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Recycling and adapting Constantine Manasses’ Aristandros and Kallithea in the Palaiologan Chapters in Political Verse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2023
Abstract
The Chapters in Political Verse is a collection of one hundred paraenetic chapters focusing on vices and virtues, transmitted in the Par.gr. 2750A and the Vat.gr. 1898 (fourteenth century) and containing fragments of the lost novel Aristandros and Kallithea by Constantine Manasses (twelfth century). This article offers a discussion on the authorship and audience of the Chapters (better known under the title Moral Poem and attributed to Manasses), arguing that it belongs firmly in the Palaiologan period and was not composed by Manasses. It pays particular attention to the way in which the anonymous author worked with the Manassean hypotext.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
Footnotes
The research for this article was funded by the FWF project P28959 (01.10.2016–30.09.2020) Byzantine Poetry in the Long Twelfth Century. I would like to thank here Andreas Rhoby and Nikos Zagklas for their help and suggestions; Marc Lauxtermann, who supervised my PhD research from which this paper stems; Ingela Nilsson for all her support during the revisions of this article; and the anonymous reviewers who offered substantial and useful comments on successive drafts.
References
1 For recent discussions on Manasses and his works, see Paul, A. and Rhoby, A., Konstantinos Manasses, Verschronik (Synopsis Chronike) (Stuttgart 2019) 5–7Google Scholar; Nilsson, I., Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: the authorial voice of Constantine Manasses (Cambridge 2020), esp. 13–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See O. Mazzon, ‘Nuovi frammenti di Costantino Manasse dal codice Neap. II C 32’ (forthcoming).
3 For all textual witnesses (apart from the recent discovery by Ottavia Mazzon), see E. Tsolakis, Συμβολὴ στὴ μελέτη τοῦ ποιητικοῦ ἔργου τοῦ Κωνσταντίνου Μανασσῆ καὶ κριτικὴ ἔκδοση τοῦ μυθιστορήματός του «Τὰ κατ’ Ἀρίστανδρον καὶ Καλλίθεαν» (Thessaloniki 1967) and Mazal, O., Der Roman des Konstantinos Manasses: Überlieferung, Rekonstruktion, Textausgabe der Fragmente (Vienna 1967)Google Scholar.
4 Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, 154.
5 For a detailed description of Par.gr. 2750A, see Omont, H., Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale, vol. III (Paris 1888) 35Google Scholar, and Cariou, ‘Grec 2750A’, https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ cc96454k. See also D. K. Konstantinidis (ed.), ‘Ἀνδρονίκου Παλαιολόγου Κεφάλαια περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας’, Βυζαντινά 15 (1989) 179–236 (185–8); Bianconi, D., Tessalonica nell'età dei Paleologi. Le pratiche intellettuali nel riflesso della cultura scritta (Paris 2005) 37Google Scholar, n. 67. On the Vat.gr. 1898, see Canart, P., Codices Vaticani graeci. Codices 1745-1962, vol. I: Codicum enarrationes (Vatican 1970) 568, 570Google Scholar; Bianconi, D., ‘La biblioteca di Cora tra Massimo Planude e Niceforo Gregora. Una questione di mani’, Segno e Testo 3 (2005) 391–438Google Scholar (418, no. 44).
6 A complete edition of the Chapters in Four Ways is currently being prepared, and so far the different parts have been studied in isolation. The hexameters were studied by B. Katsaros, ‘Οι εξάμετροι στίχοι των χφφ Paris gr. 2750 A, φφ 1-88 καὶ Vatic. gr. 1898, φφ 342-393v. Το πρόβλημα της πατρότητας’, in Μνήμη Σταμάτη Καρατζά: Ερευνητικά προβλήματα νεοελληνικής φιλολογίας και γλωσσολογίας (Thessaloniki 1990) 67–91, not providing a critical edition. The iambics were edited in part by Ozbic, M., ‘I Κεφάλαια di Andronico Paleologo’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91 (1998) 406–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in their entirety by D. K. Konstantinidis, ‘Ἀνδρονίκου Παλαιολόγου Κεφάλαια περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας’, Βυζαντινά 15 (1989) 179–236. A critical edition with translation of the anacreontics has just been published: Paoletti, G. M., ‘The octosyllabic verses of the Chapters in Four Ways’, Medioevo Greco 21 (2021) 413–34Google Scholar.
