Musaeus the allegorist? Hero and Leander and late antique hermeneutics

Musaeus the allegorist? Hero and Leander and late antique hermeneutics

The proposed paper examines the allegorical dimension of Musaeus’s Hero and Leander (‘H&L,’ 5th-6th cent. C.E.), an influential yet underresearched epic poem about secret love and tragic death. This work prominently features elements that are responsive to late antique methods of allegorical interpretation—for example, symbolically charged imagery of light and darkness. Analyzing such correspondences, Gelzer argues that H&L is a spiritual allegory written by a Christian Neoplatonist—a conclusion dismissed by recent scholarship (Montiglio 2018, Morales). Lamberton acknowledges that whatever Musaeus’s intentions were, if we consider the ubiquity of allegorical hermeneutics in his time, we can reasonably assume that contemporary audiences interpreted H&L allegorically. Yet, while methodologically more circumspect than Gelzer, Lamberton does not investigate how Musaeus guides his readers’ hopes for deeper meanings.

I start by arguing that if we want to get to the bottom of Musaeus’s complex relationship to allegory, we have to leave behind such methods that exclusively locate deeper meanings either in the poem or in the eye of the reader; what we need instead is a dynamic model that acknowledges that literary meanings—even allegorical ones—are the product of mutual communication between texts and their audiences (Iser, Ryan, Zunshine). Accordingly, my paper explores how H&L generates hidden messages by establishing dialogues between the poem and late antique interpretative traditions, both Christian and ‘pagan’ (Young, Struck, Akçay).

To limit my presentation to twenty minutes, I focus on two particularly intriguing features of H&L. First, I examine how allegorical interpretations of the Odyssey (Proclus, Basil, …) enrich our understanding of Musaeus’s Homeric intertextuality (Montiglio 2020). This section argues that H&L features several instances of what I call "allegorized intertextuality": some of the poem’s prominent intertexts—such as Odysseus’s arrival in Scheria—happen to be episodes that were frequently allegorized. Read through the filter of their reception, I conclude, these intertexts subtly invite a philosophizing perspective without infringing on the poem’s literary framework.

Second, I discuss the role of seduction in H&L. During the protagonists’ first meeting, nothing about their communication is straightforward: "deceitful" (δολόεντα) Leander approaches Hero in silence; being led into the innermost part of a temple, she gives "discreet indications" (νεύμασι λαθριδίοισι) of desire but plays hard to get; their interactions are based on the assumption that the girl’s silence equals approval, “yes” means “no.” These elements enable conflicting perspectives on the poem’s allegorical potential. The motif of silence, the movement into a sanctuary, and the decoding of signs echo common topoi of philosophical allegoresis and can thus be understood as invitations to read Musaeus allegorically. If, however, we additionally emphasize the presence of deceptive seduction and consider that in patristic literature it was often used as a metaphor for the departure from "correct," pious exegesis, we are encouraged to question the validity of an allegorical approach to H&L.

My paper concludes that H&L ingenuously encourages creative readerly participation: Musaeus was aware of the peculiar hermeneutical tools used by contemporary readers and seized this opportunity to engage his interpreters in novel ways.