Abstract

Manuel Philes dedicated countless occasional poems to his many benefactors to praise their qualities and ask for all sorts of assistance, both spiritual and material. This article analyses one of these compositions, namely poem Flor. 58, and offers a commentary of its language and content. On the basis of the imagery, repetitions and allusions present in the text, it is argued that this untitled poem was in fact dedicated to the scholar and metropolitan of Philadelphia Makarios Chrysokephalos to request the gift of a hat. The detailed reading of the text aims at showing the presence of several layers of meaning which characterise the whole poem, as well as illustrating Philes' sophisticated poetic technique.