Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy 9780520928664

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. Concepts, Structures, and Characters in Roman Love Elegy
Part II. The Material Girls and the Arguments of Elegy; or, The Docta Puella Reads Elegy
Part III. Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience, in Roman Love Elegy
Appendix
Notes
Works Cited
General Index
Index Locorum

Citation preview

Learned Girls and Male Persuasion

The Joan Palevsky

Imprint in Classical Literature

In honor of beloved Virgil— “O degli altri poeti onore e lume . . .” —Dante, Inferno

Learned Girls and Male Persuasion Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy

sharon l. james

University of California Press berkeley

los angeles

london

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution provided to this book by Joan Palevsky.

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2003 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data James, Sharon L. Learned girls and male persuasion : gender and reading in Roman love elegy / Sharon L. James. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-23381-6 (alk. paper). 1. Elegiac poetry, Latin—History and criticism. 2. Love poetry, Latin—History and criticism. 3. Man-woman relationships in literature. 4. Women—Books and reading—Rome. 5. Women and literature—Rome. 6. Books and reading—Rome. 7. Sex role in literature. 8. Persuasion (Rhetoric) 9. Women in literature. I. Title. PA6059.E6 J36 2003 871'.01093543—dc21

2002010143

Printed in Canada 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of ∞ ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).䡬

This book is dedicated, with gratitude, both to my teachers— Archibald Allen (in memoriam), W. S. Anderson, Bob Davenport, Mary-Kay Gamel, John Lynch, Gary Miles, Seth Schein, Laura M. Slatkin, Florence Verducci— and, in memoriam, to Jerry Derr James, 29 October 1935–25 February 2001

ossa quieta, precor, tuta requiescite in urna, et sit humus cineri non onerosa tuo. Ovid, Amores 3.9.67–68

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

iipart i.

Introduction: Approaching Elegy

2.

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money: The Material Bases and Social Backgrounds of Elegy

3. 4.

part iii. 5. 6.

xiii

concepts, structures, and characters in roman love elegy

1.

ipart ii.

ix

3 35

the material girls and the arguments of elegy; or, the docta puella reads elegy Against the Greedy Girl; or, The Docta Puella Does Not Live by Elegy Alone Characters, Complaints, and the Stations of the Lover; or, Adventures and Laments in Elegy

71 108

problems of gender and genre, text and audience, in roman love elegy Necessary Female Beauty and Generic Male Resentment: Reading Elegy through Ovid

155

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status: How the Docta Puella Serves Elegy

212

Appendix

225

Notes

239

Works Cited

323

General Index Index Locorum

337 345

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

Invoking Catullus in his poem “The Scholars,” W. B. Yeats mocked classicists for laboring to produce learned commentaries on love poetry, which he describes as devised by desperate young men “[t]o flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.” Yeats’s beauty may have been ignorant, but Catullus’s certainly was not, or she could not possibly have understood the poetry directed at her. And without the ink-borne labor of the learned heads, neither could any reader after the fall of Rome. In fact, given that we have lost so many of the ancient materials to which Catullus had access, it is fair to say that no postclassical reader has fully plumbed any Roman poetry, for it is deeply learned, sometimes to the point of obscurity, and many of its sources are missing. I argue that since Roman elegy expresses its desires toward an educated female love object—the docta puella or learned girl—its texts cannot be taken for purely emotional or spontaneous outbursts; they must be understood from the viewpoints of not only of their male speakers and authors but also of the educated woman who inhabits their pages. My identification of that woman as a courtesan based on the meretrix of Roman Comedy is not a new one, though it has been contested by those who believe that the puella to be a citizen wife. In my view, the elegiac docta puella is a generic, poetic fiction who must, for the arguments and adventures of elegy to take place, be independent of male control but not of male financial resources. This generic woman can be nothing other than a courtesan of formidable intelligence, education, and independence. Previous work on elegy has generally focused upon the lover’s viewpoint in interpreting the poetry; by contrast, I seek the key to the poems in their implied reception by the docta puella. By placing the puella in dialogue with the historical context that shaped the way Roman audiences read her— by elucidating her interests, her status, her financial and social constraints— ix

x

/

Preface

I hope to make a silent character speak. Elegy itself challenges us to apply what we know of ancient women’s lives in order to supply the puella’s longmuted voice; meeting that challenge can alter, fill out, and radically change our readings of elegy. I offer herein readings of elegy that explore the potential response of the docta puella to the persuasive strategies directed at her and a consideration of the implications that these readings pose for Roman love elegy as a whole. In the hopes of opening up elegy studies to nonspecialists, nonclassicists, and students, I include an appendix of classical terms, concepts, historical information, and background. I have also provided my own deliberately literal (and thus often awkward) translations of all quoted Latin and Greek. I regret the awkwardness of these translations, but I consider line-by-line fidelity crucial to my arguments, so I have made no attempt to render the elegance, tension, and extraordinary beauty of Roman elegy, let alone its concise linguistic wit. Often I have needed to make line references to unquoted material in Latin; nonclassicists may find it helpful to have translations at hand. I recommend Peter Green’s translations of Ovid, and Guy Lee’s of Tibullus and Propertius. The Loeb classical editions have fairly literal translations and may be easier to find. I have used the Latin texts of Postgate (1915) for Tibullus, Fedeli for Propertius, McKeown for Ovid’s Amores, and Kenney (1995) for the Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris. Since the manuscript tradition for Propertius in particular is so troubled, readers referring to the English translations will occasionally find that line numbers or poem divisions do not match up, but the line numbers are always marked as from the manuscripts. In some instances, I have preferred a reading from a different editor of Propertius (reading 3.25 as a separate elegy, for example); such instances are identified in the notes. I came to this project many years after I first read elegy, in an undergraduate Latin course on Ovid. For a long time I thought it was a shame to have read the last elegist first, rather than reading the poetry in its chronological development (insofar as that chronology is determinable), but eventually I realized that it was a very lucky thing indeed, as Ovid’s reading of elegy colored my own and provided me a key to understanding it, as I argue in chapter 5. Those who don’t care for Ovid’s reading of elegy will not, of course, care for this one, but they will perhaps recognize it as a much belated attempt to answer the question that I asked myself on first reading the Amores and the Ars amatoria: why would so intelligent a poet as this depict himself as manipulative and shallow, an exploiter and abuser of women? Much have I wandered in the realms of elegy, formulating a possible answer

Preface

/

xi

in the shape of this book. Fortunately, the company of Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus was never dull; it is a testament to their brilliance, wit, and style that I find elegy even more enjoyable now than when I began. I hope this study will encourage others to revisit it with added perspective and enjoyment.

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

Academics are often said to reside in an ivory tower, isolated from mainstream society. Perhaps—but, if so, we do not dwell there alone. The tower is a full and busy house whose inhabitants provide each other with encouragement, challenges, and companionship. Electronic media have now expanded its boundaries across the globe. It is a pleasure and privilege to acknowledge here the friends and colleagues who have kept me company as I wrote this book. Scholars reflexively and formulaically note that those whom they acknowledge should not be held responsible for their own errors. Such notice is hereby given: none of these people may be blamed for anything wrong in this book. Any faults are mine alone, with exceptions as noted below. I owe great personal thanks to W. S. Anderson, Corey Brennan, Alice Donohue, Anne Filiaci, Julia Gaisser, Mary-Kay Gamel, Mary Jaeger, Micaela Janan, Pat McFadden, Maria-Cristina Quintero, Eva Stehle, Steve Thompson, and Cecil Wooten, who have never failed to encourage, inspire, and occasionally chastise me. Their friendship and support make the tower a joyous place to work. Judith P. Hallett read the manuscript with exceptionally astute care and made many improvements. Likewise Sara Mack—a brilliant career in copyediting was lost when she went into Latin poetry, but I have benefited from her expertise and ingenium in both arenas, for which I am deeply grateful. Allen Miller cheerfully and strenuously disagreed with me on crucial points, thus sharpening my work; Barbara Gold and Kenneth J. Reckford prevented some foolish errors. Maura High polished and clarified. When this book was barely a-borning, Jill Kaderly and Latanya Ingraham performed superhuman and tedious feats of research assistance and thus saved me untold hours. Hunter Gardner helped me to catch typographical errors at the last minute and eased the tedious process of finalxiii

xiv

/

Acknowledgments

stage proofreading. Her meticulous attention and gracious patience are much appreciated. My colleague Nicola Terrenato not only found the images used on the cover; he also helped me obtain permission to reproduce them. Jerzy Linderski and T. C. Brennan reviewed, improved, and approved the social history of chapter 2, providing much-appreciated peace of mind to a nonhistorian author. To all of you, many thanks. My family too has been at my side: my sister, Heather James, has demonstrated supersororal support and interest; her humorous encouragement helped me along the entire way. My mother has even helped me proofread, which, as she said, was the first time she had read Latin aloud in fifty years. My husband, Corry Arnold—sine quo, nihil fuisset—supported me and this project in every possible way, from financial to personal to proofreading; as a result he has come to know more about Roman poetry than any normal human being should expect to do, even one who knowingly married a classicist. Any omissions from these acknowledgments may be laid at his door, as he has volunteered to accept blame for them. Institutional support has been generously provided by George W. Houston and William H. Race, chairs consecutively of the Department of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the library collection has proven an elegy scholar’s dream come true. The dean of humanities, Daryl Gless, provided me with a Research and Study Assignment leave in 2000, which enabled the completion of this book. Thanks to her expertise in Latin poetry, Dr. Katherine Toll, at the University of California Press, editrix extraordinaire, also improved this manuscript, with friendship, steady encouragement, and an eagle eye. The press’s referees likewise improved this study with many challenging and helpful points. Sections of chapter 3 appeared, in slightly different form, in the American Journal of Philology; Barbara Gold, the journal’s editor, has kindly given permission to reprint this material. The Museo Nazionale of Naples generously granted permission to reproduce the image on the cover. The dedication page records my debt to those who brought me into the field many years ago, when I was a rudis, rather than a docta, puella. I can see now how extraordinary they were: they made classics so exciting that it seemed the only worthwhile way to spend my life. From my high-school Latin teacher, Bob Davenport, to my dissertation director W. S. Anderson, my former teachers have never failed to support, prod, advise, and challenge me, long after I left their classrooms and offices. I blame all of them for the reading glasses I had to get at age nineteen, which are my most prized possession, as without them I cannot read Latin or Greek. I have been fortunate enough to teach alongside some of them at the University of California at

Acknowledgments

/

xv

Santa Cruz, where I found them to be colleagues and friends just as extraordinary as they were as teachers. In this era, many who wind up in classics fell into it as I did—by way of an exceptional teacher. It was my great fortune to study only with such persons, and if I fail to equal their pedagogical achievements, that failure is not due to lack of inspiration and example. To all of them—once teachers and role models, now colleagues and friends—I owe greater thanks than I can express in words. If any of them, reading this book, regret what they have wrought, they have only themselves to blame. The final dedication, to my late father, marks a debt impossible to describe. Though he was not particularly interested in the intellectual project of this book, he was very proud of it. His delight in my early interest in classics translated into years of steady encouragement material and personal, even to the point of reading my work, though it lay far outside his own intellectual fields and often involved feminist approaches of which he did not quite approve. His untimely death deprived him of the chance to see this book, which he had long awaited, in print. He was my first teacher and my most ardent supporter, and this small literary dedication cannot do his own dedication justice. To rephrase Catullus slightly, haec . . . accipe filiae multum manantia fletu, atque in perpetuum, pater, ave atque vale.

