Troianalexandrina

The figure of Paris has come down to us with unfavourable connotations because of his judgment in the contest of the three goddesses for the Apple of Discord, and the consequences of that judgment. In this article I offer a literary exploration of the most significant episodes in his story, drawing on both classical and medieval authors, and showing how the perception of him before the episode of the Apple is quite different from that of the kidnapper and adulterer of later tradition.

In this paper one of the astronomical passages in the Libro de Alexandre is analysed: that in which the learned Aristander explains the eclipse of the moon. It is of particular interest to examine the way in which this erudite character demonstrates his ideas, because the anonymous poet and scholar remodels ancient ideas for the public of his time and thus they become perfectly suitable to the most modern cultural context in the western hemisphere in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This paper will try to show the roots from which spring the wish for greater scientific knowledge in the author of the Alexandre, a logical encyclopaedist as well as a poet.

One of the most interesting and complex stories of the Classical world in Alfonso X's General Estoria is the myth of Medea and the Argonauts. She has received a great deal of attention by several classicists in their studies concerning the foundations of Greek civilization and the role that women played in Athenian society in particular. More specifically, Medea figures prominently in their discussions of the oppositions between Greeks and barbarians, men and women, Athenian citizens and foreigners, free men and slaves, gods and mortals, and human beings and animals. Among the many problems raised by Medea's killing of her children is whether her crime can be attributed to her barbarian origins. But, as the "incarnation of disorder" (McDermott), Medea causes profound disturbances not only in several houses but in the state and in nature as well. The destruction of families and marriages affects not only the private domain of the household but also the public sphere of the city, and poses an extreme danger to its stability and continuity. Moreover, in possession of supernatural powers and helped by the gods of the underworld, Medea is also the cause of great disorder in nature. Who Medea is and why she acts the way she does with respect to the family, the state, and the cosmos is a question that may be answered by examining her "liminal" condition, always situated between different and opposing domains: barbarians vs. Greeks, women vs. men, mortals vs. gods.