No country for girly girls: the woes of Erminia.

We shall now leave Rinaldo to his as yet unknown fate, and turn to another young (and purely fictional) character in the story. Erminia is a young and beautiful girl, a blonde and on the Muslim camp – all three major female characters are, an intriguing fact which will be discussed later – who is a guest of King Aladdin.

Erminia joins him, at his invitation, / Erminia fair, who to his court did fly, / by Christian armies ousted from her reign / of Antioch, the king her father slain. (3.12)

Erminia, by Sebastien Leclerc. © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014.

From above the walls of Jerusalem, Aladdin is watching a battle raging between his own men, led by Clorinda, and the Christians led by a most gallant and fierce knight. In a scene reminiscent of Homer’s Iliad (Helen formerly of Sparta and now of Troy does the same, pointing out various Greek heroes to the Trojans), Aladdin asks Erminia who that man is; she knows the names of all the main Christian knights from the siege of her own city,  This is her answer:

He is Prince Tancred. Would that he were mine / one day, my captive – and not dead, for I / want him alive that I may wreak a fine / vengeance on him and slake my rage thereby.

She is only telling half the truth, and her words are at best ambivalent, for she is really deeply in love with Tancred, who treated her with courtesy, and honoured her like a queen after Antioch fell to the Christian’s siege. In the end, he granted her her freedom plus all her personal jewellery and treasures. How could she not love him? But Tancred is in love with Clorinda. And Clorinda is a good friend of Erminia’s. And Erminia knows nothing of this love – and to be fair, neither does Clorinda, at first.

In Canto Six, Tancred is to fight in single combat with the major Muslim warrior, Argant. The two warriors are equally fierce and strong, and the event cannot be concluded in just one day. Argant is injured, but not seriously, and so is Tancred. Erminia wishes to go to Tancred and heal him with her arts; because, of course, she is a little bit of a witch, too:

 And since she by her mother had been taught / the secret virtues in all growing things, / and all that might through magic spells be wrought / to close a wound and soothe the pangs it brings / (lore which the custom of that country thought / fit for the noble daughters of its kings) …. / She yearns to nurse her lover, and to choose / some condign(1) way to serve his enemy / perhaps with noisome herb or cursed juice / to sprinkle him and poison him thereby. (6.67-8)

Erminia is reluctant to use such dark arts, although she yearns to heal Tancred. She debates the question of whether she should go to him for a while, but finally vain hopes and foolish daydreams of becoming his wife lead her to make a big decision: she will abandon Jerusalem and try to sneak into the Christian camp and inside Tancred’s tent. But how will she leave the city, whose gates are so scrupulously locked and guarded?

Erminia is not brave: she is the opposite of Clorinda, in many ways. A girly girl, she has only got time for love and for spending time with her dear friend, to whom she confides all her secrets  – they often share the same bed and keep chatting till the morning, as girl friends will do –  except the one that concerns Tancred. Erminia has free access to Clorinda’s room and things, and decides to dress up in her martial friend’s suit of mail, and thus disguised leave the city. At that moment, Erminia realises that perhaps it is better to be a warrior maiden than a cosseted princess:

How I envy her lot – not for her glory’s glow / nor for her beauty (womanish vanity), / but that no long gown clogs her steps / and no envious bower cramps her heart, / for she girds on her arms when exploits are her aim, / and rides out unrestrained by fear or shame. (6.82)

Eventually she squeezes herself into Clorinda’s armour and, feeling extremely uncomfortable and slightly ridiculous, for she soon realises that ‘the habit does not the priest make,’ she leaves the security of the city walls for the hostile world outside.

Erminia in Clorinda’s clothes flees Jerusalem, by Giambatista Piazzetta. Sp Coll Hunterian Cd.2.1., Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library.

Her plan goes all awry: not only cannot she walk – much less swagger like a true warrior maiden – in the hot and heavy armour, but she is mistaken for Clorinda by a Christian knight whose whole family had been exterminated by her only that morning! Her maid and squire, who had been accompanying her all along, as befits a girl of noble family, flee, and her horse carries her to a nearby ancient forest, where she is lost and wanders all alone, crying and calling for help, but alas, to no avail…

In the end, after a night and a day wandering, scared and lonely and desperate, she comes across an idyllic scene: a family of poor but happy fishermen and shepherds, braiding baskets and playing the woodland whistles and singing. They take her in for a while, offering hospitality and friendship, and in a turn very common to romance, Erminia the princess is transformed for a while into a shepherdess.

