The Hero's Narrative in Ovid's Heroides 9 and 13

Abstract

Abstract Some letters in Ovid's Heroides include stories which the heroines imagine their lovers narrating. Thus, in some letters Ovid has constructed both a heroine's and a hero's narrative (the latter probably mediated by the former). This paper argues that there are similarities in the narrative strategies of the stories that Ovid attributes to the heroine and the hero in Heroides 9 (Deianira and Hercules) and 13 (Laodamia and Protesilaus), and then analyzes the interpretative possibilities that arise from this type of narrative assimilation. Through the use of intertextuality and relative mythological chronology, it also explores whether Ovid's heroines model their husbands after themselves as narrators, or whether their narratives are influenced by those of the heroes instead.