A woodcut retold: Visual memory in Garcilaso’s “Ode ad florem Gnidi”

Abstract

This essay considers the internal chronology of the myth exemplum in Garcilaso de la Vega’s “Ode ad florem Gnidi.” A close reading suggests that the exemplum, an imitation of Ovid’s myth of Anaxarete and Iphis, narrates two discontinuous scenes, of Anaxarete’s pity at the sight of the body of Iphis hanging from her doorway, followed by her petrification on seeing his body carried in funeral procession. To support this reading, the essay proposes that Garcilaso was influenced by the illustrated tradition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Woodcuts from contemporary editions of the Metamorphoses commonly depict the two climactic moments of the myth, Iphis’ suicide and Anaxarete’s petrification, in a single panel against a common backdrop. Garcilaso’s interest in ekphrasis would have created a theoretical incentive to textualize an illustration, while his participation in the Accademia Pontaniana of Naples would have provided him with an audience, and textual community, accustomed to use book illustrations as aids in the memorization of classic texts.