The pastoral idyll, a very ancient tradition in romance (‘Dafnis and Chloe’ is the archetype for this genre, written in the 2nd century) was having a comeback in the late Renaissance, and Tasso himself wrote one of the most famous pastorals of all time, Aminta. Why did he choose to insert this sort of adventure in the midst of all the drama of war? Perhaps as a respite, or to gently remind the readers of his other work. The story of Erminia is not finished here though: more is in store for her as the affairs of Christians and ‘pagans’ take a more dramatic turn soon.

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(1) condign: fitting and deserved, esp. as punishment or retribution.

Jerusalem, Object of Desire

The Christian army is marching toward the object of desire, Jerusalem. They arrive there when the sun is high in the sky, and the splendid sight appears in front of their eyes:

A soldier kneels in front of the splendid sight of Jerusalem. By Sebastien Leclerc (1637-1714). © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014

behold! afar Jerusalem gleams, discreet;

behold! Jerusalem is glimpsed, is seen;

behold! from all one great salute rings out:

‘Jerusalem!’ a thousand voices shout.

(Canto Three, st.3)

The effect the sight of the holy city has on the Crusaders is more complex than mere satisfaction at having arrived at the threshold of the final stage in their plan:

The immense delight that this first glimpse imparts

now sweetens every breast, but soon gives way

to deep contrition, and in all their hearts

stirs awe mingled with reverence, till they

scarce dare to lift their eyes by fits and starts

toward that city where Christ chose to live,

where He died and was buried, and where He

rose from the dead in glorious majesty.’ (st.5)

Their delight is mingled with awe and wonder: after all, this is not just any coveted city, but the place which lies at the heart of their faith. They react to it in a way rather difficult for a modern person to understand, at least in the context of religious experience:

Half-stifled words, unspoken vows, and heaves

of broken sobs and sudden tear-choked sighs

from a people that at once exults and grieves

all through the air make a deep murmur rise….

Barefooted each man treads the hard wayside

(the chiefs by their example more the rest),

silk trim or golden each man casts aside,

plucks from his head his plume or glorious crest,

while from his heart he tears the cloak of pride,

eyes hot with tears, devotion in his breast.

As though his way were barred unless he weeps,

each man his self-accusing counsel keeps. (st. 6 & 8)

One of the hardest thing for a writer of historical fiction, particularly when it is set in such distant times, is to empathise with and hence portray convincingly the very different mentality of the people back then. The passion and devotion with which the Crusaders threw themselves into their enterprise and the flame which moved them from within are incomprehensible and alien for most of us. In Justin Cartwright’s fascinating novel, Lion Heart (Bloomsbury, 2013) the protagonist Richard Cathar [1] wonders:

 What is it that inspired such devotion? What was it that caused Richard the Lionheart to take the cross and sail for Acre? Why was Robert the Bruce so passionate that his heart should be taken to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after his death? His last testament read: I will that as soone as I am trespassed out of this worlde that ye take my harte out of my body and embawme it and present my harte to the Holy Sepulchre where Our Lord laye, seying my body can not come there. In fact his heart – embalmed – only got as far as Moorish Granada, where Sir James Douglas, the Black Douglas, bearing the heart, was killed. The heart was returned to Scotland.

Richard Cathar then goes on to make a glib statement about religion, which doesn’t even begin to justify such a passion (read the novel if you want to find out more). Greed, imperialism, and a love of adventure might account for the Crusades, but what could explain the last wish and testament of a man who had nothing more to gain on that score?

Cartwright’s novel, like many recent historical novels, is written on two temporal planes, the present, with all its packed action in the Middle East – the very place of the Crusades – and the twelfth century. Perhaps this is the most honest way to write a historical novel about the Crusades today, when author and audience are so far removed from their world that one foot must be firmly kept in ours. Torquato Tasso, on the other hand, still belonged to that era and ambience in which the sight of a holy  relic, image, or city brought hardened soldiers to ecstatic joy and tearful contrition, and so he could be eloquent and persuasive about it.

