MR: I realize that it is dangerous to
expect that VN was somehow referencing multiple texts with the same
allusion. If one plugs the phrase "pale fire" into the Google Books
engine
and limits the results to those occuring before 1950, you get 610
different
sources that include that phrase.
JM: I hope there were frequent entries for Ganymede, cup
bearers and catamites as we can find them in "ADA", although I cannot
remember anyone giving them the importance they might have.
MR: Nevertheless, I want to throw one of
them into the mix... from Alexander Pope's translation of _The First
Book of Statius His Thebais_.
1. Laius, before marrying Jocasta, became
infatuated with the young boy
Chrysippus. He kidnapped Chrysippus, carried him off and raped him.
Chrysippus was his catamite...
JM: The malediction weighing on Laius was not provoked by his
having raped Chrysippus.
It resulted from Laius's having broken the laws of hospitality (
Chrysippus was the son Pelops, the King who received Laius as a guest
in his house).
Wikipedia presents a different story,
closer to the one MR has emphasized ( related to sexual crimes):
Chrysippus was a divine hero of
Elis in the Peloponnesus, a young boy, the bastard son of Pelops and
the nymph Axioche. He was kidnapped by the Theban Laius, his tutor, who
was escorting him to the Nemean Games, where the boy planned to
compete. Instead, Laius ran away with him to Thebes and raped him, a
crime for which he, his city and his family were later punished by the
gods.
Three references to
the curse laid on Laius and to the story of Chrysippos, on a quick scan
by "google", aiming at the contradicting views ( Jansy Mello)
One:
In exile Laius lived with PELOPS
[pee'lops], king of Elis, whose son CHRYSIPPUS [kreye-sip'pus], or
CHRYSIPPOS, he abducted. For this transgression of the laws of
hospitality, Pelops invoked a curse on Laius and his family.
...................................Apollo’s
oracle at Delphi warned that their son would kill his father as the
working out of the curse of Pelops. OEDIPUS Laius ordered a shepherd to
expose ...Cf. www.us.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195308044/studentresources/chapters/ch17/?view=usa - 25k -
TWO:
His father Laius had
violated the hospitality of his host, Pelops, ... Whether or
not Sophocles believed in the all-powerful curses of the gods, ...
myth.typepad.com/breakfast/2006/10/oedipus_and_the.html
- 39k -
THREE:
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Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex contains the
following tension: if Oedipus was ... why is there a curse on
Laius? Sophocles mentions neither the curse nor its ...
www.janushead.org/9-1/Carel.pdf - Páginas Semelhantes