This page intentionally left blank

part i

Concepts, Structures, and Characters in Roman Love Elegy

This page intentionally left blank

1. Introduction Approaching Elegy

In the past two hundred years or so, studies in Roman love elegy of the sort mocked by Yeats in his poem “The Scholars” have been divided primarily into source research and interpretation. Both efforts have been necessary, as elegy is not easily understood, for two main reasons. First, it often seems to express deeply felt emotion in apparently, but inconsistently, autobiographical fashion, although it is at the same time obviously filled with artifice. Second, readers conditioned by romanticism to expect sincerity, spontaneity, and, often, biography, from their love poetry have stumbled over the ironies and obscurities of elegy, unable to reconcile its apparent emotion with its evident artifice. In his groundbreaking (1950) article “ ‘Sincerity’ and the Roman Elegists,” Allen proved some fifty years ago that it is impossible to derive a factual autobiography of an elegiac poet or the actual history of the love affair apparently described in his elegies; he demonstrated that what might be called “the sincerity requirement”—the expectation that love poetry necessarily expresses the poet’s genuine emotion—is not relevant to elegy, which is more concerned with poetry than with autobiography or with recounting factual events in any historical love affair. Much work has since been done to demonstrate the thoroughly literate, highly crafted nature of elegy, but the demon of the sincerity requirement has proven hard to cast out.1 Since Roman love elegy is a self-consciously literate genre in the Alexandrian tradition, it not only expects but requires readers thoroughly learned in both Greek and Latin literature. As Thomas (1988: 59) notes, elegy could not have been written at an “uncluttered desk.”2 He further comments: “The personal poetry of Catullus (and the other neoterics), of Horace, and of the Augustan elegists is a splendidly complex body of literature, the product of two generations of poets who, with Vergil, effected a 3

4

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

more rapid maturation of their nation’s literature than has occurred in any other culture, in any other comparable period of time” (69). This complexity, both broad-ranging and deep, means that if any Roman poetry of this period is to be understood, its readers must be as literate as the poets. Its learned character requires dictionaries, commentaries, and piles of antecedent poetry for both production and—then as now—reception, for this particular love poetry is composed not in Yeats’s sleepless bed but, as Thomas notes, at the high-piled desk. The isolation of the personal library for authorial composition and readerly study places elegy in an already venerable public literary tradition of learned composition and dense allusion, a tradition that depends absolutely on learned reception. Thus, as elegy is being composed (a slow process in itself) its readers are in the poet’s mind. In fact elegy anticipates a very specific audience—many of its members known personally to the elegists Gallus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, and Sulpicia—of elite, educated, intellectual Romans. Such poetry may seem to be a relatively private genre, but although coterie poetry is not as widely distributed as epic poetry, it is still not personal or confessional: it is instead designed to be read by others, to be circulated among readers, and even, in the case of elegy, to be recited publicly by its authors at literary gatherings.3 Furthermore, it is designed for close evaluation, in what often amounts to implicit competition with other poets, both living and dead. In discussing the literary culture of the Roman elite, Habinek (1998: 124) coins the useful term “doctitude” and establishes that discernment is a constitutive part of being doctus: inevitably, the poet expects his readers not simply to read but also to evaluate, to judge, his poetry.4 Further, elegy’s overtly rhetorical nature, which confounds romanticminded readers, derives from the thorough instruction in principles and techniques of rhetoric that characterized the education of the Roman elite and were not only recognized but anticipated by its readers.5 In the context of elegy, the sincerity requirement, the expectation that this poetry will offer spontaneous expressions of pure feeling—”a fragment of a lover’s lament accidentally overheard,”6 in Wyke’s phrase (1989a: 168)—is both unwarranted and generically inappropriate. Though there may well be points of contact between romanticism and ancient Roman culture, the value placed on uninhibited, “natural” behavior is not one of them. It is easy to see how romantic critics, and scholars conditioned by romanticism, read Propertius’s laments as unfiltered cries from the heart, but that interpretation mistakes the nature of Roman love elegy, in which “pure” feeling was not a desideratum.7

Introduction

/

5

In fact, elite Roman society was so deeply acculturated into well-defined roles (gender, family, and social, as well as political) that natural or spontaneous behavior was next to forbidden.8 As a society Rome had for centuries defined itself as a collective with imperialist goals that required individuals to subordinate their own interests to the interests and goals of the whole. The elegists claim to reject their society and its political, military, economic, and imperialist programs (again, an apparent point of contact between romanticism and Roman elegy), but the very form in which they express their rejections, the poetic recusatio (refusal, regrets; see appendix), far from being a spontaneous cry by the rebellious individual, is already a venerable, inherited rhetorical move, anticipated by their readers as an integral part of the genre and of Roman Alexandrian practice. Further, in the context of elegy, spontaneous expression would be unsophisticated, crude, even boring—the worst possible sin for the educated, urbane, witty composers and consumers of Roman poetry. In addition, even the definition of the word “love,” in the designation “love poetry,” is both complex and deeply contested, for although in ancient Rome the phenomenon of erotic love was of course well recognized, it was not always approved. In fact, it was historically seen as potentially obstructing, even endangering, the overriding goals of the elite, which were to supervise and expand Roman political and military power.9 One’s “private” life was always a secondary consideration for the ruling class of Rome; thus marital love, at least up until nearly the time of the elegists, was at best convenient but certainly not required and more often an impediment to social relations, as marriage was entered into for the purpose of having children (pro liberorum quaerundorum causa).10 As Cantarella (1987: 127) notes, the resulting “sexual repression of the Roman woman was perfectly functional for the purpose of procreation, where there was no room for eroticism and love.” Indeed, even conjugal sexual intercourse was governed by codes of socially productive conduct that repressed any kind of physical motion in the respectable Roman wife, as her movements were thought to interfere with conception (see Lucr. De rerum natura 4.1263–77). Such strict taboos on natural and spontaneous behavior, even in the most intimate circumstances, suggest that the private life was seen not as a refuge from external social restrictions but as a place where the internalized inhibition necessary to further the goals of the Roman elite was generated. Kennedy (1993: 24–26 and 43–44) provides a useful reminder that even our own definitions of the word “love” are unreliable, even fugitive, and heavily influenced by romanticism; hence it all the more behooves us to guard against taking elegy’s professions of love at face value.11

6

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

Finally, the sincerity requirement, which has led readers to assume an autobiographical basis or serious historical purpose underlying elegy, misunderstands Roman poetry, which self-consciously acknowledges its ficticity, as both the poets themselves (e.g., Catullus) and others have argued.12 But as Mack (1988: 5) remarks, “Readers brought up to read a poet’s biography in his poetry have not always listened.”13 Wyke has also noted (1990: 114–17) that well after classical scholarship accepted that the eponymous speakers of elegy were also assuming contrived literary personae, which were not to be simplistically equated with the authors themselves, it continued to treat the female characters of elegy as somehow based in historical reality. Wyke has furthered the seminal work of Allen in demonstrating that neither the women nor the love affairs depicted in elegy can be considered historical or biographical. The elite Roman audience of both elegy and lyric fully understood the fluid relationship between poetry and reality; twenty-first-century readers have access to analogous structures in television: from the Burns and Allen and Ozzie and Harriet shows of the 1950s to It’s Garry Shandling’s Show of the 1980s, to Seinfeld and Larry Sanders of the 1990s, television has offered as entertainment fictive events in the lives of publicly known people, using sets and social circumstances based on their lives.14 Roman reading audiences would have understood these fictions easily.15 All this is not to say that Roman love elegy exists purely in a makebelieve world, for it often refers to and engages with public events and issues, but it does so through the medium of its fictive self-representation. Fiction and reality are not strangers but kin; their precise kinship, however, is indeterminable, and, as Wyke (1989b: 26) points out, not simple.16 Conte (1994: 159) notes that “[i]n literary works, fiction ‘plays’ dialectically with reality”; “literature . . . is not the exact contrary of reality,” and “reality is . . . a construction, even if one at a different level from literature. . . . Genre functions as a mediator, permitting . . . models of selected reality to enter into the language of literature; it gives them the possibility of being ‘represented’ “ (125). Elegy plays with reality in its generic fashion, which both represents and distorts some aspects of reality, but must not be taken for unmediated truth or even experience. The male speakers of elegy are just as fictional as the women created in the poems. This ficticity allows the poets to engage, in an indirect fashion, with the public and political concerns of their day, though they do not take any sustained position on those concerns.17 Hence, to preserve the distinction between historical poet and the fictive eponymous speakers of elegy, I have followed scholarly practice established since Durling (1958), referring to the male speakers of elegy as the

Introduction

/

7

lover, the lover-poet, the male speaker, the amator;18 when I use the names Tibullus, Propertius, or Ovid, I am referring to the historical poets. This nomenclature results in some awkwardness of phrasing, but it is crucial for retaining the separation between poet and fiction and for understanding Roman love elegy from the perspective of the docta puella, the learned girl. Roman love elegy exists in a specific social and cultural context and presupposes both a public reception and an educated audience. That audience necessarily includes women: aside from the obvious fact that many of elegy’s poems are directly addressed to a fictive woman, who must be able to understand them,19 elegy overtly identifies its anticipation of women readers. See, for instance, Propertius 3.3.20: legat exspectans sola puella virum (“Let a girl read waiting for her man alone”); Ovid, Amores 2.1.5: me legat in sponsi facie non frigida virgo (“Let a girl read me who is not cool in her promised lover’s face”); and again in the Amores, at 2.17.28–29: multae per me nomen habere volunt. / novi aliquam, quae se circumferat esse Corinnam (“Many women want to have a name through me. / I know one who goes around saying she’s Corinna”).20 Since elegy anticipates, even requires, that part of its reading audience be female, and since the poems generically depict intermittently oppositional relations21 between its male and female characters, the genre expects that many of its perspectives, topoi, and poems will be understood differently by male and female points of view. Half the fun, and half the point, of elegy is lost otherwise.22 I hope to show here that reading elegy from the point of view of its ideal female audience, the docta puella, is a generically necessary approach and reveals another dimension of elegy, one long overlooked by classical scholarship.23 PROLEGOMENON: SEXUALITY IN ELEGY

Male and Female I do not mean to suggest that each poem in Roman love elegy must or should be interpreted from the female viewpoint, nor that such a perspective is dominant.24 In the first place, there are too many individual elegies having little or nothing to do with women or heterosexual love affairs, and in the second, as a whole Roman love elegy is overwhelmingly male in its voiced perspectives. But elegy both implicitly and explicitly identifies its preferred love object as a docta puella—a “learned girl” who can understand, appreciate, and evaluate the literary strategies of a given poem—and requires a gendered structure of partnered opposition, in which the lover and his puella engage in their strategic tactics in a complex choreography of regular opposition balanced by occasional union.25 In this partnered

8

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

opposition, the lover-poet and the puella share important values and interests: they flout conventional morality, ignore politics, appreciate learned poetry, and skill in music and dance; in addition, her status as puella, rather than respectable femina, makes their complicated relationship possible. Finally, as I will argue throughout, her profession and status also govern the types of communication and persuasion directed at her. It is generically necessary, therefore, to examine the genre and many of its individual poems and topoi from the point of view of its female members and addressees, as well as its male speakers. Finally, of course, Sulpicia’s elegies demonstrate the openness of elegy to female perspective, even to female voice.26 My approach is grounded in Roman love elegy itself, rather than in the academic feminism of the late twentieth century. That is to say, though many of the interpretations I offer fall into the category of “reading as a woman,”27 I base my approach not on any Anglo-American or French academic feminist premise about nature, nurture, essentialism, or difference. Indeed, my focus here on material and social realities means that I am not arguing from a linguistic-psychoanalytical perspective. I am interested in the way social position, combined with gender, governs the generic puella’s reading of the intense persuasion directed her way. This approach is based in Roman historical practices as well as biophysiological events such as aging (which is devastating to the puella; see chapter 5). Elegy itself (not to mention ancient Roman culture) establishes the existence within its universe of male and female as both sexes and genders—that is, as bodies and as cultural concepts. Male and Female occupy different and shifting sites in the contested ground of elegiac social and sexual relations. Their exact nature is in fact one of elegy’s chief concerns—witness their reversed positions in the social hierarchy, designated by elegiac servitium amoris (“slavery of love”) and such terms as domina (mistress)—as is the exact nature of their relations.28 Definitions of both male and female, and of their relations, constantly shift, with one overriding organizational, structural, and episodic principle: elegy pretends to want its men and women to be on the same side, as it were, and indeed sometimes they are, but if they were always—or even often—in unison, there would be no elegy. Without the tension supplied by its gendered structure of partnered opposition, elegy collapses.29 The fluidities of elegy’s gender definitions and relations, which range from simple apparent reversal of standard Roman gender ideologies to a fantasy realm free of social requirements and customs, in which lover and beloved are virtually one, are conscious, intentional, constituent elements of the genre itself. I hope to offer new insight into those elements by examining elegy from the perspective of the elegiac female.30 I have set out

