Introduction

The Greek Presocratics believed that plants had a status equal to that of animals. According to Anaxagoras and Empedocles, they were moved by desire and were supposed to feel and experience both pain and pleasure.^[1] These philosophers, as well as Democritus, believed that plants had mind (nous) and knowledge (gnosis). Some Presocratics even maintained that plants were endowed with souls (Zatta 2016: 114–116 and the note 50):

Some maintain that plants have souls because they have watched them born, being fed and growing, be young and go green and perish through old age on the ground that no soulless thing shares these experiences with plants.

([Aristot.] De plant. 1. 815a31-4, trans. by Hett, Aristotle 1955)

It is possible that such an understanding of plants: as entities capable of feeling and thinking, and even, to some extent, understood as autonomous subject, is the basis of the transformation motif of a human or demigod into a tree, a widespread theme in Greco-Roman literature (Zatta 2016). In the ancient Latin literary heritage, most examples of this type of transformation can be found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Apart from Daphne, who became an archetype of arboreal metamorphoses, we can find, for example, the story of Myrrha, whose impure love for her father, was the reason for her transformation into a myrrh bush, or the story of unhappy lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe (the prototypes of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), who were transformed into a mulberry tree.

The transformations described by Ovid, both in Metamorphoses and in his slightly later work, Fasti, constituted an almost inexhaustible reservoir of literary ideas, motifs, and tropes. We can compare the process of their reception to Deleuze’s image of a rhizome that is growing new rootlets,^[2] or, the more traditional concept of an exuberant tree sprouting new branches. Once in a while, on this tree of reception, a branch of another species grows, like a pear shoot on an oak tree. This is exactly what happened to the Metamorphoses – an epic poem that in the early modern period produced several branches of pastoral works.

The pastoral, placed in the atemporal, semi-mythical space of Arcadia, is a genre to which mythological motifs can be particularly easily adapted. In Neo-Latin literature, perhaps the most popular manifestation of this process was the inclusion of metamorphosis as a particular kind of myth in the plot of the idyll.^[3] The reader will most often encounter a plant or animal metamorphosis, as these can be the most easily inscribed into the idyllic world. The most characteristic type of these metamorphoses is transformation into a tree, a plant symbolic of bucolic poetry. The image of a shepherd resting in the shade of a spreading oak, which opens Virgil’s Eclogues, would become a generic description of the idyllic locus amoenus, making the tree the most significant element of the bucolic landscape. In pastoral, the tree is also intertwined with the theme of shepherd’s song and the concept of poetic memory, as love confessions are carved on its bark.

Jacopo Sannazaro’s Salices

Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530), one of the greatest writers of the Italian Renaissance, was particularly fond of the pastoral genre. Although he is mainly known as the author of Arcadia, a masterwork of prose poetry written in volgare, Sannazaro composed his other pastoral works in Latin, such as fishermen’s eclogues (Eclogae Piscatoriae) and the short idyllic work, Salices (The Willows).^[4]

Salices is a bucolic poem about the transformation of nymphs into willows, composed in the spirit of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.^[5] Willows were one of the more frequently mentioned idyllic trees in Virgil’s Eclogues, but it was not until the bucolic poetry of Giovanni Pontano, Sannazaro’s friend, that this tree became a symbol of the genre. Pontano often returned to the image of willows shading the banks of the river Sebeto, which was a literary symbol of Naples (Salemme 2018: 17–18).

Sannazaro’s work begins with a dedication to Troiano Cavaniglia,^[6] in which the poet asks his colleague to look favorably on the offered work (v. 1-13). It is only a simple idyll (tenues... Camoenae, “delicate Camenae”, 13), but the author’s thoughts are already reaching for more momentous themes (maiora, “loftier things”, 12). The proper narrative begins with a description of the locus amoenus, as is characteristic of bucolic poetry. By the lazily flowing waters of the river Sarno, in the shadow of groves moved by gentle zephyrs, the Satyrs, Panes, Fauns, and Sylvans play bucolic songs on their rustic pipes among nymphs, who hide behind the green oak trees in fear of the forest gods. After a while, however, they give in to their kind encouragement and come closer to start dancing across the meadow. The sight of the lovely nymphs arouses the gods’ lust and they want to satisfy their selfish desires immediately. They throw themselves at the dancing nymphs who flee in terror but cannot find a way to escape. In their desperation, they seek salvation through help from the river god Sarnus, but despite their pleas, he is bound by fate and cannot help them. The distraught goddesses then make the drastic decision to throw themselves into the flowing waters, however, before they can do so, their bodies are transformed into willows:

