Ovid's gruesome tale of rape, mutilation, and revenge, transformed into Philomena and retold in French octosyllables, found its way into the fourteenth century Ovide moralis with a signature at its mid-point: Crestiens li gois, the great twelfth century romancer's early avatar.
Writing two generations after the Jewish massacres of the First Crusade, Christian the Goy playfully alludes to his hybrid status as a forced convert, even as he hides his identity in order to invent - like Philomena .
| Mid-point | Crestiens li gois the great twelfth century romancers early avatar |
|---|
Legenda The philomena of chrétien the jew: the semiotics of evil, hardcover/peter haidu