Introduction

/

9

here not to provide an exhaustive account of this perspective but to offer a beginning, to suggest an approach that will illuminate some of the basic constitutive structures and strategies of elegy. Keeping in mind the proviso of Kennedy (1993: 41), I make no claim that any “transcendental truth” will arise from this reading of elegy. Rather, I am offering a counterbalancing perspective to the male half of the dialogic genre of Roman love elegy, a half that has dominated scholarship for generations.31 This approach obviously places my work amid the growing body of feminist classical studies, a field both troubled and nurtured by the question of the mostly unknown realities of the lives of Roman women, realities that, according to some, cannot be recovered from literary studies of maleauthored texts (see Culham 1986). The relationship of elegy to “real” Roman life is also a problematic issue. I will mark my position in this field briefly by noting that even such elite and learned literary genres as Roman love elegy can, and do, engage with the issues and concerns of material, experienced life, and that elegy unmistakably takes on the realities of the lives of certain kinds of women, one of whom is the Elegiac Woman, in Wyke’s phrase.32 My purpose is not to use elegy as evidence of daily life or material culture in ancient Rome but to consider fictive female figures as an integral structural element, a necessary dimension, of an ancient Roman literary genre. I hope to demonstrate that Roman love elegy does in fact occasionally deal with potential realities of daily life, not for any specific historical, individual woman, but for a given class of women and, in the case of the dangers of pregnancy, potentially to all women. Thus, peculiarly, this study of a learned coterie poetry occasionally verges on social history, in uncovering the sites where Roman love elegy opens up a view into the lived realities of ancient women.33

Sexuality in Elegy A few words on sexual orientation in elegy are appropriate here. Though its love affairs are primarily heterosexual, it does contain a significant homoerotic component (Am. 1.1.20,1.8.68; Ars 1.524, 2.684; Tib. 1.4, 1.8, 1.9; Prop. 2.4.17–18). In fact, elegy readily acknowledges, and occasionally expresses (Tib. 1.4, 1.9), male homoerotic passion, but heterosexual love affairs are its dominant concern.34 I suggest that this is so in large part because homoerotic love does not offer the same opportunities to explore issues of gender, for reasons I will discuss below. Tibullus certainly gives prominent expression and weight to homoerotic passion (or more properly, to pederastic passion, for the beloved male is always an immature adolescent) in the Marathus poems, in which he uses standard elegiac theme

10

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

words.35 Some scholars have concluded that Tibullus himself was primarily “homosexual,” most notably Lilja (1965: 217–26) and Veyne (1988: 141, 145, 241 n. 46, based on Lilja’s discussion). Lilja’s arguments (1965, 1983) for Tibullus’s biography are based in the elegies themselves, from which she derives such conclusions as the following: Tibullus’s father died when he was a boy, so he spent much of his youth in the company of women (deduced because Tibullus mentions mother and sister in his poetry, but not father); he enlisted in the military when he was quite young; and these circumstances caused him to become primarily homosexual. Veyne appears to accept this chain of pseudo-Freudian reasoning without question, thus violating his own strict principle that elegy is not autobiographical.36 But none of Lilja’s conclusions can be supported from Tibullus’s poetry or from external information. Further, even a simple line count reveals a greater emphasis on heteroerotic passion even in elegy’s most homoerotic poet: 432 lines in poems addressed to Delia, 208 in the poems addressed to Nemesis (considering 2.5.101–14 to be a subsection to Nemesis), and 18 lines in 1.10, for a total of 640 lines in which the poet speaks of male-female love relationships. There are 246 lines in the so-called homosexual poems 1.4, 1.8, and 1.9; poem 1.8, however, is in fact mostly about the passion his young male love object, Marathus, feels for a girl (arguably 70 of its 78 lines are on that theme), and 22 lines of 1.9 likewise concern heterosexual affairs, from Marathus’s desire for his girl to the adultery of the wealthy old rival’s wife and sister. Thus even the prominently displayed homoerotic passion of Tibullus’s elegies is often mixed with passion for women. I argue, contra both Lilja and Veyne, that the homoerotic passions of Tibullus’s alter ego are not as overwhelming as his heterosexual passions— he never assumes anything like servitium amoris for the sake of a boy;37 and certainly no elegiac puer delicatus (delicate boy) is ever called dominus. In addition, boys are omitted at 1.1.51–52, in which the lover-poet prays that no woman shall ever weep because he has gone off on a military mission;38 second, Tibullus’s speaker never cites a boy as his Muse, his inspiration for poetry—he speaks of praise poems to Marathus, of which he is later ashamed (1.9.47–48), but there is never any suggestion that his poetry depends upon a boy. Compare, however, 2.5.111–12: usque cano Nemesim, sine qua versus mihi nullus / verba potest iustos aut reperire pedes (“I keep on singing Nemesis, without whom no line of my poetry / can find words or proper meter”).39 In addition, the elegiac lover-poets consistently both seek love and fidelity from their puellae and promise to reciprocate,40 but Tibullus 1.8 and 1.9 show no signs of jealousy when Marathus falls in love with a girl.41

Introduction

/

11

Elegy fantasizes about an impossible long-term love relationship with the docta puella, but the love of a puer is understood to be short-term. Furthermore, the pueri of elegy are not nearly the equals of either the poetlovers or the elegiac puellae (who mostly run their own households) and will not grow up to become male amatores. Since male homoeroticism in ancient poetry nearly always involves an older lover and a younger beloved, male lovers are expected not to be equals; in this poetic pederasty, the sexual attractiveness of the younger partner is as fleeting as his youth, for these young boys are always on the verge of physical maturity (as seen in, for example, the ever-impending growth of beards), when they will no longer be sexually attractive.42 Tibullus’s elegies demonstrate a sort of developmental pattern for masculine sexuality, in which young boys are the objects of passion until they mature and begin to feel passion for others, either girls or other boys.43 Ultimately, of course, all parties grow old—a process that generates another set of problems for love. Tibullus’s poems depict a set of shifting sexual relations that naturally evolve, as the puer grows into a more active sexual maturity, to become a sexual subject rather than an object. In 1.4, for example, the lover-poet is bewitched by Marathus; in 1.8 Marathus is in love with a girl, Pholoe, and the lover-poet both instructs her to treat him gently and then offers solace to the heartbroken youth. An unnamed boy, presumably Marathus, is the object of the tirade in 1.9; significantly, he has fallen in love with a girl, and this time the lover-poet considers her virtually the agent of his own revenge, for she is tormenting her young suitor, as he has tormented and deceived the poet. The same poem depicts a wealthy aged lover as corrupting youth with bribes and gifts; the speaker hopes this rival’s wife will deceive him with young boys, then predicts that his own beloved youth will regret the previous deceit on seeing him pursue another boy. Thus Tibullus’s elegies suggest a pattern of erotic relationships that both shows bisexual flexibility in young men (not, apparently, in young girls), who may demand gifts when they are the beloveds but will weep when they are the lovers, and establishes a development from youth to old age, in which Age pursues Youth. Presumably, everybody in the elegiac love-game goes through all these stages, arriving ultimately on the doorstep of hideous old age, at which point a gender divide demonstrates absolutely the material and class differences between elegy’s men and women: the men will have the resources to pay for sex, but the women will simply be abandoned.44 Finally, as I noted above, the elegiac puer is not remotely the equal of his older male lover, though they may be of the same social class, and

12

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

since his period of sexual attraction is brief, it presents a lesser risk to the lover. The great paradox of the elegiac docta puella is that in virtually every way she is the equal of her lover, if not—in fantasy and persuasive pretense, at least—his superior. This equality is of course a poetic fiction, but one absolutely crucial to Roman love elegy, which specifically identifies another difference between homoerotic and heteroerotic passions: the former are less dangerous than female ones (cf. Prop. 2.4.17–18); hence they are also less interesting to elegy. In addition, Tibullus 1.9.79, tum flebis, cum me vinctum puer alter habebit (“You’ll weep then, when another boy shall hold me captive”), marks another difference between the homoerotic and heteroerotic passions of Roman love elegy: very rarely does a lover-poet threaten to fall out of love with a puella and transfer his affections to another.45 These lines offer further evidence of the serial and shifting evolution in homoerotic elegiac love, which is generically predefined as very shortlived. It seems to me likely that as elegy developed away from Greek elegiac and lyric practices, it found male-female relations a more fruitful ground for its purposes than male-male sexual relations—after Tibullus book 1, there is no representation of a Roman elegiac speaker as loving a boy. In any case, my project here focuses on the female beloved and thus excludes the homoerotic element of elegy.

HORTATORY ELEGY, THE GENERIC LANGUAGE OF LOVERS Blanditias elegosque leves, mea tela, resumpsi. Once again I took up flatteries and light elegies, my weapons. Ovid, Amores 2.1.21

As I have remarked, Roman love elegy anticipates that part of its reading audience will be female and routinely portrays gender power relations as reversed, so that the women are powerful dominae and elite male lovers are their slaves. This reversal, combined with the intensely persuasive speech of elegy, makes gendered reception an integral part of the genre. (It is crucial to repeat here that gendered reception of elegiac speech is constituted not by biological essentials but by generically necessary structures.) Hence, to read elegy as a woman is to read from the perspective of its primary addressee, the docta puella, a perspective established in and by elegy as one of partnered opposition to that of its male speakers. The puella must refuse easy compliance with her lover-poet, not only because automatic or easy

Introduction

/

13

availability would cause elegy to collapse but also because her social status separates them structurally. Further, to read elegy from her position requires recognizing that from the beginning, the poetic recusatio (refusal, regrets) typical of all Alexandrian poetry carries, in the case of Roman love elegy, a specific sexual agenda, and is thus not simply, or even primarily, a statement of aesthetic intent. Where the Callimachean recusatio originally rejected epic poetry on aesthetic grounds, elegy does so as its first strategy for achieving sexual access to the beloved, for epic poetry does not appeal to pretty girls. Tibullus 2.4.19–20, to which I will return often, is very open on this subject: ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero: / ite procul, Musae, si nihil ista valent (“I seek easy approaches to my mistress, by means of poems; / go far away, Muses, if they don’t do me any good”).46 In fact, as Habinek (1998: 132–34) points out, in the context of elegy, poetry reading is almost a part of sexual foreplay, as the poet hopes for immediate conquest by means of reading his poetry aloud to the docta puella.47 Hence for her, the elegiac recusatio must always be seen as suspect, since its motives are self-serving rather than disinterested, sexual rather than aesthetic. The puella knows that the recusatio is part of elegy’s persuasive nature, an insight that further reveals the duplicitous nature of the entire genre, which purports to express feeling but is instead calculated to achieve effect.48 The contents of elegy must, then, be understood not as self-expression but primarily as persuasion, with a variety of aims.49 When it is directed at a female love object, elegy is hortatory, employed to gain the lover-poet unpurchased access to her bedroom.50 In the Fasti, of all places, Ovid marks the lover’s learned speech as generic sexual persuasion, for the lover’s song at his beloved’s door is an appeal to her for entry: eloquiumque fuit duram exorare puellam / proque sua causa quisque disertus erat (Fast. 4.111–12: “and it was eloquence51 to beseech a resistant girl, / and each man was eloquent on behalf of his own case”). The elegists are explicit about this function, and it merits some detailed examination here, before we take up the project of reading elegy from the perspective of the docta puella. According to the elegists, once a poet has fallen in love, he must give up public professions, whether military or poetic, and turn to elegy, a language calculated to please girls and induce them to receive him without charge. This is elegy’s primary function, most overtly identified in Tibullus 2.4, where the strategy has failed: nec prosunt elegi nec carminis auctor Apollo: illa cava pretium flagitat usque manu. ite procul, Musae, si non prodestis amanti:

14

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

non ego vos, ut sint bella canenda, colo, nec refero Solisque vias et qualis, ubi orbem complevit, versis Luna recurrit equis. ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero: ite procul, Musae, si nihil ista valent. (13–20) And neither are elegies any help, nor is Apollo, the sponsor of song: she just keeps demanding her price with a cupped hand. Go far away, Muses, if you’re no help to a lover: I don’t cultivate you for the purpose of war poetry,52 nor do I relate the travels of the Sun and how, when she has filled out her circle, the Moon runs with her horses turned back. I seek easy access to my mistress by means of songs: go far away, Muses, if they have no power.

