“Le roi Candaule” by La Fontaine – a tale, in the diversity of genres of the literary echoes of a famous Herodotus’ episode

Abstract

One of the stories in La Fontaine’s tale “Le roi Candaule et le maître en droit” is a famous episode of Herodotus’ Histories (I, 8-13): proud of his wife’s beauty, the Lydian king Candaules proposed Gyges (his favorite bodyguard) to see her naked, hidden behind the open door of the royal bedroom. Feeling reviled, exposed by her husband to the eyes of another man, the queen told Gyges that he must kill the king or die for having seen what he should not. Gyges killed Candaules, married the widow, and became king. According to Plato (Rep. II, 359c-360b; X, 612b), Gyges was an ambitious shepherd, who found a magic ring; invisible, he entered the palace, seduced the queen, killed Candaules and became king. In different literary genres, there is no lack of evidence of the reception of this episode. It inspired tragedy (Gyges und sein Ring by Friedrich Hebbel; König Kandaules by Hugo von Hofmannsthal), drama (Le Roi Candaule by André Gide) and comedy (El anillo de Giges, y máxico rey de Lydia by José de Cañizares; Le Roi Candaule by Henry Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy; Le Roi Candaule, lyric comedy by Maurice Donnay and Alfred Bruneau). La Fontaine’s tale, the short story Le roi Candaule by Théophile Gautier and the novel The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje are some of the narrative texts that recall the story of Gyges and Candaules, which may also have been one of the sources of Cervantes’ Novela del Curioso impertinente.