Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623-14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid [Reprint 2012 ed.] 3110183269, 9783110183269

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Sophia Papaioannou Epic Succession and Dissension

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Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte Herausgegeben von Gustav-Adolf Lehmann, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath und Otto Zwierlein

Band 73

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Epic Succession and Dissension Ovid .Metamorphoses 13.623—14.582, and the Reinvention of the eneid

by _

Sophia Papaioannou

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

ISBN 3-11-018326-9 Library of Congress — Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue rccord for this b o o k is available f r o m the Library of Congress

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©

Copyright 2005 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin

All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in G e r m a n y Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin Printing and binding: Hubert & Co., Göttingen

For Vasilis and Eudokia

Acknowledgments Ever since I read Ovid's Metamorphoses in one continuous reading from cover to cover for the very first time the summer after I received my PhD in 1998, the peculiar thematic choices that put together the narrative of Books 12-14, and their quirky treatment which I found so avant-garde caught my attention. These three books alone I read four additional times in the same summer. In the course of the following year my surprise and bewilderment only grew at discovering how little attention classical scholarship has paid to the 'little Aeneid' - even though this cluster constitutes the very first direct critical reading of Vergil's poem and no less to its twin pair, the 'little Iliad'. The present volume partly fulfills a goal I set that summer, to justify why Ovid's direct dialogue with each of his two great models in Metamorphoses 12-14 deserves in-depth and exclusive exploration. Simply put, the pages that follow include arguments, which, firstly, explore the ingenuity of the rationale behind Ovid's idionyncratic summary of the Aeneid·, and secondly, demonstrate that this first Aeneid adaptation both validates and emulates the sophistication of the prototype. A second volume, currently under preparation, is set to provide a close study of the structural and metaliterary dynamics of the 'little Iliad'. I began systematic research for this book four years ago, while teaching at the University of Akron, in Akron, Ohio, and I wrote a first draft in the course of the academic year 2002-2003. Thanks to the financial support of a faculty research stipend from the University of Cyprus I spent most of the summer of 2003 at Cambridge, and at that time the first complete draft of the book was finished. Richard Hunter and the Staff of the Classics Faculty Library extended their hospitality and assistance whenever needed; I am already looking forward to the opportunity for a second research visit there. N o less gracious hosts, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Biegen Library, and of course Stephen Tracy, held always an open door, and offered a haven for uninterrupted research and writing, for several extended blocks of time in the last two years. The staff at the Bierce Library in Akron and the efficiency of the OhioLink interlibrary system assisted tre-

Vlll

Acknowledgments

mendously the earlier stages of my research, especially my hunt for the relevant secondary literature. The University of Cyprus Central Library personnel proved no less obliging. Above all, my thanks go to the distinguished colleagues in the profession who generously took the time to comment on portions of this manuscript: first and foremost, Philip Hardie who graciously accepted to read and offer his judicious input on the entire manuscript, and who generously provided a draft of a developing project, a commentary on Metamorphoses 13-15. I have also greatly benefited from the incisive comments and corrections of the two referees of the Untersuchungen der antiken Literatur und Geschichte Series, Hans-Günther Nesselrath and Otto Zwierlein. Michael Lipka and Richard Tarrant commented on individual chapters of the project, but also spent time discussing Ovid's artistry with me. Alison Keith, Andreas Michalopoulos, and James O'Hara offered penetrating suggestions upon reading an earlier version of chapter seven, part of which was originally published as article in the Classical Quarterly. Sarah Myers no less promptly and courteously sent a working draft of the commentary on Metamorphoses 14 she is currently preparing. Christopher Schabel, my colleague at the University of Cyprus, took valuable time from his own research and kindly proofread the entire manuscript. On the part of the publisher Sabine Vogt's immediacy in responding to and resolving all my questions cannot be easily measured in words of gratitude. Needless to say, any remaining errors in the book are my own responsibility. I dedicate this book to my siblings. Athens, January 2005 S.P.

Contents Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

Summary of the 'little Aeneid' (Ovid,Met. 13.623-14.582)

16

Chapter One Aeneads and Aniads: Offering Politics and the Politics of Offerings, or Narrative Discourse onAnius' Crater (Met. 13.681-701) 1. Introduction 2. The Ekphrasis, its Text and Context 3. The Theban Connection 4. The Aesculapius Parallel

19 20 26 32

Chapter Two Immortality and Mutability: The Sibyl and the Power of Poetic Memory 1. Introduction 2. The Sibyl and Aeneas 3. The Sibyl and Rome 4. The Sibyl and Poetic Memory 5. The Sibyl's Echo

43 46 52 60 70

Chapter Three Centralizing the Marginal: The Anamorphosis of Achaemenides 1. Introduction 2. Achaemenides' Literary Identity 3. The Dynamics of Hypertextuality 4. Performance and Metadiegesis 5. Metapoetics and Cultural Poetics 6. Spectator and Observer 7. Auctor and Actor

75 79 83 92 96 98 107

χ

Table of Contents

Chapter Four Marginalizing the Central: Macareus Anamnesis 1. Introduction 2. The Plight of Picus and the Quest for Dido 3. Looking for Dido 4. Picus' Plight: Torn Between Heaven and Hell 5. An Addendum

113 114 117 127 139

Chapter Five Experimentation on a Narrative Chain I: Poetology, Epic Definition, and the Near-Swans of Diomedes 1. Introduction 2. Vergil's Diomedes and Ethics 3. Ovid's Diomedes and Metapoetics 4. The Avian Metamorphosis Context 5. The Near-Swans of Diomedes and the Swan-Chain 6. Swan Poetics and Epic Succession

143 145 146 149 152 157

Chapter Six Experimentation on a Narrative Chain II: Vergilian Ships and Ovidian Nymphs, and a Play of Literary Identities 1. Introduction 2. The Transformed Nymphs and Diomedes 3. The Attachment to Ardea

167 169 180

Chapter Seven Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea

187

Bibliography

199

Indexes

209

Abbreviations The Latin text throughout is quoted from W.S. Anderson's Teubner edition, P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses (Leipzig 1977), noting any divergences; other texts according to standard editions (normally either the O C T or the Teubner series). Unless indicated otherwise, the translations of the Metamorphoses are quoted from F.J. Miller (ed. and trans.), Ovid IV, Metamorphoses IX-XV, 2nd edition, revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA and London 1984), with a few changes. The translation of the Iliad is quoted from R. Fagles, Homer: The Iliad. With Introduction and Notes by Bernard Knox (London 1990). In translating passages from the Aeneid and the Odyssey I have basically consulted, respectively, H.R. Fairclough's translation of Vergil and A.T. Murray's, translation of the Odyssey, both in the Loeb series, which on several occasions I have changed. Abbreviated names of ancient authors and works follow Liddell-Scott-Jones, A GreekEnglish Lexicon, Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary, except where expanded for clarity. Abbreviations of journal titles follow those used by U Annee Philologique. Works of modern scholarship repeatedly referred to are noted in the text in abbreviated form (by the author's name and date of publication, as they are listed in the bibliography at the end of the book). The following abbreviations are used throughout for booklength works: Börner EpGF EV FGrH H-E

F. Börner (ed.), P. Ovidius Naso: Metamorphosen, 7 vols (Heidelberg 1969-1986). M. Davies (ed.), Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen 1988). Enciclopedia Virgiliana, 5 vols. (Rome 1984-1990). F. Jacoby (ed.), Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin 1923-1958). M. Haupt, O. Korn, H.J. Ehwald (edd.), P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen, vol. 1 (Books 1-7), vol. 2

Xll

LIMC LS LSJ OLD Bernabe PCG PMG RE

Roscher

Tarrant TLL

Abbreviations (Books 8-15), revised by M. von Albrecht (Dublin and Zurich 1966). Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich 1981-1997). C.T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford 1879). H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, revised by H . Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon. 9 th ed. (Oxford 1940). P.G.W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford 19681982). A. Bernabe (ed.), Poetarum Epicorum Graecorum: Testimonia et Fragmenta, vol. 1 (Leipzig 1987). R. Kassel and C. Austin (edd.), Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin 1983-). D.L. Page, ed., Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford 1962). A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, et al., Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft ( S t u t t g a r t 18941978). W . H . Roscher, Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 7 vols. (Leipzig 18841937). R. Tarrant, P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses, O x f o r d Classical Texts (Oxford 2004). Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Leipzig 1900-).

Citations to Börner's Kommentar follow two different patterns: Börner ad 13.632 points to the comments next to verse 632 of Metamorphoses 13. Börner ad 13.632-704, 370-373, refers to pages 370-373 that cover the introductory section to the episode spanning the lines 632-704 of Book 13.

Introduction The text of the Metamorphoses is both a challenge as well as a response to the Aeneid,1 yet nowhere in the course of the fifteen books of the poem does Ovid confront his great predecessor more directly than in the 'little Aeneid'. There, in fewer than a thousand verses and two contiguous half books {Met. 13.623-14.582), he revisits the epic world of Aeneas, in an original reading that is a paradigm of critical analysis, and a strong claim to epic heritage and Vergilian succession. It is the goal of the present book to investigate and illuminate the ingenuity of Ovid's systematic and multiform emulation pattern of Vergil's epic. In the narrative flow of events that record the history of the world in the Metamorphoses the inclusion of Aeneas' saga as told by Vergil poses a big challenge: how to reproduce an epic as long and uniquely complex as the Aeneid within a drastically reduced space, and still manage both to demonstrate the grandeur of Vergil's poem and to compete successfully against it. The various chapters in the present study marshal arguments that purport to elucidate Ovid's compositional program. What are the constraints that dictate the rules of Ovid's contest against Vergil? In the first place ranks a repeated employment of allusion, both intertextual and intratextual. Omnipresent and in various tropes and degrees of elaboration, it becomes the foundation of Ovid's ambitious claim to literary eminence en par with and as an heir to Vergil. The outcome is an idiosyncratic 'Aeneid' best described as a montage of metamorphoses. Metamorphosis seems out of place in an epic poem, and in the epic world overall, since it clashes with the principal tenets of the genre that call for determination and resoluteness. Yet, it features prominently in Roman epic: present already in the Aeneid, "it is a more common thing in the poem as a whole than is usually allowed", 2 and the predilection for it is for the most part

'

2

" W i t h i n his Metamorphoses O v i d creates a large poetic f r a m e that chronologically incorporates the Aeneid and at the same time revivifies it synchronically t h r o u g h o u t b y appropriation and r e d e p l o y m e n t of an intricate web of allusions that perhaps suggest the various ways Ovid read that epic". So Smith 1997, 16. H a r d i e 1992, 62.

2

Introduction

dictated by metapoetics. In Ovid's epic, transformation becomes the norm, the leading connecting theme, with the metamorphosed text appearing as the outcome of a competition, in this particular case, against the text of the Aeneid. Ovid's mastery of allusion and the self-promotion of his epic talent are also made manifest through a third major structural principle: selectivity. Ovid shrewdly borrowed from the Aeneid an interesting and unexpected assortment of narrative units, and by means of an intelligent reworking, succeeded in transforming an alloy of marginal and unrelated stories into an epic at once familiar and altogether new. The nature, degree, and objective of allusion in composition, and the ensuing complexity, foremost distinguish Ovid's narrative talent. The element of allusion is elevated to artistry in Ovidian poetry, and in the Metamorphoses this becomes mastery. Admittedly, Ovid's intelligent tropes of embodiment and rewriting of Vergil's epic have occupied the center of criticism for some time. Nonetheless, earlier critics, convinced that Ovid's accomplishment was founded on persistent contrast to Vergil, refused to appreciate the Metamorphoses in comparison with the Aeneid,3 Karl Galinsky's introduction to the Metamorphoses, arguably a leading full-scale evaluation of the epic in the early era of modern Ovidian criticism, exemplifies this 'Vergilo-centric' treatment of Ovid's discourse with the Aeneid. Taking for granted that for Vergil's aspiring successors the Aeneid stood as the apex of perfection in epic expression, a work impossible even to challenge, let alone surpass, Galinsky rejected a definition of Ovid's aemulatio in terms of agonistic emulation. In his view, Ovid never intended to antagonize Vergil's epic talent, knowing full well that he could not measure up to this competi-

3

Variatio (or rather, imitatio cum variatione) has been called the poem's premier principle of arrangement (H. Herter, 'Ovids Kunstprinzip in den Metamorphosen', A]Ρ 69 [1948], 347), its ordering principle (Due 1974, 133; E.J. Kenney, 'Ovid', in: E.J. Kenney, W. Clausen (edd.), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 2 [Cambridge 1982], 432), the hallmark of Ovid's poetic style (G.M.H. Murphy, Metamorphoses XI. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary [London 1972], 6), and the character of the poem (Galinsky 1975, 106; 1990, 25). Galinsky epigrammatically defines Ovid's compositional strategy with the phrase referre idem aliter (cf. Galinsky 1975, 4-5, 219-222, et passim), a phrase actually borrowed from the/Irs Amatoria (2.128), where it applies to Ulixes' seductive charm as he enchanted Calypso with his narrative skill: every time, for seven years, he related the same story, the fall of Troy, in a different way (ille referre aliter saepe solebat idem). The reader is to project Ulixes' narrator persona onto Ovid, and study the many aspects of Ovid's anxiety about literary influence and reaction to it.

Introduction

3

tion; 4 rather, he cleverly opted not to treat the same material in order to avoid direct comparison, and presented instead a version that would be appreciated for its own acumen. In the three decades following the publication of Galinsky's book, the increasing popularity of the study of Ovidian poetry has produced important treatises on various instances of "incorporation" of the Vergilian intertext in the Metamorphoses,5 Naturally recent studies eschew the view that the composition of Ovid's epic, including the 'little Aeneid', attests to a well-hidden awareness of the author's inferiority. What traditionally has been considered lack of talent or sterile imagination is actually a wellconcealed expression of literary erudition, where allusive tendentiousness becomes the end rather than the means, and declarations of poetics, both subtle and oblique, are ever harder to identify for the lector indoctus.b These perceptive approaches to the interaction between the two great Augustan epic writers have generated insightful observations on various manifestations of allusivity in Met. 13.623-14.582. Ovid's recast 'Aeneid' has attracted its share of critical attention in the past four decades. Nonetheless, only in the last fifteen years has scholarship begun to appreciate the masterful design and creativity of the earliestknown narrative reproduction of the Aeneid. Until then, criticism sought mainly to explore the extent to which Ovid in the 'little Aeneid' distances himself from Vergil, and to judge the success or failure of his narrative initiatives by comparison with the model. In her 1962 Freiburg dissertation, to this date the only monograph devoted solely to the 'little Aeneid', Margarete Stitz read Met. 13.623-14.582 as a lusus, arguing that a broad application of Ovid's witticism would highlight the poet's literary independence and dem-

4

5

6

Galinsky 1975, 220: "Ovid wisely decided not to compete against Vergil's... account", because he (p. 224) "rightly recognized [the Aeneid] to be inimitable"; his full discussion of the 'little Aeneid' occupies pp. 217-251, while several of his comments are repeated in id. 1976, 3-18; Börner ad 14.103 espouses a similar view. Landmark works, each with a substantial bibliographical overview, include the following: Rosati 1983 and 2002; Baldo 1995; Barchiesi 2001; Conte 1986 and 1994; Conte-Barchiesi 1989; Hinds 1987, and especially 1998; Solodow 1988; Hardie 1990, a pioneering study on the Vergilian echoes behind the Theban legend in Metamorphoses 3 and 4, aptly subtitled 'the first and-Aeneid'\ also id. 1993, 1997, and 1999; Keith 1992 and 2002; Knox 1986; Miller 1993; Myers 1994; Casali 1995; O ' Hara 1996; Wills 1996; Feldherr 1997; Smith 1997; Tissol 1997 and 2002; Wheeler 1999. For an intriguing and comprehensive appreciation of the value of post-Vergilian epic, see Hardie 1997; Barchiesi 2001, 129-140, offers a different, shorter but no less intelligent treatment.

4

Introduction

onstrate his originality. 7 The 'little Aeneid' became a popular topic of German dissertations and studies in the 1960s, yet Stitz's thoughtful formal analysis was followed by treatments more or less superficial well into the mid-1970s 8 and the publication of Galinsky's Introduction.9 N o t until Solodow, in 1988, did the 'little Aeneid' receive fresh attention as a unified narrative.10 Solodow suggested that in this cluster Ovid does not wish to parody or criticize Vergil as much as to question the purpose of composing heroic epic poetry under the contemporary political and cultural circumstances. 11 In the critic's opinion, Ovid accomplishes the de-epicization of the Aeneas legend by recasting various episodes from the Aeneid in a language and style that evokes primarily the spirit of Hellenistic and Neoteric literature. 1 ' O n the other hand, Solodow does not see the presence of a sophisticated design underlying the composition of Met. 13.623-14.582, but claims that Ovid's narrative is marked by relativity. This is to be seen in his definition of Ovid's narrative "form" (which urges against "a neatly unifying

7 8

9

10 11

Stitz 1962, 119-120. Guthmüller 1964, 81-134; D ö p p 1968, 104-140, esp. 127-140. Bibliography predating Stitz is listed in Börner ad 13.623ff. Stitz's arguments for playfulness as an essential trait of Ovid's narrative style, not only in the 'little Aeneid' but in the entire Metamorphoses, are reproduced and enhanced in Bernbeck 1967, who discusses briefly the 'little A eneid' on pp. 117-122. Otis 1970, saw in Met. 13.623-14.582 an overstated indifference on Ovid's part "to his ostensibly serious Augustan purpose" (p. 286); the same scholar a few pages later (305) asserted that Ovid cleverly uses the Aeneas story "as a frame for light love stories" that have little to contribute to the development of the story line. For Segal 1969, 270, Ovid "achieves an effect of destructive levity by inserting into Aeneas' story seven hundred lines of racier and frothier stuff: the frivolous, marine tales of Galatea, Glaucus, Scylla, and Circe". Cf. note 4 above; Galinsky's approach to the Ovidian non-polemical aemulatio towards the Aeneid was in some respects already anticipated in two articles by Lammachia in 1960 and 1969. Segal 1968 represents a groundbreaking early discussion of Ovid's aemulatio technique as this applies to the character of Circe which the critic observes in its evolution across the epic tradition. Solodow 1988, with pp. 110-156 devoted to the analysis of the 'little Aeneid'. In Solodow's view, Ovid (p. 136) "reshapes the meaning of the Aeneid" transforming it "from a national into a personal history, that is, into a subjective rendering of the history of individuals". Aeneas is not intended to follow in the footsteps of his heroic Vergilian self but appears instead as "an unheroic figure set in a world where only the representation and the perception of the self are important" (p. 156). This approach receives its most detailed presentation in the side-by-side examination of the Vergilian and the Ovidian versions of the transformation of Aeneas' ship into nymphs (Solodow 1988, 127-136).

Introduction

5

story" and "an ordering narrator") and "content", where the critic discusses how Ovid treated the pieces of the Aeneid which he chose to retain. 13 The earliest, brief metanarrative approaches also saw the light in the 1980s. These include an article by Fabre and two relatively short discussions by Ellsworth. Both critics addressed the rationale behind the selection of the parenthetical tales of the 'little Aeneid', attempting to discern a more covert and intelligent interaction with the Aeneid. According to Fabre, each of these digressions comments on one of two pivotal themes in the Aeneid, namely, Aeneas' pietas and his love affair with Dido. 14 For Ellsworth, the Sicilian tales and the Picus-Canens story, when viewed within the Aeneid framework, call to mind events and characters from the post-Trojan War era, the same era in which the Aeneas legend is set. Additionally, the composition of the 'little Aeneid' consists of units designed to evoke simultaneously the plot of the Homeric Odyssey In the last decade of the twentieth century critical research on the Metamorphoses has burgeoned. Scholarship opened new avenues towards a deeper understanding of the Metamorphoses, and several representatives of contemporary Ovidian analysis addressed the 'little Aeneid'. Still, only a handful of them raised questions seriously challenging the motivation and scope of the narrative structure behind this narrative cluster, correlated it to the original model, the Vergilian epic, and discussed its integration within the broader framework of the Metamorphoses. Döpp, Junod, Tissol, and Myers produced four such different readings of the 'little Aeneid', which nonetheless share as common denominator the fact that they treat selectively only a limited set of the episodes included in the unit. 16

13 14 15 16

S o l o d o w 1988, 142. Fabre 1986. Ellsworth 1986 and 1988, respectively. D ö p p 1991; J u n o d 1991; M y e r s 1994, 98-113; and Tissol 1997, 177-191, originally published in nearly identical f o r m in Helios 20 (1993), 69-79; none treats the recast Aeneid as an i n d e p e n d e n t unit on its o w n right. D ö p p , e x p a n d i n g on observations that first appeared in his 1968 doctoral dissertation, denies the polemic character of the 'little Aeneid' and suggests reading the text as an alternative poetic creation w h o s e i n g e n u i t y is best appreciated w h e n c o m p a r e d to the Vergilian model. J u n o d addresses the integration of the 'little Aeneid' w i t h i n the f r a m e w o r k of Ovid's epic. C o m m e n t i n g on the opening line of the A r d e a unit and the sack of the city b y the unspecified barbarus ensis, she claims that O v i d ' s narrative t e c h n i q u e e m p h a s i z e s spectacular narrative and a m b i g u o u s allusivity: O v i d ' s A e n e a s is n o w h e r e to be seen as a participant in the most f u n d a m e n t a l l y heroic a c t i v i t y , w a r f a r e - a n d as a m a t t e r of fact the a m b i g u i t y of the phrase barbarus ensis (14.574) underlines precisely the hero's absence f r o m the battlefield. T h e n again, Aeneas'

6

Introduction

Yet, in all these studies, despite numerous intelligent remarks, especially by Myers and Tissol, a detailed analysis of the structural design of the 'little Aeneid' and its crosstextual and intratextual dynamics rest beyond the scope of their principal goals.17 The two outstanding exceptions are Baldo's published revision of an earlier doctoral thesis, and the fourth chapter in Hinds' discussion of the nature of allusion in Latin literature. 18 Both critics eschewed answering whether the 'little Aeneid' is a parody or a non-parody of the Aeneid, pro-Augustan or anti-Augustan, and concentrated instead on the textual fabric of Met. 13.620-14.608, which both assume to be Ovid's most direct poetological confrontation with the Aeneid, and a unit essentially consisting of a sequence of crosstextual dialogic pairs. Baldo's treatment occupies the first section of a monograph on Ovid's revision of epic, namely Vergil and Homer. In the introduction to this part, Baldo declares outright that the main goal of his analysis is "piuttosto di comprendere la funzionalitä narrativa delle scelte formali di Ovidio, sia nella puntuale ripresa imitativa di singoli loci virgiliani sia nella costruzione di determinati contenuti tematici" (p. 37). The relationship between predecesmoral eminence is repeatedly emphasized, for it is to be projected onto the character of Augustus. Yet, the subtly but clearly ironic tone of the Ovidian narrative leaves little doubt that the parallelism between Augustus and Aeneas is not to be received as a positive one. Like Junod, Tissol comments on the rationale behind the size and composition of the 'little Aeneid.', while he himself defines the cluster as a textbook case of an outright epic parody. He points out that the 'little Aeneid' mainly reproduces episodes from Aeneid 3 and 6, the prophetic books, for, through parodying the element of prophecy, which largely directs the plot and the course of the Aeneid, Vergil's world becomes utterly deconstructed. In this way, the order of traditional epic submits to the "universal prevalence of flux", the leading force in the Metamorphoses and, allegedly, a factor dominating every aspect of contemporary Roman experience. Aeneas' encounters with the divine, Tissol remarks, guide his mission as to become "a divinely ratified pattern applicable to the understanding of contemporary political events and to the comprehension of the future as well" [1997, 179]. Still, the 'little Aeneid' does not conclude with Aeneas' arrival at Latium. The accounts of Venulus' appeal to Diomedes, the fall of Ardea and even the narratives embedded in Macareus' response to Achaemenides are not related to prophecies, nor do they come trom Aeneid 3 and 6. Finally, Myers proposes the element of aetiology as the common denominator of several, though not all, episodes in Met. 13.62314.582, which originate in some earlier Hellenistic version, one likely of aetiological significance and considerable allusivity. 17

18

O.S. Due, 'Ulysses and Aeneas in Ovid', CM 48 (1997), 347-358, reads more like a deliberately spontaneous recording of a reader's first, highly subjective thoughts, without contributing significantly to the scholarly debate. Baldo 1995, 29-109, part of which was included in an earlier publication, 1986, 109-131; and Hinds 1998, 99-122; Hopkinson 2000 is much indebted to both studies.

Introduction

7

sor and successor is best understood through the close study of the two texts. 19 O n several occasions, Baldo does capture the intertextual complexity of the various Vergilian adaptations in the Metamorphoses, and his observations are stimulating. O n the other hand, an analysis of the structural dynamics of the 'little Aeneid', the rationale behind the choices and arrangement of the specific episodes, the numerous peculiarities that underlie Ovid's abbreviated recollection of the Vergilian epic, and the sophistication of its narrative texture and structural organization, including their thematic integration in the whole poem, would add much to the seventy-odd pages (37-109) which Baldo essentially devotes to the 'little Aeneid'. From this perspective, the absence of a modern book-length reflection on this deeply tendentious recast 'Aeneid' strikes one as a remarkable omission. The present study aims to fill this void in Ovidian criticism. Hinds' Allusion and Jntertext, an insightful work on the manifestations of literary allusion in Latin literature, has exercised considerable influence on my discussion. 20 The critic comments extensively on Ovidian intertextuality, and several of his arguments are tied directly to the narrative of Ovid's 'Aeneid', to which he devotes his entire fourth chapter (pp. 99-122), under the title 'Repetition and Change'. His analysis of various narrative sections of the 'little Aeneid' cluster points to a systematic exploration of Ovidian "incorporation" strategy. Hinds suggests that the correct appreciation of Ovid's success in reinventing the Aeneid depends on the reader's ability to trace a dialogic "negotiation" between two different types of reading, focusing systematically on the "incorporating" and the "incorporated" text. Most studies on Ovidian intertextuality center on one type of reading, and this results in an incomplete ("fragmented") appreciation of the dynamics of the discourse, as one of the sides involved in the discussion receives partial and biased treatment. The directive to the correct way of decoding Ovid's multi-dimensional recasting of the Aeneid is provided by Barchiesi's theory that calls for the quest for "the trail of the model" (la traccia del modello). 21 The phrase, which has actually been coined to describe Vergilian allusion to Homer, also applies to Ovid's technique of appropriation. The alluding text incorporates "traccie", traces or trails, of the model. These "traces", ensconced and fully

19

20 21

Baldo 1995, 37: "La poetica ovidiana poträ forse venire ulteriormente illuminata almeno per quanto riguarda le modalitä di ricezione del Libro epico virgiliano nelle Metamorfosi". Quoted throughout as Hinds 1998. Barchiesi 1984, as discussed in Hinds 1998, 101.

8

Introduction

integrated in their new textual environment, nonetheless do carry along the blueprint of their original context, which occasionally emerges clearly or even proposes to direct the reading in the new one. In this book I shall demonstrate that each episode of the 'little Aeneid' carries a number of such "traccie"; their detection presupposes familiarity with the working of allusion and its manifestations. These various modes and levels of textual metamorphosis are dynamically confronting the Vergilian epic, which they narrate anew in ways that reveal self-confidence, acumen, and, above all, independence, besides a persistent concern for originality. At the same time, Ovid's embrace of the Vergilian model in Met. 13.623-14.582 leads an intratextual dialogue extending to earlier and later sections of the poem, often engaging multiple intratexts within the same narrative unit in the 'little Aeneid'. The exploration, in each separate tale of the cluster, of the thematic and structural links with earlier and later sections of the poem will also map more clearly the compositional dynamics of the 'little Aeneid' in its entirety, as an example of the sophistication that distinguishes the composition of Ovidian poetry. Probing the self-conscious competition with Vergil's epic voice introduces the second principal constraint directing Ovid's creative response to the epic rules set up by the poet of the Aeneid, namely the issue of epic succession. Met. 13.623-14.582 is obviously a text composed principally to be read against another, which, after all, happens to direct, if not cause, its existence.22 Ovid's treatment of the Vergilian model raises emulation to the level of creation: in Hinds' words, "rather than construct himself as a reader of the Aeneid, Ovid is constructing Virgil as an hesitant precursor of the Metamorphoses" (p. 106). And there is little doubt that the composition of the 'little Aeneid' has very much to do with its creator's advertisement of his candidacy to Vergil's epic throne. Interlaced with literary evolution regardless of genre, metapoetics is integral in Latin epic. For, unlike any other genre of Greek literature - with the exception perhaps of the young literary

"

Ovid's epic anxiety is outlined in S.J. Harrison, 'Ovid and Genre: Evolutions of an Elegist', in: P.R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge 2002), 7994 (the quotation comes from p. 89): "Metamorphosis is the theme of the poem [sc. the Metamorphoses], both in terms of its formal content, and in terms of its generic variety. Genres appear and disappear and are transformed into each other through the long course of the poem, following its explicit programme (1.1-2): literary forms are transformed into new bodies of poetic work". Harrison's article offers an excellent brief overview on Ovid's life-long experimentation with genre, an intellectual process which actually has a famous precedent already in the Aeneid- cf. Hardie 1986.

Introduction

9

tradition o f Alexandria - G r e e k epic, and, particularly, H o m e r , had b e e n the u l t i m a t e p o i n t o f r e f e r e n c e and the archetypal a n c e s t o r f o r all Latin epic writers since the Odyssey

of Livius A n d r o n i c u s . T h e c o m p o s i t i o n and in-

stant success o f the Aeneid

essentially i n t r o d u c e d a n e w set of rules f o r de-

f i n i n g the issue o f epic succession. 2 3 T h e texture of the Vergilian i n t e r t e x t , a c o m b i n a t i o n o f direct discourse with readily identifiable textual models and an A l e x a n d r i a n - l i k e ability t o f o c u s o n the word in order t o view it as the visible tip o f an i c e b e r g - l i k e m o u n t o f intertwined textual h i s t o r y , appears t o be a formidable challenge, tempting b o t h imitation and reaction. 2 4 T h i s definition of epic succession as polemical creative imitation calls t o m i n d B l o o m ' s c o n t e n t i o n that artistic succession is s y n o n y m o u s t o antithesis, an infinite, instinctive antagonism between earlier and later p o e t s , which he calls " c o n t r a s t imitation". 2 5 Met.

1 3 . 6 2 3 - 1 4 . 5 8 2 , m o r e than o t h e r sections

o f the O v i d i a n carmen

presents a rare test case in m e t a p o e t i c s .

Ut totum

partes:

perpetuum,

the various episodes in the 'little Aeneid'

are deeply i n -

volved, as we shall see, in a p o e t o l o g i c a l debate with Vergil, and, as if m e m bers of a relay t e a m , t h e y piece t o g e t h e r s e g m e n t e d arguments i n t o a c o n tinuous, evolving discussion on the quality and nature of Ovidian

imitatio.

B e y o n d p e r f e c t i n g the art of allusion and rivaling Vergil's epic mastery, the c o m p o s i t i o n o f the 'little Aeneid'

should adhere t o structural reasoning.

T h e a r c h i t e c t u r e o f t h e narrative p l o t , namely the logic that drives the sel e c t i o n o f the narrative m o m e n t s f r o m the A e n e a s legend, and the f o r c e s

23

24

2

'

An intellectual as much as political process described by Hardie 1993, 102, as follows: "Aeneas' journey from east to west, which will ultimately involve not just the supersession of Troy but also reconciliation with, and then conquest of, Greece, bears an analogy to the naturalization of the epic on Italian soil by Virgil, as well as to more abstract kinds of passage that challenged a poet at Virgil's historical and cultural moment". Vergil's following after Homer's epic footsteps is discussed amidst a broader analysis of the theme of poetic succession in ancient epic, with special focus on the manifestations of metapoetical symbolism, in Hardie 1993, 101-105. J. Farrell, 'The Virgilian intertext', in: C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Vergil (Cambridge 1997), 222-238, is a well-grounded, thorough, and compact introduction to Vergil's allusive style. The bibliography at the end of the article (pp. 237f.) lists most of the fundamental studies on Vergilian intertextuality. H. Bloom's, The Anxiety of Influence (Oxford 1973), and his understanding of poetic succession as applied to the reception of Vergil's heritage, is discussed in Hardie 1993, 116ff. Hardie's evaluation of the process as 'Alexandrian' ("becoming especially selfconscious with the Alexandrian poets", p. 118), emphasizes what essentially is selfevident: the mechanism of imitation process in Met. 13.623-14.582, an acknowledgment of Alexandrianism, is not merely a dominant presence but a ruling force.

10

Introduction

dictating this selection, 26 form the third, and, in many ways, directing narrative principle explored in this present study. What were the criteria for the selection of those Vergilian episodes that 'made the cut' into Aeneas' metamorphosed world? H o w was their original story line adapted in order to serve the thematic, structural, and metaliterary demands of the 'little Aeneid'? The unity of Met. 13.623-14.582 is determined primarily by two structural principles. 27 First, its plot consists of a succession of tales of metamorphoses. These metamorphoses were not randomly chosen but could already claim a more or less visible presence in Vergil's epic. Second, the revised treatment of these metamorphoses, without radically altering the original narrative version in the Aeneid, reworks the same Vergilian episodes in ways that make them harmonize with the character of the Metamorphoses. Thus, episodes that receive extensive treatment in the Aeneid barely receive mention at all in Ovid's text, and, conversely, Vergilian narratives that are brief, incomplete, and seemingly out of place, draw Ovid's attention and eventually become the kernel of his main epic narrative. 28 The function of metamorphosis in sustaining the flow of narration is indeed essential, and, to a greater or lesser degree, all units in Met. 13.62314.582 embody a physical transformation. Most of the episodes reclothe earlier versions in the Aeneid. In these narrative archetypes, which include the transformation of Aeneas' ships into nymphs, the transformation of Diomedes' companions into birds, and the dominant role of Circe and her world, the metamorphosis element is present already, and quite explicit. In many respects Ovid's embracing of the Vergilian transformations may suggest that he viewed approvingly the treatment of his predecessor as anticipatory of his own work. Alternatively, it may also enforce a poetological reading, f o r Ovid's recasting of narratives already treated in the Aeneid challenges the reader to compare the two. Several other metamorphoses in Ovid's Aeneid', however, have little to do with physical change in their original appearance in Vergil, and the Anius narrative is a prime example of

26

27 28

H - E ad 13.623ff., suggest that the particular series of tales was originally part of an Alexandrian synagoge. Summarized and commented upon in Hinds 1998, 104-107. O n earlier critical views of Ovid's treatment of Vergilian material in terms of compression and expansion, see, e.g. Galinsky 1975, 217ff.; Solodow 1988, 136ff.; also Otis 1970, 286ff. For these critics compression and expansion were tropes of narrative differentiation in their own right, rather than two of the many, and alternatively operating, stylistic expressions of variatio.

11

Introduction

t h i s . I n t h e O v i d i a n t e x t t h e A n i u s tale t r e a t s in detail t w o i m p r e s s i v e , a n d in m a n y r e s p e c t s parallel, t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s , y e t n e i t h e r t h e t e x t of t h e

Aeneid

n o r t h e t r a d i t i o n b e h i n d t h e A n i u s l e g e n d s h o w t h e s l i g h t e s t a w a r e n e s s of a m e t a m o r p h o s i s . 2 9 M o s t i m p o r t a n t l y , it is difficult t o o v e r l o o k t h a t t h e 'little Aeneid'

i n c l u d e s e p i s o d e s t h a t have n o t e x t u a l p r e c e d e n t in V e r g i l . T h e Si-

cilian tales, p o s i t i o n e d at t h e h e a r t o f O v i d ' s ' A e n e i d ' ( 1 3 . 7 3 0 - 1 4 . 7 4 ) , o f f e r a representative example of such a structural incongruity. Ovidian Aeneas' arrival in Sicily ( 1 3 . 7 2 9 ) leads t h e n a r r a t o r i n t o a series o f

"digressions"

f r o m t h e m a i n narrative, stories n o w h e r e t o be f o u n d in t h e A e n e a s legend. T h e s e stories of s c o r n e d love and jealous revenge featuring t w o lovet r i a n g l e s lack p r e v i o u s epic b a c k g r o u n d , b u t d o m i n a t e d o t h e r g e n r e s , e s p e cially P a s t o r a l p o e t r y a n d E l e g y , a n d a c t u a l l y r e c e i v e d parallel t r e a t m e n t in earlier p o e m s o f V e r g i l . S u c h c o n v e r g e n c e of a n t i t h e t i c a l g e n e r i c t r a d i t i o n s in e f f e c t c a p t u r e s t h e t e x t u r e of g e n r e in t h e Metamorphoses,

or more cor-

r e c t l y , e x p r e s s e s t h e a u t h o r ' s a n x i e t y t o declare t h e lack of it. Y e t , a s t u d y of t h e p e c u l i a r n a t u r e o f m u l t i - g e n e r i c c o n f l u e n c e in t h e 'little Aeneid'i0

is b e -

y o n d t h e s c o p e o f t h e p r e s e n t s t u d y , w h i c h aims, instead, t o e x p l o r e single g e n r e ( e p i c ) redefinition. 3 1

29

30

31

Accordingly, Hinds' claims in 1998, 106f., that Ovid "is constructing Vergil as a precursor of the Metamorphoses" and that the 'little Aeneid' is a supplemented, coordinated and systematized revision of Vergil's 'Metamorphoses' should be received cautiously, since they do not apply with the same validity to each unit of the Ovidian 'Aeneid'. This view had originally been discussed in Hardie 1992, 59-62, who distinctly notes (62): "when Ovid reworked the wanderings of Aeneas in his Metamorphoses, most of the stories of transformation that he contrived to introduce by one means or other had, in fact, already been alluded to in the Aeneid". Baldo 1995, 75, "il progetto ovidiano sembra essere quello di una Metamorfosi eneadica piuttosto che di una Eneide metamorfica", reads very much like a paraphrasis of Hardie's phrase above. Aptly defined an "anthology of genres", by E.J. Kenney in his 'Introduction and Notes to Ovid: Metamorphoses', transl. A.S. Melville (Oxford and New York 1986), XVIII. Genre in the Metamorphoses, unlike most cases of polyphonic narratives, is not defined in terms of style and contrasting individual narrative voices, but rather of different literary forms or genres. The 'little Aeneid' offers a prime case study of this stylistic mode, and has received exemplary treatment in J. Farrell, 'Dialogue of Genres in Ovid's "Lovesong of Polyphemus" (Metamorphoses 13.719-897)', AJP 113 (1992), 235-268; cf. also the discussion of Ovidian multiformity of genres as a procedure that characterizes the nature of Ovidian imitation throughout the Metamorphoses in Barchiesi 2001, 49-78 [originally published in Italian as 'Voci e istanze narrative nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio', in MD 23 (1989), 55-97], O n p. 50 Barchiesi specifically defines the generic polyphony of the Ovidian epic as consisting not "in a separation of narrative voices, but in an alteration among registers directly controlled by the single narrator's voice, according to an exhibitory logic".

12

Introduction

The inclusion of the Sicilian tales, while perhaps the most conspicuous, is not the only oddity in the composition of the 'little Aeneid'. It is hard not to see that the principal characters of the Vergilian epic plot are either completely absent or merit only cursory mention in Ovid's narrative. The most glaring examples of this compression strategy are the cases of Dido and Turnus. Each holds the leading role, next to Aeneas, in the narration in each half of Vergil's Aeneid, yet the Carthaginian episode, two entire books of the Vergilian epic, is summarized in a mere four lines that do not even refer to Dido by name (Met. 14.78-81). Likewise Turnus, beyond the episode of the Trojan fleet's transformation into nymphs, receives two one-verse mentions, albeit both ingeniously crafted to allude to the very beginning (14.451 pactaque furit pro coniuge Turnus, 'and Turnus rages in battle for his promised bride') and end (14.573f. Turnusque cadit: cadit Ardea, Turno / sospite dicta potens, 'and Turnus fell: Ardea fell, which was held mighty as long as Turnus was alive') of his confrontation with Aeneas. Still, as we shall have the chance to discuss in due course, both Turnus and Dido are anything but excluded from the 'little Aeneid', but instead hide, Dido behind someone else's identity and Turnus in the shadow of an impressive symbolism. 32 Thus, it is not so much the practice of compressing, often to near elimination, main Vergilian characters and entire episodes, but the dexterity to cause these characters to re-emerge unexpectedly and, most importantly, unobtrusively, that directs a first major composition strategy of the 'little Aeneid'. Next, episodes and characters that appeared to play a marginal role in the Vergilian text become the exclusive source for the various narrative sections in Met. 13.623-14.582. Again, it is precisely the issue of marginality and the literary subtext behind each selected peripheral narrative that attracted Ovid's attention enough to include these episodes in his text. Indeed, the second important composition rule governing Ovid's version of the Trojan experience relies not on the revision of preexisting secondary metamorphosis tales, but on the apt concatenation of paranarratives. I employ this term

32

An intratextual game of seek-and-hide also directs the retelling of other Vergilian episodes not tied to any major figure of the epic. The treatment of Polydorus is a representative example. In the Metamorphoses Ovid devotes a mere three lines (13.628-630) to the tale of Polydorus. In the Vergilian hypotext the episode opens the third book of the Aeneid (lines 19-68). Ovid maintains the chronological sequence of events, and he does refer to details of the Vergilian account of the Polydorus tale, but these appear interspersed in various places throughout the epic; cf. the detailed discussion of the episode in Smith 1997, 104-115.

Introduction

13

to cover "stories told by the poet inside the time of the poem, repeating in a minor key the elements of major events within the main narrative". These are secondary episodes that function in Vergil as filler: their absence would not alter the main course of events. 33 Such were the stories of Anius and Achaemenides, the transformation of Diomedes' companions, and the miracle of the Trojan fleet turning into nymphs of the sea. Even the spotlight that envelops Circe seems at odds with the intriguingly allusive presence of the sorceress in the Aeneid. This strategy of structuring a narrative exclusively on paranarratives expands beyond the importation of Vergilian digressions. The units in the 'little Aeneid' that do not seem to originate in Vergil's epic, but are by and large Ovidian improvisations, such as the cup of Anius or the Macareus episode, appear to function likewise as paranarratives in the very text of Met. 13.623-14.582. In other words, they could be removed from Ovid's retelling of the Aeneas legend without any significant repercussions to the evolution of the plot. Seemingly redundant, these units, however, are invaluable, for they constitute allusive reflections of earlier plot moments, now approached from a different perspective. 34 Occasionally the paranarrative text may purport, through seemingly casual commentary of events forgone, to direct the course of events to come, operating, in a manner of sorts, like a narrative script, a daring poetological initiative invented by the poet to challenge or offer an attractive alternative to his own composition options. What is more, their future forecasts often extend beyond the textual boundaries of the 'little Aeneid'. Thus the cultivation of this important yet relatively unnoticed narrative technique brings together in the same tale issues of narrative dynamics, poetology, and technicalities of structure. These last two happen to coincide with two additional major compositional preoccupations of the Ovidian narrative, also present in Met. 13.62314.582. Indeed, a third principle in the composition of the 'little Aeneid' concerns the inclusion of entire episodes or "fraction scenes" within larger narratives that, in the light of existing evidence, seem to have no literary tradition prior to the Metamorphoses. These include the Macareus episode, the fate of Anius' daughters, Ovid's version of the transformation of Ardea, O n the notion, structure, and function of paranarrative in epic poetry, Alden 2000, 13-47 is seminal. The definition of paranarrative quoted in this paragraph is taken from Alden P· 15.

Cf. Alden 2000, 16: "[The paranarratives] function rather like the marquetry inlay which echoes in its pattern the lines of the piece of furniture into which it is inlaid. The paranarratives are the key to the interpretation of the main narrative".

14

Introduction

and the transformation details of Diomedes' companions. Invention, as opposed to variation, enables a writer to focus exclusively on the meaning and purpose of his own word. It is through these narrative moments of total innovation that a poet offers his poetological statements directly, rather than soliciting the readers' erudition to trace them as they develop in a text of elaborate pieces of emulation. Most episodes in Met. 13.623-14.582 declare their artistic independence; but only episodes that are free from literary baggage present case-studies of Ovidian metapoetics and best illustrate Ovid's epic talent and originality. Finally, I shall also give serious consideration to the structural restrictions that affect the smooth integration of Aeneas' adventures into the narrative flow of the Metamorphoses. And despite the wide disagreement regarding the kind of the epic's structural design, few would deny that the carmen perpetuum lacks a precisely structured narrative. 35 In his Narrative Dynamics of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Stephen Wheeler discussed the two major forces that hold the narrative of Ovid's lengthy poem together, repetition and continuity. Lacking a common theme or set of themes, the Metamorphoses would be in danger of becoming a spineless synthesis, were it not for the regular repetition of certain motifs, verbal and thematic patterns, and clusters. Their recurrent placement along the course of the poem likens them to links along narrative chains running through the epic. 36 Each of the

Hardly unanimous otherwise, Ovidian criticism in the past thirty years has agreed to view the b o o k as a structural block (A. Crabbe, 'Structure and C o n t e n t in Ovid's morphoses',

ANRW

Problems and Prospects', MD carmen perpetuum',

Meta-

II.31.4 [1981], 2 2 7 4 - 2 3 2 7 ; D . Fowler, 'First Thoughts on Closure: MD

22 [1989], 95-97; N . Holzberg, 'Ter quinque

volumina

as

40 (1998), 77-98), in a composition whose structure continually

changes as to obstruct all attempts to make it fit a strictly defined scheme (Galinsky 1975, vii and passim; Barchiesi 1997, 181-182). Galinsky's statement (p. 62) is telling: "there is no rigid formal scheme in the Metamorphoses.

Everything is in flux and the ever

changing structure of the p o e m . . . reflects metamorphosis and, metaphorically speaking, is metamorphosis". And although Ovidian structural approaches today steer clear of single all-comprising plans of the type suggested in the past by W . Ludwig, Struktur Einheit

der Metamorphosen

Ovids

und

(Berlin 1965) and Otis (1970), studies in support of an

orderly arrangement of the epic on the basis of b o o k design are still popular (E. Rieks, ' Z u m Aufbau von Ovids Metamorphosen',WJA Motiv-

und Erzählstruktur

in Ovids

6 [ 1 9 8 0 ] , 85-103, and Α. Bartenbach,

Metamorphosen

[Frankfurt am Main 1990]), and sup-

port a structural arrangement sustained by thematic parallels in books 5, 10, and 15; H o l z b e r g follows parallel themes within the internal section of each pentad; Crabbe promotes a centripetal arrangement around Book 8). In Wheeler's aphoristic comment (2000, 6), "[t]here is enough evidence in the phoses to prove that Ovid remembers what he wrote".

Metamor-

Introduction

15

various episodes that cobble Ovid's version of the Aeneid together exhibits multiple similarities in theme and diction, to units that figure in earlier and later sections of the poem. This ubiquitous awareness of contextualization completes and stabilizes the integration of the 'little Aeneid' in Ovid's metamorphosed history of the world. Bracketing off the Sicilian tales, which do not seem to interfere directly with the epic adventure of Aeneas, my study, then, is designed as follows. In separate chapters I examine each episode in the 'little Aeneid' in detail, discussing the network of allusions to its prototype text. I further explain the rationale behind the various choices, assess the ingenuity of the outcome, and trace the motifs in both earlier and later episodes in the Metamorphoses. By means of their repetition, these motifs form a thematic chain that runs through the epic and solidifies its unity, concurrently securing the forward movement of the plot. Not least, I am concerned with the poetics underlining the various units, and the modes in which Ovid launches a metaliterary competition against Vergil. The Anius episode that opens the Trojan adventures at sea recounts an autobiographical narrative that in many respects is vividly reminiscent of Aeneas' own. The Anius story also features the only ekphrasis in the 'little Aeneid' whose composition rivals the textual density of the Vergilian pictorial representations, some of which are considered exemplary celebrations of literary allusion. The emphasis on what happened on the way back to the company of the living rather than the visit to the Underworld sits at the center of the Sibyl episode. The Achaemenides and Macareus episodes toy with Vergil's technique of literary invention, hence elevating the verbal exchange of adventures between the two former comrades into a contest of metapoetics. Macareus, a character unattested outside the Metamorphoses, fleshes out Ovid's response to Vergil's Achaemenides, himself a child of the Vergilian mind. The fascinating overview of Circe's world draws the famous sorceress to the forefront of epic action, declaring Ovid's ability to trace Vergilian allusivity successfully and surpass it. Crosstextuality, intratextual discourse, and poetology converge and compete against one another for the readers' attention under the magic direction of Circe. Next, the details of the transformation that befell Diomedes' comrades monopolize the hero's reply to the Rutulian ambassadors, while the analysis of the change of Aeneas' fleet into nymphs may influence the reading of the Vergilian model as well. Finally, Ovid's 'Aeneid' does provide for a suitable conclusion. Ovid reassures his audience that the war does end, and challenges them to sec-

16

Introduction

ond-guess the motives behind his description of the fall of Ardea. And alt h o u g h allusion games and structural niceties are omnipresent, all three units set near the end of Met. 13.623-14.582 (Diomedes, Ships transformation, Ardea) engage primarily in metapoetical dialogue, each in its own particular style. This obsession seems all the more justified as the conclusion of the epic approaches, and as the anxiety for self-validation and the advertisement of the poet's own literary merit increases.

Summary of the 'little Aeneid' (Ovid, Met.

13.623-14.582)

A f t e r the fall of Troy, Aeneas finds himself at sea sailing westwards and following the fata, first to Antandros and the shores of Thrace where he encounters the ghost of Polydorus, and subsequently to Delos (623-631). At Delos he is welcomed by Anius, the king of the island and priest of Apollo, who is Anchises' old friend. A f t e r they make an offering to Apollo, Anius invites them to an honorary banquet at his palace, and there, responding to an inquiry by Anchises about the absence of his children, he tells them the sad story of his four daughters. Agamemnon, during the Trojan War, upon hearing that Anius' daughters had received f r o m Bacchus the gift to convert whatever they touched to grain, olive oil, and wine, sought to capture them and force them to put their gift to the service of the Greek army. The Aniads fled, and two of them sought refuge on Andros, the island colonized by and named after their brother. When the Greek pursuers besieged Andros, the women agreed to surrender, but before the Greeks laid hands on them, Bacchus, heeding their prayers transformed them into doves (644674). The next morning Anius bids the Trojans farewell with presents. Aeneas' gift is a golden crater with another metamorphosis tale sculpted on it: it concerns the sacrifice of Orion's daughters for the salvation of Thebes, and the emergence of twin youths, the Coroni, f r o m the maidens' funeral pyre. Aeneas repays the gesture with comparably precious gifts (675-704). The next twenty-five lines (705-730) condense nearly the entire contents of Aeneid 3, as they summarize the Trojan journey f r o m Delos to Zancle where Aeneas' fleet arrives at the entrance of the straits between Scylla and Charybdis. At this point, and at the mention of Scylla, Ovid decides to tell the story of Scylla before she became a monster, and he embarks on an extensive digression that covers the remainder of Book 13 and the beginning of Book 14 (13.730-14.74). The setting is Sicily and the narrative concerns

Introduction

17

the tragic stories of two love-triangles, the one of which is embedded in the other. Scylla, once a beautiful maiden, is first introduced among a group of nymphs, bragging about her love conquests, and she becomes the audience of Galatea's story (740-897), which is told as a forewarning against arrogance. Galatea was greatly loved by Polyphemus, who courted her persistently (a large part of the story [789-879] is taken up by Polyphemus' famous love song). Nonetheless, Galatea was in love with Acis, and scorned Polyphemus' advances. So the one-eyed giant killed Acis out of jealousy, crushing him with a heavy rock. Soon after Galatea finishes her tale, Scylla appears naked on the shore and is spotted by the marine deity Glaucus, who courts her unsuccessfully, for being half-man, half-fish, a monster not unlike Polyphemus, he receives similar treatment. To gain Scylla's favor Glaucus proceeds to ask for Circe's assistance (Book 14), but in response to his plea Circe offers herself as his lover. He refuses, and in revenge Circe poisons Scylla's bathing pool, and causes the transformation of the fair maiden into a monster, with raging dogs taking the place of the lower part of her body. This monstrous Scylla attacked Ulixes' men, and she would have threatened Aeneas' too, had she not been transformed into a rock. At this point Aeneas reenters the narrative, and the reader again cruises with him first to Dido and Carthage, then to Acestes and Eryx, and finally, by way of the Pithecusae, to Cumae (75-100). There, Aeneas meets with the Sibyl and together they visit the Underworld (101-119). On their way back the Sibyl tells her story, how she was once a beautiful maiden loved by Apollo, who gave her the gifts of prophecy and long life, and offered additionally to keep her perpetually young if she would become his lover. The Sibyl refused, and so she was condemned to ever advancing age and no prospect of dying for a thousand years (120-154). From Cumae the Trojans next arrive at the promontory of Caieta where they are met by Macareus, a former companion of Ulixes who opted to stay behind on the Italian shore instead of following his Ithacan leader on his way to Ithaca. Macareus, in astonishment, recognizes among the Trojans his former crewmate, Achaemenides, whom he has last seen on the island of the Cyclops. Achaemenides is more than eager to fill Macareus in on his journeys. He tells how his comrades abandoned him in their haste to flee the pursuing Cyclops, and describes the agony and terror he experienced the entire time he kept hidden on the island of the Cyclops, staying out of the monster's way, until finally Aeneas and the Trojans arrived there, and conceded to take him with them (155-222). It is then Achaemenides' turn to question Macareus on his peregrinations, and Ovid finds the opportunity to

18

Introduction

recast the remainder of Homeric Ulixes' apologoi following the Cyclopeia. Thus we hear about Aeolus and the Laestrygonians, and a detailed account of the Circe adventure. The recollection of Homeric material takes up the first part of Macareus' speech (223-307). In the second part Macareus narrates the story of another erotic triangle, involving the Ausonian king Picus, Circe, and Canens, a story that he heard during the year he spent on the island of Circe along with Ulixes and the rest of the crew. In this story, Circe fell in love with Picus. The latter nonetheless was married to the nymph Canens, and very much in love with her; thus he rejected Circe's advances. Circe, furious, turned Picus into a woodpecker, and Canens in despair mourned until she wasted away into thin air (308-440). The remaining one hundred fifty-odd lines summarize Aeneas' war in Italy against the Rutulians. Aeneas buries Caieta and, next, arrives in Latium and asks for Lavinia's hand. He is met with rejection and war, and goes to Evander in search of alliances (441-456). In their turn, the Rutulians try to lure Diomedes to their side. The next extensive narrative relates Diomedes' negative response to the Rutulian invitation, with the hero devoting more than half of his speech to the punishment of his companions. The latter were transformed into birds similar to swans for verbally abusing Venus (457-513). Insolent speech is the central theme also of the following tale, a digression that fills the narrative time until the Rutulian embassy returns to Latium. The story tells of an Apulian shepherd who was transformed into an oleaster for mocking the Naides (514-526). The 'little Aeneid' concludes with two snapshots from the battlefield. First, Turnus attempts to burn the Trojan fleet, an act that brings about the intervention of Cybele and the transformation of the ships into sea nymphs (527-565). Subsequently, the finale centers on the fate of Ardea, Turnus' capital. As the Trojan conquerors set the city on fire, from the ruins' ashes a bird, also named ardea, rises, lifting unto heaven the spirit and substance of the fallen city (566-580). The final couplet officially states the end of the Trojan labors by declaring the satisfaction of Juno's anger.

Chapter One Aeneads and Aniads: Offering Politics and the Politics of Offering, or Narrative Discourse on Anius' Crater (Met. 13.681-701) 1.

Introduction

The first detailed episode of the 'little Aeneid' is acted out on the island of Delos during Aeneas' brief stay there as guest of the island's King Anius (Met. 13.632-701). 1 Aeneas' Delos experience in the Aeneid extends over forty lines, half the length of the Ovidian version, which recasts the episode almost anew, emphasizing completely different themes. As in every Vergilian unit targeted for inclusion in the 'little Aeneid', the Anius episode adheres to a set of interesting criteria. It is of relatively minor importance for the narrative development of Aeneas' experience, being one of the several stops in the course of the Trojan wanderings, and the literary evidence on it is scanty beyond the Vergilian text and its Ovidian response. It receives an unusually detailed treatment compared to the compact size of the 'little Aeneid' and the original narrative in Vergil's text. It transforms the received arguments to fit the thematic purposes of the new narrative environment. It is in dialogue with the broader textual environment of the Metamorphoses, since it facilitates the further development of narrative threads that originate in earlier sections, maintain a sense of unity and continuity, and run throughout the epic. The emphasis in the Ovidian Anius shifts from

Met. 13.623-631, the opening lines of the 'little Aeneid', summarizes the conclusion of Aeneid 2, including Aeneas' escape from Troy (13.623-625), and the Trojan passage from Thrace, which opens Aeneid 3, along with a clear reference to the Polydorus episode (13.626-631). Both texts are discussed in Baldo 1995, on pp. 37-42 and 46-58, respectively. In his analysis the critic illustrates Ovid's intention to introduce, tersely and clearly, key Vergilian themes and events, such as the fall of Troy and Aeneas' pietas, and simultaneously to capture, in programmatic statement, the pattern of allusive imitation underlining the overall structure of Met. 13.623-14.582.

20

Chapter One

Aeneas' consultation of the Apolline oracle on his ultimate destination to the story of King Anius himself, whose family was destroyed by the Greeks. The second significant improvisation concerns the concluding scene, which depicts the only ekphrasis in Ovid's alternative Aeneid.

2. The Ekphrasis,

its Text and

Context

As Ovid's Aeneas prepares to depart from Delos [Met. 13.679ff.), Anius, the king of the island, presents him with a sculpted crater. The artifact was the work of the Theban artist Alcon (Alcon Hyleus, 683-684), and the engraving on it narrates the transformation of the daughters of Orion: [Anius dat] cratera Aeneae, quem quondam transtulit illi hospes ab Aoniis Therses Ismenius oris: miserat hunc illi Therses, fabricaverat Alcon fHyleusf 2 et longo caelaverat argumento. urbs erat, et Septem posses ostendere portas:

hae pro nomine erant, et quae foret ilia, docebant; ante u r b e m exequiae tumulique ignesque pyraeque

effusaeque comas et apertae pectora matres significant luctum; nymphae quoque flere videntur siccatosque queri fontes: sine frondibus arbor nuda riget, rodunt arentia saxa capellae. ecce facit mediis natas Orione Thebis hanc non femineum iugulo dare vulnus aperto, 2

From Hyle, a village in Boeotia; cf. Börner ad 13.684, who also points out that Ovid here might have in mind the notable Homeric artist Tychius whom Homer associates also with Hyle. The apparatus criticus cited at the end of the passage above is copied from Anderson's Teubner edition; Hyleus, the reading of some manuscripts also adopted by Anderson, is incorrect according to Hopkinson 2000, 201. Hopkinson explains that a derivative hyleus from Hyle of Boeotia would fit nicely, but the grammatically correct adjective from Hyle is hylaeus, a reading improbable here - especially since Ovid had earlier used the correct term Hylaeus (Met. 8.312). From the other two variants, nileus makes no sense, and likewise improbable, given the specification of Thebes as the physical scene of action, would be Lactantius' reading Lindius, which actually is the script preferred also by Tarrant. Lidius could be an acceptable solution for there is indeed a Lydian locale known by the name Hyle. For Hopkinson, this solution, too, should be ruled out, being incompatible with the Theban setting of the Orionids episode. I would be less eager to reject this last reading: the form lidius may well be associated to Lydian Hyle, but also dare an audience guided by the Theban scenes of the narrative to second-guess Hyle, the homonymous Boeotian town.

2. T h e Ekphrasis, its Text and C o n t e x t

21

illam demisso per inertia vulnera telo p r o p o p u l o cecidisse suo pulchrisque per u r b e m f u n e r i b u s ferri celebrique in parte cremari. t u m de virginea geminos exire favilla, ne genus intereat, iuvenes, quos fama C o r o n o s n o m i n a t , et cineri m a t e r n o ducere p o m p a m . (Met. 13.681-699) 684: hyleus e2 (Merkel) nileus A mileus Plan. Lidius W 683-684: Lact. Argum. 13, fab. 5 indicat eum lectionem fortasse in codd. Lindius legisse

H y l e u s ignoravisse,

sed

[Anius o f f e r s ] a crater t o Aeneas w h i c h a g u e s t - f r i e n d , Therses f r o m T h e b e s , had o n c e b r o u g h t t o h i m [sc. Anius] f r o m t h e coast of Aonia. T h e r s e s had sent h i m t h e crater, b u t t h e c r a f t s m a n was A l c o n f r o m H y l e , and he had engraved u p o n it a long pictorial narrative. T h e r e was a city, and y o u could discern seven gates: these s t o o d f o r t h e city's name and explained t o y o u w h a t it was. B e f o r e t h e city s t o o d funeral rites and t o m b s and fires and funeral pyres, and m o t h e r s w i t h loosened hair and bared breasts signifying m o u r n i n g . N y m p h s also seemed t o weep and lament f o r their d r i e d - u p springs. T h e trees s t o o d leafless and bare, t h e goats ate away t h e parching rocks. See, in t h e middle of T h e b e s he represents O r i o n ' s daughters, t h e one c o n f e r r i n g u p o n h e r uncovered t h r o a t a w o u n d n o t usually inflicted b y w o m e n , t h e o t h e r w o u n d i n g herself clumsily w i t h h e r weaving-shuttle, b o t h of t h e m falling f o r t h e sake of their people, and t h e n carried in nice f u n e r a l procession t h r o u g h the city and b u r n t t o ashes in the m o s t p r o m i n e n t section of t h e city. T h e n , so t h a t their race will n o t die, f r o m t h e ashes of t h e virgins t w o y o u t h s s p r i n g f o r t h , w h o m p o p u l a r r u m o r names C o r o n i , and they lead t h e procession h o n o r i n g t h e ashes of their m o t h e r s .

The pictorial text first illustrates the city of Thebes, unmistakably identified by its seven gates, which is suffering the attack of a devastating pestilence. The next scene on the crater is set at the center of the city and captures the self-sacrifice of the daughters of Orion, who willingly offer their lives in exchange for the salvation of Thebes. 3 The sculpture concludes with the representation of a miracle that occurs during the maidens' funeral,

3

In ingenious acknowledgement of a typical Vergilian trope often included in the description of ekphrases, Ovid likewise positions the actual pictorial representation at the very center of the cup and draws attention to this central placement by declaring it in so many words: Met. 13.692 ecce facit mediis natas Orione Thebis, essentially is a single-line summary of the whole ekphrasis and it takes up the median, the eighth, verse of the fifteenline long description; on the employment of this technique in Vergil's works, see R.F. Thomas, "Vergil's Ekphrastic Centerpieces', HSCP 87 (1983), 175-184.

22

Chapter One

when, from the top of their pyre, two young men sprung forth and joined the funeral procession of the Orionids, 'their mothers'. Aeneas' encounter with Anius at Delos was part of the tradition recording the Trojan hero's adventures en route to Hesperia. On the basis of the surviving evidence this tradition received its most detailed treatment in the Aeneid (3.80-120), and there is little doubt that Ovid's narrative is primarily set against the Vergilian text. 4 Yet the departure scene, including the farewell gifts that Aeneas and his family receive from Anius, as well as the preceding detailed account of the fate of Anius' daughters, are absent from Vergil's narrative. The centerpiece of the gift exchange is the sculpture on Anius' crater. The plenitude of critical studies on ekphrasis in recent years leaves little doubt that graphic, detailed descriptions within a narrative are an integral part of the story, demanding in-depth study. In the words of Don Fowler, "[pjrecisely because ekphrasis represents a pause at the level of narration and cannot be read functionally, the reader is possessed by a strong need to interpret". 5 Although ekphrases technically may include any detailed description not directly related to the plot line and often intended to distract the attention of their audience, art pieces form a special category. A thorough reading and appreciation of an artistic ekphrasis entails considerable effort, for it is inseparable from the act of viewing, a factor entirely subjective, while the full decoding of their subtext often eludes a less observant or insufficiently erudite reader. A thorough comprehension of any given pictorial representation requires that the epic writer direct the audi-

4

5

Anius was first mentioned in the Cypria (Bernabe fr. 29 = EpGF fr. 19); cf. B ö r n e r ^ 13.632-704, pp. 370-372, where additional sources for the legend are listed. Prior to Ovid, the Aeneid likely recorded the most detailed treatment of the Anius legend, save the story of the Oenotropoi (Anius' daughters); the latter, however, was apparently included in Pherecydes, FGrH 3 F 140; cf. Ph. Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de Delos a I'epoque hellenistique eta I'epoque imp6riale (Paris 1970), 413-430. 'Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis', J RS 81 (1991), 25-35; 27. Fowler's article, a classic study of the literary ekphrasis in Latin epic, lists (p. 25) seminal works on pictorial narratives in both ancient (η. 1) and modern (n. 2) literature. T o Fowler's list one should add the more recent discussions by M. Krieger, Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign (Baltimore and London 1992), J. Heffernan, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (Chicago 1993), and J. Hollander, The Gazer's Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art (Chicago 1995), on ekphrasis in general; and Putnam 1998, for a very rewarding and thought-provoking reading of all six notional ekphrases in Vergil's Aeneid. Krieger in particular, in his introduction (pp. 1-28), stresses the need to pause (for all action, including narrative time) before an ekphrasis. He also argues that ideally an ekphrasis challenges direct and indirect spectator(s) to forget momentum and identify with the timeless viewer of a piece of artwork in a museum.

2. T h e Ekphrasis, its T e x t and C o n t e x t

23

e n c e ' s a t t e n t i o n t o t h e p r e o c c u p i e d a n d t h e r e f o r e l i m i t e d p e r s p e c t i v e o f an e k p h r a s i s ' d i r e c t v i e w e r - t h e h e r o in t h e t e x t ; it is this first a s s e s s m e n t t h a t b e c o m e s t h e basis f o r o u r ( b r o a d e r ) multiple readings. 6 O n e s h o u l d k e e p in m i n d t h a t an e k p h r a s i s , a n d s p e c i f i c a l l y a p i c t o r i a l n a r r a t i v e of an a r t w o r k , c o r r e s p o n d s d i r e c t l y t o t h e epic p o e t ' s talent, b e i n g a s o p h i s t i c a t e d m o d e o f a r t i s t i c s e l f - r e f e r e n c e . I n t h e d e s c r i p t i o n o f an artif a c t t h e p o e t identifies w i t h t h e a r t i s t a n d e n t e r s t h e n a r r a t i o n of his o w n t e x t t o o f f e r a d i f f e r e n t i a t e d w a y of reading, and at t h e s a m e t i m e t o m a k e a n o p e n s t a t e m e n t o n t h e quality o f his o w n p o e t i c a r t . 7 T h e p e r c e p t i o n o f epic p o e t r y as a r t p a r t i c u l a r l y hits h o m e in t h e Metamorphoses,

and under-

s t a n d a b l y s o , s i n c e m e t a m o r p h o s i s , c h a n g e o f shape, is a f o r m o f a r t . O v i d f r e q u e n t l y links t h e t w o , especially in his e m p l o y m e n t o f a r t i s t i c v o c a b u l a r y w h e n detailing t r a n s f o r m a t i o n . 8 S e l f - r e f l e c t i o n plays a m a j o r p a r t in O v i d ' s t w o f a m o u s e k p h r a s e s in t h e Metamorphoses,

6

7

8

the weaving contest between

In the words of Putnam 1998, 3: "All the ekphrases in the Aeneid, even the shorter descriptions in however circumscribed a capacity, represent the poem itself and afford us deeper ways of reading which may plumb only through the actuation of sight into insight". O n the interconnection of ekphrasis and success in narrative art, see, e.g., Putnam 1998; specifically on Ovid's descriptive artistry, M. Vincent, "Between Ovid and Barthes: Ekphrasis, Orality, Textuality in Ovid's "Arachne"', Arethusa 27 (1994), 361-386; Rosati 1999; and H. Heckel, Ά Genius on Genius: Ovid, Orpheus, Arachne', in J . Styka, ed., Studies in Literary Theory and Criticism (Krakow 2000), 225-249. O n the confluence of poetic and monumental art in the Metamorphoses vocabulary, see Solodow 1988, 203-231, and passim. The term imago occurs four times in the Minerva vs. Arachne contest (6.70-128); three of them are to be found in the description of Arachne's work, which notably centers on transformations of females by their divine male lovers (103, 110, 122). Phineus' army, when turned into marble statues ( m a r m o r ) after gazing at the Gorgon's head, change into simulacra... diversa figuris ('statues... of various shapes', 5.211). Remarkable is the description of Venus' annual transformation into a mourner for Adonis' death at 10.727 as an 'imitation', a 'likeness' of mourner (annua... simulamina); on the selection of simulamen, a specialized technical term, with only one more attestation in Latin literature, and on its employment as synonymous both to imitatio and its peculiarly Ovidian synonym imitamen, cf. OLD, s.v.; Burrow 1999, 274, comments on the very passage of Adonis' annual resurrection: "[T]he word imitamen [which according to Burrow is most likely an Ovidian coinage, not attested outside Ovid's writings] seems to work in a similar way to simulamen". P.R. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion (Cambridge 2002) 151, draws attention to Lucretius' two etymologies of simulacrum, from similis, but also from simulare, "to pretend", which naturally raises skepticism on the accuracy and verisimilitude of an imitatio, or at least on the perception and definition of the process of representation.