Lines 13–14 demonstrate what I have designated the elegiac impasse, in which the girl demands goods and the lover-poet offers her poetry instead.53 Lines 19–20 offer the exchange that is programmatic to elegy: poetry for sex. Lines 15–18 identify the intention of elegy as hortatory, as persuasion directed at a girl, as functional rather than divinely inspired. Thus, from the perspective of the docta puella, the very language in which her lover-poet addresses her must be viewed with suspicion, as it is designed to gain him unpurchased entry to her bedroom. Rather than being expressive language, it is persuasive speech, a function treated by the lover-poets as a given and openly acknowledged in terms such as blanditias (Tib. 1.2.91: flatteries), mollem versum (Prop. 1.7.19: soft poetry), mollia verba (Am. 1.12.22: soft words).54 Flattering language is the tool for the poet in love, and it is to be assumed as soon as he has given up his other occupations in the recusatio. In Propertius 2.34b, the lover-poet advises a friend that noble poetry, like scientific or philosophical treatises, tragedy, or epic, will do him no good, for girls don’t care about such poetry (27–32). He should leave off such works and turn to love poetry: desine et Aeschyleo componere verba coturno, desine, et ad mollis membra resolve choros. incipe iam angusto versus includere torno, inque tuos ignis, dure poeta, veni! tu non Antimacho, non tutior ibis Homero: despicit et magnos recta puella deos. (41–46) Quit composing your words in Aeschylean dress,55 quit; and turn your limbs to soft meters. Now begin to close off your verses on a narrow lathe, and enter, hard poet, into your own flames [i.e., of passion]!

Introduction

/

15

You won’t travel more safely than Antimachos, nor Homer: and any right-thinking girl has contempt even for the great gods.

The poem goes on to advertise the lover-poet’s own success with girls and to advise a similar course for his newly enamored friend Lynceus:56 aspice me, cui parva domi fortuna relicta est nullus et antiquo Marte triumphus avi, ut regnem mixtas inter conviva puellas hoc ego, quo tibi nunc elevor, ingenio! (55–58)57 Look at me, to whom only a small fortune has been left at home, and no ancestor’s triumph in an ancient war, how I rule girls joining in at banquets. I have been brought to this point by my talent, for which you mock me!

Propertius elsewhere routinely acknowledges the persuasive nature of elegy. For example, poem 1.8 famously exults in the persuasive power of elegy, marked by line 40: sed potui blandi carminis obsequio (“but I was able [to dissuade her] with the service of soft song”). In 1.9 the lover specifies that Ponticus’s Theban epic won’t appeal to any girl—speaking ironically, he directs his friend to switch poetic courses: i quaeso et tristis istos compone libellos, / et cane quod quaevis nosse puella velit! (13–14: “Go on, I beg you, put away those harsh volumes, / and sing what any girl wants to hear!”). He issues a further warning to be on guard against the flattering talk of girls, which is overpowering: quisquis es, assiduas a fuge blanditias! / illis et silices et possint cedere quercus (1.9.30–31: “Whoever you are, oh, flee persistent flatteries! / To them, even flints and oak trees would give way”). These lines betray the purpose of elegy, which, when directed at its female love object, is full of blanditiae, flatteries intended to win her over. Propertius 2.1.1–16 identifies Cynthia as the inspiration for the lover-poet’s elegiac production, which is praise designed to please her: seu vidi ad frontem sparsos errare capillos, / gaudet laudatis ire superba comis (2.1.7–8: “If I have seen curls arrayed over her forehead, / she rejoices proudly to go about with praised curls”).58 Poem 2.26, like 1.8, rejoices in the success of elegy: nunc admirentur, quod tam mihi pulchra puella serviat et tota dicar in urbe potens! non, si Cambysae redeant et flumina Croesi, dicat “De nostro surge, poeta, toro.” nam mea cum recitat, dicit se odisse beatos: carmina tam sancte nulla puella colit. (21–26)

16

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

Now let them marvel that such a beautiful girl serves me and I am called powerful all over the city! Not even if the flood-wealths of Croesus and Cambyses came back, would she say, “Get out of my bed, poet.” For when she recites my verses, she claims she hates rich men: no girl cultivates poetry so devoutly.59

Ultimately, the Propertian lover-poet argues that the cure for love is the very material previously abandoned in favor of elegy—serious study, serious philosophy and poetry (3.21)—and in 4.1 proposes to compose important national, public poetry. Horos the astrologer rebuffs him, however, with explicit instructions to stick to elegy, and those instructions again reinscribe elegy as rhetorically motivated rather than pure self-expression and as the designated language of lovers: at tu finge elegos, fallax opus (haec tua castra!) / scribat ut exemplo cetera turba tuo (4.1.135–36: “But you, make elegies, that deceptive genre (that’s your war-camp!), / so that the rest of the crowd may write by your example”). Ovid virtually advertises the purpose of elegy and elegiac speech. In Amores 1.3, the amator promises to use his poetry to make his beloved eternally famous—a promise designed to get her to receive him (though it is hard to see how it could persuade her, given that he never uses her name); in 1.11 and 12, he overtly identifies the persuasive purpose of his written message, delivered by Corinna’s maid Nape. Those tablets have been thoroughly filled up (peraratas . . . tabellas, 1.11.7), and the lover-poet at first wants a lengthy answer, then realizes that Corinna need send him only a single word, after all: quid digitos opus est graphium lassare tenendo? / hoc habeat scriptum tota tabella “VENI” (1.11.19–24: “But what need is there for her to wear out her fingers by holding the stylus? / Let the whole tablet hold only this inscription: ‘Come’ “). If his filled-up tablets produce this single word, he’ll dedicate them to Venus as a thanks offering. This poem both marks the nature of the elegiac relationship as one of persuasion and assent or refusal and identifies the function of elegiac language as designed to gain access to the puella’s bedroom. The lover-poet must compose careful persuasion, but the puella may simply answer yes or, as in this case, no.60 In 2.1, the amator offers another poetic manifesto-cum-recusatio. As usual with this lover-poet, the excuse for his inglorious poetic production is Amor.61 The excuse of divine compulsion, however, is quickly revealed as rather more mortal, and female at that—he had begun to compose a Gigantomachy and had even reached the point of Jove’s thunderbolts, when a sound closer to home disrupted his work: clausit amica fores: ego cum Iove fulmen omisi; / excidit ingenio Iuppiter ipse meo (2.1.17–18: “My girlfriend

Introduction

/

17

shut her door! I dropped Jove along with his thunderbolt; Jupiter himself fell right out of my poetry”).62 These lines dramatize the dictum of Propertius 1.9 and 2.34 that the elegiac puella cares little for public, serious poetry; the next lines demonstrate the rhetorical motives and sexual agenda underlying the poetic choice of elegy: Iuppiter, ignoscas: nil me tua tela iuvabant; clausa tuo maius ianua fulmen habet blanditias elegosque leves, mea tela, resumpsi: mollierunt duras lenia verba fores. (19–22) Jupiter, forgive me: your weapons weren’t helping me at all; a closed door has a greater thunderbolt than yours.63 Once again I took up flatteries and light elegies, my weapons: gentle words have softened hard doors.

The lover-poet goes on to identify his elegiac songs as virtually magic incantations designed to charm a girl into receiving him (ideally, without charge): carminibus cessere fores, insertaque posti, / quamvis robur erat, carmine victa sera est (27–28: “Doors have given way to songs, and the bolt in the door-jambs, / though it is of stout oak, has finally been conquered by song”).64 The lover-poet then expands on the Propertian lover-poet’s comments about the futility of epic (here specifically the Iliad and the Odyssey) in matters of the bedroom: quid mihi profuerit velox cantatus Achilles? quid pro me Atrides alter et alter agent, quique tot errando quot bello perdidit annos, raptus et Haemoniis flebilis Hector equis? (29–32) What good has swift Achilles ever done me in song? What has either one of the Atreids ever done on my behalf, and the one who lost as many years wandering as at war, and tearjerking Hector dragged about by the Haemonian horses?

Finally, he reaches the heart of this programmatic poem, and exposes the persuasive, hortatory purpose of elegy, already identified in line 21 (blanditias elegosque leves, mea tela): at facie tenerae laudata saepe puellae ad vatem, pretium carminis, ipsa venit. magna datur merces: heroum clara valete nomina! non apta est gratia vestra mihi; ad mea formosos vultus adhibete puellae carmina, purpureus quae mihi dictat Amor! (33–38)

18

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

But often on account of the praised beauty of a tender girl, she herself, the price for the song, comes to the bard. A great reward is given: farewell, glorious names of heroes: your favor does not suit me; girls, turn your lovely faces toward my songs, which blushing Amor dictates to me.65

This poem identifies as openly as Tibullus 2.4 the purpose of elegy: the puella is the pretium carminis, the reward or price for song, and the great booty or reward (magna . . . merces);66 flattery and praise of beauty gain the lover-poet what he wants: unpurchased access to his puella (21–22, 33–34). Elegy is the weapon (tela, 21) of choice in the militia amoris (warfare of love) and the sign of victory is reception into the bedroom without payment. Thus, for the enamored poet, elegy is the requisite genre, and in matters of love and sex, it conquers epic.67 Hortatory erotic speech—characterized by flatteries, prayers, and whispered sweet nothings—is so essential to the elegiac rake’s progress that Ovid’s eponymous praeceptor Amoris prescribes it, in the Ars amatoria, as the first step in the actual courtship of an identified love object.68 To avoid having to offer gifts immediately, says the praeceptor, a young man should make his first move by writing her an elegiac note on a tablet: blanditias ferat illa tuas imitataque amantem / verba, nec exiguas, quisquis es, adde preces (1. 439–40: “Let it [the tablet] carry your flatteries and speeches imitating a lover / and whoever you are, add no small number of pleas.” Since at this point the hopeful lover is at serious risk of engaging in a consumerist battle with his chosen beloved, he must begin his rhetorical approach with appeals to her vanity and her emotions: ergo eat et blandis peraretur littera verbis / exploretque animos primaque temptet iter (455–59: “Therefore let a letter go first and be marked through with soft words; / let it explore her heart and search out a path first”). The letter, in other words, is an advance scout in the dangerous terrain of elegiac love. Since the praeceptor cannot assume that his putative pupil is adequately learned, he offers a crucial instruction: his young male readers should become well versed in language, in order not to practice law or politics but to persuade girls: disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana iuventus, non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos: quam populus iudexque gravis lectusque senatus, tam dabit eloquio victa puella manus (459–52)

Introduction

/

19

Learn liberal arts, I’m warning you, Roman young men, not only so that you may represent fearful defendants: as the populace and the stern judge and the chosen senate do, so a girl, conquered by eloquence, will surrender her hand.

Here the function of elegiac speech is identified as persuasion, intended to seduce women without cost.69 Specific instructions follow, on the type of speech that will produce the desired results: as Propertius 1.10.22 advises, neve superba loqui, neve tacere diu (“Don’t talk haughtily, don’t be silent too long”), and the praeceptor expatiates on this principle: sed lateant vires, nec sis in fronte disertus; effugiant voces verba molesta tuae quis nisi mentis inops tenerae declamat amicae? saepe valens odii littera causa fuit. sit tibi credibilis sermo consuetaque verba, blanda tamen, praesens ut videare loqui. (463–68) But let your powers be disguised, nor be too learned on your face; let your speech avoid harsh word. Who but a mental defective would declaim to a tender girlfriend? Often an overdone letter has been the cause of hatred. Let your speech be believable and your words customary— soft nonetheless, so that you appear to be speaking in person.