Ergo defectae cura auxilioque deorum,
ac coelum pariter Nymphae lucemque perosae,
unum illud, rebus tandem quod restat in arctis,
finem optant, iamque in fluvium se mergere adortae
membra reclinabant et aquas prono ore petebant,
cum subito obriguere pedes lateque per imos
exspatiata ungues radix fugientia tardat,
adfigitque solo vestigia. Tum vagus ipsis
spiritus emoritur venis, indignaque pallor
occupat ora: tegit trepidantia pectora cortex.
Nec mora: pro digitis ramos exire videres,
auratasque comas glauca canescere fronde,
et iam vitalis nusquam calor, ipsaque cedunt
viscera paulatim venienti frigida ligno.
Sed quamvis totos duratae corporis artus,
caudicibusque latus, virgultisque undique septae‚
ac penitus salices, sensus tamen unicus illis:
silvicolas vitare deos, et margine ripae
haerentes, medio procumbere fluminis alveo.
(Sannazaro, Salices 95-113)

Sannazaro’s poem is intricately woven with numerous intertextual allusions to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The main sources, directly referred to by the poet himself, are the stories of the attempted rape of two nymphs – Daphne, transformed into a laurel tree after being pursued by Apollo (Sannazaro, Salices 27-28, cf. Ov. Met. 1. 452-567) and Syrinx, who was transformed into a reed after fleeing from Pan (Sannazaro, Salices 28-35, cf. Ov. Met. 1. 689-712).^[7] In Sannazaro’s poem, the nymphs are familiar with these stories,^[8] and thus know to be wary of the forest deities. Another detail that ties Ovid and Sannazaro’s stories together is the motif of the rivers as a necessary component of their metamorphosis, as Syrinx became a reed on the riverbank of Ladon and Daphne’s father Peneus, the god of the river, was responsible for her arboreal transformation.

Syrinx’s tale is especially similar to the fate of the Sannazaro’s nymphs and is briefly summarized within the poem. The poet devotes one line to the description of the metamorphosis of the nymph into an alluvial plant, which foreshadows the fate awaiting the Renaissance nymphs (nodosa tenerum mutarit arundine pectus, 34), however, the comparison is not direct because instead of reeds, Sannazaro’s nymphs transform into willows.

The very image of willows hanging over the riverbank, in the shape of which has been preserved the terror and desire of immersion into the river’s waves accompanying them in their last moments, we can discern an allusion to Ovid’s Heliades (Met. 2. 344-366). The sisters have been transformed into black poplars while mourning their tragically deceased brother Phaethon (Peters [2018]: 440, Salemme 2018: 47). The wood shape immortalizes their suffering and sorrow for their dead brother (as Ovid writes, the poplars “weep” with resin leaking from their trunks). It must be remembered that Syrinx, too, after being transformed into a reed, retains a feeling of grief, as a breath of air produces in her a sound similar to a complaint.^[9]

The allusions to the stories of Daphne and Syrinx, bring a sense of anxiety and tension into the bucolic work, which intensifies as the action unfolds. When the forest deities invite the nymphs to come closer and to enjoy with them idyllic pleasures, the nymphs, distrustful, prepare to flee and look around for a safe haven (...celeri sed nuda parabant / crura fugae, tutosque agitabant mente receptus, Sannazaro, Salices, 45-46). The vigilance of the nymphs brings to mind the behavior of an animal that senses the threat of a predator. This image is developed in the scene of the flight when the nymphs are compared to a flock of lambs into which a bloodthirsty wolf falls. This passage echoes the words of Apollo, who compares the fleeing Daphne to a sheep fleeing from a wolf, a doe from a lion, and a dove from an eagle (Ov. Met. 1. 505-506: sic agna lupum, sic cerva leonem, / sic aquilam penna fugiunt trepidante columbae).^[10] The nymphs are thus likened to a frightened animal looking for a way to escape.^[11] Leo C. Curran (1978: 229–230), writing about the motif of rape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, points out that the metamorphosis of a woman who has been raped or is running away from her rapist into an object standing lower in the hierarchy of beings (a plant, an animal, an object) is a natural consequence of the earlier objectification of the victim, her degradation and dehumanization, turning her into an object of sexual desire . The comparison of nymphs to runaway sheep in Sannazaro’s poem can be read as the first stage of their transformation, a metamorphosis of the “first order”. From nymphs, they are transformed into animals, driven by fear and the desire to survive, before eventually embodying their final form as plants.