24

Chapter One

Athena and Arachne at the opening of Book 6, and Pygmalion's creation of his ebumea virgo four books later.9 In the case of the Anius cup, however, there is much more at stake, as the pictorial narrative here is part of the 'little Aeneid'. Being the only descriptio in Ovid's reproduction of the Vergilian epic, it encapsulates the aspiring successor's effort to emulate the famous pictorial texts in the Aeneid in terms of intricacy, density, and power of interpretation. Since the early steps of modern Ovidian criticism, scholars have read the depiction of falling Thebes, followed by the miraculous rise of the Coroni from the Orionids' expiatory funeral pyre, as a parallel for Troy, and anticipatory of its regeneration as Rome through Aeneas and his descendants. 10 Recently, however, the critical scope within which the ekphrasis is to be viewed has expanded. Thus, Hopkinson identified in the description of the Coroni miracle themes and verbal elements featuring earlier in the Metamorphoses, in the creation of the Memnonides (13.604-611) that follows a similar pattern. 11 Keith, further, observed that the self-offering of Orion's daughters,

9

O n the representation of the artist and artistic creation in the Arachne story, see Byron Harries, 'The Spinner and the Poet: Arachne in Ovid's Metamorphoses', PCPS n.s. 36 (1990), 64-82. Most recently, Smith 1997, 54-64, discusses the contest from the readerresponse point of view, arguing that both Minerva and Arachne are taking extreme and irresponsible positions in their readings of the other's work. Rosati 1999, 240-253, reads the episode of Arachne and Minerva not only as metaphor on narrative technique, but as parallel and complementary to the story of the Minyas daughters in book 4; both tales are about poetics and both explore the dynamics of textuality and particularly the process of constructing a 'finely spun', epic narrative (carmen deductum). The metaphoric substrat u m of the Minyeids narrative is discussed in the following pages, as this Theban tale vividly recalls the story of the Orionids, also Theban, depicted on the crater of Anius. O n Pygmalion, Rosati 1983 is the classic study; besides Rosati, noteworthy recent critical approaches include A. Sharrock, 'Womanufacture', JRS 81 (1991), 36-49 and id. Ά Love of Creation', Ramus 20 (1991), 169-182; the second paper was composed in coordination with J. Eisner's 'Visual Mimesis and the Myth of the Real: Ovid's Pygmalion as Viewer', in the same 1991 issue of Ramus (pp. 154-168); an older but still useful study on both ekphrases is Leach 1974, 102-142; Smith 1997, 64-69, reads the narrative as an example of the captivated reader's appropriation of the text.

10

First noted by Guthmüller 1964, 89-90, this comment became widely known thanks to its inclusion in Galinsky 1975, 221, who further attributes the departure from the traditional conclusion of the legend to Ovid's intention to emphasize the aspect of regeneration. Earlier works on the ekphrasis, summarized in Börner ad 13.685-701, 383-384, were primarily concerned with tracing the motivation behind Ovid's deviation from the other extant version on the Orionids legend, recorded in Antoninus Liberalis. Hopkinson 2000, 33-34; the Memnonides story, set immediately before the Anius unit as to link the Homeric to the Vergilian section of Ovid's reformulated epic tradition, re-

11

2. The Ekphrasis, its Text and Context

25

which comes immediately after Anius' sad narrative of his own daughters' self-sacrifice for the sake of their fatherland and their brother's salvation, 12 covers part of a theme that dominates Ovid's astute reading of ancient epic in Books 12-14. Keith's theme-based approach focuses on gender, as she argues that the motif of female sacrifice for the public benefit dominates the 'little Iliad' and the 'little Aeneid', and includes such pivotal episodes as the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the fate of Anius' daughters, and the death of Polyxena. All these narratives proclaim that the survival and subsequent triumph of the male depend exclusively on the self-denial of the female. 13 Keith's and Hopkinson's observations stress that the Orionids episode belongs inside a broader network of passages throughout the Metamorphoses, thus implying that it may be further explored in the light of intratextual study. It is all but to be expected then that the decoration on Anius' crater should be approached as a specimen of sharpness illustrative of the Ovidian genius. The Anius episode (13.630-704), the contextual frame of Ovid's sole ekphrasis in the Metamorphoses, not only is twice as long compared to its Vergilian prototype, but it tells a story markedly different, unattested elsewhere - by and large an Ovidian improvisation. These plot revisions naturally raise questions. Why did Ovid choose the Orionids legend as theme of his only ekphrasis in his Aeneid reproduction? What is the broader significance of this particular representation, and how does it relate to the surrounding narrative of the 'little Aeneid', and to the text of the Metamorphoses overall? H o w closely did the poet observe the traditional account of the legend of the Orionids, and what were the motives behind the initiated alterations?

12

13

cords the emergence of female birds from the funeral ashes (favtlla, 604; cf. 697) of Memnon; the similarity is underlined, according to Hopkinson (p. 34), by "the allusion in cineri materno (699) to the phrase cineri cognata sepulto / corpora (615-616)". Indeed the depiction of the voluntary sacrifice of the Orionids in exchange for the salvation of their homeland and fellow countrymen would have touched deeply Anius, the original receiver of the crater, reminding him of his daughter's similar fate (voluntary sacrifice to save Andros', their brother's, country, and transformation), which the king himself relates in the course of a banquet honoring the Aeneas (Met. 13.644-674); a detailed summary of the Aniads story is given in the introduction. Keith 2000, 125-126; Dowden 1989, 168, identifies the ritual elements in the Orionids' story, and classifies it among the tales that develop as variant to famous legends such as those of Io, Iphigeneia, the daughters of Proitos, and the Danaids. In the case of the Aniads and their brother, the wordplay in the double etymology of Andros from andreia, 'bravery' (it is his sisters, not Andros, who embody bravery after all) or aner/andra, 'man' (the two women assume the role of Andros, the man, in defending the island's populace), calls anew for deliberation on the significance of gender inversion.

Chapter One

26

The arguments below address these questions, as they follow Ovid's effort to reproduce an ekphrasis as meaningful as the several learned Vergilian pictorial narratives, all the while anxiously working towards the structural integration of his creation into the narrative flow of the Metamorphoses. A detailed examination will make plain that the Orionids legend celebrates themes which occur repeatedly elsewhere in the Metamorphoses, in sections both preceding and coming after the Anius episode, and in contexts related to the legend of Rome. Particularly interesting are the ways in which the ekphrasis on the sculpted crater also foreshadows the conclusion of Ovid's epic. Several details in Ovid's account of the Orionids tale reappear in the revival of Rome following the arrival of Aesculapius, and in the constellation of Julius Caesar and the apotheosis of Augustus. Thus, by means of intelligent leitmotiv, Ovid facilitates continuity and strengthens the narrative unity of his seemingly spineless carmen perpetuum}4

3. The Theban Connection The Theban origin of the Orionids and the Theban setting of the action in the tale of the maidens' sacrifice are two details calling for a closer look. Several years ago Philip Hardie astutely observed that Ovid in the Metamorphoses employs the city of Thebes and its surrounding legends as principal model to write his own version of the "ktistic epic", one that would be in a "striking, deliberate contrast with the Aeneid". The Theban cluster in Meta14

T h e theoretical background of narrative progression supported by the regular recurrence of specific themes along the course of the Metamorphoses

sits at the center of Wheeler

2000, the latest book-length study on structure in Ovid's epic. Wheeler's study of Ovid's narrative plan relies on the close analysis of " t w o generative principles: repetition and narrative continuity. T h a t is, Ovid continues his poem and defers closure by repeating narrative patterns and linking episodes in continuous narrative sequences" (p. 5). T h e principal value of the b o o k lies in Wheeler's detection of recurrent themes and his consideration of how several passages seemingly unrelated and situated at a distance f r o m each other cohere to impart structure; cf. also id. 1999, esp. 117-139, where the author focuses on the narrative function of recurring temporal transitions, anachronism, and time transformation; and 194-205, centering on "cultural transformation", dramatized in the course of the Metamorphoses

as gradual transfer of Greek culture to Rome, especially

visible in the transition f r o m the world of the Iliad

to that of the Aeneid.

Wheeler does

not discuss the presence of symmetrical patterns in the recurrence of episodes and motifs, although his thesis owes much to Brooks O t i s ' classic reading of the

Metamorphoses

( O t i s 1970, esp. 4 5 - 9 0 ) as a continuous narrative of unity whose shifting thematics are tied together by structural symmetry.

3. The Theban Connection

27

morphoses 3.1-4.603, Hardie noted, not only becomes a prime example for a "ktisis gone wrong", but it returns in an interesting context in the conclusion of the Metamorphoses (15.429), and it supports Pythagoras' theory on the mutability of f o r t u n e shortly before the philosopher prophesies Rome's eternal glory. In short, the legends in Metamorphoses 3 and 4 allegedly stand f o r the history of Thebes f r o m rise to fall, and foreshadow a similar destiny f o r Rome. Hardie substantiates his argument by identifying in the Ovidian narrative of the T h e b a n unit a striking n u m b e r of verbal and thematic parallels t o Vergil's Aeneid, especially in the description of the f o u n d a t i o n and rise of Rome. 1 5 In his choice of Thebes f o r the symbol of a dysfunctional polis and m e t a p h o r for Rome, Ovid had only to follow a pattern already established in Greek tragedy. T h e Greek dramatists had n o t e d that the Boeotian city was geographically tied to an unusually high concentration of tragic m y t h s intrinsic t o the institution of the polis and its government, the family, gender and class roles, social and personal behavior. Consequently, in their works legendary Thebes, with its demonstration of every aspect of political and social unconventionality, conveniently stood for the political " O t h e r " , the anti-Athens. 1 6 If the image of Thebes, then, became a standardized allegory f o r the tragic anti-Athens, what could prevent Ovid f r o m modeling the same set of myths around a new literary appearance of the same city as antiRome? 1 7 T o be sure, the p r o x i m i t y between Thebes and R o m e is initially established in the principal narrative of the Anius episode, the fate of Anius' own daughters, which shares several details with that of the Minyeids': b o t h tales involve running and chase (the Greeks vs. Bacchus), in b o t h tales Bacchus, the god m o s t intimately involved w i t h Thebes, is directly involved (the Aniads' spontaneous p r o d u c t i o n of olive oil and wine is Bacchus' gift), f o r the olive and wine of the Aniads reflects the spontaneous growth of vines that take over the looms of the Minyeids. Finally, an intended thematic parallelism between the T h e b a n sisters and the daughters of Anius emerges

15

" 17

See Hardie 1990, 224-235, on the textual and thematic loans from ihe Aeneid in the Theban unit, and the rationale of their arrangement in the Ovidian text as to reproduce a negative version of the Roman epic. F. Zeitlin, 'Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama', in: J.P. Euben (ed.), Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley 1986), 101-141. According to Hardie (1990, 228-229), this "pervasive presence of themes of Attic tragedy in Ovid's Theban tales" is anything but coincidental; instead it strongly suggests a source of inspiration for the wide presence of themes from Greek tragedy throughout the Metamorphoses.

28

Chapter One

f r o m behind Anius' inability to provide a description of his daughters' transformation, since he was not actually present. Von Albrecht has explicitly linked this detail to Ovid's confession of comparable inability to detail the Minyeids' metamorphosis, since it happened in the darkness (Met. 4.409-410). 18 Indeed, viewing the Orionids' sacrifice and resurrection as anticipatory to the resurgence of Troy as Rome establishes this proximity between Thebes and Rome. To begin with, the Theban tales of Metamorphoses 3 and 4 and the story of the Orionids share considerable similarities. Antoninus Liberalis' Metamorphoses 25 (following the versions of Nicander, in Heteroioumena, and Corinna, in her Geroia or Weroia)^9 a work most likely composed in the second century AD, happens to be the only other detailed literary account of the Orionids legend. MHTIOXH ΚΑΙ ΜΕΝΙΏΤΓΗ ['Ιστορεί ΙΜίκανδρος Έτεροιουμένων δ και Κόριννα ρεροίων α] 1 '0}ρίωνος του Ύριέως έν Βοιωτία θυγατέρες έγένουτο Μητιόχη και Μενίππη. Αύται, οτε 'Dpicova ήφάνισεν έξ ά ν θ ρ ώ π ω ν "Αρτεμις, έτρέφοντο π α ρ ά τ η μητρί. Και Ά θ η ν α μεν έδίδασκεν αύτάς ιστούς έξυφαίνειν, Αφροδίτη δέ αύταΤς έδωκε κάλλος. 2 Έπει δέ Αονίαν ολην έλαβε λοιμός και πολλοί άπέθνησκον, θεωρούς άπέστειλαν π α ρ ά τόυ Α π ό λ λ ω ν α τόν Γορτύνιον· και αύτοΤς είπεν ό θεός ίλάσσασθαι τούς δύο έριουνίους θεούς· έφη δέ καταπαύσειν αύτούς την μήνιν, εί δύο δυσιν έκοϋσαι παρθένοι θύματα γένοιντο. 3 Πρός δέ δη τό μαντεΐον ούδεμία τ ω ν έν τ η πόλει παρθένων ύπήκουσεν, άχρι γυνή θήσσα τόν χρησμόν έξήνεγκε πρός τάς θυγατέρας τοϋ 'ίΟρίωνος. Αι δ' ώς έπύθοντο π α ρ ά τόν ίστόν έχουσαι τόν ύπέρ ά σ τ ώ ν θάνατον έδέξαντο, πριν ή την έπιδήμιον έπιπεσούσαν α ύ τ ά ς άφανίσαι νόσον· τρις δέ βοησάμεναι χθονίους δαίμονας, οτι αύτοΤς έκούσαι θύματα γίνονται, έ π ά τ α ξ α ν έαυτάς τ ή κερκίδι π α ρ ά την κλείδα και άνέρρηξαν την σφαγήν. 4 Και αύται μέν άμφότεραι κατέπεσον ές την γ ή ν Φερσεφόνη δέ και "Αιδης οίκτείραντες τ ά μέν σ ώ μ α τ α τ ω ν παρθένων ήφάνισαν, άντι δ' εκείνων άστέρας άνήνεγκαν έκ της γης· οί δέ φανέντες άνηνέχθησαν εις ούρανόν, και αύτούς ώνόμασαν άνθρωποι κομήτας. 5 Ίδρύσαντο δέ πάντες Άονες έν Ό ρ χ ο μ ε ν ω της Βοιωτίας ιερόν έπίσημον τ ω ν παρθένων τ ο ύ τ ω ν , Και α ύ τ α ΐ ς καθ' εκαστον έτος κόροι τε και κόραι μειλίγματα φέρουσι. Προσαγορεύουσι δ' αύτάς άχρι νϋν Αιολείς Κορωνίδας παρθένους. 18 19

Μ. von Albrecht, Roman Epic: An Interpretative Introduction (Leiden 1998), 203. Antoninus Liberalis, Les Metamorphoses, ed. M. Papathomopoulos (Paris 1968), 43-44 (Greek text and facing French translation), 125-127 (commentary); on the Coronides, see, s.v. Koronis, Lackeit, RE XI.2, 1433-1434; Tümper, Roscher II.l, 1385-1387.

3. The Theban Connection

29

In Boeotia Orion, son of Hyrieus, had as daughters Metioche and Menippe. A f t e r Artemis had taken him away from the sight of mankind, they were brought up by their mother. Athena taught them to weave on the loom and Aphrodite gave them beauty. When a plague seized the whole of Aonia and many died, there were sent officials to consult Apollo's oracle at Gortyne. The god replied that they should make an appeal to the two gods of the underworld. H e said that they would cease from their anger if two willing maidens were sacrificed to the Two. Naturally, not one of the maidens in the city complied with the oracle until a servant-woman reported the answer of the oracle to the daughters of Orion. They were at work at their loom and, as soon as they heard about this, they willingly accepted death on behalf of their fellow citizens before the plague epidemic had smitten them too. They cried out three times to the gods of the underworld saying that they were willing sacrifices. They thrust their bodkins into themselves at their shoulders and gashed open their throats. And they both fell down to the ground. Persephone and Hades took pity on the maidens and made their bodies disappear, sending up stars out of the earth in their stead. When they appeared, they were borne up into the sky. And men called them comets. All the Aonians set up at Orchomenus in Boeotia a notable temple to these two maidens. Every year young men and young women bring propitiatory offerings to them. T o this day the people of Aeolia call them the Coronid Maidens. 20 A c c o r d i n g to A n t o n i n u s , M e n i p p e and Metioche, O r i o n ' s

daughters,

were e n d o w e d with great b e a u t y b y A p h r o d i t e , and they were t a u g h t the art of w e a v i n g b y A t h e n a . A n t o n i n u s ' narrative creates the i m p r e s s i o n that the t w o m a i d e n s were living in an e n v i r o n m e n t of v o l u n t a r y s e c l u s i o n f r o m the rest of the B o e o t i a n c r o w d . T h e y were unaware that an oracle o n the termin a t i o n of the p l a g u e h a d b e e n delivered, until a s e r v a n t a n n o u n c e d it t o t h e m (AL 2 5 . 3 ) . In their isolation the t w o m a i d e n s p r o j e c t a m o d e l of control a n d r e a s o n a m i d s t a city in despair. T h e order and p r o p r i e t y displayed in their a c t i o n s , p e r f o r m i n g the traditional f e m a l e h o u s e h o l d t a s k s of weaving a n d s p i n n i n g , are also reflected in the e t y m o l o g y of M e t i o c h e , 'the m i n d f u l , the w i s e ' ( μ ή τ ι ; + ε χ ε ι ν ) , while M e n i p p e ' s n a m e is a c o m p o u n d of μένειν, ' t o s t a y f i r m ' . I n a s e n s e their description is similar t o that of a n o t h e r g r o u p of sisters originally f r o m O r c h o m e n u s , the M i n y e i d s , w h o d o m i n a t e o n e of the lengthiest tale c o m p l e x e s {Met. 4.1-603) within O v i d ' s T h e b a n saga. D e s p i t e o b v i o u s d i f f e r e n c e s , the tales of the O r i o n i d s a n d the M i n y e i d s , b o t h w e l l - k n o w n tales of B o e o t i a , d e v e l o p u n m i s t a k a b l e parallels. In addi20

T h e translation follows closely that of Francis Celoria, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis. A Translation with Commentary (Routledge 1992), with minor changes.

30

Chapter One

tion to being transplanted from Orchomenus to Thebes, both sets of sisters, confined within their residences, are diligently occupied with the symbolic task of weaving. This display of matronly virtue sets both women groups apart as unique expressions of order amidst an environment of god-inspired disorder. Ovid encourages the closeness further: he alone of the sources on the Minyeids legend omits the detail that at least one of Minyas' daughters was married and mothered a child, whom the three sisters tore apart in a state of frenzy inspired by Dionysus. Antoninus Liberalis in his version of the Minyeids legend presents us with another unique piece of information: it was Hermes rather than Dionysus who transformed the Minyeids into bats. Interestingly enough, Hermes was also referred to as Eriounios. The same epithet in its plural form is attributed to the ruling deities of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone, who dictated the expiatory sacrifice in Antoninus' account of Orion's daughters (τους δύο έριουνίους θεούς, AL 25.2). Additionally, the Minyeid Leucippe's name, the female form of Leucippus, a name attributed to a number of young males who die prematurely in various regional traditions that are symbolically reproduced in some form of male initiation involving horses, associates the maiden's punishment with the premature death ritual.21 The names of the second Minyeid, Arsippe, and the Orionid Menippe, both compounds of the form -ippos/-e as well, may likewise stand for a similar correlation of youth, sacrifice, and initiation.22 Both sets of sisters are tied to sublime artistic expression. Their status as weavers suggests that the Minyeids are de facto artists given the definition of weaving in the Metamorphoses as an allusive form of artistic expression, 23

21 22

23

O n the initiation ritual tied to the horse, see Dowden 1989, 71-95. O n Ovid's tampering with the various names attributed by tradition to the Minyeids in order to build etymological wordplays and allusions, see Keith 1992, 60 n. 44, on identifying etymological doublets in the Metamorphoses and discussing their structural power. Notably, the Proitids, a third set of sisters, whose legend develops along lines similar to the tale of the Minyeids as a variation of the same female initiation ritual (on which, see Dowden 1989, 71-95), also include a carrier of an -ippos/-e name, Lysippe. N o t fortuitously the most celebrated pictorial representation in the Metamorphoses, the ekphrasis contest between Arachne and Athena (Met. 6.1-145) is structured on weaving, which thus becomes a powerful allusion for art. Anderson 1972, 153-155, draws attention to Ovid's detailed description of weaving, a multi-layered six-staged process gradually leading to the transformation of wool into a work of art; commenting on the ivy decorating the border of Arachne's tapestry (Met. 6.127-128), Anderson (1972, 167 ad loc.) outright states that weaving is an old metaphor for poetry: thus, art and metamorphosis converge in weaving, while the artistic self-consciousness of the process is captured in the

3. T h e T h e b a n C o n n e c t i o n

31

yet, most importantly for our purposes, they are also skilled storytellers, 24 creators of literature, including long narrative poems such as epics. For it is in the Minyeids episode that the simultaneous actions of spinning/weaving and narrating are made explicit.25 Reflecting on the unique metapoetical coloring of the Minyeids, Rosati tellingly observes that "the Minyeids unite the two functions of spinners and narrators; further they do not limit themselves to the task of fine spinning (deducere filum), but bring to completion the entire process...: first they tend to carding the wool, then they spin it and then they attend to weaving at the loom, thus completing the entire process from the unrefined wool to the finished cloth.... The ascription of this double function to the three sisters highlights the parallelism between the two actions, the simultaneous processes of spinning/weaving and narrating". 26 In depicting the Orionids, Ovid is aware of the presence in the myth of the same metapoetical correspondence between the thread of continuous narration and the threads flowing forward through the spinner's fingers, but he opts to silence it. His acumen produces a smarter substitute. The maidens, indeed, are not depicted at their looms, yet the weaving element in the story is nonetheless present, for it is captured in the employment of telo ('shuttle', 13.694) in the account of the maiden's suicide, a term signifying both the weapon and the weaver's loom. Thus, the main theme in the ekphrastic centerpiece of Alcon's artefact is the fate of the Orionids, simultaneously weavers and implicitly artists. The artists become themselves the object of art and the subject of another artist's piece of finery. And although we are not told that the Orionids also share tales, the grammatical structure of the text describing part of Anius' cup evokes oral composition.

24

25

26

regular employment of the appropriate vocabulary. M. von Albrecht, 'Der Teppich als literarisches Motiv', Deutsche Beiträge zur geistigen Uberlieferung 7 (1974), 11-89, is the classic treatment of the employment of weaving imagery as metaphor for poetry. Cf. Leach 1974, 107: "In the fourth book of the [Metamorphoses],.. Ovid introduces the first human artists: the daughters of Minyas". Cf. also Ahl 1985, 225, noting that weaving and composition literally blend together in Ovid's portrayal of the Minyeids at Met. 4.54. O n weaving as the silent artist's language of communication, see V. Lev-Kenaan, 'Silent Images: the Role of the Mythological Weaver in Ancient Literary Criticism', in: S. Jäkel and A. Timonen (edd.), The Language of Silence 1 (Turku 2001), 182-196. Rosati 1999, 245; in the same article the critic clearly links the processes of weaving and composing a narrative, as both are described with similar or even identical technical vocabulary (pp. 245-247). The comparison stresses that the standard phrase for poetic composition and in particular narrative text, deducere carmen, primarily comes from the employment of the same verb deducere in wool spinning.

32

Chapter One

Lines 6 9 2 - 6 9 6 form a single sentence in asyndeton centered on the verb facit, which governs a series of accusative infinitives-a structure commonly used to report discourse, thus signifying that visual art and verbal art in this epic are interchangeable. 27 This coexistence of visual and verbal art that brings the Orionids and the Minyeids together is also attested in the Athena/Arachne contest, an exchange of pictorial stories marked by similar constructions of oral speech. The syntax governing the portrayal of Arachne's exceptional skill (6.18-23), which is up front likened to an artistic talent (6.18 tantus decor adfmt arti, 'so great was the beauty in her skill'), resembles the construction employed for the picturing of Anius' gift. The same v e r b , f i e r e n t , governs a single sentence that consists of five clauses which all observe the same structure and are drawn together by connectives ('sive... seu... -que... sive... seu) most set at the beginning of the line. Each clause introduces a different form of weaving, a different piece in the whole image of Arachne's extraordinary talent. Arachne's and Alcon's artistic mastery becomes the magnifying glass for reading the broader context, and Ovid's verbal virtuosity makes sure that this will be laid lucidly before his readers' eyes. All in all, the grim political associations tied to Thebes justify Ovid's choice of the city as the setting of the ekphrasis that foreshadows the future for his Aeneas. It will be next shown that the Orionids narrative shares numerous themes and verbal echoes with the description of Rome and the arrival of Aesculapius in Met. 15.626ff., and, by reiterating the story aliter, it toys once again with the spirit of irony and ambivalence enveloping the imagery and expectations of the future greatness of Rome.

4. The Aesculapius

Parallel

The last mythological episode of the Metamorphoses

(15.626-744) relates the

migration of the Greek god Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome. 2 8 T h e 11

:s

J. Solodow 1988, 230, citing A. Draeger, Historische Syntax der lateinischen Sprache, vol. 2, 2nd ed., (Leipzig 1881), 418; TLL 6.1: 117.82-118.28). Background studies on the episode include A. Holleman, 'Ovidii Metamorphoseon Liber xv, 622-870', Latomus 28 (1969), 42-47 and 51-53, and id. 'Zum Konflikt zwischen Ovid und Augustus', in: G. Binder (ed.), Saeculum Augustum II: Religion und Literatur (Darmstadt 1988), 379-392; Segal 1969, 275-278; Lundström 1980, 80-89; Schmitzer 1990, 273278; D. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford 1991), 208-210; Stok 1992; Barchiesi 1997, 187-191; R. Granobs, Studien zur Darstellung

4. The Aesculapius Parallel

33

same episode also happens to be the first one referring to an actual event, and as such it opens the last, the 'historical' section of the poem, seemingly a high-spirited reference to the history of Rome, its present glory, and its all-promising future. 29 The inaugural character of the Aesculapius episode is emphatically, and oddly, underscored by the placement of an epic-like invocation of the Muses immediately prior (15.622-625), 3 0 while the detailed description of the snake god's journey to Rome is obviously a parallel to Aeneas' journey to Hesperia. 31 This correspondence brings the ekphrasis on Anius' cup next to Aesculapius' peregrinations in Metamorphoses 15, since each narrative may be read as allusion to the Trojan experience. A closer collation of the two units shows that the circumstances causing the migration of Aesculapius westwards parallel those that dictated the self-sacrifice of Orion's daughters. Both Rome and Thebes suffer the blow of a devastating pestilence marked by death and disease (13.687 ante urbem exequiae tumulique ignesque pyraeque, 'before the city stood funeral rites and tombs and fires and funeral pyres' ~ 15.626-628 dira lues quondam Latias vitiaverat auras /pallida... corpora morbo; /funeribus fessi..., 'a deadly pestilence once had polluted the air of Latium; / bodies... pale from the disease; / weary from the deaths...'), mourning (13.688-689 effusaeque comas et apertae pectora matres / significant luctum; nymphae quoque flere videntur... queri, 'and mothers with loosened hair and bared breasts signifying mourning; nymphs

römischer

Geschichte

in Ovids

(Frankfurt am Main 1997), 75-80 and 143-

Metamorphosen

51; Wheeler 2000, 130-137. 29

Segal 1969, 2 7 5 - 2 7 8 , reads the episode as epic parody culminating in the praise of Au-

30

T h e present invocation calls to mind and parodies ancient epic parallels, namely II. 2.484-

gustus. 493, znAAen.

7.641-646 and 10.163-165, all of which introduce catalogues of warriors, all

the while signaling the opening of epic action. Schmitzer 1990, 273, η. 119, draws attention to one other epic-like invocation to the Muses. In Vergil's Georgics

4.315-316, the

Muses are called to assist the poet with the recollection of Aristaeus' myth. As in the Ovidian text, the invocation in the Georgics

is positioned near the end of the poem, and

Aristaeus like Aesculapius is a son of Apollo and has to cure a plague. Finally, the emergence of the bees from the ox's carcass corresponds to a form of resurrection, a theme present in the legend of Aesculapius, and a leitmotiv in the conclusion of the

Metamor-

phoses. 31

J . Gassner, Kataloge

im römischen

Epos: Vergil,

Ovid

und Lukan

(Dissertation, Munich

1972), 105-107, discusses the parallels of the geographical catalogue of Aesculapius' journey along the Italian coastline (15.701-728) with the Italian section of Aeneas' own voyage in Met. Aeneid

14.82-104, while Stok 1992, 144-150, compares it to Aeneas' itinerary in

3. T h e n again, one could remark here that not every topographical landmark bore

a name compatible with the rules of epic prosody and meter.

34

Chapter One

also seemed to weep... and lament' ~ 15.744 luctibus, 'laments'), and a strong sensation of helplessness manifested in the barrenness and devastation of the landscape (13.690-691 siccatosque... fontes: sine frondibus arbor / nuda riget, rodunt arentia saxa capellae, '... their dried-up springs: the trees stood leafless and bare, the goats ate away the parched rocks') and the people (15.628-629 mortalia cernunt / temptamenta nihil, nihil artes posse medentum, 'they saw that human efforts led to nothing, nothing the healers' skills could accomplish'). Notably, it is the imagery of grief and death that opens Ovid's recast 'Iliad', too. Troy, the ancestor of Rome and Aeneas' original fatherland, when introduced to the readers of the Metamorphoses, is going through a period of mourning due to the presumed death of Priam's son Aesacus. Priam's sorrow (Met. 12.1-3 Nescius... Priamus pater Aesacon... vivere lugebat: tumulo quoque nomen habenti / inferias dederat... Hector, 'Father Priam mourned for Aesacus not knowing that he was alive: at a tomb that bore an inscription with his name, Hector had offered funeral honors') is captured in language that strikes a tone similar to the lament of the Thebans in 13.687ff. (exequiae tumulique ignesque pyraeque / effusaeque comas... matres / significant luctum). The same grim setting is discernible also at the outset of Aeneas' journey to Rome, which is recalling the murder of Polydorus (Met. 13.628-629). The Trojan passage from Thrace in the Ovidian text is accounted summarily, yet the echoes in the Orionids narrative to the Vergilian description of Polydorus' episode (Aen. 3.13-68), in particular the burial and ritual mourning by the Trojan women, stand out: Aen. 3.63-65 aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant Manibus arae I... maestae... / et circum Iliades crinem de more solutae ('earth is heaped high to make a mound: altars are set up for the dead... and the women of Troy stand around in mourning with their hair loose as custom prescribes'). In short, the manifestation of the theme of lamentation and death, first at the opening of Ovid's 'Iliad', then at the opening of Ovid's 'Aeneid', and finally at the beginning of the historical period of Rome situates these episodes along the same narrative chain. Ovid thematizes death and lament, while the placement of each unit and their carefully distanced positioning along the poem establishes a pattern of regularity that safeguards the progression of the epic. In search for an end to the plague, the populaces of both Rome and Thebes seek the aid of Apollo, the healing god.32 The similarities between the '

3

Met. 15.631 Delphos adeunt, oracula Phoebi, 'they arrive at Delphi, Phoebus' oracle'; in Ovid's Orionids version the reference to Apollo is omitted, to be supplied by the doctus

4. The Aesculapius Parallel

35

t w o episodes s e e m t o s t o p here, since the divine advice offered t o t h e T h e bans is p a t e n t l y different f r o m t h e oracle received by t h e R o m a n s . T h e i m provisation of a n e w c o n c l u s i o n t o the O r i o n i d s ' story, however, allows this series of links t o c o n t i n u e . F o r the m o s t part, O v i d ' s narrative runs parallel t o the version r e c o r d e d in A n t o n i n u s , but their respective c o n c l u s i o n s are different. I n t h e G r e e k source, H a d e s and P e r s e p h o n e eventually pitied the maidens

and t r a n s f o r m e d

t h e m into stars which

'men

called

comets

[ κ ο μ ή τ α ς ] ' . Additionally, the people of A o n i a dedicated t o their m e m o r y a t e m p l e in O r c h o m e n u s , where o n c e a year y o u n g m e n and w o m e n b r o u g h t p r o p i t i a t o r y offerings. A n d A n t o n i n u s ' s t o r y concludes as follows: ' A n d up to

this

day

the Aeolians

call t h e m

Coronid

Maidens

[Κορωνίδας

π α ρ θ έ ν ο υ ς ] ' . In O v i d ' s t e x t on the o t h e r hand the daughters of O r i o n do n o t t u r n i n t o stars; instead, their p y r e gives birth t o a pair of twin y o u t h s , the C o r o n i . 3 3 This c h o i c e of n a m e for the Coroni

is an Ovidian invention and certainly

e c h o e s A n t o n i n u s ' Κ ο ρ ω ν ί δ α ς π α ρ θ έ ν ο υ ς . T h e rationale behind t h e particular i n t e r v e n t i o n in the G r e e k tradition is astutely reaching f o r w a r d s t o t h e episode i m m e d i a t e l y following A e s c u l a p i u s ' arrival, w h i c h r e c o r d s the

lector familiar with the alternative tradition whose echo survives in Antoninus. One should note, too, that in Antoninus' account the citizens of Orchomenus consult the Gortynian [=Arcadian] Apollo; cf. Hopkinson 2000, 32. Antoninus (Papathomopoulos 1968, 43) acknowledges two additional accounts of the Orionids' sacrifice, developed, respectively, by Nicander in Book 4 of the Heteroioumena, and Corinna in Book 1 of her Weroia (or Geroia). Yet, as both Papathomopoulos 1968, xv-xix, and, most recently, J.L. Lightfoot, Parthenius ofNicaea: The Poetical Fragments and the 'Erotika Pathemata'. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary (Oxford 1999), 246-256, have admitted, the attributions in Antoninus' text were not part of the original text, and their origin and authenticity have generated a variety of arguments; both scholars, however, accept Antoninus' acknowledgment of Nicander and Corinna as correct. Regrettably, of Nicander's work there is no surviving evidence, and little has come down to us under Corinna's name, but in the extant fragments of Corinna there is clear and repeated reference to the exploits of Orion and his daughters (cf. PMG 656, 662, and 673), and she makes him, like Hesiod, the son of Hyrieus (PMG 654, col. iii.35). Although the evidence is scarce, Collins in a forthcoming work argues that Corinna is particularly fond of mythological innovations in order to confer upon certain parochial variants of certain well-known myths the authority of some Panhellenic version of theirs: referring specifically to the myth of Orion, Collins claims that in treating Orion Corinna opts to focus on the hero's status as the occupant of the oracle at Proia, a function that was meaningful only to the local populace of Boeotia; cf. D. Collins, 'Corinna and Mythological Innovation', Abstract of a Paper Delivered at the American Philological Association 2004 Annual Conference.

36

Chapter One

constellation and subsequent apotheosis of Julius Caesar. Antoninus' text specifies that the two Coronid maidens were transformed not merely into stars but into comets (25.4 κ ο μ ή τ α ς ) . This recalls the description of Caesar's soul which, on its way to heaven, catches fire (15.847 lumen capere atque ignescere, 'it caught fire and burnt') and flies off the hands of Venus as a comet with flaming hair (15.849-850/Zammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem / Stella micat, 'trailing its flaming hair behind in a spacious track, gleaming like a star'). Additional linguistic parallels make the two episodes interconnect. Phrases such as ne genus intereat and cineri materno in the description of the Orionids' transformation reinforce the notion of family and suggest that the Coroni, like Octavian Augustus, be seen as the muchdesired successors who will guarantee the continuation of their family line.34 The Orionids are reborn in the bodies of the Coroni, their sons, and thus look forward to Julius Caesar's own rebirth - his apotheosis by his own son: ut deus accedat caelo... / tu fades natusque suus, qui nominis heres / inpositum feret unus onus, 'that as a god he may reach heaven... you [sc. Venus] will accomplish, along with his son, who as successor to the name will bear alone the burden placed on him' (15.818-820). It also foretells, in the context of Ovid's 'Aeneid', the Roman resurrection from the ashes of Troy that is so explicitly heralded in the rise of the Coroni in the Anius episode. Ovid's portrayal of Anius is likewise constructed with the 'historical' Roman section in mind. In Vergil's narrative the consultation of Delian Apollo and the god's ensuing revelation, followed by a quadruple sacrifice to four deities including Apollo (Aen. 3.84-120), occupy all but four of the lines devoted to the Anius episode overall. In the Metamorphoses the sacrificial offering, to Apollo alone, is compressed within a mere four lines {Met. 13.636-639), and for good reason. In the Aeneid, Anius, the king of Delos and priest of Apollo (Aen. 3.80 rex Anius, rex idem bominum Phoebique sacerdos, 'King Anius, the same man King of men and Phoebus' Priest'), is seen primarily as a priest, while the episode itself focuses on Apollo's consultation and the interpretation of his oracular response. Markedly, at the moment of the Trojan arrival at Delos Anius is performing a sacrifice, and he rushes to meet the newcomers in the garments and paraphernalia of the priest (Aen. 3.81-82 vittis et sacra redimitus tempora lauro / occurrit, 'he runs forth to meet us wearing on his hallowed temples the fillets and the sacred laurel'). Ovid, however, looking forward to the conclusion of the Metamorphoses, portrays the Trojan ally as king as well as priest, in clear anticipation 34

Hopkinson 2000, 34; Keith 2000, 126.

4. The Aesculapius Parallel

37

of Augustus' appearance in the closing scene of the epic. Both Anius and Augustus are rulers but also priests of Apollo, while Anius' royal residence, like Augustus' own on the Palatine Hill, is adjacent to the temple of the deity whom he serves (Met. 13.632-633 hunc [Aeneas] Anius, quo rege homines, antistite Phoebus / rite colebatur, temploque domoque recepit, 'him [Aeneas] Anius, who ruled over men as king and served Phoebus as his priest, received in the temple and his home') .35 The attempt to account for the peculiar naming of the twin Coroni brings to light another network of tantalizing thematic correspondences. Hopkinson argues that the name, in addition to echoing the original Κορωνίδες of Ovid's Greek model, suggests a further connection with the word corona, the 'crown [of glory?]' that the maidens win as a reward for their readiness to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the city. The employment of several words from the vocabulary of glory in the narrative of the gift exchange (696 celebri, 698 fama, 704 coronam) endorses the proposed link. 36 The same vocabulary and the resulting allusions to fame and glory are ubiquitous in the conclusion of the Metamorphoses. Their formulation depends on the acknowledgment that the pictorial resurrection of Thebes is an alias for Rome, and their identification is supported by interlocking intratextual ties centered on the themes of constellation, apotheosis, and the crown. This very imagery of the crown and the idea of apotheosis, often associated with constellation, 37 dominate the coda of Ovid's epic, which records the deification of Julius Caesar and Ovid's projection of a similar posthumous fate for Augustus. It is tempting to read the idea of the crown behind the Coroni's name as an allegory to a series of crowns in the second half of 35

Börner ad 13.632-704, 371, notes that epic tradition introduces Anius as son of Apollo as early as the Cypria. In the Aeneid, Anius' house and the temple of Apollo appear on successive lines (3.83-84), indicating, according to Hardie (per litteras), separate buildings, while sections of one and the same building are Latinus' palace and the temple within, in Aen. 7.170ff., esp. 174-175.

36

Hopkinson 2000, 34. Save Ovid's own prophesied apotheosis in the sphragis, and also excluding Aesculapius and the implied constellation version of the Orionids, Books 13-15 contain a total of eight major apotheoses (Acis and Glaucus in 13.885-897 and 916-965, respectively, Aeneas-Indiges, in 14.596-608, Romulus-Quirinus, in 14.805-828, and Hersilia-Hora, in 14.829-851, and finally, in Book 15, those of Hippolytus-Virbius [531-546], Julius Caesar [esp. 818-819], and Augustus [868-870]. O f the above deifications, those of Julius Caesar and Hersilia involve catasterism as well, while they share similar imagery and diction; cf. Wheeler 2000, 140.

37

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Chapter One

Metamorphoses 15, which include the laurel crown of Cipus and the golden crown offered to Julius Caesar. 38 Cipus' refusal to accept the office of king (15.583-585, 588-589) is mentioned immediately before the Aesculapius episode and parallels Julius Caesar's rejection of the golden crown (Suet. Iul. 79.2), and no less Augustus' renunciation of the kingship in favor of a restitution of the Republic - a refusal followed, nevertheless, by the Senate's dedication to him of a different (oak) crown, the ' c o r o n a civica'P The subtle play then on the word corona in the Coroni story serves to identify, first Aeneas with the Julians and Cipus, but also with Romulus, the transformation of whose spear into a cornus (15.560-564) is narrated immediately prior to the Cipus story, and then the royal scepter of the first Roman king with the royal mark of Cipus, at the level of both language and symbol, but also with the royal symbolism of the corona that Cipus wore, initially to hide his horns, later as a mark of honor. 40 Evidently, Ovid not only wishes to raise the issue of kingship in historical terms as early as the foundation of Rome, but also to introduce it as major theme in the characterization of both the alleged mythical founders of his nation, Aeneas and Romulus. The kinship in symbolism between corona and the many facets of a constellation represented by the twin Coroni is of analogous density in meaning. Two prophetic episodes in the Aeneid confirm the combination of fire in the shape of twin flames, crown, and constellation: the description of the snake-like flame that licks the temples of Ascanius in Aen. 2.680-686, and the twin fiery crests ( g e m i n a e . . . cristae) that stand over Romulus' head in 38

39

40

Cf. Wheeler 2000, 128-130, for Ovid's description of Cipus as a potential Caesar, and the associations he shares with both Julius Caesar and Augustus. K. Galinsky, 'The Cipus Episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses (15.565-621)', ΤΑΡΑ 98 (1967), 181-191, was the first to suggest that the Cipus parable allusively describes, and obviously undermines, Augustus' analogous attitude towards authority and power. Wheeler 2000, 129; on Augustus' policy of respublica restituta, see Galinsky 1996, 42-48 and 58-77, and Schmitzer 1990, 263-272. On the offering of the corona civica and its symbolism, see Galinsky 1996, 208, 218, 272, 306, 355. Ovid actually does not specify (563 arbor) but, instead, challenges the Ovidian audience to recall that that tree into which the spear was transformed was a cornus, since, according to Plutarch, it could be seen on the Palatine near the scalae Caci as late as the reign of Caligula. Romulus' cornus then undergoes a new transformation in the subsequent story as it becomes Cipus' cornua (566), which, in turn, are covered (591-592) with a laurel crown, a corona (610), only to be uncovered and then covered again, this time with a real corona (615). On the close parallelism between Cipus and Romulus, and their significance for raising new parameters to the issues of Augustus and his association to kingship, see most recently R. Marks, 'Of Kings, Crowns, and Boundary Stones: Cipus and the hasta Romuli in Metamorphoses 15', ΤΑΡΑ 134 (2004), 107-131, esp. 120-127.

4. T h e Aesculapius Parallel

39

Aen. 6.779.41 Both Vergilian passages relate divine promises of revival and future greatness for the descendants of Aeneas, not unlike the symbolic resurrection of the Orionid maidens. Conveniently then the miraculous birth of the Coroni situated at the outset of the Trojans' journey westwards may translate in Ovid's recast Aeneid the prodigy on Ascanius' head and the twin crests crowning Romulus. Like the ekphrasis on the crater of Anius, the two Vergilian passages mark the very beginning of the two sections of Aeneas' journey f r o m Troy to Rome, that is, the geographical crossing and the mental transformation, respectively. At the sight of the miraculous flame over Ascanius, Anchises, who until that moment held Aeneas back as he stubbornly refused to leave crumbling Troy, changes his mind; hence the Trojans are free to begin their quest for their new country and identity. The reference to crowned Romulus is, likewise, set to mark another beginning. Romulus is the actual founder of Rome, to whom the descendants of Aeneas legitimately trace the origin of their name. When Romulus appears before Aeneas' eyes in the Heroes' Parade \r\Aen. 6.779ff., he is introduced as the one who will raise Rome's glory to heaven: buius... auspiciis ilia incluta Roma / imperium terris, animos aequabit Olympo, ('under his auspices... that glorious Rome shall bound her empire by the ends of earth, her pride by heaven', Aen. 6.781-782). The description echoes Jupiter in his prophecy in Aeneid 1 who describes the conquests of Augustus (nascetur pulcbra Troianus origine Caesar, / imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris, 'the Trojan Caesar will be born of this noble line, who will set the Ocean as limit to his empire, the stars as limit to his fame' (Aen. 1.286-287). Both Julius Caesar and Augustus march before Aeneas' eyes immediately following Romulus (Aen. 6.789ff.), Augustus addressed as divi genus, 'godborn' (792). Aeneas, meanwhile, for the first time is named specifically father of the Romans (hue geminas nunc flecte acies, banc aspice gentem / Romanesque tuos, 'here turn now your two eyes, this people behold, your Romans', Aen. 6.787-788).42 Intratextual ingenuity is also involved in the sounding of the name Coroni. This echoes the bapax matronymic Coroniden, a coinage alternative 41

42

Wheeler 2000, 129, points out the association to the two Vergilian passages, but does not proceed into detailed analysis. All passages in Vergil's Aeneid that allude to the sidus Iulium of 44 BC have been recently treated in detail in M.F. Wilhams, 'The Sidus Iulium, the divinity of men, and the Golden Age in Virgil's Aeneid', in Leeds International Classical Studies 2.1 (2003), 1-29. J.T. Ramsey & A.L. Licht, The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games (Atlanta 1997), 155177 (=Appendix 1) list the various sources for Caesar's comet.

40

Chapter One

to Aesculapius in 15.624, which sends us back to the episode of the god's birth in Book 2, the only other appearance of the healing god in the Metamorphoses. The god of medicine comes to life concurrently with the dire death of his mother whom Ovid addresses with the Greek form of the accusative case, Coronida (2.599). The birth of Coronides (sc. Aesculapius) from the ashes of Coronis mirrors the resurrection of the Coroni from the ashes of their mothers, Orion's daughters, while it evokes Antoninus' Κορωνίδας παρθένους, and the twin comets rising from their pyre. Thus the rise of the youths on the cup of Anius resembles an apotheosis, and looks forward to a series of celebrated deifications that crowd Book 15, in particular to those featuring in the section that refers to the most recent Roman past. These include the ascension of Julius Caesar's soul to heaven (15.848-851), and Ovid's 'prophesying' a similar fate for Augustus, and for himself.43 All three follow immediately after the narrative of Aesculapius, whose tragic fate and subsequent apotheosis, although originally told thirteen books earlier [Met. 2.642-648), is vicariously revisited in the episode of Hippolytus-Virbius. Hippolytus' story (Met. 15.497ff.), in turn, comes shortly before Aesculapius' migration to Rome. The son of Theseus was brought back to life as an immortal after his tragic chariot accident and was transplanted to Italy to become the Italian forest deity Virbius. The relationship between Hippolytus and Apollo's son is affirmed when the former declares that he owes his resurrection to the latter (Met. 15.533-535 nec nisi Apollineae valido medicamine prolis / reddita vita foret; quam postquam fortibus herbis / atque ope Paeonia Dite indignante recepi, 'were it not for Apollo's son and his potent remedies, my life would not have been given back to me; when I regained it thanks to strong herbs and medicinal aid, and against the will of Dis...'). The tale of Hippolytus' resurrection is told in the Fasti, by Aesculapius himself: 'nulla' Coronides 'causa doloris' ait: / 'namque pio iuveni vitam sine volnere reddam, / et cedent arti tristia fata meae\ "There is no reason for sorrow', said the son of Coronis: for, I shall give back, without trace of wound, the life to the pious youth, and the fates shall yield to my art' (Fasti 6.746-748). The speaker, introduced as Coronides in obvious recollection of Met. 15.624, describes how he revived HipT h e elevation o f Caesar's soul to heaven, and its gradual transformation to a c o m e t star presided over b y Venus, does not converse only with the reincarnation of the Orionids in the bodies o f the twin C o r o n i : a suspicious reader may discern a tendentious reference to A n i u s ' daughters, who suffered a cruel fate and a metamorphosis, like Caesar's and the O r i o n i d s ' , and whose lives likewise received " e x t e n s i o n " in a new f o r m , associated with Venus, since they were turned into doves, the goddess' beloved birds.

4. The Aesculapius Parallel

41

polytus in language that presupposes familiarity with Hippolytus' account in the Metamorphoses (15.497-546) of his own, personal tragedy but also his resurrection by Aesculapius, and brings the two episodes together. 44 As the Coroni's emergence f r o m the ashes of the Orionids is the favorable omen foretelling the salvation of Thebes f r o m the plague, likewise Coronides Aesculapius becomes salutifer urbi, 'the savior of the city' (15.744), f o r Rome by putting an end to the pestilence. 45 The last phrase likely toys with Aesculapius' earlier appearance in Book 2, where in acknowledgment of his status as god of medicine he is addressed as salutifer orbi, 'the savior of the world' (2.642). The witticism is best understood in the light of the realization that by the age of Augustus and Ovid Rome, the urbs, has become the center of the world, orbis terrarum,46 The ekphrasis decorating the gift offered to Aeneas in Book 13, the only pictorial narrative in the context of the Ovid's reproduction of the Aeneid, represents a sample of the poet's artistry: it partakes of a sophisticated narrative structure centered on the themes of catasterism, apotheosis, and resurrection, motifs which recur with increasing frequency and allusivity as the epic nears conclusion, culminating in the episodes of Aesculapius and Julius Caesar, each of which celebrates the rebirth of Rome. The Orionids' ek-

44

45

46

O n the awareness of the Metamorphoses text in the Hippolytus narrative of the Fasti, see Newlands 1995, 192-195. Barchiesi 1997, 190-191, offers a metatextual interpretation of the coinage of the matronymic Coronides; Ovid's inspiration might have been an alternative Greek meaning for the term coronis, 'the curved line or flourish formed with a pen, which writers or transcribers were accustomed to make at the end of a book or chapter' (LSJ s.v. κορωνίς2). The detection of this allusion would convey to the readers that Ovid's carmen perpetuum approaches its conclusion. O n the connection between the Aesculapius episodes in Books 2 and 15, see G. Davis, 'The Problem of Closure in a Carmen Perpetuum. Aspects of Thematic Recapitulation in Ovid Met. 15', Grazer Beiträge (1980), 131, and, in more detail, Keith 1992, 71-76, who additionally encompasses in her discussion the appearance of Aesculapius in the Fasti. In Metamorphoses 2.600-630, Coronis dies a tragic death burnt by Apollo's fire, but gives birth to Coronides Aesculapius while she herself, pitied by Apollo, is turned into a corone, 'crow'. The etymological play at work here is reflected in the rise of the Coroni f r o m the pyre consuming their mothers, whose death had likewise been directed by Apollo, while according to Hardie (per litteras), the avian transformation of Coronis is projected on the similar fate of Anius' daughters; cf. Keith 1992, 60 n. 44, on name doublets in the Metamorphoses and on the stories featuring beings with similar names. The Aniads, paradoxically yet in accord with Ovid's love for generating surprise, turn, not into crows, or even other black birds, as one might expect, but into white doves (columhae), their whiteness being emphasized twice (643 niveis; 674 niveas).

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phrasis merges units ostensibly disconnected, thematically as well as spatially, and guarantees continuity in the narrative progression of the carmen perpetuum. The elaborate tendentiousness of this seemingly straightforward narrative set-piece exemplifies the depth of Ovid's poetic creativity, and functions as an appropriate prologue to the series of narrative transformations that follow and challenge Vergil's literary genius.

Chapter Two Immortality and Mutability: The Sibyl and the Power of Poetic Memory 1. Introduction The overlong interlude of the Sicilian stories (Met. 13.730-14.74) tempts the audience with a parenthesis that prolongs anticipation as much as causes distraction; in a witty way, Ovid compensates, by lengthy digressions, for the abridgment of his principal story line that records Aeneas' peregrinations from Delos to Cumae. These are reduced to two drastically condensed lists of places and names, each of approximately the same length, symmetrically arranged to frame the Sicilian tales. Met. 13.705-729 sums up Aeneas' adventures in the Greek part of the Mediterranean, referring back to Aeneid 3. In the twenty-five lines that reintroduce Aeneas to the epic narrative (Met. 14.75-100) the plot speeds through Dido and Acestes (Aeneid 4 and 5), and subsequently goes through a catalogue of locales on or near the Italian coastline that lie on Aeneas' course northwards.1 The cruising pace of the second half of the Trojan journey evidently needs a second extensive break. Cumae, like Sicily earlier, will provide the setting for three additional stories and nearly 350 lines of paranarrative text. The Cumaean stories, however, unlike the Sicilian cluster, are firmly set in the world of Aeneas. They open with Aeneas' encounter with the Sibyl and his sojourn in the netherworld, and continue with a description of the meeting between two former comrades, Achaemenides, Vergil's invented character, and Macareus, Ovid's response to the particular Vergilian ingenuity.

T h e y also trace the topographical journey of the Ovidian narrative westwards and northwards to R o m e , and point forward to the similar travelogue account of Aesculapius in B o o k 15 ( 6 4 4 - 6 9 4 ) , whose migration to R o m e has been seen as allegory to Aeneas' experience; cf. W h e e l e r 2 0 0 0 , 134, who sees the correspondence as "still another example o f ring c o m p o s i t i o n " .

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The fifty-three lines of the Sibyl episode are meant to reproduce the whole of Aeneid 6: the compression seems to reverse the narrative pattern adopted in the recollection of the preceding Anius episode, where the Ovidian text required twice the length allotted to Anius in Vergil. The contrast is only superficial, for both accounts, as well as the remaining episodes of Ovid's 'Aeneid.', observe the same narrative strategy. They expand on themes that barely, if at all, exist in the Vergilian prototype, to the detriment of those narrative moments emphasized in the Aeneid. The radical anamorphosis of the model in the Anius story in many ways serves as methodological prologue to the rest of the 'little Aeneid' units. From a certain standpoint, the encounter between Aeneas and the Sibyl has only too naturally been selected to become the second episode in Ovid's Aeneas story. In Vergil, both the Anius and the Sibyl episodes deal with important moments of revelation and center on the theme of prophecy. 2 Although Aeneas has been foretold about his future in Hesperia on several occasions already before his arrival at Delos, notably by the ghosts of Hector and Creusa, it is on Anius' island that he actually receives the first official revelation of the divine will on his mission. Delian Apollo's prophetic words are included in Ovid's Anian narrative - in fact, Met. 13.678f. (qui petere antiquam matrem cognataque iussit / litora, 'he bade them seek their ancient mother and kindred shores') follows closely the Vergilian text of the oracle (Aen. 3.94-96 Dardanidae duri, quae vos α Stirpe parentum / prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto / accipiet reduces, antiquam exquirite matrem, 'Tough children of Dardanus, the land which first carried you from your parent stock, the same land shall welcome you back to her bounteous bosom. Go search for your ancient mother!'), a pivotal passage for moving the Aeneid plot forward.3 In the Ovidian account, the revelation of the Trojans' ultimate destination, the essence in the Anius episode, is radically anamorphosed, being captured in the spectacular pictorial narrative of the Orionids. Apollo's oracle and the parable of the Orionids' rise from the pyre serve a similar purpose towards advancing the narrative plot: they both reveal knowledge about the optimistic future of Troy and its eventual rebirth. In

3

For Tissol 1997, 178ff., the importance of prophecy in the revelation, direction, and fulfillment of Aeneas' heroic mission explains why Ovid sought inspiration and plot material mainly from Aeneid 3 and 6, where the divine element predominates. On the structure of Apollo's oracle at Delos in Aeneid 3, see Barchiesi 2001, 133-135; the rationale behind Ovid's reading of it is detailed at the opening of the following chapter.

1. Introduction

45

compressing Apollo's prophecy within a space barely longer than a single verse, Ovid in his Anius story does more than marginalize a leading, regularly recurrent theme in the original Vergilian book: above all he suppresses the significance of the hero Aeneas' role as plot agent. In the Aeneid, oracles mostly address Aeneas, and the narrative action moves forward on the basis of how Aeneas or those to whom the hero defers (Anchises) read the divine signs. Ovid, on the other hand, converts his 'little Aeneid' from a literary hero's mission to a (primarily intellectual) journey and experience for the reader. Aeneid 6 is devoted to prophecy and revelation. It celebrates Apollo and officially sanctions prophetic exposition in the character of the Sibyl; and it outlines destiny's plan for Aeneas' people, of which the hero is the direct and exclusive recipient. Ovid's emulative response produces an alternative reading of Aeneid 6, which downplays the role of prophecy and its effect on Aeneas, and focuses instead on the prophetess. This switch of focus from divination to the diviner has not escaped the attention of recent Ovidian criticism. Tissol, more specifically, notes the "marginalization of prophecy" in the Anius episode, but expects that Ovid will take advantage of the predominance of prophetic rheses in Aeneid 6 to provide his reader with a "structural comprehensibility of events" analogous to that granted by Vergil to his own reader. Still, the image of the Sibyl, with which the Ovidian reader is confronted, is a far cry from the Vergilian model, for Ovid's prophetess is meant to be seen not as supernatural communicant but as a victimized woman. In this way, Ovid humanizes the Sibyl, and points out that her emotions and her suffering, a tangible example displaying the outcome of "arbitrary power", "are more deeply embedded in the nature of things than are providential order and the working out of beneficent fate". 4 4

Tissol 1997, 184-186; Tissol's brief, partly reader-response, partly feminist approach to Ovid's Sibyl is one of the rare critical treatments that the unit has received so far. T o my knowledge, Baldo 1995, 80-88, offers the only other perceptive study, an intertextual reading, especially of the earlier section (lines 104-115), not limited merely to locating stylistic and verbal parallels to the Aeneid, but also attempting to discover literary motives behind them. F o r Döpp 1991, 337-338, the Sibyl stands as a model of courage and endurance for Aeneas, and, additionally, makes up for Ovid's exclusion from his 'Aeneid' of the various miraculous phenomena (thaumasta) described in Aeneid 3. O n the Sibyl as humanized victim, see also Galinsky 1975, 224-229. Galinsky, overall, reads the Sibyl episode as a typical application of the referre idem aliter strategy in adapting the Aeneid, but refuses to see an intention to parody either Aeneas or the Sibyl, who, rather, are decidedly humanized, stripped of their heroic and reverential statuses, respectively. Likewise

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Progressively moving my focus from the woman to the text, I would like to offer here a metaliterary reading of the episode. I am interested in exploring the portrayal of the Sibyl, not so much as Apollo's prophetess and victim and Aeneas' guide, but rather as a critical reader and appraiser of her prophecies and prophetic ability. I would like to pursue the idea that the Sibyl's knowledge of the past and her power to foretell the future include knowledge of the material that is recorded in writing as the epic composition, the Text, and as such the prophetess offers an allegoric ambiance for the ambitious epic poet. In the Sibyl's words the Ovidian reader is tempted to trace the Augustan poet's reflections on epic poetry and on his mission as heir to a long literary tradition.

2. The Sibyl and Aeneas The fifty-three-line-long 'translation' of Aeneid 6 in the Metamorphoses is divided into two sections, each addressing different critical and narrative concerns. Three introductory lines describing Aeneas' arrival at Cumae lead to the first, shorter section (Met. 14.104-115). This is a pastiche of phrases and echoes from the earlier part of Aeneid 6 (42-211). 5 Here Ovid, who has not presented his own version of Aeneas' 'Nekyia', makes a display of an alternative imitatio pattern that he could have followed but, instead, wished to forgo. This first section covers Aeneas' encounter with the Sibyl while she is possessed by Apollo (104-107), her prophecy on the Italian war (108f.), her promise to lead Aeneas to Elysium in order to meet with his father (110-113), and a reference to the hero's quest for the golden bough (114f.). The second and largest section, lines 116-153, is Ovid's tour de force, his metaformation of Aeneid 6 proper. O n the surface it appears that Ovid could hardly care less about Aeneas' Underworld tour, the lengthy, spirited, and metaphysical sermons of Anchises, the parade of the "future" great men

Solodow 1988, 141, 149: "By cutting Vergil's version and altering its proportions through the Sibyl's story, Ovid remakes it as an account of private hardship". The story of the Sibyl is related by Servius ad Aen. 6.321, his source being unclear. In Petronius, Trimalchio remembers seeing the Sibyl hanging in a bottle at Cumae (Satyricon 48.8). Lines 104-115 have been discussed in detail already in F. Börner, 'Ovid und die Sprache Vergils', Gymnasium 66 (1959), 278-286 [reprinted in: M. von Albrecht, E. Zinn (edd.), Ovid. Wege der Forschung 92 (1968), 187-199]; several of these earlier comments are repeated in Börner ad 14.103ff. Good analyses of the stylistic texture of the passage include Stitz 1962, 69-79, Lamacchia 1969, 7-9, and especially Baldo 1995, 80-85.

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47

of Rome, or even the description of the two gates of Sleep through which Aeneas made his exit f r o m Orcus. The poet of the Metamorphoses assumes that his readers are quite familiar with this most popular section of the Aeneid, and so he judges that four verses (116-119) suffice to summarize nearly 700 lines of Vergilian narrative. In striking contrast, the remaining text is set to provide information that the audience is most likely to lack; Ovid's revision is in effect an elaboration on a mere Vergilian hemistich, ille viam secat ('he speeds his way', 6.899): what took place after the completion of Aeneas' visit to the Underworld. What did actually happen on the hero's way back to Cumae as soon as he and his escort left behind the ivory gate? A journey on foot through the domain of Orcus, followed by long and detailed sermons on metaphysics and projected 'history', may use up a lot of energy, affecting hero and prophetess alike. Engaging in small talk is a most common, human, reaction to take one's mind away f r o m imminent pains and worries: inde ferens lassos adverse tramite passus / cum duce Cumaea mollit sermone laborem, 'as he retraced his weary steps on the return journey he eased the toil with discourse with his Cumaean guide' (14.120f.). For Tissol, the introductory couplet is noteworthy for its pedantic, non-epic style: "To the familiar picture of Aeneas and the Sibyl in the underworld, Ovid adds some irreverently physical complications, which Vergil, in preserving the serious tone appropriate to his purpose, could not afford to mention". 6 Precisely because they are meant to announce the beginning of his clashing with the Vergilian narrative, including Vergil's stylistic propriety, lines 120-121 convey a powerful statement of originality. Heralding and also epitomizing the authenticity of the Ovidian account of Aeneas and the Sibyl, the two verses include no less than three unparalleled phrases: lassos passus, adverso tramite, and dux Cumaea, albeit reminiscent of Aeneidic diction, are all Ovidian coinages, 7 even as they purportedly echo a significant Vergilian line. In Aeneid 6 (158-162), Aeneas and Achates, who loyally (fidus) shares with Venus' son labor and concerns (it comes et paribus curis vestigia figit, 'he walks at his [Aeneas'] side, and plants his steps carrying the burden of similar cares'), are searching together for the body of Misenus and they are engaged in discussion (multa inter sese vario sermone serebant, 'much varied conversation exchanging among themselves'). Ovid, about to

6

7

Tissol 1997, 184; for Börner ad 14.101-157, 43 (referring back to his own 1959 argument) Ovid's invented dialogue between Aeneas and the Sibyl is "frivolous", and the portrayal of the prophetess in 14.102ff. a "Profanierung". Börner ad 14.120-121.

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experiment with a series of mutations on the character of and the symbolism behind the Sibyl, begins first by divesting the prophetess f r o m the aura attached to her Vergilian portrayal. H e suggests that we consider the upcoming conversation between Aeneas and the Sibyl not differently than the intimate and sincere private talk between two individuals who are also very close friends. Ovid's Sibyl feels that she could find in the face of Aeneas a discreet and understanding audience to whom she would confess her personal story, and whose comparable suffering offers the reassurance of true sympathy. Aeneas opens the conversation, respectful and profusely grateful to his guide f o r her assistance towards accomplishing his Underworld mission. Taking for granted her close ties to divinity (123 seu dea tu praesens seu dis gratissima, 'whether you are truly a goddess or someone most pleasing to the gods'), he pledges to worship and honor her eternally (124 numinis instar eris semper mihi, 'to me you will always seem divine'; 128 templa tibi statuam, tribuam tibi turis honores, Ί shall erect a temple to you and with incense I shall pay tribute to your honor'), but the Sibyl reacts strongly. She begins her reply by firmly denying attributions of divine status and honors alike (130f. nec dea sum, dixit, nec sacri turis honore / humanum dignare caput, Ί am no goddess, nor is any mortal worthy of the honor of the sacred incense'). The structure of her opening line is a display of honed rhetorical skill - after all, one would not expect otherwise f r o m a mistress of words and gnomes, and the alleged author of the famous Sibylline oracles. The use of the double negative nec... nec is obviously planned to correspond to the structure of Aeneas' opening at 123 seu... seu. In observance of a careful structural design, the proceeding phrase, nec dea, responds to the beginning of Aeneas' speech (123 seu dea), while its pair, nec sacri turis honore, addresses the speech's concluding hemistich (128 tribuam tibi turis honores). The Sibyl does wish to be viewed as a human being. A human image of herself in her travelling companion's mind is likely to make the details of her plight sound more intimate and credible, more dramatic. Further, it might narrow the distance that her divine-like and respect-inspiring prophetic status, knowledge, and relationship to Apollo inevitably interject between herself and Aeneas. It has been noted that 14.123 and 14.128 have been modeled on Aeneas' address to Venus disguised as huntress, respectively in Aeneid 1.328f. and 334f., with echoes extending to include the opening lines of the Sibyl's re-

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49

sponse, which in turn seems to evoke the metamorphosed Venus' reply. 8 Two additional Vergilian moments, both parts of the encounter between Aeneas and Dido, are recalled in Aeneas' reply to the Sibyl in Ovid. In Aeneid 1, in his first address to Dido, Aeneas, moved by the queen's generous offer of hospitality, promises her that semper bonos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt / quae me cumque vocant terrae, 'your honor, your name and your praises shall remain for ever' (609-610). And later, in Aeneid 4, when he first confronts the queen's anger at his impending departure, he assumes his self-defense only after declaring first that Dido deserves every praise, and that he will never allow her memory to fade (333-336 ego te, quae plurima fando / enumerare vales, numquam, regina, negabo / promeritam, nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae / dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus, Ί shall never deny, my queen, that you deserve [of me] the utmost one can issue in speech, nor shall I find it tiresome to remember Elissa, as long as I have a memory of myself, as long as breath has command of these members'). Like the Sibyl, Dido had helped Aeneas at an earlier stage during his journey to Italy and received profuse expressions of gratitude. This crosstextual reach backwards may accommodate two different critical interpretations. In the light of the Dido episode, Aeneas' employment of the same pattern of thanksgiving appears ironic. Even though repetition does not necessarily undermine the candor and integrity of his promises, it does nonetheless remove the spirit of originality, transforming them into cliches, which, seen in retrospect from Dido's point of view, may well sound like convenient expressions of flattery. In the same words it is possible to discern an intention on Ovid's part to parody pius Aeneas' sincerity of intentions (and the Vergilian hero's character overall), especially in view of the fact that lines 123-128 are Aeneas' only words, his only speech in direct discourse throughout the 'little Aeneid'. Further, Aeneid 6 hosts the second and last encounter between Aeneas and Dido in Vergil. When in 6.456ff. the hero resumes his apology to Dido's ghost he stresses again the constraint that forced him to tear himself away from Carthage unwillingly (459f.). The original admission of coerced departure from Dido's kingdom is expressed in Aen. 4.340ff., only a few lines after Aeneas has begun his self-defense by vowing eternal loyalty and reverence to the memory of Dido's kindness. The Sibyl's intentional evocation of Vergilian Dido is part of intratextual play as well, for the allusions to Aeneid 1 and 4 in the Sibyl episode elicit the presence of Dido. Dido resurfaces again in later sections of the 'little 8

Baldo 1995, 80-81.