The language prescribed here closely resembles elegy (it is blanda) and is to be used in pursuit of sex with the chosen girl.70 The praeceptor is so confident in the power of soft speech that he declares it an infallible approach: si non accipiet scriptum illectumque remittet, lecturam spera propositumque tene. (469–70) If she won’t accept your letter and sends it back unread, hope she’ll read it eventually, and stick to your purpose. Penelopen ipsam, persta modo, tempore vinces: capta vides sero Pergama, capta tamen. legerit et nolit rescribere, cogere noli; tu modo blanditias fac legat usque tuas; quae voluit legisse, volet rescribere lectis: per numeros veniunt ista gradusque suos. (477–82) You could conquer even Penelope, in time, if you just persist: you see Troy was captured late, but captured nonetheless. She’ll read and want not to write back, but don’t try to force her; you just be sure she keeps reading your flatteries;

20

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

what she wants to have read, she’ll want to write back to you once she’s read it: these things come about in steps and stages.71

In book 2, the praeceptor returns to the necessity of soft speech for elegiac lovers: este procul, lites et amarae proelia linguae; / dulcibus est verbis mollis alendus amor (2.151–52: “Be far away, quarrels and battles of bitter speech; / soft love must be nourished by sweet words”).72 Flattering soft speech, the primary language of hortatory elegy, is thus the key to free sex—for any and all men, not only for poets unfortunate enough to have fallen in love: it is generically the language of persuasion, rather than pure expression of emotion or even desire. The persuasive nature of elegy is a given, a necessary basic concept that further underscores the differential, oppositional statuses and goals of lover and puella. This persuasive nature is easily recognized when we read elegy from the puella’s viewpoint. With very few exceptions (Stroh [1971] is the main one), most of the learned heads explicating Roman love elegy have failed to recognize its generic internal mission as sexual persuasion.73 Hence, we may say, the generic docta puella knows more about elegy than do the critics.74 So: elegy attempts both implicitly and explicitly to appeal, by logos, ethos, pathos, and exemplum, to its preferred love object, the docta puella, and its primary desideratum is sexual access. But easy availability of the domina would, as I have noted above, render elegy pointless, even ridiculous. Thus, paradoxically, the love games of elegy require a great deal of refusal by the puellae, interrupted by an occasional admission (see, for example, Prop. 2.17.11–12). It is remarkable how few elegies actually describe or refer to sexual encounters between lover and puella.75 Most elegiac poems are occupied with proposing such trysts, lamenting locked doors, abusing rivals, protesting required generosity, fantasizing an ideal and impossible realm in which lover and puella suffer neither social obstruction nor physical separation, instructing the puella in various ways of pleasing her lover, and threatening her both implicitly and explicitly with the longterm consequences of her unavailability. And, of course, since elegy is necessarily a battle of temporary equals with primarily opposed long-term goals, inevitably the whole affair fizzles out (see Konstan 1994: 159).76 This plot structure is again a generic necessity of elegy,77 owing chiefly to the insoluble problems created by social and financial inequities between lover and puella, who do not occupy the same social status.78 The elegiac impasse—the material and social gap between lover-poet and puella—both generates the urgent persuasion of elegy and forecloses the elegiac amatory

Introduction

/

21

relationship; it derives from these insoluble inequities, which are both generic necessities and a key part of the identification and character of the docta puella. THE DOCTA PUELLA: POETRY AND PERSONALITY As I have proposed elsewhere,79 the elegiac puella is based on the courtesan of New Comedy,80 an elegant woman who must support herself, and save up for her retirement, while she is young; hence her fictive nature is doubled (chapter 2 contains a fuller discussion of this issue; here I am concerned with the docta puella as constituted by and within elegy). Wyke (1987a: 153) rightly notes that the mistress is not the “exclusive shape which the elegiac woman takes,” pointing to the different women of Propertius’s book 4. The mistress, however, is the dominant woman—and, more importantly, the generic woman—of elegy, and thus will be my focus here. Her name immediately marks the docta puella as both fictional and important, and, in fact, the names given to Gallus’s Lycoris, Tibullus’s Delia, and Propertius’s Cynthia are poetic signifiers—they are feminized epithets of Apollo, the patron divinity of poetry.81 Nemesis’s name (the Greek goddess of retribution) is lexically significant on even a superficial level, and in the elegiac context it portrays her as the female agent of her male lover’s punishment and suffering. Ovid’s Corinna, the least developed of the elegiac puellae, is named for the Greek poet Korinna, a choice that harks back as well to Catullus’s Lesbia, for both names recall educated women specifically adept at dense, allusive poetry.82 Thus the very names of all these dominae relate the figure of the elegiac beloved—the docta puella—to cultured, literate, learned use of poetic language and to a consciousness, at the generic level, on the part of the male poet-lover, that love poetry is a genre of two voices and two audiences. Ovid, of course, goes further than his poetic elder brothers and uses elegy from early in his poetic career to express female perspectives on love, in his Heroides;83 perhaps his choice of abandoned women as subjects also marks his view of elegy as generically concerned with doomed extramarital heterosexual love. If so, this view implicitly but significantly recognizes that the elegiac puella will inevitably be the loser for, despite his claim to be her helpless slave, the elegiac male lover can in fact always walk away from her,84 as the male addressees of his Heroides (themselves often used as models for the male speakers of elegy) have done. Further, many poems in the corpus of elegy are not directed at even a named love object, and it is not safe to assume that the woman in question is necessarily, say, Cynthia or Corinna (in the case

22

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

of the Amores, it is often either evident or safer to assume that she isn’t Corinna). The large number of poems addressed to unnamed women goes even further toward identifying the docta puella as both fictional and generic,85 a member of a poetic class of woman who can read, understand, and appreciate learned poetry.86 Even within elegy, it is clear that an elegiac puella who understands the poems directed at her must be learned indeed (if not necessarily as learned as the poet himself!), for in the social and literary context of Roman love poetry, an ignorant female love-object is both incomprehensible and pointless.As Luck (1969: 55) says,“It was not enough merely to be beautiful.” So formidably educated a woman will also be able to think for herself—as indeed the elegiac domina often does, to the verbose regrets of her lovers—and arrive at her own evaluation of the poetry directed at her. Such evaluation is of course part of her “doctitude,”87 but in the case of elegy, it serves a rather different purpose than literary judgment, for elegy’s function, when directed at a female love object, is sexual persuasion. In other words, elegy attempts, to rephrase Yeats, to flatter beauty’s erudite ear.88 Propertius’s alter ego identifies pleasing his mistress as his poetic goal: in 1.7, he aims only to appeal to Cynthia: hic mihi conteritur vitae modus, haec mea fama est, / hinc cupio nomen carminis ire mei. / me laudent doctae solum placuisse puellae (9–11:“In this arena the space of my life is being worn away, this is my fame, / from this direction I want the name of my song to go. / Let them praise me as the only one to have pleased a learned girl”).The docta puella reading an elegy directed at her must not only evaluate its literary merit but decide how to act upon its persuasion (hence, in a fashion, she anticipates by two millennia the resisting reader of Fetterley [1978]).89 Gold, applying Jardine’s concept of “gynesis” (Jardine 1985), describes Propertius’s Cynthia in the following fashion: She is a literary, sexual, and historical construct, shaped by the poet and by the male members and readers of his Roman society to be the kind of “woman” they want to valorize and privilege. By giving Cynthia so many attributes and by questioning the traditional tropes of the feminine used in writers of his time and before him, Propertius seems to create in his text the kind of “space” that Jardine finds in male texts of modernity. While Propertius himself is certainly not valorizing a ‘“new” kind of woman, I suggest that he is destabilizing the traditional roles and qualities assigned to women by casting both her and himself in so many different and conflicting roles and by problematizing his representation of her. (Gold 1993: 90)

I would like to take these observations further, to a generic level, and argue that the elegiac puella is necessarily not a simple character but a complex

Introduction

/

23

one, just as her reading task is complex. I have observed elsewhere (James 1998a) that marriage would be the death of elegy. Likewise, Yeats’s ignorant beauty would render elegy ineffectual, and an easily compliant beloved would render it both pointless and patently ridiculous. The elegiac puella must necessarily be intelligent and literate in order to understand the poetry directed at her. She must also therefore refuse it by becoming regularly unavailable in order to supply material for its frequent mournful contents lamenting her absence.90 In theory, elegy’s docta puella appreciates her poet’s ingenium (talent); ideally, she values his poems over the material offerings of other men. Yet if she understands his poems, she may reject his persuasion on its own merits and faults rather than because of her fickleness or cruelty.91 The elegiac docta puella, as a “literary, sexual, and historical construct” both offers the elegiac poet, as Gold notes, a variety of avenues for exploration of both self and other (a female other, in this case)92 and requires the poet’s eponymous persona, the elegiac lover-poet, to adapt himself to her character and her social circumstances. Hence, in a fashion, the construction of the docta puella engenders Roman love elegy by cutting it loose from the limitations of other genres (master plot and most of the supporting cast in New Comedy, for example, or the social constraints of the “Catullus”-Lesbia relationship), and by allowing the poet, qua his persona, to attribute his self-exclusion from the public occupations of epic and warfare not to defective talent but to personal inclination (presented, of course, as compulsion rather than free choice— Cupid or the puella, not a Muse, holds him back). Thus we can say not only that the puella herself is elegy93 but that she creates it, for without her specific yet generic character (named or not), Roman love elegy cannot exist.94 The puella herself is the elegiac Muse,95 and thus she takes a poetic position of superiority over her lover-poets, despite her financial and social dependence on them. In fact, as noted above, the male speakers of elegy address their beloveds as superiors, assuming the dependent attitudes of slaves and clientes, a dependence that is intended as part of elegy’s emotional appeal.96 Further, elegy makes clear that it is designed to appeal to the mistress, not only persuasively and emotionally but intellectually and artistically as well, a structure that marks the docta puella as judge of both persuasion and poetry. Propertius identifies this function as a necessity of both his own enamored condition and her literary expertise, for he claims at 2.13a.7 that Love bade him write in order to impress Cynthia herself, rather than any male judge of poetry—sed magis ut nostro stupefiat Cynthia versu (“but more so that Cynthia will be bowled over by my poetry”). He goes even further in lines

24

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

11–14: me iuvet in gremio doctae legisse puellae . . . domina iudice tutus ero (“I would prefer to read aloud while lying in the lap of my learned girl . . . with my mistress as my arbiter, I’ll be safe”). Amores 1.3 offers elegy to the mistress as a means of granting her worldwide fame by linking her name to the lover’s, in a form of poetic immortality previously available only to mythical heroes and heroines.97 Appropriately for a love object addressed as a superior, the elegiac woman is usually proud, demanding, even fierce; naturally, she is beautiful, and her beauty turns out to be both a generic and a professional necessity. She appears, according to her lovers, to be both hard and harsh (dura, saeva), even cruel (crudelis); since she is in charge of her own sex life, she is often described as fickle and faithless (levis, perfida, etc.), though the same accusation does not apply to the lover-poet when he strays. Her temper can be harsh. When she grants him her sexual favors, she is physically soft and tender, and she expects him to be able to perform sexually (cf. Prop. 2.15, Am. 3.7). She is also quite active in bed: Propertius’s speaker delights in Cynthia’s sexual assertiveness (2.1.13–14, 2.15.4–10, 3.8), and Ovid’s praeceptor Amoris expresses the same sentiments (Ars 2.683–92). The docta puella also expects her lovers to be faithful, and is quick to protest—and punish—any signs of a rival (Tib. 1.6.69–72, Prop. 2.20, 4.8). The lover-poets find her jealousy and anger very arousing (Prop. 3.8, 4.8, Ars 2.445–59). The docta puella appears unpredictable, even capricious, according to her loverpoets. Indeed, as Lilja (1983: 84) notes, comparing the elegiac woman to the female love objects in Horace, “Horace’s girlfriends were certainly less difficult to handle than the elegiac dominae.” This fact further differentiates the docta puella of elegy from the less fully realized—and less generic— female love objects of other forms of love poetry, like lyric.98 As I will argue below, and more fully in chapter 2, this caprice is in fact not an individual characteristic but a generic and professional necessity. Propertius’s Cynthia is both educated and talented at music (1.2.27–30, 2.1.9–10), features to which her lover attributes her attractiveness: in 2.3 he specifically declares that she has captured his heart not because of her beauty, though she is of course beautiful (9–16) but because of her accomplishments, and particularly her literary doctitude and talent (17–22).99 Ovid’s praeceptor Amoris advises girls to know not only music and dancing but also poetry (Ars 3.329–46) and specifically elegy; his entire third book might be seen as providing a description of elegy’s docta puella, at least from the point of view of the elegiac male lover, who desires rather more compliance from his beloved than the docta puella actually exhibits. Most

