Digenis Akritas
Born to an emir who converts for love of a Byzantine general's daughter, a boy of doubled blood grows into the guardian of the empire's eastern frontier, carries off a bride against her father's army, kills a lion and a dragon at his own spring, and holds the border alone from a palace on the Euphrates. The fifteen-syllable line stays close to the spoken Greek of its day rather than the Attic of the schools. Surviving in six divergent versions, it is the one Byzantine epic and the seed of the Greek folk songs of the akrites.
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Attributes
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 59% · 13 shared
- 54% · 12 shared
- 53% · 13 shared
- 53% · 13 shared
- 52% · 11 shared
- 51% · 12 shared