner, a tournament was organized as a sign of reconciliation on the part of the emperor. An accomplished horseman, he acquitted himself very well against the Western knights led by King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. Or again, another equally revealing example: in the 14th century, Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, who had married the daughter of Amadeus V of Savoy, developed a taste for the sport through contact with the Savoyard knights who had escorted the princess to Byzantium. The birth of the heir Prince John in 1332 was thus celebrated with jousts. According to the emperor’s historiographer, Andronikos had already frequently fought in the lists, but on that day he jousted with uncommon ardor. As regards the Eneto-Cretan context of the composition of Kornaros’s work, it is equally interesting to examine the historical tournaments that took place in Venice itself. Thus Barber and Juliet note that in 1364 in Venice, the reconquest of Crete was celebrated with jousts and great equestrian displays. The organizer of the festivities was Tommaso Bombasio, who came from Ferrara for this purpose. The king of Cyprus participated in the jousts, which were won by a Venetian named Pasqualin Minotto. And the first prize was a golden crown, exactly as in Erotokritos where the hero Rotokritos receives it at the end of Canto B from the hands of Aretoussa. By studying the notion of the tournament more closely, we will see how the influence of the Western world reached Crete through the Venetian-Cretan world. At the beginning of their book the authors explain another variant of the sport found in English and French chroniclers: the “hastiludium,” literally the game or combat of lances. How can one fail to notice that this expression is exactly the one used by Kornaros? It can be employed to describe all forms of mounted combat, individual or group. “Jousts” are more specifically single combats, although the jouster may belong to a side.The impact of tournaments on the men of that era is difficult to measure because, although it was an extraordinarily popular spectacle—as Barber and Juliet emphasize—one cannot estimate its frequency with certainty, since history records only the great occasions. Thus before 1400 we possess only two complete accounts of tournaments, both written in verse by heralds. And of course this versified aspect cannot help but bring Erotokritos to mind. In the 15th century we find both prose treatises on the organization of tournaments and richly illustrated registers reporting single combats.

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