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Chapter T w o

Aeneid', and her appearances, addressing primarily the erudite reader, never repetitious, are of ever increasing sophistication. The narrative line formed by the concatenation of these underhanded, recurrent glimpses of Dido joins the various structural patterns that strengthen the unity of Ovid's vignette epic. The Sibyl's stern repudiation of her divine nature addresses only half the truth. The priestess of Apollo is not an ordinary mortal, for she once was as close as one can be to becoming a goddess. In the remainder of her speech (14.132-153) she analyzes and tries to rationalize her peculiar status of mortality as she discloses her personal story. Once she was young and beautiful, and Apollo fell in love with her. Eager to overcome her resistance, the god tempted her with an offer of immortality (132 lux aeterna mihi carituraque fine dabatur, 'eternal, endless life was being offered to me'), and he also pledged to fulfill any wish the Sibyl made on her part (135f. 'elige' ait 'virgo Cumaea, quid optes: / optatis potiere tuis', 'choose what you will, maiden of Cumae, and you shall have your choice'). The maiden asked for and was granted immortality, a life span to equal in number of years the grains in a heap of sand,9 but forgot to ask also for youth (137-139 quot haberet corpora pulvis, / tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi, / excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos, 'that I might have as many years of life as there were sand-grains in the pile; but I forgot to ask that those years might be perpetually young'). Apollo promised to grant her the latter too, if she would submit to him, but the Sibyl firmly kept the god off. Hence the fulfillment of her initial wish became a curse instead, condemning the priestess to endlessly advancing old age (139-144). Seven centuries she has already witnessed going by, and the worst, the remaining 300 years, is still to come: tempus erit, cum de tanto me corpore parvam longa dies faciet, consumptaque membra senecta ad minimum redigentur onus, nec amata videbor nec placuisse deo; Phoebus quoque forsitan ipse vel non cognoscet vel dilexisse negabit: usque adeo mutata ferar nullique videnda, Grains of sand or alternatively dust were traditionally employed in proverbs and similes to suggest endless time; cf. E. McCartney, 'Vivid Ways of Indicating Uncountable Numbers', CP 55 (1960), 79-89; Börner ad 14.137-138, citing Homer (II. 9.385) and two Ovidian passages (Met. 7.267; Trist. 1.547-548), which he declares imitations of the Homeric original, observes that dust and sand appear also in epic poetry, in graphic illustrations of endless labor.

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voce tarnen noscar, v o c e m mihi fata relinquent. (Met. 14.147-153)

The time will come when length of days will shrivel me from my full form to a tiny thing, and my limbs, consumed by age, will shrink to a feather's weight. I will then seem never to have been loved, never to have pleased the god. Phoebus himself, perchance, will either gaze unknowing on me or will deny that he ever loved me. To that deep mutation shall I come. Though shrunk past recognition of the eye, still by my voice shall I be known, for the fates will leave me my voice. As the Sibyl relates her story, the similar fate of Cassandra, the T r o j a n priestess w h o likewise spurned Apollo's sexual advances, comes to mind, a m y t h that might possibly have been Ovid's inspiration, given that the particular version of the Sibyl's story is n o t recorded in any source prior to Ovid. 1 0 Cassandra had been granted by the god fulfillment of a preliminary wish, the gift of prophecy. W h e n later she refused to endure Apollo's love, he punished her by distorting, "metamorphosing", the original gift: Cassandra would retain her prophetic faculties but n o one would ever believe her. Cassandra knows the f u t u r e , the decline and eventually the destruction of her fatherland, but she also knows that she alone cannot avert it by herself; hence her gift of foreknowledge becomes a curse, her own private tragedy. T h e Sibyl is c o n f r o n t e d with a similar tragedy. She knows her f u t u r e , and she will witness her own decline, and eventual t r a n s f o r m a t i o n (mutata), w i t h o u t being able either to avert it or to end it at will. In this respect she does gain immortality, but this is ironically tragic because it is cognitive. T h e priestess is t o retain her mental faculties to watch consciously this long course of corporeal decline, even t o visualize what she is b o u n d t o experience, all the while reflecting on the beauty of her y o u t h . She will live long e n o u g h to witness the 'death' of her identity ( Ί shall seem never to have been loved, never to have pleased the god; also, Phoebus himself, likely, will either stare u n k n o w i n g on me or will deny that he ever loved me', 150f.). In the code of ancient epic values, one is still alive as long as one's m e m o r y lives on, n o t only a m o n g one's c o n t e m p o r a r i e s and intimates b u t also a m o n g the generations t o come. W h e n Apollo, the god of omniscience and the agent m o s t intimately involved with the Sibyl's fate, ceases f r o m carrying a m e m o r y of her, the prophetess will 'die', albeit still biologically alive.

10

According to Börner ad 14.101-157, 42-43, only Servius in his note in on Aen. 6.321 preserves a similar version, but Ovid must have had in mind some earlier source now lost; cf. Cassandra's story as told by Cassandra herself at Aesch.^lg. 1202-1212.

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Ultimately the definition of life, death and immortality is much more complicated than the Sibyl's narrative communicates to her first-time audience. Seen in the light of the Sibyl's personal story, Aeneas' appellation of her as dea, and his promise to pay to her divine honors and perpetuate her memory, anticipates the most burning concern of the "immortal" prophetess. The conclusive lines of her speech, especially the last couplet, are certainly not uplifting - nor are they easy to interpret. A mistress of words and a character that derives her identity from her relationship with words, Apollo's prophetess concludes with a proclamation of her survival through and within her voice. In this, she combines a multi-layered metapoetical discourse centered on the meaning of continued existence and metensomatosis of the epic voice with a line of subtly interconnecting intratexts. The combination of fate and prophecy, omniscience and mastery of speech, are also the traits of Pythagoras, whose speech includes much of what the Sibyl and Aeneas had in fact discussed and witnessed in their earlier literary encounter in the Aeneid. O n the other hand, distortion and multi-leveled speech, and the fluidity in the definition of absolute truth are inherent in the nature of Fama. They are further reflected in Calchas and Nestor, both keepers of epic memory and voices of the epic fate. As we shall see, the Sibyl's portrayal alludes to traits and symbolism represented by all these deeply metaphorical characters and manipulators of speech - the epic Word. In her figure metapoetics and narratology coexist and reinforce one another.

3. The Sibyl and Rome The journey to the Underworld accentuates the irony in the Sibyl's personal tragedy to witness the death of her existence while biologically still alive. The absence in her case of well-defined boundaries separating life from death is well illustrated in her privilege to enter the world of the dead, although she is not able to inhabit it permanently. This second irony resonates Homer on death: in the Nekyia when Achilles' soul confesses that a long life, even as a daily laborer in the service of a poor master, would have been much preferable to ruling, dead among the dead (Od. 11.489-491)." Life after death, the ideal and desirable life span, memory and remembrance O n Ovid's alluding to the particular passage in Odyssey 11 with respect to the death of Achilles and the dissemination of the news about his death by Fama in Met. 12.615-619, see Hardie 1997, 194-195.

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as continuation of life, or whether and when death may be preferable to life, all are issues addressed in the Sibyl's story. There is little doubt that Aeneas' Underworld journey in the Aeneid projects Vergil's own standing on the various metaphysical theories surrounding the mystery of death, and how these coexist with the traditional image of Hades. In response Ovid introduces his own perspective to this cultural but mainly literary argument. The restrictions of space tied to the compressed size of his 'Aeneid' prompt the poet of the Metamorphoses to eschew direct comparison with the text of the Aeneid. This may justify why the second and lengthier half of the encounter between Aeneas and the Sibyl takes place during the section of the journey neglected in Vergil's treatment. As in the Aeneid, Aeneas is again confined to the role of the listener, but the selection of the particular chronological moment conveniently excludes the presence of Anchises; the principal speaker has been replaced with the Sibyl. Indeed, the Sibyl and the ghost of Anchises share a fundamental trait: they both possess universal knowledge. Anchises in Elysium not only has not lost his memory, as is usually the case with the souls of the dead who cross the Acheron, but on the contrary, his mental faculties and depth of knowledge have reached the level of omniscience. H e has answers for the metaphysical questions posed to him by Aeneas, the rules governing the cosmic order and the journey of human souls, while in his commentary on the parade of the heroes he displays familiarity with the future - the history of Rome. 12 And even though the Sibyl's narrative is a deeply personal story, the particular twist given to this self-reflection is intended to underline precisely the element of the prophetess' omniscience, especially, as in the case of Anchises' ghost, her knowledge of the future. Is it possible to discern the outlines of a finer parallelism here? By her own admission, the Sibyl is already seven centuries old, and she is destined to wander about alive for an additional three hundred years (14.144-146). 13 Despite the fact that the Sibyl's age is often commented upon in Augustan and post-Augustan poetry, usually in humorous con-

From a psychological perspective, Anchises' introduction of Aeneas to the rising 'future' of Rome may be read opposite the Sibyl's forecasts on her declining future. The Vergilian text looks forward to an era of ascending glory, encapsulated in the heroes' parade, an orderly collage of fragments of Elysian bliss destined to come on earth, a bliss which Aeneas' descendants are experiencing already. O n the contrary, the Ovidian aemulatio accounts the living hell of a woman who wished but ultimately failed, with tragic consequences, to procure for herself what she perceived to be an Elysium on earth. 13

Cf. OLD, s.v. saeculum 6.

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tents, 14 no other author prior to Ovid gives a specific number for the priestess' age. The setting of the number one thousand as the Sibyl's years is supposedly a tradition as old as the pre-Socratics (Heraclitus 22 Β 92 DK). At least this is what Plutarch wants us to believe, who is our only source, outside the particular Ovidian passage, citing the number 1000 ( χ ι λ ί ω ν έ τ ώ ν ) as the Sibyl's total age span. Does Plutarch, however, actually have in mind some other, more credible, piece of information, or is he merely projecting a symbolic number, and evokes Heraclitus as the source in order to add credibility to a personal assertion? Given the lack of alternative, especially earlier, sources, wouldn't it be more plausible to accept that Ovid most likely invented himself the particular number for the Sibyl's age?15 The question then one needs to ask next is why would Ovid's Sibyl live precisely 1000 years, or, more accurately, ten saecula. A plausible explanation could rest with the assumption that Ovid selected the number ten inspired by Varro's theory of the existence specifically of ten Sibyls, rather than Sibyls in general, as authors of the Sibylline oracles. 16 It would be more tempting to speculate that Ovid here is covertly foretelling the decline and fall of Rome - that the Sibyl is an allegory for the very city of Rome. Such a suggestion may not necessarily be without support. As a matter of fact, history records that in the year A D 19 the people of Rome were disturbed with prophesies attributed to the Sibyl: 'When thrice three hundred years

14

15

16

Propertius, for example, states (2.2.15) that even age as deep as the Sibyl's cannot change his mistress' face, and assures her that, should an epoch like this come, his love for her will not change. Ovid in the Fasti (3.531), describing the festival of Anna Perenna, when the participants prayed to be granted so many years as the cups they drank, assures his readers that one could find there men whose years would equal Nestor's and women whose drinks would add up to the age of the Sibyl. Notably, neither the earlier Augustan poets, Horace and Vergil, nor the Neoterics include any mention at all of the Sibyl's age; cf. Parke 1988, 147-148, with additional references to post-Augustan literature, especially the Satire. The question of the sources (or rather their absence) behind Plutarch's testimony (Plut. Mor. 397A), and the doubts surrounding its authenticity, are noted in Börner ad 14.144, who asserts that some other source is the origin behind Ovid's recording the number one thousand for the Sibyl's age; Parke 1988, 20 n. 15, and Potter 1994, 116, assume that Ovid is following a Greek source. Myers, in her commentary on Metamorphoses 14 currently under preparation, points out that the number one thousand appears also in Aeneid 6: at 6.748, one thousand years is given as the period of time between the death of a person and the rebirth of his/her soul. In his reference study on the Sibyl and the Sibylline oracles, Parke 1988, 29-31, discusses Varro's theory of the ten Sibyls; pp. 25-30 list the ancient scholarly and literary sources on the origin and identity of the various Sibyls.

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have gone by, the Romans shall perish through civil wars and Sybaritic folly'. Parke, who notes and discusses the particular verses, believes that "the nine hundred years are based on the idea of a thousand as forming a complete epoch and that the final century would introduce a great change". What would induce the Romans to believe that A D 19 was that particular ominous terminal point, is not clear.17 This feeling of anxiety about the imminent f u t u r e contradicts the spirit of Ovid's times, the era of optimism and hope for renewal, captured in the widely circulated view of an impending arrival of the Aurea Saecula following the completion of the circular succession of the Ages. Markedly, it is the Sibyl of Cumae who once again heralds the comeback of the Aurea Aetas, as advertised by Vergil in his Fourth Eclogue. This announcement of the return of the Golden Age, among other things, confronts and seeks to revise the general pessimistic mood of Late Republican literature, voiced in texts widely read, such as Sallust's prologues, the conclusion of Catullus' poem 64, and Livy's preface to his Ab Urbe Condita. This last work, whose publication was an ongoing project throughout the last third of the first century BC, sets the date of Rome's foundation seven saecula prior to the author's times. In other words, the completion of the seventh saeculum since the traditional date of the birth of the Urbs finds Rome and the Romans at the threshold of both impending death and imminent rebirth. Is it possible that Ovid, in specifying his Sibyl's age, toys with both these traditions? By setting her ('current') age at 700 years, our poet makes the Sibyl a peer of the Rome of his day. The seven centuries that have gone by for either of them have brought decline, yet one is to assume that the worst is still lying ahead. Such an interpretation clashes with the highly spirited Golden Age rhetoric, which f r o m a certain perspective downgrades, by inverting it f r o m an uplifting promise of a bright future for Rome to some enforced reactionary critique of the overtly pessimistic Late Republican talk on Rome's doomed destiny. N o r does the realization that the conversation in the course of

17

In any case, ancient sources do tell us that Emperor Tiberius, in an attempt perhaps to anticipate undesired reactions from the spread of this rumor, declared the verses in question to be spurious, and ordered an investigation of books of oracles in circulation, several of which he directed to be burnt. The events of A D 19 were followed by more occasions of forecast doom for the future of Rome, all of which were allegedly attributed to Sibylline prophecies; see Parke 1988, 142-144. The principal source on the affair is Dio 57.18.4, discussed in R.F. Newbold, 'Social Tension at Rome in the Early Years of Tiberius' Reign', Athenaeum 52 (1974), 110-143. For the importance of the tenth century, see Servius' testimony on Verg. Eel. 4.4.

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which the Sibyl reveals her age is chronologically set several centuries before the foundation of Rome need to cause confusion. The Ovidian Sibyl, not unlike Vergil's Anchises in Aeneid 6, addresses Aeneas as much as Ovid's contemporary audience. Indeed, this projection of the Sibyl's speech and her age in the 'future' inverts the perception of time in the heroes' parade, where Vergil projects his own past and present as Aeneas' 'future'.18 This ambiguity in the definition of chronological orthodoxy is anything but out of place in the Metamorphoses·, the problem of time in the poem is currently seen to be among the most complex and intriguing aspects of it. The temporal organization of the Metamorphoses, projected by the poet himself as a principal unifying thread of his carmen perpetuum, is marked by numerous discrepancies, which, in fact, are deliberate, for they serve as allusion to the fragmented nature of the overall epic, whose 'regular' narrative order is subjective, depending on the reader's perspective, rather than on firmly prescribed rules.19 The issue of "problematic" time order, particularly applicable to the role of time in the Sibyl episode, lies at the center of a recent interpretation of the structural importance of time in the Metamorphoses, according to which Ovid explicitly and deliberately embraces anachronism. This becomes the case especially in the later sections of the epic where the ties to the political circumstances of Roman history are more obvious. The linearity of time somehow reflects the order of power, the established regime, which more often than not is identified with the Augustan Age; its disruption introduces confusion and disorder. When disorder is allowed to come to the fore,

18

Cf. Pythagoras' speech to Numa in Metamorphoses 15, a comparable case of anachronism, as much as a narrative voice of intertextual memory: before announcing Rome's ascendancy, Pythagoras comments on the decline of certain, once illustrious Greek cities, including Mycenae, Athens, Sparta, and Thebes (15.426-431). Still, Pythagoras' conversation with Numa presumably occurs at a time when most of these cities had not even begun their rise, let alone decline, while the decadence of Greece is a recurrent theme in Late Republican and Augustan rhetoric; cf. Barchiesi 2001, 71.

"

Wheeler 1999, 134; the same critic argues (p. 117f.) that, if we embrace this issue of subjective narrative time, then the various temporal discrepancies break the ostensible, misleading continuity of their immediate contextual environment, and reach instead towards "the real continuity of the narration in the entire epic". In other words, the construction of a clear, bigger picture of a continuous, orderly narration may include certain smaller narrative clusters that seem to violate this order. This discrepancy in chronology is there to assist the reader gain consciousness of the order that enfolds the presence of disorder, and so it tightens the rapport between author and audience.

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then it is all too clear that structure (i.e. that of the Augustan regime, the Golden Age) and order are superficial and plasmatic. 20 Ovid's contemporary history reveals that Augustus' politics of order sought to redraw the Sibyl's role as omniscient authority on matters lacking logical explanation and lying beyond human comprehension. One early political move worth mentioning was the transference of the books with the Sibylline oracles from the custody of Jupiter to the newly completed marble temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill in 28 B C . This initiative is probably echoed in the connection of Apollo and the Sibyl, and the god's control over the Sibyl's gift of prophecy. 21 Apollo was the patron deity of Augustus, and the cult of the god in the course of the Augustan Age was deliberately enhanced by the princeps, while the ruler himself often promoted his kinship to his divine patron. The building of his private residence on the Palatine next to the temple of the god, and the linking of the two by a long corridor leading from the one building to the other, pronounces this relationship strongly. 22 As Augustus then promoted the transformation of his house to that of Apollo and vice versa, he essentially sought, by the right of this near identification, possession of, and control over, the Sibylline books. Since these oracles chiefly dealt with the future of Rome, it is not an overstatement to claim that when Augustus took them under his roof, in a way he sought control over the future of Rome - over time itself. Sibyl's extreme longevity, control over time and knowledge of the future bring her close to another principal metaliterary character in the Metamorphoses. In the first half of B o o k 15, immortality, expressed foremost in the form of reincarnation, appears as a principal trait of Pythagoras. Pythagoras' long speech (15.60-478), an epitome of metadiegesis, which in a nutshell serves as allegoric recapitulation of the entire epic -

20

"

The political interpretation of the various dimensions of time fragmentation has been popular among contemporary critics; cf. the three articles on the issue in HardieBarchiesi-Hinds 1999, by Feeney (1999, 13-30), Zissos-Gildenhard (1999, 31-47), and Hinds (1999,48-67). Prior to Augustus the Sibyl was not always regarded to have acquired her prophetic gift from Apollo; in other versions, prophecy is the Sibyl's own gift, and in one she is even shot down by an envious Apollo (Phlegon, FGrH 257 F 37); cf. Parke 1988, 77-78; Potter 1994, 82-83. O n the connection between Augustus and Apollo on the level of political ideology, the classic study is P. Zanker, 'Der Apollotempel auf dem Palatin. Ausstattung und politische Sinnbezüge nach der Schlacht von Actium', Anal. Rom. Suppl. 10 (Rome 1983), 21-40.

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content, themes, structure and all -, 2 3 refers specifically to the fate of Rome. In 15.418ff., Pythagoras turns to discuss metamorphosis, the principal theme of the poem as heralded in the prologue (1.1-2), a text which Pythagoras' diction here (419f. omnia... / in species translata novas, 'all things which have assumed new forms') calls to mind. Notably, the example of mutability he brings up is the case of Rome, whose form changes by growing (434 formam crescendo mutat), and whose change will be ongoing until one day the Urbs becomes the capital of the world (431-435). The reference to the 'future' ascending greatness of Rome concludes a discussion on the uncertainty of fortune (15.420ff.), expressed in the examples of glorious cities of the past which in due time were reduced to ruins. 24 Significantly, the first such instance produced is Troy, which was once wealthy and prosperous, but now displays only ruins and tombs (422-425). By referring to Rome at 15.431 as Dardaniam, Pythagoras introduces the fall of Troy as a parable for the rise of Rome, and the latter as the continuation of the former. Yet the principal theme in the narrative overall is not linearity but mutability, the idea of flux. Between the fall of Troy and the reference to Dardanian Rome, the cases of four Greek cities, including Mycenae, Athens, Sparta, and, not surprisingly, Thebes, a most ominous parallel for Rome, 25 are brought up to illustrate this dominance of flux in human affairs and its

23

24

25

O n Pythagoras' speech as alternatively mirror and foil for the Metamorphoses, see most recently Wheeler 2000, 117-127. O n the anachronism of the otherwise impossible meeting between Pythagoras and N u m a as an example of deliberate violation of chronological order, see Feeney 1999, 22-24, who actually calls it "the most famous anachronism in Roman history". For a concise and informative discussion of the Roman tradition surrounding the meeting of N u m a and Pythagoras, see E.S. Gruen, 'Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Roman Anxieties', in: E.S. Gruen, Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy (Leiden 1990), 158-170. The idea of Rome's rise from fallen Troy brings us back to the Anius episode, where, in the self-sacrifice and resurrection of the Orionids, Aeneas saw the future of fallen Troy as Rome. The tendentiousness of the Orionids ekphrasis, set in Thebes, nurtures allusions that undermine the optimistic first-time reading of the picture; on Thebes as antiRome, see my discussion earlier in this book (pp. 26-32), inspired by the depiction of Thebes on Anius' crater. Pythagoras substantiates his prediction on the future growth of Rome by citing Helenus and his prophecy to Aeneas (15.435-452), a well-known episode in Aeneid 3; nonetheless, Pythagoras' version of the meeting between Aeneas and Helenus is set in the Troad as Troy was about to fall. O n anachronism as means to undermine the reliability of Pythagoras' memory and, naturally, the validity of his predictions, see Hardie 1997; Wheeler 2000, 124-127, favors a different interpretation.

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course through time (426-430). The emphasis on perpetual volatility implies that Rome is eventually destined to decline.26 Seen f r o m the perspective of a different audience, the Sibyl's words on time progression and decline could presuppose incorporation of an alternative hypotext. In Aeneid 6, and following Aeneas' arrival at Elysium, the Sibyl passes Aeneas' instruction over to Anchises. The latter offers his son a vision of the future, which, as in Pythagoras' speech, touches on the issue of Rome's glorious destiny. In Anchises' speech, lines 773-776 are of particular interest: hi tibi Nomentum et Gabios urbemque Fidenam, hi Collatinas imponent montibus arces, Pometios Castrumque Inui Bolamque Coramque. Haec turn nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terrae. These will build for you Nomentum and Gabii and the city of Fidena, these will establish the citadel of Collatia on top of mountains, along with Pometii and the Fort of Inuus, and Bola and Cora. Then will become names these lands that now are nameless. In this passage Anchises talks about historical evolution, which elevates to prominence cities once insignificant and humble. The cities introduced as examples to substantiate this statement are all Italian, and they did enjoy prosperity; all of them, however, by Vergil's time had in one way or other been effaced by Rome's historical momentum. In conclusion, the importance of metadiegesis in the Metamorphoses cannot be overestimated. The replication of narrative levels should not apply only to the analysis of a single episode that is subject to reconstruction by multiple narrative voices,27 but also to the recollection by multiple narrators of a single theme or story line featuring in different sections in the poem. The Sibyl's possession of exceptionally long life and knowledge of the future, a gift to her from Apollo, interacts with Pythagoras' immortality and omniscience, both the result of successive metempsychoses. This correNumerous critics agree that Ovid implicitly touches on the inevitability of Rome's ultimate fall; see Segal 1969, 288, Due 1974, 66-67, Galinsky 1975, 44, Zumwalt 1977, 218219, Solodow 1988, 169, Tissol (1997) 186-188, Barchiesi 2001, 70-74. Contra, Wheeler 2000, 123-124, arguing that "it does not make rhetorical sense for Pythagoras to mention Rome's fall when the argument is set up as an antithesis betweengentes that lose power... and gentes that gain power (Rome)". Rosati 2002, offers an invaluable approach on the narratological potential of metadiegesis, and its contribution to promoting awareness among the readers on the manifold problems of narrative technique involved in the composition of the Metamorphoses.

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spondence invites the reader to view the two different characters on the basis of similar criteria, all the while carefully underscoring the individual contributions to the variation thus accomplished. The recognition of one character in the light of another's performance brings to light a structural frame essential for the unity of an epic narrative. The primary narrator, Ovid the poet, by developing interspersed and recurrent, along with concentric, narrative levels, removes the danger of losing control of the poem's framework as a result of the change of voices and points of view over a single story. 28

4. The Sibyl and Poetic Memory Wheeler has argued that the recollection of the great epics of Homer and Vergil in Metamorphoses 12 to 14 involves a considerable increase in storytelling. Preferring for reasons of authorial pride to abstain from an ipsa voce repetition of the stories told by his great predecessors, Ovid revisits (and reedits) the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid from the point of view of charactersprotagonists in the story-world. For Wheeler, the accomplishment of this process is to "break down epic omniscience, or the memory of the Muses, into a set of different personal memories that are not unified by the single authoritative point of view of the epic poet". 2 9 1 will take this point one step further in remarking that the disruption of the single narrative perspective, or the sole, omniscient epic poet/narrator, is replaced not merely by differ-

28

29

Aptly captured in Rosati 2002, 286: "Metadiegesis is thus a powerful instrument of literary self-consciousness: the serial reproduction of narratives in miniature within the main narrative provides us with a method for the analysis and interpretation of the main narrative". Rosati's discussion throughout seems to be primarily concerned with embedded narratives, but in the course of his study he expands his focus to include "the interaction between frameworks", not necessarily rooted in the concentric cluster of the embedded stories, "and embedded narratives" (pp. 287ff.). The case of Theseus in Metamorphoses 8 listening to stories that he had already listened to in Caliimachus' Hecale is a typical example. Stories, often of similar plot, featuring the same protagonists, even though not all are part of the same narrative cluster, should not be appreciated differently than stories with similar plot lines narrated by different voices in different parts of the Metamorphoses. Wheeler 1999, 190, who argues that this decentralization of the central narrator's (poet's) voice questions the authority of the narrative, or that it is easier for the reading audience to disbelieve the various, less authorial voices of individual narrators.

4. T h e Sibyl and Poetic M e m o r y

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ent personal reminiscences but, notably, by memories of different bard-type narrators. The Sibyl is one of them. The priestess' failure to ask for perennial youth not only has secured for her a place within the Metamorphoses, but, more interestingly, it may have promoted her identification with the very idea of time, and the link between the passing of time and poetic memory. Eternal youth freezes time stalling change. Likewise, it is the incessant self-renewal of the epic narrative in the hands of different poets through the ages that marks its evolution and consequently its acknowledgment as genre. The Sibyl's age grants her an extremely long poetic memory, much like the literary memory of continuously reincarnated Pythagoras, the depth and keenness of which give shape to, but also take themselves shape in, the philosopher's long speech. This in effect has been primarily the claim of Philip Hardie in a fundamental argument on the invention of epic tradition and the anxiety of succession pertaining to it, as these emerge f r o m the Speech of Pythagoras. 30 Pythagoras, according to Hardie, "casts a retrospective shaft of light through the whole of the Latin hexameter tradition, illuminating and reanimating a line of culture heroes who offered the Romans insights into the grounding of their social and historical world in the mysteries of the natural world; at the same time the Speech comments on the place of the Metamorphoses itself within that hexameter epic tradition". 31 In Pythagoras' imitation of the Ennian dream in particular, Hardie observes an intention to fashion the narrative as a continuation of the earlier Latin epic tradition, but also to turn back to the poetic heritage of Homer, since Ennius' dream raises precisely this claim. Given the ancients' belief in the cyclical repetition of time, knowledge of the past may direct the course of the future. And on a metaliterary level, knowledge of earlier tradition may direct the composition of well thoughtout pieces, original but also tendentiously loyal to their models. Prophecy and its carrier, the prophet, cross beyond the boundaries of the particular text into an expanded, yet specific frame. Ovidian Anius' particular reproduction of the Apolline oracle to Aeneas offers a prime example of the layered expression of this trope across epic tradition, directly discoursing with the Vergilian model, but also reaching further back to the Homeric hypotext behind Apollo's response in Aeneid 3.97-98.32

30 31 32

Hardie 1997. Hardie 1997, 186. Barchiesi 2001, 134, discusses Vergil's application of intertextuality, commenting, first on the selection process behind the Iliad passage to be reproduced, and subsequently on the

62

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The Sibyl's status as literary vates fuses prophecy with tradition. This results in a new image f o r the prophetess as much as it pairs the Sibyl to Anius, also a favorite and a priest of Apollo. 33 Prophetic ability and a special relationship with Apollo brings the Sibyl close to Calchas, whose outstanding ability to know all things present and future, and the favor he enjoys with Phoebus Apollo, is well captured in Iliad 1.69ff. Κάλχας Θεστορίδης, οίωνοπόλος οχ' άριστος, 0ζ ήδη τ ά τ ' έόυτα τ ά τ' έσσόμενα πρό τ' έόυτα, και υήεσσ' ήγήσατ' 'Αχαιών Ίλιον ε'ίσω ήν δια μαντοσύνην, την οι πόρε Φοίβος 'Απόλλων. Calchas, Thestor's son, [rose] the best by far of all seers who scan the flight of birds. He knew all things that are, all things that are past and all that are to come; the seer who had led the Argive ships to Troy with the second sight that god Apollo gave him. Calchas, a professional seer, is of undisputed credibility ( ο ϊ ο ο ν ο π ό λ ο ς ο χ ' ά ρ ι σ τ ο ς ) , a receiver of divination directly f r o m Apollo. Line 70 describes the incredible depth and breadth of his knowledge and visionary scope. According to Dickson, this line is unique in the Homeric poems, yet it is closely echoed in the portrayal of the Muses in II. 2.485: ύμεΐς y a p θεαί έστε, π ά ρ ε σ τ ε τε, ΐστε τε π ά ν τ α ("for you are goddesses, you are present, and you know all things"), and it is employed verbatim by Hesiod (Theog. 31-32; 38) to describe the epic poet himself. 34 The theme of controlling literary memory as a reflection of one's claim to epic authorship and succession marks the performance of elderly Nestor, too, whose age two books earlier was revealed to have already exceeded two hundred years (12.187-188 vixi / annos bis centum; nunc tertia vivitur aetas; cf. 14.104 vivacis... Sibyllae). For both characters their age is a most distinguishing feature, and it is emphasized repeatedly: 12.178 senex; 182 tarda vetustas; 186 spatiosa senectus; cf. 14.143 aegra senectus·, 148 longa dies... consumptaque membra senecta).

construction of the incorporation. Vergil's reproduction of an oracular text communicates an intention to embrace as much of the epic tradition on the Aeneads and the Trojan destiny as possible, even beyond Homer, to the (more than one) epic accounts alluded to in the two versions of Poseidon's prophecy. Barchiesi 2001, 133, implies that Vergil's Sibyl is such a case, but abstains from elucidating the point further. K. Dickson, 'Kalkhas and Nestor: Two Narrative Strategies in Iliad 1', Arethusa 25 (1992), 330-331; G.S. Kirk, The Iliad. A Commentary. Vol. 1 (Cambridge 1985), 60.

4. The Sibyl and Poetic Memory

63

Ovid's respective descriptions of the Sibyl and N e s t o r as alternative versions of the voice of the epic bard reflect one another in further ways. N e stor emphatically states that despite occasional memory lapses due to his old age he is able to recall most of his earlier experiences {Met. 12.182-184

quamvis obstet mihi tarda vetustas, / multaque me fugiant primis spectata sub annis, / plura tarnen memini35). These, spreading far back in time, outside the lifetime of N e s t o r ' s audience in Metamorphoses 12, depend on him alone for their delivering to the younger generation, and, ultimately, for their becoming part of epic memory. 3 6 Likewise, the Sibyl, counting already seven centuries on her back, is in possession of an unprecedented mnemonic record. Longevity is a prerequisite for the preservation and propagation of past memory. Moreover, the lines introducing N e s t o r in the Iliad (1.247-252) are reminiscent of those describing Calchas, and they may likewise encapsulate the hero's mastery over the domain of speech and narrative (11. 247-249) and the dynamics of recollection (11. 250-252) 37 : ... τοΐσι δέ Νέστωρ ήδυεπήζ άνόρουσε, λιγΰς ΤΤυλίων άγορητής, του και άπό γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ρέεν αύδή· τ φ δ' ήδη δύο μέυ γενεα'ι μερόπων άνθρώπων έφθίαθ', οϊ οί πρόσθεν άμα τράφεν ήδ' έγένοντο έν ΓΤύλω ήγαθέη, μετά δέ τριτάτοισιν άνασσεν.

35

H i n d s 1995 and Miller 1993 have discussed how attestations of the word Ί remember' in the text of the Metamorphoses may be interpreted as allusions to earlier literary texts. Nonetheless, the employment of the same term by Pythagoras, to authenticate his theory of metensomatosis and appeal to the poetic memory behind several of the narrations that occurred in the course of his multiple lives, extends to narratives that include obvious inaccuracies; cf. Hardie 1997, 188-189. O n Pythagoras' 'intertextual memory', see Barchiesi 2001, 70-71; on memini and a literary character's 'memory' as trope of textual reminiscence, see also C o n t e 1986, 57-69 [ = C o n t e 1985, 35-45], focusing on Ariadne's 'memory' in Catullus 64.130-135, 143-145.

36

T h u s N e s t o r can conveniently delete from his Centauromachy 'epic' the participation of Hercules, an archenemy of his, the slayer of his brothers. All the while, he meticulously describes numerous single combats, naming all the contestants: he recites in total fiftyone names of Centaurs and twenty-six of Lapiths and allies; on the portrayal of N e s t o r as epic poet and a persona for Ovid's narrative voice, see Papaioannou 2002a; M. Musgrove, ' N e s t o r ' s C e n t a u r o m a c h y and the Deceptive V o i c e of Poetic M e m o r y (Ovid, Met. 12.182-535)', CP 93 (1998), 223-231.

37

The commentary on Iliad 1.247-252 derives f r o m D i c k s o n 1995, 25-45, who presents a detailed study of N e s t o r ' s first appearance in H o m e r ' s epic.

Chapter Two

64

... but Nestor rose among them, the sweet-spoken, the clear speaker of Pylos... Sweeter than honey from his tongue speech flowed on and on. Two generations of mortal men he had seen go down by now, those who were born and bred with him in the old days, in Pylos' holy realm, and now he ruled the third. T h e p o e t first addresses N e s t o r ' s unique eloquence. T h e king o f P y l o s is f o r e m o s t ή δ υ ε π ή ς , ' s w e e t - s p o k e n ' , a H o m e r i c hapax,

w h i c h is also u s e d

elsewhere in traditional epic t o describe the M u s e s , the divine inspirations and p a t r o n s o f the epic bard, as well as t h e aoidos himself. 3 8 Likewise, the adjective λ ι γ ΰ ς is employed by Homer to modify the song o f the Muses, while the phrase τ ο ΰ και ά π ό γ λ ώ σ σ η ς μ έ λ ι τ ο ς γ λ υ κ ί ω ν ρέεν α ϋ δ ή ( ' s w e e t e r than h o n e y f r o m his t o n g u e speech flowed o n and o n ' ) , although unique in H o m e r , d e s c r i b e s t h e epic singer w h o m t h e M u s e s love in the Hymn

to Apollo

(Hym.

Homeric

2 5 . 5 ) . 3 9 Y e t ' s w e e t ' and ' l u c i d ' s o n g , and t o n g u e

' s w e e t e r than h o n e y ' are also attributed, in the H o m e r i c t e x t , t o the Sirens, w h o represent the beguiling p o w e r of the epic song, and thus the epic bard's ability t o manipulate t h e audience's e m o t i o n s t h r o u g h his p e r f o r m a n c e . 4 0 T h i s p r o x i m i t y o f the H o m e r i c N e s t o r t o epic singers, the M u s e s , and the Sirens, in traditional epic, reinforces the h e r o ' s inclusion in an elite group o f m a s t e r manipulators o f oral speech, and it is f i r m l y e n s c o n c e d in t h e b a c k g r o u n d o f Ovidian N e s t o r ' s faculties of narrative p e r f o r m a n c e and credibili t y . N a t u r a l l y , t h e c o n t r o l o f μ ΰ θ ο ς p r e s u p p o s e s c o n t r o l o f the field o f m e m o r y (μιμνήσκεσθαι), defined as knowledge of heroic a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s o f t h e past, especially t h o s e a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s that have already b e c o m e the s u b j e c t of epic p o e t r y or deserve to b e c o m e epic p o e m s and gain i m m o r t a l ity in the m e m o r y o f future generations. 4 1 T h e extraordinarily l o n g m e m o r y t h a t N e s t o r possesses as a result o f his unusually l o n g life is a rare quality also e m p h a s i z e d in H o m e r ' s i n t r o d u c t i o n o f t h e P y l i a n k i n g a b o v e

(II.

1.250-252).

38 39 40

41

Hym. 32.2, for the Muses; Hym 21.4, for the epic singer; cf. Dickson 1995, 26. Dickson 1995, 27-28 and 30-31. Nestor's identification as aoidos and his association to the Muses and other epic singers takes up a whole chapter in Dickson 1995, 45-100; on the identical description of Nestor's speech and the Sirens' song, id. 27, 28, 30, 31, 35. On the beguiling power and epiclike function of the song of the Sirens in Homeric narrative, see Pucci 1979 and 1987, 209-213. W.S. Moran, 'Μιμυήσκομαι and 'Remembering' Epic Stories in Homer and the Hymns', QUCC 20 (1975), 195-211, considers the use of μιμυήσκεσθαι in Homer as a technical term for performing an epic song; also Martin 1989, 59-61 and 80-82; on the relationship between memory, μύθοξ and epic composition, see Martin 1989, 78ff.

4. The Sibyl and Poetic Memory

65

The Ovidian Sibyl is no less empowered with vast knowledge, as she combines the gift of prophecy with unprecedented personal memory. Like the mellifluous king of Pylos, who has the aptitude to tailor his speeches to the mandates of the given circumstances and the desires of specific audiences, the priestess of Apollo will bequeath to posterity her oracular voice, fittingly opaque so as to extend beyond specific temporal and historical constraints. It is with an emphasis on the eternal survival of her voice that the priestess concludes her reply to Aeneas: voce tarnen noscar; vocem mihi fata relinquent, 'still by my voice shall I be known, for the fates will leave me my voice' (14.153). Long memory, and the ability to know the fates and the future, but also to deliver knowledge that may not be readily accessible (such as ambiguous oracles), brings the Sibyl near another important narrative voice, the personified allegory of Fama, who appears early in Metamorphoses 12 (39-63) and significantly sits at the outset of Ovid's effort to revisit in succession the two leading epic archetypes of the Iliad and the Aeneid. Positioned between the two great Homeric narrators, Calchas and Nestor, Fama transplants her Vergilian self into the Metamorphoses, and shares a narrative so effective that "both legend and history... blend into a continuum inaccessible to such values as truth and objectivity". 42 The affinity between the Sibyl and Fama may be seen in the concluding lines of the priestess' speech to Aeneas, arguably its most significant section: usque adeo mutata ferar nullique videnda, / voce tamen noscar, vocem mihi fata relinquent ('to such great change shall I come; yet, though shrunk past recognition of the eye, still by my voice shall I be known, for the fates will leave me my voice'; Met. 14.152-153). Here the Sibyl declares that when her corporeal life span reaches an end she will survive in her voice. Her words will be her distinguishing mark, procured by the fata, not merely the Fates, but the overall spectrum of universal knowledge and history, past and future, which is communicated through words that have the validity (and sanctity against violation or mutation) of a written word, a text. Fama and fata, both terms deriving from fari, perform vital communicative functions that should actually be seen as complementary. Barchiesi rightly ranks them along with prophecy and long memory as distinguished tropes of intertextuality. In his definition of the two terms, fate maps the course of action, while fame translates action into words. In an epic narrative, fate "tends to coincide

42

Zumwalt 1977, 218.

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w i t h the c o n s t r a i n t s i m p o s e d b y the epic tradition and the narrative plot". 4 3 T h e s p o k e n w o r d s of t h e Fates, as well as the v a r i o u s p r o p h e c i e s and oral tradition expressed in various f o r m s of the v e r b ferre

(ferunt, etc.), inviolable

and specific, like a binding text, b e c o m e the script determining the design of t h e epic composition. 4 4 Jupiter's address t o V e n u s at Metamorphoses

15.807-

8 4 2 t y p i f i e s a case w h e r e the w o r d crosses the text. J u p i t e r is aware that his speech is m o d e l e d on his v e r y o w n p r o p h e c y

'mAeneid

1, and he refers t o it

as an oral narrative w h i c h in the meantime he w r o t e d o w n as if it w e r e a text that o u g h t t o be r e c o r d e d in o f f i c i a l r e c o r d s ( 1 5 . 8 1 0 tabularia) part, fama,

, 45 O n h e r

c o u n t e r a c t i n g the predictability and s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d n e s s of fate,

p r o j e c t s a d i f f e r e n t tradition, t r y i n g t o mutate the script suggested b y fate's textual choices; 4 6 able t o mingle t r u t h and lies, she suggests alternative int e r p r e t a t i o n s f o r the script s u r r e n d e r e d b y t h e fata c o m e herself t h e fata. Metamorphoses,

- in a w a y v y i n g t o be-

G i v e n t h e absence of single n a r r a t i v e p l o t in t h e

w h i c h c o n f i n e s t h e f a t a to the narrative margin, fama

is usu-

ally t h e d o m i n a n t agent in the c r o s s t e x t u a l dialogue w i t h earlier tradition. H e n c e the f l u i d i t y of the Text is an o u t c o m e of the p o t e n c y of the W o r d . 4 7

43

44

45

46

47

On the complementary metaliterary function of fate and fame, see Barchiesi 2001, 130132. When tradition becomes fate, directing in other words the plot development in an epic, then fate is invoked to control the stream of tradition, by editing it; cf. Hardie 1987, 192; Barchiesi 2001, 131. This passage is taken as example of convergence between fata-word (or, epic tradition) and fata-text (written epic narrative), independently and for different purposes, by both Barchiesi 2001, 131-132 (metaliterary reading), and Hardie 1997, 192-193 (political reading)· For Hardie 1999, 97-100, fama is inseparable from metamorphosis; as a matter of fact, it is a prime example of 'Protean' metamorphosis, interminable and indefinitely proliferating transformation. Described as a monstrum of ever-expansive power, epitomized in Aen. 4.176, it recalls Pythagoras' description of rising Rome {Met. 15.434): ironically Pythagoras' source of information on the growth of the Roman power from the ruins of Troy (15.431-433) is none other than fama, who thus may be received as projecting onto Rome her very own image. In reaction to this, Jupiter at the end of the epic tries to bolster the role of the Fates by advertising that there is an eternal monument to be dedicated to th e f a t a , an archive of most solid materials, bronze, steel and iron, inside which the destiny of the Julian family is kept: Met. 15.809-814 cernes illic molimine vasto / ex aere et solido rerum tabularia ferro, / quae neque concursum caeli neque fulminis iram / nec metuunt ullas tuta atque aeterna ruinas: / invenies illic incisa adamante perenni / fata tui generis ('There you shall behold the records of all that happens on tablets of brass and solid iron, a massive structure, tablets which fear neither warfare in the heavens, nor the lightning's fearful power, nor any destructive shocks which may befall, being eternal and secure. There you shall find

4. The Sibyl and Poetic Memory

67

It is possible to read the Sibyl's conclusive words along the metaliterary nuances on the fluidity of the Text and the W o r d conveyed in the notions of fata and fama. T h e case of the Sibyl, however, inverts the rules of textualization and literary succession, f o r she is going t o secure epic immortality n o t as Text but as W o r d . The vocabulary is almost a string of poetological words, all p r o m o t i n g the Sibyl's induction to literary (epic) tradition. As the Sibyl n o w approaches the end of her life, like fame, translation of earlier epic deeds, she is 'related', led (ferar) to a new shape ( m u t a t a ) . This transformation renders her invisible (nulli videnda), in literary terms reformed, as t o appear unrecognizable in sight, yet firmly ensconced in the narrative subtext, and readily traceable to the eye of the experienced viewer-reader (voce tamen noscar). Indeed, her voice (voce... vocem) will remain perennially; the fates, or speech of authority (fata), will preserve it without change, so as to maintain her identity, or enough of it as to be still recognized (noscar). The e m p l o y m e n t of the t e r m ferar, a prime poetological marker, 48 integrates the Sibyl's s t o r y within the epic tradition, b e y o n d the particular walls of the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses that host her existence as an individual. H e r partaking of the epic heritage presupposes mutation into a f o r m that is n o t t o be perceived visually, and therefore it is specifically circumscribed by or tied t o particular verbal expressions (written T e x t ) . She will nevertheless survive in the sense that she or her reputation - fama - will always be recognizable (noscar) t h r o u g h and in her voice (spoken W o r d ) . She will define her fama (renown) a m o n g the epic successors of Vergil and O v i d n o t as Text (character of the Sibyl) but as W o r d (oracular speeches, allegories, allusivity). A n d , most notably, it will be the fata that will procure this fate f o r her. C o n t r a r y t o the process witnessed in the great epics, where the fata (words of authority with validity of script) direct the mutation of the W o r d (poetic m e m o r y ) into Text (new epic), the Sibyl's epic survival, with the fates' e n d o r s e m e n t , is dictated by her t r a n s f o r m a t i o n f r o m specific epic character (Text) into voice (Word). T h e t r a n s f o r m a t i o n process of b e c o m i n g malleable text f r o m n o less fluid w o r d follows the reverse course in Jupiter's speech in Met. 15.814-815: engraved on everlasting adamant the fates of your descendants'). This monument to fate at the end of the historical section of the Metamorphoses corresponds to an even more impressive appearance of fame (fama) at the beginning of this section (Met. 12.39-63). Thus fama and fata frame Ovid's rewriting of ancient epic. Acknowledged as a technical term of literary criticism, phrasing recollection into words, in Börner ad 14.152; Hinds 1998, 2, ranks it among the leading designators of an 'Alexandrian footnote' in the text; on the 'Alexandrian footnote', see p. 77 n. 3.

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legi ipse animoque notavi / et referam ( Ί have myself read these and marked them well in mind'). Jupiter, assuming the voice of epic poet and champion of the fata, is introducing his prophecy on the future of the Julians as oral recollection of a written text, fata written down (15.813, incisa) on celestial tabularia, first read, then commented on and annotated, and finally re-told. T h e contrast between the Sibyl, as the flux of the Word, and Jupiter, the 'reader' who translates (and reinterprets) the Word into fixed Text, reaches over to include Augustus. The princeps in the Metamorphoses apotheosizes his adoptive father by imposing, like Jupiter, his own reading and translation of the fata (the comet which became Caesar's sidus). Ovid, a keen reader of Augustus, manages to go beyond the projected Text of the official apotheosis justification, to the reading of the fata formed in Augustus' own mind, which guarantees deification for the son of an apotheosized parent. This same reading was turned into Text already by Vergil, in Jupiter's prophecy in Aeneid 1. Ovid causes Vergilian Jupiter to transmigrate into his own text and has him re-read (referam) and confirm for Augustus the realization of his own apotheosis. The translation of the W o r d into Text when this Word is definitely a perjury presents an alternative and no less intriguing aspect of the interaction between the two, and extends to the levels of both metadiegesis and poetology. The poetological dimension of the story is anticipated already in the episode immediately preceding, which records the brief narrative of the Cercopes metamorphosis (14.90-100). Following the conclusion of the Sicilian tales, Aeneas reenters the plot and on his way to Latium sails by the island of Pithecusae, which according to Ovid was so named after their inhabitants, the Cercopes, who were changed by Jupiter into apes (pithekos in Greek) for vile perjuries (14.99 dira periuria). Myers notes that the language in the Cercopes story is "reminiscent of the literary critical language of the transformations of the Pierides and the Lycian peasants, which suggests that we should perhaps understand programmatic intent here as well". The critic then points out that the theme of language and speech is imperative, but in inverted f o r m , also in the Sibyl's case immediately following. Unlike the Cercopes, the priestess will not lose, but, instead, retain her voice, clear and clairvoyant forever, even through her body will eventually shrink to disappearance (152 mutata ferar nullique videnda; 153 vocem mihi fata reliquent). T h e emphasis on corporeal decline due to prolonged age calls to mind Tithonus, the persona of the Callimachean cicada/poet, and Callimachus'

4. T h e Sibyl and P o e t i c M e m o r y

69

Aetia Prologue (fr. 1.29Pf.), where the poet affirms that the advancement of age does not alienate the poet to the Muses. 49 O n the other hand, the Cercopes and the Sibyl transformations could also be read as parallel poetological allegories for Ovid's epic. The Sibyl's envisioning of the disfigurement of her body with the passage of time (148149 consumptaque membra senecta / ad minimum redigentur onus) echoes the description of the deformed body of the Cercopes (14.95-96 membraque contraxit naresque α fronte resimas / contudit et rugis peraravit anilibus ora, '[Jupiter] shortened their limbs, blunted and turned back their noses, and furrowed their faces with deep wrinkles as of age'). For both, their bodies (membra) are shrinking (consumpta... ad minimum onus ~ contraxint), while the aging of the Sibyl is reflected in the aged-looking wrinkled faces of the apes (rugis... anilibus ora). Ultimately, the Sibyl's body will be rendered invisible, and her unaltered, ever distinctive voice will be there to pose as a reminder (mutata ferar nullique videnda, / voce tamen noscar). The Cercopes' mutation will likewise bring forth a new form, but this form will maintain some resemblance to the original one, and will also serve as reminder of the original (14.93-94 in deforme viros animal mutavit, ut idem / dissimiles bomini possent similesque videri, ' [Jupiter] changed the men to ugly animals in such a way that they might be unlike human shape and yet seem like them'). The story of the Cercopes was a popular topic in Greek comedy (mentioned at least thrice in Aristophanes alone, at Ach. 907, Αν. 441, and Ran. 708), and it seems that there was more than one variation of the story. Ovid's is one of the two best known, and it derives from Xenagoras, a 3rd c. BC geographer and historian. 50 According to the other, the Cercopes are turned into stone. In both, they are punished for being deceivers and liars.51 In the variation preferred by Ovid the crux of the story is the antithesis between Speech (Word) and Form (Text). Generally considered as symbols 49

50 51

The poetics of speech as manifested in the Cercopes story, and then tied to the Sibyl case, but also to the transformation of Diomedes' companions and the Apulian shepherd towards the end of the 'little Aeneid', receive a brief but ingenious discussion in Myers 1994, 102. Myers notes verbal parallels between the Cercopes and the stories of the Pierides and the Lycian farmers, identifies the similarity between the cases of the Sibyl and Tithonus, and draws attention to the Callimachean background throughout. The poetology behind the transformation of Diomedes' companions, the connection of this tale to the Apulian shepherd story, and its impact on structural arrangement, receive close analysis below, in a separate chapter on Diomedes. Myers 1994, 102, erroneously dates him to the 1" c. BC. O n the sources of the Cercopes, see Forbes Irving 1990, 292.

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of deceit, the Cercopes are manipulators of the Word, since putting up an effective deception strategy based on speech presupposes great mastery of the dynamics of storytelling. Also, in order for a deceitful story to stand, it should include enough truth to attract the less suspicious. When a story is believed (or when it is perceived that it may be believed, and a purpose may be accomplished by this), it does not disappear; it becomes part of human memory. The span of this memory may extend from the individual, single listener who first hears and believes it, to an ever longer chain of listeners, who hear the story as it is passed down from one narrator to the next. When a story becomes a narrative entering memory, it takes shape, a 'body', and it becomes Text. When the Word that becomes Text is deceptive (fraus), as in the case of the Cercopes' speech, this is reflected on the Text, or rather the ideal form of the Text, which is thus disfigured, transformed. The Cercopes' new form of the ape is falsehood in the shape of a distorted Text. This resembles a human form, the form of a true narrative, which means that the distorted/deformed Text retains from this ideal expression of the Word enough truth to appear recognizably similar to the model-hence believable as a copy of it to the less careful or knowledgeable reader. The discordant interrelation between the Text and the Word lies also at the center of the Sibyl tale, so as to introduce the story of the ape-men as an appropriate prelude to the Sibyl.52

5. The Sibyl's

Echo

Finally, the Sibyl's parting words to Aeneas taken out of context could nicely be applied to the description of another Ovidian character, or rather personified allegory, which happens to be an intertextual trope, and who, like tht fata, both mirrors the experience of the priestess and serves as its foil: Echo. Ovid reinforces the proximity, for Met. 14.152-153 (usque adeo mutata ferar nullique videnda, voce tarnen noscar, vocem mihi fata relin52

The reception of the two stories as closely related, each touching on a different aspect of the same theme of insolent speech, is mirrored in another doublet of stories that emphasize freedom of speech, namely the tales of Diomedes' companions and the Apulian shepherd. In all four the speaker who resists pressure or speaks freely is punished by transformation, but the new, mutated form is still carries of distinct markers of speech. N o t least, all four tales represent alternative forms of the same allegory, of the insolence that characterizes the Ovidian voice, hence stressing the programmatic intent, while the recurrence of free speech singles it out as a motif of the 'little Aeneid'.

5. The Sibyl's Echo quent),

71

describing the eventual material evanescence of the Sibyl, recalls

Echo's similar plight as told in Met. 3.397-401: adducitque cutem macies et in aera sucus corporis omnis abit; vox tantum atque ossa supersunt: vox manet, ossa ferunt lapidis traxisse figuram. inde latet silvis nulloque in monte videtur , omnibus auditur: sonus est, qui vivit in ilia. She [Echo] becomes gaunt and wrinkled and all moisture fades from her body into the air. Only her voice and her bones remain: then, only voice; for they say that her bones were turned to stone. She hides in woods and is seen no more upon the mountain sides; but all may hear her, for voice alone, still lives in her. In the light of this correspondence, the Sibyl's voice and poetic language across time and texts are interlocking. 5 3 T h e story of E c h o , recorded in Metamorphoses 3.339-510 as allegory of poetic memory, has come under the lens of critical analysis in several noteworthy recent studies on intertextuality. 54 E c h o ' s transubstantiation from body to voice, and the disappearance of her visual image, but not the sound of her voice, is generally perceived as the equivalent of the integration of a textual body within the forest of tradition, with its 'voice' surviving in the various allusions to it in later literature. It is very likely that, because of the use of the term imago in Latin to mean both 'echo' and 'visual image' and, perhaps, the absence of a known source, the particular narrative which brings together E c h o and Narcissus, reflections of sound and image respectively, was an Ovidian invention. 55

53

These literary and narrative possibilities argue against Tarrant's decision to delete

Met.

14.152-153. 54

T h e great metapoetical significance of textual echoes is epitomized in Barchiesi 2001, 139: " [ i ] n a culture so lacking in technical reproduction as compared to our own, one cannot underestimate the role of the echo as an icon of repetition and poetic memory. Poets, for whom it was vital to learn to speak in voices not their own, inevitably encountered this natural artifice". T h e fullest discussion on self-annotation as specified in the myth of Echo, is J . Hollander, The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion

in Milton

and

After

(Berkeley 1981), focusing primarily on the manifestations of the trope in Renaissance and post-Renaissance literature; on Ovid's E c h o as example of self-reflexivity, see Rosati 1983, 20-41, esp. 20-28; and Hinds 1998, 5-8. 55

So, Rosati 1983, 23: "1' idea dell' accostamento di E c o e Narcisso e delle due analoghe illusioni, dell' immagine e del suono, potrebbe esser stata suggerita al nostra poeta dal termine imago vocis (o semplicamente imago),

con cui la lingua latina designava comune-

mente il fenomeno dell' eco". T h e sources behind E c h o and Narcissus are fully listed in Rosati 1983, 1-20, with bibliography; also Börner ad 3.339ff., 537-538. Hardie 2002, discusses various expressions of echo, including pastoral (pp. 123-124 & 128), epicurean

72

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This combination of image-body and voice, Text and Word, can be observed in the portrayal of the Sibyl. The body of the priestess which undergoes a lengthy, almost perpetual, progressive mutation, until it ultimately vanishes, may stand for the original Text, not necessary a single textual model but a literary tradition, a conglomeration of various hypotexts. This tradition may be the intertextual network supporting a particular Ovidian passage, or the very Ovidian passage in question. The Text then, like the body of the Sibyl (or Narcissus, or Echo, alternatively), metastasizes. Crosstextual hypotexts are present in some form of allusion; an Ovidian motif or story is reproduced in a more or less remote or proximal (yet not fortuitously selected for this) section of the poem. Inter- and intra-textual selfannotations follow similar processes of mutation into 'voices'. Notably, the visual presence of a body often renders the voice, which does coexist with it, unnoticeable. Echo's voice comes to the fore to become the essence of Echo only when her body begins to waste away (cf. 3.359 corpus adhuc Echo, non vox, erat, 'up to this time Echo had form and was not a voice alone'), when her voice becomes her body, or rather, the illusion of a body. The Sibyl's concluding declaration essentially phrases into Words the Textual example in Echo's story. Apollo's prophetess proclaims that the conclusion of the process of change she is undergoing will cause her body (original Text, textual source-familiar image) to disappear, yet not per se but in the eyes of its beholders/readers. The transformation, the success in the tracing of the process (complete or partial) and the respective appreciation of the outcome, is indeed in the eye of the beholder. The employment of ferar (Met. 14.152 usque adeo mutata ferar nullique videnda), a primary literary term of subjective recollection, being the verbal form to state that the mutation has taken effect, is only reinforcing the subjectivity factor. The body, the visual image, the original Text, as marker of recognition (noscar) will be replaced in the Sibyl's case by her voice (voce), the text-product of the transformed Word, effected in the com- or rather, re-position of the fragmented (hence mutated into Word) original Text. This process of transformation describing both Ovid's reworking of earlier tradition and his extensive employment of metadiegesis and self-annotation in his own text is epitomized in the last

(pp. 152-156, in relation to the interaction between echo and sound in Lucretius, and the tragicomic delusions ensuing), and elegiac (pp. 163-165). A distinguished allusive vocis imago much discussed in recent critical studies is that of Verg. Eel. 6.44 ('Hyla, Hyla')\ cf. Hardie 2002, 155 n. 24; Hinds 1998, 5 n. 14, informing us that this 'echo' had been noted also in Hollander (prior note), in association with Val. Flacc. Arg. 3.596-597.

5. T h e Sibyl's E c h o

73

colon: vocem mihi fata relinquent. The (ever changing or rather ever changeable) Word {vocem) is the 'traccia' left behind to point towards the original Text-literary tradition (fata).ie Indeed, Ovid's Sibyl is presenting herself as allegory of literary emulation before Aeneas with Echo's example in mind, and this is nowhere more visible than in the last line of the Sibyl episode, Met. 14.153, where anaphoric repetition of vox (voce tamen noscar, vocem mihi fata relinquent) is meant to serve as onomatopoeic depiction of an echo. I suggest that this wordplay may have a parallel in Met. 3.501 dictoque vale 'vale' inquit et Echo ('and when he said "Farewell!", "Farewell!" said Echo, too'), and in a display of sophistication, it reverses one by one the metrical and stylistic niceties of the model text. 57 The half-line of the Echo passage and the echo produced by the side-by-side repetition of vale vale, with the correption of the vowel in the second 'vale' in a hiatus giving the form a fading effect, is maintained in 14.153, yet mutated. The Sibyl separates a full line in two parts with an emphatically marked penthememeral caesura, and opens both parts with voce. Although the second form is in different case, vocem, the placement of mihi, a word beginning with the same sound with which vocem ends, minimizes the dissonance between voce and vocem. Here, the reader may pause after voce- and drag the -m- a little longer as to appear indistinguishable from the opening sound of mihi - an extension of -m- backwards. The positioning of the two 'voices' at the opening of successive semi-cola stresses the role of vox in the textual existence of the Sibyl, and the 'loudness' of the emphasized 'voice' successfully competes against the fading echo effect produced by the contingency of the vale vale. Even the quantity of the syllables has been affected: the fading echo in vale vale ( ^ — h a s been converted, or rather reverted, to the ever rising voice of the Sibyl in voce... vo-

56

The Sibyl's association with poetics, and in particular Callimachean poetics, may be extracted through a close study of those details of her plight centering on the retention of her voice as opposed to the decline of her body, next to the story of Tithonus. In several versions Tithonus, who, as mentioned earlier, like the Sibyl received immortality but not the gift of perpetual youth, is to retain his voice into deep old age as a cicada. The archetypal version is recorded in Callimachus' Aetia Prologue (Aet. fr.l.29-36Pf.), the epitome of Hellenistic and Augustan poetics. There, Callimachus explicitly envisions himself in old age as a cicada, disfigured in appearance yet vibrant in voice/literary production; on the cicada and poetics, see G. Crane, 'Tithonus and the Prologue to Callimachus' Aetia', ZPE 66 (1986), 269-278; H. King, 'Tithonos and the Τ έ τ τ ι γ ξ ' , Arethusa 19 (1986), 15-35 (21-23 on the similarity with the Sibyl); Forbes Irving 1990, 318-319.

57

A text that is itself an allusion to a half-line in the same metrical position, Verg. Eel. 3.79, where originally the doubled vale is made to sound like a fading echo.

74

Chapter Two

cem (—^ ). By inverting the Echo paradigm the Sibyl actually does assume the role of Echo as critic of an intratextual 'echo'.

Chapter Three Centralizing the Marginal: The Anamorphosis of Achaemenides 1.

Introduction

Squeezed in the middle between the long, at times pathetic, narrative of the Aniads, and the powerful ekphrasis of the Orionids early in the 'little Aeneid', Apollo's prophecy to Aeneas at Delos receives little attention. The oracle is reported summarily in little more than a single verse (13.678-679 qui petere antiquam matrem cognataque iussit / litora, 'he bade them seek their ancient mother and kindred shores'), and its diction recalls the opening part of Apollo's oracular response in the Vergilian model text (Aen. 3.94-98): Dardanidae duri, quae vos a Stirpe p a r e n t u m prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto accipiet reduces. A n t i q u a m exquirite m a t r e m . hie d o m u s Aeneae cunctis d o m i n a b i t u r oris et nati n a t o r u m et qui nascentur ab illis. T o u g h children of D a r d a n u s , t h e land w h i c h first carried y o u f r o m y o u r parent s t o c k , t h e same land shall w e l c o m e y o u back to her b o u n t e o u s b o s o m . Search f o r y o u ancient m o t h e r . T h e r e t h e h o u s e of Aeneas shall rule over all lands, and his children's children and those w h o are to be b o r n to t h e m .

As mentioned earlier in this work, Ovid's petere antiquam matrem recasts nearly verbatim the Vergilian antiquam exquirite matrem, while the cognata litora paraphrases the reference to the prima tellus in Aen. 3.94-96. A study of the differences between the Ovidian and the Vergilian texts is not complete unless one ponders also the significance of this divergence. Ovid's omission of the concluding part of the oracle leaves out a text likewise a close reproduction of a Homeric passage, II. 20.307-308. The latter records a comparable divine forecast by Poseidon on the survival and greatness of

Chapter Three

76

Aeneas (νΰν δέ δή Αΐνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν άυάξει / και π α ί δ ω ν παίδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γ έ ν ο ν τ α ι , 'and now Aeneas will rule the men of T r o y in power, his son's sons and the sons born in future years'). Vergil's reading of H o m e r in this couplet captures one of the methodological tenets in Ovid's reading of Vergil in the 'little Aeneid'.

Aen. 3.97-98 toys with a textual vari-

ant transmitted for II. 20.307-308. The manuscript tradition for 20.307 next to Τ ρ ώ ε σ σ ι ν άνάξει, 'he will rule over Trojans', the preferred text, records an alternative π ά ν τ ε σ σ ι ν άνάξει, 'he will rule over all', which becomes Vergil's textual (p)reference. F o r Barchiesi who discusses this passage as an example of metapoetics directed by the literary trope of prophecy, Vergil's imitatio

"produces a 'new H o m e r ' suited to his [Vergil's] needs". As poe-

tological marker a prophecy often refers to some specific literary antecedent, as is the case in the dialogue between H o m e r and Vergil on the future of Aeneas' people. It is precisely for this reason that an augural response is chosen, not merely to initiate a recurrent pattern of regularly emerging projections on Aeneas' future, but also to guide the audience to appreciate Vergil's statement on the originality of the Aeneid's

poetic program. 1 Ovid's

decision to reproduce the diction and methodology of the Vergilian text in the Apollo oracle in the Anius episode is motivated by his detecting the metaliterary potential of prophecy, and by his desire to incorporate an allusion to Vergil's use of this trope of literary creativity. 2 Eager to challenge Vergil's subtlety, yet wishing to let readers know that he has been inspired by it, Ovid incorporates the first three lines of Apollo's prophecy as recorded in the Aeneid,

in diction reminiscent of Vergil's text.

T h e originality is to be found beyond the rephrasing of the Apolline oracle, in its immediate context. T h e stories of the Aniads and the Orionids, two extensive innovations replete with Alexandrian touches, tower over Apollo's prophecy. T h e latter, nonetheless, cannot be ignored, for the advancement of the narrative action depends exclusively on it. B o t h the tale of Anius' daughters and the exchange of farewell gifts that hosts the Orionids ekphrasis are paranarratives, but also substitute, 'transformed', prophecies: they are 1

2

Cf. Barchiesi 2001, 133-135, on the poetics of prophecy in the Aeneid, with Apollo's oracle at Delos as principal example; the quoted text comes from p. 134. Baldo 1995, 49-52, suggests that we read Ovid's take on the Apolline oracle in Aen. 3.9498 as a clever wordplay, a "iunctura antonomastica", on the original identification of the antiqua mater with Crete. This identification is quite explicit in the Vergilian text (Anchises initiates an interpretation of the oracle), but no one explains who this 'ancient mother' is in the Ovidian text: the Ovidian readers are to supply it themselves being familiar with the Vergilian model.

