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Guido's Historia Destructionis Troiae |
Astralscapes of the Emotions: Planets, Seasons, Passions, Actions
Dr. Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI
Adapted from: "Human Responsibility and the Fall of Troy," Diane P. Thompson, DIS., CUNY, 1981.
The Historia Destructionis Troiae,1 a Latin prose narrative completed in 1287 by Guido de Columnis, was based on a twelfth century French metrical romance, Benoit de Sainte Maure's Roman de Troie. Guido reworked Benoit's text from the idiom of twelfth century France into that of thirteenth century Sicily, reshaping his inherited materials to express an understanding of why Troy fell that was significantly different from Benoit's.
One factor among many that differentiates the Historia from the Roman de Troie is Guido's use of the new learning that was flooding into Europe during his lifetime. Guido was associated with the Sicilian court of Frederick II, where Arabs, Jews and Christians mingled freely, creating a ferment of ideas including Arab astronomy/astrology and Aristotelian science along with the more familiar traditions of the European Middle Ages. Astrology created problems for theologians in the thirteenth century, because it was inextricably linked to determinism, but in Guido's time and place astrological determinism could coexist with Christian free will without creating too much of a stir, and while Guido asserts that people ought to resist the essentially astrological fates, he never shows anyone actually able to do so.
The Historia is generally lacking in descriptive passages, but noteworthy among the few are several astralscapes which serve as settings for significant events. These descriptions are organized around the sun, moon, and stars, rather than ponds, trees, and hills. They are rhetorical, of course, but rooted in Guido's interest in the "new" learning of the Greco‑Arab physical sciences. These astralscapes are descriptions of persons and events that begin with the positions of the sun, moon and stars and then work down to the seasons or the passions of human beings, and only then to the actions taken.
Guido establishes a definite relationship between the sun, the moon, and Medea's passion for Iason. Medea's love for Iason is literally at first sight, and they arrange to meet secretly. She awaits the meeting with great eagerness which Guido describes as being measured by the slow and much desired setting of the sun: "At last, as it drew on toward evening, the sun's descent beneath the horizon brought on the complete darkness of night, while the shadow of earth interposed itself between the faces of man and the sun. Therefore, as the twilight of that night grew deeper, the agitated heart of Medea was in a turmoil of varying emotions, and she, bent on watching the least movement of the sun until it should set, watched with even greater anxiety and yearned for nightfall with the concomitant rising of the moon, since on that night it was to rise at about the first hour of sleep" (Meek 21).2
The passage of the sun is both astrological and psychological, since the heavenly bodies act by affecting people's emotions and judgment. Darkness makes people more vulnerable to the malicious effects of the stars, as does a state of intense emotion, such as love or anger. Not only will the setting of the sun and rising of the moon provide an opportunity, the specific time when Iason will come, but Medea's passion will become more powerful and more vulnerable to being influenced by the stars when it is dark. Medea participates willingly in her experience, because she yearns for that darkness which will allow her passion full rein. This fits Guido's often repeated warnings that people ought to resist the influences of the stars (although he is aware that they rarely do). Guido plainly intends to associate the setting of the sun with the increase in the powers of lust and unreason, and is not merely giving us a poetic technique for telling time and expressing Medea's eagerness for her meeting with Iason. The setting of the sun is technically described, as a natural scientist or astrologer might write: "the shadow of earth interposed itself between the faces of man and the sun."
The Judgment of Paris and the death of Paris, two critical events in the Trojan War, both occur at the summer solstice, and these are, I believe, the only two mentions of that solstice in the Historia. When Paris tells of his dream vision, he begins with the pertinent astronomical data. He was in Minor India: "When the summer sun was at its solstice, and when the sun was running its course near the beginning of Cancer.... The sun was already standing at the meridian and was not far from sinking toward evening" (Meek 59). After this introduction, Paris tells his dream. The position of the sun in the zodiac, and then the position of the sun in the sky are significant ordering points for Guido when he describes an event.
The day on which Paris is killed is also described in astronomical terms: "It was the time when the sun had already progressed so far in its course beneath the celestial circle of the zodiac that in that year it had entered the sign of Cancer, in which, according to the divine arrangement of stars, the summer solstice takes place" (Meek 200). Paris' dream vision on the day of the summer solstice was a critical cause of the Trojan War, since his choice of Venus led him to seize Helen, the proximate cause of the Fall of Troy. On the other summer solstice, when Paris is killed, Ajax, the man who will kill him, is evidently affected in his mind by the times: "Then Ajax, carried away by some mad impulse, marched to battle without armor, and with uncovered head, and he carried only a sword in his hand, thus indeed being without protection" (Meek 200‑201). Ajax and Paris kill one another on this fateful day. The first solstice influenced Paris' mind and passions, through his dream vision; the second solstice contributed to Ajax' madness. The influences of the two solstices interact ultimately to cause the deaths of both men.
Guido develops three other extended astralscapes in the Historia. They all affirm the dependent relationship between the position of the sun in the zodiac, the seasons on earth, and the actions of men.3 These descriptions are based on time, not place. They are certainly related to the rhetorical tradition, which Otto Weinreich calls the "epischen Zeitangabe." 4 However, the consistent use of the zodiacal position of the sun is peculiar to Guido, as is his use of these set pieces when he uses so little descriptive material, indicating that he considers these broad astralscapes which relate the zodiac to the seasons to human affairs to be significant.
Guido's use of the relationship of time, the heavens, and men's actions is clear in his description of the time when the Greek leaders gather to plot the death of Hector: "Accordingly when twilight came before the faces of men, and when everywhere in the space of the sky could be seen the stars that night, which impairs the eyes of those looking at the appearances of the rest of things, displays openly on account of the shadows of its darkness" (Meek 146). Just as darkness released Medea's passion, here darkness impairs men's understanding. When it is dark enough to see the stars, you cannot see (e.g. know) anything else. The stars are real, and therefore in a sense knowable, but they affect men's minds which are better able to control their passions by the clear light of the sun.
The dominant power of Agamemnon's army is emphasized by the fires they light after they have established the siege at Troy: "That night, at the decision of Agamemnon, they made the siege permanent with great ease, when with many fires and blazing torches they scorned the shadows of night. And it appeared to the army that the artificial glow was no less than if the brightness of day were shining" (Meek 122‑3). Although this artificial glow is definitely preferable to the darkness of night, daylight is welcomed: "The shadows of that night were removed when they were put to flight in the morning by the rising dawn, and the sun lit up the surface of the earth with its rays" (Meek 123). Guido's darkness at night is not simply the absence of street lamps; the powers of the stars to confuse and influence human behavior are greatest in the absence of daylight.
Night and day, the sun and moon, the seasons. These are the basic descriptive elements that Guido uses to locate events in the Historia. They are used in a technical and scientific way that, although it may also be rhetorical, is definitely astronomical, that is to say, astrological, for at that time, and for many years thereafter, they were practically the same.
Works Cited:
1. Guido de Columnis, Historia Destructionis Troiae, ed. by Nathaniel Edward Griffin (1936; rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1970). This edition is cited as Historia.
2. English translations of quotations from Guido are taken from the Historia Destructionis Troiae by Guido delle Colonne, translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), cited as Meek.
3. Historia VII, p. 67; VIIII, pp. 87-88; and XXXIII, pp. 253-54.
4. Otto Weinreich, Phöbus, Aurora, Kalender und Uhr: Über eine Doppelform der epischen Zeitbestimmung in der Erzählkunst der Antike und Neuzeit. (Stuttgart: Verlag von W. Kohnhammer, 1937), p. 2.
© Diane Thompson: 11/10/1998
update: 02/16/2011