[1] I know, I know …

Fair and Brave Maidens, Part One

In Canto Two, the old, wicked king of Jerusalem, Aladdin* wants to find a way to destroy the Christian population of the city, so that they don’t cooperate with the invaders and bring him down. An evil sorcerer and necromancer by the name of Ismen advises him to steal a sacred statue of the Virgin Mary from a Christian church and place it in his mosque, then accuse Christians for the sacrilege. The evil plan is duly carried out, and the following morning all the Christians in Jerusalem are trembling with fear, expecting certain death.
But a fair and saintly virgin, Sophronia, comes forth and confesses to the crime, seeking to become a martyr for the Christian faith. Sophronia wants to give up her life to God, although there is a man, Olindo, who is madly in love with her and has asked her to marry him several times, but in vain.
King Aladdin is filled with desire for the beautiful maiden and is amazed by her courage; he is also furious because her act has thwarted his plans, and so he condemns Sophronia to death at the stake.  But as she is about to be led to the public execution place, something unexpected happens … (to be continued)

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* Aladdin is an invented name, obviously much more attractive for a western audience – and more easily pronounceable – than Iftikhar ad-Daula, who was the historical ruler of Jerusalem at the time of the First Crusade.

‘A Turkish Mosque lighted after the Mahometan manner where Aladine the Emperor is seated on a Throne surrounded by his Divan 1759.’ Jane Elizabeth Collins. This information is © The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, 2014

 

Heroes, historical and fictional, Part One

Seventeenth century artist Giambattista Piazzetta depicted Godfrey, Duke of Lotharingia, in a classical mode: his dress, helmet and demeanour – and semi-nakedness- link him to the Greco-Roman epic heroes and gods. But his gesture of pointing to the heavens is specifically Christian, and so is the winged angel who brought God’s decision of making him the leader of the Christian army. Tasso wanted to write a great Christian epic to equal the pagan ones of antiquity, and he did it using many of the classical conventions. Sp Coll Hunterian Cd.2.1., Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library

Who is the hero in this story? He is introduced to us in Canto One (think of a Canto as a chapter in a novel), in accordance with epic etiquette. Godfrey, Duke of Lotharingia (1060-1099) was a historical figure. He was one of the leaders of the First Crusade: he led a large contingent, along with other nobles, most notably his brother Baldwin, Hugh of France, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders (many Roberts, which is perhaps what inspired Walter Scott’s novel on the First Crusade, Count Robert of Paris – but more of that later), and many others, from the Rhineland to Hungary, then through the Balkans to Thrace and Constantinople, where he met with other contingents and more leaders. Uniting outside Constantinople the “pilgrims”, as they called themselves (the terms Crusade and Crusader were invented much later, in the sixteenth century), crossed the Golden Horn, passed on to Anatolia, and from there moved towards Jerusalem,  their ultimate destination.

Was Godfrey a hero in history? It depends. He was certainly brave in terms of the values system of his time: an aristocratic warrior who led armies to war, being the first among them to plunge into battle. It would also seem that he was honestly religious in his purpose to liberate the Holy Sepulchre  from Muslim rule (which was the Crusaders’ professed aim), rather than motivated solely by ambition and greed, like many others who participated in that enterprise. Perhaps this was the reason why Godfrey was unanimously elected by the other leaders of the First Crusade to become the first King of Jerusalem. It is interesting that Godfrey did not accept the title of King, postulating that there was only one King in Jerusalem and that was Jesus Christ, so he took the humbler title Defender of the Holy Sepulchre instead. But he died within less than a year, and his brother Baldwin, who had no such scruples, became Baldwin I, first official Latin King of Jerusalem. Tasso will play upon this difference of character, offsetting the one brother, the pure Christian hero, against the other, the grasping and worldly lord (not quite a villain though – this type will be reserved for “infidels” only, and to a lesser degree, for Greeks).

In Jerusalem Delivered history is stretched a little to make for a more compelling narrative. The action begins in Canto One, stanza 7, when “the Eternal Father downwards cast his eyes” and sees that the Crusaders are not doing as well as it was hoped. They need a leader, so God who examines all hearts decides that Godfrey is the one. In a scene which has striking similarities to rhapsody α of The Odyssey combined with the Christian story of the Annunciation, God sends Gabriel (the Christian counterpart of Hermes, the winged messenger) down to earth, to apprise Godfrey of his decision. Godfrey summons the leaders and in a rousing speech urges them into action: Jerusalem must be delivered. Peter the Hermit (another historical figure, “who first preached the crusade and led it out”), representing spiritual authority and inspired by God, convinces the assembled nobles to make Godfrey their leader:

“Make one sole head lend them its light and force;

to one sole man sceptre and power bring:

grant him the place and image of a king.”

Thus fact is embellished by fiction in Tasso’s epic. Narrative reality has its own rules in epic poetry: the random and even pointless character of historical facts would be very badly received by an audience that expects a certain unity and determinate structure. Therefore Godfrey the “single charismatic leader” is infinite preferable to “the fragmented, conflicting leadership of reality.” The latter is material for historians; the former is the prerogative of the poet.