1. Introduction

77

carriers of allegories that foreshadow, respectively, the past and the future of Troy. For Barchiesi, powerful techniques of textual reminiscence include, next to prophecy, dreams, ekphrases, and various appearances of the 'Alexandrian footnote', the trope of referring to some archetype in terms that denote fame or anamnesis.3 All these expressions of intertextual self-awareness embrace specific literary moments from earlier texts, which they read anew within a different textual environment, and so translate them into a reaction/response, to the original text of reference, but also to the very process of imitatio within the boundaries of the particular genre (epic).4 In the adaptation of Aeneas' descent to the Underworld, intertextuality is once again realized through prophecy, and the Sibyl is alike the prophet and object of prophecy. In the Vergilian epic, the Sibyl early in Book 6 delivers an inspiring prophecy on the future of Aeneas, which is matched by Anchises' commentary on the future of Rome at the conclusion of the katabasis book. As shown in the preceding chapter, Ovid is inclined to substitute these prorheses with comments on visionary knowledge as curse. By receiving the gift of prescience in combination with immortality, all the while refusing to pay the due tribute (to offer sexual pleasure to Apollo), the Sibyl realizes that her reward essentially transforms itself into a punishment. Her ability to know the future, which translates into knowledge of

3

4

The 'Alexandrian footnote' was originally identified as a literary device in E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart 1916; 3rd ed. Leipzig 1927; rpt. Darmstadt 1957), atAen. 6.14, utfama est- D.O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge 1975), 78, first coined the particular label to define the acknowledgment within a poem of a particular literary prototype. This acknowledgment is usually heralded by some form of appeal to tradition or popular saying, such as dicitur, dicuntur, fama est, etc., or terms of perception, especially mnemonic (memini being the most distinct), while literary annotation is most effective when it involves, in both the original and its adaptation, the same characters; cf. Hinds 1998, 1-10 and id. 'Generalizing about Ovid', Ramus 16 (1987), 17-19; Miller 1993, and id. 'The Memories of Ovid's Pythagoras', Mnemosyne 47 (1994) 473-487, esp. 475-476; Wills, 1996, 30-31; R.F. Thomas, 'The Old Man Revisited: Virg. Georg. 4.116-48', MD 29 (1992), 44-51. Specifically on memini as instigator of intertextual quests, see Conte 1986, 57-69. O n the stylistic techniques that distinguish the structure of a Latin allusion, Wills 1996, 15-41 ('Formal Features in Latin Allusion') is indispensable. Barchiesi 2001, 154, acknowledges that the process of imitating a famous literary model, such as the Homeric epics or the Aeneid, is a "reality that should be familiar to every student of 'arte allusiva'", for it "opens a two-way traffic, where imitations 'read' their models but also models 'read' imitations... A model can be powerful enough... to appropriate the imitation which strives to appropriate the model".

78

Chapter Three

things already told ( π ρ ο + φημι), ultimately becomes an insufferable burden, for, not being able to maintain eternal youth (mental rigor, ability to reinvent tradition) she appears overwhelmed by her ever advancing age (or else, by ever increasing literary tradition). It is the various nuances behind the prophetess' endless aging in association with her ageless voice that come to occupy Ovid's focus. The Sibyl's physical decline serves as an allegory for literary imitation without innovation. And it is her voice, which remains unaffected, that carries a promise of renewal, of ability to reverse epic conservatism, pedantry and repetitiveness, with which the danger of longevity threatens the genre. The subsequent episodes, centered on Achaemenides, Macareus, Diomedes and the transformation of Aeneas' ships into nymphs, project a different expression of self-conscious intertextuality. These very different episodes have in common the detail that they are all narratives whose literary existence is limited exclusively or primarily within the Vergilian text. Their transformation to fundamental structural units in Ovid's 'Aeneid' is suggestive of the poet's intention to direct his intertextual dialogue away from the identification of the textual interlocutor, and highlight instead the mechanics of such response, and the variations initiated in each reproduction. The encounter between Achaemenides and Macareus (Met. 14.154-440), Diomedes' rejection of the Rutulian proposal to enter the war against Aeneas (Met. 14.457-511) and the metamorphosis of the ships (Met. 14.527565) are three of the lengthiest reproductions of the Vergilian text in Ovid. Together, the three scenes account for more than a third of the 952-odd lines-long compendium of the 'little Aeneid' and the entire Italian section of the recast epic. In addition, they pick up the narrative thread of the Aeneas legend, which was interrupted for a long while by the Sicilian interlude. In accordance with a narrative principle already seen at work in the Anius story, and to a degree observed also in the Sibyl unit, Aeneas continues to stay confined to the fringes of the Trojan migration experience. At the same time, the Achaemenides-Macareus exchange, reviewing the Trojan encounter with the Cyclops and opening a window into the fascinating habitat of Circe, recontextualizes leading themes and characters already encountered in the meandering world of Sicily's myths. In the Diomedes episode the metamorphosis theme symbolizes the new direction of epic poetry and the challenge it poses for earlier tradition. Concurrently, it also releases a strong personal statement of literary self-consciousness. The meta-formation of Aeneas' divine ships into nymphs of the sea stirs up a new set of issues, as it

1. Introduction

79

strives to define the extent to which this mutation is suggestive of a return to the prototype text. All three units conform with the principal tenet of selection in the Metamorphoses dictating that the material in the 'little Aeneid' either come from outside Vergil's epic or elaborate on episodes that might seem marginal to the reader. Finally, all three comment on certain fundamental ideas of Augustan Rome, most notably those of succession, change, transition, and adaptation. The Ovidian Achaemenides' version of the Cyclops episode, and the story of Picus and Canens that is embedded in the account by Macareus, are discussed in two separate chapters. Likewise exclusive treatments will be given to the transformation of Diomedes' comrades into swan-like birds and to the destiny surrounding Aeneas' ships. The present chapter centers on Achaemenides' performance.

2. Achaemenides' Literary Identity Upon eventually landing on the Italian shore that is to be called after the name of Aeneas' nurse, Caieta, the Trojans are met by Macareus, a Greek and former companion of Ulixes. Macareus immediately recognizes among the Trojans Achaemenides, his former comrade, and the two exchange the stories of their separate adventures since they last saw each other on the island of the Cyclops. Macareus, who enters the narrative action unexpectedly, and on whom Ovid at the time does not offer any information, can hardly trust his eyes when he discerns Achaemenides, whom he believed dead. And he is no less aghast at the sight of a fellow Greek in Trojan company (14.160-164). Macareus' inquiries appropriately allow Achaemenides to step forward and resume the narrative construction of Ovid's 'Aeneid'. The Achaemenides scene, centered on a character invented by Vergil, belongs among the few episodes in the Metamorphoses where Ovid confronts the poet of the Aeneid directly and exclusively.5 The prototype, positioned at the conclusion of Aeneid 3, coincides with the Trojans' last adventure before they exit the 'Homeric' world of the Odyssey. A unit of secondary importance in advancing Vergil's plot line, it nonetheless promotes themes and structural functions recurring frequently in the course of the entire epic. Its inclusion in the less than a thousand line-long 'little Aeneid', and, further, its reproduction at a length even greater than the original, conO n the 'sources' of Vergil's Achaemenides episode, see R.D. Williams, P. Vergilt Aeneidos Liber Tertius. Edited with a Commentary (Oxford 1962), 181-182.

Maronis

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Chapter Three

the dynamics of the episode and presupposes an accretion of intertexts at work, comparable to the one surrounding Anius' narrative. To the modern reader, the singularity of the discourse is also underscored by the realization that Achaemenides as literary figure has no existence beyond the text of the Metamorphoses either. Added to this, the Vergilian Achaemenides account sits at the center of an interesting and, to Ovid, most attractive structural contradiction. On the one hand, being a paranarrative, it hardly affects the main plot of the Aeneid,6 On the other, it provides the ground where not merely the world of the Odyssey but also Ulixes himself crosses paths with Aeneas. 7 Books 2 and 3 of the Aeneid are to be read as Vergil's response to Ulixes' viva voce narrative of his adventures after his departure from Troy. The Achaemenides section where the convergence of Ulixes and Aeneas materializes, occupies the close to Aeneas' memoir. In order, then, to identify the motives that inspired Ovid's decision to lift Achaemenides out of his original backdrop and reshape the character and his environment, a study of the Vergilian model is in order. 8 In the Aeneid, Achaemenides is a puzzling figure, and this is captured even in the semantics of his name. Etymological arguments seem to crystallize in favor of the derivation from ' Α χ α ι ό ς and μενειν, traditionally interpreted 'the Greek who was left behind'.9 This meaning addresses the hero's situa-

6

7

8

9

The episode is logically integrated into the plot because it allows Aeneas to avoid a perilous confrontation with the Cyclops and, thanks to Achaemenides' steering directions, to navigate safely the dangerous waters of Sicily. For Barchiesi 2001, 16-17, Vergil has tactfully arranged things so that Aeneas and Ulixes may avoid a face-to-face encounter in some Mediterranean port of call, although their peregrinations are essentially chronologically concurrent. With the exception of the Underworld, the island of the Cyclops is the only common place in the itinerary of the two journeying leaders. Various critics in recent decades have focused on Ovid's treatment of Achaemenides. To the comments of Börner and H-E, one should add the following: Bernbeck 1967, 119123; Döpp 1968, 124 and 135, and 1991, 338-339; Lamacchia 1969; Otis 1970, 73-77; Galinsky 1975, 229-234; and more recently, Junod 1991, 56-62; Esposito 1994, 11-36; Baldo 1986, esp. 118-123, and 1995, 120-136; Hinds 1998, 111-115. H. Merland, 'Nisus, Euryalus und andere Namen in der Aeneis', SO 33 (1957), 88, elaborating on a suggestion by R. Heinze, Vergils Epische Technik. 3rd ed. (Leipzig and Berlin 1915; rpt. Stuttgart 1965), 112 n.3; McKay 1966, 31-38, has been the most frequently cited alternative etymological suggestion (Achaemenides' name would be associated with the Achaemenids of Persia to produce a poetic allusion to contemporary Roman politics, viz. Augustus' dealings with the Parthians). Putnam 1995, 62, discusses the link between the name of Achaemenides and the Achaemenids of Persia; on other echoes, see P.V. Cova, Virgilio: II libro terzo dell' Eneide (Rome 1994), 122. Paschalis 1997, 140, has ex-

2. Achaemenides' Literary Existence

81

tion in more than one aspect. He is abandoned, literally by his companions on the Cyclops' island, but also figuratively, like Aeneas and his own companions - a 'remnant' of the Homeric Greeks,10 in a world that is progressively becoming Roman. Actually, continuous change is a distinct marker of Achaemenides' portrayal. Initially, and before his identity is revealed, he is pictured as a duplicate Sinon, the other Greek that was left behind earlier in Aeneid 2." His likeness to Sinon is supported by a long list of textual parallels, and it is highlighted by the placement of the two episodes at the very opening and closure of Aeneas' labores as told to Queen Dido. These two units replicate one another thematically, so the latter revisits the same issues initially developed in the former, namely the magnanimity of the Trojans in their generous offer of dementia, and their eagerness to forgive.12 By refusing to make the identification many a Vergilian reader has already made between Achaemenides and Sinon, Anchises, who pardons the Greek suppliant, indicates the possibility of alternative, competing readings of seemingly similar narratives. The cardinality of change in the presentation and conduct of Achaemenides determines accordingly his double role as both writer/director of and performer/actor in the Cyclops episode.13 In the former case, it emphasizes the elemental aspect of metapoetics in Vergil's text. Achaemenides de-/re-constructs Sinon's role, and, in his recollection of the Cyclops drama, identifies with Homeric Ulixes as narrator/'composer' of the Cyclopeia, and guest of Phaeacian King Alcinous. In his account of the Cyclops adventure, Ulixes portrays himself as a stereo-

panded on the semantics of Achaemenides' etymology from μέυειυ, while, from a different perspective, also argues that the appearance of Achaemenides' name twice on the same line with infelicis Ulixi (613-614, 691) "supports the proposed etymological association with achos". 10

11

13

Thrice in the early Books of the Aeneid, Vergil refers to the Trojans as reliquias Danaum (1.30, 1.598, and 3.87), toying both with the etymology of Achaemenides' name and with his being left behind by his comrades. Putnam 1995, 65, uses the similarities and differences of the Sinon and Achaemenides episodes to expound on the unity and parallels of Aeneid 2 and 3. Ramminger 1991, 56-57, outlines the verbal correspondences between the speeches of Sinon and Achaemenides. For earlier compilations of similarities between the two texts see J.W. Mackail, The Aeneid of Vergil (Oxford 1930), 516-517; E.A. Hahn, 'Vergil and the 'Underdog', ΤΑΡΑ 56 (1925), 200 nn. 106-109. See a complete bibliography on the parallelism in Ramminger 1991, 56 n. 12. For a very brief discussion of the Achaemenides episode in terms of poetics and Homeric aemulatio, see Hexter 1999, 77-79.

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typical, Achilles-like epic hero, a master of βίη as well as μήτις. 14 Thus, from a narratological perspective the Cyclopeia is not so much about presenting an accurate version of what happened in the Cyclops' cave, but mainly about dressing Ulixes' epic persona with a sufficiently heroic garb. One additional significant detail: by his captivating power of storytelling, Ulixes charms his Phaeacian audience, and Alcinous praises the hero by comparing him to a professional singer/epic bard: μΰθον δ' ώ ς öt' άοιδός ε π ι σ τ α μ έ ν ω ς κατέλεξας (11.368).15 The background of this Homeric narrator persona has decisively influenced the character development of Ovid's Achaemenides. Viewed from a different angle, Achaemenides' foregoing his old identity in favor of a thoroughly redefined one suggests that apart from being an accomplished narrator, an auctor of plots, he is no less a perceptive actor, eagerly assuming new roles in a script that changes constantly. A comparison of Achaemenides to his model, Sinon, should make clear that the former does not tell a fictitious story (or at least a story that on the basis of presented evidence may be proven fictitious), but rather observes different narrative standards. His sincerity overrules the (Trojan) belief that the Greeks are liars and hypocrites, a contention asserted by Sinon himself (crimine ab uno / disce omnis, Aen. 2.65-66). This subjection to multiple focalizing eyes metamorphoses the epic hero's action into a performance, a role, which, on occasion, may coincide also with the role of the epic poet. All in all, Achaemenides' susceptibility to shifting identities, literary and metaliterary, eases his entrance into the even more fluid epic cosmos of the Metamorphoses. An attentive student of Ulixes' protean performance, Achaemenides adjusts his behavior to conform to a variety of shapes, yet unlike Proteus he eventually shuns his original form, a gesture that readily translates as expression of eagerness to embrace Vergil's poetology of redefining epic. It is precisely with the metaliterary aspects of the Vergilian Achaemenides that Ovid's reading converses, rather than with the ideas and 14

15

The Polyphemus episode in Homer abounds with Iliadic reminiscences, particularly of scenes in which the protagonist is Achilles; specifically on the Iliadic elements in Od. 9.299-305, see A. Heubeck and A. Hoekstra, A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey. Volume II: Introduction and Books IX-XVI (Oxford 1989), 30; also S.L. Schein, O d y s s e u s and Polyphemus in the Odyssey', GRBS 11 (1970), 73-83, who argues that the structure and plot of the Polyphemus episode point to folk traditions, with the exception of this particular scene (299-305), which is unparalleled in epic elements. On Vergil's experimenting with Homeric Ulixes' epic persona, see below, esp. 83-95. On Ulixes' apologoi as archetypal bardic performance see below, pp. 159ff.

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values promoted in the archetypal text. Accordingly, I approach Ovid's new script of a Vergil-inspired Cyclopeia as a metapoetical competition and a game on textuality. As with much of the Vergilian material reinvented in the 'little Aeneid', Ovid's Achaemenides is part of the poet's greater plan to emulate Vergil, as much as to expand the breadth and flexibility of the literary conventions pertaining to the definition of epic.

3. The Dynamics of Hypertextuality Ovid's recollection of Achaemenides' adventure exemplifies a more advanced level of hypertextuality. According to Genette (Palimpseste, 1982), hypertextuality is defined as the literary relationship unifying a text Β (the 'hypertext') to an earlier text A (the 'hypotext'), upon which it is grafted in a manner that is not that of a commentary. A second degree textual relationship (a text derives directly from a preexistent text), hypertextuality should be distinguished from intertextuality because the hypertext evokes more or less clearly the hypotext even though the former does not have to acknowledge openly the latter. This textual transformation may be either direct or indirect. In the first case the narrative action is transposed in a different setting and time while it still revolves around the same characters and plot line. An indirect transformation, naturally more sophisticated, centers on creative imitation of the hypotext-prototype, and often involves interaction between the imitated and imitative texts. In Augustan poetry, however, the relationship between a hypertext and its hypotext (s) is often intentionally kept less than obvious, a challenge to the reader's knowledge and intelligence. At this point Richard Thomas' conception of 'window reference' may present an appealing complementary definition. Thomas calls a 'window reference' the textual phenomenon of clear allusion through an intermediary to a more distant common source. The examples he considers concern interactions between textual units that do not usually extend beyond the size of a single verse or phrase, but the textual relationships described are not less covert and in need of skill and erudition to be identified than those observed in larger passages.16 Vergil's model in Aeneid 3.588-691, the narrative of Ulixes' adventure in the cave of the Cyclops in Odyssey 9.166-566, qualifies as a hypertextual 16

Thomas 1986, 171-198; also, id. 'Catullus and the Polemics of Poetic Reference (64.11 8 ) ' , A J P 103 (1982), 144-164.

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v e r s i o n of t h e H o m e r i c p r o t o t y p e . O v i d ' s own r e c o l l e c t i o n of Achaemenides in Metamorphoses 14.165-220 produces a new hypertext that relies principally on Vergil (primary hypotext). This exclusive relationship is determined by the presence of Achaemenides as main speaker in the two passages. 17 The Ovidian text, further, communicates independently with the Homeric original of Odyssey 9, Vergil's main hypotext, whence it makes use of narrative details absent f r o m the Vergilian text. In this way the Homeric episode operates in the background as a second hypotext. 18 The close allegiance to the Vergilian model is not difficult to establish. As Achaemenides and Macareus meet unexpectedly on the Italian shore, they have the opportunity to brief one another on their stories since they parted company on the island of the Cyclops. The Ovidian Achaemenides' profuse expression of gratitude to Aeneas and the Trojans follows a declaration of loyalty that towers over his former fatherland and father (Met. 14.169-171 hac mihi si potior domus est Ithacaque carina, / si minus Aenean veneror genitore, nec umquam / esse satis potero, praestem licet omnia, gratus, 'if I prefer my home and Ithaca to this ship, if I revere Aeneas less than my own father!'). The phraseology calls to mind Achaemenides' opening words in the Aeneid: a full self-identification, including his father's name and his country of origin (Aen. 3.613-615 sum patria ex Ithaca, comes infelicis Ulixi, / nomine Achaemenides, Troiam genitore Adamasto / paupere - mansissetque utinam fortuna! - profectus, Ί originally come f r o m Ithaca, a companion of unlucky Ulixes, my name is Achaemenides, and it was the poverty of my father Adamastus - I only wish this fortune had not changed - that drove me to Troy'). Achaemenides' proclamation that he owes his life to Aeneas (Met. 14.172-173 quod loquor et Spiro caelumque et sidera solis / respicio. possimne ingratus et inmemor esse, 'that I speak and breath and see the heavens and the constellations of the sun, for this can I cease to thank him, and be mindful of him?') has its roots in his Vergilian counterpart's dramatic appeal f o r help (Aen. 3.599-601 per sidera tester, / per superos atque hoc caeli spirabile lumen, / tollite me, Teucri, 'by the stars I beseech you, by the heavenly gods and this life-giving light of heaven, take me, Trojans').

17

18

O n Achaemenides' exclusive appearance, first in the Aeneid and, subsequently, in Ovid's witty reproduction, cf. Cova, EV I, 22 s.v.Achemenide; also p. 80f. above. Baldo 1995, 120-136, is the only other critic known to me that has read Ovid's Achaemenides in light of its Vergilian and the Homeric background - both independently and taking into account the first transformation of Homer, within the Vergilian narrative.

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Deliverance from the Cyclops rather than death is the main concern of Achaemenides in the Aeneid (3.605 spargite me in fluctus vastoque immergite ponto, 'throw me piece by piece into the waves and plunge me in the vast sea'; 654 vos animam banc potius quocumque absumite leto, 'you, rather, by means of any death whatsoever, take away this life of mine!'). Likewise in the Metamorphoses, the hero confidently states that he would endure anything, even death, as long as he does not end his life in the jaws of the Cyclops {Met. 14.174-176 ille dedit, quod non anima baec Cyclopis in ora / venit, et ut iam nunc lumen vitale relinquam, / ut tumulo aut certe non ilia condar in alvo, 'It is due to him that my life did not come into the Cyclops' jaws, and though even now I might leave the light of life, I would be buried in a tomb, or at least surely not, in that monstrous belly'). Ovid's narrative follows Vergil even as he describes Achaemenides' dire conditions of survival, namely his constant agony and terror, and his daily diet of acorns, grass and leaves {Met. 14.216 glande famem pellens et mixta frondibus berba, 'keeping off starvation with acorns and grass mixed with leaves'; cf. Aen. 3.649-650 victum infelicem, bacas lapidosaque coma / dant rami, et vulsispascunt radicibus berbae, 'the branches supply a miserable living, berries and rock-hard acorns, and grass torn with its roots feed me'), and notes his eventual excitement at seeing the approach of the Trojan fleet {Met. 14.218220 banc procul aspexi longo post tempore navem / oravique fugam gestu ad litusque cucunri, / et movi, 'And then, after a long time, far in the distance I saw this ship, and with gestures, I begged them to save me, I rushed down to the shore and moved their hearts'; cf. Aen. 3.651-652 omnia conlustrans banc primum ad litora classem / conspexi venientem, 'Scanning everything with my eyes, this fleet of yours I spotted first coming to the shores'). O n top of this parallel textual rewriting on Ovid's behalf, special attention should be drawn to the observation that, in b o t h epics, the Achaemenides episode opens and closes with slightly altered variations of the same phrase. The opening of Achaemenides' speech in Vergil (3.613-614 sum patria ex Ithaca, comes infelicis Ulixi, / nomine Achaemenides) is emphasized when it is closely echoed in the last line of the entire episode (3.691 Achaemenides, comes infelicis Ulixi). The same motif appears in the Metamorphoses·, it is Macareus' words to Achaemenides at the outset of Ovid's revision of the Aeneid inventive unit (14.163-164 cur... barbara Graium / prora vehit? 'Why does a Greek sail on a Trojan ship?') which Achaemenides employs, paraphrased, as a closure device of his own recollection (14.220 Graiumque ratis Troiana recepit! Ά Trojan ship received a Greek!'). In reproducing the framing pattern of its model, the imitating nar-

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rative confirms and appreciates anew the systematic closeness of imitation throughout the main body of the story. Ovid's agonistic spirit is best observed in the character of Macareus. Macareus is first introduced in the Ovidian story as 'a companion of enterprising Ulixes', who 'likewise had stayed behind after having grown sick of adventures' (hie quoque substiterat post taedia longa laborum / Neritius Macareus, comes experientis Ulixei, 14.158-159). The phrase comes... Ulixei immediately calls to mind Vergil's Achaemenides, the only other character in Latin literature to be so addressed, twice (Aen. 3.613 and 691), and, as just mentioned, with a phrase recurring in both the opening and closing lines of the Achaemenides episode in theAeneid. Macareus' overall conduct emulates the depth and complexity of his Achaemenides model in every respect, especially the latter's part as observer and narrator, and his own performance will be discussed in detail in the following chapter. In this chapter my study targets foremost the circumstances of Macareus' introduction in Ovid's narrative which, in a way, is dictated by Achaemenides' imminent appearance. Firstly, Macareus is also an invented character, free from the constraints of a literary past, and likewise conceived for exclusive confinement within the life span of the particular textual moment, with no literary future to look forward to. Secondly, he is yet another comes Ulixei who 'also had stayed behind', quoque substiterat. The particle refers to Macareus, despite the fact that the two words are separated and set on different lines.19 The separation, justified by 'Wackernagel's law', alleges that unstressed parts of the sentences, such as unaccented particles (and pronouns), seek second place in a sentence, even if this separates words that are syntactically arranged together. 20 Accordingly, when the text reads 'Macareus also had stayed behind', this implies a precedent, Achaemenides, who not fortuitously appears on stage immediately afterwards (14.160-161). In the Vergilian version of the text Achaemenides claims that he was 'abandoned', literally, 'deserted' by his comrades (Aen. 3.618 deseruere). Admittedly, Achaemenides' situation is best described as enforced rather than the outcome of personal choice. Alternatively, Ovid might experiment with the various shades in the definition of "abandonment" which, as a matter of fact, is the leading theme in Vergil's invented narrative of Achaemenides.

19

20

The awkwardness is noted by Börner ad 14.158, and other commentators; on subsistere as 'stay behind', cf. OLD s.v. subsisto 5. The law was formulated by Wackernagel in 1892, and is reprinted in J. Wackernagel, Kleine Schnften. Edited by Β. Forssman in 3 Vols. (Göttingen 1969), 86.

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The poet of the Metamorphoses introduces Achaemenides in his text through Macareus' eyes, and presents the situation as a 'recovery', addressing the hero as desertum and repertum (Met. 14.160-162 desertum quondam mediis e mpibus Aetnae / noscit Achaemeniden improvisoque repertum / vivere miratus, 'he recognizes Achaemenides whom they had long since deserted midst the rocks of Aetna, amazed to have found him unexpectedly alive'), both of which here are metapoetically charged. Achaemenides, 'deserted' or 'abandoned' by Vergil following Aen. 3.691 (the conclusion of the Cyclops episode), was subsequently 'found' or '(textually) recovered' (repertum) by Ovid beyond (the 'amazed' [miratus] Ovidian reader's) expectations (improvise). Macareus' comments on Ulixes shed new light on the epic portrayal of the Greek leader in Achaemenides' speech. The characterization of Ovid's Ulixes depends on an analysis of both the Vergilian and the Homeric hypotexts. In Vergil, Ulixes' character is versatile, and on occasion appears even to contain contradictions. For Vergil's Achaemenides, the king of Ithaca is infelix, a term open to interpretations that clash. 'Unlucky' may be primarily a reflexive term, referring to an ingrained quality of the subject modified as such (Ulixes himself is unlucky), or it may be a transferable quality for which the modified subject acts only as agent (Ulixes is a cause of bad luck for others). 21 This play on the semantics of the word comes out of Achaemenides' mouth as much as Aeneas'. It is the latter who refers to Ulixes as infelix at 3.691, while the entire episode, including Achaemenides' speech, is actually part of Aeneas' recollections as presented to Dido. Vergil is drawing a fine line between two different readings, which, moreover, seem to contradict each other. Taken as reflexive, infelix evokes a similar depiction of the king of Ithaca in the Odyssey as the man who has suffered (πάθεν σ λ γ ε α ) , and whose suffering ( π ά σ χ ω ν ) , repeatedly stressed, is conveniently placed next to π ο λ λ ά μογήσαξ 'toiling through many hardships'.22 The speaker here is Vergil, talking through his characters. Infelix Ulixes also complies with two attributes exclusive to the Ithacan king in Homer's text, κάμμοροξ, 'marked

E. Römisch, 'Die Achaemenides-Episode in Vergils Aeneis', in: H. Görgemanns, Ε.A. Schmidt (edd.), Studien zum Antiken Epos (Meisenheim 1976), 219, inspired by Achaemenides' association with infelix Ulixes, endorsed the etymology of the hero's name from achos, 'suffering'. This formula occurs 11 times in the Odyssey and once in the Iliad (2.690), describing Achilles.

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by fate', and δ ύ σ τ η ν ο ς , 'wretched'. 23 Pucci has argued that in the Odyssey the interdependence of suffering and trickery is a leading motif: Ulixes needs to suffer as much as to pretend (e.g. the Outis story, or his transformation into a beggar and his humiliation by the suitors) in order f o r his plotting to succeed. 24 In Vergil the emphasis seems to fall on the hero's suffering, while the hero's mental keenness is suppressed. The absence of the slightest reference to the Outis scheme is remarkable. This omission introduces a new reading of the Odyssey, which portrays Ulixes in the light of Aeneas. Mentioning the plan that enabled the Greeks to escape f r o m the Cyclops' cave would have also entailed recalling the motivation that led them to enter this cave in the first place: Ulixes' irresponsibility and reckless curiosity. As a result, Achaemenides' direct listeners, the Trojans, are conf r o n t e d with a revised image of their former archenemy, and are urged to observe closely the treacherous Greeks, once led by dirus Ulixes25, as they evolve into the panic-struck companions of infelix Ulixes. For the Vergilian reader, on the contrary, who has read the Homeric Cyclopeia, it is the anonymous Ithacans who have suffered f r o m the infelicitas of their leader. Achaemenides/Vergil tactfully bypasses a discussion on the motive behind the presence of Greeks in the cave of the Cyclops, only to appear ironic as this silence obviously aims at keeping accountability away from Ulixes. This concern to defend his commander underlies Achaemenides' positive commentary on Ulixes as leader (3.628-629 nec talia pass us Ulixes / oblitusve sui est Ithacus discrimine tanto, 'Ulixes did not put up with such crimes, nor did the hero of Ithaca forget who he was in such critical situation') who is not to be blamed more than the rest of his comrades (3.617-618 immemores socii... deseruere, 'my mindless companions... abandoned [me]'). The integration of Ulixes and his men is best captured in Achaemenides' introducing the actual attack on Polyphemus as team effort (3.633ff. nos... precati... sortitique... fundimur... terebramus... et tandem laeti sociorum ulciscimur

23

Κσμμοροξ occurs only in the Odyssey; Pucci 1987, 58 n. 9, notes that in four of the total five cases the word 'expresses the speaker's pity for Odysseus'. Δ ύ σ τ η ν ο ς occurs fifteen times in the Odyssey to describe Ulixes, and it is used both by the poet and by other characters sympathetic to the hero's sufferings; cf Pucci 1987, 58 n. 10.

24

Cf. Pucci 1987, 56-62. So called in Aen. 2.261, as he is portrayed hiding together with the other Greek leader in the belly of the Trojan Horse, waiting to launch their treacherous attack against Troy.

25

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89

umbras, 'we prayed... and allotted... p o u r e d a r o u n d . . . pierced... and finally happy to have avenged our companions' shades'). 26 O v i d revisits the Polyphemus episode and projects a different image f o r Ulixes by using a term, experiens, which is received as the Latin equivalent of H o m e r i c Ulixes' principal attributes, π ο λ ύ τ ρ ο π ο ς and π ο λ ΰ μ η τ ι ς . 2 7 N o t a bly, H - E pairs the particular occurrence of experiens with the only other in the Metamorphoses bearing the same meaning, in 1.414 genus durum sumus experiensque laborum ('we are a hard race, w h o is acquainted with suffering'). It is likely that these passages are aware of one another: experiens laborum appropriately translates a n o t h e r exclusive attributive f o r H o m e r i c Ulixes, π ο λ ύ τ λ α ς . In fact the genitive laborum that could be supplied in 14.159 is present on the line immediately prior, a coincidence anything but f o r t u i t o u s , while durus in 1.414 characterizes also the Vergilian Ulixes in Aen 2.7. O v i d ' s Ulixes, then, w h o is modeled on the character of his H o meric counterpart, experiences a Vergilian Cyclopeia, and this intersection is reflected in the crossing of the H o m e r i c and Vergilian h y p o t e x t s in the Ovidian Achaemenides' recollection of the Cyclops episode. This strategy to reconstruct Ulixes in an ambiance unmistakably H o meric may reflect a deliberate reaction to Vergil. 28 As aforementioned, Vergil's recollection of the Cyclops adventure distinctly omits Ulixes' feigning of identity, and, consequential to this, his revelation of his real name as he and his m e n leave b e h i n d the Cyclops' island. T h e Outis scene is n o t included in O v i d ' s version either, yet in sharp contrast to Vergil's, the Metamorphoses narrative does account, even only by implication, for the Greeks' dramatic escape and the near tragedy due to Ulixes' shouting out his name and betraying his position to the blind Cyclops {Met. 14.180-186) 29 : 26

27

28

29

See Hexter 1999, 68 and 78, arguing that Ulixes' portrayal as reckless and impulsive is to function as a foil for Aeneas, who prudently avoids an encounter with the Cyclops, and eventually welcomes among his crew a former enemy. Börner ad 14.159; the Ovidian Ulixes' retrospection to his Homeric self (experiens = π ο λ ύ τ ρ ο π ο ς ) eschewing his Vergilian infelicitas, has been pointed out by Baldo, originally in 1986, 118 n. 25, and in more detail in 1995, 121-122; cf. similar remarks in Esposito 1994, 32-33. Ulixes' versatility of wit in the second Book of the Aeneid is viewed as treacherousness and malice (Aen. 2.90 invidia... pellacis Ulixi, 'through the malice... of deceitful Ulixes'; 2.164 scelemm inventor Ulixes, 'Ulixes, the contriver of crimes'). See Hinds 1998, 112, on this incessant palindromic crossing of textual boundaries in the Achaemenides episode - or rather the difficulty in describing it properly: "Ovid thematizes his intertextual dialogue with his epic predecessor [sc. Vergil]... by putting an O d yssean stray of his own into conversation with the Odyssean stray through whom Virgil

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vestrae quoque clamor Ulixis paene rati nocuit. vidi, cum monte revulsum inmanem scopulum medias permisit in undas; vidi iterum veluti tormenti viribus acta vasta Giganteo iaculantem saxa lacerto et, ne deprimeret fluctus ventusve carinam, pertimui, iam me non esse oblitus in ilia. Even your vessel Ulixes' cry almost wrecked. I saw when the Cyclops tore up a huge rock from the mountain-side and hurled it far out to sea. I saw him again throwing great stones with his gigantic arms as from a catapult, and I feared lest the waves or the airwave (sc. of the hurled stone) should sink the ship, forgetting that I was not in it. T h e original C y c l o p s narrative {Od.

9 . 1 6 6 - 5 6 6 ) records the r e c o l l e c t i o n

o f U l i x e s , which was p r o v o k e d and, t o s o m e e x t e n t , scripted by the c o n t e n t o f D e m o d o c u s ' p e r f o r m a n c e . T h e latter centers on two epic m o m e n t s , b o t h e x t o l l i n g U l i x e s ' c o n t r i b u t i o n t o t h e T r o j a n campaign. T h e first c o n c e r n s the T r o j a n H o r s e , while the o t h e r relates an otherwise u n a t t e s t e d episode of t h e war, an argument b e t w e e n U l i x e s and A g a m e m n o n . B o t h p o r t r a y U l i x e s as an Achilles-like h e r o . U l i x e s ' persistence in taunting the blind C y c l o p s at grave risk t o his own and his c o m r a d e s ' lives, is explained along these lines. 3 0 W i t h the A c h i l l e s model in mind, the king o f I t h a c a sets himself apart f r o m his c o m r a d e s and draws a t t e n t i o n t o his individual p e r f o r m a n c e .

The

phrasing in the divulgence of his identity ( 9 . 5 0 4 f . ) , a disclosure of his n a m e in full, including p a t r o n y m i c and place o f origin, is a standard epic i n t r o d u c t i o n formula: 3 1

30

31

had thematized his intertextual dialogue with his epic predecessor. Amid such appropriations and reappropriations, it becomes hard to know at any given juncture whether we are responding to a Virgilian Ovid, a Homeric Virgil, or a Homeric Ovid... or indeed... to an Ovidian Virgil, a Virgilian Homer, or an Ovidian Homer". The Homeric hero is aware of this, for he remorsefully accepts blame for the impulsiveness that resulted in the death of six of his comrades in the monster's cave (9.224-230). In turn, the reader is confronted with the longer-term consequences of this foolhardiness, namely, Poseidon's avenging anger and the subsequent complete elimination of Ulixes' companions. Cf. J.S. Clay, The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey (Princeton 1983), 112125, esp. 121-122; Segal 1994, 209-212. E. Cook, The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origin (Ithaca 1995), 94-110, argues that Odyssey 9 celebrates Ulixes' metis since the plot follows the hero who (p. 95) "working from a position of 'desperate inferiority' [Outis~\... emerges in a position of 'triumphant superiority'..., and he, instead of the Cyclops, appears at the end to be the polyphemos ('much-famed')". On Ulixes' display of

91

3. The Dynamics of Hypertextuality 'Κύκλωψ, αϊ κέν τίζ σε κ α τ α θ ν η τ ώ ν ά ν θ ρ ώ π ω ν οφθαλμού εΐρηται άεικελίην ά λ α ω τ ύ ν , φάσθαι Ό δ υ σ σ ή α πτολιπόρθιον έξαλαώσαι, υίόν Λ α έ ρ τ ε ω , 'Ιθάκη ενι ο'ικί' έχοντα.' (Od. 9.502-505)

Cyclops, if any one of mortal men happen to ask you about the shameful ruin of your eye, say to him that Odysseus, the sacker of cities, destroyed it, the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca. M o r e intriguing are the associations behind the significant modifier, π τ ο λ ι π ό ρ θ ι ο ν , 'the c o n q u e r o r / s a c k e r of cities', which parallels the blinding of the C y c l o p s with the taking of a city like T r o y . B y casting himself as π τ ο λ ι π ό ρ θ ι ο ς , Ulixes explicitly likens himself t o Achilles, the only o t h e r warrior so labeled in H o m e r ' s poems. Indeed, the most famous fall of a city, that of T r o y , was a deed of Ulixes, n o t Achilles, and this detail is picked up and elaborated further in the Aeneid.i2

There, the drunken city of T r o y on

the night of the Greek invasion and the drugged Polyphemus are described in identical vocabulary: Aen.

cervicem commixta

inflexam posuit... mero

3 . 6 3 0 - 6 3 3 expletus

dapibus

vinoque

sepultus...

saniem eructans et frusta cruento / per sommtm

('for when, gorged with the feast and drowned in w i n e . . . he

rested his languid n e c k . . . vomiting in his sleep gore and morsels mixed with b l o o d y w i n e ' ) ; cf. Aen.

2 . 2 6 5 invadunt

urbem

somno

vinoque

sepultam

( ' t h e y invade the city that was drowned in sleep and wine'). 3 3 T h e implications of this correspondence are inspiring.

32

33

heroic glory (kleos) in the Odyssey, particularly perceptive are Pucci 1987, 216-219, and Segal 1994, 201-221. Vergil intentionally paints a very pale picture of Ulixes during the fall of Troy, and does not mention him as a participant in atrocities. InAeneid 2, the hero appears only twice outside Sinon's speech: he is one of the Greek warriors hidden in the belly of the Wooden Horse (2.261) and, together with aged Phoenix, he guards the booty during the Greek attack (2.762-763). Notably, the phrase vinoque sepultus ('buried/drowned in wine') does not occur a third time in the Aeneid·, a similar phrase is used in Aen. 9.316-317 somno vinoque per herbam / corpora fusa ('bodies shed all over the grass in sleep and wine', and a little earlier in the same book, in 189 somno vinoque soluti 'paralyzed from sleep and wine', to describe the situation at the Rutulian camp during Nisus and Euryalus' nocturnal attack. This last episode on several occasions develops textual parallels to scenes of the Greek invasion of Troy; cf. Hardie 1994, ad 9.189. Contrast to these the language of the Homeric original (Od. 9.371-374): T H και άνακλιυθεΐζ π έ σ ε υ ύ π τ ι ο ; , α ύ τ ά ρ ε π ε ι τ α / κεΐτ' ά π ο δ ο χ μ ώ σ α ς παχών αυχένα, κάδ δέ μιυ ύπνος / ηρει π α ν δ α μ ά τ ω ρ - φσρυγος δ' έ ξ έ σ σ υ τ ο οΐνοξ / ψωμοί τ ' άνδρόμεοι- ό δ'έρεύγετο οίνοβαρείων ('he spoke and

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While Vergil's claim to Homer's literary heritage relies principally on narrative structure and thematics, Ovid seeks to accomplish the same thing through metapoetics. O n e should notice, for example, that the element f r o m the Greek departure scene that Ovid singles out for emphasis is Ulixes' shout (clamor) - not the details of the hero's divulging of his identity, but the shout. The reader is thus led to study the Cyclops episode in the light of the monstrous violence for which the shout becomes an expression and a means of anger release. Ulixes is forced to keep silent and powerless, and to suppress his emotions as long as the Greeks remain trapped inside the Cyclops' cave. This restrain is reflected in Achaemenides' own words: quid mihi tunc animi, nisi si timor abstulit omnem / sensum animumque, fuit, cum vos petere alta relictus / aequora conspexif volui inclamare, sed hosti / prodere me timui, 'what were my feelings then - except that fear took away all sense and feeling - when, left behind, I saw you making for the open sea? I longed to call out to you, but I feared to betray myself to the enemy' (14.177-180). Ulixes' ill-calculated emotional outburst described next (180-181 vestrae quoque clamor Ulixis / paene rati nocuit, 'even your vessel Ulixes' clamor almost wrecked') is likely to appear as an extension of Achaemenides' similar feelings. The fusion of the two emotional reactions is illustrated in their adjacent placement in the narrative, which observes a careful stylistic design. The description of each reaction occupies two contiguous half verses, and both follow nearly identical metrical pattern, each taking up precisely a full hexameter divided into a three and a half meters (the first half line) and two and a half meters (the adjacent second half): (_/ / /-«// V / — / - ) Moreover, the two clauses complement one another not only metrically, but also syntactically: the punctuation mark that separates Achaemenides' reaction from that of Ulixes is a semi colon.

4. Performance

and

Metadiegesis

Achaemenides' self-awareness of his appearance calling for appreciation as both image and text may direct the reading of other, less clear moments in the same episode. When Ovid remarks that Achaemenides is iam suus

groggy fell on his back, and lay there with his thick neck bent to one side, and allconquering sleep got hold of him; and from his gullet came forth wine and pieces of human flesh, and he vomited in his drunken sleep').

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(14.166), 'now his own man', among other things 34 he may suggest that his intertextually chamaeleonic self, whose literary existence is so firmly circumscribed and his performance dictated almost to the last word, has eventually become an original and independent epic character. Literally (and literarily) out of nowhere, Vergil's doublet of Sinon, primarily invented to bring Ulixes to the fore just before Aeneas' fleet abandons the textual space of the Odyssey, acquires individuality in Ovid. As if Vergil were looking forward to the Metamorphoses reformation of his Achaemenides, he introduces the new hero in Aen. 3.591 as ignoti nova forma viri ('a strange image of an unknown man'). Where else could a man with no identity and shape find himself more fittingly at home than in the very text that celebrates 'images changed into new bodies', in nova... mutatas... formas corpora? O n top, the use of the particular term novus is both metaliterary (Ovid's Achaemenides is novus compared to Vergil's prototypical character) and a commentary on the fact that Achaemenides was a Vergilian invention, a 'new' character, without a literary presence in pre-Vergilian epic. In conclusion, a thorough and innovative researcher, student, reader and reviewer of his small part in the Aeneid, Ovid's Achaemenides takes over the adaptation of narrative design and continuation of the Aeneas story in the Metamorphoses. His own self becomes an allusive and tendentious reflection of his immediate, contextual compass. Next to Achaemenides, or better, because of him, the Cyclops becomes the center of an equally challenging experiment of metadiegesis that likely impresses the audience. The giant is mentioned as early as the opening of Achaemenides' reply to Macareus: the first two words (Met. 14.167) are iterum Polyphemon, followed by visual footage of the bloody monster shot at the moment of his cannibalistic action (iterum Polyphemon et illos / adspiciam fluidos humano sanguine rictus, 'May I look on Polyphemus once again, and those wide jaws of his, dripping with human gore', 167f.). The term iterum, 'again, for a second time', on a metaliterary level could be rendered 'again and again, over and over again, repeatedly'. This alternative translation functions as metanarrative witticism on the repetitiveness of reproducing the Cyclops episode, first by Vergil and now by Ovid. As a result, Achaemenides exits the conventional restrictions of his character and identifies himself with the reader of the Metamorphoses. Through Achaemenides Ovid launches a self-ironic critique, for he presents himself

Stimulating are the metapoetically driven syllogisms proposed to answer a series of openended questions by Hinds (1998, 113-114) on the possible meaning of iam suus.

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as joining the ranks of those epic poets, not excluding Vergil, who dutifully raise their literary claim to Homeric succession by treating anew narrative moments of the great master's works.35 In this way Ovid takes to an extreme what might already have developed in Vergil as subtle reflexive annotation. Aen. 3.655-658 cum... videmus / ipsum inter pecudes vasta se mole moventem / pastorem Polyphemum et litora nota petentem, / monstmm horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum ('when we saw the giant himself, the shepherd Polyphemus, moving his huge mass among his flocks and seeking the familiar shores, a terrifying monster, shapeless, huge, bereft of light'), may also be subject to a metadiegetical reading. These lines follow immediately after the conclusion of Achaemenides' story. Now the speaker is Aeneas, who refers to Polyphemus as 'ipse', 'that fellow'. Nonetheless, Aeneas has not seen the Cyclops before, and he does not know what he looks like. It is clear that the actual speaker here is Vergil who confirms that the Cyclops whom Aeneas sees and the one Achaemenides described earlier are one and the same. Or, alternatively, when the poet of the Aeneid refers to 'that fellow' Cyclops, he actually has in mind the archetypal one, in Homer. The modification of Polyphemus as vasta moles (3.656 vasta se mole moventem)36 and ingens (3.658) may look back to his mountain-like build in Homer {Od. 9.190-192 και γ α ρ θαΰμ' έτέτυκτο πελώριον, οϋδέ έφκει / άνδρί γε σιτοφάγορ, ά λ λ α ρίω ύλήεντι / υψηλών όρεων, ö τε φαίνεται οίον άπ' ά λ λ ω ν , 'for he was a wondrous monster of enormous build, and he did not resemble a man that lives by bread but rather a wooded peak of lofty mountains, which stands out to view, separate from the others'), best illustrated by the reference to the wood-covered peak of the mountain simile (άλλά ρίω ύλήεντι / υψηλών όρεων). 37 Not least, the litora nota wither the monster is head-

35

36

37

T . Greene, The Light in Troy. Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven 1992), esp. 28-80, offers a valuable survey of the imitative tradition from the ancient world to the Renaissance, in many respects complementing the discussion in Hardie 1993, on Homeric succession in Latin literature. A term rarely used to describe the human physique, moles in Vergil is a modifier peculiar to monstra, such as the Trojan Horse, Cacus and Polyphemus, to whom it is applied twice in the Achaemenides episode; cf. H. Warwick, A Vergil Concordance (Minneapolis 1974), s.v. moles. On Polyphemus' being likened to a mountain, both in Homer and Vergil, and the development of the same motif in Apuleius, who alludes to Homeric Polyphemus in the Tlepolemus episode [Met. 7.4-13), see S. Frangoulidis, 'Epic Inversion in Apuleius' Tale of Tlepolemus/Haemus', Mnemosyne 45 (1992), 63-65.

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ing are nota because Polyphemus ran there once earlier, when he was chasing after the fleeing Ulixes. The etymological possibilities tied to Polyphemus' name hone further the Alexandrian f o o t n o t e by means of which Ovid evokes simultaneously his two great epic models as he competes against their Cyclops profiles. The name Polyphemos, a compound of π ο λ ύ , 'much', and φήμη, 'fame, renown', but also 'notoriety', could mean 'he who has much fame, he who is famous', or rather 'he who is notorious'. Once again, alternatively, π ο λ ύ in the plural may also mean 'many', while φήμη, or fama, and the originating verb fan are voces propriae f o r narrative, 38 and Polyphemus is "he whose story has become the subject of literary fama many times over". In this case the allusion to the literary recurrence of Polyphemus may extend beyond the various treatments of the Ulixes-Polyphemus narrative to every literary appearance of the Cyclops, regardless of Ulixes' participation. This view is endorsed by Ovid's text, as Achaemenides' story of Polyphemus opens with the terms iterum and Polyphemon arranged side-by-side. 39

Paschalis 1997, 142, links etymologically Polyphemus, as he who is 'much spoken of', to the speech of Achaemenides (fatus erat), for it was through Achaemenides' words that the Cyclops' fama received one more treatment. All the while, ironically, the giant himself is described as one who 'is hard both to look at and approach with words' (3.621 nec visufacilis nec dictu adfabilis ulli). The metaliterary significance of the phrase is enhanced by the presence of fama, the leading code word for earlier tradition. The Sicilian tale then, about Polyphemus' unhappy love for Galatea narrated in the Metamorphoses less than two hundred lines earlier belongs among the popular treatments of the Polyphemus theme. As far as one could tell, the Cyclops episode had been a popular subject in Greek literature following Homer. Euripides' satyr-play Cyclops is the best-known dramatic representation of the story, which explores the humorous potential of the Homeric narrative. The myth had received earlier treatments, by Epicharmus, in his satyr-play Cyclops, and Cratinus, in the Odysseis, but neither of them has survived. Nonetheless, recent studies on Epicharmus' fragments argue that these early satyr-plays prefigure the un-heroic spirit of the Aristophanic burlesque, including the comic treatment of Ulixes (cf. A. Willi, 'Epicharmus' Odysseus automolos and the Invention of a Comic Anti-Hero', Abstract of a Paper Delivered at the American Philological Association 2004 Annual Conference; on Epicharmus and his influence Greek comedy, but also tragedy, see now R. Kerkhof, Dorische Posse, Epicharm und Attische Komoedie [Munich 2001]). Subsequent literary versions abandon the Ulixes-Polyphemus encounter as the central topic, and focus instead on the Cyclops' erotic pursuit of Galatea. These include: a) a lyric poem, now lost, composed ca. 400 BC by the Sicilian poet Philoxenus, which focuses on an earlier moment of the Cyclops' legend, before the arrival of Ulixes (cf. PMG 815-824); b) three middle comedy plays, by Alexis ( P C G 37-40), Antiphanes (PCG 129-131), and Nicochares ( P C G 3-6), of which only a few fragments survive; c) Theocritus' Idyll 11, principally, and also Idyll 6; d) and

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and Cultural

Poetics

Brilliant is also the intersection, in the same episode, of metapoetics and cultural poetics. Ovid, in his portrayal of Polyphemus, integrates his prior, fundamentally different and in many respects incompatible with the epic tone of the surrounding narrative, image of the Cyclops as the lover of Galatea, into his 'Aeneid' story. The two versions of Polyphemus do converge textually, as the elegiac lover ultimately does not manage to suppress his violent instincts but crushes Acis, Galatea's beloved, with the hurl of a rock, a gesture that copies his similar mode of attack against Ulixes' ships in Odyssey 9. Significantly, the same line is echoed in Achaemenides' version of the Cyclops' attack. The three conversing texts are listed below:

ήκε δ' άπορρήξα; κορυφήν δρεος μεγάλοιο {Od. 9.481) he broke off the peak of a lofty mountain and hurled it [at us] insequitur Cyclops partemque e monte revulsum / mittit {Met. 13.882-883) Cyclops ran after him and hurled a piece broken from the mountainside vidi, cum monte revulsum inmanem scopulum medias permisit in undas {Met. 14.181-182) I saw when Cyclops tore up a huge rock from the mountainside and hurled it far out to sea. It has often been noted that visual narratives, or ekphrases, are distinctly few in Ovid's carmen. This shortcoming balances the employment of artistic language, which often transforms the narration of a metamorphosis into an ekphrasis, but also alludes to actual pictorial, usually well-known, represen-

a series of less known Hellenistic works, likewise lost but for a handful of fragments, by Hermesianax, Bion, and ps.-Moschus, which carried more elaborate versions of Theocritus' love song of Polyphemus. In Latin literature, Vergil, writing under Theocritus' influence, refers to the story of Polyphemus and Galatea in various places in his Eclogues. For example, Corydon's love song in Eel. 2 'borrows' several phrases from Polyphemus' love song; or, at Eel. 9.39-43, Moeris quotes a fragment allegedly told once by Menalcas, which comes from Theocritus' Id. 11.42-48. Cf. Hopkinson 2000, 35-38, for a brief but well-informed discussion of the various Polyphemus narratives prior to Ovid.

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tations.40 A tendentious, genuinely Ovidian way of talking, the recollection of a pictura in a poetic composition, quizzes the readers' artistic erudition, their familiarity with contemporary culture, and even their memory of more than one artistic treatment of the particular narrative picture. These witty exchanges between art and literature may or may not be familiar to us modern readers, for the monumental models that inspired the poetic description in question are now lost. It is fortunate that we are in a position to identify an artistic creation that might represent a broader collection of similar depictions of the same theme, one of which, or a combination, might have inspired the two-fold representation of the Cyclops in the 'little Aeneid'. The painting in question concerns the Polyphemus and Galatea landscape from the Villa Boscotrecase. In this an image of Polyphemus' 'pastoral courting of Galatea' and a second one, of 'his vengeful stoning of the departing ship of Odysseus, an incident drawn from an epic context', are represented sideby-side. In her discussion of this painting, whence the preceding quotations originate, Leach makes an interesting remark: "[BJecause these two separate actions are linked neither closely in temporal succession nor consecutively in a pattern of cause and effect, the panel is not strictly a continuous narrative, yet it effectively invites the spectator's creation of a narrative by the very fact of its generic and mythic disparities".41 As he chooses to relate the two disparate narratives on Polyphemus so closely to one another, Ovid is likely introducing an allusive reference to a specific piece of artwork captured in some variation in the Boscotrecase landscape, testing the erudition and ingenuity of his readers. At the same time, this technique of converting a unit of visual images into narrative captures precisely the belief of the Augustan poets in the interrelation between visual art and poetry, epitomized in Horace's epigrammatic ut pictura poesis. Besides, visual representations that narrate adjacently positioned different, often conflicting, accounts of myths about a single character, confidently suggest that a similar crosstextual convergence might be at work in the area of literary narrative. The representations of Polyphemus, exemplified in the case of the Boscotrecase painting, attest to the popularity of monumentalizing in the visActual artistic representations, like a narrative description, engage their observer in a parallel act of reading and interpreting; Leach 1988 is a reference study for applying a narratological point of view on visual imagery. Leach 1988, 339; in light of Leach's discussion, the Boscotrecase landscape becomes indeed an allegory for the structural nature of the Metamorphoses, which essentially represents a literary sequence of narrative descriptions of transformation tales often connected to their contextual surroundings loosely and tangentially.

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ual arts thematically controversial 'marriages'. As such, they endorse a similar rationale directing Ovid's multi-thematic treatment of the Cyclops in the Metamorphoses, where the epic character of the Homeric (and later, Vergilian) monster appears at the textual forefront only a few hundred lines after a detailed representation of elegiac Polyphemus, the lover of Galatea. Thus the designing of Polyphemus' double appearance in the Metamorphoses as allusion to some mural landscape, or, more abstractly, as literary translation of an experiment already accomplished in the fine arts, becomes the means to integrate the generically controversial Sicilian tales into the epic union of the 'little Aeneid'.

6. Spectator and Observer In building his conversation with Homer and Vergil, Ovid has utilized certain markers of allusion that translate into verbal expressions of some aspect of perception. These generally include "overt versions of similarity, concealment, variation, antiquity, recurrence, or memory", and occupy a distinct section inside the much broader territory of the vocabulary of intertextual recollection. 42 A clear indicator of such allusivity is the verb vidi, employed by Achaemenides twice to describe the Cyclops' two successive attempts to crush the Greek ship by throwing huge rocks at it. The emphasis on sight, enhanced by the graphic description of the monster's attack, revives before the reader's eyes the Homeric model of the particular scene (esp. Od. 9.480-482, 484-486 and 9.537-542). Similarly cinematic is the twice-repeated recollection of the Cyclops' cannibalism, staging anew a most memorable Vergilian moment. 4 3 This synchronous literary evocation of all three epic Cyclopean narratives centers on vision, and brings to light 42

43

Cf. Wills 1996, 30, who uses the term "externally marked allusion" to refer to the 'Alexandrian footnote'. Baldo 1995, 124-130, lists the verbal correspondences between the two epic passages; then, pp. 130-136, discuss the Vergilian echoes in Ovid, focusing on the Cyclops' grotesque cannibalism. In Baldo's view, Ovid's experimentation with the complexities of textual "recodificazione" in the Achaemenides episode suggests a desire to compose an "allusive joke" for readers "versed in Alexandrian taste" (p. 130). Upon commenting on Achaemenides' report on the Cyclops attack at MetAA. 180-186, Baldo argues that Ovid portrays the Cyclops as "una enorme macchina da guerra" (p. 127), a description that is echoed elsewhere in the Metamorphoses, in actual descriptions of sieges, but also evokes the characterization of the Trojan Horse in Aeneid 2, the first in a long series of monstra that mark Aeneas' journey through the course of Vergil's epic.

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another major metaliterary aspiration on Ovid's part: the idea of appreciating the dynamics of Achaemenides' literary role as, on occasion, both observer and spectator. The semantic distinction between the words 'observer' and 'spectator' often receives little emphasis, for, commonly, they are effectively rendered synonymous. Yet, unlike spectare, 'to look at', to employ one's visual faculties as a means to verbalize and/or record in writing an image or visual composition, observare involves critical vision, for it literally means 'to conform to one's action, to comply with', as in observing rules, codes, regulations, and practices.44 The two categories of viewers are separated by another distinction rooted, first, in the factor of spontaneity in responding to a vision, and, subsequently, in its involvement in the reception and transmission of this vision. A spectator's response to an image, albeit almost always prescribed by the viewer's own cultural capital and the strength of the stimuli she has been subjected to at the time of her receiving the spectacle, may often be impulsive and relatively unprocessed. An observer, on the contrary, suppresses the subjectivity of her vision, because this vision is suggested, and, additionally, approached under the influence of prescribed reception rules. What is more, the observer often offers visual access only to a segment of the vision, for the set of directives that stimulates the observation does not necessarily apply to the whole image. A spectator often serves as the conduit of a vision for a third-party audience that has no direct perception of it. In the case of spectacle presentation the points of view of the narrator and the focalizer may coincide, appearing all the more under the guise of impersonal objectivity. An observer usually records a vision that has de facto been edited, filtered, or colored, in a word, affected, in order to influence in turn the judgment of those for whom she produces the vision. An observer's point of view is distinguished from the impersonal narrator's voice. An observer appropriates the pictura she describes, and consciously allows the reader to become aware of this. Ovid's treatment of Achaemenides fuses these two different points of viewing, and the outcome recalls at once the two earlier versions of the Cyclopeia. As they are recorded in their original version in Homer, the anamnesis of the adventure on the island of the Cyclops and the Greeks' drama inside the monster's cave both stage a spectacle. Ulixes the narrator unravels On the distinction between the Spectator and the Observer see the treatment by J. Croty, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA and London 1990), especially pp. 5ff.

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before an audience of curious but emotionally distanced listeners/mental viewers a personal story, which occupies a fraction of a much longer concatenation of assorted adventures, Ulixes' travails f r o m Troy to Phaeacia. A n d despite the fact that the objectivity of the recollection is compromised, t h e recipients of the spectacle/narrative are aware of the narrator's/spectator's pivotal role in the actions verbally reproduced. The reduction of the Cyclops tale to a fractional unit of a larger cluster, and the identification of the voices of the common narrator and focalizer (Ulixes) of the Cyclopeia and the epic narrator, direct the audience to accept consciously as convention the narrator's bias. In consideration of the above, Ulixes may be perceived as a spectator of the vision he describes, for his narrative observes a prescribed, and therefore predictable, point of view. In Vergil's recasting, the episode is enacted f r o m the standpoint of an observer. Achaemenides the focalizer is different f r o m both the internal narrator Aeneas and the epic narrator Vergil, and the text, as it switches f r o m direct to indirect discourse, never lets the reader forget that the narrative description of the vision is to be received as scripted. Moreover, the atypically strong emphasis on the dramatic element in the reproduced scenes of the Cyclopeia and the linguistic descriptiveness might explain the decades-old preoccupation of Vergilian critics with questioning the episode's overall quality. Vergil's Achaemenides directs the mental vision of Aeneas and his Trojans to the revival of two moments of the Greek encounter with the Cyclops, namely the cannibalism inside the cave (Aen. 3.618-627) and the blinding of the monster (3.628-638). The Trojans' subsequent hasty escape when the blind monster takes notice of their presence and tries to wreck their fleet by rock pelting (3.655ff.) reproduces the corresponding flight of the Greeks in the Odyssey. The narrator's voice now, however, is Aeneas' own. Achaemenides' graphic description of the cannibalism purports to inspire awe, and the motivation directing the clinical representation of the blinding act is identical. Vergil emphasizes and exaggerates specifically the first, unprocessed impressions caused by an awesome description to a first-time audience. H e stages a portrayal of a monster's grotesque, cannibalistic performance, in other words, a visual, exotic fascination, a vision that relates little if at all to human experience. In accomplishing this, Vergil alienates the sight of the cannibal Cyclops f r o m the Trojans' human experience, and this sequestering naturally converts it into a spectacle. This cerebral process of preventing visual perception f r o m becoming intimate via its proximity to some personal experience of the viewer's receives the fullest consideration when studied in comparison with

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H o m e r ' s original treatment of the same scene. In the Odyssey, the narrator Ulixes, whose telling of the Cyclopeia occupies most of Book 9, relates the Cyclops' murder of his companions in six lines, Od. 9.288-293: άλλ' ö γ ' άυαίξας έτάροις έπι χείρα; ϊαλλε, συν δέ δύω μάρψας ώς τε σκύλακας ποτι γαίη κόπτ'· έκ δ' εγκέφαλος χαμάδις ρέε, δεϋε δέ γαΤαν. Τους δέ διά μελεϊστι τ α μ ώ ν όπλίσσατο δόρπον· ήσθιε δ' ώς τε λέωυ όρεσίτροφος, ούδ' άπέλειπεν, έγκατά τε σάρκας τε και όστέα μυελόεντα. But he leaped to his feet and put forth his hands upon my comrades, and he seized two of them at once and dashed them to earth like puppies, and their brains flowed forth upon the ground drenching the earth. Then, he cut their members piece by piece and prepared his supper; he ate them like a mountain lion, leaving nothing - entrails and flesh and marrowy bones. The Homeric description of the crime, despite the fact that the original Cyclopeia spreads over a considerably larger textual space, is quite brief compared to the detailed accounts of Vergil and Ovid. The presence of cruelty is undeniable, but contrary to the gory accounts of the Roman epicists, the Homeric narrator produces a narrative that is not devoid of realism. For this reason, two scenes f r o m the animal kingdom, of animal killing, conveniently frame the Greeks' murder. At 9.289, Polyphemus' smashing of the unfortunate comrades' bodies on the ground is likened to that of the bodies of squirming puppies, and on 292-293, the monster's devouring of the bodies' 'entrails and flesh and marrowy bones' is compared to a mountain lion's voracious maiming of its hapless prey's carcass. In other words, the H o meric narrator tries to bring the vision of cannibalism closer to home in the minds of his audience, to make the grotesque spectacle a familiar experience, a picture and an episode f r o m everyday life. Ulixes' narrative adapts the story so as to become part of the audience's cultural experience and environment. O n the contrary, Vergil's Achaemenides wishes to make Aeneas step in Achaemenides' own shoes, share his vision, become a terrified spectator of an incredible spectacle, and generally, draw the audience into the cultural environment of the story. The double anaphora of vidi, which recurs a second time a little later (Met. 14.181ff.) for the description of a different m o m e n t of the Cyclopeia, stresses precisely the spectacular element of the event (Aen. 3.623ff. vidi egomet duo de numero cum corpora nostro prensa manu... frangeret...; vidi atro cum membra fluentia tabo manderet...), causing Aeneas to abandon the vantage critical position of the observer for

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the emotional fascination, the sharing of an identical experience, and ultimately the compassion of the fellow spectator. The readers of the Aeneid relive the drama, but they are already familiar with the Cyclops' episode and the text of the Odyssey, and, accordingly, they attend Aeneas' recollection via Achaemenides as observers. Maintaining a conscious memory of the Homeric text, the reading audience is in a position to focus not on what Achaemenides sees (or, wishes that they see), but on what are the circumstances, the setting, under which he who sees the vision operates. Deserted Achaemenides is hiding {Aen. 3.646f. cum vitam in silvis inter deserta ferarum / lustra domosque trabo, 'since I began dragging my life in the woods among the isolated lairs and dens of the wild beasts') in terror (3.648 sonitumque pedum vocemque tremesco, Ί shake at the sound of their [the Cyclops'] feet and their cries'), and making himself invisible and simultaneously a viewer (3.647f. vastos ab rupe Cyclopas / prospicio, 'spotting f r o m the rock the massive Cyclopes') is his principal concern-and what captures the attention of the emotionally disengaged but alert audience. For the latter, Achaemenides the observer patently casts himself in the role of an actual observer, the eavesdropper. The intertwining of spectacle and observation, seeking to identify with first- and second-time audiences respectively, is captured also in a Vergilian comment on the Cyclops' appearance, at Aen. 3.621 [the Cyclops] nec visu facilis nec dictu adfabilis ulli ('neither inviting to look at, nor easy to approach with words'). The phrase is shrewdly composed of words amphisemous, at once describing the Cyclops and allowing Achaemenides to summarize the Cyclops affair in general. O n the level of metanarrative, however, this verse could pertinently express the difficulty of the reader to distinguish between a spectator's and an observer's approach to the episode. The fusion of the unprejudiced beholder and the circumscribed viewer reaches a new level in the construction of Achaemenides' part in the Metamorphoses inasmuch as it encourages experimentation with more composite modes of performance. Ovid, who rewrites the Aeneid while invariably revisiting H o m e r , most of all composes a delightful mockery of the Vergilian counterpart's role as observer. Ovid's reading of the Cyclopeia as a drama, his study of the Cyclops' act within Achaemenides' performance, is firmly grounded in his appreciation of the narrative through focalization of a character participating in the plot. 45 Polyphemus the focalizer in Metamorphoses

On the ideology of focalization, and its various implications and applications in Latin epic, D. Fowler, 'Deviant Focalization in Virgil's Aeneid', PCPS 36 (1990), is fundamen-

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14 is a character act, directed not by the primary narrator, Ovid, but by another focalizer in the same story, Achaemenides. This embedded focalization causes the points of view of the spectator and the observer to converge. Indeed, beyond a firm commitment to the Vergilian script of the Cyclops' attack the focus on the details of Polyphemus' cannibalism carries also the theatrical ambitions of the Ovidian Achaemenides, who recasts a spectacle in the mould of an observation as an alternative expression of directing a script for a stage act. Firstly, Achaemenides as focalizer replays his overtly dramatic role of graphic recorder of cruelty and drama, for he narrates not once but twice the carnage inside the Cyclops' cave, respectively in 14.192-197 and 14.198-212.46 The spectacular element is emphasized in the former passage by the staging of the Cyclops releasing his anger in direct discourse, seemingly addressing no one but in reality experiencing anew, allegedly from his own point of view, the tragedy that he has just directed and acted in his cave. The immediacy of the Cyclops' address, and its introduction as a narrative moment nearly synchronous with the actual event of cannibalism described in the speech, emphasize the spontaneity and verisimilitude of the vision verbally revived. In so many words, the first recollection of the Cyclops' murder is to be appreciated as spectacle. A few lines later (198ff.), Achaemenides himself confesses how the sight of the bloody and raging monster raised before his eyes a vision of what could happen to him should he make his presence known. His speech opening (167) with iterum is suggestive of the repeated visualization underlying the episode. Thus amplified, the highly animated description of the Cyclopean feast oc-

46

tal; on focalization in ancient epic in general, the introduction in I.J.F. De Jong, Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam 1987), is a good starting point. For introductory discussions of focalization and the focalizer, see G. Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans, by J.E. Lewin (Ithaca 1980), esp. 185-211; P. O'Neill, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory (Toronto 1994), 83-106; M. Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 2nd ed. (Toronto 1997), 142-160, 170-174; and S. Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. 2nd ed. (London and N e w York 2002), 72-86. O n Ovid's propensity for narratives of profound violence, see Galinsky 1975, 110-157, arguing that death in the Metamorphoses becomes yet another thematic area to experiment with variatio\ also, Solodow 1988, further associating Ovid's images of violence with contemporary social tastes. Tissol 1997, 124-130, offers an interesting readerresponse interpretation. Ovid's predilection for strong violence attacks the sensibilities of the reader "not so much because the subject matter itself demands more decorous treatment as because a complex of allusions" keeps Ovid's intertextual sources vivid and always in the reader's mind, "recalling familiar emotions associated with them and thereby heightening the scandalous lack of decorum in Ovid's version" (p. 129).