7 E. Miller, ‘Poème morale de Constantin Manasses’, Annuaire de l'Association pour l'encouragement des études grecques en France 9 (1875) 23–75. A critical edition comparing the readings of P and V and offering an apparatus locorum will soon be available in G. M. Paoletti, The Multifarious Muse: two Palaeologan collections of paraenetic chapters (forthcoming).
8 Mazal, Der Roman; Tsolakis, Συμβολὴ.
9 Mazal, Der Roman; Tsolakis, Συμβολὴ and ‘Το λεγόμενο «ηθικό ποίημα» του Κωνσταντίνου Μανασσή’, Hellenika 53 (2003) 7–18; Krumbacher, K., Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (Munich 1897)Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of this debate, see also Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, 160–1.
10 Rhoby, A. and Zagklas, N., ‘Zu einer möglichen Deutung von Πανιώτης’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 61 (2011) 171–7Google Scholar.
11 For a thorough discussion of the two collections and their authorship, see Paoletti, The Multifarious Muse.
12 Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, esp. 142–69.
13 Ibid., 142.
14 Krumbacher, Geschichte, 379.
15 Tsolakis, ‘Ηθικό ποίημα’, 13–14.
16 Paoletti, The Multifarious Muse.
17 Nilsson, I. and Nyström, E., ‘To compose, read and use a Byzantine text: aspects of the chronicle of Constantine Manasses’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 33.1 (2009) 42–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar (53–4).
18 Ibid., 59.
19 Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, 164.
20 Harrison, S. J., ‘Cento’, in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford 2012)Google Scholar.
21 Martin, B. and Ringham, F., Key Terms in Semiotics (London 2006) 100Google Scholar.
22 Ibid., 99. On hypertextuality in Byzantine literature, see also Nilsson, I., ‘The same story but another: a reappraisal of literary imitation in Byzantium’, in A. Rhoby and E. Schiffer (eds), Imitatio – variatio – aemulatio (Vienna 2008) 195–208Google Scholar.
23 Efthymiadis, S., ‘Rewriting’ in S. Papaioannou (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature (Oxford 2021) 348–64Google Scholar.
24 Ibid., 350.
25 Ibid., 351. Cf. this division into ‘copying’ and ‘adaptation’ with ‘spoliation’ vs ‘translation’ in I. Nilsson, ‘Imitation as Spoliation, Reception as Translation? The art of transforming things in Byzantium’, in I. Jevtić and I. Nilsson (eds), Spoliation as Translation: Medieval Worlds in the Eastern Mediterranean (Brno 2021) 20–37.
26 Ibid., 351.
27 S. Constantinou, ‘Metaphrasis. Mapping Premodern Rewriting’, in S. Constantinou and C. Høgel (eds) Metaphrasis: a Byzantine concept of rewriting and its hagiographical products (Leiden 2021) 3–60.
