The Heroides (The Heroines),[1] or Epistulae Heroidum (Letters of Heroines), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them. A further set of six poems, widely known as the Double Heroides and numbered 16 to 21 in modern scholarly editions, follows these individual letters and presents three separate exchanges of paired epistles: one each from a heroic lover to his absent beloved and from the heroine in return.
The Heroides were long held in low esteem by literary scholars but, like other works by Ovid, were re-evaluated more positively in the late 20th century.[2] Arguably some of Ovid's most influential works (see below), one point that has greatly contributed to their mystique - and to the reverberations they have produced within the writings of later generations - is directly attributable to Ovid himself. In the third book of his Ars Amatoria, Ovid argues that in writing these fictional epistolary poems in the personae of famous heroines, rather than from a first-person perspective, he created an entirely new literary genre. Recommending parts of his poetic output as suitable reading material to his assumed audience of Roman women, Ovid wrote of his Heroides: "vel tibi composita cantetur Epistola voce: | ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus" (Ars Amatoria 3.345–6: "Or let an Epistle be sung out by you in practiced voice: unknown to others, he [''[[Scilicet|sc.]] Ovid] originated this sort of composition"). The full extent of Ovid's originality in this matter has been a point of scholarly contention: E. J. Kenney, for instance, notes that "novavit is ambiguous: either 'invented' or 'renewed', cunningly obscuring without explicitly disclaiming O[vid]'s debt to Propertius' Arethusa (4.3) for the original idea."[3] In spite of various interpretations of Propertius 4.3, consensus nevertheless concedes to Ovid much of the credit in the thorough exploration of what was then a highly innovative poetic form.
The exact dating of the Heroides, as with the overall chronology of the Ovidian corpus, remains a matter of debate. As Peter E. Knox notes, "[t]here is no consensus about the relative chronology of this [''sc.'' early] phase of O[vid]'s career," a position which has not advanced significantly since that comment was made.[4] Exact dating is hindered not only by a lack of evidence, but by the fact that much of what is known at all comes from Ovid's own poetry. One passage in the second book of Ovid's Amores (Am.) has been adduced especially often in this context:
Knox notes that "[t]his passage ... provides the only external evidence for the date of composition of the Heroides listed here. The only collection of Heroides attested by O[vid] therefore antedates at least the second edition of the Amores (c. 2 BC), and probably the first (c. 16 BC) ..."[5] On this view, the most probable date of composition for at least the majority of the collection of single Heroides ranges between c. 25 and 16 BC, if indeed their eventual publication predated that of the assumed first edition of the Amores in that latter year.[6] Regardless of absolute dating, the evidence nonetheless suggests that the single Heroides represent some of Ovid's earliest poetic efforts.
Questions of authenticity, however, have often inhibited the literary appreciation of these poems.[7] Joseph Farrell identifies three distinct issues of importance to the collection in this regard: (1) individual interpolations within single poems, (2) the authorship of entire poems by a possible Ovidian impersonator, and (3) the relation of the Double Heroides to the singles, coupled with the authenticity of that secondary collection. Discussion of these issues has been a focus, even if tangentially, of many treatments of the Heroides in recent memory.
As an example following these lines, for some time scholars debated over whether this passage from the Amores - corroborating, as it does, only the existence of Her. 1–2, 4–7, 10–11, and very possibly of 12, 13,[8] and 15 - could be cited fairly as evidence for the inauthenticity of at least the letters of Briseis (3), Hermione (8), Deianira (9), and Hypermnestra (14), if not also those of Medea (12), Laodamia (13), and Sappho (15).[9] Stephen Hinds argues, however, that this list constitutes only a poetic catalogue, in which there was no need for Ovid to have enumerated every individual epistle.[10] This assertion has been widely persuasive, and the tendency amongst scholarly readings of the later 1990s and following has been towards careful and insightful literary explication of individual letters, either proceeding under the assumption of, or with an eye towards proving, Ovidian authorship. Other studies, eschewing direct engagement with this issue in favour of highlighting the more ingenious elements - and thereby demonstrating the high value - of individual poems in the collection, have essentially subsumed the authenticity debate, implicating it through a tacit equation of high literary quality with Ovidian authorship. This trend is visible especially in the most recent monographs on the Heroides.[11] On the other hand, some scholars have taken a completely different route, ascribing the whole collection to one[12] or two[13] Ovidian imitators (the catalogue in Am. 2.18, as well as Ars am. 3.345–6 and Epistulae ex Ponto 4.16.13–14, would then be interpolations introduced to establish the imitations as authentic Ovid).