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cupies the center of the Achaemenides narrative, becoming not only its most memorable part, but also a malleable text for repeated reproduction. Secondly, from a different perspective, Achaemenides pictures himself as both a spectacle and an observer. His entrance to the narrative fore is most spectacular. Initially, he draws attention to his ambiance and body language (Met. 14.165-166 iam non hirsutus amictu, iam suus et spinis conserto tegmine nullo, 'no longer roughly clad, his garments no longer pinned with thorns, but his own man once more'). This phrase contrasts his earlier literary appearance, in Vergil A en. 3.591, 593-594 ignoti nova forma viri... dira inluvies immissaque barba, / consertum tegimen spinis ('a novel image of an unknown man... hideously flilthy, with beard unshorn, and garb pinned together with thorns'), a palimpsestic textual moment read by critics as a typical case of 'reflexive annotation'. 47 Then, he underscores his role as eavesdropper, a self-conscious and intense viewer of the Cyclops' attack on the fleeing Ulixes (14.179f. volui inclamare, sed hosti / prodere me timui). Also, the intensity of the observation is accentuated by the annotation on the observer's vision, as suggested by the recurrence of vidi in 181 ff. vidi, cum monte revulsum inmanem scopulum...; vidi iterum...). The promotion of Achaemenides to a speaker voicing his own, non-scripted, description of the Cyclops event is not the least aided by the elimination of the internal narrator Aeneas, and the presence of an interlocutor, Macareus. Moreover, language emphasizing the visual sense is pervasive throughout the Achaemenides unit (14.168 adspiciam; 173 respicio; 175 lumen... relinquam\ 179 conspexi; 181 vidi; 183 vidi·, 189 luminis orbus; 197 lucis ademptae; 199 spectantem; 200 inanem luminis orbem; 202 ante oculos; 204 menti haerebat imago·, 205 vidi-, 211 videns; 218 adspexi).48 Additional stylistic tropes 47

Hinds 1998, 113, noting that the iam non is the key marker of allusion in the phrase: " 'now' as opposed to how he was back in the land of the Cyclops; but also 'now' as opposed to how he was back in the text of Virgil's Aeneid". O n the intertextual reflexivity of this passage, see also B.C. Morison, 'Two N o t e s on Ovid, Met. XIV, 196 and 211', Latomus 54 (1995), 106-109. The presence of the temporal marker quondam at 14.160, as Achaemenides first emerges before the Ovidian reader, already serves as allusive annotation to the character's epic debut earlier in the Aeneid. Also, 14.162 miratus, of Macareus' reaction to recognizing Achaemenides, may be added to the list of vision. In his 1997 study on the manifestations and ideology of spectacle in Lucan, Leigh points out (pp. 235-236) that especially the concepts of mirari and spectare are often specifically identified with the experience of attending a spectacle in a Roman amphitheater. The Cyclops' indulgence in explicit description of gore joins a series of excessively gruesome scenes in Ovid, a typical literary tendency in the epics and tragedies of the poets of the empire; see, for example, M. Fuhrmann, 'Die Funktion grausiger und

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f u r t h e r stress the spectacular character of the episode. T h e repeated use of iam creates immediacy as m u c h as it builds up in stages the audience's horror and repulsion to the Cyclops, and this escalation of intense e m o t i o n is facilitated by the anaphoric nunc (165-166 iam non... iam suits; 175 iam nunc·, 186 iam me non esse; 203 iam... iam nunc). Dramatic immediacy is secured f u r t h e r t h r o u g h the use of rhetorical question (173, 177-178) and exclamation (198), and of course the interchange of direct and indirect discourse. C e r t a i n l y this emphasis o n vision toys with the occasion of the b l i n d i n g of t h e C y c l o p s , especially since t h e events visualized in A c h a e m e n i d e s ' narrative chronologically take place after P o l y p h e m u s has lost his vision. T h e a t t e n t i o n on the element of spectacular enargeia contributes a n o t h e r intratextual reference t o the earlier p e r f o r m a n c e of bucolic Polyphemus. In 13.770-775, y o u n g and amorous Polyphemus makes a grotesque p u n on his (prospective) blinding, w h e n he rebukes with an intelligent wordplay the relevant p r o p h e c y given to him by vates Telemus (774 vatum stolidissime). For, a vates is also an auctor, a performance producer: he has the ability t o see, and make others see with him, f u t u r e action and to d e s c r i b e it in g e s t u r e s and words. 4 9 O n e s h o u l d also c o m m e n t on Achaemenides' scripting the p e r f o r m a n c e of a Cyclops mad at the Greeks' escape (14.191-197): in mare protendens gentem exsecratur Achivam aut ait: 'o, si quis referat mihi casus Ulixen aut aliquem e sociis, in quem mea saeviat ira, viscera cuius edam, cuius viventia dextra membra mea laniem, cuius mihi sanguis inundet guttur et elisi trepident sub dentibus artus, quam nullum aut leve sit damnum mihi lucis ademptae!' He would stretch his bleeding hands out to the sea and curse the whole Greek race, saying: 'Oh, that some chance would but bring Ulixes back to me, or some one of his friends, against whom my rage might vent itself, whose vitals I might devour, whose living body I might tear asunder with my hands, whose gore

ekelhafter Motive in der lateinischen Dichtung', in: H.J. Jauss (ed.), Die nicht mehr schönen Künste. Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen (Munich 1967), 23-66. For Hinds 1998, 115, on the other hand, all these references to vision, actual and mental, are markers of reflexive annotation, and so they furnish an additional "cue to more allusions to Virgil and Homer". Leigh 1997, 12, discusses prophetic vision as equivalent to spectacle, arguing that a vates can offer to his audience a portrayal of the (future) action "so vivid as to be visual, and even transport them as spectators to the scene of the events described".

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might flood my throat, and whose mangled limbs might quiver between my teeth! How nothing at all, or how slight a thing would the loss of my sight appear!' In this passage Achaemenides allows Polyphemus t o speak in direct discourse and t o revel in a detailed exposition of the monster's vision of butchering Ulixes and his crew. In the repeated e m p l o y m e n t of the first person p r o n o u n the Cyclops, tragically duped, is presented as envisioning h o w he would take control of the situation had he ever the o p p o r t u n i t y to act again in the same performance of 'Ulixes' visit to the Cyclops' cave. T h e emphasis o n vocabulary suggestive of t w o o t h e r senses, t o u c h and taste ( e d a m . . . viventia dextra / membra... laniem, ... inundet / guttur et... trepident sub dentibus artus), is also remarkable, an observation that enhances the element of enargeia in the image of the Cyclops, or rather Achaemenides' direction of the giant's onstage appearance. 5 0 Achaemenides' playwright wit accomplishes a recast mim-Cyclopeia, seen f r o m Polyphemus' point of view, all the while hardly straying f r o m the text of the original H o m e r i c (and Vergilian) script. Metapoetics is particularly prevalent in the text of P o l y p h e m u s ' speech which follows closely the character's act in Vergil (and this conf o r m i n g t o a p r o t o t y p e makes his p e r f o r m a n c e acceptable in terms of R o man standards, and hence successful), yet in the model narrative Polyphemus never utters a word. 5 1 Met. 14.192-197, meanwhile, receives an exemplary metaliterary reading in the light of the observation that Polyphemus, m u t e d in Vergil, does have a discourse, very similar in tone and structure, in the primary hypotext of the Odyssey (10.456-460), where he finds solace in t a l k i n g t o his f a v o r i t e ram. 5 2 O v i d , in t h e d i r e c t o r ' s p e r s o n a of Achaemenides, once again intertwines adroitly his t w o h y p o t e x t s to p r o duce a new text that depends on b o t h and yet is doubtlessly original. Achaemenides' persistence in the details of grotesque bloodbath experiments with metapoetics, too. Unlike in the original account of the slaughter in the Vergilian text, neither narrator in the Metamorphoses covers the actual 50

51

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O n enargeia in classical literature, see H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich I960), 399-407; G. Zanker, 'Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry', RhM 124 (1981), 297-311. His direct and indirect audience hears only his immensum clamorem (Aen. 3.672); cf. Baldo 1995, 129. Baldo 1995, 129: "la rhesis del Polifemo ovidiano in met. 192-97 riproduce lo schema retorico e sintattico e il senso complessivo del discorso che il Polifemo omerico rivolge all' ariete"; Hardie 1986, 266-267 discusses a comparable "discourse", Homeric Polyphemus' address to his ram.

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m o m e n t of the carnage, but, instead, b o t h accounts are set in a posterior narrative time. T h e reason f o r this discrepancy is self-evident. Macareus was also present in the Cyclops' cave when the tragedy t o o k place. Thus, Ovid, w h o wishes t o stage a p e r f o r m a n c e out of P o l y p h e m u s ' b u t c h e r y , has to come up with a different narrative m o m e n t to accommodate these events he comes u p w i t h two, and this overstatement of the already r e d u n d a n t transforms the incongruous into entertaining.

7. Auctor and Actor P o l y p h e m u s ' p e r f o r m a n c e is intimately connected to the appreciation of Achaemenides' own playacting. A study, once again of the Ithacan's account of the C y c l o p s ' attack at the fleeing Greeks (14.177-186), illuminates this link: quid mihi tunc animi (nisi si timor abstulit omnem sensum animumque) fuit, cum vos petere alta relictus aequora conspexi? volui inclamare, sed hosti prodere me timui: vestrae quoque clamor Ulixis paene rati nocuit. vidi, cum monte revulsum inmanem scopulum medias permisit in undas; vidi iterum veluti tormenti viribus acta vasta Giganteo iaculantem saxa lacerto et, ne deprimeret fluctus ventusve carinam, pertimui, iam me non esse oblitus in ilia. What were my feelings then (except that fear took away all sense and feeling) when, left behind, I saw you making for the open sea? I longed to call out to you, but I feared to betray myself to the enemy. Even your vessel Ulixes' cry almost wrecked. I was watching, when he broke a huge rock from the mountain and hurled it in the middle of the sea. I saw him again throwing great stones with his gigantic arms as from a catapult, and I feared lest the waves or the wind should sink the ship, forgetting that I was no more in it. In the primary h y p o t e x t of O v i d ' s passage, the Odyssey, a narrative of swiftly moving action, fleeing Ulixes and his crew watch together Polyphem u s ' attack (9.480-486), but the text records only Ulixes' reaction to the imminent danger of wreck (9.487-490). In Ovid's revision the same event is seen t h r o u g h the lens of Achaemenides w h o is thus introduced also as auctor of this variation on a well-known H o m e r i c scene, a persona f o r O v i d himself.

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In Vergil, both the Trojans and the readers are to read Achaemenides' speech for what it is, a duplicate to Sinon's earlier performance, and to supply their own conclusion to the plot outcome on the basis of whether the actor behaves similarly or contrary to his model. Sinon, a liar and selfproclaimed victim, is an actor, a hypocrites, in every sense of the term, acting on a script that is written either by Ulixes, or by Sinon himself, in which case the actor becomes also auctor. The success of his performance, namely to make his pretentiousness believable, owes no small part to his association with or, more correctly, disassociation from Ulixes. As he introduces himself a victim of Ulixes' treachery, Sinon sketches for the king of Ithaca a portrayal identical to the one already nurtured in the Trojan minds, of the wily and shifty individual held by no sense of loyalty, restrained by no rules of moral conduct. Laocoon claims to speak for everybody when he tries to dissuade his compatriots from receiving the wooden horse inside their city's walls. He urges them to recall the deceitful character of Ulixes, for, evidently, this type of conduct is held to be representative of Greek behavior (Aen. 2.43-44 at ulla putatis / dona carere dolis Danaum? sic notus Ulixes?, 'do you believe that the gifts of the Greeks ever lack treachery? Thus is Ulixes known to you?'). Nonetheless, the Trojans, enchanted by Sinon, disregard this axiomatic rule. Thus Sinon's persuasively presented half-truth (his portrayal of Ulixes, that is identical to the one also espoused by the Trojans) dupes the Trojans into believing his half-lies (his personal 'story'). A character intentionally modeled after two actors/impersonators (Sinon and Ulixes), Achaemenides in the Aeneid toys with the expectations associated with impersonation. When Anchises spares his life he does not know that the Greek is telling the truth. He does so not unaware of the fact that the wretched looking suppliant might also be part of yet another dolus·, still, he expects that he will not. Thus, Anchises also joins in the staging of the episode, by assuring that Achaemenides is not play-acting (telling lies). He challenges Achaemenides to break free, in his performance, from the limitations (the Sinon model) that Vergil's plot-epic narrative has already prescribed, and be his true self. Indeed, the way in which Achaemenides refers to his motives for joining the Trojan campaign suggest that his participation in the expedition as Ulixes' companion was a role he had to play, against his will, under the direction of his father (and the constraints of poverty). Such a reading of his personal story exhorts the audience to interpret Achaemenides' happiness to join the Trojans as genuine, an opportunity to take up another, more promising role - as much as a necessity enforced by the dire alternative.

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The revelation of his true self in the Vergilian environment is the first thing underlined in the way Achaemenides makes his appearance on the new stage in Ovid's narrative: Met. 14.165-166 iam non hirsutus amictu, iam suus et spinis conserto tegmine nullis ('no longer roughly clad, his garments no longer pinned with thorns, but his own man once more'). Comfortable with being part of the Trojan group, Achaemenides in the Metamorphoses is just too happy being finally himself (suus). The negative form of the descriptive phrase is an explicit annotation to Achaemenides' appearance in the Aeneid. Notably, the Vergilian hero's ragged ambiance in the Metamorphoses becomes in retrospect a costume, suggesting that the Ovidian reader approach Achaemenides' conduct in Aeneid 3 before the Trojans as performance after all. Ironically, Macareus, the direct audience of Ovid's Achaemenides, would not have been in a position to appreciate the difference in ambiance, for he was not present at the original performance of his former comrade. Achaemenides' assertion that at the moment of Polyphemus' pelting of the Greek ship he felt almost as if he, too, were on board conveys that he wishes to project his own perspective as identical to and hence representative of the standpoint of his former Ithacan comrades. The hero's claim to speak on behalf of the Ithacan crew sounds both ironic and amusing. Achaemenides was left behind and thought to be dead, as Macareus' introductory comments tellingly convey (14.161-163 noscit Achaemeniden inprovisoque repertum / vivere miratus, 'qui te casusve deusve / servat, Achaemenide? 'He recognized Achaemenides, and astonished at finding him alive beyond expectation, said: 'What chance, what god has saved you, Achaemenides?'). Yet, thanks to Aeneas, he managed to survive, and the passage of time has converted his extreme Cyclops experience into a memory and material for impressionable story telling, and perhaps a source of secret self-indulgence for the narrator. 53 The left-behind Ithacan is safe and prosperous now, while his former comrades, who fled the island of the Cyclops, and who allegedly were - and for Achaemenides, who at the moment is ignorant of their fate, could still be - the lucky ones, are dead. Apart from fleshing out Ovid's erudite response to Vergil's challenge of character improvisation, Macareus' presence reinforces Ovid's mockery of Ulixes. Reserved and laconic in his comments on his former leader, Macareus nonetheless allows his actions to speak for himself and convey his Aeneas' words in Aen. 1.203 forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit ('and perhaps, one day, it will be pleasant to reflect back at these adventures') may well come to mind and, to a certain degree, it may sound prophetic.

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awareness that following Ulixes leads to certain death. As he wraps up his own recollections, which spread over nearly three hundred lines and cover Ulixes' adventures following the Cyclopeia, Macareus in a single line confesses that he cut his homecoming journey short because he was afraid (14.440 pertimui, fateor, nactusque hoc litus adbaesi, Ί got scared, I confess it, and having reached this shore I stayed behind'). The witticism in this phrase is contingent with the realization that Macareus, allegedly a Homeric character, releases feelings that are anything but heroic. At the same time, ironically, he is also the only other survivor of the ill-fated Ithacan fleet, possibly suggesting that, in the company of Ulixes, security and survival are not guaranteed. N o t bound by behavioral codes of earlier epic moments, Macareus does not hesitate to confess that he deserted his Greek companions voluntarily. 54 In fact, the etymology of his name, f r o m μ ά κ α ρ , the 'blessed one', may well toy with the (unexpectedly) happy outcome of his decision to stay behind, hence alive.55 In conclusion, as he recalls Vergil's Achaemenides episode, Ovid emulates the poet of the Aeneid by engaging in a dialogue intended to highlight his mastery over the governing rules of textuality. A narrative invented originally to bring Ulixes and Aeneas next to one another, and to use the Greek's conduct as a foil for the superior leadership credentials of the Roman hero, Achaemenides' performance is metamorphosed in Ovid's poem into a commentary on Vergil's approach to the Homeric text. Ovid's competition against Vergil is also in evidence when the former reaches beyond the Aeneid in order to construct his own, independent discourse with the

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Markedly, when Ovid first introduces Macareus, he states that the hero did not desert his comrades out of fear; rather, he grew weary of prolonged toil (14.158 taedia longa laborum). In this clause one can see how the poet of the Metamorphoses comments on the very idea of labor, a cardinal notion in the Aeneid. An independent-minded comrade, who willingly exiles himself from Ulixes' world, Macareus does not seem to fit in Aeneas' world of labor either: in some way, he is a genuine Ovidian character. Thus his desertion becomes a case-study of two different perspectives serving two different literary purposes. At the same time, the two verses that describe Macareus' decision to jump ship at Cumae, 14.158 and 14.440, are set as the opening and closing lines of the AchaemenidesMacareus encounter (14.156-440). Thus situated, they mark the beginning and the end of a unit that, regarding their content and length, might appear distracting to the reader, and they solidify the unity of the lengthiest episode (should one exclude the Sicilian interlude) in the 'little Aeneid'. From a different angle, Hinds 1998, 112 n. 22, points out the pun involved in coining for Macareus a name whose etymology ('μάκαρ') contrasts that of Achaemenides ( ' ά χ ο ζ ' ) .

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Homeric archetype of the Cyclopeia. Dipping into the intelligent textuality of the Cyclops and Galatea episode, the Achaemenides narrative proves pivotal in effecting the integration of the unorthodox Sicilian interlude into the 'little Aeneid', while simultaneously solidifying Achaemenides' own position in the Metamorphoses as well. Finally, experimentation with performance techniques enables the readers to observe in Achaemenides' incessant transformation, from actor to scriptwriter to audience, another form of metamorphosis frequently occurring in the Ovidian epic, and to analyze the implication of interdependence in Ovid's incessant crossing of genres. In his negotiation between the boundaries set by a sophisticated tradition and the unlimited potential of his own poetic ingenuity, the poet of the Metamorphoses finds in the Achaemenides narrative a prime opportunity to advertise his talent in declaring that it is always possible to reinvent the invention.

Chapter Four Marginalizing the Central: Macareus' Anamnesis 1.

Introduction

Ovid's recast of the Homeric Ulixes' apologoi continues in the narrative of Macareus. As soon as Achaemenides has completed his version of Odyssey 9, Macareus, Ovid's counter invention to Vergil's Achaemenides, takes over and offers an intriguing case of textual study, for his role in the Metamorphoses at once parallels and complements that of Achaemenides. Replacing his former companion as narrator, Macareus reproduces a considerable section of Odyssey 10 in the early section of his speech. In this, Ovid's readers follow the tales of Aeolus {Met. 14.223-232 = Od. 10.1-76), the Laestrygonians {Met. 14.233-242 = Od. 10.80-132) and Circe, up to the point of the transformation of Ulixes' comrades, first into pigs and subsequently back into their original human form {Met. 14.248-307 = Od. 10.135-399). At the same time, the earnest appeal to Aeneas to stay away from Circe's shores {Met. 14.244ff.procul bine, mihi crede, videnda / insula visa mihi!... tuque, ο iustissime Troum, I ... moneo, fuge litora Circes!, 'Trust me, I have little doubt that it is better that you see the island, which I have seen, at a distance!... And you most righteous Trojan... stay clear from Circe's shores!'), resonates the Vergilian Achaemenides' call to the Trojans to flee the Cyclops' land {Aen. 3.639-640 sed fugite, ο miseri, fugite atque ab litora funem / rumpite, 'But flee, you hapless ones, flee and cut your cables from the shore!'). 1 Yet the main part of Macareus' reply to Achaemenides is devoted to a tale that is not set in the world of Ulixes. It is this tale that I purport to explore in the present chapter. Cf. Baldo 1995, 136-141, on the verbal correspondences between Odyssey 10 and Metamorphoses 14, noting several Vergilian implants from Aeneid 3; Segal 1968, 419-442, is still the classic analysis of the development of Circe's character in Homer, Vergil, and Ovid.

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2. The Plight of Picus and the Quest for Dido Metamorphoses 14.320-434 recounts the transformation of Picus, one of the earliest Italian kings, and his beloved Canens. The story is narrated by Macareus, one of the Ovidian Ulixes' crewmen, to his comrade Achaemenides. Following the restoration of the Greeks to their human form, Macareus continues, Ulixes and his men have a prolonged stay on the island of Circe (14.308 annua nos illic tenuit mora, 'we tarried in that country for a year'). During that time, Macareus had the chance to hear several peculiar tales (14.308-309 multaque praesens / tempore tarn longo vidi, multa auribus hausi, 'and in so long a time many were the things I saw with my own eyes and many were the tales I heard'), 2 foremost among which he counts the story of Picus' metamorphosis. Macareus clarifies that he did not witness the transformation himself, but one of Circe's attendants told him of it as the two of them walked by a statue of a young man with a woodpecker on his head: ilia mihi niveo factum de marmore signum ostendit iuvenale gerens in vertice picum, aede sacra positum multisque insigne coronis. quis foret et quare sacra coleretur in aede, cur hanc ferret avem, quaerenti et scire volenti 'accipe' ait, 'Macareu, dominaeque potentia quae sit hinc quoque disce meae; tu dictis adice mentem! (Met. 14.313-319) This nymph pointed out to me a snow-white marble statue of a young man with a woodpecker on his head. The statue was set in a sacred shrine and attracted attention for its many wreaths. When in my curiosity I asked who it was and why he was worshipped in that holy place and why he had the bird upon his head, she told me this story: 'Listen, Macareus, and learn from this how strong is my mistress' magic. And do pay attention to what I say...'. Circe's maid tells the story in order to demonstrate to Macareus her mistress' power. In the story, Circe falls deeply in love with the young and exceptionally beautiful Picus, but when she confesses her feelings she is rejected, for the youth already is happily married to the nymph Canens.

Macareus' emphasis o n his direct perception, stressed also elsewhere (most characteristically, in his urging Aeneas to keep off C i r c e ' s territory: 1 4 . 2 4 4 - 2 4 5 procul

hinc,

mihi

crede, videnda / insula, visa mihil), may emulate Achaemenides' repeated reference to vision as performance marker.

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Scorned and angry, Circe turns him into a woodpecker, while Canens, after a desperate and fruitless search for her beloved, consumes herself in mourning and disappears into thin air.3 The story of Picus' transformation is known from a number of other native Roman traditional sources, and there is brief mention of it in the Aeneid (7.187-191), yet Ovid has taken great liberty with his reproduction. N o source specifies, for example, that the transformation took place during a hunting expedition and that Picus' attendants were also turned into wild animals. 4 In addition, the nymph Canens is an Ovidian invention, and some modern critics consider it primarily an aetiological invention. She provides an aetion for a place called Canens, which actually happens to coincide with the sacred grove of the Camenae, the Italian Muses, near the Porta Capena. 5 The same critics have argued that Ovid's liberty with the details of the plot follows the regular recurrence of similar thematic motifs along the Metamorphoses.6 Thus, the triangular love story between Picus, Canens, and Circe is linked thematically to the two immediately preceding love triangles of Galatea-Acis-Polyphemus and Scylla-Glaucus-Circe. The parallel plots in those stories record transformations under similar circumstances, while in all three complexes, the third-party angle seems to have been added by 3

4 5

6

For Nagle 1988, 87, Ovid tempts the reader to entertain the likelihood of a liaison between Circe's famula and Macareus (esp. Met. 14.310-314), a 'below the stairs' counterpart to that between Ulysses and Circe herself. ... The amorous dalliance between the witch and the captain syntactically becomes contemporaneous with the discourse between maidservant and crewman, and is further analogized to it in the subtle correlation between clam and sola. Cf. detailed discussion on the tradition behind Picus in Börner ad 14.308ff, 108-109. Börner ad 14.308ff, 110, and ad 14.433f, 143-144; Myers 1994, 105-113; Tissol 1997, 210214. The outline of the Picus and Canens story is preserved in the version of the Picus story recorded by Servius ad Aen. 7.190, the principal difference being the presence of Pomona in the place of Canens as Picus' beloved spouse. In Ovid's text, Pomona, who makes an appearance a few hundred lines later in the same book, in the first purely Roman legend recorded in the poem, is courted by, and subsequently falls for, Vertumnus. For ancient references to Picus' various shapes and tales, see Carter, Roscher III.2, 24942496 s.v.; on the structural and narrative significance of the Pomona and Vertumnus tale in the Metamorphoses plot, see K.S. Myers, 'Ultimus Ardor. Pomona and Vertumnus in Ovid's Met. 14.623-771', CJ 89 (1994), 225-250. For Myers the episode is the first in a series of stories set truly and completely on Roman ground, and they involve aetia of a religious nature, of local deities, rituals or sacred sites, thus setting the narrative tone and spirit of the stories immediately following. In Tissol's view, likewise, Picus and Canens show the cosmological emphasis of the Metamorphoses in general, becoming subtly combined with local aetiologies reminiscent of the Fasti.

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Ovid. 7 Nagle's reading of the passion underlying the relationship of the lover and the beloved in each erotic triangle as analogous and allegorical to that of the poet/narrator to audience is groundbreaking for the appreciation of the unorthodox content of Ovid's Aeneid' on a more advanced level of literary interpretation.8 One could also add that this intratextual correspondence to the Sicilian tales parallels the discourse between elegiac and epic Polyphemus in the Achaemenides episode, bringing the metatextual function of the Achaemenides and Macareus narratives even closer together. I would like to suggest that the particular plot details of the Picus narrative are part of yet another demonstration of Ovid's deep erudition and literary acumen in his experimenting with poetology. They invite the reader to detect the shadow of Vergil's Dido behind the character of Circe. The two heroines are linked already in the Aeneid. Ovid traces and expands on the subtleties of his archetype as he brings the two formidable females together, even though he does not allow the one to emerge clearly out the other's shadow. In the second half of the chapter I shall explain how the detailed narration of the Circe and Picus story, and its enrichment with the invented character of Canens, addresses Ovid's capital concern of establishing himself as Vergil's direct epic successor. The Ovidian Circe is indeed to be read against her Vergilian prototype, but Ovid's alternative Picus narrative strives to reproduce a completely different Vergilian crux. The latter concerns a fundamental epic convention, and a theme that actually dominates the second half of the Aeneid: the conflict between Heaven and Hell.

Myers 1994, 108; for Ellsworth 1986, the 'little Aeneid' is structured precisely around these three love triangles. For Nagle 1988, in each of the three love triangles {Met. 13.750-897, 13.898-14.69, 14.320-434), the characters are cast into roles that are essentially variations of a single acting and reflect the narrators in their pursuit of the audience's 'seduction'; in this respect, these tales are rival narratives, literary products. The same critic, in a complementary study published the same year, 'Erotic Pursuit and Narrative Seduction in Ovid's Metamorphoses', Ramus 17 (1988), 32-51, implicitly likens the allusive reading of a lover's erotic chase to a narrator's effort to captivate the attention of his readers. Thus, metapoetics transforms a reader's approach to a long chain of love hunts throughout the Metamorphoses epic (pp. 45-46 discuss Circe's pursuit of Picus); to Zwierlein {per litteras) Nagle's argument seems rather tenuous.

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Ovid's version of Picus presupposes the text of the Aeneid, well beyond Vergil's one and only brief reference to the legendary Ausonian king. Let us begin with the description of this mythical ruler: Picus' statue is made of marble (313), is located within a sacred temple (316), which is also its own shrine, and is decorated with plenty of garlands (315). As in the Metamorphoses, Vergil's Picus appears in the form of a statue, albeit wooden, standing amidst the king's other famous ancestors (Aen. 7A77i. veterum effigies ex ordine avorum / antiqua e cedro, 'and in order are images of their ancient forefathers, carved of old cedar'). The statue is situated within a sacred space, King Latinus' palace, which initially was Picus' own royal residence and a most holy landmark for the Latins (7.170f. tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis urbe fuit summa,, 'imposing and vast, towering with a hundred columns, his house stood on top of the city'). The religiosity surrounding the early king receives additional emphasis in his portrayal as Quirinal priest in full paraphernalia (7.187f. ipse Quirinali lituo parvaque sedebat / succinctus trabea laevaque ancile gerebat, 'he was seated girt with a short garment holding the Quirinal staff, and with the sacred shield in his left hand'). Further, the ominous opening of Aeneid 7, with Circe transforming those reaching her land into 'images and figures of beasts' (vultus ac terga feramm, 7.20; cf. monstra, 7.21), points to the transformation of Picus' comrades into variarum monstra, ferarum, 'monstrous shapes of various beasts' (14.414). The witch's 'untrodden groves' (inaccessos lucos, 7.11) is also to be seen in the circumstances of Picus' entrapment 'in a forest thick with trees... where the woods were dense, a place where a horse could not penetrate' (14.360f. in densum trabibus nemus... plurima qua silva est et equo loca pervia non sunt) - even though there is no mention that the latter is Circe's nemus. It is, however, Vergil's brief reference to Picus' transformation by Circe at Aen. 7.189-191, and the intriguing intratextual background of this episode that inspired Ovid's critical imagination and led to Circe's importation into the Metamorphoses. The Vergilian passage runs as follows: Picus, equum domitor, quem capta cupidine coniunx aurea percussum virga versumque venenis fecit avem Circe sparsitque coloribus alas. (Aen. 7.189-191)

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Picus, the tamer of horses, whom his bride Circe, possessed with erotic passion, struck with her golden rod, and with drugs transformed into a bird and spotted his feathers with colors. Vergilian Picus' introduction as equum domitor obviously corresponds to Ovid's characterization of the same hero as utilium hello studiosus equorum ('obsessed with horses fit for war', 14.321). The correspondence seemingly begins to fall apart as the text moves on to Picus' change into an avian: the king's transformation into a woodpecker as presented in the Aeneid contrasts with the Metamorphoses account (14.386-396) in one significant detail. Vergil's Picus was turned into a colorful bird by Circe's magic wand and poisons. His Ovidian counterpart fell victim to the same wand (387 ter haculo tetigit, 'thrice she touched him with her rod') - and, additionally, to magic spells (387 tria carmina dixit, 'three magic charms she uttered'). Still, the contrast is only specious, since Vergil's veneria in the particular context can also mean 'magic charms'. This interpretation relies on a latent intertextual proximity, for in the particular passage of Aeneid 7 Circe's image is much indebted to that of Vergil's Dido in Aeneid 1. In a 1999 article, Clifford Weber, discussing a centuries-old critical problem, contended that the term aurea, which opens Aen. 1.698, is in fact a nominative, rather than ablative, and modifies Q u e e n Dido. 9 Weber finds support f o r his argument in a striking parallelism he outlines between Dido and Circe. Aen. 7.190 is one of only two other lines in the Aeneid opening with aurea.w The term here functions as an attribute for Circe, 11 since there is a long tradition of characterizing goddesses as 'golden', notwithstanding Circe's own descent f r o m the Sun. Much more significant is the observation

9

10

"

Weber 1999, 317-327; see esp. 321-322, for the numerous textual ties of Dido to gold; contra, Zwierlein (per litteras) points out that the phrase regina aurea is unparalleled in Latin literature prior to the Middle Ages. The other line, 4.139, is yet another reference to Dido, on which see below. Although arguments to the contrary do exist: Williams 1972, ad 7.190, for example, takes aurea to be ablative modifying virga; Zwierlein (per litteras) likewise insists on taking aurea as ablative taken together with virga, especially in view of other literary examples, f r o m Ovid's texts and beyond, of the phrase aurea virga in the ablative (e.g. Ovid, Her. 16.64, Met. 11.109; Hor. C. 1.10.18-19; Mart. 7.74.2). Yet Weber rightly observes that an attribution to virga alone without a corresponding one to venenis produces dissonance that spoils the otherwise obvious pairing. What is more, a similar rhetorical balance in 1.697-698 is spoiled once aurea is viewed as ablative, since it is syntactically made to modify one of the terms involved in the balance; cf. Weber 1999, 323-325; on the contrary, Zwierlein defends the ablative as part of an alternative parallelism in Aen. 1.697f. (aulaeis... superbis ~aurea... virga).

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that the adjective aureus is often applied to women in love. Vergil's aurea Circe is tellingly referred to as capto, cupidine; Dido in Aeneid 1 is called aurea by Cupid, who has just arrived at the Carthaginian palace in the place of Ascanius to attack her, as his mother Venus had advised him: with occultum... ignem fallasque veneno, 'hidden fire, treacherousness, and poisonous words' (1.688). This last verse brings the two golden females even closer together. Cupid uses words of seduction to deceive Dido after causing her to fall in love. The term venerium in the particular context does not mean poisons or drugs literally; it best translates as 'charm', 'deception'. The same word appears in the passage of Aeneid 7 relating Circe's punishment of Picus, a mere line below the goddess' description as capta cupidine. This intratextual concurrence makes stronger the tie between Circe and Dido, for the term venenis at Aen. 7.190 might likewise be rendered as 'charms', a translation that includes in its spectrum of meanings expressions such as 'deceptively charming words of love' as well as 'magic charms'. 12 When Ovid, then, lists as causes of Picus' transformation Circe's baculum and carmina (387), he reproduces Vergil's text on the same sorceress in synonymous diction. In fact, only a few lines earlier in the Picus story Ovid refers to Circe's magic spells as preces et verba precantia (365), where prex is obviously negative.13 He also places it in the vicinity of carmen and within a sentence containing a third term more or less synonymous: concipit ilia preces et verba precantia 14 dicit

13 14

Putnam 1995, 106, maintains the most common interpretation of 'poison' for venerium in order to advance the similarity between Circe and Allecto, and picture the former as anticipatory of the latter in the series of transformations that govern Aeneid 7. Cf. OLD, s.w. prex 2.b, supporting a translation of the term as 'curse'. Notably, the manuscript tradition here attests an alternative script, venefica, which modifies verba, and so may point by implication to Vergil's venenis inAen. 7.190. Since venefica clearly refers to Circe's songs, it confirms, even looks forward to, the translation of carmen as 'magic songs' on the following line. The attraction of experimenting with intertextuality notwithstanding, venefica is attested in the Metamorphoses only once, in 7.316 (membra... pecudis validosque venefica sucos / mergit, 'the sorceress plunged the members of the animal into juices of great potency'), in a context that does relate to magic practice (Medea) but not incantations. On the contrary, verba precantia is a popular phrase throughout Ovid's epic, since it occurs four more times, in the same metrical position (2.482 most notably, preces et... verba precantia·, also, 5.163; 7.590; 9.159). The frequency rate is a very strong argument in favor of precantia, which is the form printed by Anderson and favored by Tarrant. None of these attestations, however, or any of the at least five additional occasions where verba and some form of prex orprecare are set,

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ignotosque deos ignoto carmine adorat {Met. 14.365-366) she turned to the framing of prayers and recited muttering incantations, worshipping her weird gods with a weird charm Acknowledgment of the thematic matrix just detailed corroborates Circe's dialogue not only with her Vergilian counterpart but also with the latter's intratextual interlocutor, Dido. Dido's interaction with the sorceress daughter of the Sun, in both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses, spreads more widely. The same theme of desperate one-sided female love occupies the center of Ovid's story of Circe and Picus, while Circe's first appearance before Macareus in the Metamorphoses pictures her situated in a palace of marble and seated, queen-like, on a throne, clad in shiny and golden garb: excipiunt famulae perque atria marmore tecta ad dominam ducunt. pulchro sedet ilia recessu, sollemni solio pallamque induta nitentem insuper aurato circumvelatur amictu. {Met. 14.260-263) The maidservants received us, and led us through the marble halls before their mistress. She sat on a stately throne, in a beautiful place of retreat, and she was clad in a shining robe and covered with a golden veil all around. A major difference between the Ovidian and the Vergilian versions of Circe centers on the acclaimed status of the goddess as the Latins' ancestress and spouse of Picus in the latter text. Ovid strongly dissents, inventing a spouse for Picus in the character of Canens, and subsequently staging the king's outright rejection of Circe's advances, which actually triggers Picus' transformation. Yet this clash of versions may only be a matter of appearances, paving the way for the evocation of Vergil's Dido. In his laconic reference to Picus, Vergil explicitly identifies Circe (Aen. 7.191) as the agent responsible for the king's plight, but he does not discuss her motives. Two lines earlier, however, upon referring to the goddess for the first time, the poet employs a descriptive identification to underline her conjugal relationship to Picus: capta cupidine coniunx / aurea. In doing so Vergil means to bring Circe next to Dido once again. In Aeneid 4, during the famous thunderstorm that breaks out in the midst of their hunting exeither in the same or in consecutive verses, refer to magic incantations. T h i s perhaps explains the disparity in the manuscript tradition in favor, for certain scribes, of a more specific denotation of the magic charms.

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pedition, Dido and Aeneas find themselves alone in the same cave. There, they apparently consummate their union, which the love-struck queen hurries to define as 'marriage' (4.172 coniugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam, 'she calls it 'marriage'; calling it thus she tried to conceal her mistake'). T h e fated couple is defined immediately thereafter as captos cupidine (4.194). The marital union of the Trojan leader and the Carthaginian queen exists only in Dido's understanding 1 5 - a temptingly suggestive precedent for Circe's 'conjugal' relationship to Picus. 16 It should not escape notice that the contextual frame of the Picus story is Ulixes' adventure on the island of Circe: the hero's temporary affair with Circe, related in the Ovidian text less than a hundred lines earlier, is also defined as coniugium (14.297-298 inde fides dextraeque data thalamoque receptus / coniugii dotem sociorum corpora poscit, 'then faith was pledged and right hands given and, being accepted as her husband, he demanded as a wedding gift the bodies of his friends'). Ovid's version of Picus' fate, then, may toy with the laconic narrative of Picus' punishment as recorded in the Aeneid, and may pose as the revelation of what actually happened between Picus and Circe. Even if one does not see in the transformation of Picus a commentary on the text of the Aeneid, there is little doubt that Ovid's Circe and Vergil's Dido develop similarities in their behavior that lie beyond mere coincidence. First, Macareus was keen to observe that the statue of Circe's (desired) 'husband' Picus received conspicuous treatment, as it was standing within its own sacred temple and had been adorned with a particularly large number of dedicatory garlands. Picus' veneration recalls the honors that Dido paid to her deceased husband Sychaeus, to w h o m she had built a special temple of marble within her palace (Aen. 4.457-459 praeterea fuit in tectis de marmore templum / coniugis antiqui, miro quod honore colebat, / velleribus niveis et festa fronde revinctum, 'moreover, there was in the palace a marble shrine to her former husband, which she tended with wondrous honor, and crowned it with snow-white fleeces and festal foliage'). Then, the encounter between Picus and Circe is modeled on the course of the Dido-Aeneas relationship in the first half of Aeneid 4. Picus sets out on a hunting expedition, spears in hand (14.344 laevaque hastilia bina ferebat, 'he was carrying a pair 15

16

For example, N . Rudd, 'Dido's Culpa', in: S.J. Harrison (ed.), Oxford Readings in Vergil's Aeneid (Oxford 1990), 153, commenting on Aen. 4.172: "[H]ere culpa is distinguished f r o m conjugium, and the word nomen implies that the relationship isn't really a conjugium at all". Börner ad 14.308ff., 110, notes that already in antiquity Dido's 'marriage' was widely held as a primary model for Ovid's Circe.

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of spears in his left hand'), not unlike Aeneas in Aeneid 1, as he ventures to explore the shores of Libya bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro, 'tightly holding in his hand a pair of spears with a tip of broad steel' (1.313). 17 Supernatural intervention causes a thunderstorm that separates Aeneas (and Dido) f r o m the rest of the group (4.120-125; 160-165), while Circe's magical powers create an illusion of a boar that lures Picus away f r o m his comrades also into an isolated spot (14.358-371). Circe's advances echo Dido's appeals soon after the queen finds out that Aeneas is preparing to leave Carthage. F o r example, both Circe and Dido address their pleas to their beloved as suppliants (supplex, 14.374; cf. 4.414; also 4.424, where Anna is going to beg in Dido's place). Circe's appeal to Picus' beauty (14.372f. per tua lumina... quae mea ceperunt, perque banc, pulcherrime, formam, 'by those eyes which have enthralled my own, and by that beauty, fairest of youths') does not have a corresponding precursor. Still, it may recall Dido's passionate as well as climactic initial confrontational address (4.313; 315 per... has lacrimas dextramque tuam... per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos, 'by these tears, and by your right hand... by our marriage and the wedlock that has begun'). Additionally, the employment of the adjectivepulcherrimus for Picus' beauty inevitably reminds of pulcherrimus Aeneas at Aen. 4.129, in the scene just prior to the famous hunting episode which overall, by likening Aeneas to Apollo, solidifies the pairing of the hero to Dido-Artemis: notably, Aeneas is never again cast as pulcherrimus in Vergil's epic. Both Circe and Dido supplement their proposals with promises of additional benefits. Picus will marry a goddess (dea, 14.374) and become the son in law of the Sun (14.375); Aeneas' prospective consort is a queen. Picus rejects Circe's call, proudly honoring his marital vows (14.380 nec Venere externa socialia foedera laedam, 'nor will I violate my bonds of marriage by any other love'), and Aeneas objects to Dido's definition of their affair as a wedding (4.338-339 nec... haec in foedera veni, Ί did not come to this agreement [of a marriage]'). To top it all, when, rebuffed, Circe emphati-

17

Zwierlein 2000, 18-21, discussing Aen. 1.313 in detail, remarks that this exact same verse, bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro, is used a second time in the last book of the Aeneid (12.165) to refer to Turnus, Aeneas' rival for the hand of Lavinia, whose appearance resembles that of Paris in II. 3.18-19, when he is about to engage Menelaus in the duel that will turn out to be an embarrassing loss for the Trojan. In a way, Vergil undermines the image of Aeneas as Carthaginian hunter, likening him to Paris, a simile that the poet would later repeat to portray conquered Turnus. Ovid ingeniously confronts his readers with this array of ominous associations by adding his Picus to this group of double-spear holders.

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cally labels herself twice in two successive lines as laesa, amans, femina ('hurt, in love, woman' 14.384-385), she picks three modifiers that could sum up Dido's situation as well (cf. Aen. 5.6 notumque furens quid femina possit, 'and knowledge of what a woman in frenzy can do'). Even Circe's threats f o r vengeance, non inpune feres, 'you shall not go u n p u n i s h e d ' (14.383), echo the Carthaginian queen's thundering address to Aeneas: dabis, improbe, poenas, 'you shall be punished, shameless one!' (4.386). Dido's presence in the Circe and Picus episode is so tightly intertwined with the various aspects of the narrative throughout that it can be detected even on occasions where one would least expect it, notably in the description of Picus' appearance. The latter resembles the Vergilian Aeneas' portrayal in many respects but also evokes a number of Dido's traits. This deviation f r o m the pattern of direct parallelism in character roles otherwise observed throughout the episode is intentional. The ultimate goal is to approach a single episode or character as segment that is excised f r o m a unit of interlocking intertexts, and can be best appreciated only through thinking that combines multiple points of viewing. First, the parallelism itself: Picus sets out on a hunting expedition seated conspicuously on his horse (14.343f. tergumque premebat / acris equi, 'he bestrode a prancing horse'; 14.363 spumantia terga, 'foaming steed') and garbed in a purple cloak that is fastened with a golden brooch (14.345 poeniceam fulvo chlamydem contractus ab auro, 'wearing a purple mantle fastened with a brooch of gold'). His description resembles the posture and ambiance of Dido, who likewise rides a richly decorated, proud horse (4.134f. ostroque insignis et auro / stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit, 'her prancing steed stands brilliant in gold and purple, and fiercely chews the foaming bit'), and is herself dressed in gold and purple (4.139 aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem, 'golden is the brooch that clasps her purple cloak'). Ovid's skill in inferring to textual models f r o m multiple sources, which are further interconnected as they correct each other, is best displayed in the description of Picus' cloak and brooch. 18 Homer's Ulixes is the owner of a famous epic brooch that, as with Picus and Dido, fastens a purple mantle (Od. 19.225-227). This brooch, additionally, depicts a detail f r o m a hunt, described as remarkably lifelike, which conveniently reflects the hunting adventure of Picus. This reference to the text of the Odyssey is particularly fitting within a story that covers a part of Ulixes' adventure on the island of 18

Yet another textbook case of a 'window reference'; cf. Thomas 1986, 171-198, esp. 188189.

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Circe, including the actual encounter between the two, related by Ovid only a few lines earlier. Interestingly, the hero, unlike poor Picus, not only outwits the goddess' magic power (14.291ff.), but also concedes to a similar coniugium proposal (14.298) - although only temporarily, as the reader of the Odyssey well knows. More obvious is the likeness in the portraits of Picus and Dido, the huntress of Aeneid 4. There, the Carthaginian queen, covered by a purple mantle fastened by a golden brooch, sets out, like the Ausonian king, on a hunting adventure that will bring about the deceitful and disastrous union with Aeneas at the cave, erroneously christened coniugium. The invented character of Canens claims her own share in this intra- as much as inter-textual game of identities directed by Circe. Canens is gifted with powers and qualities that are remarkable and at the same time strikingly similar to those of Circe. Canens and Circe are incarnations of two different, in fact opposing, aspects of singing, the innocent song associated with the Muses and the incantations of magic that belong to the sphere of the occult. 19 Also a daughter of a divinity, Canens is an exceptional singer, able to charm birds, tame wild beasts, and move still nature (14.338-340 silvas et saxa movere / et mulcere feras et flumina longa morari / ore suo volucresque vagas retinere solebat, 'she used to move woods and rocks, soften wild beasts, stop the long rivers with her singing, and stay the wandering birds'). 20 H e r control over the natural world is as powerful as that of the sorceress Circe, and, not fortuitously, Canens' charming songs and Circe's magic charms are both described as carmina (cf. for example, 14.341, for Canens; 14.357, for Circe). Still, where love is concerned, Canens' carmina are more potent in capturing the object of one's erotic desire than Circe's magic carmina. Or, in Fränkel's words, in the Ovidian world, "magic has no place in love, and no witchcraft can force the beloved to return affection". 21 This realization is a dominant plot theme throughout the extensive Circe unit in the Metamorphoses. Along these lines, the Picus and Canens affair may be viewed as metaphorical 'single combat' between the spells of Circe (enforced, one-sided 19

20

21

L. Spahlinger, Ars LatetArte Sua. Die Poetologie der Metamorphosen Ovids (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1996), 161-174. Canens' exceptional song power is attributed elsewhere in Ovid's works to famous singers such as Orpheus (Met. 10.143-144; 11.1-2, 42) and Arion (Fasti 2.84-86). H. Fränkel, A Poet between Two Worlds (Berkeley 1945), 106, w i t h e r s 2.99-104 in mind, has little doubt that Ovid's amatory poetry has influenced the composition of the Canens story.

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p a s s i o n a t e l o v e ) a n d t h e s o n g s of C a n e n s ( g e n u i n e m u t u a l e r o t i c a t t r a c t i o n ) . 2 2 T h i s j u x t a p o s i t i o n of l o v e a n d m a g i c a g a i n l o o k s b a c k t o Aeneid

4,

w h e r e it is p r e s e n t e d as a n o p t i o n a l l e g e d l y p u t f o r t h b y D i d o . T h e C a r t h a g i n i a n q u e e n s u m m o n s m a g i c as a p o t e n t i a l s o l u t i o n t o r e l i e v e h e r t h o u g h t s of A e n e a s ' m e m o r y a n d c u r e h e r h e a r t f r o m t h e s i c k n e s s of l o v e , e v e n t h o u g h s h e is f u l l y a w a r e t h a t s u c h m e t h o d s a r e i n e f f e c t i v e . 2 3 T h e f o r m i d a b l e M a s s y l i a n s o r c e r e s s f r o m t h e d e p t h s of E t h i o p i a is a t t r i b u t e d p o w e r s m o d e l e d o n t h o s e of C i r c e b u t a l s o n e a r l y i d e n t i c a l t o t h e c a p t i v a t i n g q u a l i ties h i g h l i g h t e d i n C a n e n s : (the E t h i o p i a n witch) [promittit] ... sistere aquam fluviis et vertere sidera retro, n o c t u r n o s q u e m o v e t manis: mugire videbis sub pedibus terram et descendere m o n t i b u s ornos (Aen. 4.489-491) [she promises] t o stall t h e f l o w of rivers and t u r n back t h e stars, and she stirs awake t h e spirits at night: y o u shall see the earth t r e m b l i n g u n d e r y o u r feet and t h e ash-trees c o m i n g d o w n f r o m the m o u n t a i n s (Circe) exsiluere loco (dictu mirabile) silvae, i n g e m u i t q u e solum, vicinaque palluit arbor, sparsaque sanguineis m a d u e r u n t pabula guttis, et lapides visi m u g i t u s edere raucos (Met. 14.406-409) [because of Circe] t h e w o o d s , w o n d r o u s t o say, leaped f r o m their place, t h e g r o u n d r u m b l e d , the n e i g h b o u r i n g trees t u r n e d pale, and t h e grasses w h e r e t h e p o i s o n s fell were stained w i t h clots of b l o o d , and t h e stones s e e m e d t o voice hoarse moanings (Canens) silvas et saxa movere et mulcere feras et flumina longa morari 22

23

O n Circe and Canens as competing artists in the pattern, for example, of Minerva and Arachne respectively, and the reading of Canens' failure in term of the artist's failure to reconcile personal vision with reality, cf. Leach 1974, 127f. The popularity of employing magic to capture one's lost lover or cure one's love sickness is attested in the queen's fake enthusiasm as she shares with Anna her thought to seek the aid of a sorceress (Aen. 4.478-79), whom she credits with admirable powers (4.480493). Vergil clearly states, though, that this recourse to magic is only a pretext to fool Anna (4.477, 500ff.).

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ore suo volucresque vagas retinere solebat. (Met. 14.338-341) [Canens] used to move woods and rocks, soften wild beasts, stop the long rivers with her singing, and stay the wandering of birds The obvious contradiction in Dido's employment of magic to serve her erotic passion, even though she is well aware that such means of control have no power over love, is amplified in the Metamorphoses in the clash between Circe and Canens. Canens, on the other hand, personifies the genuine power of love in its complete and absolute form, being the lover as well as the object of love. A final remark: Ovid's decision to keep Canens silent, always describing her from the external focalizer's angle, purposely sabotages the development of a fully-fledged, self-standing personality for his heroine. Little more than a shadow of a character, Canens emerges instead as a unique idealized incarnation of innocent love, a foil for both Circe and Dido and a literary technique that aligns the two. If we locate, as Tissol proposes, the place named after Canens near the Porta Capena, it is possible to catch one additional glimpse of Dido and Carthage. According to Livy, Hannibal, accompanied by two thousand of his men, 'rode right up to the Porta Capena, in order to examine the site of the city' (Hannibal... cum duobus milibus equitum usque ad ipsam Capenam portam, ut situm urbis exploraret, obequitavit, Per. 26; ci.AUC 26.11). In Tissol's phrasing, "this story completes the advance of Circe's malignant power: she not only occupies the hills and field of Latium, but extends her influence to the site of Rome". 24 As the Hannibalic invasion of Rome is already prophesied by Dido to be her 'revenge' upon Aeneas' descendants, the aetion behind the plight of Canens cause the two powerful but erotically unlucky females, Circe and Dido, to cross paths again, with Canens being the catalyst.25

24 25

Tissol 1997,214. The allusion to Hannibal's invasion of Italy puts Ovid's Circe on par with her Vergilian counterpart: they are both behind some great disaster, all the while being invisible. On the dominant and ominous yet imperceptible presence of Circe in Aeneid 7 (and, by extension, the entire mains opus of the second half of Vergil's epic), Putnam 1970, is a classic study.

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4. Picus' Plight: Torn Between Heaven and Hell Circe appears in the Ovidian Aeneas' way at a significant moment of his journey: his fleet has just arrived in Italy. The encounter between the Trojans and Macareus, the context of the Circe and Picus narrative, happens to be the first story in Ovid's westward moving history of the world acted out on Italian ground. In the story of Circe, Picus, and Canens, Ovid's Aeneas learns not only about the power of Circe but, most notably, about her dominance over the early history and world of Italy, which is soon going to be his own world too. The infiltration of Circe at the outset of the Italian section of Aeneas' experience is designed to parallel the emergence of Circe in the beginning of Aeneid 7 (7.10-24), the opening, in other words, of the Roman half of Vergil's epic. Even though the Homeric setting about to be recalled in the Macareus story precedes Ulixes' visit to Hades, in both its rival Roman epics Aeneas is confronted with Circe's world shortly after he has completed his visit to the Underworld. The antithesis between 'Heaven' and 'Hell', an ongoing, selftransforming clash, is arguably one of the principal thematic conventions of ancient epic, and its recurrence in the works of all aspiring successors of Vergil declares its fundamentality. The evolving expression of this dualism has received a succinct treatment in the writings of Philip Hardie. 26 Commenting on Vergil's conception of the clash of conflicting forces, Hardie reads Aeneas' journey to Rome also as a journey from Hell to Heaven. He further admits that its most vivid description, observed in Aeneid 6, "is also projected on to the world above, where there is an alternation between places and times evocative of the Elysian fields (or its equivalent, the landscape of the Golden Age) and waking Hells" (p. 59). Hardie also discusses the poetological significance dictating that Vergil articulates his epic's narrative along an ongoing conflict of allusive expressions of Heaven and Hell. "The use of Hell as a starting point... also seems to symbolize the burst of power needed both by the actors and the narrator to provide the momentum for a long poem that might be in danger of an inability to escape the gravitational pull of its many predecessors. Of the two states of Heaven and Hell, Hell is the source of the greater energy. Heaven is stasis, peace, rest; Hell ceaseless movement, war, emotional turHardie 1986 discusses the conflict between the forces of Heaven and Hell as manifested throughout the Aeneid·, id. 1993, 57-87, traces the appearance and use of the Hell motif in post-Vergilian epic.

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moil. Hell is the more invasive, the more disruptive of equilibrium; Hell is likely to be the starting-point of a new movement" (p. 60). The hellish domain of Monte Circello at the opening of Aeneid 7 (10-24) clashes with the heavenly locale of the Tiber, where the Trojans first land in Italy (25-36). 27 The particular thematic arrangement and the prominence of its placement, which notably precedes the second proemium, foreshadows the dominance of the Light vs. Darkness antithesis in the structure and interpretation of the second half of the Aeneid too, inasmuch as it identifies Circe with the forces of darkness. Putnam has actually shown how the war in Italy and the various hellish forces that Aeneas will have to confront in the Iliadic half of the poem are to a considerable extent foretold by the sinister presence of Circe in Italy, although she herself never appears in person.28 In the concluding section of the present chapter I shall focus on how Ovid's Circe, who in the story of Macareus is modeled on her Vergilian counterpart, functions likewise as harbinger and allegory of the same hellish powers that the Vergilian Circe anticipates in the second half of the Aeneid. I shall also explain that her benign opposite, Canens, embodies the other extreme of this fundamental epic dualism, Heaven. Thus, in the rivalry between Circe and Canens, Ovid reworks a principal ancient epic convention, a confluence of Heaven and Hell, which indubitably governs the narrative of the Aeneid. The portrayal of Circe in Ovid only complements the image of her as altera Dido. This is especially obvious in the light of the widely held view that Vergil's Dido in the course of Aeneid 4 turns into yet another incarnation of Hell, an irrational force of darkness that strives to keep Aeneas away from the Heaven of his destined mission.29 Circe's presence in the Aeneid is confined within the boundaries of Book 7, a section teeming with dangerous females, including the Fury Allecto, a denizen and impersonation of the very domain of Hell. Vergil's portrayal of Circe, indeed, with the appearance of Allecto in mind, brings about a repre27

28

29

Hardie 1992, 67, compares the description of a journey by moonlight in Aeneid 6, as Aeneas sets out for his Descent to the Underworld (270-271), with the moonlight of Monte Circello at the opening of Aeneid 7. Along these lines, he views the light of dawn that welcomes the Trojans to the land of Latium (Aen. 7.25-26) as parallel to the world of the new light that Aeneas encounters in his visit to the Elysian fields (6.640-641). Putnam 1970; Mack 1999, 136-138, discussing the ominous presence of Circe throughout Aeneid 7, sees the sorceress and her threatening role as one outstanding link in a long chain of dangerous females whose presence dominates the seventh book of the epic. On Vergil's Dido as embodiment of Fury/Hell and pre-embodiment of Allecto, see Hardie 1993, 41-43, 44; also, J.K. Newman, The Classical Epic Tradition (Madison 1986), 158.

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sentation of the former as a parallel to the latter, and this is echoed in the language describing the two females, but also in the allusions that independently surround each of them. The howls of wild beasts, for example, that Aeneas hears as he sails by Monte Circello (Aen. 7.15-18 bine exaudiri gemitus iraeque leonum / vincla recusantum et sera sub nocte rudentum / saetigerique sues atque in praesepibus ursi / saevire, ac formae magnorum ululare luporum, 'from that place could be heard the growls of lions, madly resisting their shackles and roaring in the dead of night, bristly wild boars and bears in cages raging, and the shapes of huge wolves howling') might have reminded him of the cracking of the whip and the moans of the sinners tortured inside Phlegethon, the Hell section of the Underworld, at whose door the Fury Tisiphone, Allecto's sister, presides (Aen. 6.557-558 hinc exaudiri gemitus et saeva sonare / verbera, tum stridor ferri tractaeque catenae, 'from that place groans are heard and the sound of fierce whips, then the clangor of iron and the dragging of chains'). Transforming a human into a beast translates into yet another expression of the passage from Heaven to Hell, 30 and Circe, mistress of transformation, specializes in changing humans into wild beasts. Likewise, the Fury Allecto's visitation of Turnus numbs his rational thinking (humanity) and transforms him into a bloodthirsty beast. His new essence is aptly captured in the imagery of his armor and shield. The former is topped by a Chimera, a hybrid monster, associated with three beasts at once, lion, dragon, and goat, while the latter carries a visual representation of Io transformed into a beast. The two of them together look ahead to Turnus' bestial conduct and the many similes of savage animals, such as lion and wolf, in the remainder of the epic.31 So when Vergil outright attributes Picus' transformation (Aen. 7.189191) to a Circe who is ruled by (erotic) passion/fury (capta cupidine) and employs poisons (venenis), he all but directs the reader to connect the great epic sorceress with Allecto and the powers of darkness and Hell. 32 Ovid's decision to devote the largest section of Macareus' Circean narrative to a detailed account of the same story of Picus aims at reproducing within the

30 31

32

O n the analogy, see Hardie 1993, 65-66. Putnam 1999, 248 (on Circe's parallel to Phlegethon's sinners) and 254 (on the bestialization of Turnus). For Putnam 1999, 248, Circe transforms Picus into an animal because, as an expression of Hell, she lacks the power to elevate him to divinity (as Homer's Calypso proposed to Ulixes).

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130 Metamorphoses

the same allegorical linkage a m o n g C i r c e , m e t a m o r p h o s i s

(human t o animal, order t o disorder), and Hell. 3 3 T h e closeness o f C i r c e t o l o v e - s t r u c k D i d o is n o less decisive in ranking C i r c e a m o n g t h e dark f o r c e s of disorder and H e l l . A l r e a d y in the

Aeneid,

o n c e D i d o is swept away b y a love that is crawling deep i n t o h e r m a r r o w (Met.

1 4 . 3 5 0 ; cf. D i d o mAen.

4 . 6 6 ) , she is ruled b y passion. 3 4 H e r clear

t h i n k i n g is blurred and she is t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o a F u r y ( A e n . 4 . 4 7 2 - 4 7 3 ) . 3 5 C i r c e ' s hellish portrayal is b e s t illustrated in h e r c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h Picus. O n c e r e b u k e d , m u c h like A l l e c t o w h e n she, in the f o r m o f old C a l y b e , J u n o ' s p r i e s t e s s , tried w i t h o u t s u c c e s s t o e x c i t e in T u r n u s great a n g e r against A e n e a s (Aen.

7 . 4 1 9 f f . ) , 3 6 C i r c e is overwhelmed b y anger, w h i c h , fed

b y h e r magic, virtually brings H e l l on E a r t h in the f o r m of war that assaults s t a b i l i t y and peace. H e r t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f the natural o r d e r opens w i t h a three-line description o f this migration o f hellish forces up t o earth: ilia nocens spargit virus sucosque veneni et Noctem Noctisque deos Ereboque Chaoque convocat et longis Hecaten ululatibus orat: exsiluere loco (dictu mirabile) silvae, ingemuitque solum, vicinaque palluit arbor, sparsaque sanguineis maduerunt pabula guttis, 33

34

35

36

Like the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses narrative is directed by the same conflict between light and darkness, order and disorder. It should be pointed out, though, that for Ovid, unlike Vergil, disorder can be valued positively, as in the famous tapestry competition between Minerva and Arachne, for the antithesis is a fundamental allegory on the unorthodoxy of Ovidian poetics. Hence, the non-orderly is often identified with the poet's voice of free expression resisting the oppressive conformity of authority. These alternate incessantly, especially in the first third of the Metamorphoses, and the successive passage from chaos to order and vice versa becomes a major structural tenet facilitating the progression of the narrative in Ovid's long epic; see, for example, Wheeler 2000, 7-47, appropriately titled 'Repetition'. She is literally capta Cupidine, since Cupid in person, disguised as Ascanius, by bringing Aeneas' fated gifts to her, caused her to fall in love with the Trojan already 'mAeneid 1. Hardie 1986, 267-285, in a "hyperbolic" reading of the Dido tragedy approaches it as an allusion to the universal themes - including foremost the power struggle between Heaven and Hell (p. 279); in Hardie's view Fama is another abstraction bridging Heaven and Hell, and this alludes to the connection between Hell and Dido, who ultimately becomes inseparable from (her) Fama. Aen. 7.452-455 carries Allecto's angry response, which she opens with a sarcastic reference to herself as victa (452 en ego victa, 'here am I, the defeated one!'; cf. Circe's describing herself twice as laesa, 'hurt', in 14.384 and 385) and concludes with a most affirmative description of her perilous powers (455 bella manu letumque gero, 'in my hand I bear wars and death').

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et lapides visi mugitus edere raucos, et latrare canes et humus serpentibus atris squalere et tenues animae volitare videntur. {Met. 14.403-411) She sprinkled upon them her baleful drugs and poisonous juices, summoning to her aid Night and the gods of Night from Erebus and Chaos, and calling on Hecate in long-drawn, wailing cries. The woods, wonderful to say, leaped from their place, the ground moaned, the neighbouring trees turned pale, and the grasses where the poisons fell were stained with clots of blood. The stones also seemed to voice hoarse bellowings; the baying of dogs was heard, the ground was foul with dark, crawling things, and the thin shades of the silent dead seemed to be flitting about. Picus' rejection of Circe essentially duplicates her earlier experience, so graphically narrated in the Sicilian tales (Met. 13.900-14.69). There, the object of her love, Glaucus, turns her down for Scylla (14.37-39). As a result, Circe makes a first d e m o n s t r a t i o n of her destructive forces, supplanting H e l l f o r Heaven: instead of helping Glaucus win Scylla's heart, she transf o r m s Scylla i n t o a m o n s t e r , an e m b o d i m e n t of Hell. 3 7 T h e repudiation of Circe's erotic passion f o r a second time likewise brings a b o u t a release of the forces of Hell. T h e Cyclops' beloved, Galatea, rejects his advances because, like Picus, she is already in love with someone else. Rejection causes rage, which t r a n s f o r m s the elegiac lover into an epic m o n s t e r , the godscorning, sky- (or Heaven-) reaching Polyphemus, and a personified force of chaos and Hell, reminiscent of the giant's c o u n t e r p a r t figure in the Aeneid.li T h e p r o p i n q u i t y of Circe and Polyphemus, b o t h allegorical versions of darkness, in the Sicilian tales f o r m s a clear epic background against which is set a succession of narratives experimenting with a multiplicity of (other) genres. Macareus' s t o r y of Picus, like Achaemenides' account of P o l y p h e m u s a little earlier, reaches backwards to the Sicilian cluster integrating it to the remaining part of the 'little Aeneid'. If H e l l / A l l e c t o is transferred t o O v i d ' s Latium in the image of Circe, H e a v e n t o o maintains its own p r o m i n e n t presence. In Macareus' narrative,

37

38

The hounds girdling Scylla's loins following Circe's vengeful intervention are pointedly described as having Cerbereos rictus, 'jaws of Cerberus' (Met. 14.65). Hardie 1986, 259260, ranks Charybdis, Scylla's epic twin monster (though not Scylla herself), next to Polyphemus and other monstrosities-threats of the universal order. Hardie 1986, 264-267, analyzes Polyphemus (and prior to him, Etna, Cacus, and Mezentius) as another exaggerated impersonation of a (hellish) force threatening the cosmic order and the desired rule of light.

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the idyllic paradise of Latium that welcomed Aeneas to his new country is to be identified with the presence of Canens, and in her loving union to Picus. With her enchanting power of song, Canens is the alternative version of Circe, and her near parallelism to Orpheus draws clear attention to her embodiment of Heaven. Indeed, the description of Canens' control over animals and plants with the power of her captivating song calls to mind O r pheus' power of singing: Met. 10.143-144 tale nemus vates attraxerat inque ferarum / concilio medius turba volucrum sedebat ('such a grove the bard had drawn, and he sat, the central figure in an assembly of wild beasts and birds'); 11.1-2 carmine dum tali silvas animosque ferarum / Tbreicius vates et saxa sequentia ducit ('as the bard of Thrace with such songs drew the trees, held beasts enthralled and constrained stones to follow him'); also, 11.42ff. Orpheus, the son of a Muse, and a vates who, like a god, has the ability to control nature (animate and inanimate, rational and irrational), is the incarnation of the divine that the Muses and their art represent. In addition, Orpheus was also one of the rare mythological figures who visited the Underworld while still alive, and with the power of his song he moved the rulers of Hades to allow him to lead his dead wife back to the world of the living. Thus, the vates Orpheus succeeded both in bridging Earth and Hell, and in causing Hell on Earth. In the case of Calliope's son, Heaven and Hell actually do converge on Earth. Orpheus resembles Canens further. 39 They both succumb to tragic, and in some respects parallel, fates. Orpheus dies at the hands of the Thracian Bacchae (Met. 11.2-40), a manifestation of Hell's furies as Dido's assimilation to them (Aen. 4.301f. bacchatur, qualis commotis excita sacris / Thyias) underlines. The powers of his song can protect Orpheus from the pelting of the Bacchae only to a point (11.15) - soon the barbaric sounds of the Bacchic instruments overwhelm Orpheus' melodies and render their protective magic useless (11.15ff.). Most importantly, both Canens and Orpheus are bereft of their spouses in ways that echo one another. Orpheus' Eurydice dies after having been bitten by a snake; Picus' transformation is effected by the mistress of snakes and poisons. And, significantly, it is mastery of intertextuality that enables Ovid to solidify the parallelism between the mythic bard and Canens. Vergil's Fourth Georgic details the tragic love

59

Myers 1994, 109, briefly notes the verbal similarity in the depiction of Canens' singing abilities to Orpheus' music skills ("[t]he nymph's abilities of song are really quite remarkable being those usually reserved for famous bards such as Orpheus [Met. 11. If.]"), but she does proceed with the argument beyond this one phrase.

