Critics generally have not warmed to Heroides 8 (in which Hermione appeals to her husband, Orestes, to rescue her from Pyrrhus, who has claimed her as his promised bride, carried her off, and holds her prisoner). Jacobson opined that the poem is ‘not very successful’ and claimed that the lengthy argumentation is ‘rather boring, not to say sometimes silly and annoying’, while Palmer described it as ‘the feeblest and least poetical of all the Heroides’.Footnote ¹ However, scholars have largely neglected some typically Ovidian cleverness and complexity in kaleidoscopic play with character. Ovid's Hermione is Hermione, but she also takes on the guise of other mythological heroines, and she represents a complete inversion of an earlier depiction of Hermione. All of this gives the poem a distinct intellectual appeal to supplement the emotional impact,Footnote ² with witty touches to ensure that the epistle is not mawkish.

The obvious links with the Briseis letter in the same collection have been noted, but have not been explored as fully as they should be.Footnote ³ In Heroides 3 Briseis is involved with Agamemnon and Achilles in a conflict over possession of her, while in Heroides 8 Hermione is involved with a son of Agamemnon and a son of Achilles in a conflict over possession of her. The connection between the poems is brought out at the start of Heroides 8, where there is allusion to Achilles and retention of an abducted female at 3–4 (Pyrrhus Achillides, animosus imagine patris, | inclusam contra iusque piumque tenet Footnote ⁴), which readily brings to mind the former epistle; and it is underscored at 85–6, where the removal of Briseis is formally cited as a parallel (nec quondam placuit nec nunc placuisset Achilli | abducta viduum coniuge flere virum). Like Briseis, Hermione is a young woman high-handedly removed against her will from a Greek hero whom she loves by another Greek hero, and she writes to her man, on whom she is completely dependent for release, asking him to stir himself and recover her.

Ovid deftly exploits this tie-in. For one thing he rings the changes. While Briseis was taken from Achilles by Agamemnon, Hermione was taken from the son of Agamemnon by the son of Achilles,Footnote ⁵ so there is a sort of tit for tat, as history repeats itself with a spin. Ovid also has fun with the notion of Hermione as another Briseis. It is entirely in character for Hermione in such a role to acknowledge Achilles' great feats (43), wish that he had not been killed (83), and claim that he did not approve of women being seized from their men (85–6). But there are some entertaining twists as well: a Briseis who is hostile to the son of Achilles, is in love with and married to the son of Agamemnon, asks him rather than Achilles to get her back, is critical of Achilles himself (calling him haughty in 3, and belittling his status vis-à-vis the commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, at 45–6) and maintains that she could not suffer worse as a captive slave (11–12)!

In addition, Ovid makes Hermione depict herself as her ravished mother, as a second Helen, a full three times, to drive home the analogy. At 19 she writes to Orestes: sit socer exemplo nuptae repetitor ademptae. At 23–6 she adds: nec tu mille rates sinuosaque vela pararis | nec numeros Danai militis – ipse veni! | sic quoque eram repetenda tamen, nec turpe marito | aspera pro caro bella tulisse toro. And then at 41–2 comes: tu mihi, quod matri pater est; quas egerit olim | Dardanius partis advena, Pyrrhus agit.Critics have noted the parallelism,Footnote ⁶ but have not spotted the wit and ingenuity involved. I would suggest that in her guise as that eloper some of what Hermione writes is very much what one would expect of that personage: a Helen of Troy would be against a large Greek force being sent to fetch her back (23–4), would speak glibly of pardon by Menelaus (37), and would be hostile to the Greek warrior Pyrrhus and want him opposed and thwarted. But I also see lots of piquant spins and inversions – in a Helen of all people objecting to being abducted and resisting as best she can (3–8), threatening her abductor with punishment (7–8), asking her husband to get her back (15–20), approving of Menelaus' recovery of his wife (19–22), loving her spouse (37), condoning the murder of adulterers (49–54) and being enraged at criticism of such killing (55–60), complaining about being deprived of Helen and of Menelaus (79–80, 89–96), wishing that Achilles had not died (83), being unable to recognize Helen (97–8), counting marriage to her husband as the one good thing in her life (101), being unhappy over sharing a bed with her ravisher (107–14), and threatening to commit suicide rather than live on apart from her husband (121–2).

