The Homeric Διὸς ἀπάτη and its reuse within the seventeenth-century Portuguese epic poem Ulisseia ou Lisboa Edificada

Abstract

Abstract Ulisseia ou Lisboa Edificada (Ulysseia or Lisbon Founded) is a seventeenth-century epic poem written by Gabriel Pereira de Castro, which celebrates the mythical arrival of Ulysses in Lusitania and the subsequent foundation of Ulisseia by him. This city built by Greek hands comes to be Lisbon, the head of a great navy empire at the time of Portuguese Discoveries. This epic reshapes both the Odyssean sea voyages and Iliadic warfare, whereas Ulysses, the same crafty wanderer as the Homeric Odysseus, is also the bearer of a god-given mission like the Virgilian Aeneas. In this article, I examine the refashioning of the Homeric Διὸς ἀπάτη (‘Deception of Zeus’) in Ulisseia book 10 from a comparative and literary perspective. Castro follows his Greek model very closely, but at the same time it departs from it in important ways. In portraying the deceitful planning of Hera, with its erotic and humorous tone, he adapts it to the nationalistic purposes of his own epic story. Juno’s plan is granted a more serious tone, since its effects on the war between Greeks and Lusitanians are directly linked to the glorious Destiny of the Portuguese people.