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story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The story concludes with an account of the bard's reaction following his failure to bring Eurydice back with him to the world of the living (G. 4.507ff.). The description of Orpheus' desperation has much to do with Ovid's portrayal of the mourning Canens. Both Orpheus and Canens initially seek relief from pain in escapism, physical and mental, wandering aimlessly in solitude and the wilderness (G. 4.508f. rupe sub aeria deserti ad Strymonis undam... et gelidis haec evoluisse sub antris, 'underneath a hanging cliff near the water of isolated Strymon... and deep in icy caves he unfolded the following'; cf. also 517-520 solus Hyperboreas glacies Tanaimque nivalem / arvaque Riphaeis numquam viduata pruinis / lustrabat, 'alone he would roam the glaciers of the far north and the snowy Tanais, and also the Riphaean plains that never lacked frosts'; Met. 14.422f. seque / proripit ac Latios errat vesana per agros, 'she wandered madly through the Latian fields'; also, 425 per iuga, per valles, qua fors ducebat, euntem, 'over hills, through valleys, wherever chance directed'), the former for seven long months (G. 4.507 septem... totos... ex ordine mensis, 'seven full months one after the other'), the latter for six nights (Met. 14.423 sex illam nodes, totidem redeuntia solis / lumina, 'six nights and as many returning dawns'), each of them mourning incessantly all the while (G. 4.509 flesse sibi, 'he wept'; also, 505 quo fletu Manis, qua numina voce moveret? 'with what tears could he move the shades of the underworld, with what voice the divine spirits?' cf. Met. 14.420f. nec satis est nymphae flere et lacerare capillos / et dare plangorem, 'nor was it enough for the nymph to weep, to tear her hair and beat her breasts'), and singing a sad song (Met. 6.583 carmen miserabile ~ G. 4.514 miserabile carmen). The banks of Strymon (ad Strymonis undam) and Lake Tanais in the snow-covered land of the Hyperboreans (Hyperboreas glacies Tanaimque nivalem) host Orpheus' cries, and likewise a river, Thybris, also with icy cool banks (14.426f. ultimus adspexit fessam luctuque viaque / Thybris et in gelida ponentem corpora ripa, 'the Tiber was the last to see her, exhausted from grief and travel-toil, and laying her body down upon the cold bank'), offers refuge to Canens. O r p h e u s ' mourning song moves the whole of nature, animate and inanimate (G. 4.510 mulcentem tigris et agentem carmine quercus, 'taming the tigers and directing the oaks with his song'), and this power of control over nature distinguishes Canens' singing ability, as well (Met. 14.338ff.). The affinity melodious bird all-night dirge nightingale (G.

of the two reaches an apex when each of them is likened to a that, originally, was a mourning human character. Orpheus' compares to the suffering and mourning of Philomela / 4.51 Iff.), while Canens' is like the lamentations of Cygnus /

Chapter Four

134 t h e d y i n g swan (Met.

1 4 . 4 2 8 f f . ) . T h e relevant passages, listed b e l o w in s u c -

c e s s i o n , are w o r t h a c l o s e r l o o k : qualis populea maerens philomela sub umbra amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator observans nido implumis detraxit; at ilia flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen integrat, et maestis late loca questibus implet. (G. 4.511-515) J u s t as the nightingale, mourning under the poplar shade, wails for the loss of her nestlings, which a cruel ploughman spotted and tore them, still without feathers, away from their nest; and she weeps all through the night, and sitting on a branch she renews her piteous tune, and fills the area far and wide with her saddening laments. illic cum lacrimis ipso modulata dolore verba sono tenui maerens fundebat, ut olim carmina iam moriens canit exequalia cygnus. (Met. 14.428-430) There, with tears, in weak, faint tones, she poured out her mournful words attuned to grief; just as sometimes, in dying, the swan sings a last funeral song. L i k e O r p h e u s a n d C a n e n s , philomela

and cygnus

are d i s t i n g u i s h e d b y

m e l o d i o u s v o i c e s : t h e i r l a m e n t s are d e f i n e d alike as carmina.40

T h e descrip-

t i o n o f p h i l o m e l a ' s l a m e n t , w h i c h parallels t h a t o f O r p h e u s , is given in v o c a b u l a r y i d e n t i c a l t o t h e o n e t h a t v e r b a l i z e s C a n e n s ' s o r r o w , and h e r o w n i m m e d i a t e c o n t e x t u a l parallel, t h e dying swan. T h u s , philomela,

maerens

C a n e n s , replicates t h e endless m o u r n i n g o f b o t h O r p h e u s ( s e p t e m . . . a n d C a n e n s (flere...; noctem)

errat...

sex...

nodes),

- w h e r e t h e accusative noctem

like mensis)

f o r it ' c r i e s all n i g h t l o n g '

(flet

m a y b e u n s p e c i f i c e n o u g h as t o i m -

ply 'every n i g h t ' . T h e e x p e r i e n c e s o f P h i l o m e l a and C y g n u s , t h e m y t h o l o g i c a l c h a r a c t e r s , are t h e c e n t e r p i e c e s o f detailed narratives earlier in t h e Metamorphoses,

and

their recurrence b o t h anticipates and mirrors the fates of O r p h e u s

and

C a n e n s . P h i l o m e l a , a p r i n c e s s o f A t h e n s , b e c a m e t h e o b j e c t o f an illicit p a s -

40

Myers 1994, 109-113, discusses the association of Canens, whose name actually derives from canere, 'to sing', and personifies the essence of carmen, with both Orpheus and the Camenae, the Italian Muses. The same critic points out (pp. 112f.) the programmatic function of the Canens episode in determining the unifying themes in the rest of the Metamorphoses; on poetological Canens, see also Börner ad 14.433f. and Michalopoulos 2001, 48-49.

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sion that possessed Tereus, the husband of her sister, Procne, and king of Thrace. Tereus contrived to have Philomela sent to Thrace, he raped her, and then cut her tongue out and imprisoned her so that she could tell no one of his crime. However, Philomela wove a tapestry on which she narrated the matter, and sent this artifact to Procne. The latter avenged Tereus by killing their son, Itys, cooking him, and feeding his members to Tereus for dinner. Upon discovering the macabre plot, Tereus pursued the two women to kill them, until finally the gods brought about a resolution by turning all three into birds - Tereus into a kite, Procne into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale. 41 Philomela's mutilation by the king of Thrace evokes Orpheus' death - he was torn to pieces by the women of Thrace in their bacchic frenzy ( G . 4.520 Ciconum... matres·, 521 inter sacra... orgia Bacchi). Philomela's recourse to art, actually a highly metapoetical form of artistic expression, weaving, to narrate her plight, defines her as an artist, comparable to Orpheus. It is worth pointing out that Philomela's weaving brings her close to the Minyeids and Arachne, whose legends partly but unmistakably echo Orpheus' story. The Minyeids fell victims of Bacchus' rather than the Bacchants' - rage, for refusing to join the ranks of the maenads but observing instead a pattern of moral behavior centered on sexual purity and abstinence, allegedly opposed to the one believed to be followed by the maenads. Interestingly, Ovid's Minyeids relate to the sexual abstinence observed by Vergil's (clearly remarked in G. 4.516), not Ovid's, O r pheus, whose death came about as a result of his rejecting female for male love (Met. 10.83-85). 4 2 Few passages would raise Ovidian metapoetics to greater prominence that the Georgics passage on Orpheus. The text is ruled by poetics, for the nightingale is specifically mentioned, or rather established, as symbol of slender, erudite and sophisticated poetry in Callimachus' Aetia Prologue (Aet. fr. 1.16Pf. άη[δονίδε$] δ ' ώ δ ε μελιχρ[ό]τεραι, 'the nightingales are sweeter like this'). Canens' fate and eventual liquefaction into thin air,

The most detailed version of the story is Ovid's own, in Met. 6.424-674; also, Apoll. 3.14.8 Numerous studies, especially in recent years, have commented on the role of Arachne and Orpheus in projecting Ovidian metapoetics, and it is beyond the scope of the present work to give an exhaustive list. The interested reader could benefit much from the detailed bibliography on the metapoetics of weaving in the Arachne episode in Smith 1997, 54-64. Galinsky 1999 has discussed the poetological element in Orpheus, in association with the specific structural design of the Metamorphoses, and has included selective but representative bibliographical references.

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which is modeled on Ligurian Cygnus, elaborates on a t h e m e interwoven in the subtext. Cygnus, after the death of his lover P h a e t h o n , became so sad that he could n o t cease f r o m m o u r n i n g . T h e gods t o o k pity on him and t u r n e d h i m i n t o a swan. T h e story has already been i n t r o d u c e d earlier in O v i d (Met. 2.367-380), and the diction of this narrative provides the thematic and verbal f o u n d a t i o n f o r Canens' association with a bird symbolic of poetic inspiration and artistic excellence, as much as Callimachean poetics. 43 T h e quintessential p o i n t of metaliterary convergence of the two narratives might be the e m p l o y m e n t of tenuis, the Latin equivalent of λ ε π τ ό ς ('thin, slender'), to describe the quality of the swan song of b o t h Canens in Met. 14.629f. and the Ligurian C y g n u s in Met. 2.373 cum vox est tenuata, 'when his voice grew thinner'. The setting of b o t h laments by the waters of a river is likewise meant to stress the dimension of poetics in the characters of the two m o u r n i n g lovers. 44 T h e analogy between Canens and O r p h e u s , then, sits at the center of an advanced level of textual exchange which mirrors the complexity behind C a n e n s ' literary portrayal, since the horizontal axis of parallels directed by O r p h e u s is supplemented by a vertical one centered on C y g n u s . T h e o u t 43

44

Keith 1992, 137-146, discusses Ovidian poetology in association with the recurrent attestations of the swan in Metamorphoses 2. Cf. Keith 1992, 140-144, on the poetics of the Ligurian Cygnus story; she, further, adds Vergil's own narrative inAen. 10.185-193 on Cygnus' transformation among the sources behind Canens' character construction. Ovid utilizes the Vergilian version of the story both on the level of linguistic echoes but also for the explicit reference to the homoerotic relationship between Phaethon and Cygnus; the outcome is a 'window reference'. The allusion to the homosexual love theme in the Cygnus story does not seem to connect it with Canens, but is present in the narrative model behind Orpheus, Canens' parallel figure. It is not unusual for Ovid to forge links between principal plot figures as much as between the literary prototypes of these leading characters. O n tenuis and queror/querella as distinct poetological terms, see Keith 1992, 141-142, where ample literary parallels and detailed bibliography are recorded. It is worth pointing out that Cygnus' mourning for Phaethon (Met. 2.371f. querellis... inplerat) evokes the nightingale's lament for her offspring in the text of the Georgics (515 maestis... questibus implet), while the theme and the poetology of lament are both echoed in Canens' mourning in Met. 14.429 verba sono tenui merens fundebat. Water symbolizes poetic initiation as early as Hesiod, Theog. 39, 83-84, 97, and this symbolism becomes a locus communis of poetic inspiration in Hellenistic poetry; cf. Cameron 1995, 363-366; also W. Wimmel, Kallimachos in Rom. Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit (Wiesbaden 1960), 322-337; N.B. Crowther, 'Water and Wine as Symbols of Inspiration', Mnemosyne 32 (1979), 1-11; Knox 1986, 107-119. The next chapter comments extensively on the swan imagery as a leading structural motif of Ovid's long epic, and maps out the thematic and verbal parallels between Canens and Phaethon's Cygnus.

4. Picus' Plight: Torn Between Heaven and Hell

137

come is a tightly spun spider web with Canens at the center, a web whose growth, cohesion, and expansion rely on the textual interplay behind each one separately of Canens' two principal models, intertextual Orpheus and intratextual Cygnus, but also on the subtextual dialogue between the two. O r p h e u s ' likening to philomela, the bird, equates the bard's feeling of bereavement mixed with injustice for his spouse's loss to those of the nightingale when a farmer stealthily takes away its nestlings (G. 4.512-515). It is not, however, this parallelism of tragedy but the two seemingly superfluous details that reach across texts. The employment of the term philomela, to evoke not so much the well-known tale but its poetological treatment by Ovid himself, has already been discussed. The second detail is the setting of the little birds' abduction under a poplar tree (G. 4.511 populea... sub umbra), a specification which acquires significance when considered in the light of Cygnus' mourning for Phaethon, also set amidst poplar trees-the new bodies of Phaethon's inconsolable sisters {Met. 2.372). Canens' aimless peregrinations once bereft of her beloved may be subjected to different points of view, for her behavior, directed as it is by extreme emotion, ironically makes her resemble Circe and a bacchant rather than O r p h e u s . Having desperately set out to pursue a futile search f o r Picus, Canens turns into a maenad-acting character wandering madly (14.422 errat vesana) through the plains, valleys, and hills of Latium (14.482, 485 Latios... per agros... per iuga, per valles), for days and nights, without a particular destination (14.425 qua fors ducebat). Eventually, exhausted, not f r o m bacchic dances but from the fruitless quest, she collapses by the bank of the Tiber (14.427 Thybris et in gelidaponentem corpora ripa). The maenadic element again is prominent, as the nymph's experience resembles the situation of furens Dido. The latter, inflamed likewise by love passion, also wanders madly (Aen. 4.68f. vagatur... furens) through her city (totaque... urbe), similar to a wounded deer through the forests and groves (4.72 silvas saltusque peragrat). Later, following her altercation with Aeneas, she collapses into the arms of her servants (4.391f.). Canens, in short, is Circe's double, a femina who once laesa becomes furens. Yet, because she is also Circe's precise opposite, the other aspect of the same coin, instead of subjecting a third party to her feelings of anger and suffering, she internalizes it and victimizes her own self. In all, the multifaceted character of Canens gives a face and a voice to a maze of textual niceties, indicative of the dynamism behind the Ovidian composition strategy in the Metamorphoses, especially the poet's experimentation with source integration. Intertext and intratext cross into each

138

Chapter Four

other's territories, back and forth, like the shuttle in the loom of the artistsweavers that feature all through the carmen perpetuum. In concluding the recounting of his adventures, Macareus, a character born from Ovid's intellect, is set to deliver a narrative which likewise is an invention and centers on an invented character, Canens. Embedded and embedding mirror each other's sophistication in plot development. Macareus takes over the story line from the point where his ex-comrade and, within the limited textual space of their encounter, metaliterary antagonist, Achaemenides, had left it. The theme, but even more the method in the structure and the elaborateness of texture in his narrative are in ongoing dialogue with Achaemenides' story, so as to stage a rivalry between Vergil's invented character and his own reinvention of it. T o summarize, Macareus contributes his own share in recounting Odyssean adventures. His recollections relate episodes from the Odyssey not included in the Vergilian equivalent of Aeneid 3. In this way, not only Macareus the hero complements the narrative of Achaemenides, but also Ovid in his mini -Aeneid seems to complement Vergil! A series of allusions to multiple sections and themes in the text of the Aeneid, and the particular way these intertwine with one another as to become eventually inseparable, underline Ovid's mastery of his model but also his ability to rise above its constrictions. The episode, which, like the preceding sections of Achaemenides or Anius, is a paranarrative, a story of minimal effect in facilitating the progression of Aeneas' adventure, identifies principal Vergilian themes, notably the struggle between, but also the confluence of, Heaven and Hell, which he subjects to a new, intelligent treatment. The close relationship of Circe and her dark universe to Polyphemus integrates additional important Vergilian concerns, such as the question of cosmogony and the maintenance of universal order. More patently, the description of Circe's world and the formidable power of her magic, as shown in the story of Picus, integrate the non-epic center of the 'little Aeneid', the Sicilian tales interlude inside the generically discordant peritext that frames it. An emblem of Ovid's sophisticated textuality, the invented story of Canens - actually an invention within an invention - confronts the reader with a virtual inversion of Circe. Structure, thematics, and poetology are thus examined anew, from the opposite, and complementary, point of view. Last but not least, allusive mastery enables a trained eye to discern beyond the surface of 'Odyssean' Circe a most vivid Dido, a leading Vergilian character virtually left out from Ovid's strictly defined 'Aeneidic' narrative. This subcutaneous co-existence of major epic characters and subjects

4. Picus' Plight: Torn Between Heaven and Hell 'epicizes' Ovid's text, and brings his emulation of Vergil to the fore. element of performance is not absent either. Emulating Achaemenides, turns his narrative into a performance, Macareus, the narratee turned rator, inverses in turn the process of the narrative, for he employs an tragedy, the story of Dido, and largely uses it as mold for his own story.

5. An

139 The who narepic

Addendum

Achaemenides and Macareus compete against one another in the erudition of their narratives, and the outcome of this duel is an exquisite diptych of literary creativity. The unity of the two narratives is projected by means of a structural witticism developed from the transference into the Ovidian text of another Vergilian character: Caieta. The metaliterary function of the Caieta vignette sits at the core of an intelligent treatment recently introduced by Hinds. 45 I would like to capitalize on these thoughts, and subsequently develop them further. Hinds correctly observes that the Caieta moment constitutes one of those points of striking coincidence between Vergil and Ovid, a moment which, in accordance with Ovid's strategy, becomes the center of an elaborate model incorporation. 46 Without doubt, Ovid's decision to include Caieta in his text has been dictated by the fact that Vergil employs a double reference to the nurse of Aeneas as a way to forge a crucial link in the epic. Caieta connects the first to the second half of the Aeneid. Aeneid 6 concludes with Aeneas' return from the Underworld (6.897-899) and subsequent transition to the port of Caieta (6.900-901 tum se ad Caietae recto fert limite portum. / ancora de prora iacitur; stant litore puppes, 'then he sets his course directly towards the port of Caieta. The anchor is cast from the prow; the ships are standing still at the shore'). Aeneid 7, and the second half of Vergil's epic, opens once again with Caieta (.Aen. 7.1-7). Here Vergil retraces his steps, and in a mode of self-emendation, he hastens to explain why the particular Italian port was granted the name of Aeneas' aged nurse after all: the place became Caieta's burial ground.

45

46

Hinds 1998, 107-111; on Caieta in Vergil and Ovid, of. also Zwierlein 2000, 53 and esp. 64-66. Hinds 1998, 107, claims that the study of Ovidian allusive tendentiousness in the 'little Aeneid' is particularly intriguing when it focuses on precisely those episodes "at which Ovid's Aeneid looks most like Vergil's".

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Chapter Four

The key structural function observed by Caieta's appearance, both at the closure and the opening of the two halves of the Aeneid, becomes the principal target of Ovid's aemulatio. In the Metamorphoses, Aeneas' embarkation for Caieta and his actual arrival there following his return from Hades, are not narrated in consecutive order, as one would expect, but instead are separated in a conspicuous fashion: Ovid inserts between them the over 300-line long encounter between Achaemenides and Macareus. Thus, Vergil's most prominent narrative bridge undergoes an impressive breach in Ovid's hands. In order to underscore his accomplishment, Ovid forges a witty intertextual link with his model: he intentionally pictures Aeneas sailing from Caieta at 14.445, after he unfastened the rope of his ship from a grassy mound. The selected word for mound, agger, is meant to point back to Aen. 7.6, where Vergil uses the same term, agger, to describe the burial mound of Caieta, although Ovid makes it a point to specify that his Caieta is not buried in an agger, but in a tomb of marble (14.442 marmoreo tumulo). This deconstruction of Vergil's distinct structural device is seconded by a no less inspired scholarly intervention. As he retraces, with Vergil in front of him, Aeneas' steps to Cumae, Ovid catches Vergil's narrative inconsistency on Aen. 6.900, namely the reference to the 'port of Caieta' which had not yet been named as such {Met. 14.157 litora adit nondum nutricis habentia nomen). The scholarly emendatio and the structural inversion discussed by Hinds cover only part of the erudition invested in Ovid's reconstruction of Caieta. The insertion of the Achaemenides-Macareus encounter may force back open the gap bridged between Aeneid 6 and 7, but it strengthens the unity between the two complementary versions of the Odyssey supplied in Met. 14.158-440. Vergil's Caieta embodies the overpass allowing Aeneas to cross from the Homeric Greek world to the world of Italy. This transition in Ovid is effected in the Achaemenides-Macareus episode. In the Aeneid, Ulixes' comrade, left behind to become a symbolic remnant and a live voice of the Homeric world, is conveniently placed within Greek territory at the very end of the Trojan journey. In the invention of Macareus as the first individual to be encountered by the Trojans on Italian ground, at the very opening of the Roman part of the 'little Aeneid', Ovid inverts the thematics distinguishing the figure of Vergil's Achaemenides. The Greek former comrade of Ulixes, met by Aeneas as the latter prepares to exit the Greek world, converges and converses with another Greek, also a former comrade of Ulixes, whom Aeneas meets upon entering the Roman world. The Caieta vignette in Ovid engulfs the two sections which, reunited, have supplanted Caieta as link from the first to the second half of the Aeneid story. The two

5. An Addendum

141

split halves o f t h e C a i e t a s e c t i o n , w h o s e adjacent p o s i t i o n s in V e r g i l illustrate the T r o j a n crossing f r o m G r e e c e t o R o m e , are distinctly separated in t h e 'little Aeneid',

b u t t h e y still p e r f o r m their unifying f u n c t i o n : in O v i d

t h e y b e c o m e the brackets that embrace and support two different split narrative halves, the units of A c h a e m e n i d e s and Macareus. T h e reunion o f the t w o f o r m e r c o m p a n i o n s o f Ulixes effects n o w the transition f r o m the G r e e k t o the R o m a n section o f the Aeneas legend. O v i d ' s narrative o f Caieta's burial (Met.

1 4 . 4 4 1 - 4 4 5 ) is r e m i n i s c e n t o f a

m u l t i t u d e o f Vergilian m o m e n t s otherwise o m i t t e d in O v i d ' s r e p r o d u c t i o n . V e r g i l ' s C a i e t a , unlike m o s t of the o t h e r f a i n t - o f - h e a r t T r o j a n w o m e n o n b o a r d A e n e a s ' ships, does n o t stay b e h i n d in Sicily following the conflagration o f t h e fleet in Aeneid

5. She follows along with the courageous T r o j a n

m e n , and h e r m a s c u l i n e spirit is well p o r t r a y e d in t h e way h e r death is treated, f o r " s h e is m e m o r i a l i z e d in the Italian landscape, the first and o n l y w o m a n t o b e so h o n o r e d " . 4 7 Indeed, this h o n o r , implicit in t h e Aeneid, emphasized in the Metamorphoses,

is

as C a i e t a ' s t o m b receives a m o s t distin-

guishing m a r k , an epitaph. T h e language o f this epitaph, n o t a b l y the o n l y 'carmen'

specified as such in the 'little Aeneid'

tis alumnus

/ ereptam

Argolico

quo

debuit

(huic me Caietam

igne

cremavit,

notae

pieta-

'here me, C a i e t a ,

s n a t c h e d f r o m the G r e c i a n fire, m y pious nursling c o n s u m e d with due fire'), m a y suggest that O v i d again meant t o gesture backwards to Vergil's epic. I n Aeneid

2, pius

A e n e a s rescues his f a t h e r A n c h i s e s f r o m amidst the G r e e k

fires. T h e passage, however, that in m y opinion induces O v i d t o write about C a i e t a with A n c h i s e s in m i n d is Aen.

6 . 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 . H e r e , Aeneas c o m m e n t s o n

his f a t h e r ' s rescue, w h i c h , suggestively, he describes as ' s n a t c h i n g ' ,

(Ilium ego per flammas hoste recepi,

et mille sequentia tela / eripui his umeris medioque

enpui

ex

' h i m I snatched and rescued on these shoulders amid flames and

a t h o u s a n d pursuing missiles, and away f r o m the enemies' midst'). In Aeneid

3 the h e r o arrives in A c t i u m ( 2 7 8 f f . ) , where the T r o j a n s first

have a c e l e b r a t i o n with games celebrating the f o r t u n a t e c o n c l u s i o n o f their j o u r n e y t h r o u g h the G r e e k world: evasisse fugam

tenuisse

per hostis,

tot urbes

/ Argolicas

steady their flight t h r o u g h the midst o f their e n e m i e s ' (Aen.3.282-283). e c h o in O v i d ' s phrase ereptam

47

mediosque

'have slipped past so m a n y G r e e k cities and k e p t Argolico...

igne,

The

' s n a t c h e d f r o m the G r e c i a n

Mack 1999, 136; S.G. Nugent, 'The Women of the Aeneid:

Vanishing Bodies, Lingering

Voices', in: C. Perkell (ed.), Reading Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide (Norman, O K 1999), 267-268, sees Caieta's passing from substance to sign as her principal function in Vergil's poem.

142

Chapter Four

fire', cut on Caieta's tomb could be considered purely coincidental, were it not for the presence in the Vergilian text, a mere four lines later, of the only carmen in the Aeneid. For, just before he departs from Actium (Aen. 3.289 linquere tum portus iubeo, Ί then give the order to leave the harbor'; cf. Met. 14.445), Aeneas dedicates a shield that carries on it the only dedicatory inscription in the epic [Aen. 3.288 Aeneas baec de Danais victoribus arma, 'Aeneas dedicates these weapons taken from the victorious Greeks'). The Ovidian epitaph seems to have been formulated with the Vergilian inscription in mind. In a gesture of piety Aeneas, Caieta's notae pietatis alumnus, dedicates weapons taken from the victorious Greeks, just as Caieta had been rescued from the fire that these victorious Greeks had set to Troy. Caieta's masculine spirit, finally, acknowledged and emphasized with an epitaph, ranks Aeneas' nurse among a series of virile females who appear regularly in the most epically colored episodes of the Metamorphoses, as for example Anius' daughters and the Orionids. 48 The portrayal of these females is in contrast with the un-heroic characterization of the traditional wellknown male epic heroes, and the various parodies of epic battles in Ovid's poem. A revision of the epic role of men and women is all but in disharmony with the spirit of Ovid's avant-garde epic. Caieta's epitaph only accentuates the epic dimensions of her metamorphosed character.

48

Keith 2000, 47-48.

Chapter Five Experimentation on a Narrative Chain I: Poetology, Epic Definition, and the Near-Swans of Diomedes1 1. Introduction The next lengthy episode (Met. 14.457-511) in Ovid's recast 'Aeneid' is modeled on Venulus' unsuccessful appeal to Diomedes at Aeneid 11.243295, inviting him to join the Rutulian forces in the war against Aeneas." There is little doubt that the selection of the episode is contingent to the dominant presence of the metamorphosis theme in the legend of Diomedes, who witnessed his comrades changing into birds. In this respect, Diomedes' presence in the 'little Aeneid' is fully justified; what might raise eyebrows is the realization that Diomedes' narrative is the most detailed episode in Ovid's version of the war in Italy. Of all the major leaders, with Turnus heading the list, whom Aeneas encounters in the second half of the Aeneid a section which in the Metamorphoses is summed up in a total of 135 lines Diomedes receives by far the largest coverage. The author of the Metamorphoses has intentionally stayed close to Vergil's text, following the same story line, and even maintaining an almost 1

2

Part of this chapter has recently appeared as a separate article in Phoenix 58 (2004) 49-61, under the title 'Ut non [forma] cygnorum, sic alhis proxima cygnis: Poetology, Epic Definition, and the Swan Imagery in Ovid's Metamorphoses'. By describing the metamorphosis of the comrades before the eyes of Diomedes, Ovid indirectly admits that his primary source of inspiration was Vergil, who was indeed the first to alter the tradition according to which the transformation took place after the death of Diomedes; cf. Russi, EV I, 81, s.v. Diomede; on various pre-Vergilian versions concerning the nature of the birds of Diomedes, see also F. Deila Corte, La mappa dell' Eneide (Florence 1972), 19-21, a n d ] . Gage, 'Les traditions "diomediques" dans 1' Italie ancienne, de 1' Apulie ä 1' Etrurie meridionale', MEFRA 84 (1972), 763-764. The crosstextual relationship receives additional support in the numerous verbal echoes between the Ovidian and the Vergilian texts (Met. 14.457 ~ Aen. 8.9; Met. 14.527 = Aen. 11.227; Met. 14.469 -Aen. 11.258; Met. 14.474-475 - Aen. 11.259; Met. 14.481 - Aen. 11.260).

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Chapter Five

identical size in terms of verse count. Ovid's account starts off, as in the Vergilian text, with Venulus, the Rutulian ambassador, arriving in Diomedes' city to ask the Greek warrior to enter the fight against Aeneas (Met. 14.457f.). Consistent with his performance in the Aeneid, the Greek hero, himself also an exile in pursuit of a new life under a new identity as the sonin-law of the Apulian King Daunus, refuses to ally himself with the Rutulians (excusat, Met. 14.462). Overall, the Ovidian hero's actual story both replicates and stands apart from the recollections of his Vergilian counterpart. Diomedes experiences the same set of adventures in both texts, 3 but each narrative emphasizes different moments of his life-journey, and so p r o m o t e s different themes. Vergil's character highlights his Homeric memories and delivers an ethical dissertation, centering on the characterization of Aeneas, for a major theme in the Aeneid is the portrayal of the Roman epic hero. The Ovidian hero divides his story into two sections, and, in accord with the spirit of change, literal and metaphorical, that dominates his epic, he vies in two different ways to engage in a poetics contest against Vergil. The poetological awareness of Vergil's Diomedes was in my view the principal attraction for the Ovidian creative genius, and presented the author of the Metamorphoses with an optimal opportunity to emulate Vergil's application of polemic literary allusion, and by extension to enter dynamically the power-game of epic succession. In discussing the relationship between poets and their predecessors, Bloom in the Anxiety of Influence rightly professes that it is hard to make a clear distinction between poetic creation and criticism. "As literary history lengthens, all poetry necessarily becomes verse-criticism, just as all criticism becomes prose-poetry" (p. 3). He further notes that poetic succession is a struggle; consequently, contrast between model poets and aspiring successors should be seen as canonical, as a rule of creative imitation or aemulatio. Bloom's views are particularly true for ancient poetry, especially epic, and particularly applicable to the treatment of the Diomedes narrative, first in Vergil and successively in Ovid. Before proceeding to discuss the ways in which Ovid adopts and adapts the Diomedes figure, in order to declare his

3

This textual proximity contrasts with the radical restructuring of Vergil in the 'little Aeneid' (Met. 13.623-14.608); with the exception of Diomedes, all other units - Anius, the Sicilian tales, the encounter between Achaemenides and Macareus, Aeneas and the Sibyl, and the transformation of Ardea - are profoundly different from their alleged Vergilian source.

1. Introduction

145

originality, and simultaneously deep awareness, of Vergil's text, I would like to comment briefly on Vergil's interest for Diomedes.

2. Vergil's Diomedes and Ethics Within Vergil's epic, Diomedes is the only famed Greek veteran of the Trojan campaign to appear on stage. As the only hero who had fought with (and nearly killed) Aeneas on the battlefield {Iliad 5), he, firstly, has unique, immediate experience of the Trojan hero's performance, and, secondly, is the surviving Greek hero who, like Achilles, never faced defeat in war, and is hence the one best qualifed to stand symbolically in the place of Thetis' son as leader of the Greeks in the aftermath of Troy. What is more, tradition credits Diomedes with a post-Homeric set of adventures strikingly similar to Aeneas' own. Following the end of the Trojan War, the Argive was forced out of his fatherland, experienced a long line of adventures at sea that included an affair with an African princess which ended tragically, and eventually settled in Italy (Apulia), where he married the daughter of a local king.4 The legitimate (Homeric) heir to Achilles' heritage, then, and a (postHomeric) double of Aeneas, with exclusive experience of a man-to-man, victorious fight against the son of Venus, Diomedes is uniquely qualified to confront and conquer Aeneas again. Nonetheless, the Argive hero, in the pattern of Aeneas, has undergone his own radical character transformation. In the course of his journey westward, he, too, has left behind his Homeric identity and world-view. Thus Vergil's readers and the Rutulians are not going to witness the rematch of a Homeric-like encounter between the two former archenemies. Instead, the poet of the Aeneid will use the persona of Diomedes, a parallel both to the Homeric Achilles and the Vergilian Aeneas, to pass a weighty judgment on Aeneas' conduct, and thereby ascertain the ex-Trojan leader's claim to epic heroism and leadership. Indeed, when Diomedes outright refuses to fight Aeneas and profusely praises his former opponent, he raises issues that single out the unique synthesis of the Trojan leader's merits. According to the son of Tydeus' new criteria for determining who might be the best, martial excellence is inseparably tied to moral eminence. The combination of supreme virtus and

4

On the presentation of Diomedes in the Aeneid as successor of Achilles as much as Aeneas' forerunner and duplicate, see Papaioannou 2000, 193-217.

146

Chapter Five

pietas, absent from the world of Homeric heroic axiology, holds a central place in the Aeneid, because the two qualities interlock in the portrayal of the Roman leader. Aeneas, who exemplifies both, deservedly lays claim to the title of the pater of reinvented Troy, and is rightly chosen to survive the fall of the old epic world. The transition to the new epic era is captured in the appearance of Aeneas beside Hector twice in Vergil's epic. In the earlier section of Book 2, the ghost of Priam's son, the Homeric 'best of the Trojans', visits Aeneas' dreams and entrusts him with the survival of Troy's future (2.268-297). This transfer of power is sanctified, in a passage placed in a near symmetrical position (11.285-292), by Diomedes' objective assessment (.experto credite, 'trust the expert', 11.283) of Aeneas' character, which is now compared directly to Hector's own (11.291-292, ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus armis, hie pietate prior, 'both renown for courage, both eminent in arms; Aeneas ranked higher in piety'). The latter, the mightiest Trojan warrior, is judged inferior to Aeneas, the Roman leader, who is both a superb fighter and a living example of ethical impeccability. This advertisement of a new, adapted and transformed, epic hero model automatically translates into a new perception of the epic genre.

3. Ovid's Diomedes and Metapoetics In the Aeneid Diomedes' oratory, praising Aeneas as the exemplar of a new epic hero, captures Vergil's great concern with Homeric succession, 5 all the while employing its narrative of the past to construct an ideology for the present. In refashioning Diomedes Ovid continues to debate Vergil on genre, by recasting one more Aeneidic episode that exemplifies, in Hinds' view (1998, 116), Vergil's version of the Iliad "at its most self-consciously Homeric". It is also likely that, in addition to recording an actual, physical transformation, the Diomedes episode must have looked particularly attractive to Ovid's adaptation mechanisms for its metapoetical subtext too. As The authenticity of Homer's status as epic patriarch is summed up in Hardie 1993, 116. Applying to the epic genre Bloom's theory that contrast between texts is essentially contrast between individual authors, Hardie claims that "[epic] is a genre that is almost defined by an individual author, Homer, the great father figure not only of later epic poetry but of Greek culture as a whole. Elevated by his idolaters almost to the status of the father of the gods, whose thoughts as omniscient narrator he shared already, H o m e r becomes both the great source and fountain-head for all later writers and also the boundless Ocean that threatens to swamp the latecomer".

3. Vergil's Diomedes and Metapoetics

147

we shall see, Vergil's Diomedes evokes too many facets of Aeneas' character in the poem, not least the Trojan's appearance as substitute epic poet. In Ovid's poem Diomedes' speech does include many of the events and issues already seen in the words of his Vergilian counterpart. Yet the narrative arrangement of the details and the accorded emphasis are telling of a determined effort towards considerable variation. The hero's reply to Venulus can be divided into three different sections which reproduce separate moments of his adventures and are arranged in ascending order of sophistication. In the first and least demanding section (Met. 14.461-464), Diomedes offers a clear, outright refusal to join the fight against Aeneas. H e presents as his excuse the total elimination of his former comrades (14.463464 nec... quos e gente suorum / armet habere alios, 'nor... did he have men of his own nation w h o m he could equip for war'), an issue already mentioned in the Vergilian model ( A e n . 11.372 socii amissi, 'his companions were lost'); and he is n o less unwilling to drag his father-in-law's army into war (14.562f.), a detail not included in the Aeneid. Contrary to his moralizing dissertation in the model epic on Aeneas' ethical and martial credentials of peerless excellence, the Ovidian Diomedes' emphasis is on the practical and realistic reasons f o r his unwillingness to join a risky war (he has no comrade to trust in a country whose people he still does not know): in an epic deprived of a unifying theme, plot line, and fully portrayed epic protagonists there is little room for detailed discussion on individual morality. The second and third sections of the h e r o ' s reply, given in direct discourse, are the tours de force in the recast, each exploring different aspects of metapoetics - Met. 14.464-482, in particular, the part recounting the hero's adventures at sea, is a textbook model of crosstextual embrace. Ovid's Diomedes has recently received the exclusive focus of a perceptive analysis by Stephen Hinds, 6 yet the metaliterary background of the closing section, the actual transformation of the comrades, has been left virtually untouched, extending an invitation for exploration that is hard to resist. Hinds notes that the Ovidian Diomedes follows closely the Vergilian script. The hero begins his reply by going over his own, and implicitly the other Greek leaders', adventures on their way home f r o m Troy, which are, likewise, attributed to divine retribution and reach their zenith in the seastorm near the p r o m o n t o r y of Caphereus. Ovid's Diomedes does not end his return journey happily; instead, the hero proceeds to talk about a new

6

Hinds 1998, 116-119.

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148

series o f adventures at sea, f o r at s o m e later time following his h o m e c o m i n g h e was driven o u t o f his h o m e l a n d . " A t this p o i n t , " H i n d s writes c o m m e n t i n g o n 1 4 . 4 7 6 - 4 7 9 , " [ D i o m e d e s ' ] s t o r y starts t o s o u n d distinctly like the s t o r y . . . of Virgil's A e n e a s . . . . S u b s t i t u t e J u n o ' s mindful anger f o r V e n u s ' , and what we have here is a n e a r - d o u b l e of the o p e n i n g five lines o f Virgil's Aeneid".7

T h e three subsequent lines ( 4 8 0 - 4 8 2 ) , m o r e o v e r , in which

D i o m e d e s wishes t h a t he had d r o w n e d at sea, t a k e the parallelism w i t h A e n e a s f u r t h e r , as t h e y stir up m e m o r y o f A e n e a s ' very first s p e e c h in the Aeneid

( 1 . 9 4 - 1 0 1 ) . 8 I n this f a m o u s passage, the T r o j a n leader b i t t e r l y re-

flects o n his certain impending death at sea and wishes he had died instead at T r o y in t h e heat o f b a t t l e , and, ideally, at the h a n d o f D i o m e d e s : ο

Danaum fortissime gentis / Tydide! mene Iliads occumbere campis / non potuisse tuaque animam banc effundere dextra, 'Oh, most mighty son of Tydeus! I f o n l y I could have fallen o n the fields o f T r o y and p o u r e d out m y life at y o u r right h a n d ! ' ( 1 . 9 6 - 9 8 ) . F o r H i n d s , this direct address " b e c o m e s a ' c l e t i c ' s u m m o n s s e n t f o r w a r d across i n t e r t e x t u a l t i m e and space, w h i c h duly elicits a ' r e s p o n s e ' f r o m the D i o m e d e s in the Metamorphoses, o n his o w n mmi-Aeneid,"?

embarked

A n d in the t w o concluding lines o f this first part

o f his adventures ( 1 4 . 4 8 3 - 4 8 4 ) , D i o m e d e s r e p r o d u c e s the o p e n i n g o f the s e c o n d speech of the Vergilian Aeneas (Aen. T h i s " s y s t e m a t i c allusivity" in Met.

1.198-199).

1 4 . 4 7 6 - 4 8 4 is ultimately dismissed b y

H i n d s as " t h e weakest o f epigonal gestures towards the Aeneid,

not a strong

o r dialogic e n c o u n t e r with i t " ; an " O v i d i a n m i c r o - t a l e " that "assimilates itself t o the Virgilian m a s t e r - t e x t " . 1 0 1 believe that O v i d ' s decision t o set up in his D i o m e d e s ' narrative a discourse with these t w o particular m o m e n t s in A e n e a s ' Vergilian career, the earliest t w o appearances of the h e r o in the epic, partakes o f a m o r e t e n d e n t i o u s and broader plan of i n c o r p o r a t i o n . It is n o t an accident that O v i d recalls what is arguably the lowest p o i n t in A e n e a s ' h e r o i c career in t h e epic w o r l d , in a passage w h i c h r e p r o d u c e s also the s p e e c h that establishes A e n e a s ' claim t o epic leadership. B e s i d e s , V e r g i l ' s D i o m e d e s , w h o o f f e r s a p r o f u s e eulogy t o A e n e a s ' leadership, is a character designed t o appear b o t h as the G r e e k alter

Achilles - h e n c e the heir t o the

H o m e r i c legacy - and as r e f l e c t i o n of the Vergilian A e n e a s o f the first half o f th.e Aeneid.

7 s 9 10

Hinds Hinds Hinds Hinds

1998, 1998, 1998, 1998,

B y making his D i o m e d e s s o u n d like Aeneas in Aeneid

117. 117-118. 119. 119.

1, O v i d

3. Ovid's Diomedes and Metapoetics

149

toys with Vergil's rationale for importing Diomedes in his narrative in the first place: the Argive's character is simultaneously linked to two conflicting images of Aeneas, the defeated and humiliated Trojan, his nadir as epic character, 11 and the Roman leader and best warrior, praised as such by the surviving leading Greek warrior, personally familiar with Aeneas' valor (Aen. 11.283 experto).12 As the speech of Vergil's Diomedes m Aeneid 11 and the two first speeches of Aeneas in Aeneid 1 intersect, Ovid ensdorses Vergil's reading of Diomedes, and revisits aliter the embrace of the Homeric model previously accomplished by the poet of the Aeneid.

4. The Avian Metamorphosis

Context

In the later half of his Diomedes' speech Ovid considerably expands on the tale of the metamorphosis of the Greek hero's companions into birds. The tale is among the adversities the Vergilian Diomedes also mentions, but the four lines devoted to it in the Aeneid (11.271-274) have expanded to six times that size in the Metamorphoses (14.484-509). In this, Diomedes explains the transformation event, stating the reasons that caused it, namely Venus' anger at Acmon's taunting words (14.484-496), and closing in a spectacular fashion, with a description of the actual process of the men's physical mutation to birds (14.497-509). The metaliterary motives behind the overt emphasis on the transformation process are overlooked, for the comrades' plight, an actual transformation, seems to justify the enfolding of the Diomedes narrative, in Ovid's poem. In reality the textuality behind this avian metamorphosis narrative has no peer inside the 'little Aeneid'. In his meticulous description of the men's physical mutation, Ovid, curiously, does not ascertain with precision the identity of the newly formed avian (lines 508-509): Si volucrum quae sit dubiarum forma requiris Ut non cygnorum, sic albis proxima cygnis

11

12

In sharp contrast to Aeneas'pietas, Diomedes' most outstanding achievement in his H o meric career, his triumph over Aeneas and his subsequent wounding of Aphrodite who was rushing to save her son (II. 5.297-330), is condemned as a dark and shameful act, and a source not only of embarrassment but also of endless labor. See D. Quint, 'Repetition and Ideology in the Aeneid', MD 23 (1989), 35-43, on the portrayal of Turnus, in his final encounter against Aeneas in Aeneid 12, as both duplicate Diomedes and alter Achilles.

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If you wonder what might be the appearance of these dubious birds, although it is not the one of the swans, it nevertheless resembles most closely that of the white swans Recent critics seem more concerned with rationalizing Ovid's decision against calling these birds swans,13 rather, than with explaining why the poet wishes to describe Diomedes' birds as 'similar to swans' when he didn't need to furnish any identification at all. None of the surviving sources relating the transformation of Diomedes' companions identifies the newly formed birds with swans. The earliest known reference to the story, found in the work of a fourth-century writer of Italian history named Lykos (cf. Antigonus, Mirabilia, chapter 172 14 ), narrates that on the island of Diomedeia, off the coast of Apulia, a group of herons that fawned on Greek visitors were said to be the companions of Diomedes. Lycophron (Alex. 592-609), the next known source of the legend, does not specify which kind of birds the companions of Diomedes were. He offers instead a detailed account of the birds' lives on Diomedeia, paying particular attention to their habit of joyously flocking around Greek arrivals, all the while displaying profound hostility against barbarians.15 Vergil, Ovid's prototype, is likewise vague (Aen. 11.273 aves), although he is certainly aware of a number of alternative traditions on the adventures of the post-Homeric Diomedes and his settlement in Italy. 16 In the Vergilian text, the transformation of Diomedes' companions is allotted a brief four-line mention, because within the framework of Diomedes' Aeneas-like adventures the crux lies with the fact, rather than the

13

14

15

16

For example, M.W. Musgrove (ed.), The Student's Ovid: Selections from the Metamorphoses (Norman, O K 2000), 189, argues that Ovid decided against the swan in this particular episode because he had already narrated two different accounts of the origin of the swan: in Met. 2.367-380, Ovid narrates the transformation of Phaethon's friend Cygnus, while in 12.72-145, he narrates one more swan aetion in the transformation of Cycnus, the son of Mars. Antigonus' text, a total of 173 fragments/'chapters', is part of the paradoxa narratives collected in A. Giannini, ed., Paradoxographorum Graecorum Reliquiae (Milan 1965), 32106. A complete list of the ancient sources on the birds of Diomedes can be found in Forbes Irving 1990, 230-232, Börner ad 14.445-608, 149-151, and Thompson 1936, 88-91; also Myers 1994, 102 n. 35. Myers 1994, 102-103, in a brief discussion of Ovid's literary sources for the Diomedes tales, suggests that the birds are not identified because the aetion was too well-known to be repeated. See a complete collection of these sources, with bibliography, in Bethe, RE V.l, 815-826, s.v. Diomedes 1, and Russi, EV I, 77-82, s.v. Diomede.

4. The Avian Metamorphosis Context

151

details and the specifics, of the metamorphosis. The miraculous event is listed as the end to and the apex of a series of punishments that befell the Greek survivors on their way home from Troy, as a result of their repeated violations of pietas. Also, on a different level, the loss of the comrades translates into Diomedes' complete and definite severing of his last ties with his Greek past and Homeric identity. This outcome brings Diomedes even closer to Aeneas, for, earlier in the Aeneid, in a comparably wondrous manner Venus' son lost his own last link with his Trojan past, his ships, which changed into sea nymphs before the eyes of attacking Rutulians and besieged Trojans alike.17 In sum, from a certain standpoint the companions' transformation allows Diomedes to argue ethics and canonize the ethical code of heroic behavior presented in the Aeneid by contrasting it with the Homeric heroic model, which is epitomized in the hero's conduct in the Iliad and now discredited. In the light of the above the allotment of textual space for the specification of the birds' identity is indeed unnecessary. On the contrary, a metamorphosis account finds itself at home in Ovid's poem. Still, Ovid's concern with stressing that the metamorphosed comrades look like but are not swans might well rest on top of a less obvious matrix of allusions. The frequent presence of this particular avian, carefully interspersed throughout the Metamorphoses, owes much to the popularity of the swan as a symbol of literary inspiration. It is my contention that the birds of Diomedes serve as allegory for Ovid's poetic style. Inspired by the connection of the swans both to traditional epic and to lofty poetry in general, regardless of genre,18 Ovid utilizes swan imagery to underscore the sublime artistry and the epic aspirations of his idiosyncratic carmen perpetuum. The allusions to various literary appearances of the swans are emboldened by the poetological nuances tied to the character of Diomedes. I shall begin, accordingly, by highlighting the frequent and regular presence of the swan in the course of the Metamorphoses, and I shall comment on the 17

18

Börner ad 14.559-561, and H - E ad 14.561ff., have both noted that Ovid, likewise, stresses the relationship between the comrades-birds and the ships-nymphs, but aliter·. the poet does not refer to the very legend of the birds' hostility towards the Greeks, but he embraces the hostility theme, which in turn attributes to the sea nymphs in the episode immediately following. The full discussion of the interrelationship between these two adjacent metamorphoses is the subject of the following chapter. "The swans are the singers of heroic epic, 'birds of Maeonian [Homeric] song' in Horace's words," in Putnam's words (1970, 310); the swan is first associated with sublime, non-epic, poetry in Pindar, a literary-conscious passage discussed in Horace C. 2.20; on the swan imagery in Alexandrian poetry, esp. Callimachus, and in Roman literature, see nn. 23-28 below.

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literary dimensions of every single one of these attestations. My focus will subsequently center on those aspects in Diomedes' part that liken him to an epic poet as these initially develop in the Aeneid and are later adapted to promote the antagonistic spirit of the Metamorphoses.

5. The Near-Swans of Diomedes and the Swan-Chain But first, let us follow through the actual metamorphosis of Diomedes' swan-like friends. Acmon, 1 9 one of the hero's comrades, weary of the prolonged toil, taunts Venus (14.483-495), 20 and in retaliation she transforms him and his companions into birds that closely resemble the swans21:

19

The brazen speaker is appropriately called Acmon, "ein sonst unbekannter, also unbedeutender Mann," for Börner ad 14.486; the etymology of the name from σκμωυ, 'anvil', slyly reflects the hero's steely endurance under Venus' incessant pounding. At the same time, the emphasis on the stimulation of Venus' anger at 494-495 (talibus iratam Venerem Pleuronius Acmon / instimulat verbis stimulisque resuscitat iram, 'with such insulting words did Pleuronian Acmon rouse Venus and revive her former anger') introduces the act of 'hammering' also as part of Acmon's active behavior: Venus' anger against Diomedes 'pounds' Acmon with toil, and he, in turn, 'hammers' the goddess with his taunting words.

20

Börner ad 14.486 observes that 14.486-487 calls to mind the opening of Aeneas' second speech in Aeneid 1 (1.198-199 ο socii... ο passi graviora\), the second time this significant passage lurks in between Ovid's lines. The image of Aeneas-echoing Diomedes suggests that we read Acmon's words as an extension of or substitute for the Vergilian Diomedes' insults to Venus, which here are altogether omitted (cf. also the next note); thus the Vergilian Aeneas and the Vergilian Diomedes converge again, in the figure of Acmon. Professing otherwise, Ellsworth 1988, 339-340, reads in the protest of Diomedes' companions Ovid's attempt to reproduce specific moments of the Odyssey. Thus, the weariness and subsequent rebellion of the men (Met. 14.483-484) echo the reaction of Ulixes' men when they learn that they must go to the island of the dead (Od. 10.566-568). And Acmon's polemic against Venus, motivated by despair, as Diomedes' men have reached their limit (Met. 14.486-493), takes us back to the speech of Eurylochus, a comrade of Ulixes, on Thrinacia, who argues before his companions that they have had more than enough suffering, and should go ahead and eat the cattle of Helios (Od. 12.340-351). Finally, Acmon's speech angers Venus, who punishes both him and all the other men by transforming them to birds (Met. 14.497-509), just as Eurylochus' insolence enrages Helios who in turn brings about the destruction of all of Ulixes' crew (Od. 12.407-419). By depicting the transformation of Diomedes' comrades as punishment caused by Acmon's verbally abusing Venus, Ovid moves away f r o m the Vergilian narrative where their punishment is seen as a result of Diomedes' wounding of Aphrodite on the Trojan battlefield (Aen. 11.27 Iff.).

21

5. The Near-Swans of Diomedes and the Swan-Chain

153

Dicta placent paucis, numeri maioris amici Acmona conripimus; cui respondere volenti vox pariter vocisque via est tenuata, comaeque in plumas abeunt, plumis nova colla teguntur pectoraque et tergum, maiores bracchia pennas accipiunt, cubitique leves sinuantur in alas; magna pedis digitos pars occupat, oraque cornu indurata rigent finemque in acumine ponunt. H u n c Lycus, hunc Idas et cum Rhexenore Nycteus, hunc miratur Abas, et dum mirantur, eandem accipiunt faciem, numerusque ex agmine maior subvolat et remos plausis circumvolat alis: si volucrum quae sit dubiarum forma requiris, ut non cygnorum, sic albis proxima cygnis. (Met. 14.496-509) F e w approved of his words. We, the friends of the greater number, upbraided A c m o n . A n d when he was about to reply, his voice and throat together grew thin; his hair was changed to feathers, and feathers clothed a new-formed neck, chest and back. His arms acquired large pinion-feathers and his elbows curved into nimble wings; his toes were replaced by webbed feet and his face grew stiff and horny, ending in a sharp-pointed beak. Lycus viewed him in wonder; likewise did Idas, Rhexenor, Nyctaeus and Abas; and while they wondered, they became of the same form. T h e greater n u m b e r flew up f r o m the flock and circled round the oars with flapping wings. If you ask about the shape of these indeterminate birds, while they are not swans, they were very like the snowy swans.

T h e swans in Metamorphoses 14.508-509 wrap up a series numbering seven additional references to these birds (2.252-253; 2.369-374; 2.536-539; 5.385-387; 7.371-381; 12.71-167; 14.429-430), including three different aetiologies of their origin. Carriers of poetology as early as their attestation in the poetry of Hesiod, 22 the swans are linked directly with the persona of the

22

In the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Herakles, a flock of swans decorates the rim of the shield, where they appear by the river Oceanus and utter a sound (lines 314-317). As Donohue (1993, 20) observes, the particular term employed to describe their voice (ήπυου, 316) occurs also in the poetry of Homer for the sound of the lyre (Od. 17.271). The association of the swan to poetry is established in the minor Homeric Hymn to Apollo (Hymn no. 21), where the swans accompany Apollo and sing in honor of the god, who in turn responds with his lyre. The poet of the Hymn employs the same word (λιγυρός) - a term later to become a technical word for lyric poetry - for both the swan song and Apollo's music.

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poet in Callimachus. 23 Lucretius imported the link into Roman literature and the Augustan poets used it extensively, 24 especially Ovid, where swans as symbols of literary criticism manifest themselves an additional three times in the poet's other works. 25 The attestations in the Metamorphoses likewise carry metapoetical overtones. In the first one 26 (Met. 2.252-253 et quae Maeonias celebrabant carmine ripas / flumineae volucres, medio caluere Caystro, "and the swans which were accustomed to throng and sing by the Maeonian streams, were scorched in mid Cayster") the birds stand by the river Cayster and the Maeonian banks. The two models behind this image are Homer (II. 2.459463), the earliest attestation of the Caystrian swan, and Lucretius (DRN 2.344-345)F Met. 2.369-374 describes the transformation of Phaethon's friend Cygnus. Cygnus' lament over Phaethon's body 'm.Aen. 10.185-193, stands here as Ovid's primary model for a passage that succeeds in bringing together traditional epic and elegy, both erotic and mourning, while also emphasizing the use of key vocabulary and linguistic tropes of the Callimachean poetic language.28 The imagery of the Homeric swans of the river 23

24

25

26

27 28

The identification is spelled out in Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo; cf. Donohue 1993, 2728, on the identification of the literary swan with the poet-devotee to Apollo in the Callimachean corpus. As Hinds 1987, 47 observes, "TLL and OLD between them offer eleven non-Ovidian examples of swans (cycnus or olor) envisaged specifically as singing birds from poetry up to the end of the Augustan period. In no fewer than nine of these, there are clear evocations of 'poets and other literary men' ". Donohue 1993, 18-34, traces the literary associations behind the swan motif in Greek and Roman poetry from H o m e r to Ovid. O n swans and poetology, with emphasis in Augustan poetry, see also Thompson 1936, 178187; R.G.M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book II (Oxford 1978), 333-334, ad Hor. C. 2.20; Ahl 1982, 373-377. In all these instances the poet/speaker is compared to a swan: at H e r . 7.1-2, the swan (olor) is associated with Dido, the poetic subject and author of the particular epistle; at Fast. 2.108-110, the lyre player Arion is compared to a cygnus, while in Trist. 5.1.11-12, Ovid likens his own poetic self to the swan; cf. Hinds 1987, 149 n. 65. O n the swan presence in Metamorphoses 2, Keith 1992, 137-146, is the place to start; pp. 137-140 discuss the literary associations of the first Ovidian swan episode, including its debt to the Homeric text. Keith (1992, 137f. n. 5) admits that her observations rely on Hinds' earlier comments; neither scholar, however, adds the reference to the 'swan-like' companions of Diomedes to the list of Ovid's swan manifestations and among the literarily colored Ovidian allusions. Cf. F. Bornmann, 'Callimachea', Maia 19 (1967), 44-50; Cameron 1995, 355 n. 67. Keith 1992, 140-144, explores the literary network behind the employment of tenuata and querellis in the imagery of Ligurian Cygnus in Metamorphoses 2. The adjective tenuis is widely used Latin translation of the Greek X E T T T C > 5 , a principal literary term in Hellenistic

5. The Near-Swans of Diomedes and the Swan-Chain

155

C a y s t e r , and with it t h e allegiance t o and a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t o f the literary model, return with the H e n n a e a n swans in Met.

5.385-387.29

T h e t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f C y c n u s , the son of H y r i e , i n t o a swan (Met.

7.

3 7 1 - 3 8 1 ) closely e c h o e s that of P h a e t h o n ' s C y g n u s . I n selfish revenge the m a i n c h a r a c t e r o f t h e s t o r y , t h e spoiled puer

C y c n u s , in selfish revenge

j u m p s f r o m a high r o c k i n t o a lake w h e n his lover Phylius indignantly refuses t o surrender the prize o f the last in a series o f hard labors. T h e fall is cut s h o r t b y C y c n u s ' change i n t o a swan. I n despair, the b o y ' s m o t h e r , H y rie, c o n s u m e s herself in tears and eventually turns i n t o a lake bearing h e r name. 3 0 H y r i e ' s p a t h e t i c t r a n s u b s t a n t i a t i o n i n t o water 3 1 essentially a n t i c i pates the n e x t manifestation o f the literary swan in B o o k 14, in the figure o f C a n e n s w h o in similar m o d e wept herself until she dissolved i n t o thin air. T h e explicit parallels that H y r i e shares b o t h with the P h a e t h o n episode and t h e C a n e n s m e t a m o r p h o s i s enable the reader t o view O v i d ' s swans as successive dots that, o n c e c o n n e c t e d , f o r m a distinguishing t h e m a t i c line running t h r o u g h the entire epic. B e f o r e he narrates t h e fate o f C a n e n s , O v i d , in 1 2 . 4 6 - 1 4 5 , tells the s t o r y o f C y c n u s , son o f N e p t u n e , a T r o j a n warrior w h o c o n f r o n t e d A c h i l l e s and was eventually t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o a swan. T h e marvel ( 1 2 . 1 4 1 - 1 4 5 ) concludes t h e single c o m b a t b e t w e e n the t w o warriors. B o o k 12 records O v i d ' s adapt a t i o n o f the Iliad,

launching his m o s t direct c o n f r o n t a t i o n with traditional

epic. T h e single c o m b a t b e t w e e n Achilles and C y c n u s summarily replicates - and parodies - the Iliadic battle scenes that have been left out. 3 2 I n addiliterature. It would be worth drawing attention to the suggestive worldplay between Liguria and the Greek adjective λιγύξ or λιγυρόξ ('subtle', 'tender'), likewise a keyword of Alexandrian poetics; cf. Ahl 1982, 389. Admittedly, Liguria and λιγυρός do not seem to relate etymologically, yet the former term might have reminded Ovid's readers of the verb ligur(r)io, -ire, which according to Donatus derives from the Greek word Aiyupog (cf. R. Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies [Leeds 1991], 341). The same linguistic pun is echoed in the description of dying Canens later in Metamorphoses 14, which has also been inspired by Vergil's description of the death of Phaethon's lover; cf. also my earlier discussion on Canens and poetics (pp. 124ff.). 29 30

31

32

Hinds 1987, 44-48; Keith 1992, 138-140. Ovid's emphasis on Cycnus' homoerotic relationship clearly assumes that the reader has already traced the connection of Phaethon's Cygnus in Book 2 to its Vergilian prototype (Aen. 10.186-193), and henceforth views the Ovidian and Vergilian passages as complementary. On water, naturally present in all seven images of the swan in the Metamorphoses, as poetological marker in Alexandrian literature, see p. 136 n. 44. See, for example, Börner ad 12.146ff, 55-56, with earlier bibliography; J.D. Ellsworth, Ovid's Iliad (Metamorphoses 12.1-13.622)', Prudentia 12 (1980), 23-29.

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tion, Nestor's subsequent narrative of Caeneus, the transgendered, immortal warrior and central character of the mock-epic of the Centauromachy, revives the Cycnus episode, aiming at ridiculing Achilles by assimilating him to Caeneus' opponents, the Centaurs. Concealed behind Nestor's narrative persona, Ovid claims control over epic tradition, and in a way redefines epic poetry and the essence of heroism. 33 The Canens episode, and especially its conclusion describing the transubstantiation of the nymph (Met. 14.416434), spearheads this recurrent declaration of literary eminence. 34 The nymph's comparison to the dying swan at 14.429-430 (verba sono tenui maerens fundebat, ut olim / carmina iam moriens canit exequialia cycnus, 'she poured out her mournful words attuned to grief; just as sometimes, in dying, a swan sings a last funeral song') is modeled after the transformation of Phaethon's lover in Aen. 10.185-193. Both Cygnus and Canens mourn passionately the untimely and tragic loss of their beloved ones (Aen. 10.189 crimen, Amor, vestrum, 'your crime, Love'; 191 luctu... Phaethontis amati, 'in grief [for the death] of his lover Phaethon'; 193 maestum... solatur amorem, 'he was trying to console his unhappy love'; cf. Met. 14.426 luctu, 'in grief'; 428 cum lacrimis ipso modulata dolore, 'with tears, in weak, faint tones of pain'; 429, maerens, 'unhappy'; 431, luctibus, 'wailings'). Cygnus' mourning is likened to a song (Aen. 10.193 canit... Musa solatur amorem), and likewise Canens' lament sounds similar to the song of the dying swan (Met. 14.430 carmina... canit), and is qualified as tenuis (14.429 sono tenui), thus officially classified as erudite poetry. 35 All in all, the linear arrangement of the literary avian along the Metamorphoses converts the swan imagery into a motif whose regular appearance in the course of the poem strengthens its narrative continuity overall and underlines its forward movement. The swan-like friends of Diomedes form the concluding ring of this sequence, and they are no less engaged in the discourse on poetics between Vergil and his aspiring epic rival and successor Ovid.

33

34

35

O n the Centauromachy and its central role in understanding Ovid's version of the Iliad, see Papaioannou 2002a; A.M. Keith, 'Versions of Epic Masculinity in Ovid's Metamorphoses', in Hardie-Barchiesi-Hinds 1999, 214-239, esp. 231-238; S. O'Bryhim, 'Nestor: Wit or Windbag at Metamorphoses 12?', Augustan Age 8 (1989) 49-53; Zumwalt 1977. As already noted (p. 134 n. 40), Myers 1994, 109-113, and also Michalopoulos 2001, 4849, etymologize Canens from canere, 'to sing'. For example, Keith 1992, 141-142, with ample parallels and bibliography.

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6. Swan Poetics and Epic Succession It is appropriate to begin with Vergil's Diomedes and his literary aspirations. Upon expressing his admiration for Aeneas and, with him, the virtues of the (Roman) epic hero reinvented in the Vergilian text, Diomedes personifies the voice of Homeric epic singing the praises of Vergilian epic. A closer look at Diomedes' speech in the Aeneid is rewarding. The hero's personal version of the Trojan War and its aftermath, obviously partial albeit projected as objective (Aeti. 11.283 experto credite), has a precedent in Aeneas' own interpretation of the murals in the temple of Juno in Aeneid 1 and his life story during and after the fall of Troy in Books 2 and 3. Actually, the selection of the pictorial narratives that decorate the temple is Dido's, yet we see them in the order chosen by Aeneas and we observe the details that Aeneas does (or wishes us to do). In this way, we receive an alternative account of the Trojan War, an epic-within-an-epic, since the praemia laudi (1.461) on the murals actually describe (and, in a way, paraphrase) klea andron. Commenting on 1.457 (bellaque iam fama totum vulgata per orbem, 'wars already spread in fame through the whole world'), Barchiesi stresses the poetological nuances heralded in this opening line of the ekphrasis. He observes that these 'wars', in reality the Trojan saga, have lost originality, and hence appeal, since they have become familiar through continuous oral performances and the recasting of individual episodes in other epics. Vergil's/Aeneas' task is to step outside the much trodden epic Cycle, and write his own, new, epic.36 The same play on words, urging for distancing oneself from an established epic tradition, may be read in Dido's asking Aeneas at the end of Aeneid 1 to narrate his own adventures, to define his own epic space. Notably, Dido's invitation follows after a series of questions on the Trojan War, Aeneas' answers to which reproduce the repeated rehearsals of familiar epics that are growing tedious. Aeneas' personal, previously untold account in Books 2 and 3 of the fall of Troy and his subsequent adventures is the new epic Dido craves. In his role as 'epic' narrator Aeneas is comparable to Ulixes when the latter recounts his own adventures to the Phaeacians. Ever since the sea storm roused by Juno's anger led Aeneas astray from his final destination, which at that point he had nearly reached, the plot design of Aeneid 1 has 36

Barchiesi 1984, 118; on Aeneas as an epic poet performing his personal (epic) story before Dido, see most recently A. Deremetz, 'Le livre II de 1' Eneide et la conception virgilienne de l'epopee. Epopee et tragedie dans Γ Eneide,' REL 78 (2000), 84-92.

