Metaphor and Magic in The Sorceress by Theocritus

Abstract

We analyse the rite of erotic magic, as described in the Second Idyll of Theocritus, in the light of the cognitive metaphors of love which are dismantled in the context of the so-called sympathetic magic. The allusion in the course of the ceremony to these images, grounded in literary tradition, appears to be an instance of intertextual play. In it, the author cryptically alludes to the preceding Greek poetry with ironical intent or even with an explicit comic purpose, directing it at the figure of the protagonist.