Some of the former experience of the nymphs, namely the fear of rape by male deities, is preserved in the willow form: “to elude the woodland gods and, clinging to the edge of the bank, to lean out over the mid-channel of the stream” (Sannazaro, Salices, 112-113). The metamorphosis of Daphne into a laurel is usually interpreted as a kind of imprisonment of a woman in a wooden body.^[12] Some see in this imprisonment a kind of trauma causing a kind of catatonic stupor (Curran 1978: 230, Zamir 2011: 447–448). Similarly, the nymphs of Sannazaro are enclosed in the form of the willows, as if in a trap.^[13] The roots of the trees stopped the nymphs on the same riverbank to which the gods of the forest had lured them (Quid procul adstatis? Potius succedite ripae, 40). In doing so, they prevent the nymphs from throwing themselves into the river waves that were supposed to be a kind of liberation for goddesses. Thus the nymphs not only lose the freedom to decide their fate, but, transformed into trees, they also lose their humanity, degraded forever to the role of the objects of sexual assault.

Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Vitis

We will now move to 17th century France to examine one little-known eclogue written by the eminent humanist Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721), praeceptor of the dauphin Louis Bourbon. Huet gained particular recognition for philosophical treatises and his editorial work, such as a Commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew by Origen. His output, however, was much more extensive: with technical treatises (in Latin and Greek), and even a novel.^[14]

Huet’s poetic output is less known. He published an extensive collection of works written in Latin, entitled Carmina, which contains elegies, odes, epigrams, and bucolic poems. Huet was a great admirer of Theocritus (Shelford 2006: 56)^[15] and a translator of the famous Greek pastoral romance – Daphnis and Chloe, and was thus perfectly familiar with the tradition of ancient bucolic poetry. However, it was not the idyll, but Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Fasti that had the greatest influence on the final shape of Huet’s eclogues. All ten works are based on the pattern of metamorphosis,^[16] where humans and minor gods, mostly at fault with immortals, are transformed into animals, plants, atmospheric phenomena, and inanimate objects. We will take a closer look at only one of these transformations, around which the plot of the first eclogue entitled The Grapevine (Vitis) is set.^[17]

The work takes the form of a neat, slightly humorous story about the transformation of the nymph Vitis (Latin: “grapevine”) and the shepherd Ulmus (Latin: “elm”) into the plants, that bear these names. The reader is informed at the onset how the story will end: “We shall tell the story of the unhappy love of Vitis, of how the shapely breast of a girl who, dazed, was cuddling up to the young man Ulmus, was enclosed in tree weaves”.^[18] The image of vine and elm tree joined together like lovers was extremely popular with the Romans,^[19] as it stemmed from the agrarian practices of the time. In Roman agriculture, the elm tree provided convenient support for luxuriantly growing vine. We find a reference to this image in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Vertumnus, the god of crops, was courting the goddess Pomona. He praised the elm tree growing nearby and the vine that was entwining it, and in these words admonished the goddess of orchards:

“at si staret” ait “caelebs sine palmite truncus,
nil praeter frondes, quare peteretur, haberet;
haec quoque, quae iuncta est, vitis requiescit in ulmo:
si non nupta foret, terrae acclinata iaceret;
tu tamen exemplo non tangeris arboris huius
concubitusque fugis nec te coniungere curas.
(Ov. Met. 14. 663-668)

In the Fasti Ovid mentions, in addition, the story of the demigod Ampelos (Greek: “vine”), the beloved of Bacchus, but does not connect it with the transformation into a plant:

Ampelon intonsum satyro nymphaque creatum
     fertur in Ismariis Bacchus amasse iugis.
tradidit huic vitem pendentem frondibus ulmi,
     quae nunc de pueri nomine nomen habet.
dum legit in ramo pictas temerarius uvas,
     decidit: amissum Liber in astra tulit.
(Ov. Fast. 3. 409-414)

The idea of the metamorphosis of man into a vine, however, appears in the late antique Greek epic Dionysiaca by Nonnos of Panopolis. In books 10, 11 and 12, the story of the love between Dionysus and the satyr Ampelos is told. By the will of the fatum, Ampelos is transformed into a vine after his death. Following the Christian spirit of the time, Huet decides to replace the traditional male lover with an Oread, a mountain nymph,^[20] and creates a full-scale work based on this idea barely sketched upon by his predecessors.