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s u g g e s t e d t h a t A e n e a s ' adventures are t o be seen t o replicate t h o s e o f U l i x e s . B o t h h e r o e s land in a f o r e i g n c o u n t r y wither t h e y are directed b y a friendly deity in disguise and are received hospitably by the local royalty. A t a b a n q u e t held in t h e i r h o n o r , b o t h are r e q u e s t e d t o narrate their adventures. 3 7 U l i x e s ' narrative is so captivating that when he pauses twice during his tale ( o n c e in the middle and o n c e at the end), the audience still stares at h i m enchanted: 'thus he spoke, and everyone fell silent, and t h e y were spellb o u n d ( κ η λ η θ μ φ δ' ε σ χ ο ν τ ο ) t h r o u g h o u t the shadowy halls' ( 1 1 . 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 = 1 3 . 1 - 2 ) . A l c i n o u s shares the general admiration and, at the first pause, he praises U l i x e s b y c o m p a r i n g him t o a p r o f e s s i o n a l singer/epic bard: μ ΰ θ ο ν δ' ώ ς ο τ ' ά ο ι δ ό ς ε π ι σ τ α μ έ ν ω ς κ α τ ε λ ε ξ α ς ( 1 1 . 3 6 8 ) . 3 8 U l i x e s ' s t o r y is an

37

38

R.D. Williams, 'Virgil and the Odyssey', Phoenix 17 (1963), 266-274, has outlined in detail the verbal and structural parallels between the two texts (Aeneid 1 vs. Odyssey 5-8); the parallel passages have been tabulated in full by G.N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer (Göttingen 1964). Later Eumaeus praises Ulixes, who is disguised as a beggar, to Penelope, telling her how Ulixes 'enchanted' him with his tales, like a bard would do (Od. 17.513-522). The setting the swineherd describes duplicates the Phaeacian reaction to Ulixes' narrative skills in Odyssey 11: the 'silence' of the audience due to their falling under the 'enchantment' and 'bardlike skill' of Ulixes; cf. Segal 1994, 129. Ulixes' control over a mass audience through his oratorical mastery recalls the performance of an aoidos, Demodocus. Demodocus is the bard entertaining the Phaeacians, and Ulixes invites him to sing his third song on the Trojan Horse by praising him for the accuracy and vividness of his narrative skills: Demodocus' art can really mirror life. Rising to the call and praise, the Phaeacian aoidos revives the fall of Troy with such striking resemblance to the truth that Ulixes likens the singer's accuracy to that of an eyewitness (8.491 ώξ τέ που ή αύτόζ παρεών ή άλλου άκουσας); cf. S. Richardson, The Homeric Narrator (Nashville 1990), 182-187, and B. Louden 'Epeios, Ulixes, and the Indo-European Metaphor for Poet', Journal of Indo-European Studies 24 (1996), on appreciating Ulixes' recollection in terms of bardic performance comparable and reciprocal to Demodocus' songs. Also, L.E. Doherty, Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor 1995), 89, on Ulixes as epic narrator: "By allowing the hero to take over... the narration of the poem... the epic narrator sets up an implied double comparison: on the one hand, a comparison between himself and Ulixes in the narrator's role; on the other hand, a complementary comparison between the Phaeacians as internal audience and implied audience of the epic as a whole". Additional recent discussions of note on the Odyssey's poetic selfconsciousness include: D.J. Stewart, The Disguised Guest: Rank, Role and Identity in the Odyssey (Lewisburg 1976) 146-195, G.B. Walsh, The Varieties of Enchantment: Early Greek Views on the Nature and Function of Poetry (Chapel Hill 1984), 3-21, W.G. Thalmann, Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore 1984), 170-184, S. Murnaghan, Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (Princeton 1987), L.H. Pratt, Lyric and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics (Ann Arbor 1993), 63-94, Segal 1994, 85-109 and 113-141; also L.E. Doherty,

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epic-in-an-epic, and its content and vividness complement the three songs of Demodocus, whose performance preceded and motivated Ulixes' narrative. Aeneas' narrative has the very same effect as the narrative of Ulixes, which Alcinous judged to have a quality similar to that of a professional singer: Aeneas enchants his Carthaginian audience and captures the heart of his host, Queen Dido. Just as Ulixes, upon passing by the island of the Sirens, is willing to stay there forever listening and relistening to the narrative of the Achaean deeds at Troy, 39 Dido prolongs Aeneas' narrative with question after question. Vergil alleges that Aeneas, like Ulixes in Odyssey 9-12, has the charisma of θέλξις, the ability to enchant the audience. 40 Dido wishes to stop time and prolongs the night with questions; and she becomes the victim not only of Aeneas' appearance, but also of his speech (Aen. 4.4-5 haerent infixi pectore vultus / verbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietern, 'the countenance and the speech of the man cling fast within her heart, nor allows the anguish her members to receive any rest'). 41 There is nonetheless a notable divergence, with poetological undertones, that sets the narratives of the Homeric and Vergilian protagonists at opposite corners. When Ulixes begins his reply to Arete's request for an account of his peregrinations, he states that it would be trying for him to relate his sad tale f r o m the b e g i n n i n g to the e n d (O d. 7.241-242 ά ρ γ α λ έ ο ν , βασίλεια, διηνεκέως άγορεΰσαι / κήδε'..., 'my queen, it is hard to relate my sorrows from the beginning to the end'; cf. also Od. 12.56). The employment of the particular metaliterary term, the terminus technicus for the definition of ancient epic, is outstanding. O n the contrary, Aeneas, obviously in compliance with the principles of Callimachus for the definition of

39

40

41

'The Internal and Implied Audiences in Odyssey \\\Arethusa 1991 24 (1991), 145-176, andzW. 'Gender and Internal Audiences in the Odyssey', AJP 112 (1992), 161-177. The song of Sirens (Od. 12.184-191) as a powerful example of a text - "reading scene" is discussed by Pucci 1979, 121-132. Pucci 1987, 191-208, expounds on the enchanting power of Phemius' song, Penelope's resistance, and Telemachus' surrender to its "intoxicating" power of θέλγειυ. Cf. also Höffer, Roscher V, 385-386, s.v. Terpsiades, a name attributed to Phemius in Od. 22.330, which is etymologized from τέρψιξ, and could be either a patronymic or an adjective qualifying aoidos. Dido's behavior calls to mind Penelope who, before she and Ulixes bed down, asks her spouse for a full chronicle of his wanderings (Od. 23.256-267); cf. Segal 1994, 132.

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a sophisticated, Alexandrian-type epic, asserts that his recollection of the fall of Troy will be brief:42 sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros et breviter Troiae supremum audire laborem, quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit, incipiam. {Aen. 2.10-13) Yet if you desire so much to know of our plights and hear briefly of Troy's last agony, although my mind shudders to remember and evades this in grief, I shall begin. The Vergilian Diomedes' personal memories of Troy and its aftermath in Book 11 recast in condensed f o r m the same metaliterary ambitions. The new appreciation of the hero's attack on Venus and an equally unusual, or rather unexpected, analysis of the νόστοι assemble an original narrative of familiar epic material, a new epic. The hero himself hastens to join, too, in this game of poetologically charged programmatic declarations, lobbying for the 'epic' texture of his own narrative of homecoming travails, yet in a fashion that distinguishes him f r o m both H o m e r and Vergil. A narrative ' f r o m the beginning to the end' (διηνεκές) would require that Diomedes embark on a tale the longest yet, for his experiences combine both Homeric and p o s t - H o m e r i c (or 'Vergilianesque') material. Acknowledging that his Homeric career has been narrated in detail, exhausted in fact, in the very text of H o m e r , Diomedes professes that he will pass his Trojan recollections over (Aen. 11.256-257 mitto ea quae muris bellando exhausta sub altis, / quos Simois premat ille vivos). Further, the hero is not keen to relate in detail his post-Homeric adventures either, for these are impossible to account and so sad that they could extract pity even f r o m the Trojans themselves: infanda 42

A. Cartault, L' art de Vergile dans I' Eneide (Paris 1926), 211, was the first to note this distinction, and G. D'Ippolito, Trifiodoro e Virgilio: Ii Proemio della Presa di Ilio e I'esordio del libro secondo dell' Eneide (Palermo 1976), 26-28, expanded it; the latter reads Aeneas' breviter as conscious opposition to Ulixes' διηυεκεως, a statement in support of a distinct perception of epic narrative style. D ' Ippolito's observations have been reworked by A. Rossi, 'The Fall of Troy: Between Tradition and Genre', in: D.S. Lebene, D. Nelis (edd.), Clio and the Poets: Augustan Poetry and the Traditions of Ancient Historiography (Leiden-Boston-Cologne 2002), 247-251, who takes Aeneas' declarations and overall delivery style to remind the audience of the performance of a messenger in a tragic drama. Rossi also notes (p. 249 n. 48) that the Vergilian and Homeric passages discussed here had attracted the attention of Macrobius (Sat. 5.5.2), "who already viewed the Virgilian passage as an important programmatic statement".

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per orbem / supplicia et scelerum poenas expendimus omnes / vel Priamo miseranda manus (Aen. 11.257-259). 43 In a way, then, Diomedes aspires to reproduce Aeneas' breviter without having to repeat the term itself; yet there is little doubt that in composing the last three verses, he has in mind the opening of Aeneas' speech to Dido in Aeneid 2. There, the Trojan leader announces his acquiescence to the queen's request for a narrative of his adventures at 2.10-13 only after he has confessed that Dido is asking him to renew pain impossible to relate and events so devastating that they would move to tears even the Greeks themselves: infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem, Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum eruerint Danai, quaeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui. quis talia fando Myrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Ulixi temperet a lacrimis? (Aen. 2.3-8) My queen, you urge me to renew a grief impossible to relate, how the Greeks overthrew the Trojan wealth and the woeful kingdom, the things most pitiful that I myself witnessed and of which I was a big part. What Myrmidon or Dolopian or even a soldier of cruel Ulixes could in relating such a story refrain from tears? Ovid's Diomedes is likewise keen on making a statement on poetics as he comes to grips with his Vergilian counterpart. As Hardie has argued, the alleged impartiality of Diomedes' speech in the Aeneid could weigh heavily upon the decision-making process of the Latins with respect to the continuation of warfare against Aeneas. On his part, King Latinus urges Venulus to report Diomedes' reply as accurately as possible (11.240-241 responsa reposcit [sc. Latinus] / ordine cuncta suo, 'Latinus asks for his [Diomedes'] responses, each in its order'). Realizing the weight of the eye-witness factor in Diomedes' testimony, the envoy hastens to comply, first by stressing that the embassy actually saw and touched the Greek hero (vidimus... contigimus), who had himself seen

43

And, as a matter of fact, they have already been given a new, celebrated, treatment: the first scene of bardic performance in the Odyssey, Phemius' θελκτήριου, 'lovely song' (1.155 καλόν άείδειν), is the only song in the palace of Ithaca whose actual subject is specified (1.325-327 Τοΐσι δ' άοιδόξ αειδε περικλυτός, οί δε σιωπή / ηατ' άκούοντεςό δ' 'Αχαιών νόστον άειδε / λυγρόν, ου έκ Τροίης έπετείλατο Παλλάς Άθήυη) so as to be titled 'the Grim Return of the Greeks'.

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and touched Aeneas, and second by reporting Diomedes' words in direct discourse. 44 These issues of directness, objectivity, and accuracy by and large determine the inclusion of the Diomedes speech in the Aeneid, and naturally attract the focus of Ovid's attack. So, whereas Vergil had Venulus reporting D i o m e d e s ' words, Ovid stages the narrative moment at an earlier time, when Diomedes delivered his 'original' speech. Since the hero in the Metamorphoses emphasizes different events and substitutes the transformation of his comrades for ethics as his core theme, the audience is bound to question the credibility of Venulus' report in the Aeneid. It is fair to say, then, that Ovid exposes the rhetorical twist in the speech of the Vergilian Diomedes, and along with it its literary-critical potential. Accordingly, upon deciding to incorporate the Diomedes speech within the thematic nexus of his own narrative, Ovid is not only aware that he is challenging Vergil's poetological skill, but he is eager to announce the competition. It is remarkable, moreover, that Ovid's Diomedes seeks to enter the poetological exchange of programmatic declarations, which H o m e r ' s Ulixes initiates, and Vergil's Aeneas and Diomedes follow suit. When, at 14.473474, immediately following his summary treatment of his adventures from Troy to Argos, the hero states that neve morer referens tristes ex ordine casus, Graecia turn potuit Priamo quoque flenda videri not to delay you by telling our sad mishaps in order, Greece at that time could have moved even Priam's tears he combines allusions both to Aeneas' poetological prologue to his apologoi and to Vergilian Diomedes' aemulatio of it. Neve morer, 'not to delay you', may allude to Aeneas' breviter. The statement of the following line, that his narrative of the Greeks' sufferings would have moved even Priam to tears, reproduces nearly verbatim the words of his Vergilian counterpart at Aen. 11.258-259. Referre, a signpost of intertextual recollection, is a key term in the definition of the Metamorphoses (referre idem aliter). Jupiter's 'recollection' in his prophecy to Venus in Metamorphoses 15, of his own prophecy to the same deity in Aeneid 1, is an outstanding example, but also one remarkably parallel to the present situation. Ingenious is no doubt the discourse involving the phrase referens... ex ordine casus, for the Ovidian Dio-

44

Hardie 1998, 254-56, weighs up Diomedes' reply within a context of rhetorical distortion that underlies the council of the Latins in Aeneid 11, where objectivity and partiality are hard to separate, and epic fama and invidia intersect.

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m e d e s ' addressee here is none of the three aspiring hero-bards above, but Vergil's D i d o at the conclusion of Aeneid

1. T h e queen distinctly requests

A e n e a s ' T r o j a n narrative in the following words: immo

age et a prima

die,

hospes, origine nobis / insidias, ... Danaum casusque tuorum / erroresque tuos, 'Please, do go ahead and tell us, m y guest, f r o m the very first beginning the treacheries of the Greeks and the misfortunes of y o u r people, and y o u r own wanderings' ( A e n . 1 . 7 5 2 - 7 5 5 ) . In so many words, Ovid's D i o m e d e s seeks n o t only t o emulate the literary talent of his Vergilian counterpart, but also t o usurp both his (the Vergilian D i o m e d e s ' ) own role as epic p e r f o r m e r and the role of the Vergilian Aeneas at the same time and in the same verse! T h e self-awareness of poetic competition in the Diomedes narrative culminates in the implementation of the swan imagery at the conclusion of the unit. A s already remarked, Vergil's Diomedes restricts himself t o traditional epic themes, the Trojan W a r and the ν ό σ τ ο ι , in a narrative hardly unbiased. Indeed, f o r Hardie, the hero b e c o m e s an internal narrator of epic events, m u c h like the H o m e r i c P h o e n i x o r Ulixes in Phaeacia, and a score of secondary narrators in the very text of the Aeneid,

whose presence, a m o n g o t h e r

things, challenges the authority of the p r i m a r y narrator. 4 5 H a r d i e further observes that these internal epic narrators actually reflect " t h e poet's work within his t e x t " and "might be t h o u g h t t o be the p r o d u c t of the late stages of a tradition that has b e c o m e overly self-conscious, a development that will reach its logical conclusion in the plethora of figures of the poet that inhabit the pages of Ovid's Metamorphoses",46

Logically, then, Vergil's D i o m e d e s is

identified with Vergil, while his Ovidian counterpart acts out Ovid's narrative, and the c h o i c e of the central narrative t h e m e is representative of the generic nature of the whole work. 4 7 T h e metamorphosis narrative that dominates the Ovidian version of the D i o m e d e s s t o r y ( 1 4 . 4 8 3 - 5 0 9 ) captures the musing on genre that underlies the p o e m t h r o u g h o u t . T h e emphasis on change, as the details of a physical change marginalize m o r e epically colored material, alludes t o the shift in the narrative focus and intentions of the whole episode. T h e detailed a c c o u n t of the transformation, however, is given in language that draws the element of p o e t i c s back in because it echoes the shape-shifting of Phaethon's C y g n u s in Metamorphoses

2, and likely alludes t o a similar toying with multiple gen-

res. C y g n u s and D i o m e d e s ' comrade A c m o n follow a parallel course in their

45

Hardie 1 9 9 8 , 2 5 7 - 5 9 .

46

Hardie 1998, 2 5 9 - 6 0 .

47

Hardie 1998, 260, drawing from Martin 1989.

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respective shape shifting. Initially, both see their voices becoming progressively slender: Met. 14.498 vox... vocisque via est tenuata, is repeated verbatim in Met. 2.373 vox est tenuata. Notably, these texts represent the only two occasions in the entire Ovidian poem where the terms vox and tenuata appear associated with each other. Then the metamorphosis affects the two heroes' hair, the areas around the neck, and the torso, all of which are gradually covered with feathers. Thus, in Cygnus' case, canaeque capillos dissimulantplumae, 'white feathers cover his hair' (2.373-374), and likewise Acmon sees his hair undergoing an identical change (comae / in plumas abeunt, 14.498-499). Once again the concurrent presence of the words coma / capilli and pluma / penna in the same narrative unit is not attested in the Metamorphoses outside the two episodes in question. Next, the detailed covering of Acmon's neck, chest, and back by feathers (14.499-501 plumis nova colla teguntur / pectoraque et tergum, maiores bracchia pennas / accipiunt) is summarily reflected in the similar change affecting Cygnus' body (2.376 penna latus velat, 'feathers cover his side'). Finally, Cygnus and Acmon alike see their fingers changing to webbed feet (14.502 magna pedis digitos pars occupat·, cf. 2.375 digitos ligat iunctura, 'a membrane links the toes together'), and their face assuming the shape of a beak (14.502-503 oraque... finemque in acumine ponunt, 'his face... ended in a sharp-pointed beak'; cf. 2.376 tenet os sine acumine rostrum, 'his face held a round/non-pointed beak'). 48 And yet the birds of Diomedes are clearly not swans, since their beaks are pointed, contrary to the beak of the swan. N o t fortuitously, in this last set of parallels Ovid introduces the only notable difference between Cygnus and the birds of Diomedes. Additionally, this assertion of different identity is paired with vocabulary that carries literary connotations, which reassert that these new birds partake of the poetics tied to the swans. Markedly, the word acumen as the vox propria for a bird's beak is a hapax in Ovid's text; it does, however, often define figuratively the shrewdness and keenness of mind and the subtlety of speech.49 Likewise, the term os has been previously employed in Augustan literature, in the very text of the Aeneid, also to signify not merely 'speech' but 'speech differentiation': Aen. 2.423 ora sono discordia signant ('mark out speech different in tone'). Thus, when Ovid/Diomedes remarks at the conclusion that his friends assumed avian

48

49

O n Cygnus as emblem of the "Kreuzung der Gattungen", fusing elegy and epic both in Metamorphoses 2 and in the primary archetype, Aen. 10.185-193, cf. Keith 1992, 144-145. LS. s.v., II.A and Β.

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shapes similar but not identical to the form of the swan, he espouses the literary complexity and multiple genre associations that the swan symbolizes, all the while observing tradition on the vague identity of these birds. N o t least, the deep-rooted correlation of the swan to poetic inspiration, and by extension to one's models, becomes for Ovid a foil for the definition of his own literary independence; Diomedes' quasi-swans symbolize Ovid's staking out of a territory within the epic world and yet separate from the one occupied by Vergil.

Chapter Six Experimentation on a Narrative Chain II: Vergilian Ships and Ovidian Nymphs, and a Play of Literary Identities 1. Introduction The miraculous transformation of Aeneas' ships into nymphs of the sea [Met. 14.527-565) is the second long episode in the Italian section of Ovid's 'Aeneid', and the last unit deriving directly f r o m Vergil. Arguably the most spectacular transformation in the Aeneid, and, on top of this, an invention by the great Roman poet, 1 it becomes a prime target for Ovidian aemulatio, and its inclusion into the compact Ovidian revision of Vergil's epic is all but unexpected. 2 Vergil's account of the transformation of Aeneas' ships into nymphs had obviously impressed Ovid profoundly, for he includes it in his list of exemplars of poetic invention at Am. 3.12.38 quaeque rates fuerint

1

2

The recognition of the ships' metamorphosis as a Vergilian creation predates Servius; cf. Fantham 1990, 102. Galinsky 1975, 238, and 1976, 11, views it as "a reminder of the fundamental differences" between Vergil and Ovid in their respective approaches to the Trojan myth - and myth in general. Baldo 1995, 89, describes it as "una perfetta sovrapposizione narrative tra Eneide e poema ovidiano, sia sotto il profilo tematico, sia sotto il profilo dell' intreccio". O n the Vergilian version of the transformation of the ships, with special focus on the identification and adaptation of its models, particularly its allegiance to the Homeric text, see mainly Fantham 1990, 102-119, esp. 102-117; likewise indispensable is Hardie 1992, 163171, esp. 164-165 and 167, and id. 1994, 88-97; and E.L. Harrison, 'The Metamorphosis of the Ships (,Aeneid 9.77-122)', PLLS 8 (1995), 143-164. Ovid's adaptation of the tale is routinely discussed in comparison with its model in the Aeneid·, see Lamacchia 1969, 1012; Galinsky 1975, 238-240; Solodow 1988, 127-136, the first to suggest (p. 135) that Ovid's narrative aims at establishing a relationship between the narrator and the reader that exists apart f r o m the story; and more recently, Fantham 1990, 117-119, and Baldo 1995, 89-100, for whom Ovid's aemulatio here purports to exalt the epic character of the narrative as well as promote the poet's own literary independence.

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nunc maris esse deas, 'these that once were ships are now goddesses of the sea'.3 In the narrative arrangement of the Aeneid, the miracle of the ships precedes the metamorphosis of Diomedes' companions by two whole books. The actual marvel takes place at^4e«. 9.77-122, and its sequel, during which the metamorphosed ships, now nymphs, hurry up against the Tiber's current to meet with their former flagship that carries Aeneas from Pallanteum back to Latium, follows a book later, at Aen. 10.215-259. Why did Ovid decide to invert the narrative sequence? Critics have not seemed particularly puzzled by the poet's decision to tell the transformation of Diomedes' companions before the change of the ships. This is rather striking, given the fact that, throughout the Metamorphoses version of the Aeneas experience, this transposition happens to be the only transgression against the Vergilian story line. Ovid redefined the structural relationship between the two metamorphoses by converting them into parts of a more extensive narrative sequence of units thematically interrelated. In addition, upon 'translating' the Vergilian prototype, he introduced a series of changes in the Trojan ships' narrative, as he had done earlier when redrafting the Diomedes episode. The alterations affected drastically not only the length of the original unit-which was now reduced by two thirds, leaving off the entire second part, the narrative in Aeneid 10 - but also the story. Just to draw attention to a pointed divergence, in Ovid it is Cybele herself who performs the metamorphosis, not, as in Vergil, Jupiter who is heeding Cybele's plea and fulfilling a promise made to her at an earlier time.4 The first question one needs to address, then, is how the transposition in the Metamorphoses of the ships' transformation after the Diomedes episode, in conjunction with considerable modification of the original Vergilian story, served a specific structural and thematic narrative plan, all the while underlining Ovid's imitation ingenuity. 3 4

F a n t h a m 1990, 117 n. 54. Solodow 1988, 1 3 1 - 1 3 2 , supports the excision as suggestive o f a 'selective' narrative strategy, which leaves out themes and details that do n o t support the narrator's effort to occupy the center of interest in the unit. Ovid's intentional disregard of the Cybele-Jupiter meeting and the escalation leading to the arson, betrays his "indifference o n the one hand to fate and divinity, on the other to full portrayal o f the human characters in the story. W h e r e a s Virgil gives us a wealth of details within a s c e n e . . . , Ovid substitutes details in place of a full s c e n e . . . H e tells the story in such a way as to remind us of him, who is the organizer and shaper" (pp. 1 3 5 - 1 3 6 ) . Overall, Solodow's narrator-centered approach of the Ovidian transformation of the ships (pp. 1 2 7 - 1 3 6 ) is fundamental, for he closely examines the text in comparison to its Vergilian model, and carefully notes the various plot divergences.

1. Introduction

169

The episode of the nymphs has been denounced since the earliest days of Vergilian criticism, and Ovid should have been aware of his contemporaries' negative reactions.5 On the other hand, the inclusion of a metamorphosis account in full detail presented Ovid with a temptation hard to resist, all the more so considering the absense of a prior treatement of the ships' story in earlier tradition. As it has frequently been remarked, however, matters of post-Alexandrian incorporation are never simple. To what extent, then, does the experimentation with Vergilian metapoetics in the tale of the ships bolster Ovid's own poetological ambitions?

2. The Transformed

Nymphs and

Diomedes

The postponement of the transformation of Aeneas' ships in the Metamorphoses until after Diomedes' companions change into birds is tied to the various dynamics of the concluding section of the little Aeneid. Next to the thematic affinity to the plight of Acmon and his comrades, the story of the ships/nymphs shares unmistakable similarities with the transformation of Ardea into a bird, the tale that comes immediately afterwards and essentially concludes the 'little Aeneid'. In Vergil, the transformations of the Trojan ships and Diomedes' Argives reflect the parallel courses in the lives and destinies of Aeneas and Diomedes, two involuntary exiles whom postHomeric tradition transferred alike to Italy. The parallel experience shared by the two heroes unravels gradually along the course of the entire Aeneid. The transformation of Diomedes' comrades into birds marks the hero's irrevocable loss of all ties to the past and the end of his wanderings. As such it is anticipated two books earlier, in the mutation of Aeneas' ships into seanymphs, which in turn signifies the end of the Trojan hero's peregrinations at sea.6

5

Fantham 1990, 102 η. 1, remarks that Servius at 3.46 refers to the miracle of the ships as one of the three Vergilian inventions criticized for implausibility; typical modern critical rejections of the episode include: J.W. Mackail, The Aeneid (Oxford 1930), 335: "many readers are inclined to wish [Vergil] had discarded the incident and its sequel in 10.219255 and left it to be treated by the hand of Ovid as a fairy tale", also Williams 1973, 283: "the most incongruous episode in the whole Aeneid".

6

O n Vergil's modeling of his Diomedes on the character of Aeneas, especially with reference to the hero's post-Homeric adventures, see my detailed discussion in the immediately prior chapter. O n the transformations of Diomedes' comrades and of Aeneas' ships as allusions to the two heroes' abandonment of their former identities and Homeric past,

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In Vergil the avian transformation of Diomedes' entourage is summarily told in a mere three lines (Aen. 11.272-274). Its brevity may be held accountable for the rather brief, nonchalant notice paid so far to the episode, especially if one fails to observe that the temporal placement of the Argives' transformation right upon their landing on Italian ground is a plot variation invented by the poet of the Aeneid. In the most prevalent Italian versions of the Diomedes legend the hero's companions assumed their avian form much later, after their king's death. 7 The miraculous mutation of Aeneas' ships into nymphs by Cybele is likewise Vergil's brainchild and a detail to be found nowhere in earlier versions of the Aeneas legend. The message promoted throughout, the affirmation, by means of a divine declaration sanctioned by Jupiter himself, that Italy is the promised land for the Trojans, is made especially clear, for it flashes back to the encounter between Cybele and Jupiter. 8 When the great goddess is granted permission to 'loan' her sacred trees/nymphs as timber for Aeneas' fleet, she also extracts Jupiter's promise to restore them to their original forms as soon as the fleet reaches its final destination. The detailed and vivid narration of this supernatural event balances the brevity of the text that records the metamorphosis of Diomedes' companions. Embracing one of his favorite techniques of emulation, i.e. the expansion of the prototype, Ovid promotes the transformation of Diomedes' companions from a marginal travail to a climactic section of the Diomedes episode. The encounter between Jupiter and Cybele is cut out in Ovid's version, and so is the second part of the nymphs' story (Aen. 10.219-255), where the newly transformed sea goddesses hurry up the Tiber to meet Aeneas who at the time is away from the battlefield visiting Evander. The inclusion of these sections would likely distract from readily identifying the motive behind the Ovidian reproduction, to emphasize the transformation element and its closeness to the experience of Diomedes' companions.

7 8

see Papaioannou 2002b. K. Büchner, P. Vergilius Maro. Der Dichter der Römer (Stuttgart 1966), 384, together with G. Ν. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer (Göttingen 1964), 271f., and, more recently, Hardie 1987, 167-168, have also read the spectacular effect of the Trojan ships' transformation as a divine signal marking the end of the Trojan wanderings - Hardie in the light of the conclusion of Ulixes' journey by a comparable intervention (Neptune's petrification of the Phaeacian ship). Russi, EV I, 77ff. s.v. Diomede. Hardie 1994, 88-97, provides detailed and exclusive study of the transformation of the Trojan ships in Vergil's narrative (Aen. 9.77-122).

2. T h e T r a n s f o r m e d N y m p h s and D i o m e d e s

171

In addition, the restructuring of the nymphs' story in Ovid's text situates the metamorphosis element at the center of an interesting contrast, which develops between the two contiguous embedding textual environments. The companions of Diomedes leave behind their original, 'superior' human f o r m to assume the shape of the swan-like avian (14.498-507), while the wooden framework of the Trojan fleet follows the reverse course, as they switch back to their original, 'superior' status as nymphs (14.549-558). The two metamorphoses are drawn even closer by the graphic, nearly anatomical description of the physical transformation that the men and the ships respectively undergo. 9 T h r o u g h carefully selected vocabulary Ovid draws the two metamorphoses as reverse reflections of one another. The ships' curved prows and oars change respectively into heads, and toes and swimming legs (14.550-551 in capitum faciem puppes mutantur aduncae, / in digitos abeunt et crura natantia remi), while the face and toes of Diomedes' men become beak and webbed feet (14.502-503 magna pedis digitos pars occupat, oraque cornu / indurata rigent finemque in acumine ponunt). The cordage and sail-yards become hair and arms still attached on their frame which merely assumes a different shape while maintaining its original coordinating function (14.552-554 quodque prius fuerat, latus est... lina coma molles, antemnae bracchia fiunt). In a similar mode, feathers replace hair as cover for A c m o n ' s neck, chest, and back (14.498-499 comae / in plumas abeunt·, 14.499-501 plumis nova colla teguntur / pectoraque et tergum, maiores bracchia pennas accipiunt). O n both occasions attention is paid to color: the nymphs maintain their dark-blue color (14.555 caerulus, ut fuerat, color est) and the newly formed swans are albi (14.509). This adjacent placement of the same pattern of metamorphosis in its inverted course has a refreshingly original outcome, for it presents the Argive companions' transformation not only as parallel but also as a foil to that of the ships/nymphs. Finally, the avian shape of Diomedes' friends is defined as fades·, the same term is used to describe the new faces of the nymphs (14.506; 14.550).10 The third point of convergence between the two metamorphoses lures the reader into a challenging as much as teasing game of erudition and read9

10

The precision in the recollection of the transformation process is earnestly embraced in Ovid's adaptation of the unit, according to Galinsky 1976, 12 ("ciö che era appena suggerito e accennato in Virgilio, diventa una scena esplicita, grafica"). Both Börner ad 14.559-61, and H - E ad 14.561ff, have noted that in his description of the ships' metamorphosis (14.559-565) Ovid follows the Diomedes story, and, in Myers' words (1994, 103 n. 36), he "has slyly alluded to the omitted aetion of the birds' behavior by attributing the exactly opposite behavior to the new sea nymphs".

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ership skill. Each episode in its Ovidian recollection includes plot details that originate in the Aeneid, but beyond the spatial restriction of its particular Vergilian prototype. Thus, Ovid's catalogue of Diomedes' companions includes four names that come from Vergil, but from parts unrelated to the original Diomedes episode: in the Aeneid, Acmon, Lycus, Idas, and Abas are names of four Trojans, comrades of Aeneas, appearing respectively in 10.128, 9.545, 9.575, and 10.170." The appearance of so many shared names among their comrades is certainly on purpose, and forms an insightful crosstextual line between Diomedes and Aeneas. Ovid's newly transformed marine nymphs who continue to nurture their hatred against the Greeks {Met. 14.559ff.) are likewise carriers of subtextual witticism. Their anti-hellenic behavior follows the pattern introduced by the Homeric Poseidon, who caused the wreck of Ulixes' raft in Odyssey 5 and, more to the point, punished with petrification the Phaeacian ship that carried Ulixes safely home (Od. 5.163-164). 1 2 The nymphs' hostility towards the Greeks is the direct outcome of the Trojan calamity; I suspect, though, that one need not go as far back as Homer to look for the principal source; instead, one may seek the answer in the tradition behind the birds of Diomedes. These birds, according to a little known version preserved only in Lycophron, one of the earliest literary references to Diomedes' birds, developed a habit of joyously flocking around Greek arrivals but were extremely hostile to foreigners (Alex. 594ff.). This polarized attitude is likely echoed in the sea nymphs' expression of contrasting emotions. Transformation, abuse, and revenge are the principal themes in the brief tale of the Apulian shepherd, the story of an irreverent herdsman who mocked a group of forest nymphs and was eventually punished for his behavior by being transformed into an oleaster (Met. 14.512-526). The narrative strikes an odd note, for it presents a story irrelevant to the Aeneas legend. Structurally, it breaks Venulus' story into two parts, after the Vergilian model, where considerable temporal and textual space intervenes between the departure of Venulus' embassy for Apulia at the opening of Aeneid 9 and their return two books later, when they report in detail their fruitless encounter with Diomedes. Much more interesting are the themes brought forward in this story, which recur in both the fate of Diomedes' compan-

11 12

The coincidence has been observed by H-E ad 13.484ff. Thus Fantham 1990, 118; in her opinion (outlined on pp. 104-106), Ovid here espouses an imitation pattern originally adopted by Vergil, who in his own version of the transformation of Aeneas' ships regularly consults with the Homeric narrative.

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173

ions and the account of the Trojan ships' transformation. The intricacy of their development overcomes the restrictions imposed by the compact narrative size. Like the transformation of the Argive men into birds or the metamorphosis of the sea nymphs, the tale of the shepherd did not appear first in the Metamorphoses·, Ovid's treatment, however, altered substantially the original version of the legend. The only other account of the story known in some detail is recorded in Antoninus Liberalis' collection of transformation tales (31.3-5), and the tale had received at least one other treatment prior to Ovid, by Nicander. 13 In Antoninus, a party of young Messapian shepherds happen to watch a group of nymphs-patrons of sheep (έπιμηλίδες) dancing, and they mock them by proclaiming that they can dance better. The nymphs feel insulted, and an argument ensues that leads to a dance competition (ούτος ό λόγος ήλγυνε τάς νύμφας και τό νεΐκος επί πλέον έγενετο περί της χορείας). The contest is held, and, naturally, the Messapian youths lose and are punished (δώσετε δίκην) for their brazenness by being changed into trees that now stand in the vicinity of the nymphs' temple (ίνα... έστήκεσαν παρά τό ιερόν τών νυμφών) in permanent tribute to their honor. Ovid has supplanted the Messapian group with an individual Apulian shepherd. The poet's predilection for a sole individual offender draws a direct line between the cheeky shepherd and audacious Acmon, whose defiance causes him to stand out among his fellow comrades. T o stress both the element of verbal abuse and the gravity of the abuse itself, Ovid has altered the nature of the insult. While Antoninus' (and perhaps Nicander's) Messapians contested the nymphs in ignorance of their identity (ήγνόουν), Ovid's shepherd is a serial abuser, who first scares (14.517f.fugatas / terruit etprimo subita formidine movit, 'he causes them to run away in terror, filling them at first with sudden fear') and then scorns the dancing nymphs consciously and repeatedly (14.521f. inprobat has pastor saltuque imitatus agresti / addidit obscenis convicia rustica dictis, 'still did the shepherd mock them, imitating their dance with his clownish step, adding to this boorish insults and vulgar words'). A little earlier, Acmon expresses similar defiance of decorum and consequences (14.491-493 audiat ipsa licet et, quod facit, oderit omnes / sub Diomede viros, odium tarnen illius omnes / spernimus: baud magno stat magna potentia nobis, 'although she herself might hear 13

Papathomopoulos 1968 ad AL 37 n. 1, noting the discrepancy between Ovid and Antoninus, suggests that the Augustan poet most likely combines two different versions of the story, both probably derived from Nicander; also, Börner ad 14.445-608, 151-152.

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and, as indeed she does, might hate all those who follow Diomedes, nevertheless we all scorn her hatred; great power counts not greatly in our eyes'). 'Harshness' of speech is underlined as a common trait of both characters (14.484f. Acmon... cladibus asper, 'Acmon... harsh, because of our sufferings'; cf. 14.526 asperitas verborum cessit in ilia [cf. bacas arboris]), 'the harshness of his words has passed to them'. 14 Remarkably, the successive recurrence of inconsiderate speech, alluding to Ovid's language and poetics, and resulting in the punishment of the disrespectful speaker by transformation, is precisely the structural schema reintroducing Aeneas to the world of the 'little Aeneid' following the conclusion of the Sicilian tales. As seen earlier in chapter three, Aeneas' Italian adventures resume with two stories, both of which explicitly comment on Ovidian poetics, since their main theme is the power of language. In the first tale, the insolent Cercopes are turned into apes for being unscrupulous talkers (14.91 fraudem et periuria; the story is related at 14.90-100). Their story evokes the plights of the Apulian shepherd and Acmon. In the second tale, the Sibyl is punished with interminably advancing age, but she will maintain the power and clarity of her prophetic voice (14.153). One may see her resistance to Apollo alongside Acmon's defiance of Venus, while the resemblance of her fate to the destiny of Tithonus and the cicada parable brings her voice on a par with a famous Callimachean allegory for the poetic voice, the song of the cicada. This pairs well with the swan imagery and the poetics evoked in Acmon's transformation to a bird that closely resembles the swan, another no less famous symbol of Alexandrian poetics. While the theme of dangerous speech brings Diomedes' episode close to the narrative of the Apulian shepherd, the role of the nymphs both as subjects of an attack and as administrators of punishment is the catalyst to effect the transition to Cybele's transformation of Aeneas' ships. The shepherd's verbal attack against the nymphs of Apulia is reflected in the action of Turnus' assault with fire against the Trojan fleet that is, essentially, the nymphs of Ida in temporary guise. These assaults bring about the shepherd's metamorphosis into an oleaster, in the former tale, and the marine goddesses' hatred against Greek travelers, in the latter (14.560-561 iactatis saepe carinis / subposuere manus, nisi siqua vehebat Acbivos, 'they often place

14

Myers 1994, 103 reads the two tales, which she further associates with the story of the Sibyl, as political allegories breaking up the Augustan issues of the Aeneid, and speaking for the 'other voices'. The political message does exist, Myers though does not elaborate on the topic of dangerous speech, and her brief comments hardly justify her thesis.

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175

helping hands beneath storm-tossed vessels, except when these were carrying Greeks'). The exploration of a final scheme, a chain based on alternative manifestations of a single motif inspired by the thematic cardinality of the ship, enhances the reader's ability to appreciate the fundamentality of erudite allusion in the structural formation of the 'little Aeneid'. As previously noted, one powerful example of narrative unity based on thematic recurrence is the swan chain, the regular appearance of the swan along the plot yarn of the Metamorphoses. The swan-like men of Ovid's Diomedes embody the end of this chain, and the presence of the swan accentuates the metaliterary character of an episode designed to promote the centrality of poetics in Ovid's text. The sophistication that runs through the development of the, let us call it, 'ships motif', surpasses the intelligent craftsmanship of the swan chain. The various dots that direct the course of this new thematic line are to be sought not along the Metamorphoses, but in the text of its principal epic model, the Aeneid. Acknowledging the potential loss of originality entailed in drawing on the same structural design twice in virtually successive narrative units, Ovid finds an opportune moment to experiment with a variation of a brilliant narratological technique while also displaying mastery in schematized intertextuality. There is little disagreement that the ships in the Aeneid serve an essential function throughout the poem. Above all, they are to be seen as a metensomatosis of Troy. The literary function of this correspondence extends beyond the traditional political metaphor of the ship as symbol of the city. Since the opening of the epic, the Trojan fleet, as carrier of pater Aeneas and the Trojan penates, is the equivalent of Troy, and this is underlined repeatedly in the narrative. In her opening monologue, Juno's principal complaint concerns the survival of Troy, which she presumably destroyed, in the cargo carried along by Aeneas (1.68 Ilium in Italiam portans victosque penatis). At another textual landmark, the opening of Aeneas' westward journey, the hero states in his own words that he entrusted the continued existence of his people, his son and successor, and his ancestral gods to the ships (3.1112 feror exsul in altum / cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis). Finally, with a nearly identical phrase Vergil embraces the escort of Augustus leading the Roman forces against Antony on board a ship which obviously stands as allegorical representation of the city of Rome (8.679 cum patribus

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populoque, penatibus et magnis dis).15 Therefore, when Turnus attempts to set Aeneas' fleet on fire in Aeneid 9, the significance of the particular undertaking has to do primarily with destroying the metaphoric Troy once and for all, and less with appearing as a doublet of the Homeric Hector. Apart from their standing as symbols of a moving Troy in search of a new land, the ships in the Aeneid appear on occasion in memorable contexts carefully interspersed along the epic, and inside these textual surroundings they firmly occupy the center of plot action. The transformation of the ships into sea goddesses in Book 9, and the sequel scene, the nymphs' journey up the Tiber to meet the returning Aeneas and their (former) flagship in Book 10, belong to such complex clusters. So do the great opening storm and the wreckage of Aeneas' fleet by Aeolus' winds in Aeneid 1, and the Trojan women's attempted arson of the anchored fleet at the instigation of Juno/Beroe at the end of Aeneid 5. On all four occasions the ships' presence is seminal for the progression of the Aeneid story, but no less important, although harder to identify, is its attachment to metapoetics, for it alludes to outstanding previous literary appearances of the ship. The Ovidian text may not necessarily confront the archetype directly on each occasion, but intertextual aemulatio is rarely completely devoid of competitiveness, and Ovid's version of the ships' metamorphosis is deeply engaged in this form of contesting exchange. Vergil's text has seriously influenced the way Ovid portrays Cybele's feelings upon perceiving Turnus' attack on her ships, as the echoes to the structure of Juno's opening monologue mAen. 1.34ff. attest. Both Cybele and Juno, each modified alike as memor of significant past events (Aen. 1.23 veterisque memor Saturnia belli, 'the daughter of Saturn mindful of the old war'; also, 1.26 manet alta mente repostum, 'lies stored deep in her mind' = Met. 14.535-536 memor has pinus Idaeo vertice caesas / sancta deum genetnx, 'the holy mother of gods, mindful that these pines were felled on Ida's top'), 16 make their appearance on the epic stage in c«w-inversum clauses of comparable structure (Aen. 1.34ff. vix... vela dabant... et... ruebant, cum Iuno... haec secum [sc. ait]; cf. Met. 14.532ff. iamque... urebat...-que... ibat, On the evolution and ramifications of the famous use of the ship imagery as representation of the city, see recently Norma Thompson, The Ship of State: Statecraft and Politics from Ancient Greece to Democratic America (New Haven 2001). " Met. 14.535 (cum memor... sancta deum genetrix), likely points at/lew. 9.108f. (cum Tumi iniuria Matrem admonuit...); both lines follow similar structure (cKOT-inversum clauses), are set at the opening of the respective versions of the ships' transformation in Ovid and Vergil, and stress the importance of recollection on Cybele's part. 15

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177

et... fumabant..., cum memor... sancta deum genetrix... ait). The sea storm that Juno causes with Aeolus' assistance in order to prevent the Trojans from reaching Italy is the model behind the description of the tempest that Cybele effects in order to extinguish the fire that is destroying the Trojan ships as a result of Turnus' attack. Both storms involve thunder ( A e n . 1.90 intonuere poli ~ Met. 14.542 intonuit... tonitrum secuti). Dark clouds remove daylight from before the eyes of Vergil's Trojans (Aen. 1.88f. eripiunt subito nubes caelumque diemque / Teucrorum ex oculis), and bring along heavy showers that stymie the Rutulian arson efforts in Ovid's text (Met. 14.543 cum saliente graves ceciderunt grandine nimbi). Finally, the vocabulary of military assault in the description of the actual storm outbreak and the emphasis on the catastrophic force of the towering waves (Aen. 1.82-83 venti... ruunt et terras turbine perflant; 84 incubuere marl·, 105 insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons ~ Met. 14.544f. aeraque et tumidum subitis concursibus aequor / Astraei turbant) naturally dictates the comparison of the raging winds to attacking troops (Aen. 1.82 venti velut agmine facto·, cf. Met. 14.545 Astraei... eunt in proelia fratres). Evidently, in reworking the opening Vergilian storm, which coincides with the first major appearance of the ships in the Aeneid, Ovid imitates, and so indirectly recognizes, a Vergilian narrative plan. For the poet of the Aeneid has originally conceived the structure of Turnus' arson attack and the rescue of the ships through Cybele's intervention as a narrative recast of the sea storm in Aeneid 1 and Neptune's rescue of the Trojan fleet. Shipwrecked Aeneas does not find out that his ships have evaded destruction for several hundred lines, but hears of it only after he is reunited with his lost comrades at Carthage (1.508-512). Likewise, the news of the attack on his ships comes delayed to the absent Aeneas, in 10.215ff. 17 Next to the two ship-rescues in Aeneid 1 and 9, divine intervention is present in Aeneid 5, where the ships dominate: the opening third of the book is devoted to a boat race and the closure records another attack on the Trojan ships. 18 The boat race is the opening event of the games (Aen. 5.58

17

18

Cf. Fantham 1990, 110, on how the reunion of the ships reflects back on that of the shipwrecked Trojans. On the reflection of the two divine interventions in Aeneid 5 in Books 9 and 10, see Fantham 1990, 111-112, esp. n. 28, where earlier bibliography is listed; also, Papaioannou 2002b, esp. 37ff. On both occasions the destruction of the ship aims at hindering the Trojans from moving forward and on with their lives, and, evidently, the fulfillment of their destiny. In Aeneid 5, the journey is not complete, and the agent of disaster, Juno, appears anew, just as in the outbreak of the sea-storm in Aeneid 1. In Aeneid 9, however,

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laetum cuncti celebremus honorem, 'let us all solemnize this ceremony with joy'; 113 commissos... ludos, 'the opening of the games') that the Trojans celebrate in commemoration of the first anniversary of Anchises' death. The verbal contiguity with the description of the newly transformed Naides in Metamorphoses 14 (556f. illas virgineis exercent lusibus undas, / Naides aequoreae... molle fretum celebrant, 'Sea-nymphs now, they sport in the waters with joy as maidens do..., they throng the yielding waves') urges a closer look at Ovid's embrace of Vergil. The boat race is arguably the hallmark event in the funeral celebrations since it receives the most extensive coverage - 170 lines (5.114-285) of the nearly 500 (5.114-603) devoted to the narrative of the games overall, including the lusus Troiae. In the course of the race, Cloanthus prays to the deities of the sea for victory, which he receives through the physical intervention of Portunus (5.232-242). As Fantham has observed, the motif is repeated mAen. 10.246-248, when Cymodocea, leading the sea nymphs upstream on the Tiber, 'will propel Aeneas' flagship toward Latium'. 19 Portunus' appearance amidst a chorus of sea deities combined with his physical intervention in favor of Cloanthus (5.239ff. eum... audiit omnis / Nereidum Phorcique chorus Panopeaque virgo, / et pater ipse manu magna Portunus euntem impulit, 'the whole group of the Nereides and of Phorcus, and the virgin Panopea, heard him, and the father Portunus with his own great hand gave him a push on his way forward'), is alluded to in the playful, chorus-like description of the newly formed nymphs in Met. 14.556ff., who are no less eager to offer physical assistance to vessels in need {Met. 14.560f. iactatis saepe carinis / subposuere manus, 'they often place a helping hand beneath storm-tossed vessels'). Even Cybele's storm that rescues the great goddess' sacred trees in Metamorphoses 14 is meant to recall another Vergilian passage. The first attempted arson against the Trojan fleet initiated by Juno and executed by the Trojan women in Aeneid 5 (659-666), likewise requires divine intervention, that of Jupiter's, who averts the disaster by causing a thunderstorm (5.693-699). This narrative design of allusions to a single theme, which in the particular case centers on the ships imagery, has already one precursor in the sequential recurrence of the swan appearances, the last of which coincides with the fate of Diomedes' companions. As studied in detail in the preceding chapter, the swan chain serves an important structural function, by em-

19

the Trojans have reached their destination; this is reflected in the absence of divine urging behind Turnus' particular decision making. Fantham 1990, 111.

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p h a s i z i n g t h e m a t i c c o n t i n u i t y , and n o t least translates as an a m b i t i o u s s t a t e m e n t o n artistiry, structured along t h e image o f the p o e t o l o g i c a l s y m b o l i s m of the swan, and engaging crosstextually with Vergil. T h e c o n c e p t i o n o f the ships' m o t i f p r o m o t e s similar literary e x p e c t a t i o n s . O v i d ' s recollect i o n o f t h e m e t a m o r p h o s i s of A e n e a s ' fleet alludes t o various textual m o m e n t s in t h e Aeneid,

but o n e could argue that it also explores t h e sources

f r o m w h i c h V e r g i l himself draws. W h e n , f o r example, O v i d describes the s p o r t i n g o f the newly t r a n s f o r m e d n y m p h s , he n o t e s their origin as trees o n r o u g h m o u n t a i n s with the phrase durisque

in montibus

ortae

(14.557). Thus,

h e challenges the reader t o i d e n t i f y a textual game o f j o i n e d s o u r c e s , t h e Vergilian nostris

in montibus

ortas

(Aen.

9 . 9 2 ) , the leading m o d e l o r primary

h y p o t e x t , and H o m e r ' s reference t o the Phaeacian ship, which literally rose in t h e shape o f a m o u n t a i n (Od.

1 3 . 1 6 3 ö$ μιν λ α α ν θήκε και έ ρ ρ ί ζ ω σ ε ν

ε υ ε ρ θ ε ) and is entitled t o be acknowledged as the s e c o n d a r y h y p o t e x t . 2 0 I n o t h e r w o r d s , O v i d extends his crosstextual dialogue as far b a c k as the first l i t e r a r y ship t r a n s f o r m a t i o n in t h e Odyssey.

I n his eagerness t o share his

anxiety about p o e t i c succession even with a less observant reader, he explicitly a c k n o w l e d g e s his H o m e r i c model, the petrification o f A l c i n o u s ' vessel, the archetypal epic ship metamorphosis 2 1 : cladis adhuc Phrygiae memores odere Pelasgos Neritiaeque ratis viderunt fragmina laetis vultibus et laetis videre rigescere puppim vultibus Alcinoi saxumque increscere ligno. (Met. 14.562-565) Remembering still the Phrygian calamity, they hated the Pelasgian race and they rejoiced to see the broken timbers of the Ithacan ship, rejoiced to see the vessel of Alcinous grow stiff and its wood turn to stone.

20

Fantham 1990, 117-118, points out the linear development of the phrase across the three epics; Hardie 1987, 167-168, shows that the petrification of the Phaeacian ship marks the end of Ulixes' wanderings by means of a miracle, and provides the uncontested model for the ships' transformation in Vergil and for the significance behind the miracle. Met. 14.563 is also worth focusing: the line, describing Ulixes' shipwreck, technically could refer to the destruction of Ulixes' fleet en masse, but it likely addresses the most significant thematic unit of the wreck of Ulixes' raft in the middle of Odyssey 5. Notably, this episode is also the last of Ulixes' adventures before his homecoming, and the preamble to the hero's final sea crossing, his passage to Ithaca on the Phaeacian ship which precisely for this expedition is soon afterwards punished with petrification. From a different perspective, Ulixes' rescure from drowning is effected only thanks to the intervention of Leucothea, herself also a transformed sea nymph.

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In conclusion, Ovid's narrative of the transformation of the ships introduces a second thematic chain, which, like the swans' sequence, presupposes familiarity with specific literary appearances of the ship image. These nonetheless are to be sought not in the text of the Metamorphoses but t h r o u g h o u t the course of the principal reference text of the Aeneid. In a display of sublime artistry Ovid captures within a single scene of the epigonal epic a miniature of a distinct structural layout of the prototype.

3. The Attachment to Ardea N o less firm are the bonds that unite the Trojan ships' metamorphosis and the episode immediately following, the transformation of the Rutulian capital Ardea (Met. 14.566-580), the story that concludes the chronicle of the conflict between Rutulians and Trojans, and with it the 'little Aeneid'. As mentioned earlier, on various occasions along the Aeneid, the reader comes u p o n ship imagery as symbolic representation of the city of Troy, which is destined to metastasize in Italy. The most prominent of these allegories is situated in the conclusive section of Aeneid 8, where the centerpiece of the ekphrasis on Aeneas' shield, the representation of the battle of Actium, pictures Augustus on board sailing forth against Antony cum patribus populoque,penatibus et magnis dis (Aen. 8.679). A few hundred lines earlier Aeneas reaches Pallanteum on board his flagship, the leading vessel of a fleet that stands for Troy. As soon as he reveals his identity, he is invited by Pallas to step off his symbolic fatherland and be received under the auspices of thepenates of his new capital [Aen. 8.122-123 egredere... ac nostris succede penatibus bospes), with whose topography but also broader history he next becomes acquainted. 22 T h e phraseology and imagery in the narrative of Ardea reproduces familiar motifs in an alternative setting. Ardea, the Rutulian capital, may symbolize the entire Rutulian nation, similar to how the wooden walls of the ships that carry Aeneas to Italy mirror the sacked city of Troy. For Ardea, Troy's analogue in the Aeneid legend, catastrophe came likewise f r o m the sea, and the positioning of the ships' transformation drives this suggestion home. Those same Trojan ships

For Hardie 1987, 168-169, it is rather Aeneas' return from Pallanteum to Latium on the ship called Ida that symbolizes the hero's eventual returning to relieve his besieged people; the image of the newly Romanized leader is captured best at 10.217f., where he appears standing on board, alert and anxious, holding the steering wheel of the vessel/state.

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that transported the spirit of Troy safely to Italy, and a few lines earlier, while under the threat of arson assumed a new shape, eventually will become themselves the agents of the conflagration and annihilation of a city. Ironically, they bring about the very situation from which they themselves escaped. The shared imagery among the units at the conclusion of the 'little Aeneid' expands backwards to embrace Diomedes. As soon as the Trojans or, rather, Aeneas himself in imitation of Vergil's Turnus and the latter's attack on the ships - set the Rutulian capital on fire, a bird flies forth from the city's ashes, carrying the city's name and embodying its essence (14.574577). The conclusion of the 'little Aeneid' with the image of Ardea the bird in lamentation, 'beating itself by its wings' (580 et ipsa suis deplangitur Ardea pennis), renders the avian imagery, which in the immediately preceding section marks the portrayal of the resurfacing nymphs and closes Diomedes' narrative, the common denominator of all three concluding units of Ovid's 'Aeneid'. As a matter of fact, the motif of the avian, or avian-like, rising distinguishes also the succeeding story, Aeneas' ascension to heaven (14.584 tempestivus erat caelo Cythereius heros, 'the heroic son of Cythereia was ripe for heaven') and apotheosis as Aeneas Indiges (605ff.). This in turn sets the pace for a long series of deifications that are designed to dominate the last, so-called Roman section of the Metamorphoses, and culminate in the apotheoses of Caesar and Augustus, and certainly in Ovid's proud forecasting of his own literary flight to heaven posthumously. In Ovid's description of Turnus' attack against the Trojan fleet, a plot variation from the Vergilian model that has attracted little attention concerns the very occasion of the conflagration. In the Metamorphoses the Trojan ships are actually burning, and the event is described at length. In the Aeneid, on the contrary, there is specific mention only of a threat of an imminent fire, and this alone suffices to alarm Cybele and prompt her to ask Jupiter for permission to intervene.23 Ovid's narrative choices upon adapting Turnus' attack may well originate, as argued above, in the attempted arson of Aeneas' fleet by the Trojan women in Aeneid 5. Nonetheless, the improvisation of a fire-in-effect draws even more clearly the thread tying the burning ships to burning Ardea, for the plot of both units centers on a combination of the same themes of fire, ship, and city. Also, both accounts are hostile towards the Greeks and experiment with the theme of conflict between Greeks and Trojans. 23

T h e divergence in this critical narrative detail has been noted b y Baldo 1995, 92.

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The Trojan ships attacked by Turnus stand for the city of Troy, and their transformation sabotages the realization of a second annihilation of the city in an identical fashion. To fall under fire, however, is also the destiny allotted to Ardea, the 'Troy' of the inverted Trojan War that Aeneas fights in Latium. Turnus, the alter Achilles of the ships episode, becomes a Hectorfigure, whose fall is identified with the fall of his city (Met. 14.573 Turnusque cadit: cadit Ardea), and is tellingly expressed in diction that recalls the identification of Hector to Troy spelled out in the Iliad (Met. 14.573f. cadit Ardea, Turno / sospite dicta potens, 'Ardea fell, counted a powerful city when Turnus was alive'; cf. II. 22.410-411, where the mourning of the Trojan women soon after Hector's death is likened to the (upcoming) lament over the city of Troy) .24 Intricate thematics also direct Ovid's selection of the term monstrum to articulate in words the miracle of the transformed ships in Met. 14.567, and summarize the perception of the ship in ancient thought as a liminal entity and a boundary-crosser. In Latin literature specifically, the term describes the first ship ever sailed, Jason's Argo. An artifact, the handiwork of Minerva, the Argo is declared a monstrum in Catullus 64.15, causing awe to the creatures of the sea, including the sea nymphs, Nereus' daughters, who emerge from the water to stare at the marvel. The scene most likely belongs among the principal hypotextual sources behind the encounter, at Aen. 10.219-250, between the sea nymphs who take the place of Aeneas' ships in Aeneid 9, and Aeneas who sails back from Pallanteum on board the flagship.25 The latter presents a peculiar case of intertextual self-consciousness. Being apart from the rest of the fleet during Turnus' attack, the Ida did not undergo transformation, yet its wooden frame is made of the same wood, the same divine essence. The product is an ambiguous entity reflected in the image of a ship of visually mortal frame but in reality of immortal stock, a carrier of the spirit of forest nymphs, a transelemental image for which the term monstrum provides a most appropriate label. Aeneas' ships are defined as monstra not only in the section that records their transformation into nymphs and reveals their original identities. In Aeneid 5, the funeral games are led by a boat race. As Hardie has pointed out in detail, all four ships participating are given names of legendary mon-

24

In the last chapter I go into detail on Ovid's toying with the Vergilian Turnus' oscillation between a H e c t o r e a n and an Achillean epic model.

25

C f . Hardie 1987, 1 6 3 - 1 6 4 , on the ambiguity surrounding the ship and its symbolism, and on the manifestation of the paradox in Catullus 64.

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183

sters: Pristis, the less familiar of the four, a legendary sea-monster, Chimaera, Centaurus, and Scylla. And Vergil emphatically identifies the signifier with the signified: all four ships have the monsters after which each is named painted or carved on their prows.26 Various similes to beasts are developed additionally to reinforce the monstrous character of the Trojan vessels, among which the most intriguing is the likening to horses. This is captured in the chariot simile at Aen. 5.144-147, which, according to Hardie (p. 165), acknowledges in the chariot-race in Iliad 23 Vergil's model for the ship-race, and it expands on Catullus' use of the currus as a metaphor for the Argo. It is the horses, not the chariots pulled by these horses, that the ships resemble rather, Hardie concludes, and he reminds us that the ships were defined as 'horses of the sea' as early as Homer: άλός 'ίπποι (Odyssey 4.708). This near identification to horses brings to mind a famous horse in the Trojan story, the Trojan Horse, which is labeled monstrum in^4ew. 2.245, and whose description otherwise is given in terminology (curvus, 2.51) elsewhere applied to ships (6.4) - and to the Greek ships in particular (2.179). 27 The Trojan Horse that spearheads the victorious Greek enterprise against Troy in the most detailed account of the story in Aeneid 2, is fundamentally related to Troy. As visualization of an actual Horse it embodies the violence and ties to war that the actual horse connotes, a symbolism expressed plainly in the identification of the two in the foundation legend of Carthage (Aen. 1.443-445). Built by the art of Minerva, the goddess who made the Argo the first ship, the Trojan Horse is also a land-ship, and like any ship it is a carrier of men within a 'hold', cavernae (2.51), a term applying to the hold of a ship.28 Like a ship, the Trojan Horse is introduced also as boundary crosser. Its movement from the exterior, open space of the Trojan beach into the circumscribed space of the Trojan walls marks a transition that is not merely spatial. The significance of this crossing is underlined by the employment of the term limen at 2.42, in the narrative of the Horse's entrance into Troy. The term designates a specific landmark, the threshold that separates the familiar, controlled and protected space of the City and the unfamiliar, until recently hostile and enemy-controlled space

26

27

28

Hardie 1987, 164-167, where the discussion expands over the description of the race and traces additional parallels to the narratives about Aeneas' ships in Aeneid 9 and 10. On the analogy between the Trojan Horse and the Ship in the Aeneid, see Paschalis 1997, 30. The parallelism has been suggested by Hardie 1987, 169.

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of the seaside. The importance of this boundary crossing for the undoing of Troy is obvious: quater ipso in limine portae / substitit atque utero sonitum quater arma dedere, 'four times it halted at the very threshold of the gates, and four times from its belly the armor resounded' (2.242-243). Not once but four times the wooden monstrum infelix (2.245), stood trembling on the spot marking the boundary between safety and peril, as if hesitant to cross the line.29 From a different perspective, it is intriguing that the machina that halted four times on the threshold of Troy, a mere two lines earlier is described to 'slide in threatening into the city center' (2.240 ilia subit mediaeque minans inlabitur urbi), rolling, literally, on wheels (2.235-236 pedibusque rotarum subiciunt lapsus, 'under the feet they place gliding wheels'). Not fortuitously forms of the verb labi feature twice in five lines to describe the movement of the ship/Horse into Troy. This particular term commonly describes the motion of snakes, often noxious ones, most notably the twin dragons from Tenedos which attack Laocoon and subsequently disappear gliding under the statue of Minerva (2.225ff. gemini lapsu... dracones / effugiunt... sub pedibusque deae clipeique sub orbe teguntur, 'gliding away, the twin snakes flee... and hide under the feet of the goddess and the circle of her shield'). 30 The passage immediately precedes the gliding entrance of the treacherous Horse into the city through the walls, being in fact the emotional catalyst persuading the Trojans to receive rather than destroy the Greek gift. In this view, the Horse manned with Greeks is yet another ship, or horse of the sea, and loaded as it is with Greek warriors, it becomes a harbinger of the main body of the Greek fleet anchored in Tenedos, ready to transport the

29

30

The element of war enmeshed in the essence of both the ship and the h(H)orse features in an alternative, symbolic assimilation of the two in the employment of machina thrice (2.151 machina belli·, 2.46 in... fabricate est machina muros·, 2.237 scandit fatalis machina muros), with the same meaning of a 'battle machine', to characterize the Trojan Horse. A machina, interestingly, is also the device used for wheeling a ship to sea, for instigating, in other words, this very act of boundary crossing inherent in the nature of a vessel, in Horace (C. 1.4.2 trahunt siccas machinae carinas). In particular the demolition of part of the walls by the Trojans themselves (2.234 dividimus muros et moenia pandimus urbis) channels the successful entrance of the Horse into Troy. In tearing down the walls of their city the Trojans ironically anticipate the actual fall of Troy as much as prove the label machina adopted for the equine fabrication to be literal. The snake imagery in Aeneid 2 resurfaces later in the viperous gliding snake that Vergil's Allecto first hides deep in her bosom (7.347 subdit), and subsequently hurls at Turnus and watches it sliding through and down the hero's various 'exterior' layers and into his innermost heart (7.349 ille [anguis] inter vestis et levia pectora lapsus).

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Greek army inside the Trojan walls.31 This serpentine motif, inseparable from the image of the Greeks in the early part of the Aeneid, is turned around and attributed to Aeneas' fleet in the second half of the epic. Markedly, in Aeneid 8 the sight of the Trojan flagship approaching the site of proto-Rome for the first time from water takes the Arcadian onlookers by surprise, mixed with emotions of fear and apprehension (8.107-109): ut celsas videre rates atque inter opacum adlabi nemus et tacitos incumbere remis, terrentur visu subito. As soon as they saw the high ships gliding up amidst the shady woods and silent men pressing upon oars, they are frightened at the sudden sight Hardie notes here that the vocabulary describing the movement of Aeneas' ship (adlabi), which smoothly glides on water under the overhanging forest along the river banks, and the imperceptible conduct of the Trojans (tacitos remis) earlier, captured the movement of the Trojan Horse and the twin dragons from Tenedos. 32 In other words, the imagery of the ship as a moving horse, and specifically as a reinvented Trojan Horse in the Italian theater of war, recurs in a structurally programmatic section in the second half of the Aeneid. The transference of this sequence Trojan Horse-shipinvasion over to Ardea, the substitute Troy of Latium, in Metamorphoses 14, is only logical. This regression in the conclusion of the 'little Aeneid' to themes and images from the earlier section of the Aeneid, but also to easily recognizable Homeric moments, transforms the brief tale of Ardea's doom into a terrain where the issues of aemulatio and succession converge. Nonetheless, the main theme of the Ardea episode, the brief coda of the 'little Aeneid' recording the fall of the Rutulian city, centers on a plot detail that does not come from the Aeneas legend. Thematically, the ardea miracle, the rise from the city's ashes of a bird carrying the same name as the city, discourses independently with each of the two episodes preceding it, and so becomes the converging ground for all three stories in the 'Italian' section of the 'little Aeneid'. The Ardea narrative shares with the Diomedes episode the motif of avian metamorphosis, as both Turnus' capital and the 31

32

In Paschalis 1997, 8-33, the many dimensions of the association among Trojan Horse, snakes, ships, and invading Greeks represent parts of a union held together not only by common themes but also by a semantic construction based on an entire system of etymologically based links. Hardie 1987, 170.

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Greek hero's men turn into birds. The rise of the sea nymphs from the burning Trojan fleet combines the theme of miraculous metensomatosis with an equally impressive rise from catastrophic fire. At the same time, the metempsychosis of the falling city into a rising bird is the prelude to the apotheosis of Aeneas' soul following the death of his mortal body in the subsequent episode, which officially concludes the legend of Aeneas. Yet, the rising avian as allegory for a hero's resurrection in combination with immortality is the subject of an earlier treatment in the Metamorphoses, in an episode designed to anticipate and parallel the 'little Aeneid" closure, and, additionally, to introduce themes that would dominate the last part of the epic thereafter. The textual background of the Ardea episode is addressed in the last chapter of this study of the Ovidian 'Aeneid'.

Chapter Seven Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea 1 Perstat, habetque deos pars utraque, quodque deorum est instar, habent animos; nec iam dotalia regna, nec sceptrum soceri, nec te, Lavinia virgo, sed vicisse petunt deponendique pudore bella gerunt; tandemque Venus victricia nati arma videt, Turnusque cadit: cadit Ardea, Turno sospite dicta potens. quam postquam barbarus ensis abstulit et tepida patuerunt tecta favilla, congerie e media turn primum cognita praepes subvolat et cineres plausis everberat alis. et sonus et macies et pallor et omnia, captam quae deceant urbem, nomen quoque mansit in ilia urbis, et ipsa suis deplangitur Ardea pennis. (Met. 14.568-580) But the war went on and both sides had their gods to aid them, and, what is as good as gods, they had courage too. And now neither a kingdom given in dowry, nor the sceptre of the father-in-law, nor you, Lavinian maiden, did they seek, but only victory; they kept on warring for sheer shame of giving up. At length Venus saw her son's arms victorious and Turnus fell. Ardea, counted a powerful city while Turnus was alive, fell. But after the foreigner's sword destroyed it and its ruins stood open amidst warm ashes, f r o m the confused mass a bird flew forth of a kind never seen before and beat the ashes with its flapping wings. Its sound, its meagre look, its deathly paleness, all things which become a captured city, even the city's name, remained in the bird. And Ardea's self is beaten in lamentation by its wings. T h e fall a n d c o n f l a g r a t i o n of t h e R u t u l i a n city of A r d e a , a n d t h e s u b s e q u e n t rise of a h e r o n , t h e h o m o n y m o u s b i r d (ardea), f r o m t h e city's ashes, A more narrowly focused version of this chapter has been recently published under the title 'Birds, Flames and Epic Closure in Ovid, Met. 13.600-20 and 14.568-80,' in C Q (2003), 619-624.