Introduction

/

25

of all, however, the elegiac puella is independent, unpredictable, and always, to the bitter distress of her poet-lovers, in need of money. Financial need paradoxically accounts for both the dependence of the docta puella on her lovers and her independence from them. Hence it is a source for what her lover-poets consider her caprice and uncontrollability, as well as her harshness and her calculating practicality100—in other words, her character and personality. The docta puella practices strategic intermittent reception of her lovers, a tactic that indicates her self-control, in contrast to the lover-poet’s apparent helplessness against passion; her steadiness of purpose, in contrast to his volatile reactivity; and her intelligence, or at least her computational talents. Further evidence for these characteristics comes in the form of the counsel of the lena.101 I will discuss the lena more thoroughly in chapter 2; here I wish to point out that her appearance in elegy further marks the docta puella as derived from the courtesan of comedy and provides an expressed ratio, a calculated strategy, for what the lover-poets present as the docta puella’s caprice. That is, the lover-poet cannot control the docta puella; nor can he predict what she will do or even whether she will receive him on a particular occasion. Accordingly he often depicts his beloved as capricious, unfair, unloving—for, of course, if she loved him, she would always do what he wanted. But the advice of the lena articulates a method underlying the puella’s apparent madness, and that method has entirely to do with her social status and financial need. In other words, generic (literary) and social-financial circumstances rather than individual personality drive the docta puella’s behavior, even occasionally against her own inclinations.102 Hence, again, even what may appear to be an individual personality quirk derives instead from the puella’s awareness of her circumstances—an awareness that her retired senior colleague and courtesan emerita, the lena, wishes her to strengthen.103 This is not to say that the puella is little more than an accounts receivable ledger or a cash register—though her lovers do sometimes describe her virtually as such104—but that she is forced by her social status and her only possible profession to behave in a way that entices but frustrates her lover-poets, keeping their interest in her active. Since her personality and character are generic rather than individual, many, if not all, of the elegists’ descriptions and depictions of the docta puella must be taken with a grain of salt, for the behavior being described is not necessarily individual but is more likely to be generic, and generically necessary, instead.105

26

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

HOW THE DOCTA PUELLA READS ELEGY; OR, WHY READ ELEGY AS A WOMAN? What ultimately matters about the docta puella is that she is intelligent, educated, elegant, charming, sexually attractive, and financially needy but socially independent—her lover does not control her and never will, as either her dominus or her husband. As Konstan (1994: 158–59) remarks, elegy uses a “narrative situation in which women are located in the position occupied by the courtesan in New Comedy . . . without themselves being marked as belonging to a specific social order. . . . But the obstacle that divides the poet from his beloved in elegy is not the clear-cut status barrier represented by Athenian citizenship.” That obstacle is the beloved’s refusal to be compliant, a generically necessary refusal that requires investigation. That the apparent equality of puella and elegiac lover-poet could not possibly have existed in ancient Rome, at least not on a scale large enough to account for a whole class of women (particularly not elite women), does not interfere with its internal poetic reality in elegy (as witness the Ars amatoria, which consistently treats its female characters as though they actually constituted a sizable social class).106 The poetic social equality of lover and puella, combined with the rhetorical needs of the lover—to use poetry to gain access to his beloved—paradoxically requires him to assume the position of dependent, a slave to his beloved domina, and to aim persuasion at her, and her alone.107 This metaphorical reversal of standard Roman gender roles retains standard Roman social and power structures, thus suggesting an inescapable inequity even within a private love affair: rather than sharing goals and desires, lover and beloved are placed in a gendered opposition, which elegy both laments and requires. Hence resistant reading by the domina is an anticipated and integral part of the genre. Here I take a position in opposition to, for example, Skinner (1997a: 132), that “[t]he rhetorical devices of first-person erotic lyric and elegy encouraged the male listener or reader to project himself fully into the speaker’s role.” Sharrock (2000: 265) notes of Propertius, for instance, that he “undermines the singular perspective of the elegiac narrator” and points out that his “poems offer us other ways of reading.” As she points out (266), readers are asked to take on the roles of the different addressees of different poems. As the puella is elegy’s primary addressee, her perspective is among those to be assumed, during the reading experience, by the elegiac audience. Sharrock further remarks (273) that readers “might be meant to ask . . . whether the accusation of infidelity would look the same from some one else’s point-of-view (remembering that fidelity to Propertius almost cer-

Introduction

/

27

tainly means infidelity to someone else).” Indeed they might, and much of my analysis will focus on how such accusations and their affiliates, similar elegiac arguments, look to the puella. Since its characters are recognizably based in New Comedy,108 elegy anticipates, enables, and encourages readings from points of view other than that of the male speaker. In addition, of course, elegy specifically identifies women as part of its audience. But as Gamel (1989), James (1997), and Greene (1988: xii) have noted, the majority of scholarship on elegy has in fact taken, indeed replicated, precisely the male speaker’s perspective. Henry has demonstrated (1986) that a shift in critical focus from males’ views and values to those of female characters brings out the cruelty and heroism of courtesans in Menander and thus reveals an entirely new narrative structure and masterplot to New Comedy. This new focus will, I hope, avoid what Henry calls an “androcentric bias [that] necessarily leads . . . [critics and readers] to under-rate the actions and dramatic importance of the female characters” (142 ). Finally, reading elegy from the puella’s viewpoint will, I believe, demonstrate elegy’s own awareness of what Culham (1990: 162) calls “truly dangerous knowledge . . . [that] women and men do not share a common experience.” This approach may be clarified by concepts from studies in narratology. Elegy qualifies as narrative in the definition of Prince (1982: 4): “[N]arrative is the representation of at least two real or fictive events or situations in a time sequence, neither of which presupposes or entails the other” (emphasis original). Elegiac representation of events is of course skewed by the biases of that most partisan speaker, the lover-poet, but each elegiac poet’s oeuvre may be said to fit this definition of narrative; indeed, many an individual elegy does as well. The narratological concepts most relevant here, however, have to do with language and character rather than plot, though I would even argue that the language and characters of elegy actually engender its plots, such as those plots are.109 Most of my approach here concerns the story of elegy, what in narratological studies is called fabula, rather than discourse (or discours), the language in which the fabula is narrated. Prince (1987: 21) defines discourse as “the ‘how’ of a narrative as opposed to its ‘what’; the narrating as opposed to the narrated.” Citing Benveniste, Prince continues: “In discourse (discours), a link is established between a state or event and the situation in which that state or event is linguistically evoked. Discours thus involves some reference to the enunciation and implies a sender and a receiver.” Fabula, on the other hand, is “the basic story material,” as opposed to plot (Prince 1987: 30). The “sender” in Roman love elegy is the male speaker; the “receiver” is, for our purposes

28

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

here, the docta puella. She is the genre’s primary “narratee,” as defined by Prince (1987: 57): “The one who is narrated to, as inscribed in the text . . . a purely textual construct [that] must be distinguished from the real reader or receiver [and] . . . also . . . from the implied reader: the former constitutes the narrator’s audience and is inscribed as such in the text; the latter constitutes the implied author’s audience (and is inferable from the entire text).” The distinction can be very clear, as when “the narratee is also a character” (Prince 1987: 57) in the same text.110 The Ars amatoria demonstrates this concept: books 1 and 2 construct a definable male narratee, unmarried and inclined toward nonmarital heterosexual love affairs; he is a young man of some means and the leisure (otium) with which to pursue this inclination. In addition, he appears to be a member of a sizable group. Ars amatoria 3 addresses the women sought by the narratee of the first two books.111 Since, as I will argue, Roman love elegy is a genre of sexual persuasion (and see also Stroh 1971), its generic narratee is the docta puella.112 My purpose here is to read elegy from her perspective.113 In so doing, I aim not to provide a set of new interpretations of individual elegies but to make the same few points repeatedly, as I am hoping to demonstrate the pervasiveness in elegy of sexual persuasion, and the disingenuity that it disguises. This is, in other words, a single-minded study, a systematic approach whose aim is not so much fresh insights into individual poems as a different perspective on the entire genre of Roman love elegy. GENDER AND GENRE: MODERN STUDIES IN ELEGY This is a very lively period in the field of elegy studies, as witness the regular outpouring of articles and books, as well as the devotion of special journal issues (CW 92.5 in 1999, Arethusa 33 in 2000). Much of this work has focused on issues of both gender and genre.114 It seems therefore appropriate to identify my own position in this field, especially relative to some recent full-length studies in elegy. Veyne’s 1983 book, L’Élegie érotique romaine: L’amour, la poésie et l’Occident (published in translation in 1988, as Roman Erotic Elegy: Love, Poetry, and the West), remains a landmark (and something of a lightning rod, as well) in elegy studies, for its insistence on the total unreality of elegy, its absolute lack of relation to history and to Roman life (see Wyke 1989a and Miller and Platter 1999b: 404). Though I agree with Veyne that elegy is a self-consciously literary game, I see that game as both embedded in and taking on its own historical period. The docta puella, as I will argue throughout, but especially in chapters 5 and 6, is the vehicle for elegy’s evasion of, and engagement with, Roman social, politi-

Introduction

/

29

cal, cultural life. I see no biographical or individual historical truth value in elegy, but I do see generic and class truths: men have financial and political power over women; the erotic power of women over men is limited by time and controlled by absolutely biological factors (youth, beauty, sexual attractiveness); the wealthy and elite have resources of time and money not available to others; personal relationships are always more complex than social ideologies would have them be. For all the unreality of any individual elegiac puella (on which see primarily Wyke 1987a, 1987b, 1989a, now updated in 2002), all the realities of elegy turn out to revolve around the generic puella. Thus while I accept Veyne’s mostly strict divorce between poetry and individual life, and share his appreciation for the humor and absurdities of elegy, I recognize a serious substratum to the genre and a relationship between it and life at Rome. Miller and Platter (1999b: 405) summarize the history of feminist scholarship on elegy (see also Janan 2001: 175–77 n. 58), which they divide into “two diametrically opposed interpretations” of female elegiac characters: “[T]he negative view sees women as completely mastered by masculine cultural discourse, while the positive view detects in them elements of subversion that unsettle received modes of thought.” Like Janan (2001: 177), I incline toward the “positive” or “optimist” school that sees in the elegiac woman a category that resists reduction into the ideologically stratified hierarchies of Roman social relations and literary discourse.115 My approach here might be called feminist-materialist, as I focus on the way that external realities and exigencies influence the generic—not necessarily individual—reactions of the puella to her lover’s verse. Thus this study differs from Micaela Janan’s Lacanian study, The Politics of Desire: Propertius IV (and I have in any case excluded this set of poems because they do not practice sexual persuasion), and from Ellen Greene’s 1998 examination of the male lover’s manipulative and exploitive treatment of women, as well as her focus on the Roman traditionalism inherent in elegy’s attitudes toward women (The Erotics of Domination: Male Desire and the Mistress in Latin Love Poetry). By “Woman” Janan denotes (in accordance with Lacan’s precepts) a marker of the gaps and omissions in cultural symbolization systems. The conceptual basis of the term rests upon the places where logical systems break down, not upon anatomical sex: any body, whether anatomically male or female, may occupy the position of Woman. Strictly interpreted, it does not matter to Janan’s work whether there were any women in ancient Rome. For my purposes, it is crucial that there were women living in Rome during the period of elegy, since my analysis depends on taking careful account of the general circumstances—physical, intellectual, and