Vitis, a mountain nymph, lived in the bucolic surroundings of Parnassus. Once, when she and her companions were dancing on the flowery meadows, Bacchus, the king of wine and vines, saw her and fell in love with her. The nymph accepted the divine advances and returned the fiery affection. The lovers enjoyed each other until Jupiter sent his son Bacchus on an armed expedition to India. Before embarking on the long journey, the god obliged the nymph to remain faithful. The Oread, abandoned by god, wandered in the woods to find solace. Her desperate cries were heard from afar by the shepherd Ulmus, who rushed to her aid. Delighted by the girl’s beauty, he offered her shelter in his own home. The nymph accepted the shepherd’s proposal and in time fell in love with him, preferring the shepherd’s love to that of the god Bacchus, who remains somewhere in the Far East. When the god returned from a victorious war expedition he expected the Oread to be waiting for him, but instead he caught the lovers intertwined: “Bacchus’ somber gaze fell on the girl as she cuddled up to the young man somewhere in the distance and embraced him with a soft arm”.^[21] Outraged by the nymph’s infidelity, Bacchus asks his father Jupiter to punish the lovers. As punishment, the father of the gods turns Vitis into a vine and Ulmus into an elm tree:

Continuo amborum terrae vestigia figit.
Tum vero ramos digitis exire videres,
Et viridi comptos involvi fronde capillos.
Iamque suum sentit nodoso cortice pectus
Nympha tegi, et rigido mutari viscera ligno.
Tu quoque supplicio, Pastor, damnatus eodem,
Pro capite excelsum tollis super astra cacumen,
Pro pedibus lenta radice in Tartara tendis,
Emoriturque vagus procero in corpore sensus.
Sed quamvis duro septi sint undique libro,
Lumine cassi ambo, penitusque sit arbor uterque,
Una tamen semper miseris sententia restat;
Haec Ulmo aeternum dum vult haesisse marito,
Hic tenuisse inter dilectam brachia Vitem.
(Huet, Vitis 130-143)

The metamorphosis of Vitis into a vine and Ulmus into an elm is presented in terms of punishment for the sin committed by both of them. Vitis was obliged by Bacchus to preserve her chastity, so by her union with Ulmus, she broke her oath of fidelity to the god. The shepherd Ulmus was an accomplice in this crime (comes [...] turpi in crimine, 128), hence he also receives a deserved punishment. The betrayal of Vitis can therefore be understood as a transgression of a law established by a god. The punishment for this transgression was crossing the boundaries of a divine (nymphical) and human being, as flesh turned to leaves and vine to immortalize the wrongdoing of the lovers.

Again, as in The Willows of Sannazaro, a transformation is not complete. The new form into which the bodies of the lovers have been transformed retains essential traces of their former existence. They lose their human senses (sensus)^[22] – the ability to touch or to taste and smell, but the common sententia – the desire, wish, intention expressed in a rational way – does not die. Transformed into trees, they remain in a state of suspension not only between the world of humans and nymphs and the world of plants but also between death (nothingness) and immortality (eternity). Describing the metamorphosis of Ulmus into an elm tree, the poet writes about its head, which, turned into the top of a tree, goes towards the stars, and about its roots, which head towards the underworld of Tartarus. These lines are a clear reference to the cosmic vision of the bay-oak from Georgics, which is similarly stretched between both realities:

Aesculus in primis, quae, quantum vertice ad auras
aetherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.
Ergo non hiems illam, non flabra neque imbres
convellunt; immota manet, multosque nepotes,
multa virum volvens durando saecula vincit;
tum fortis late ramos et bracchia tendens
huc illuc, media ipsa ingentem sustinet umbram.
(Verg. G. 2. 291-297)

