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SEDUCTIVE TOPOGRAPHIES: THE LANGUAGES OF LANDSCAPE IN LA PUCE DE MADAME DES-ROCHES

Romanic Review, May 2004 by Tarte, Kendall

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François de la Couldray, for example, locates the Dames Des Roches in a landscape borrowed from classical antiquity. He depicts Mercury-identified as the "pasteur de Menale"17-in flight over the city of Poitiers:

Several mythological figures-Mercury, Icarus, and the Muses-mingle in this sonnet. Couldray draws on two episodes from classical texts; both center on a landscape seen from the point of view of a character in flight. After referring to these passages-the first from Virgil's Aeneid, the second from Ovid's Art of Love and Metamorphoses-he closes with a third landscape, a revision of a familiar mythological topography.

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Couldray's depiction of Mercury, who traverses the sky before hovering over Poitiers, resembles the same god in Book 4 of the Aeneid: following Jupiter's order, Mercury flies to Libya to deliver a message to Aeneas.19 Couldray borrows several details from the Latin poet. He mentions the physical traits that Virgil elaborates-Mercury's characteristic caduceus and winged heels-and he adopts the same point of view for Mercury's flight. Virgil shows Mercury at first high in the sky, examining the peaks of the personified mountain Atlas; then, plunging to sea level, the god skims the surface of the water. Depicting Mercury moving through the sky, then descending to Poitiers, in the first quatrain Couldray condenses Virgil's version. In the second quatrain, the description of the usual circuit of the sun's rays mimics Mercury's flight in more detail, moving from low-"plus creuz des vallons"-to high-"[s]ur les hauts monts chenus"-to low again-"les noirs tourbillons / Des eaux."20 The poet identifies this black churning water with a second mythological figure, Icarus-"le sot fils de Dedale." The reference suggests a similar flight from high to low, but with a disastrous outcome: Ovid's cautionary tale tells how Icarus drowns after flying too close to the sun on the wings his father made.21 In both of Ovid's texts, Daedalus's warnings to fly neither too high nor too low foreshadow Icarus's descent from the sun to the sea; the pattern is similar to Mercury's.22 With references to both Virgil and Ovid, Couldray proposes two possible interpretations of Mercury's flight over Poitiers: the strength and deliberation of Virgil's Mercury contrast with the foolhardiness of Ovid's Icarus.

Couldray's brief mention of Icarus raises the possibility of danger. Both ancient and contemporary authors adopt the figure of Icarus as a negative model to be avoided. In the Icaromenippus, Lucian uses Icarus in order to illuminate favorable attributes of Menippus, who brags of his recent trip to Olympus on wings he constructed. His skeptical interlocutor reminds him of Daedalus and Icarus, but the drowned son provides a counterexample to Menippus's declared success in flight. In La Puce, two flea poems refer briefly to Icarus, comparing him to the insect. "La Pvce de Macefer" stresses the flea's limitations, which include the restricted heights-both physical and metaphorical-that it can reach. In the final stanza the poet notes that if the insect tries to overcome this shortcoming by borrowing wings, it may become another Icarus: "Ie crains que ... / Icare tu ne seconde."23 For Madeleine Des Roches, Icarus provides a pretext to honor the puce poets. In the opening quatrains of "Aux poètes chante-puce," the flea senses danger as it prepares for flight. The insect's recollection of the fate of Icarus prompts a request for the help of the puce poets.24 Des Roches praises these men, using the elaborate anagrams and wordplays common to the collection, and thus seals her flea's happy destiny. The puce poets' comparisons of the mythological character to the flea draw attention to the contrast between the drowning of Icarus and the relative success in flight of the fictional insect. However, the two figures do share a common fate: both are immortalized in the objects-the sea for Icarus, the book for the flea-that bear their name.

SEDUCTIVE TOPOGRAPHIES: THE LANGUAGES OF LANDSCAPE IN LA PUCE DE MADAME DES-ROCHES

Romanic Review, May 2004 by Tarte, Kendall

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