Alexander romance

See also: Alexander the Great in legend

Alexander romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical figure died before Alexander and could not have written a full account of his life. The unknown author is still sometimes called Pseudo-Callisthenes.

The text was recast into various versions between the 4th and the 16th centuries, in Middle Greek, Latin, Armenian, Syriac, Hebrew, and most medieval European vernaculars.

Contents

Versions of the romance

Alexander was a legend in his own time. In a now-lost history of the king, the historical Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, went so far as to invent a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. (According to Plutarch, when Onesicritus read this passage to his patron Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals who went on to become a king himself, Lysimachus quipped "I wonder where I was at the time."[1])

Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Romance underwent numerous expansions and revisions exhibiting a plasticity unseen in "higher" literary forms. Latin, Armenian, Georgian and Syriac translations were made in Late Antiquity (4th to 6th centuries).

The Latin Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon was one of the most popular medieval romances. A 10th century Latin version by one Leo the Archpriest is the basis of the later medieval vernacular translations in all the major languages of Europe, including French (12th century), English, Scots (The Buik of Alexander) (13th century), Italian, Spanish (the Libro de Alexandre), German (the Alexanderlied and a 15th century version by Johannes Hartlieb), Slavonic, Romanian, and Hungarian.

The Syriac version gave rise to Middle Eastern recensions, including Arabic, Persian (the Iskandarnamah), Ethiopic, Hebrew (in the first part of Sefer HaAggadah), Turkish[2](14th century), and Middle Mongolian (13th century).

The story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an (Sura The Cave 18:83-98) matches the Gog and Magog episode in the Romance, which has caused some controversy among Islamic scholars (see Alexander in the Qur'an). Alexander was identified in Persian and Arabic-language sources as "Dhû-'l Qarnayn", Arabic for the "Horned One", likely a reference to the ram horns Alexander wears on coins minted during his rule to indicate his descent from the Egyptian god Amun. Islamic accounts of the Alexander legend, particularly in Persia, combined the Pseudo-Callisthenes material with indigenous Sassanid Middle Persian ideas about Alexander. The Alexander Romance is the source of many incidents in Ferdowsi's Shahnama.

Greek versions

The oldest version of the Greek text, the Historia Alexandri Magni (Recensio α), can be dated to the 3rd century. It was subjected to various revisions during the Byzantine period, some of them recasting it into poetical form in Middle Greek vernacular. Recensio α is the source of a Latin version by Julius Valerius (4th century), and an Armenian version (5th century). Most of the content of the Romance is fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as Sirens or Centaurs.

French versions

There are several Old and Middle French and one Anglo-Norman Alexander romances:

  1. The Alexandre of Albéric de Briançon was composed around 1120.
  2. Fuerre de Gadres by a certain Eustache, later used by Alexandre de Bernay and Thomas de Kent
  3. Decasyllabic Alexander, anonymous from 1160–70.
  4. Mort Alixandre, an anonymous fragment of 159 lines.
  5. Li romans d'Alixandre (c.1170), attributed to clergyman Alexandre de Bernay (also known as Alexandre de Pâris), is based on the translations of various episodes of the conqueror's life as composed by previous poets (Lambert de Tort, Eustache and more importantly Albéric of Besançon). Unlike other authors of the era who undertook the Alexander saga, he did not base his work on the Pseudo-Callisthenes or on the various translations of Julius Valerius' work. As is common in medieval literature, the project stems from the desire to improve on the work of others and to offer the complete life of the hero to the public, a theme that is also very present in the cyclical turn that the chansons de geste took at the time. It should be noted that Thomas de Kent also penned (probably) the very same decade a version of the saga, Le roman de toute chevalerie, which is independent of Alexandre de Bernay's poem: Alexander's influence on the medieval imagination is thus shown as being as great, if not greater, than that of other pagan figures such as Hercules or Aeneas.
  6. Thomas de Kent (or Eustache), around 1175, wrote the Anglo-Norman Roman de toute chevalerie, which became the basis for the Middle English King Alysaunder.
  7. La Venjance Alixandre by Jehan le Nevelon.
  8. The Alixandre en Orient of Lambert de Tort was composed around 1170.
  9. Le Vengement Alixandre by Gui de Cambrai, before 1191.
  10. The Old French Prose Alexandre was the most popular Old French version. Anonymous.
  11. Prise de Defur, from Picardy c. 1250.
  12. The Voyage d'Alexandre au Paradis terrestre is a French adaptation (c. 1260) of the Latin Iter ad paradisum
  13. The Vow Cycle of Alexander romances includes the Voeux du paon by Jacques de Longuyon, Restor du Paon by Jean le Court, and Parfait du paon by Jean de Le Mote.
  14. The Faicts et les Conquestes d'Alexandre le Grand by Jean Wauquelin c. 1448.
  15. The Fais et concquestes du noble roy Alexandre is a late medieval prose version.
  16. The Faits du grand Alexandre by Vasque de Lucène is a prose translation (1468) of Quintus Curtius Rufus' Historiae Alexandri Magni.