The paired letters of the Double Heroides are not outlined here: see the relevant section of that article for the double epistles (16–21). The single Heroides are written from the viewpoints of the following heroines (and heroes). The quotations highlighted are the opening couplets of each poem, by which each would have been identified in medieval manuscripts of the collection:
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula I | Latin: Haec tua Penelope lento tibi mittit, Ulixe;<br /> nil mihi rescribas attinet: ipse veni! | This your Penelope sends to you, too-slow Ulysses; A letter in return does me no good; come yourself! |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula II | Latin: Hospita, Demophoon, tua te Rhodopeia Phyllis<br /> ultra promissum tempus abesse queror! | I, your hostess, Demophoon - I, your Phyllis of Rhodope - Complain: you're gone far longer than you promised! |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula III | Latin: Quam legis, a rapta Briseide littera venit,<br /> vix bene barbarica Graeca notata manu. | What you're reading - this letter came from your ravished Briseis, The Greek painstakingly copied out by her uncivilised hand. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula IV | Latin: Quam nisi tu dederis, caritura est ipsa, salutem<br /> mittit Amazonio Cressa puella viro. | What well-being she herself will lack unless you give it her The Cretan maiden sends to the man born of an Amazon. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula V | Latin: Nympha suo Paridi, quamvis suus esse recuset<br /> mittit ab Idaeis verba legenda iugis. | The Nymph sends words you ordered her to write, From Mount Ida, to her Paris, though you refuse her as yours. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula VI | Latin: Lemnias Hypsipyle Bacchi genus Aesone nato<br /> dicit: et in verbis pars quota mentis erat? | Hypsipyle of Lemnos, born of the people of Bacchus, Speaks to Jason: how much of your heart was truly in your words? |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula VII | Latin: Accipe, Dardanide, moriturae carmen Elissae;<br /> quae legis a nobis ultima verba legi. | Dardanian, receive this song of dying Elissa: What you read are the last words written by me. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula VIII | Latin: Alloquor Hermione nuper fratremque virumque<br /> nunc fratrem. nomen coniugis alter habet. | Hermione speaks to one lately her cousin and husband, Now her cousin. The wife has changed her name.[15] |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula IX | Latin: Mittor ad Alciden a coniuge conscia mentis<br /> littera si coniunx Deianira tua est. | A letter, that shares her feelings, sent to Alcides By your wife, if Deianira is your wife. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula X | Latin: Illa relicta feris etiam nunc, improbe Theseu<br /> vivit. Et haec aequa mente tulisse velis? | Even now, left to the wild beasts, she might live, cruel Theseus. Do you expect her to have endured this too, patiently? |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula XI | Latin: Aeolis Aeolidae quam non habet ipsa salutem<br /> mittit et armata verba notata manu. | An Aeolid, who has no health herself, sends it to an Aeolid, And, armed, these words are written by her hand. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula XII | Latin: {{As written|Exul inops comtempta novo Medea marito | Scorned Medea, the helpless exile, speaks to her recent husband, surely you can spare some time from your kingship? |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula XIII | Latin: Mittit et optat amans, quo mittitur, ire salutem<br /> Haemonis Haemonio Laodamia viro. | She, who sends this, wishes loving greetings to go to whom it's sent: From Thessaly to Thessaly's lord, Laodamia to her husband. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula XIV | Latin: Mittit Hypermestra de tot modo fratribus uni;<br /> cetera nuptarum crimine turba iacet. | Hypermestra sends this letter to her one cousin of many, The rest lie dead because of their brides' crime. |
| valign=top width="80px" | Epistula XV | Latin: Ecquid, ut adspecta est studiosae littera dextrae,<br /> Protinus est oculis cognita nostra tuis? | When these letters, from my eager hand, are examined Are any of them known to your eyes, straight away, as mine? |
The Heroides were popularized by the Loire valley poet Baudri of Bourgueil in the late eleventh century, and Héloïse used them as models in her famous letters to Peter Abelard.[16] A translation, Les Vingt et Une Epistres d'Ovide, was made of this work at the end of the 15th century by the French poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais, who later became Bishop of Angoulême. While Saint-Gelais' translation does not do full justice to the original, it introduced many non-Latin readers to Ovid's fictional letters and inspired many of them to compose their own Heroidean-style epistles. Perhaps the most successful of these were the Quatre Epistres d'Ovide (c. 1500) by, a friend and colleague of Saint-Gelais. Later translations and creative responses to the Heroides include Jean Lemaire de Belges's Premiere Epître de l'Amant vert (1505), Fausto Andrelini's verse epistles (1509–1511; written in the name of Anne de Bretagne), Contrepistres d'Ovide (1546), and Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara's Bursario, a partial translation of the Heroides.[17]
Classics scholar W. M. Spackman argues the Heroides influenced the development of the European novel: of Helen's reply to Paris, Spackman writes, "its mere 268 lines contain in embryo everything that has, since, developed into the novel of dissected motivations that is one of our glories, from La Princesse de Clèves, Manon Lescaut and Les Liaisons Dangereuses to Stendhal and Proust".[18]
The Loeb Classical Library presents the Heroides with Amores in Ovid I. Penguin Books first published Harold Isbell's translation in 1990. Isbell's translation uses unrhymed couplets that generally alternate between eleven and nine syllables. A translation in rhymed couplets by Daryl Hine appeared in 1991.
It was the inspiration for 15 monologues starring 15 separate actors, by 15 playwrights at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2020.[19] [20]
All notes refer to works listed in the Bibliography, below.
For references specifically relating to that subject, please see the relevant bibliography of the Double Heroides.