Huet took from Virgil not only the uncertain ontological status of the newly created plant, but also the vision of its immortalization. Ulmus, though he died as a human being, does not reside in the hereafter: his roots keep going towards the realm of the dead, but they cannot reach it. Similarly, he was not transferred to the sky in the form of the constellation and does not dwell in the sky,^[23] although his top rises above the stars. In a certain, similar to Virgilian sense, the elm tree becomes an idyllic axis mundi, a kind of link between two opposing realities. Half-dead (woody), it retains the desires of its former life, which are to a certain extent immortalized through the plant metamorphosis. Perhaps we will not go too far if we suggest that this uncertain ontic status of the transformed into plants lovers explains their way of existence in the essentially extra-dimensional space of the pastoral Arcadia. There is also a resemblance to Ovid’s story of Myrrha, who, at her own request, was transformed into a myrrh tree and thus, as it were, suspended between two worlds: that of the living and that of the dead:

“o siqua patetis
numina confessis, merui nec triste recuso
supplicium, sed ne violem vivosque superstes
mortuaque exstinctos, ambobus pellite regnis
mutataeque mihi vitamque necemque negate!”
(Ov. Met. 10. 483-487)^[24]

However, in contrast to the unhappy girl who burns with an unworthy love for her father, the lovers transformed into elm and vine become a kind of monument to true love which lasts even when everything else is dying. Just like the bay-oak from Georgics “it stands undaunted, outlasting lives of sons and grandsons, a vanquisher of ages” (2. 294-295, trans. by Fallon 2006). This is also why, when describing the metamorphosis of Ulmus, the poet writes about his head, which as “a highly exuberant crown of a tree reaches above the stars” (Pro capite excelsum tollis super astra cacumen, Vitis, 136). The verse echoes a line from Virgil’s Eclogues, which refers to the apotheosis of the model hero of the bucolic, the shepherd Daphnis: “and exalt your Daphnis to the stars. Daphnis I will exalt to the stars” (Daphnimque tuom tollemus ad astra; / Daphnim ad astra feremus [Verg. Ecl. 5, 51-52], trans. by Fairclough 1916). The state of Ulmus is thus in some way similar to that of Daphnis, raised towards the stars: after death, they both have the honor of crossing the threshold of the land of the gods.^[25]

Let us also note that the poet describes the lovers’ affection in terms of conjugal love, which is the most perfect one: Vitis’ desire is “to remain united to her husband Ulmus for eternity” (Ulmo aeternum dum vult haesisse marito ,Vitis, 142). This image evokes a passage from Catullus’ Carmen nuptiale (Cat. 62, 49-55), where the association of the elm with the vine appears in a somewhat sacred dimension, as a symbol of marriage.^[26] Why is the romance between the nymph and the shepherd so exceptionally ennobled? After all, the nymph has committed a betrayal whose significance is strongly emphasized. Not only did the Oread, being the personification of the grapevine, fail to remain faithful to the god of wine and the vine, but also the object of her love became a human being, i.e. a being lower in the hierarchy of beings than both Bacchus and herself.

To answer this question, one must go back to the beginning of the romance between Vitis and Ulmus, when, abandoned by her god-lover, Vitis wanders in the woods, unable to find comfort. Ulmus describes the girl’s condition as akin to a wild beast living in the dark thickets of the forest (Sed nunc in sylvis vitam quid transigis atris, / More ferae?..., 82-83). Entering into an amorous relationship with Ulmus, the nymph leaves the shadowy forest and moves to a shepherd’s hut located at its edge, i.e. in an exemplarily bucolic place. Ulmus, characterized as the ideal bucolic shepherd,^[27] presents the nymph with a vision of the Arcadian delights: tables laden with platters^[28] and the songs played on a shepherd’s pipe – the same that are sung on Mount Lykaion by the most bucolic of gods, Pan. Ulmus thus offers the nymph a world of peaceful bucolic existence, in which she will no longer suffer from abandonment by her lover. Ulmus’ proposal is the opposite of what is embodied by Bacchus,^[29] who is waging an anti-bucolic war somewhere in the East, far from the “hereness” of bucolic space. Ulmus’ love is therefore a bucolic amor tutus, “safe love”^[30], bringing calm and harmony. On the other hand, the love of Bacchus is a Dionysian love, associated with unbridled wildness and rage, and he introduces into this bucolic landscape a cruelty of war which is alien to this space. Additionally, Bacchus’ victory in war is combined with his defeat in love. The nymph, who ultimately chooses Ulmus over Bacchus, decides to have a relationship with the personification of a tree, the symbol of bucolicity, sealing the triumph of the genre. The transformation into plants does not, therefore, constitute a degradation of the lovers to lower forms of existence, but emphasizes the very naturalness of their bucolic romance. After all, they are transformed into plants, entities most closely related to the space of the country.