28 See Mazzon, Estratti da Costantino Manasse.
29 prol. 1-5 (V): Νῦν οὖν σοι, πάντων βέλτιστε τῶν κατὰ πνεῦμα ζώντων/ τὸ κατ᾽ ἰσχὺν πεπλήρωκα τοὺς ἐν ἐφέσει λόγους,/ θεσμοῖς ὡς θέμις ἐντολῆς ὑπακοῆς ὑπείκων·/θεοῦ γὰρ λόγους ἔκρινα δεινὸν ἐξωριάζειν/καὶ προφητῶν ψυχωφελεῖς ἐν ὑποθήκῃ βίβλους (Now then, best of those who live according to the spirit, I fulfilled your orders as best I could, obeying, as one should, the laws of the vow of obedience. I believe it is wicked to disregard God's words and the books of the prophets that nourish the soul through admonition). Epil. 1-6: <Ἔ>χων, ὦ θεία κεφαλή, φίλη μοι καὶ τιμία, (fol. 409v)/ τῶν πόνων μου τὰ δράγματα, τοὺς σιτοφόρους στάχυς,/ὡς σῖτον ὥσπερ ἐκ παντὸς καθάπερ φυραθέντα,/ὡς διπυρίτας καθαρούς, ὡς φωτοφόρους ἄρτους/ ἄρτον πρὸς τὸν οὐράνιον ὁρῶντας μετ᾽ εὐνοίας,/εὐχὰς καλῶς τὴν ἀμοιβὴν ἀπὸ καρδίας δίδου (Here it is, divine head, my friend and pride, the harvest of my labour, the ears of corn, just like bread that has been kneaded from every source, like double-baked loaves of pure quality, like light-bringing loaves, bread for those who behold the heavenly one with goodwill. Pray for me from your heart as a reward).
30 See, for instance, Nicholas Kabasilas, Letter 3; Theodore Laskaris, Letter 38; Michael Gabras, Letters 26, 79, 128, 350 and 421. It is unclear whether the same Gabras (in Letters 370 and 411) addresses Kantakouzenos as θεία κεφαλή because he was a good friend or because, as the megas domestikos, he was the second in command; the same goes for Nikephoros Gregoras, Letter 130, which also addresses Kantakouzenos as θεία κεφαλή in the time that he was megas domestikos.
31 See Tsolakis, Συμβολὴ, 23–5, and ‘Ηθικὸ ποίημα’, 9.
32 See A. Kazhdan, ‘Confession’, in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. I, 493.
33 See Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, 162–4, with references.
34 I owe this suggestion to one of my anonymous reviewers.
35 See Mergiali, S., L'enseignement et les lettrés pendant l’époque des Paléologues (1261-1453) (Athens 1996) 49Google Scholar.
36 Ibid., 53.
37 Mazzon, O., Leggere, selezionare e raccogliere excerpta nella prima età paleologa. La silloge conservata nel codice greco Neap. II C 32 (Alessandria 2021) 18Google Scholar.
38 Ibid., 153.
39 S. Constantinou, ‘A rewriter at work’, in S. Constantinou and C. Høgel (eds) Metaphrasis: a Byzantine concept of rewriting and its hagiographical products (Leiden 2021) 324-342 (328).
40 Tr. of Manassean verses in Jeffreys, E. M., Four Byzantine Novels (Liverpool 2012) 315Google Scholar.
41 Ibid., 315, n. 175.
42 Ibid., 280. Cf. Nilsson, Writer and Occasion, 154, advising caution on the assumed content and sequence of the novelistic plot.
43 Jeffreys, Four Byzantine Novels, 282.
44 Tr. M. Meeusen, K. Oikonomopoulou and L. Silvano, ‘The prefaces to Pseudo-Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Medical Puzzles and Natural Problems Books 1 and 2: Greek text, translation, and interpretation’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 61 (2021) 110–140: 117.
45 Tr. of Manassean verses in Jeffreys, Four Byzantine Novels, 323.
46 Ibid., 280.
47 Ibid., 323.
48 Ibid., 280.
49 Kaldellis, A., Hellenism in Byzantium: the transformation of Greek identity and the reception of classical tradition (Cambridge 2007) 17–79Google Scholar.
50 Sp. Lambros, ‘Ὁ Σπανέας τοῦ Βατικανοῦ Παλατινοῦ κώδικος 367’, Νέος Ἑλληνομνήμων 14 (1917) 353–80.
51 Ed. J.Fr. Boissonade, ‘Poème moral de George Lapithès’, Notices et Extraits 12.2 (1831) 1–74 (repr. PG 149.1001-1046), and A. Chatzisavvas, Γεώργιος Λαπίθης: Στίχοι πολιτικοί αυτοσχέδιοι εις κοινήν ακοήν (Besançon 2001). See also G. Danezis, ‘Ο Σπανέας και οι πολιτικοί στίχοι του Γεωργίου Λαπίθη’, Δίπτυχα 4 (1987) 413–25.