I was at the bookstore the other day and saw a nice, affordable edition of this poem written in Spain in the middle of the 13th century. It was written in the cuaderna vía style (groupings of four rhymed verses of fourteen syllables each) utilized by Gonzalo de Berceo in his Milagros de nuestra Señora, and I was interested to see the style utilized in a different, less overtly religious composition. The story of Apollonius of Tyre may have originally been derived from an ancient Greek manuscript, and was very popular throughout Europe during medieval times. It is thought that the source for this translation was the Latin Historia Apolonii Regis Tyri, although there is also evidence of the influence of other Latin sources. Like a lot of the medieval books I've been reading, the aim of the Libro de Apolonio is to both entertain and educate.

The book begins with virtuous King Apolonio traveling to Emperor Antíoco's court to ask for the emperor's daughter's hand in marriage. Due to his sharp intellect, he's able to determine that the emperor is living in incestuous sin with his daughter, and he conveys this knowledge to the emperor himself, enraging him. Apolonio is now a marked man, and he sets off with a ship full of brave men and supplies. He stops first in Tarso, winning the favor of the locals by helping them resolve a crisis of famine. Then, back on the open sea, his ship wrecks and he is the only survivor. He washes up on the shores of Pentapolín, a poor fisherman gives him some cloth to cover his nakedness, and he plays some ball with the locals (including the King of Pentapolín) on the beach. His virtue and lofty character are apparent in all he does, and the king recognizes him as a noble man. Eventually, after their relationship deepens, the king offers his daughter to Apolonio. Around this time, they learn that Antíoco has died (along with his daughter). So Apolonio is free to come and go as he pleases, and decides to return to his homeland with his pregnant wife. Unfortunately, his wife appears to have died during childbirth, so they nail her into a coffin and throw her overboard. When they reach dry land, Apolonio gives his baby daughter Tarsiana to some old friends back in Tarso, asking them to raise her. He sets off for Egypt and spends more than a decade wandering the desert in peregrination. His daughter has a lot of bad luck: after the woman who has raised her tries to murder her, she's kidnapped and sold to a man who wants to make money off of her body. Fortunately, she is just as virtuous as her father, and is able to use her sharp wits to retain her virtue and make money singing and playing music while she waits to be freed from her captive existence. As the story progresses, the wandering men and women (Apolonio, his not-dead-after-all wife and Tarsiana) are eventually reunited.

This was a fun story. In medieval times many authors represented man's time on earth as a peregrination in preparation for the next life, and Apolonio's odyssey through rough seas and familial difficulties was the perfect vehicle for the development of this "homo viator" theme. I found it interesting that, even though many of the Christian concepts of sin, virtue and salvation are present, and even though this is an overtly religious text meant to instruct its audience on how to live a virtuous life, these characters are not Christian. At one point, the auther mentions that Apolonio would be held in God's highest graces if only he were a believer and a Christian. This caught me by surprise, and as I thought about it, I wondered if I would have ever noticed how the lives of these characters of a bygone, pre-Christian era were so freely and effectively utilized in a Christian text such as this one.

There were other moments in the Libro de Apolonio that I found to be particularly compelling. I really liked the opening scene and the description of both Antíoco's incest and Apolonio's discovery of this mortal sin. The author associates Apolonio's educated upbringing with his ability to discern that the king is living in sin, and the strength of his character prevents him from turning a blind eye to incest. Calling the emperor out certainly brings him a world of trouble, but it also presents Apolonio as a man who is willing to act on his convictions, no matter the consequences. I also enjoyed the story of Tarsiana. Not only did she have to rely on her musical talent and ingenuity in order to maintain her virtue, but in her reunion with her father, which begins with neither one knowing the other's true identity, she engages in an extended conversation with him in which she proposes a series of riddles, hoping to entertain him and bring him out of the abject depression he's fallen into as a result of the supposed death of his only daughter. No matter how many riddles she asks him, he won't cheer up, and she eventually breaks down and tells him the story of her own miserable existence, how she doesn't know her parents and has been kidnapped and sold into slavery, having to resort to her talent in song and music in order to avoid prostitution. Her journey through life, set in the larger story of Apolonio's peregrination across land and sea, was a nice change of pace and made the final family reunion all the more satisfying.

I'm glad to have read a story that is not only relevant to the development of Spanish literature, but is also found in nearly all other European literary traditions. Apollonius's story is included in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, written in 1390, and was later utilized by Shakespeare in his play Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Appolonius's story is also used as a source for Shakespeare's plays Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors (according to Wikipedia). So that's cool; I like thinking that, now that I'm familiar with Apollonius and the medieval Spanish iteration of his trials and tribulations, I'll start recognizing his story in other stories written in other languages. ( )

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