Resumen de De monstruo a meretriz: gestación de la Quimera de Belerofonte en el Ovide moralisé a lo largo de la tradición textual del mito
Chimaira, the terrible, triple monster to which Bellerophon is exposed in every source of his western textual tradition,undergoes a clear evolution from its first record in the Iliad to the Ovide moralisé, in the French Middle Ages. There hereare two lines in this process that initially converge, one that pays attention to the negative aspect of women (Euripides,Aristophanes and his scholium, and Plutarch) and another that equates the monster with the female sex (Heraclitus andAgatharchides of Cnidus). They both, through Latin poetry and pagan authors of Late Antiquity, reach Fulgentius, itsfirst Christian allegorisator. From here, the medieval allegorization of the myth by Baudri de Bourgueil under the directinfluence of the Virgilianisation of the hero outlined by other authors (commentators to Boethius, Theodulf of Orleans,William of Conches and the Vatican Mythographer I) and the identification of the monster as a prostitute (Marbodius,Bernard Sylvester, Alexander Neckam and the scholiastic of Horace) flow into the 14th century’s Ovide moralisé, whereit appears fused and included in the Christian faith. Here the Chimaira is finally equated with the prostitute, the sin of theflesh and general sin from which Bellerophon, now turned into Jesus, came to save us.
