Hysmine and Hysminias

A medieval writer hailing from an elite Constantinople family wrote an erotically charged romance directly inspired by ancient Greek romances preceding him by several centuries. Perhaps most closely based on Achilles Tatius's Leucippe and Clitophon, Eumathios Makrembolites manages to write with perhaps even more ekphrasis than his influences and far more sexually-charged prose. For, Hysmine and Hysminias, despite hailing from the pen of a Christian writer of the Eastern Roman Empire, is far more erotic and, in some passages, pornographic, than anything from Achilles Tatius or the other extant romances. Nonetheless, it makes up for this NSFW quality by featuring far less of the action-packed adventures and exotic travails than Leucippe and Clitophon, with the action of the story taking place mostly in Eurykomis, Aulikomis, Artykomis and Daphnepolis, four unspecified cities linked to various gods (Zeus, Artemis, Apollo) and some hazardous journeys at sea (including the appearance of "Ethiopian" pirates who are presumably the Byzantine equivalent to the dark-skinned Egyptian Nile Delta bandits of Achilles Tatius) . 

Indeed, nearly half of the text is occupied by the initial flirtations and devoted love of Hysmine and Hysminias, with the latter a herald to Hysmine's town for a Zeus festival. Initially unaffected by the arrows of Eros, he falls head over heels for Hysmine after a very lengthy time studied a garden wall painting of the god of love. Eros, or Cupid, is depicted as an emperor to whom all beings fall in tribute, and the use of ekphrasis by Makrembolites serves the plot very effectively and visually. The paintings on the garden wall, their symbolism, and the erotic dreams of Hysminias are all visually rich passages showing the powers of dreams. By the time the two lovers finally elope and plan to sail to Syria, one is glad the action of the story has finally progressed. Separated at sea by Poseidon, the two are separated as Hysmine is sacrificed for the god's appeasement. Left on shore due to his lamentations and grief, Hysminias is kidnapped by black pirates (again, likely inspired by the ancient Egyptian bandits or, perhaps, black pirates who had served with Arab armies in attacks on the Byzantine Empire?) who present an example of the dichotomy of barbarians and Greeks. It is not due to their skin color that they are savage, but their brute nature and non-Greek customs. For what it is worth, these black pirates don't rape their virgin captives, but end up becoming slaves themselves in a raid by the army of Daphnepolis.

Meanwhile, Hysmine is miraculously saved by a dolphin and Eros himself, who carries her to shore. Somehow, Hysmine was taken by the same ship of pirates herself but did not see Hyminias on their trireme. Both eventually end up as slaves who use the subterfuge of appearing to be siblings to resume some of their physical affection. Then, miraculously during the sacrifice at the altar of Apollo, the two are reunited with their parents, demand their freedom from slavery, and marry happily. Like the Greek romances, there is a lot of unexplained and random good fortune to match their misery, but not nearly enough exotic adventures. Moreover, Kratisthenes, the loyal cousin who counseled Hysminias and helped prepare for the doomed elopement to Syria, is not reunited with the family. One cannot help but feel the ancient Greek romances would have included loyal relatives in the triumphal marriage and faily reunion. Further, besides Syria and the dark-skinned pirates, there are no series of travails across the Mediterranean world or Middle East (which may reflect the decreased size of the empire by the time of Makrembolites). The black pirates represent the non-Greek world, but none are given a voice in the narrative besides their debauchery and looting. 

Despite its flaws and shortcomings when compared to the romances which predate it by 800 years, Hysmine and Hysminias remains a fascinating work of a Christian imagination set in the pagan Greek world. It's far more sexual and descriptive of the physical embraces of the hero and heroine, but still puts the ultimate value on virginity before marriage. As a story of the heroine rejecting the approved suitor of her parents for her true love, it stands as a romance urging free love, to a degree. In some respects it also brings to mind Daphnis and Chloe in the initially awkward and clumsy flirtations of the characters learning love for the first time. Yet is in in its dream sequences and examples of ekphrasis where its combination of realistic sexual relationships and pre-Christian gods that show the genius of Makrembolites in building the narrative's world as it is and how it should be. One must read the other contemporary Byzantine romances to further contextualize how Hysmine and Hysminias imagines the pre-Christian past, but one cannot help but feel this is unique in the annals of the genre. 

Leucippe and Clitophon

Leucippe and Clitophon seems to be unique among the extant ancient Greek "novels" for its use of a first-person narrator, who tells his tale to the initial narrator in the beginning of the text. In other respects, it is quite similar to the other Greek romances in that two young people fall in love at first sight but must endure a number of trials before consummating their relationship in proper marriage. The virtue of virginity for maidens and the intervention of the deities (especially Eros, Aphrodite, Artemis and Poseidon) or deus ex machina are, as in Heliodorus's novel, prolific. The author, Achilles Tatius of Alexandria, is believed to have composed the romance in the early 1st century of our era, thus predating Helidorus but drawing on similar precedents from earlier texts and Greek literature and mythology. In addition, Achilles Tatius is a master of vivid prose describing works of art, as well as the wondrous Nile of his Egyptian homeland. 

Though the kissing cousins are of Tyre and Byzantium, it is in Egypt where their most exotic and exciting escapades occur. Menelaus, the Egyptian native and proponent of pederasty (like Clinias, a cousin of Clitophon who loses his lover, Charicles), becomes a guide of sorts, a familiar Other who assists Clitophon, Leucippe, Clinias, and Satyrus for their survival in exotic Egypt. Achilles Tatius has them fend off dark-skinned bandits in the Nile Delta (not as black as Indians, but akin to "half-caste Ethiopians"), witness battles between the Egyptian army and said bandits, experience the lighthouse at Pharos near Alexandria, and hear descriptions of elephants while gazing upon the fauna of the Nile, particularly the crocodile and hippopotamus. In cosmopolitan Alexandria, Clitophon, believing Leucippe dead for the umpteenth time, agrees to marry Melite, a wealthy presumed widow of Ephesus, shifting the story's center away from Egypt for the final denouement and reunion of the the two lovers. 

But let us return to the Egyptian exoticism and African references in the tale. The Nile itself becomes a character, as its waters and the soil of the delta converge and separate, creating the marshes, streams, and lakes of the Delta region. In Tatius's novel, the legendary phoenix, which lives upriver in "Ethiopia," land associated with the Sun, comes to Egypt to die and thus reaffirms the cycle of life from the Nile's origins in the land of the Sun to Egypt. Egypt is a land of wonders (fauna, Alexandria), of horrors (a fake human sacrifice to appease the bandits is organized by Menelaus and Satyrus) and, I would argue, where the debased nature of Thersander of Ephesus is compared to the bestial bandits and conniving characters lusting for Leucippe (Chaereas, Charmides). The Egyptian setting occupies a central middle part of the narrative, after the elopement of Leucippe and Clitophon from Tyre and the subsequent shipwreck, thus, the exotic world(s) of the Nile presents the otherworldly ordeals of the two lovers must persevere against to achieve their union.