Mehmed II and His Woman: The Idea of Europe in Early Modern Representations of a Female Captive

Abstract

The Irene narrative, also referred to as the “story of the Sultan and the Fair Greek,” does not belong to any individual linguistic group or national tradition but is instead more European in the sense that it was translated, adapted, and appropriated in a variety of contexts throughout the continent. As author after author in the early modern period represents the European/Oriental encounter as a relationship between a Turkish Sultan and a Greek woman, what emerges is a Europe that is increasingly fragmented, dynamic, and evolving—changing as much as Irene herself does through time and space. What begins as a brief tale intended to demonstrate the cruelty of Mehmed II to a woman in his seraglio becomes the story of a Greek woman on the eastern fringes of European identity, used by writers to establish a contrast between what is and is not proper European behavior in confrontations with the Other. To be more specific, the figure of Irene that Matteo Bandello creates as a symbolic warning against trusting the Eastern Other, and as a means of encouraging Europeans to unite against a common foe, becomes in England a character who represents an increasingly fragmented, faithless Europe forced to negotiate with the Other at its own peril.