Palamedes

Ce texte étudie deux cas bien documentés où des individus et leurs familles adoptent les armoiries de personnages de fiction, ici issus du cycle arthurien. Les Albret adoptent les armes de Perceval dès le XIIème siècle, sous l'impulsion d'Amanieu d'Albret, familier de la cour du roi Edouard Ier qui a fréquemment recours à l'emblématique et la symbolique arthuriennes pour soutenir ses projets politiques. Régnier Pot adopte lui les armoiries à l'échiqueté du chevalier Palamède à la cour de Bourgogne où naissent au XVème siècle les emprises et les pas d'armes qui poussent à leur paroxysme le goût des nobles pour l'imitation des personnages arthuriens.
Ce texte fait notamment usage d'un armorial inédit conservé au kuperstichkabinett de Berlin (HS 77A10) dont je prépare actuellement l'édition.

This paper aims studies two well-know cases of adoption of fictional coat of arms by individuals and families, the Albret and the Pot. It's also a way to witness the importance of the Arthurian fiction in the minds and the behaviour of any medieval individual, wether a prince or a heraldic painter.

Philostratus, in the Heroikos,  presents the hero Protesilaus explaining a strange story where Homer, after descending into Hades, interviewed Odysseus and asked him about the truth of what happened in Troy. The king of Ithaca agreed to tell him the truth under one condition: his heroism should not be questioned. Therefore, the Homeric poems are the result of this commitment, and the biggest loser of it was Palamedes. We face, then, two completely different profiles of hero. My aim in this paper is to highlight both the agonistic nature of the comparison between these two profiles embodied by Odysseus and Palamedes, and the agonistic way the Greek elites of the Roman Empire try to harmonize their identity through past and present.

Palamedes hat wie nur wenige andere mythische Figuren in Einklang mit seiner he­ roischen Vergangenheit religiöse Verehrung erfahren1 und wurde als für die allge­ meine Kulturentwicklung bedeutsame Persönlichkeit angesehen, vergleichbar ei­ nem Daidalos, Kadmos, Linos, Orpheus oder gar Prometheus. Er ist der einzige griechische Held des troischen Sagenkreises, der sich vor allen anderen Mitstreitern er stellt selbst den listenreichen Odysseus in den Schatten an Klugheit und Er­ findungsgabe, an Umsicht und sozialer Nützlichkeit auszeichnet und einen gewalt­ samen Tod durch seine Kameraden erleidet und der doch von Homer mit keinem Wort erwähnt wird. Die nachfolgende Literatur läßt ihn in den verschiedensten Far­ ben erscheinen, so daß eine kurze oder pauschale Charakterisierung ihm zwangsläu­ fig Unrecht tun würde. Warum er bei späteren griechischen und lateinischen Auto­ ren so beliebt ist, was an ihm fasziniert und welche Intentionen der jeweiligen Be­ schäftigung mit ihm zugrunde...

Travelling is part and parcel of the Homeric world. Both mortals and immortals in human disguise invariably travel across lands and seas (often defying the laws of Physics whilst doing so). The motif of travelling / itinerant voyaging constitutes an inherently stereotypical feature of the Homeric tradition. Simultaneously, there is an additional parameter that permeates the Homeric world, which co-exists with and complements the travelling motif: this pertains to travels that never happened, journeys that were vividly visualized / imagined / longed for, but they were never realized (cf. de Jong's "if not-situations"). It is precisely cases and examples of this distinct parameter of unfulfilled travelling wishes that the present contribution highlights and studies (drawing from both within and outside the Homeric epics, but always from within the wider Homeric tradition). The Homeric hero who repeatedly dreams of his homeland and best exemplifies the motif of the unfulfilled wish for returning to it, is Achilles; for him (and also for others, e.g. Palamedes, Antilochus) the journey back home never becomes reality; instead, it ineluctably remains in the sphere of utopian desire (with the optative mode ominously conveying – on the level of syntax – limited possibility of realization).

Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, is reputed as the first inventor of writing, dice and pawns. He even boasts being the original inventor of a new way of living, having found technology, institutions and many devices for a better social life. He is a well-known figure of Trojan myth, even he is not cited in Homeric epics. His intellectual pride is echoed in tragic drams, in which he is the eponymous character, as well as in Second Sophistic writer Philostratus and latter sources. As far as concerns Palamedes´ discoveries, we may focus on the sacredness of writing and numbers. Hence, γράμματα also used as numerals are venerated in the worship of many oracular shrines, often linked with divinatory practice. In this realm, dice and pawns employed in board-games were also revered for prophetic ends and generally meant as randomizing agents. Palamedic inventions are, thus, commonly linked with divination. In turn, Palamedes himself is, clearly, depicted as a sophos. His extraordinary cleverness approaches him to a class of inspired men and seers, whose intellectual activity is to be looked for in very similar terms. However, we find no pseudonymous divinatory or magic books under the alleged name of Palamedes, while many alternative pseudepigraphies in Late Antiquity are drawn from famous seers of Heroic times such as Melampous or Mopsos. 
The boast of Palamedes as a genius inventor provokes him the jealousy of Odysseus, whose rivalry his said to underlie the treacherous plot that causes his own murder. Such a defy is a framework of a superior intelligence to be proven through a contest. From the Greek point of view, Palamedes is claiming primacy in developing the primus ego motif which normally involved being a bestower of a better order on the world.