Finally, it is worth noting the similarity of the story of Ulmus and Vitis to Ovid’s story of Philemon and Baucis (Ov. Met. 8. 611-724). They were an elderly couple who took under their roof and hosted two gods in human form, Jupiter and Mercury. As a reward for their piety, Jupiter allowed them to serve as priests in his temple, and to eventually depart for the underworld so that one would not have to see the other’s grave. At the moment of death, Philemon and Baucis are transformed into two trees with fused trunks that commemorate their love for each other. It is possible that Huet’s decision to make Jupiter the cause of the metamorphosis of the nymph and the shepherd was in some way inspired by the story of Philemon and Baucis.

Huet’s intertextual dialogue with Sannazaro

The attentive reader has probably already noticed that the description of the transformation of Vitis and Ulmus is largely modeled on Sannazaro’s description of the metamorphosis of nymphs into willows. Several precise textual borrowings can be enumerated. The feet of Vitis are fixed to the ground,^[31] her toes are growing branches^[32] and her hair is braided with foliage,^[33] just like in Sannazaro’s nymphs. Huet used two lines from Salices to describe how Vitis’ breast is covered with knotty bark, one from the description of the metamorphosis of the nymphs themselves, the other from the description of Syrinx’s transformation at the beginning of the poem. In this way, the continuity of literary tradition is emphasized to convey the inexorability of fate. Just as the nymphs in Sannazaro were turned into willows in the image of Syrinx, so now a fate similar to her literary predecessors has befallen Vitis as well.^[34] Huet also borrowed verses from Sannazaro in which he describes the interior of the nymph turning into the wood^[35] and the life-giving force escaping from Ulmus’ body.^[36] Finally, the very idea of preserving in the wood form an essential feature of past existence is expressed in Sannazaro’s verses.^[37]

Vitis was the first published poetic work of the French poet, in accordance with the literary practice of the time, which usually made idyllic works the fruit of a first penning. When composing them, the young poet was only learning the poetic craft, and thus was often inspired by works that had already been written. Salices was the most famous Renaissance bucolic work to use the motif of metamorphosis (Grant 1965: 248) and later idyllic writers referred to Sannazaro as often as to Ovid.^[38] A closer comparative analysis of the two poems, however, reveals that Huet uses Sannazaro’s poem in a way that goes far beyond a mere imitative practice.

Huet, as presented, draws from Salices in the final description of the metamorphosis, but allusions to Sannazaro are much richer and scattered throughout the work. At the very beginning of the work, the poet follows in the footsteps of the Neapolitan, explaining in a dedication addressed to a friend his poetic choice of the bucolic genre. “Do not despise, Claudius”, Huet writes, “with these simple games (“tenues ne despice lusus”, Vitis 8): the time will come when I reach for a more worthy epic genre”.^[39]