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constitute the concluding scene of Ovid's reproduction of the Aeneid. As has been noted, 2 the particular description in Met. 14.573-580, a carrier of wordplay on the name ardea and the action of burning (ardere), most likely alludes to Vergil, A e « . 7.623-631. Vergil's narrative of Italy, burning in excitement in preparation for the upcoming war against the Trojans, is framed by the words ardet (opening word of line 623) and Ardea (opening word of line 631), suggesting a connection between them. Critics have also argued that Vergil implicitly acknowledges his familiarity with the transformation legend of Ardea in his second reference to the city less than two hundred lines earlier in Aen. 7.411-412/ locus Ardea quondam dictus avis et nunc magnum manet Ardea nomen. In this passage the proximity of avis (short "i") to avis (long "i") comprises wordplay intended to catch the readers' attention: "Hence we have: 'a place, once called Ardea by our ancestors', with undertones of 'a place, Ardea, once called a bird'." 3 Yet the metamorphosis of Ardea, the final scene in Ovid's 'little Aeneid', also seems to replicate themes and imagery from an earlier episode, the transformation of the Memnonides {Met. 13.600-620), which concludes the poet's 'little Iliad'. It is my assertion that Ovid crafted the narrative of Ardea's transformation to correspond with his account of the Memnonides' rise from the ashes of Memnon's funerary pyre. I shall further demonstrate that the final halves of the Ovidian reproduction of the world of ancient epic, epitomized in the recast narratives of the Iliad and the Aeneid, mirror each other. This correspondence addresses a twofold objective. On the one hand, it brings Ovid's 'Aeneid' narrative full circle, for its conclusive episode is cast in the mold of the unit immediately preceding the opening unit of Aeneas' revised adventures. Then, in addition to the schematization of this undeniable ring composition, the conclusion of the 'little Aeneid' also parallels the plot and diction of the final episode of the 'little Iliad'. This structural symmetry plainly reinforces the unity of Met. 12.1-14.580, suggesting that we consider Ovid's placing his idiosyncratic recollections of the poems of his two great predecessors in close succession as an indirect

2 3

O'Hara 1996, 70, 84, 192. Ahl 1985, 265 η. 29; cf. also Hardie 1992, 77 n. 16; O'Hara 1996, 192 and id. 'Vergil's Best Reader? Ovidian Commentary on Vergilian Etymological Wordplay', CJ 91 (1996), 265 n. 31; Paschalis 1997, 255; Michalopoulos 2001, 36-37. Contra, Börner ad 14.445-608, 148: 'Vergil weiss von dem Brand und von der Verwandlung nichts'; see also J.T. Dyson, 'Birds, grandfathers, and neoteric sorcery in Aeneid 4.254 and 7.412', CQ 47 (1997), 314315, arguing that Vergil's pun on the meaning of avis is not only intentional but also repeated elsewhere in the Aeneid (4.254).

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statement of his aspirations to discourse with them and evidently follow their tracks in the evolution of the epic genre. Last but not least, this recurrence of units and motifs corroborates the importance of thematic repetition in accomplishing a smooth narrative progression in the Metamorphoses. On a more specific level, the symmetrically positioned discussion of two alternative treatments of the same thematic combination, destruction followed by resurrection, anticipates the multifaceted dissertation, both cyclical and continuous, on this very issue in the speech of Pythagoras and the conclusion of the epic. To begin with, the last episode of the 'little Aeneid' recasts several of the themes and narrative details already present in the coda of the 'little Iliad'. The latter relates the funeral pyre of Memnon and the transformation of the Memnonides. These were birds that rose miraculously from the ashes of the dead hero as his body was consumed by fire, they fought among themselves, and, perishing, fell back into Memnon's pyre, their generating force. The miraculous creation and fighting of the Memnonides, so named after the hero, were Jupiter's concession to the plea of Aurora, Memnon's mother, for some special honor to commemorate the premature death of her son (Met. 13.576-599). Memnon's story, as almost every episode in Ovid's reproduction of the Iliad, does not come from the original plot-line of the Homeric poem, but his legend was a well known episode of the Trojan Cycle, and the central theme of a popular epic, the Aethiopis by the poet Arctinus.4 The hero, king of the Aethiopeans, was the son of Aurora. He joined the Trojan cause soon after the death of Hector, and led the Trojan army against the Greeks in the latter's place, but like his predecessor he died on the battlefield in a single combat with Achilles. The story of the birds of Memnon, however, makes its first literary appearance in this Ovidian passage.5 Its placement as the finale of Ovid's Trojan War corresponds unmistakably to the fate of Ardea at the end of the 4

5

For the surviving fragments and the assumed plot of the Aethiopis, see Davies 1989, 5361; Bernabe 67-71. On the basis of this evidence it seems that the Aethiopis did not mention any metamorphosis, while it granted Memnon immortality after his death. See Forbes Irving 1990, 246f., who nevertheless seems to believe that Ovid was not the inventor of the story, on the grounds that Polygnotus' painting of the underworld at Delphi depicted birds on the cloak of the hero, according to Pausanias (10.31.6); cf. also Hopkinson 2000, 28-29, on the details and evolution of the Memnonides story, mainly in the post-Ovidian tradition. Still, the absence of any evidence that demonstrates treatment of the legend in the surviving pre-Ovidian literature at least suggests that one should not exclude considerable Ovidian intervention in the transmitted version of the Memnonides legend.

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recast Aeneid.6 Indeed, both the Memnonides and the Ardea episodes describe the rising of birds from the ashes of destruction in overlapping vocabulary. Memnon's lofty pyre and the ruins of Ardea give off smoke that covers their surroundings and rises high (13.601ff. nigrique volumina fumi / infecere diem... atra favilla volat, 'and the day was darkened by the thick black smoke...dark ashes fly' = 14.575 tepida patuerunt tecta favilla). In both cases the ashes give birth to birds (13.604ff. atra favilla volat glomerataque corpus in unum / densetur faciemque capit... et primo similis volucri, mox vera volucris / insonuit pennis, 'dark ashes fly, packed and condensed, they seemed to take on form... and at first it was like a bird, but soon, a real bird, it flew about on whirring feathers' ~ 14.576f. congerie e media turn primum cognita praepes subvolat) that mourn and beat themselves - Memnon's birds divide themselves into opposing battle lines, while Ardea beats herself in mourning (13.610ff. consonus exit in auras / ter plangor... turn duo diversa populi de parte feroces / bella gerunt rostrisque et aduncis unguibus iras / exercent alasque adversaque pectora lassant, 'thrice their united clamor rose into the air... then in two warring bands the fierce contestants fought together, plying beak and hooked talons in their rage, wearying wing and breast in the struggle' ~ 14.580 ipsa suis deplangitur Ardea pennis). Finally, both the Memnonides and Ardea derive their names from their generating force, Memnon and the city Ardea (13.617f. nomen facit auctor: ab illo / Memnonides dictae, 'the author of their being gave them their name: they were called Memnonides from him' ~ 14.579f. nomen quoque mansit in ilia urbis).7 This close verbal similarity is only a prelude to a more significant 6

7

Memnon's death and funeral in the epic tradition occurred chronologically before the death of his killer, Achilles, but Ovid places Memnon's funeral after the Greek invasion and concurrently with the demise of the Trojan women. Yet mythological anachronisms abound in the last, the 'historical section' of the Metamorphoses (Met. 11.194-end), intentionally, according to Wheeler 1999, 116-139. Wheeler believes that in the use of anachronisms Ovid is suggesting alternative mythological histories "by opening up alternative possibilities and forcing the audience to reevaluate its understanding of the poem's narrative" (p. 128). O n the chronological problems in Ovid's epic, see also the articles by Feeney and Zissos-Gildenhard (pp. 13-30 and 31-47, respectively), in Hardie-BarchiesiHinds 1999. Along these lines of rebirth and recreation from the ashes of destruction one may interpret Ovid's employment of Lucretius' terminology of cosmogony that sits at the core in the transformation/creation of the Memnonides (cf. Myers 1994, 48-49, who nevertheless argues that Ovid's use of Lucretian language helps the poet continue "his pose as a cosmogonic narrator, fulfilling humorously and perversely the expectations set up by lofty cosmological openings"). Despite the fact that the Memnonides are new creatures, while Ardea the bird may be seen as continuation of Ardea the city, the common ele-

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series of thematic proximities. The relation suggested above, between the name of Ardea and ardet at the start of Aen. 7.631 and 7.623, is enhanced by numerous connections between Turnus, the king of Ardea, and fire (and thus Ardea) throughout the Vergilian epic. 8 Ovid takes this relationship a step further in the Metamorphoses, making an explicit identification of ardea the bird and Ardea the city (Met. 14.578-580). 9 In a sense, then, the fall of Ardea in flames functions as metaphor for the funeral pyre of its king, Turnus, connecting the Rutulian hero and victim of Aeneas to Memnon, the victim of Achilles, Aeneas' model as leader. At the same time, the naming of ardea after the city of Ardea replicates the similar connection of the Memnonides to Memnon, who is also burning - literally. A desire to strengthen the thread linking Ardea to the Memnonides may finally explain the female gender of the birds in Ovid's text (13.608 sorores, 'sisters'), despite the fact that a few lines later they resemble warriors as they fight among themselves in Memnon's honour. 1 0 This martial image of the Memnonides brings them even closer to Ardea, a city that is destroyed as a result of war, a similarity underscored by the identical opening of Met. 13.613 and 14.572 with the phrase bella gerunt. T h e correlation between T u r n u s and M e m n o n , and, by extention, Ardea/Rutulians and Troy, receives strong additional contextual support. W h e n Ovid refers to M e m n o n ' s pyre as arduus alto / corruit igne rogus (13.600-601 'lofty pyre wrapped in high-leaping flames'), 11 he artfully brings together two additional etymologically charged references to Ardea (lit. translated as 'lofty'), both of which have their origin in Vergil. htAen. 7.412

8

9

10

11

ments of transubstantiation and resurrection suggest that the two metamorphoses are reflections of each other; see also n. 9 below. For a listing and discussion of the numerous passages linking Turnus and fire, see M. von D u h n , 'Die Gleichnisse in den Allectoszenen des 7. Buches von Vergils Aeneis', Gymnasium 64 (1957), 64-79. Yet Ovid stresses that Ardea the bird is as much an alternative manifestation as a continuation of Ardea the city, hence the phrase nomen mansit. Cf. Michalopoulos (2001), 36: "nomen manere underlines the continuity of the city in its new form, together with the sonus, the macies and the pallor that remain unchanged". O n the confusion between Ardea-city and Ardea-bird in Met. 14.580, and the ambiguous meaning of the verb deplangere, see Tissol 1997, 61 n. 93. The explicit description of the birds as female puzzles Hopkinson 2000, 29, as this contrasts with later versions of the legend; according to Hopkinson, Ovid here has either slipped into some "ornithological mistake" or is following some other source, now lost. O n the etymological relationship between arduus and ardere, see Prise. Gramm. II 136.7: ardeo arduus.

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magnum manet Ardea nomen ('the name of Ardea remains great'), the term magnum, according to Servius, glosses the name Ardea, which is thus to be associated with the word arduus,12 Then at G. 1.364, altam supra volat ardea nubem, Vergil makes a pun with the literal translation of the name of ardea the bird and its lofty flight. 13 What is more, at the conclusion of the Aeneid, as the single combat between Aeneas and Turnus is about to enter its final phase, Aeneas taunts his opponent with the suggestive words verte omnis tete in fades, 'turn yourself into any shape you can' (12.891). This phrase, along with the lines immediately following (12.892-893 opta ardua pennis / astra sequi, 'pray for wings to fly to the lofty stars'), points to the legend of Ardea's transformation as much as it identifies Turnus with the fate of his city.14 The same identification is reinforced in Ovid's text, when the falls of Turnus and Ardea are juxtaposed, even expressed with the same verb: Turnusque cadit: cadit Ardea (14.573). Aeneas is not mentioned by name in the description of Ardea's destruction, yet Ovid's employment of the attributive barbarus, the foreigner (14.574), to modify the destroyer of Ardea almost certainly refers to the Trojan hero. 15 A link between the two is made clear by the reference to Aeneas' victorious arms on the previous line (14.572-573). It should be noted at this point that both Turnus and Memnon are also portrayed in certain ways as alternative versions of Achilles. Turnus' introduction as alter Achilles by the Sibyl (Aen. 6.89ff.) is only one of the close similarities the Rutulian leader shares with the Greek hero. Yet as the sec12

13

14 15

Servius' Aen. 7.412: M A G N U M T E N E T A R D E A N O M E N bene adlusit: nam Ardea quasi ardua dicta est; Mynors sides with a different group of manuscripts, printing M A N E T rather than TENET; cf. also n. 15. Paschalis 1997, 255-256, upon discussing Allecto's flight to Ardea in Aen. 7.406ff., aptly correlates the name of Ardea to "Height (arduus), Fire (ardeo), and Flight". Hardie 1992, 81 n. 43. There is little doubt that the barbarus ensis destroying Ardea is an allusion to Aeneas. The only other time the term appears in Ovid's 'little Aeneid' it is unmistakably a synonym for the Trojans: when the Ithacan Macareus wonders how his former comrade, the Greek Achaemenides, whom he believes dead, found himself on board a 'foreign ship' (14.163f. barbara Graium prora vehit); on barbarus as an epithet of Aeneas, see also Börner ad 14.574. Ovid seems to toy here with a Roman tradition preserved by Servius that attributed the destruction of Ardea to the forces of Hannibal: ServiusMe«. 7.412: M A G N U M T E N E T A R D E A N O M E N bene adlusit: nam Ardea quasi ardua dicta est, id est magna et nobilis, licet Hyginus in Italicis urbibus ab augurio avis ardeae dictam velit. Illud namque Ovidii in Metamorphoseos (14.547) fabulosum est, incensam ab Hannibale Ardeam in hanc avem esse conversam; the text is quoted in O ' H a r a 1996, 190. Börner ad 14.445608, 148, doubts the historicity of this tradition.

Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea ond, the Iliadic, half of the

Aeneid

193

unfolds, the reader gradually realizes that

it is A e n e a s w h o ultimately becomes Achilles' successor. 1 6 Likewise, Ovid's M e m n o n shares a n u m b e r of biographical details w i t h Achilles: divine parentage 1 7 and a grieving m o t h e r w h o in the pattern set b y Thetis t h r o w s herself on Jupiter's knees

dedignata Iovis;

cf.

II.

{Met.

13.585f.

magni genibus procumbere

/ non est

1.500 π ά ρ ο ι θ ' α ύ τ ο ΐ ο καθέζετο, και λ ά β ε γ ο ύ υ ω ν ) ,

alludes t o the services she o f f e r e d to him

(Met.

praestem·,

ά θ α ν ά τ ο ι σ ι ν ο ν η σ α ) , and as re-

cf.

II.

1 . 5 0 3 εΐ π ο τ ε δ ή σ ε μ ε τ

w a r d asks the god to h o n o r her son

II. 1 . 5 0 5 τ ί μ η σ ό ν sub annis\ cf. II.

(Met.

13.598

13.591

quantum tibi

femina

da, precor, ... honorem; cf. (Met. 1 3 . 5 9 6 primis

μοι υ'ιόν) w h o is d o o m e d to die y o u n g

1 . 5 0 5 ο ς ώ κ υ μ ο ρ ώ τ α τ ο ς ά λ λ ω ν ) . 1 8 A n o t h e r significant

similarity that the ancient epic tradition chronicles between M e m n o n and Achilles was a magnificent shield, also made b y Hephaestus. 1 9 Finally, the placement of M e m n o n ' s funeral at the conclusion of Ovid's 'little Iliad'

readily evokes Hector's funeral at the end of Homer's epic, thus

urging t h e reader t o v i e w A u r o r a ' s son next t o the T r o j a n leader w h o m M e m n o n replaced, as well as sealing the parallelism to T u r n u s , H e c t o r ' s Italian version. 2 0 A u r o r a ' s mourning f o r M e m n o n also recalls the lament of 16

17

18 19 20

W.S. Anderson's, 'Vergil's Second Iliad", ΤΑΡΑ 88 (1957), 17-30 [rpt. in: S.J. Harrison (ed.), Oxford Readings in Vergil's Aeneid (Oxford 1990), 239-252; and in: P. Hardie (ed.), Virgil: Critical Assessments of Classical Authors, vol. 3 (London and New York 1999), 7486], is a classic treatment of the theme of alter Achilles in Aen. 7-12. On introducing both Achilles and Hector as models for Aeneas and Turnus, see Traina, EW, 328, s.v. Turno; K.C. King, 'Homer's Achilles in Vergil's Aeneid', MD 9 (1982), 31-55; J.K. Newman, Augustus and the New Poetry (Bruxelles 1967), 239-259; T. van Nortwick, 'Aeneas, Turnus and Achilles', ΤΑΡΑ 110 (1980), 303-314. In fact, Turnus, like Memnon, Aeneas, and Achilles, was born of a goddess, the nymph Venilia (cf. Traina, EW, 327, s.v. Turno). For the similarities of the pleas of Aurora and Thetis, see Börner 1982, 351-352 ad loc. Davies 1989, 55; Bernabe 68. On the close modeling of the duel between Aeneas and Turnus in Aeneid 12 on that between Achilles and Hector in Iliad 22, see G.N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer. Hypomnemata 7 (Göttingen 21979), 289-292, 486-88; also K.W. Gransden, Vergil's Iliad: An essay on Epic Narrative (Cambridge 1984), 192-217, and D. West, 'The Deaths of Hector and Turnus', in: I. McAuslan, P. Walcot (eds.), Virgil (Oxford 1990), 14-23. A.J. Boyle, 'The Canonic Text: Vergil's Aeneid', in: A.J. Boyle (ed.), Roman Epic (London and New York 1993), 105 n. 23, lists briefly but meticulously the textual correspondences. The closing line of the Aeneid, which describes the flight of life from Turnus' body (12.952 vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras; a line featuring also in the description of Camilla's death, in 11.831), is a translation of the two lines describing Hector's death in II. 22.362f. (which likewise repeat verbatim II. 16.856f., the account of Patroclus' death). On Aeneid 12 and the Iliad, see Traina, EV V, 328f. s.v. Turno, with detailed bibliogra-

Chapter Seven

194

the Trojan women over the body of Hector; the Memnon episode begins and ends with the mention of Aurora next to Hector's mother, the leader of the lamenting chorus in II. 22.429ff. and 24.710ff. The clear identification of Hector with his city 21 is in turn readily seen to reflect Turnus' association with Ardea: the pyre of Hector, so appropriately the conclusive scene of the Iliad, anticipates the conflagration of Troy, just as the conflagration of Ardea follows the death of ardens Turnus. What is more, the description of Ardea as potens during Turnus' lifetime (Met. 14.573-574 Ardea, Turno / sospite dicta potens) may recall the mourning Hecuba's similar characterization of Troy in Ovid's text as ingens (Met. 13.505 iacet Ilion ingens), in the days before the Trojan War. 22 As a matter of fact, even outside the Ovidian text, Memnon is readily seen as a surrogate for Hector, especially when he kills Antilochus, Nestor's youngest son and himself a doublet for Patroclus as Achilles' best friend, on the Trojan battle field. Like the murder of Patroclus, it is the death of Antilochus that causes Achilles to target Memnon and wish fervently for his death in revenge.23 All in all, the fall of Ardea masterfully combines a recollection of the earlier epic tradition in its entirety, but also points forward to the remainder of the Metamorphoses, which is still far from completion. The first half of this brief account nicely captures the ancient epic spirit that Ovid wishes to revive as he draws near the end of his 'little Aeneid'. The warriors' bravery, the partisan gods, and especially the desire to reach a military victory, ultimately the principal goal of both contestants as Lavinia and her kingdom gradually move to the background (Met. 14.567-571), reflect the situation at Troy, just as much as they echo the text of the Vergilian epic.24

phy; also Barchiesi 1984, 9 1 - 1 2 2 ; K. Galinsky, ' T h e A n g e r of Aeneas', AJP

109 ( 1 9 8 8 ) ,

340-348. 21

T h e mourning that breaks out in T r o y as soon as H e c t o r dies b y the hands of Achilles is explicitly compared to the lament over the fall of T r o y the city (//. 2 2 . 4 1 0 - 4 1 1 ) . Earlier in the epic (II. 6 . 4 0 2 - 4 0 3 ) we are told that H e c t o r ' s son was nicknamed Astyanax (cityruler) b y the people of T r o y because ' H e c t o r alone guarded Ilion'; cf. Plato,

Cratyl.

393A

(ό γ ά ρ ά ν α ξ και ό έ'κτωρ σ χ ε δ ό ν τι τ α ύ τ ό ν σημαίνει). "

C f . also the explicit association between the fate of T r o y and H e c t o r in A n d r o m a c h e ' s mourning over H e c t o r ' s corpse in II. 2 4 . 7 2 8 - 7 3 0 .

23

Davies 1989, 56; Bernabe 1987, 68.

24

N o t a b l y in disagreement with the text o f the

Aeneid,

where the night before his final

engagement with Aeneas, Turnus violently proclaims his determination to fight his T r o jan foe f o r the hand of Lavinia (Aen. 12.14ff.).

Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea

195

O n the o t h e r hand, as in the case of the Sibyl, 2 5 the collapse of A r d e a in flames anticipates P y t h a g o r a s ' p r o p h e c y in Metamorphoses

1 5 . 4 2 0 f f . on the

i n c e s s a n t m o v e m e n t o f t i m e and its inseparability f r o m change of f o r t u n e . T h e r e , in t h e v o i c e o f P y t h a g o r a s , O v i d declares that f a m e is f o l l o w e d b y decline, while cities o n c e u n i m p o r t a n t m a y later b e c o m e f a m o u s . R o m e is b r o u g h t f o r t h t o validate this c o u n t e r c o u r s e f r o m i n s i g n i f i c a n c e t o f a m e ( 1 5 . 4 3 1 f f . ) . O v i d ' s c l o s i n g t h e 'little Aeneid'

with the conflagration of

A r d e a , a s c e n e that evokes so m a n y and diverse epic m o m e n t s of b u r n i n g T r o y , seals the parallelism. 2 6 T h i s p r o j e c t i o n o f the fate of A r d e a o n t o A u g u s t a n R o m e is n o t O v i d ' s i n v e n t i o n , but rather his clever aemulatio

o f t h e m a t i c s already p r o m o t e d in

Vergil. Aen. 7.411-413, locus Ardea quondam / dictus avis, et nunc magnum manet Ardea nomen, / sed fortuna fuit), a hypotext of Met. 14.573-574 (cadit Ardea, Turno / sospite dicta potens, may be compared, once again, to Aen. 6.773-776,

A n c h i s e s ' vision o f the f u t u r e , w h i c h , like P y t h a g o r a s ' o w n ,

closes with a reference t o the destiny of R o m e : hi tibi Nomentum et Gabios urbemque Fidenam, hi Collatinas imponent montibus arces, Pometios Castrumque Inui Bolamque Coramque. Haec turn nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terrae. These, I say to you, will found Nomentum and Gabii and the city of Fidena, these will establish on top of the hills the Collatine citadels, Pometios and the Fort of Inuus, Bola and Cora. These shall then be names, that now are lands without name. A n c h i s e s traces t h e course o f R o m e ' s rise and expansion b y referring t o cities that are n o t to be established f o r a n o t h e r f o u r centuries, but which, o n the o t h e r hand, had been a b a n d o n e d and depopulated b y t h e time V e r g i l ' s readers read these lines. T h e fact that these cities were o n c e p o w e r f u l c e n ters o f L a t i u m suggests that we read A n c h i s e s ' words as an indirect, ironic c o m m e n t o n V e r g i l ' s part on A u g u s t u s ' r h e t o r i c regarding the ever rising In an earlier chapter of this book (pp. 58-60), Pythagoras' prophecies about the future of Rome were introduced as parallel for the Sibyl. Most Ovidian critics have indeed noted that nowhere does Pythagoras refer clearly to the eternal survival of Rome and its glory, an omission taken as an ex silentio implication of submission to the universal fate of historical decline; cf. B. Otis, 'Ovid and the Augustans', ΤΑΡΑ 69 (1938), 229, apparently the first to state so; Wheeler 2000, 122-126, contributes the most recent discussion (p. 123 n. 78 records a long lists of earlier critical views unanimous on Pythagoras' intention to emphasize the inevitability of Rome's decline).

196

Chapter Seven

glory of Rome and the return of the Golden Age. The Ovidian Pythagoras is simply recasting Anchises' contemplation on the linear progression of civilization, a part of which appears to coincide with the history of Rome. Only, his roster of decline substitutes Italian urban centers with more famous Greeks ones, and Rome is projected to share the fate of Athens, Mycenae, Sparta, and Thebes. This consideration of formerly powerful Italian centers in the light of the even more famous Greek ones enforces an intriguing parallelism, literarily suggestive but also historically incongruous, hence intelligently amusing. Ovid's Pythagoras follows after the example of Vergil's Anchises in foretelling Rome's future on the basis of observations from the historical past. Because the Greek cities are considerably more famous, Pythagoras' prophecy elevates the greatness of Rome but, simultaneously, projects the suggestion of an even more dramatic downfall. By assuming Pythagoras' persona and espousing the philosopher's theory of the flux, Ovid competes with Vergil while stating a different view. And although he does not specify in so many words that Rome is destined to fall, by underscoring that eternal movement rules the history of the world (15.177 cuncta fluunt, 'everything is in a state of flux'), he cautions against exaggerations, including advertising the eternal life and rule of Rome. 27 In the end, the story of Ardea reads as a most appropriate ending to the 'little Aeneid', and an introduction to the issue of epic closure. First, it recasts the conclusion of the 'little Iliad' and so creates a symmetry that strengthens the unity of Ovid's history of the Trojan era. At the same time this parallelism fosters an interlacing of narrative threads, which extend beyond the boundaries of the Metamorphoses to converse with the Homeric Iliad and Vergil's Aeneid. Second, the promotion of a combination of themes, including destruction, but also, through metamorphosis, the promise of renewal and restoration, situates Ardea at the outset of the last section of the Metamorphoses, the 'history' of Rome. This opens with the death and

On Ovid's/Pythagoras' comments on historical decline in the light of Anchises' words in Aeneid 6, see Barchiesi 2001, 71-74, who nonetheless does not agree that the speaker here is primarily concerned with the doom of Rome. Overall, Barchiesi views Pythagoras' speech in literary terms, as a metapoetical competition against Anchises' prophecy in Aeneid 6; Pythagoras provides Ovid with the cover of yet another authorial voice to proclaim the power of the flux as cosmic force. Solodow 1988, 168, on the contrary, reads this particular text as pessimistic about the destiny of Rome, for in his view, quoque on line 431 calls for attaching Rome to the list of the Greek cities as their successor, overtly in grandeur but implicitly also in decline.

Epic Conclusion and Epic Closure: The Fall of Ardea

197

apotheosis of Aeneas (Aeneas Indiges) in the lines immediately following, and develops to become the dominant theme in the remainder of the poem and, certainly, a theme within a narrative framework that can be traced back to the fall of Troy. Pythagoras recalls Helenus' prophecy to Aeneas on the predestined revival of Troy as powerful Rome, but also on the apotheosis of a descendant of Aeneas (15.444-449). The story of Ardea may be read as an allusion to both aspects of this prophecy, both of which are realized by the end of Metamorphoses 15. The meagre appearance (14.578 macies et pallor) of ardea the bird rising f r o m the ashes of the Rutulian capital incarnates destruction, but also survival, and the hope for revival in an alternative form. Similarly, Aesculapius' summons to Italy was necessitated by a ravaging plague (15.445 dira lues), but his arrival signaled resurrection (15.744 salutifer urbi), leading to a new era of ascending glory that would make Rome the leader of the world (15.736 caput rerum). The identification of Ardea with Turnus, which renders the episode as a recasting of the 'little Iliad' conclusion, is reflective of the centrality of repetition and continuation in Ovidian composition. The parallel structure, themes, and narrative placement of the two units correspond to Pythagoras' speech, which is repetitive and cyclical, thus signaling that there is no definite end, only a new beginning.

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Indexes I. Index of Principal Passages The pages on the main text where the various literary attestations appear are written inside parentheses. Aeschylus Ag. 1202-1212 (51 n. 10) Antoninus Liberalis Metamorphoses 25 (28); 25.2 (30); 25.3 (29); 25.4 (36); 31.3-5 (173) Antigonus Mirabilia 172 (150) Apollodorus 3.14.8 (135 n. 41) Apuleius Met. 7.4-13 (94 n. 37) Aristophanes Ach. 907, Αν. 441, Ran. 708 (69) Callimachus Aet. fr. 1.16Pf. (135); 1.29f Pf. (69); 1.29-36Pf. (73 n. 56) Catullus C. 64.15 (182); 64.130-135, 143-145 (63 n. 35) Dio Cassius 57.18.4 (55 n. 17) Hesiod Theog. 31-32, 38 (62); 39, 83-84, 97 (136 n. 44) [Hesiod] Aspis 314-317; 316 (153 n. 22) Heraclitus 22 Β 92 DK (54) Homeric Hymns 21.4; 25.5; 32.2 (64)

Homer II. 1.69ff. [69-72]; 70 (62); 247-252 (63); 250-252 (63f.); 500, 503, 505 (193) 2.459-463 (154); 484-493 (33 n. 30); 485 (62); 690 (87 n. 22) 3.18-19 (122 n. 17) 5.297-330 (149 n. 11) 6.402-403 (194 n. 21) 9.385 (50 n. 9) 16.856f. (193 n. 20) 20.307-308 (75f.) 22.362 (193 n. 20); 410-411 (182; 194 n. 21); 429ff. (194) 24.710ff. (194); 728-730 (194 n. 22) Od. 1.155; 325-327 (161 η. 43) 4.708 (183) 5.163-164 (172) 7.241-242 (159) 8.491 (158 η. 38) 9.166-566 (83; 90); 190-192 (94); 224230 (90 η. 30); 288-293, 289, 292293 (101); 299-305 (82 η. 14); 371374 (91 η. 33); 480-482 (98) 480486 (107); 481 (96); 484-486 (98); 487-490 (107); 502-505 (91); 504f. (90); 537-542 (98) 10.1-76; 80-132; 135-399 (113); 456-460 (106); 566-568 (152 η. 20) 11.333-334 (158); 368 (82; 158); 489491 (52) 12.56 (159); 184-191 (159 η. 39); 340351, 407-419 (152 η. 20) 13.1-2 (158); 163 (179) 17.271 (153 η. 22); 513-522 (158 η. 38) 19.225-227 (123) 22.330 (159 η. 40) 23.256-267 (159 η. 40) Horace C. 1.4.2 (184 η. 29); 1.10.18-19 (118 η. 11); 2.20 (151 η. 18)

210

Indexes

Livy AUC2b.\\ (126) Per. 26 (126) Lycophron Alex. 592-609 (150); 594ff. (172) Lucretius DRN 2.344-345 (154) Macrobius Sat. 5.5.2 (160 η. 42) Martial 7.74.2 (118 η. 11) Ovid (other than the Metamorphoses) AA 2.99-104 (124 n. 21); 2.128 (2 n. 3) Am. 3.12.38 (167f.) Her. 7.1-2 (154 n. 25); 16.64 (118 n. 11) Fast. 2.84-86 (124 n. 20); 2.108-110 (154 n. 25); 3.531 (54 n. 14); 6.746-748 (40) Trist. 1.547-548 (50 η. 9); 5.1.11-12 (154 η. 25) Pausanias 10.31.6 (189 η. 5) Petronius Satyricon 48.8 (46 η. 4) Plato Cratyl. 393A (194 n. 21) Plutarch Mor. 397A (54 n. 15) Propertius 2.2.15 (54 n. 14) Servius ad Eel. 4.4 (55 n. 17); a A A e n . 6.321 (46 n. 4); 7.190 (115 n. 5); 7.412 (192 nn. 12 & 15) Suetonius Iul. 79.2 (38) Theocritus 11.42-48 (96 n. 39) Valerius Flaccus Arg. 3.596-597 (72 η. 55) Vergil

Eel. 2 (96 n. 39); 3.79 (73 n. 57); 6.44 (72 n. 55); 9.39-43 (96 n. 39) G . 1.364 (192); 4.315-316 (33 n. 30); 505, 507ff„ 507, 508f., 509, 510, 51 Iff. (133); 511 (137); 511-515 (134); 514 (133); 512-515 (137); 515 (136 n. 44); 516 (135); 517-520 (133); 520; 521 (135) Vergil (cont.) Aeneid 1.23 (176); 30 (81 n. 10); 34ff. (176); 68 (175); 82-83, 82, 84, 88f., 90 (177); 94-101, 96-98 (148); 105 (177); 198199 (148; 152 n. 20); 203 (109 n. 53); 286-287 (39); 313 (122); 328f. (48); 334f. (48); 414 (89); 443-445 (183); 457, 461 (157); 508-512 (177); 598 (81 n. 10); 609-610 (49); 688 (119); 697-698 (118 n. 11); 698 (118); 752-755 (163) 2.3-8 (161); 7 (89); 10-13 (160f.); 42 (183); 43-44 (108); 46 (184 n. 29); 51 (183); 65-66 (82); 90 (89 n. 28); 151 (184 n. 29); 164 (89 n. 28); 179 (183); 225ff., 235-236 (184); 237 (184 n. 29); 240, 242-243 (184); 245 (183f.); 261 (88 n. 25; 91 n. 32); 265 (91); 268-297 (146); 423 (164); 680686 (38); 762-763 (91 n. 32) 3.11-12 (175); 13-68 (34); 19-68 (12 n. 32); 63-65 (34); 80-120 (22); 80 (36); 81-82 (36); 83-84 (37 n. 35); 84-120 (36); 87 (81 n. 10); 94-98 (75; 76 n. 2); 94-96 (44; 75); 97-98 (61; 76); 278ff., 282-283 (141); 288 (142); 289 (142); 588-691 (83); 591 (93; 104); 593-594 (104); 599-601 (84); 605 (85); 613-615 (84); 613614 (81 n. 9; 85); 613 (86); 617-618 (88); 618-627 (100); 618 (86); 621 (95 n. 38; 102); 623ff. (101); 628638 (100); 628-629 (88); 630-633 (91); 633ff. (88); 639-640 (113); 646f., 647f., 648 (102); 649-650 (85); 651-652, 654 (85); 655ff. (100); 655-658, 656, 658 (94); 672 (106 n. 51); 691 (81 n. 9; 85-87) 4.4-5 (159); 66 (130); 68f. (137); 72 (137); 120-125, 129 (122); 134f. (123); 139 (118 n. 10; 123); 160-165 (122); 172 (121); 176 (66 n. 46); 194 (121); 254 (188 n. 3); 301f. (132); 313 (122); 315 (122); 333-336 (49); 338-339 (122); 340ff. (49); 386 (123); 39If. (137); 414 (122); 424 (122); 457-459 (121); 472-73 (130);

Indexes 477 (125 η. 23); 478-479 (125 η. 23); 480-493 (125 η. 23); 489-491 (125); 500ff. (125 η. 23) 5.6 (123); 58 (177f.); 113 (178); 144-147 (183); 114-603, 114-285, 232-242, 239ff., 659-666, 693-699 (178) 6.4 (183); 42-211 (46); 89ff. (192); 110111 (141); 270-271 (128 η. 27); 321 (51 η. 10); 4 5 6 f f „ 459f. (49); 557558 (129); 640-641 (128 η. 27); 748 (54 η. 15); 773-776 (59; 195); 779ff., 779, 781-782 (39); 787-788, 789ff., 792 (39); 897-899 (139); 899 (47); 900-901 (139); 900 (140) 7.1-7 (139); 6 (140); 10-24 (127f.); 11 (117); 15-18 (129); 20, 21 (117); 2536 (128); 25-26 (128 η. 27); 170ff. (37 η. 35); 170f. (117); 174-175 (37 η. 35); 177f., 187f. (117); 187-191 (115); 189-191 (117f.; 129); 190 (118f.); 191 (120); 7.347, 349 (184 n. 30); 406ff. (192 n. 13); 411-413 (195); 411-412 (188); 412 (191f.); 419ff. (130); 452-455, 452, 455 (130 n. 36); 623-631 (188); 623, 631 (188; 191); 641-646 (33 n. 30) 8.9 (143 n. 2); 107-109 (185); 122-123 (180); 679 (175f.; 180) 9.77-122 (168; 170 n. 8); 92 (179); 108f. (176 n. 16); 316-317 (91 n. 33); 545 (172); 575 (172) 10.128 (172); 163-165 (33 n. 30); 170 (172); 185-193 (136 n. 44; 154; 155 n. 30; 156; 164 n. 48); 189 (156); 193 (156); 215ff. (177); 217f. (180 n. 2 2 ) ; 2 1 5 - 2 5 9 (168); 2 1 9 - 2 5 0 (182); 219-255 (170); 246-248 (178) 11.227 (143 n. 2); 240-241 (161); 243295 (143); 256-257, 257-259 (160); 258 (143 n. 2); 258-259 (162); 259, 260 (143 n. 2); 271ff. (152 n. 21); 271-274 (149); 272-274 (170); 273 (150); 283 (146; 149; 157); 285-292 (146); 291-292 (146); 372 (147); 831 (193 n. 20) 12.14ff. (194 n. 24); 165 (122 n. 17); 891, 892-893 (192) Ovid Metamorphoses 1.1-2 (58); 414 (89) 2.252-253 (153f.); 367-380 (136; 150 n. 13); 369-374 (153f.); 371f. (136 n. 44); 372 (137); 373 (136; 164); 373374, 375, 376 (164); 482 (119 n. 14); 536-539 (153); 599 (40); 600-630 (41 n. 46); 642-648 (40); 642 (41)

211 3.1-4.603 (27) 3.339-510 (71); 359 (72); 397-401 (71); 501 (73) 4.1-603 (29); 54 (31 n. 24); 409-410 (28) 5.136 (119 n. 14); 211 (23 n. 8); 385-387 (153; 155) 6.1-145 (30 n. 23); 18-23, 18 (32); 70128 (23 n. 8); 103 (23 n. 8); 110 (23 n. 8); 122 (23 n. 8); 127-128 (30 n. 23); 424-474 (135 n. 11); 583 (133) 7. 371-381 (153; 155) 8.312 (20 n. 2) 9.159 (119 n. 14) 10.83-85 (135); 143-144 (124 n. 20; 132); 727 (23 n. 8) 11.1-2 (124 n. 20; 132); 2-40, 15, 15ff. (132); 42 (124 n. 20); 42ff. (132); 109 (118 n. 11) 12.1-14.580 (188) 12.1-3 (34); 39-63 (65; 67 n. 47); 46-145 (155); 71-167 (153); 72-145 (150 n. 13); 141-145 (155); 178 (62); 182184 (63); 182 (62); 186 (62); 187188 (62); 615-619 (52 n. 11) 13.620-14.608 (6); 13.623-14.582 (1; 3; 4; 6 n. 16; 8; 9; 10; 12; 13; 14; 16; 19 n. 1); 13.730-14.74 (11; 16; 43); 13.898-14.69 (116 n. 8); 13.90014.69 (131) 13.505 (194); 5 7 6 - 5 9 9 (189); 585f. (193); 591 (193); 596 (193); 598 (193); 600-620 (188); 600-601 (191); 601ff. (190); 604 (25 n. 11); 604ff. (190); 6 0 4 - 6 1 1 (24); 608 (191); 61 Off. (190); 613 (191); 615616 (25 n. 11); 617f. (190); 623-631 (16; 19 n. 1); 623-625, 626-631 (19 n. 1); 628-630 (12 n. 32); 628-629 (34); 630-704 (25); 632-701 (19); 632-633 (37); 636-639 (36); 643 (41 n. 46); 644-674 (16; 25 n. 12); 674 (41 n. 46); 675-704 (16); 678-679 (75); 678f. (44); 679ff. (20); 681701 (19); 681-699 (21); 683-684 (20); 687ff. (34); 687, 688-689 (33); 690-691 (34); 692-696 (32); 692 (21 n. 3); 694 (31); 696 (37); 697 (25 n. 11); 698 (37); 699 (25 n. 11); 704 (37); 705-729 (43); 705-730 (16); 729 (11); 740-897 (17); 750-897 (116 n. 8); 770-775, 774 (105); 789879 (17); 882-883 (96); 885-897 (37 n. 37); 916-965 (37 n. 37) 14.37-39 (131); 65 (131 n. 37); 75-100 (17; 43); 78-81 (12); 82-104 (33 n. 30); 90-100 (68; 174); 91 (174); 93-

212

Indexes 94, 9 5 - 9 6 (69); 99 (68); 101-119 ( 1 7 ) ; 1 0 2 f f . (47 η. 6 ) ; 104 ( 6 2 ) ; 1 0 4 115 ( 4 5 η. 4; 46; 4 6 η. 5); 1 0 4 - 1 0 7 , 108f., 110-113, 114f. (46); 116-119 (47); 116-153 (46); 120-154 (17); 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 ( 4 7 ) ; 1 2 3 - 1 2 8 (49); 123, 124, 128, 13Of. ( 4 8 ) ; 1 3 2 - 1 5 3 , 132, 135f., 137-139, 1 3 9 - 1 4 4 (50); 143 (62); 144-146 (53); 147-153 (51); 148 ( 6 2 ) ; 1 4 8 - 1 4 9 ( 6 9 ) ; 1 5 0 f . ( 5 1 ) ; 1 5 2 - 1 5 3 ( 6 5 ; 7 0 ) ; 152 ( 6 8 ; 7 2 ) ; 153 (65; 68; 73; 174); 1 5 4 - 4 4 0 ( 7 8 ) ; 1 5 5 2 2 2 ( 1 7 ) ; 1 5 6 - 4 4 0 ( 1 1 0 η. 5 4 ) ; 157, 1 5 8 - 4 4 0 ( 1 4 0 ) ; 158 ( 1 1 0 η. 5 4 ) ; 158159 ( 8 6 ) ; 159 ( 8 9 ) ; 160 ( 1 0 4 η. 4 7 ) ; 160-164 (79); 160-162 (87); 160-161 (86); 1 6 1 - 1 6 3 ( 1 0 9 ) ; 162 (104 η. 4 8 ) ; 1 6 3 - 1 6 4 ( 8 5 ; 192 η. 1 5 ) ; 1 6 5 220 (84); 165-166 (104f.; 109); 166 ( 9 3 ) ; 1 6 7 (93; 1 0 3 ) ; 167f. ( 9 3 ) ; 168 (104); 169-171 (84); 172-173 (84); 173 ( 1 0 5 ) ; 1 7 4 - 1 7 6 ( 8 5 ) ; 175 ( 1 0 5 ) ; 177-180 (92); 177-178 (105); 177186 ( 1 0 7 ) ; 179, 179f. ( 1 0 4 ) ; 1 8 0 - 1 8 6 ( 8 9 f . ; 98 η . 4 3 ) ; 1 8 0 - 1 8 1 ( 9 2 ) ; 181 (104); 18Iff. (101; 104); 181-182 ( 9 6 ) ; 183, 189 ( 1 0 5 ) ; 186 ( 1 0 4 ) ; 191197 (105); 192-197 (103; 106); 197 (104); 198-212, 198ff. (103); 198 ( 1 0 5 ) ; 199, 2 0 0 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 4 , 2 0 5 , 211, 218 (104); 216, 218-220, 220 (85); 223-307 (18); 223-232, 233242, 244ff. (113); 244-245 (114 n. 2); 248-307 (113); 260-263 (120); 2 9 I f f . (124); 297-298 (121); 298 (124); 308-440 (18); 308, 308-309 (114); 310-314 (115 n. 3); 313 (117); 313-319 (114); 315, 316 (117); 3 2 0 - 4 3 4 (114; 116 n. 8); 321 (118); 338ff. (133); 338-341 (125f.); 338-340, 341 (124); 343f. (123); 344 (121); 345 (123); 350 (130); 357 (124); 358-371 (122); 360f. (117); 363 (123); 365 (119); 365-366 (119f.); 372f., 374, 375 (122); 380 (122); 383 (123); 384 (130 n. 36); 3 8 4 - 3 8 5 (123); 385 (130 n. 36); 386396 (118); 387 (118f.); 403-411 (130f.); 406-409 (125); 414 (117); 416-434 (156); 420f. (133); 422 (137); 422f. (133); 423 (133); 425 (133; 137); 426f. (133); 426 (156); 427 (137); 428ff., 428-430 (134); 4 2 8 ( 1 5 6 ) ; 4 2 9 ( 1 3 6 n . 44; 156); 4 2 9 430 (153; 156); 430, 431 (156); 440 ( 1 1 0 ; 111 n . 5 4 ) ; 4 4 1 - 4 5 6 ( 1 8 ) ; 4 4 1 445 (141); 442 (140); 445 (140;

142); 451 (12); 457-513 (18); 4575 1 1 (78; 1 4 3 ) ; 4 5 7 f . ( 1 4 4 ) ; 4 6 1 - 4 6 4 , 464-482 (147); 469 (143 n. 2); 473474 (162); 4 7 4 - 4 7 5 (143 n. 2); 476479, 476-484, 480-482 (148); 481 (143 n. 2); 482 (137); 4 8 3 - 5 0 9 (163); 4 8 3 - 4 8 4 (148; 152 n. 2 0 ) ; 483-495 (152); 484f. (174); 484-496, 484-509 (149); 485 (137); 486-487, 486-493 (152 n. 20); 491-493 (173); 4 9 4 - 4 9 5 (152 n . 19); 4 9 6 - 5 0 9 ( 1 5 3 ) ; 4 9 7 - 5 0 9 (149; 152 n. 20); 4 9 8 - 5 0 7 (171); 498-499 (164; 171); 498 ( 1 6 4 ) ; 4 9 9 - 5 0 1 (164; 1 7 1 ) ; 5 0 2 , 5 0 2 5 0 3 (164; 1 7 1 ) ; 5 0 6 ( 1 7 1 ) ; 5 0 8 - 5 0 9 (149f.; 153); 509 (171); 512-526 (172); 514-526 (18); 517f. (173); 5 2 1 f . ( 1 7 3 ) ; 5 2 6 ( 1 7 4 ) ; 5 2 7 - 5 6 5 (18; 78; 1 6 7 ) ; 5 2 7 ( 1 4 3 n . 2 ) ; 5 3 2 f f . (176f.); 5 3 5 (176 n. 16); 5 3 5 - 5 3 6 (176); 542, 543, 544f., 545 (177); 549-558, 550, 550-551, 552-554, 555 (171); 556f., 556ff. (178); 557 (179); 5 5 9 f f . ( 1 7 1 n . 10; 1 7 2 ) ; 5 6 0 f . ( 1 7 8 ) ; 560-561 (174); 562-565 (179); 562f. ( 1 4 7 ) ; 5 6 3 ( 1 7 9 n . 2 1 ) ; 5 6 6 - 5 8 0 (18; 180); 5 6 7 - 5 7 1 ( 1 9 4 ) ; 5 6 7 ( 1 8 2 ) ; 5 6 8 580 (187); 572-573 (192); 572 (191); 5 7 3 - 5 8 0 ( 1 8 8 ) ; 5 7 3 (182; 1 9 2 ) ; 5 7 3 f . (12; 182; 1 9 4 f . ) ; 5 7 4 - 5 7 7 ( 1 8 1 ) ; 5 7 4 (5 n. 16); 575 ( 1 9 0 ) ; 5 7 6 f . ( 1 9 0 ) ; 5 7 8 (197); 578-580 (191); 579f. (190); 5 8 0 (181; 190; 191 n . 9 ) ; 5 8 4 ( 1 8 1 ) ; 596-608 (37 n. 37); 605ff. (181); 6 2 9 f . ( 1 3 6 ) ; 8 0 5 - 8 2 8 , 8 2 9 - 8 5 1 (37 n . 37) 15.60-478 (57); 177 (196); 418ff., 419f. ( 5 8 ) ; 4 2 0 f f . (58; 195); 4 2 2 - 4 2 5 ( 5 8 ) ; 4 2 6 - 4 3 0 ( 5 6 n . 18; 5 9 ) ; 4 2 9 ( 2 7 ) ; 431-435 (58); 4 3 1 - 4 3 3 (66 n. 46); 4 3 1 ( 5 8 ) ; 4 3 1 f f . ( 1 9 5 ) ; 4 3 4 (58; 66 n . 46); 4 3 5 - 4 5 2 (58 n. 2 5 ) ; 4 4 4 - 4 4 9 (197); 445 (197); 497ff. (40); 497546 (41); 5 3 1 - 5 4 6 (37 n. 37); 5335 3 5 ( 4 0 ) ; 5 6 0 - 5 6 4 ( 3 8 ) ; 5 6 3 , 5 6 6 (38 n. 40); 583-585, 5 8 8 - 5 8 9 (38); 591592, 610, 615 (38 n. 40); 6 2 2 - 6 2 5 (33); 624 (40f.); 626ff. (32); 626744 (32); 626-628 (33); 628-629 ( 3 4 ) ; 6 3 1 (34 n . 3 2 ) ; 6 4 4 - 6 9 4 (43 n . 1); 7 0 1 - 7 2 8 ( 3 3 n . 3 0 ) ; 7 3 6 ( 1 9 7 ) ; 7 4 4 ( 3 4 ; 41; 1 9 7 ) ; 8 0 7 - 8 4 2 ( 6 6 ) ; 809-814 (66 n. 46); 810 (66); 813 (68); 814-815 (67); 818-820 (36); 818-819 (37 n. 37); 847 (36); 848851 ( 4 0 ) ; 8 4 9 - 8 5 0 ( 3 6 ) ; 8 6 8 - 8 7 0 ( 3 7 n . 37)

Indexes

213

II. Index of Greek Words άλός 'ίπποι 183 αχός 110, η. 55 βίη 82 διηνεκές 160 διηνεκέως 159, 160 η. 42 δύστηνος 88 ήδυεπής 64 ήπυον 153 η. 22 θέλγειν 159 η. 40 θελκτήριον 160 η. 43 θέλξις 159 κάμμορος 87, 88 η. 23 κομήτας 35f. Κορωνίδας παρθένους 35f., 40 Κορωνίδες 37 κορωνίς 41 η. 45 λεπτός 136 λιγυρός 153 η. 22, 155 η. 28

λιγύς 155 η. 28 μάκαρ 110 μένειν 29, 80 μήτις 29, 82 μιμνήσκεσθαι 64 μϋθος 64, 82 π ά σ χ ω ν 87 πάθεν άλγεα 87 πολλά μογήσας 87 πολύμητις 89 πολύτλας 89 πολύτροπος 89 πτολιπόρθιος 91 τέρψις 159 η. 40 φήμη 95 also Jama 64 ff., 95 χιλίων ετών 54

Indexes

214

III. General Index Items discussed on the same page both in the main document and in the footnotes are marked only with the main page number. The page numbers printed in bold typeface indicate extensive discussion of the relevant item. Achaemenides, 13, 15, 17f., 43, 75-111, 113-115, 131, 138-141 'abandonded' and 'recovered', 86f. and dementia, 81 and Homeric Ulixes, 83-93 and Sinon, 81-82, 93, 108ff. and vision, lOOff. as auctor/actor of plots, 82, 105ff. as eavesdropper, 102f. as focalizer, 100-103 as literary invention, 93, 111 as spectacle, 104f., 109 as spectator and observer, 98107 change and adaptation, 79, 8If., 84, 92f. in the Aeneid, 79ff. Achaemenides and Macareus, 78f., 8487, 93, 105-110, 113f. Achilles, 52, 82, 90f., 145, 148, 149 n. 12, 182, 187-194 and Aeneas, 187-194 and Diomedes, 145, 148 and Turnus, 149 η. 12, 182, 192, 193 nn. 16, 1 7 & 2 0 Acmon, 149, 152f., 163f., 169, 171, 173f. etymology, 152 n. 19 and insolent speech, 149, 152 n. 20 aemulatio, Iff., 4 n. 9, 8, 14, 73, 81 n. 13, 139f., 144, 162, 167 esp. n. 2, 170, 176, 185, 194 aemulatio, tropes of compression of the prototype, 12, 44f., 53 expansion of the prototype, 13, 44, 116, 149, 170,183 referre idem aliter, 2 n. 3, 45 n. 4, 162 Aeneas' ships, 167-186 Aesacus, 34 Aesculapius, 26, 32, 33-42 and apotheosis, 26, 36-42 and Hyppolitus, 40f. and Julius Caesar, 38, 40-42 allusion to the Trojan journey, 33 parallel to the Orionids, 33-42

Aethiopis, 189 Alcon Hyleus, 20, 20 n. 2,31 'Alexandrian footnote', 67 n. 48, 77 n. 3, 98 n. 42 Alexandrian poetics, 9, 98 n. 43, 151 n. 18, 154f. nn. 2 8 & 3 1 Allecto, 129-132 as Hell/Circe, 129-132 allusion, 1-2, 6-9, 15-16, 33, 49, 56, 58 n. 25, 63 n. 35, 71f., 71 n. 54, 73 n. 57, 76, 77 n. 3, 80 n. 9, 83, 95, 98, 98 n. 42, 103 n. 46, 104 n. 47, 104f. n. 48, 126 n. 25, 128f., 130 n. 35, 136 n. 44, 138, 144, 151, 154 n. 26, 162, 169f. n. 6, 175, 178, 192 n. 15, 197 allusive reflection 13, 93 anachronism, 26 n. 14, 56, 58 nn. 24 & 25, 190 n. 6 Anchises, 16, 39, 46, 53, 53 n. 12, 56, 59, 77, 81, 108, 141, 178, 195-197, 196 n. 27 and the Sibyl, 53, 56, 59, 77f. and Pythagoras, 59f., 195-197, 196 n. 27 Andros, 16, 25 nn. 12 & 13 Aniads (and/or Anius' daughters), 14, 16,19, 22, 25, 27f., 40 n. 45, 41 n. 48, 75f., 142 Anius, 11,13-16,19-42, 44f., 58 n. 25, 61f., 76, 78, 80, 138 Anius' crater/cup see crater of Anius Anna Perenna, 54 n. 14 Antandros, 16 Apollo, 16, 28f., 33 n. 30, 34-37, 40, 4446, 50-52, 57, 60, 62, 75-77, 122, 153 n. 22, 154 n. 23, 174 Gortynian, 35 n. 32 apotheosis, 26, 36-42, 37 n. 37, 68, 181, 185f., 197 and Aesculapius, 26, 36-42 and Augustus, 38, 40, 68, 197 and Aeneas Indiges, 181, 197 as form of metamorphosis, 185f. Apulian shepherd, 18, 173-174 and Acmon, 173f. and Alexandrian poetics, 174 and the Cercopes, 174 and insolent speech, 173-174 and the Sibyl, 174

Indexes Arachne, 23f., 30 n. 23, 32, 125 n. 22, 130 n. 33, 135 Ardea, the city and ardea, the bird, 12f., 16, 18, 169, 180-182, 185f., 187-197 and W e r e , 188, 191 n. 11 and arduus, 191f., 191 η. 11 and ardens Turnus, 193f. as allegory for Rome, 195-197 as inverted Troy, 180-182 as allegory for both decline and resurrection, 180-182, 195-197 Aristeus, 33 n. 30 Ascanius, 38, 119, 130 n. 34 Athens, as parallel for Rome, 27, 56 n. 18, 58, 196 Augustus, 6 n. 16, 26, 32 n. 28, 33 n. 29, 37-41, 56f„ 68, 80 n. 9, 175f., 180, 193 n. 16 and Actium, 175f., 180 and Anius, 37 and Aesculapius, 37-41 and Apollo, 37f., 40, 68, 197 and the Sibyl, 68 and 'problematic' time order, 56f. Aurora, and Thetis, 189, 193f. aurea Circe/Dido, 118-120, 122 bacchants, 135, 137 and Circe/Dido, 137 and Orpheus, 137 Bacchus, 16,27, 135 Bloom, 9, 144 'anxiety of influence', 9, 144 'contrast imitation', 9 boat-race in Aeneid 5, 177f., 182f. and monstra, 182f. breviter, 160-162 brooch and cloak of Picus/Ulixes, 123f. Caieta, 17f., 79, 139-142 and metapoetics, 139f. structural function, 140-142 as model of incorporation, 139 Calchas, 52, 62-65 as vates, 62, 65 and omniscience, 52, 61f. and the Muses, 64 and Nestor, 62-65 and the Sibyl, 62f., 65 Callimachean poetics, see Alexandrian poetics Canens, 5, 18, 79, 114f., 124-139 a literary invention, 115, 138 and Heaven, 116, 126-132 and Orpheus, 124 n. 20, 131-137

215

and the etymology of 'canere', 'to sing', 134 n. 40, 156 n. 34 and the Porta Capena, 115, 126 and Cygnus/dying swan, 135-137 as artist rivaling Circe, 115, 124-128, 13 If. as bacchant, 132, 137 as foil for Circe and Dido, 137-139 carmen perpetuum ( = t h e Metamorphoses), 9, 14, 26, 41 n. 45, 42, 56, 138, 151 deductum, 24 n. 9 and Canens, 124-125, 132-139 and epitaph, 141f. as epic/song of the Muses, 64 as melodious song, 124f., 132-135 as magic charm, 118f. as lament, 133-135 see also, swans Carthage and the horse, 183 Cassandra, 51 catasterism, 26, 36-39, 37 n. 37, 41 Cercopes, 68-70 as poetological allegory for the Metamorphoses, 68-70 Chimera and hybrid symbolism, 129 cicada as allegory for the poet figure, 68, 73 n. 56, 174 Circe, 10, 17f., 114-139 composition techniques, 1-16 emphasis on marginal episode, 2, 2f., 45, 75ff., 79,113ff., 163f., 170 para-narratives, 13, 43, 76, 80 inclusion of "fraction scenes", 13f., 100 comet(s), 29, 35f., 40, 68 and Caesar's soul, 36, 40, 68 and the Coroni, 29, 35f., 40 coniunx, 120-123 and Allecto/Hell, 129-132 and Dido, 114-126, 138f. and Polyphemus, 116, 131f. 138 and Scylla, 17, 115, 131 constellation see catasterism Corinna, 28 comus, of Romulus, 38 corona, 37-39 see also crown corona civica, 38 Coronid maidens/Coronides, 29, 35-37, 40 Coroni, 16,21,24, 35-41 Coronis, 40-42 crater of Anius, 19-42, 58 n. 25 crown, 37-39

216 Augustus' crown, 38 Caesar's laurel crown, 38 Cipus' crown, 38f., esp. n. 40 Cybele, 18, 168, 170, 174, 176-178 Cyclops, 17f., 78, 79-111, 113, 131 and genre, 11 n. 31, 95 and Hell, 131f. as focalizer, 103, 106f. as staged spectacle, 93-95, 98ff. epic and elegiac, 96-98 on the diptych mural in the Villa Boscotrecase, 96-98 Cygnus and Callimachean poetics, 133f. 136f., 153-156 see also, swans Cypria, 22 n. 4, 37 n. 35 deception as manipulation of storytelling, 70 deducere (filum), 31 Demodocus' metapoetic performance, 90, 159 descriptio (= ekphrasis), 24 Dido, 5, 12, 17, 43, 49f., 114-126, 128, 130, 132, 137-139, 157-163 and the Sibyl, 49f. as duplicate Circe, 114-126, 139 as epic audience, 157-163 furens (bacche), 130, 132, 137 digressions, 5, 13, 17f., 43 Diomedes' companions, 143-165 Diomedes, 143-165 and the Homeric Aeneas, 145-152 and the Homeric Ulixes, 157-160 as alter Achilles, 145f., 148 as epic narrator/aoidos, 146-148, as epic narrator comparable to Aeneas, 159-165 Echo, 70-74 and poetic memory, 71 and textual self-reflexivity, 71-74 as mirror & foil for the Sibyl, 70-74 Ekphrasis, 13f. 15, 20-26, 31f., 33, 39, 441f., 58 n. 25, 75-77, 97, 157, 180 as paranarrative, 76f. definition, 22-24 epic ekphrasis, 13f., 157 on Anius' crater, 15, 20-22, 2426, 33 on the Boscotrecase murals, 96f. Elysium, 46, 53, 59 emulation see aemnlatio enargeia, 105f.

Indexes Ennius' dream, 61 epitaph (on Caieta's tomb), 141f. Eriounios, Hermes, 30 Eurydice, and Picus, 133 Evander, 18, 170 exhausta, 160f. fades (avian/human), 171 facit, 32 Fama and Word (literary composition), 52, 65-67 fata and Jupiter, 66-69 and Text (literary tradition), 67f. fierent, 32 forgetfulness and/as death, 49, 51f. as (love) cure, 125 Galatea, 4 n. 8, 17, 96-98, 115, 131 gender inversion, 25f., 25 n. 13 genre, If., 8f., 11, 61, 77f., I l l , 132, 146, 151, 162-165, 189 Glaucus, 4 n. 8, 17, 37 n. 37, 115, 131 Heaven and Hell, 127-139 or: Hell and Heaven Hippolytus-Virbius, 40f. Homer, 5-7, 9, 52, 60-65, 75f., 79, 81-84, 87-92, 94, 96, 100-103, 107, 110f., 113, 123, 127, 141, 144-165, 172, 176, 179, 189-197 horse as machina, 184 as ship, 183, 185 hypertextuality, 83ff. hypertext, 83f. hypotext, 59, 61, 72, 83f., 87, 89, 106f., 179, 182, 195 Hyrie, 155 and Canens, 155 imitatio, principles in "little Aeneid", 9f. immortality, 43ff., 50-52, 57, 59, 64, 67, 73 n. 56, 184f., 189 n. 4 "incorporation", 3, 7, 59, 61f. n. 32, 139, 148, 169 insolent speech, 18, 68-70, 174f. intertextuality, 7f., 9 n. 24, 61 n. 32, 65f., 71, 77f., 83, 119 n. 14, 132f., 175 invention, literary, 14f., 35f., 71, 92f., I l l , 113, 115, 138f., 141, 167, 195 Iphigeneia's sacrifice, 25 n. 13

217

Indexes Jupiter and the fata, 66-69

oracle(s), 19, 29, 35, 44f., 48, 54, 57, 61, 65, 75f. Order vs. Disorder, 30, 57, 130 Orionids or Orion's daughters, 22-32, 34-36, 41 Orpheus, 132-137

longevity and immortality, 50-52 love triangles, 11, 17, 115

as vates, 132 Macareus, 13-18, 43, 78f., 104, 107, 109f., 113-142 magic and love, 118, 124-126 Memnon, 188-194 as parallel to Achilles, 192-194 Memnon's funeral pyre as parallel to Achilles' pyre, 192f. as parallel to Ardea/Turnus, 191 f. as parallel to Hector's pyre, 193f. Memnonides, 24, 188-194 transformation legend, 189f. as parallel to ardea/Ardea, 189-191 memory and immortality, 43ff., 49-53, 64 and vision, 98ff. poetic/literery/storytelling, 56 n. 18, 60-66, 67, 71f., 97, 102, 148 Messapian shepherds, 174f. metadiegesis, 57-60, 69f., 73, 93ff. metamorphosis, Iff. metaphor, 27, 52, 124f., 175f., 183, 191 metapoetics

seepoetology,

poetics,

metapoetics

Metioche and Menippe etymologies, 29f. Minerva, 23 n. 8, 24 n. 9, 125 n. 22, 130 n. 33, 182-184 Minyeids, 27-32, 135 Muses invocation to, 33 portrayal of, 62 Mycenae parallel for Rome, 56 n. 18, 196 narrative progression/continuity, 14, 19, 26, 35, 42, 148, 156, 176, 178, 189 compression/supression of model, 10, 12f., 44 Nestor, 52, 62-65 and epic memory, 62f. longevity and immortality, 62-64 narrative performance and credibility, 63f. Nicander, 28, 173f. Nymphs (Aeneas' ships), 167-186 Apulian, 173f. Oenotropoi, 22 n. 4

and and and and

Canens, 132-134 Dido/the bacchants, 132 philomela/nightingale, 133-137 the Muses, 132, 134 n. 40

paranarrative, 13, 43, 77, 80, 138 definition of, 13 petrification of Phaecian ship, 172, 179 Philomela, 133-137 and weaving / story-telling, 135 Picus, 5, 18,114-133, 137f. in t h e A e n e i d , 114f., 129f. Circe and Dido, 117-126 Pithecusae, 17, 68 plague, 29, 33 n. 30, 34f., 41 poetic memory, 60-70 poetology, poetics, metapoetics, 3-15, 31, 41, 43ff., 52, 60-62, 67-69, 71f., 76, 81-83, 92, 96ff., 106f., 116, 127, 134-139, 143f., 146-165, 151, 153f., 157, 159-162, 169, 174-176, 179 Polyphemus etymology, 95 Polyxena and the Orionids, 25 'problematic' time order and Augustus' politics, 56f. Proitids, 30 n. 22 prophecy, 17, 35, 39, 44-46, 51f., 57, 61f., 65-68, 75-77, 105, 162, 195-197 and foreknowledge, 51f., 57f., 65f. and metamorphosis, 67f. and metapoetics, 76-78 and omniscience, 61f., 65f. as trope of intertextuality, 65ff. Pygmalion, 24 Pythagoras, 56 n. 18, 58-61, 63 n. 35, 66 n. 46, 189, 195-197

quaeror/querella,

136 n. 44

repetition, 7, 14f., 49, 60f., 73, 189, 197 restrictions, of structure, 14f., 53, 172f. ring composition, 188 Romulus, 38-40

saeculum,

54f.

Scylla, 17, 115, 131, 183

Indexes

218

'ships' motif, 167-180 ships and Diomedes' companions, 169180, esp. 170-173 and metapoetics, 169ff. as machina, 184f., esp. n. 29 as monstrum, 182-184 as 'Horses of the Sea', 183, 185 as symbol of Troy, 175f. as Trojan Horse/snakes, 183-185 Sibyl, 15, 17, 43-74, 77f., 144 n. 3, 174, 192, 195 age of, 54f. humanization of, 48 and Anchises, 56, 59 and Anius, 44f. and Apollo, 44-46, 50-52, 57, 6062 and Calchas, 62f., 65 and the Cercopes, 68-70 and Echo, 70-74 and epic composition, 62-65 and Fama, 65f. and memory, 52f., 60-65 and Nestor, 62-65 and the Sibyline oracles, 54f., 57 as critical reader, 67ff. as Rome, 52-60 as iwies/prophet/Pythagoras, 5861 as vates/poet, 60-72 sidus Iulium, 39 n. 42, 68 Sinon, 8If., 93, 108f. as hypocrites (impersonator), 108f. Sparta, as parallel for Rome, 56 n. 18, 58, 196 sphragis, 37 n. 37 spinning/weaving as narrating/poetry, 30-32 structure, narrative of the Metamorphoses, 1-16, 32, 42, 48, 57f.,

92, 106, 128, mi.,passim

succession, epic, 1, 8f., 61-67, 79, 94, 144-146, 157-165, 179, l$5,passim 'swan' motif, 157-165 swans in the Metamorphoses, 152-157 and poetics, 133-136, 143, 150, 153157, 163-165

telum, 31 temporal organization of the Metamorphoses, 26 n. 14, 56f., 56 n. 19, 65,97, 170 tenuis, 136, 154 n. 28, 156, 164 Text (vs. Word) and Fata (literary tradition), 65-72 Thebes symbolism, 21, 24, 26-32 as anti-Rome, 27, 34-37, 56 n. 18, 58 n. 25, 196 Thetis, and Aurora, 189, 193f. Thrace, 16,34, 132, 135 Tithonus, 68f., 73 n. 56, 174 Trojan Horse as allegory for Greek fleet, 183-185 as ship and monstrum, 94 n. 36, 98 n. 43, 183 n. 27, 185 n. 31 Troy, as parallel for Rome, 24, 28, 34, 58, 66 n. 46, 197 Turnus, 12, 18, 129f., 143, 174, 176f., 181f., 185f., 187, 191-194 as alter Achilles, 193, esp. nn. 16-20 as incarnation of Ardea and a Hector-like figure, 191-194 Ulixes, 17f., 79-114, 121, 123f., 127, 141, 157-159, 161-163, 172 as narrator and focalizer, 100-102 the storyteller and epic bard/aoidos, 157-159 Ulixes' shout {clamor), 92 venerium, 119 Venulus, 143f., 147, 161f. Venus, 36, 47-49, 66, 119, 145, 149, 15 If., 160, 174, 187 Aphrodite, 29 vox, 71-73,136, 153, 164 and echo/Echo, 71-73 and the Sibyl, 73f. and swan/Cygnus, 136, 163f. water and poetics, 133, 136 n. 44, 155 window reference, 83, 123 n. 18, 136 n. 44 Word (vs. Text) and Fama (literary composition), 52, 65-72