Another important aspect of Ovid's Hermione has eluded scholars so far. She also recalls Euripides' version of her cousin ElectraFootnote ⁷ in the play named after her, where she has to embolden the cautious and irresolute Orestes to get him to kill their father's murderers, Aegisthus (at 668–87) and Clytaemnestra (at 963–84). In Heroides 8, as in the Electra, we find a female relative of Orestes in constant tears and sorrowing day and night (Electra 181–2; Heroides 8.63–4, 105–10), eager for him to come and liberate her from misery (Electra 135–6), shoring up his courage when he has done nothing so far,Footnote ⁸ urging him (successfully) to act against an adulterer, and (at 49–54) condoning the execution of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus. To underline the connection, at 27–9 Ovid has Hermione use frater and soror of her relationship to Orestes, where the primary sense of the words is ‘cousin’, but the much more frequent meanings ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ naturally spring to mind too: quid, quod avus nobis idem Pelopeius Atreus, | et, si non esses vir mihi, frater eras. | vir, precor, uxori, frater succurre sorori!

Again there is sport and variation. An Electra would praise Agamemnon (44–6). But this Electra, unlike Euripides' heroine, is passive, inert, and totally reliant on Orestes.Footnote ⁹ This is also a gentler Electra: in contrast to her Euripidean counterpart, she is not unbalanced by her suffering, she does not hate her mother for treating her badly (by abandoning her for Paris), and she does not press Orestes to commit murder specifically. In addition, our ‘Electra’ portrays herself as a weak woman without a sword in 60 (whereas she joined in using a sword on Clytaemnestra at Electra 1225), and is not married to a peasant farmer but to Orestes, and, an adulteress herself (albeit unwillingly),Footnote ¹⁰ is exhorting Orestes to act against a man who has committed adultery with Orestes' own wife rather than with his mother.

It has also escaped notice that, at the same time, Ovid has an eye to another heroine in a play by Euripides – Hermione in the Andromache, where we find a memorable but very different depiction of her in a divergent version of her story. There Pyrrhus, after impregnating his captive Andromache, marries Hermione to get a legitimate heir. When she cannot get pregnant, she blames this on the use of magic by Andromache in a plot to oust her. While Pyrrhus is at Delphi, she and her father try to murder Andromache and her son. Peleus rescues them and drives off Menelaus, and Hermione fears that on his return Pyrrhus will kill her for her attempted crime. When Orestes turns up, she begs him to take her away, to save her from Pyrrhus' rage. Orestes announces that he had been promised her before Pyrrhus and carries her off to marry her, having already arranged for the murder of Pyrrhus at Delphi.

Ovid highlights the link to the Euripidean heroine early on. At 13–14 (parcius Andromachen vexavit Achaia victrix, | cum Danaus Phrygias ureret ignis opes) he has Hermione write of Andromache being maltreated by Greeks, which is an obvious pointer to her maltreatment by Hermione herself and Menelaus in the tragedy. By way of reinforcement in 55 he clearly echoes Pyrrhus' criticism of Orestes for assassinating his mother at Andromache 977, and the threat of suicide at 121 makes one think of Hermione's attempt to kill herself at Andromache 811–16. There is variation in the Ovidian princess asking Orestes to take her off as his reclaimed wife rather than spirit her away so that she can escape punishment for a crime. But in particular our poet presents a young woman who is diametrically opposed to the Euripidean character. In place of the hard and arrogant female who relished her royal authority (see especially Andromache 147–80), Ovid gives us a mild, meek, and powerless person. His Hermione is a figure of pathos not hatred and menace, and she never talks of Orestes killing Pyrrhus (whereas Hermione in the play tried to kill her rival and the child). In Heroides 8 she is held against her will and longs to escape the union with Achilles' son, whereas in the Andromache Hermione wanted to live on in the palace as queen and stay married to Pyrrhus. And the Ovidian Hermione is miserable and cruelly oppressed instead of inflicting misery on others and being a cruel oppressor herself.

In conclusion, I hope that this note has alerted readers to an intricate network of intratextual and intertextual resonances in Heroides 8 which hitherto either have not been properly pursued or have been totally disregarded. I also hope that this will sharpen appreciation of this poem and enhance its status, highlighting the cerebral playfulness and increasing our perception of Ovidian subtlety, dexterity, and ingenuity.