Abelard's autobiography takes its place in a tradition of therapeutic writing about the self, yet nothing in Latin literature is quite like it. As original and idiosyncratic as its author, the HC has no immediate model nor any direct descendants. It stands alone in the singularity with which it depicts Abelard's moral metamorphoses. At the end of the work he ceases to play Proteus, finding a stable identity as an adherent to monastic values. This has consequences for the other characters in his ethical drama. If the reader is drawn onto the scene, not much room is made for the leading lady. Heloise no longer occupies centre-stage. Styling himself her spiritual guide, Abelard highlights the religious character of their relationship. Its other aspects are consigned to the past. But where did that leave her in the present? If he had refashioned his role, what was hers?

An answer to these questions is formulated, brilliantly, in the words of greeting (salutatio) with which Heloise's first letter to Abelard plays on the philosopher's taste for paradox:

Perhaps reminiscent of a triad attested in Roman poetry, this salutatio is certainly provoked by Abelard's description of Heloise as ‘now our sister in Christ rather than our wife’ in the HC. Against his emphatic potius is set her understated immo.