Shakespeare's Myths
Lydgate’s narrative, in his Troy Book, links the story of Hesione to the legend of the Argo, dropping the theme of Neptune’s wrath and the sea-monster: Hercules attacked Troy with his Greek companions, who included Nestor, Jason and Theseus, after the voyage of the Argonauts, in retaliation for Laomedon’s inhospitality on their way to Colchis. Caxton further reworks the narrative in the Recuyell of the History of Troy and reduplicates the destruction of Troy by Hercules: Laomedon escapes from the first fall (after the killing of the sea-monster) with his daughters Hesione and Antigone, but is killed in the second (after the return from Colchis). In both Lydgate and Caxton, Hesione becomes a concubine of Telamon and gives birth to Ajax—a link Ovid does not make explicitly.
Thomas Heywood represents/reactivates the tale of Hesione repeatedly in the early Jacobean period. In Troia Britanica Hercules destroys (“ruinates”) Troy and expels Laomedon after rescuing Hesione from the sea monster (Canto 6); he is later revenged on Laomedon and gives Hesione to Telamon (Canto 7). In The Brazen Age (in which Hesione appears as one of the dramatis personae) Heywood conflates Hercules’ rescue of Hesione from the sea monster and the tale of the Argonauts. In this play, which is a dramatization of the episode in Troia Britanica, Hercules rescues Hesione during the voyage of the Argo but leaves for Colchis without taking vengeance on Laomedon’s ingratitude. He and the Argonauts return after obtaining the Golden Fleece and kill Laomedon. (Priam is reported to have fled from Troy with Anchises and Aeneas.) Hercules then gives Hesione to Telamon.
In the wake of Lydgate and Caxton, both Heywood (in Troia Britanica and The Iron Age, Part 1) and Shakespeare (in Troilus and Cressida) represent Ajax as a son of Hesione.
In contrast with Heywood’s frequent references to her and inclusion of her as a character in The Brazen Age, Hesione is never mentioned by name in Shakespeare’s works. Her tale, however, is mentioned in two plays: in Portia’s speech in the Merchant of Venice and by Troilus and by Hector in Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare was obviously familiar with the Metamorphoses when he wrote these plays. Caxton is usually regarded as one of the main sources of Troilus and Cressida because of verbal echoes such as the term “orgulous” used in Prologue 2 (this word appears in Part 3 of the Recuyell, only in the editions before 1596). Portia’s comparison of herself with Hesione, waiting to be rescued by Hercules-Bassanio in the Merchant of Venice, evokes dark associations of her demised father with the false Laomedon who was killed by her rescuer and suggests frustration with her father who prevented her from choosing a husband freely. While the Trojans in Troilus and Cressida are obsessed with the memory of Hesione, her name is never mentioned throughout the play. Nestor’s references to Hector’s “grandsire” (I.iii.289, IV.vi.80) reveal that Shakespeare’s Trojans are overshadowed by the history of the destruction of Laomedon’s Troy by Hercules, although it is never explicitly told in the play. For the Trojans, the memory of Hesione is essential in order to assert their blood-based identity and lineage and their legitimacy in the ongoing war. At the same time it is not to be recalled fully since it also leads back to the traumatic history of the previous fall, which may be projected into the present as they fight another round of war with the Greeks. (See my “The Memory of Hesione: Intertextuality and Social Amnesia in Troilus and Cressida”.)
How to cite
Atsuhiko Hirota. “Hesione.” 2013. In A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology (2009-), ed. Yves Peyré. http://www.shakmyth.org/myth/258/hesione/analysis
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