Queen Eleuterylida Draft
Characters & Figures
The queen of the realm of free will whom Poliphilo encounters early in his journey, presiding over a court of allegorical figures.
Eleuterylida (from Greek eleutheria, 'freedom') rules a palace where Poliphilo must choose among three doors or gates representing different life paths. Her realm stages the HP's philosophical core: the exercise of rational choice guided by desire. The queen's court introduces the five senses as personified nymphs who attend Poliphilo and guide him toward deeper understanding. Her name and function connect the HP to the broader Renaissance discourse on free will, virtue, and the vita activa.
Why It Matters for the Hypnerotomachia
Queen Eleuterylida presides over the realm of free will where Poliphilo must choose among three doors. Her court stages the HP's philosophical core: the exercise of rational choice guided by desire. Her five attendant nymphs represent the bodily senses.
Why It Matters in Scholarship
The Thelemia/Eleuterylida episode connects the HP to Renaissance moral philosophy and the Choice of Hercules tradition. Rabelais adapted the name 'Theleme' for his utopian abbey in Gargantua (1534), demonstrating the HP's influence on French humanist thought.
Key Passages / Evidence
- <!-- Page 11 --> meltdown. I want to use in particular, for the sake of brevity and also for its particular suitability, a single example more typical in its strategies of these landscape... [Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Leslie_Michael_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili]
- ... an herbal cure cleansing him of "[vlnlawfull concu- piscence" (D 45r). He is now, presumably, better able to recognize and put away his base desires for Polia so that he may experience instead... [Semler 2006 (Dallington)]
- <!-- Page 137 --> Fig. 4.6) Building on the plan of a labyrinth realised after the Golden Book of Plusiapolis (codex Magliabechianus, f.110r) Furniture, connoisseurship, emotion and... [O'Neill (Durham thesis)]
Source Documents
HP (Da Capo edition); HP primary text; O'Neill (Durham thesis); Semler 2006 (Dallington); The_Narrative_Function_of_Hieroglyphs_in; Word_Image_1998_jan_vol_14_iss_1_2_Leslie_Michael_The_Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili
Page references: p. 11, p. 12, p. 13, p. 14, p. 137, p. 138, p. 139, p. 140, p. 4, p. 5, p. 6, p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, p. 7
Sources: HP a4r-b2v; Godwin 1999, pp. 31-52
Review Status / Provenance
Draft
- Source method: CORPUS_EXTRACTION
- Confidence: MEDIUM
- Notes: Enriched from corpus reading packets on 2026-03-19. 20 passages retrieved from 6 documents.