Iole, Onfale ed Ercole innamorato: da Ovidio al teatro sei-settecentesco

In 17-18th plays regarding Hercules’ death the character of Iole is deeply reinvented compared to ancient dramas: Iole is no longer just an unfortunate prisoner of war, victim of her own beauty, but a proud and strong-willed woman, able to stand up to her fierce conqueror, while Hercules is represented as an elegiac lover, totally subjugated by the girl’s charm and even disposed to a sort of servitium amoris to please her. In some prose and music dramas the aspect of the ‘submission’ of Hercules to Iole is further enhanced by attributing to her the characteristics of Omphale, who most embodies the mythical projection of the elegiac domina. This article reconstructs the origin of the overlapping of the characters of Iole and Omphale, tracing it back to a misunderstanding of the text of Ov. Her. IX documented in medieval comments and translations and widespread through the interpretation of Iole’s character proposed by Boccaccio.