30

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

social—of their lives (see especially chapters 5 and 6), as the lover is attracted to the puella’s body as well as her intellect, and their relationship is made possible only by her social class. The elegiac power struggles that Greene traces out relate to Roman gender ideologies; my approach here should complement her work by placing those struggles and ideologies in the context of the material world and social class structures in which the generic elegiac docta puella lives. In other words, I will be examining elegy from the perspective of the social position and temporal/physical realities that govern the puella’s life. Janan (2001) and Miller (2003) have established, on psychoanalytic grounds, that the male elegiac speaker uses a “feminine voice.” I will argue here that the male elegiac author also anticipates a female reader, whose reception of elegy will be largely dictated by her social position and profession. Wyke (2002: 187) points out that “[n]o reading against the grain is necessary if a feminine voice is already ingrained in the corpus.” The same is true of a feminine ear. The elegists Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid116 mastered their genre’s opportunities to explore and experiment with gender and with the problems of gender relations. To some extent this project necessarily entailed a form of political deviance that the poets themselves merge with poetry, for the elegiac recusatio defers both political service and political poetry, which is to say, epic. A great deal of scholarship has investigated the political dimensions of elegy,117 beginning from its position as a “genre of dissent” (Newlands 1994: 130), and much of this work has marked out its concern with women as a structural element in its dissent.118 My purpose here is to examine elegy from within, from the perspective of the woman it creates and celebrates, the docta puella. Since much of elegy is persuasive speech directed at a fictive named woman, an approach that examines her perspective may illuminate some of its rhetorical strategies and gender values, particularly as they derive from and relate to contemporary and historical Roman gendered power constructs. Throughout I mostly treat elegy synchronically,119 sometimes as if it were a single body of material produced more in Homeric oral-formulaic than in Alexandrian fashion. Part 1 of this book lays out the characters and social structures of Roman love elegy, beginning with this discussion of approaches to the genre. Chapter 2 looks at the material bases behind the characters and arguments of Roman love elegy, establishing the identity of the docta puella as a poetic descendant of the independent courtesan of New Comedy and setting up the way she receives poetic sexual persuasion, particularly as guided by the lena. Part 2 offers readings of Roman love elegy from the viewpoint of the docta puella, looking at some of the standard topoi, episodes, and structures

Introduction

/

31

of elegy: chapter 3 considers the problems of money and social status as underlying elegiac complaints about the greedy girl and the generous rival; chapter 4 looks at both implicit persuasion by characterization (the depiction of the puella as harsh and cruel and the lover as pathetic) and lament (querela) and the meritorious sufferings of the amator in the elegiac figures of servitium amoris, paraclausithyron, and propempticon,120 all designed to induce pity and consequent compliance in the puella. In part 3, my argument moves outward from the puella’s viewpoint, attempting to integrate it into a more multidimensional approach to elegy, considering larger questions of the genre—looking at the forest rather than the trees, as it were. Chapter 5 focuses on how Ovid presses on the most gendered points and problems of elegy (reading from the puella’s viewpoint makes it easier to recognize what Ovid is doing). In this chapter I will argue that everything for which Ovid is criticized either pre-exists in elegy or is a latent potential within it, so that Ovid’s practice, which appears to go against the grain of elegy, instead pursues its structures and hypocrisies to their illogical conclusion and exposes some of its secrets, developing the genre in perhaps Euripidean fashion by probing at gender and class, at the privileges that allow the elite male lover to threaten and exploit the women of elegy. Ovid’s reading of Roman love elegy reveals an astonishing degree of generic male anger and resentment and a barely contained urge to violence; it also focuses on some of the risks that the life of love poses to the puella, from the violent lover to poverty and pregnancy. The conclusion, chapter 6, considers the extrapoetic needs that the docta puella offers the elegist, attempting to answer the questions, Why elegy, Why now? This discussion proposes that the brief but intense flowering of elegy was a way of responding to changed definitions not only of gender but of person within the principate121 focusing particularly on why Roman love elegy requires its specific female figure for this project. This project clearly, though not overtly, engages with contemporary Roman politics. Thus this introduction and chapter 2 lay out both the scholarly and literary issues of elegy, and the social and material background underlying its relationships; chapters 3 and 4 operate primarily within the confines of elegy, reading it from the puella’s perspective; chapters 5 and 6 move outward from elegy into its social, cultural, historical, and political contexts, attempting to understand some of the purposes of elegy. In saying “purposes of elegy,” I deliberately invoke opposing concepts of textual production, with a purpose of my own. That is, I treat elegy itself as a nearly conscious creator of poetry,122 rather than as a collection of texts written by poets. Rather than take a great amount of time and space to

32

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

delineate here all the positions taken in the studies of intertextuality and allusion in Latin poetry studies (on which see most recently Hinds 1998 and Edmunds 2001), I will make a few remarks on my approach here. I see this genre as both independent of and subject to authorial invention and intention and as absolutely requiring readerly participation and activation. The poets writing in this genre knew one another, acted as one another’s reception committees in person as audiences at performances and recitations (where authorial control and intent are rather harder to overlook),123 and as readers at home, with copies of the texts, where they had more freedom to enact the texts from different perspectives and then to act upon the text in their own compositional responses (see, e.g., Catull. 50).124 Conte (1994: 136) remarks that “[t]his poetry of a literary circle almost makes us see the persons who compose it as participants in an exclusive dialogue as they speak among themselves, in poetry and about poetry. But in this poetics the addressees are in turn the texts’ authors and readers.”125 Elegy thus has a communal aspect, perhaps rather like that of twentieth-century popular music genres, participants in which respond to, perform, and modify each other’s work, inspired both cooperatively and competitively.126 Thus, for example, Amores 1.1 plays with and takes off from Propertius 1.1, rather than imitating or parodying it reductively.127 Catullus 50 gives an (eroticized) illustration of the process of mutual poetic challenge, competition, cooperation, and inspration. Roman Alexandrianism, with its habit of quoting and invoking still-living local authors, supports this process and draws readers into it. What is striking about Roman love elegy is its rapid blossoming and extinction—it springs up like Athena, nearly full-grown from its inception, as far as we can tell, and vanishes some twenty-five to thirty years later, leaving behind a set of interacting, constantly recirculating poems that amuse, challenge, and often disturb readers. This particular literary phenomenon could not have occurred in any other period of Roman history, a time when the ancient structures of Roman public life were being officially restored but simultaneously gutted of their original meaning and power. Elegy, I will suggest, uses the figure of the docta puella as a means of both attempting to hold those changes at bay and coming to grips with them.128 Its fidelity to its meter, themes, and in particular to its central female character, does not prevent a good deal of flexibility and play. And while I agree with Veyne (passim) that many of elegy’s fictions are designed to amuse, I do not see elegy as mere entertainment. Elegy’s games are play with a purpose, a purpose of engaging with contemporary politics of class and gender. Significantly, elegy requires the docta puella in order to accomplish this purposeful play.129

Introduction

/

33

In my view, Roman elegy began with the work of Gallus—a genre with literary ancestry in New Comedy, lyric poetry both Greek and Roman, Greek elegy, epigram, and Alexandrian compositional practices.130 We cannot know much about Gallus’s poetry, though I agree with David Ross that Vergil’s tenth Eclogue is a Gallan text, and I trust the elegists, who revered him, enough to assume that his corpus was in general more interesting and sophisticated than the Qasr-Ibrîm fragment.131 Perhaps the death of this particular author set his elegist-readers free to adapt elegy after their own images (though it must also have given them cause for alarm). Elegy managed to establish itself very quickly thereafter—the elegists managed to establish it very quickly—as a genre132 operating in a constricted field of plots, characters, and narrative structures, while still taking on virtually all previous Latin and Greek poetry, remaining all the while interesting, fun, lively, rather than dull and pedantic. To do so, elegy required interactive readers able to take on a poem from all sides and angles—to see, for instance, both Roman comedy and Vergil’s Eclogues operating in Tibullus 1.5, and then to read it also from the point of view of the sophisticated city girl who is one of its addressees and is being asked to transmute into a country wife (not to mention imagining Messalla, the poet’s patron and another addressee, reading the poem and envisioning himself greeted by the elegant courtesan-turned-farmer’s-wife), presiding in mudboots and overalls. (As Veyne [1988: 144] notes, the audience must have been quite amused at this vision; Wyke [1994: 125–26] speculates interestingly on this experience for the mostly male audiences of elegiac authorial performances.) Thus elegiac composition takes the form of participating in a shared poetic enterprise133 that created a nearly independent poetic entity requiring both competitive and cooperative collaboration between author and audience to achieve its full dimensionality.134 My focus here is on a relatively neglected aspect of this poetic process: the female reader (both fictive/poetic and, to a lesser extent, historical) who is an absolutely integral element in both the creation and reception of purpose, intention, meaning, and effect in elegy. Ultimately I will argue that her perspective allows insights into the postures and arguments of elegy that help to relate the genre to recent and contemporary politics, and perhaps even to possible future political and social developments as envisioned by the elite male creators of and participators in elegy.135 Such political concerns, in ancient Rome at least, naturally relate back to men (specifically the poets and their friends and family) more obviously than to women. It may be, then, that the project of reading elegy from the docta puella’s point of view does relatively little to escape the male-

34

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

centeredness of elegy, though I hope to prove otherwise. The elegists were not political allegorists, and although I agree to some extent with George Orwell that all art is political, if only in choosing to avoid politics, I propose that elegy intentionally and generically confounds any simple reading by providing evidence contradictory to any one-dimensional interpretation.136 In the case of its women, the social, cultural, political, and gender negotiations of elegy uniquely foreground the female even as they seek to subordinate and control her. Inevitably, reading elegy as the docta puella will tell us more about the male speakers and producers of poetry than about any real or even fictive Roman female, but the aspects of masculinity thereby revealed are relevant to any interest in this type of Roman woman, and perhaps even to any interest in ancient Roman gender systems, concepts, and ideologies.137 Further, the questions elegy raises but cannot answer ultimately haunt both genre and reader, whether ancient or modern. Those questions significantly revolve around gender roles and definitions in the past, present, and future of Rome. Reading elegy from the perspective of its primary addressee helps to focus on those crucial questions about both men and women, and thus helps not only to correct historical misreadings of elegy but also to complicate fruitfully, to deepen, our understanding of elegy’s poetic contents and social contexts.