English versions

In medieval England the Alexander Romance experienced a remarkable popularity. It is even referred to in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where the monk apologizes to the pilgrimage group for treating a material so well known. However, unlike the indigenous legend of King Arthur and the related romances dealing with the Matter of Britain, the Alexander Romance neither confines itself to the history and culture of Western Europe, nor is it a story situated in the Middle Ages. There are five major romances in Middle English which have been passed down to us and most remain only in fragments. There are also two versions from Scotland, one which has sometimes been ascribed to the Early Scots poet John Barbour which exists only in a sixteenth-century printing, and a Middle Scots version from 1499:

  1. King Alisaunder from c. 1275. In medieval orthography, "king" could be "kyng" and "Alisaunder" could be "Alysaunder".
  2. The Romance of Alisaunder (or Alexander of Macedon), sometimes referred to as Alexander A, is a fragment of 1247 lines and written in alliterative verse. It was probably written between 1340 and 1370, shortly before the beginning of the Alliterative Revival, of which it is believed to be one of the oldest remaining poems. It has been preserved in a school notebook dating from 1600. In the broad strokes Alexander A deals with the begetting of Alexander by Nectanebus, his birth and early years and breaks off in the midst of the account of Philip's siege of Byzantium. It is likely that the source for this fragment has been the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis. Beside that it has been expanded with additional material taken from Paulus Orosius' Historiae adversum paganos, the adverse remarks, which are typical of Orosius, however have been omitted by the poet, whose main concern is Alexander's heroic conduct.
  3. Alexander and Dindimus, sometimes referred to as Alexander B, is also written in alliterative verse. This fragment is found in the MS Bodley and consists of five letters which are passed between Alexander and Dindimus, who is the king of the Brahmins, a people of philosophers who shun all worldly lusts, ambitions and entertainments. In this respect their way of life resembles the ideal of an aescetic life, which was also preached by medieval monastic orders, such as the Franciscans. The source of Alexander B again is the I²-recension of the Historia de Preliis.
  4. The Wars of Alexander, sometimes referred to as Alexander C, is the longest of the alliterative versions of the Middle English Alexander Romances. It goes back to the I³-recension of the Historia de Preliis and can be found in the MS Ashmole 44 and in the Dublin Trinity College MS 213. Although both manuscripts are incomplete they supplement each other fairly well. In this version much space is given to letters and prophecies, which often bear a moralizing and philosophical tenor. The letters are an integral part of the Pseudo-Callisthenes tradition. The dominant theme is pride, which inevitably leads to the downfall of kings. In The Wars of Alexander the hero is endowed with superhuman qualities, which shows in the romance insofar as his enemies fall to him by the dozens and he is always at the center of action.
  5. The Prose Life of Alexander copied by Robert Thornton, c. 1440.
  6. The Buik of Alexander, anonymous, attributed to John Barbour, dates to 1438 according to its first printed edition from 1580.
  7. The Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour by Gilbert Hay, 1499. This work is in Middle Scots.

Middle Eastern versions

See also: Alexander the Great in the Qur'an

The Syriac, Persian, Arabic, Ethiopic and Bulgar versions of the Alexander romance are all closely related Christian and Muslim variants. Some people assert that the Alexander romance is the origin of the story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an. However, it seems that the versions containing the matching story are post-Islamic as evidenced by their future knowledge of historical events.

Two later Persian varieties are the Iskandarnameh and the A’ina-yi Sikanderi of Amir Khusrow

Notes

  1. ^ Plutarch, Life of Alexander, XLVI.
  2. ^ "Ahmedi, Taceddin". universalium.academic.ru. http://universalium.academic.ru/256043/Ahmedi,_Taceddin. Retrieved 19 December 2011. 

Translations

Literature

External links