A moment later, while describing the dancing nymphs in the meadow, the poet recalls the image of dancing nymphs from Sannazaro’s Willows, just before the attempted rape.^[40] Such a clear reference to Sannazaro introduces an atmosphere of anxiety into the idyll, yet instead of the expected misfortune, the poet draws before the reader a vision of a happy love affair between Bacchus and a nymph. In a similar, perverse way Huet refers to Sannazaro once again in the scene of the meeting of Ulmus and Vitis. Enchanted by the beauty of the nymph, the shepherd asks the reason for her despair. In response, Vitis asks how the shepherd found this hiding place and why he is secretly listening to her complaints. In the meantime, she searches in her mind for an escape route (“Sic ait, atque alios agitabat mente receptus”, Vitis, 75), exactly like the nymphs in Sannazaro reaction to the words of the forest deities (“...tutosque agitabant mente receptus”, Salices, 45). It is clear that Vitis expects to be raped by the shepherd. The reader, reading the allusion to Sannazaro and knowing the ending of the Italian poet’s work, recognizes the nymph’s fears as justified. However, Vitis awaits a fate completely different from that of her willow sisters, and a vision of a fulfilled love is drawn before the reader’s eyes. In the arms of the shepherd the nymph finds peace and shelter and she is somehow saved, in contrast to the nymphs of Sannazaro who did not live to see the expected rescue. The black irony permeating Huet’s text gains a climax in the final verses of the work: Haec Ulmo aeternum dum vult haesisse marito, / Hic tenuisse inter dilectam brachia Vitem (Vitis, 143-144). Those final verses constitute the subtle intertextual game with a work of Sannazaro, who as well uses the verb haerere (to cling, adhere): Silvicolas vitare deos, et margine ripae / Haerentes, medio procumbere fluminis alveo (Vitis, 112-113). Willows are fixed to the river bank in fear of another rape attempt, while Vitis lovingly clings to her beloved. Sannazaro’s cruel fate does not allow the river gods to save the innocent nymphs. Their turning into trees can be understood as some kind of punishment for the rape that had been committed on them. On the other hand, Vitis, who committed treachery, is in fact rewarded and by the will of Jupiter she remains united with her lover forever.

Conclusions

Tzachi Zamir sees in the transformation into a tree a kind of motif that captures the complex relationships linking thought, body and mortality (Zamir 2011: 439). This network of relationships is revealed in the two Neo-Latin idylls we have analyzed. The metamorphosis into a tree in Sannazaro and Huet is each time incomplete and a reflection of the old consciousness is preserved in the new being. The newly created plants are thus presented as mediating between the world of the dead and the living, the world of plant organisms, and the world of men and goddesses: on the one hand passive, associated with death and dying, and on the other brought to life by characters enclosed in woody weaves. The ontological status of trees appearing in the works is therefore fluid and ambiguous, and the boundaries between what is plant and what is human become blurred, which is most clearly visible in the anthropomorphic resemblance of the most important feature of the figure to the form of a tree. The nymphs in Sannazaro’s work, despairing of their tarnished virtue, bend their arms to the ground like a grieving human being, while Vitis and Ulmus cling to each other like lovers. Metamorphosis, therefore, means a change of form (from human/nymph to tree), but in addition, it also amplifies a specific human attribute, which becomes petrified in it. Let us add that Sannazaro’s Salices and Huet’s Vitis are etiological poems, that depict how the eponymous plants came into being. This means that the willows and vines described in them were able to come into existence only at the moment of transformation into them another organism, a being of a higher rank. The perspective adopted by the poets is therefore primarily human. It is worth noting that the whole description of metamorphosis is presented from the perspective of nymphs and humans, and the retention (to some extent) by the newly created plants of mental powers is an expression of the conviction that cognition is possible only with the help of the human mind. Finally, it is worth emphasizing the question of memory, which appears in both works, and which is related to the matter of the (im)mortality of the trees created as a result of metamorphosis. In the ancient prototypes of the idyll, trees were linked to poetic memory, because shepherds wrote their songs on their bark, just like on papyrus.^[41] The trees of Sannazaro and Huet are also linked to memory. Firstly, the figures transformed into plants are associated with poetic memory. In the Renaissance, willows, elm and vines take root in Arcadia, which since antiquity has been overgrown with laurel and reeds. Into those plants, unfortunate Daphne and Syrinx were once, in the genre past, transformed. Secondly, by preserving traces of a past existence, they very literally create a kind of monumentum that commemorates a story that has been told. In the case of the willows, it is a kind of statue of warning, while in the case of Ulmus and Vitis, it is a triumphant monument.

^* Mgr Elżbieta Górka is a PhD student in the Faculty of Literature Studies at the University of Wrocław (Poland). She is writing her doctoral dissertation on the collection of eclogues by Battista Mantovano. Her research interests include Neo-Latin literature, particularly bucolic and epic poetry of Italian Renaissance. She has published several articles, mainly on Neo-Latin poetry, among other, in “Terminus”, “Academic Journal of Modern Philology”, “Przestrzenie Teorii”.

e-mail: elzbieta.gorka@uwr.edu.pl

© by the author, licensee University of Lodz – Lodz University Press, Lodz, Poland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Received: 25.03.2023. Verified: 13.04.2023. Accepted: 24.05.2023