摘要：Qne of Boccaccio’s earliest works is a short Latin text that has come to be known as the Allegoria mitologica, a copy of which exists in his own hand in the Zibaldone laurenziano.1 The Allegoria is pri-marily a recasting of Ovid’s account of Phaethon but with significant changes that transform him into an authorial surrogate for the youthful poet.2 Boccaccio does not alter the disastrous consequences of Phaethon’s chariot ride but he does change his reason for undertaking the journey. No longer motivated by irresponsible vagaries of his reputation, in Boccaccio’s version of the story, Phaethon takes the chariot of the sun in response to pleas from the people of Parthenope:
Si miseris est licitum aliquid suaderi, te per superos adiuramus, o Pheton, quod pias aures nostris vocibus non extollas. Tu enim filius stel-larum principis porrectorisque lucis amene, nutritus inter montis Elicone Musas, in operationibus validis roboratus, a patre non devians, nobis digneris ostendere florum generis novi virtutes, circa quas noster animus ansiatur.3 Phaethon is appealed to as instructor and artist but also as a mediator between the Parthenopeans and Apollo. His paternity is never in question, nor is it simply a childish whim that begins his trip to the heavens. The impassioned requests of the people for these “new flowers” move him to undertake the work of appealing to his father: “ad tanti laboris fastigium me disponam” (17). Upon Phaethon’s arrival, his father attempts to dis-suade him from taking the chariot, though his warnings are less severe and extensive than those in Ovid. Nor does Apollo give instructions. Unlike the case of Icarus, the issue is not that Phaethon disregards directions, or is inadequately prepared, but that, as in Ovid, Phaethon is constitutionally incapable of controlling the chariot because he is mortal: “sors tua mor-talis est, nec est mortale quod optas” (23). After Phaethon declines to heed these warnings and takes the reigns of the chariot, Boccaccio calls him magnanimus (26) but then, immediately after, imprudens (28).