2. Men, Women, Poetry, and Money The Material Bases and Social Backgrounds of Elegy

Before we can begin reading Roman love elegy from the viewpoint of the docta puella, and before investigating how that project benefits our understanding of elegy, we must identify the characters and clarify the arguments of the genre. This chapter considers the social and literary backgrounds to elegy, which will help both to clarify some of its arguments and to set up the puella’s reading of them. Four major actors struggle in the elegiac drama. The primary agonists are the lover-poet and the docta puella; the secondary players are the vir and the lena. They dispute over four issues: poetry, money, sex, and, to a lesser degree, social status. The docta puella demands money and gifts, as advised by the lena; the lover-poet offers her poetry instead; and the vir comes between them. Such a material basis for amatory negotations merits investigation and explication (the terms used here can be found in the appendix). My argument throughout is that the lover-poet is a man of high social rank and some means (though poetically, at least, not as wealthy as his rivals), who seeks to donate poetry at his beloved’s door rather than cash.1 The docta puella is an independent courtesan based on the models of the meretrix and hetaira of New Comedy and evidenced in Roman history by such women as Volumnia Cytheris and Hispala Faecenia. The lena too is inherited from New Comedy, though she is found also in Herodas’s first mime. The vir, who often appears to be a husband, is nothing more than the puella’s primary client, who retains some rights over her by agreement.2 The discussion of these poetic characters will streamline the readings offered in the rest of the book and lead us to some of the points at which elegy invokes and interacts with life outside the purely literary realm. 35

36

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

THE LOVER-POET The speaking Ego of Roman love elegy is, as I noted in chapter 1, an assumed persona sharing the name, and some of the biographical details, of the author himself. His social status is necessarily elite, as he must be a member of the leisure class if he has time to devote himself to the full-time pursuit of love and poetry.3 That status does not necessarily confer fabulous wealth, however, and indeed the elegiac amator consistently proclaims his poverty (Tib. 1.5.61–66, Am. 1.3.7–10, Ars 2.161–74). Though the elegiac lover is thus generically constituted as impoverished, in fact he has resources (Tib. 2.4.53) and regularly gives the puella gifts (Prop. 2.8.11, 2. 24.11–16; Ars 1.419–36), though he pretends not to.4 His retained high status allows him to look down upon the likes of soldiers and freedmen (Tib. 2.3, Prop. 2.16, Am. 3.8), who are his regular rivals for the puella’s favors. He turns down lucrative military missions and remunerative public poetry (either epic or commemoration of a patron’s exploits), thus reinforcing his generic poverty, and he contrasts love and money as incompatible (Am. 1.10.15–20). Regardless of his claims of poverty and present obscurity, he is well acquainted with the powerful (specifically Maecenas and Messalla; see White 1993) and anticipates great fame because of his poetry both in the present and thereafter. His capacity for self-pity appears to be inexhaustible and provides the subject for many a poem lamenting the conditions of elegiac love. Relative to the puella, he takes the position of the enamored young man of Comedy (see James 1998b), though, as Rosivach (1986: 55, 183–84) notes, he is considerably less realistic when it comes to matters of mistresses and money.

THE DOCTA PUELLA Our task here is to identify that mysterious woman, the preferred love object of elegy known as the docta puella, or learned girl.5 I will consider her social status6 and its relation to any Roman historical reality, though any such relation is filtered through the medium of poetry, since the docta puella is a poetic fiction, not a real or historical woman.7 What is more, she is a generic woman, not a specific one. That is, even apparent specifics of character or personality are generic rather than individual, as certain traits and behaviors are generic necessities for the fictions, stances, attitudes, and events of elegy.8 Details of physique are sheer fiction, with a recognizable correlation to the genre of elegy itself.9 Perhaps the most notable detail about the elegiac puella is that she is a

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

37

woman who can, at least sometimes, say no; she can also choose from among her lovers. In addition, she appears, according to her male chroniclers, to be constantly extorting gifts and to prefer expensive clothing, jewelry, and makeup. She seems most of the time to run her own household: she owns various slaves and has the power to lock out her versifying suitors. These points imply the obvious, that this woman has some control over her own life. That is, she is not under the authority of a husband or a father, as most respectable upper-class citizen women would be.10 Neither is she under the control of a pimp (leno). She wears elegant clothing but neither the markers of respectable citizen women—the vitta (headband), stola (overgarment), instita (long hem at the bottom of the dress)—nor the toga required of the street prostitute. Thus she cannot be a wife, a prospective wife, or a slave.11 The vir who interferes from time to time is a rival of indefinite and shifting status but not a family member and, as I will argue later, certainly not a husband; his status depends more upon the needs of the poet in a given poem than upon his legal connections to any elegiac puella. Finally, she is primarily identified not as a femina (woman) but as a puella (girl), a word used in poetry to denote a sexually active woman.12 A woman of this description—educated, intelligent, elegant, charming, independent, sexually active independent of marriage, and perpetually demanding expensive gifts—can reliably be accounted for, given Rome’s class structures, only as a member of the courtesan class.13 Although there is a long history of such women in antiquity, they are not generally well attested (certainly not in their own words and texts), and they seem to have been less common in ancient Rome than in Athens; the evidence of the freedwomen-courtesans Volumnia Cytheris and Hispala Faecenia, however, suggests that the independent courtesan did exist at Rome,14 and of course the Roman elite was thoroughly Hellenized to the point of recognizing these women, even if they did not constitute a native Roman social class. More to the point for our purposes, both Greek and Roman literature offer a literary example of this type of woman in the meretrix of New Comedy, the extant texts of which predate Roman love elegy by 150 years.15 It has long been observed that the puellae of elegy closely resemble certain courtesans of comedy (for example, Thais of Eunuchus, Bacchis of Hecyra, or the title characters of Bacchides).16 Konstan (1994: 150–59) rightly notes that we cannot extrapolate from poetry and drama an entire class of women existing outside Rome’s citizen social structures, but the relationship between elegy’s docta puella and the independent courtesan of New Comedy is unmistakable, and thus relevant to the project of reading elegy from the female point of view.

38

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

The senior meretrix of Roman Comedy—not the retired lena, nor the young trainee (much less the virgo intacta, who will turn out to be a citizen’s daughter)17—is well-off enough to run her own household, which includes a full staff of slaves and is equipped with the erotic paintings standard for establishments offering commercial sex (Eunuchus, Asinaria). She is beautiful, charming, and apparently always in financial need, which her lovers’ families consider ruinous to their own financial health. Comedy tends to depict such women as irresistible and virtually addictive; in fact they are the most dangerous characters on the comic stage, for they can distract even the most resistant males to the point of incoherence, as witness the capitulation of the fathers to the sister-prostitutes in Plautus’s Bacchides. Though these courtesans suffer the resentment of the fathers whose sons are infatuated with them, the women themselves can be fairly generous of spirit, particularly in Terence,18 and they often feel genuine attachment to their young suitors. They are obviously well-spoken, intelligent, and thoroughly practiced at wheedling, even when they seem to dislike it. Their own speech designates them as cultivated and thoughtful, and rhetorically adept, able to handle even hostile verbal assaults, not to mention pleas of poverty. In fact, unlike the elegists, the youths who must purchase their favors do not criticize the courtesans for asking; they complain of stingy fathers rather than greedy girlfriends. In addition, Comedy acknowledges that the courtesan, though she may be independent and run her own household, is socially vulnerable; thus the women themselves will seek to gain favor from citizen households by means other than sexual.19 Finally, Comedy regularly adverts to the dangers of encroaching age, an inevitable prospect that intensifies the financial pressures on the courtesan. The old lena advises the younger woman to make hay while the sun shines, as it were, for nobody will purchase her time when she is too old to be sexually attractive.20 Thus the comic meretrix must earn her living and save for her retirement as well, all while she is still young. Further, if she is to seem attractive and elegant, the courtesan must spend a fair amount of money on her clothing and jewelry21 (not to mention the household she is supporting), if she is to stay above the level of a street prostitute or avoid becoming the property of a pimp.22 In other words, the comic meretrix has recognized expenses that often clash with her character and sometimes her personal inclinations. Hence it is to her advantage to attract more than one lover at a time, a strategy that comedy acknowledges as born of financial need rather than sexual fickleness. The young men who pursue these women mostly complain that they are unavailable, rather than that they are excessively greedy—the financial

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

39

complaints come chiefly from those holding the purse-strings or their proxies, that is, fathers and supervisory slaves. Unlike their young lovers, the courtesans of comedy are supremely realistic (that is, they nourish no fantasies about their permanence in any young man’s life), and they tend to obey social convention: they know that marriage will separate them from their lovers, no matter what those reluctant bridegrooms say (cf. Bacchis in Terence’s Hecyra and Phronesium in Plautus’s Truculentus); they know they cannot afford to follow their hearts; they know they must exploit the sexual desires of citizen males who have access to money; and they know they don’t have forever. The elegiac docta puella obviously meets many of these characteristics: she runs her own home, unless she is living with a primary client (see below); she has a household staff of slaves who both assist and obstruct, at her instruction; she is elegant and expensive; her house contains erotic pictures, to which her lover may object (Prop. 2.6, as in Asinaria);23 she keeps her lovers in competition with one another and is prone to granting precedence to the boorish soldier over her less remunerative lover-poet. She is elegant, expensive, and so compelling to her lovers that they depict themselves as hopelessly enslaved by her. Elegy occasionally compares her to the famous courtesans of Greece (most famously in Am. 1.5, but also Ars 3.604 and Prop. 2.6, 4.5), a lexical sign that seems hardly accidental. Since they do not live at home, dependent upon or obedient to their parents, her lovers themselves bear the financial exigencies of extramarital love affairs, and they complain accordingly.24 Significantly, however, elegy depicts its puellae as demanding not money but gifts. As Zagagi (1980: 118–20) points out, gift giving elides the commercial nature of the relationship between courtesan and suitor.25 Unlike the services purchased by a contract and an annual salary payment (merces annua), which amount to term concubinage, payment rendered by way of gifts allows two things: first, the woman in question retains her independence; and second, the lover can suggest that she owes him informal, spontaneous, genuine gratitude, to be expressed both sexually and socially, as part of a more equal and truly loving relationship.26 In this respect, as in others, the world of elegy, unlike the world of comedy, is deeply unrealistic: there are virtually no details about external material and social practices, which might put pressure on either member of the love affair.27 Gift giving also allows the lover-poet to depict the puella in ways that have encouraged readers for centuries to interpret her as possibly a member of the elite; such ambiguity suits the antiautobiographical nature of elegy, but it also serves elegy’s program of both elevating the mistress discursively and of attempting to characterize, first, her

40

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

material demands as anomalous and, second, her generically necessary infidelity as an individual failing rather than a professional obligation.28 In other words, where Roman comedy attends closely to the social and financial structures that govern the lives of its characters, Roman love elegy ignores them as much as possible.29 Propertius’s Illyrian praetor-rival, for instance, has no name, nor any specific history, and the wealthy ex-slave or former soldier who threatens to take away Corinna or Delia is virtually a phantasm. The threat of old age is not financial but sexual: the loneliness of the abandoned retired courtesan is the lover’s fantasized future punishment for her present infidelity or unavailability. No details about the lover’s own family or financial circumstances enter the picture. The elegiac docta puella is likewise elusive: unlike the comic courtesan, she is not depicted by her lover-poets as existing in the world of material needs and practices, though of course she is firmly rooted in that world.30 The course of elegiac love neither runs smooth nor ends in marriage; in fact, as Konstan (1994: 159) points out, it typically ends in the disillusioned farewell of the lover. Elegy imagines its lovers as existing in a realm by themselves; the intervention of other parties hinders or occasionally helps, but none is ever acknowledged as having a right to interfere. In fact, the very independence and isolation of both lover and puella help to mark them as fictionalized, since elite males, like the elegiac lovers, were historically expected to participate, if only minimally (particularly by the time of the Principate), in either the cursus honorum of Roman public government (see appendix) or the parallel equestrian cursus that had emerged by this time; and most of the poets acknowledge the support and favor of a politically well-connected patron (here Ovid is an exception).31 Courtesans, though socially independent, were financially unsupported and thus economically dependent. Not in elegy, however—the specifics about the life and living circumstances of the docta puella cannot be pinned down because, ultimately, they are not relevant, as she is a poetic fiction. As I argue in this study, however, even in pretending to ignore the puella’s status and needs, elegy acknowledges them. Thus the docta puella is a poetic character based not on any historical woman but on a literary-historical type of woman. Conte (1994: 36) suggests that the “Musa proterva [bold Muse] who sings . . . the free love of women like Thais is a perfect image” for Ovid’s “elegiac intention.” But the comic courtesan Thais is also identified as a model for the elegiac puella at Propertius 4.5.43; Thalea, the muse of Comedy, governs the rest of Roman love elegy as well. As Wyke (1989b) demonstrates, in Amores 3.1 Ovid depicts the personified Elegia as a courtesan and Tragoedia as a respectable matrona (see also Keith 1994). Such textual signals seem fairly clear, and

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

41

they depict the generic elegiac puella as a courtesan. Whether the elegists, or anybody else, for that matter, had sexual affairs with respectable citizen women (wives, widows, divorcées) is immaterial to the genre of elegy. The elegiac woman controls her own life, engages in occupational extramarital sex, occasionally takes a contract with a man but continues to pursue her profession behind his back, fears old age, and perpetually needs gifts and money. She is learned enough to appreciate (and even write; cf. Prop. 2.3) complex, allusive poetry, and while she may wish to indulge her impoverished lover-poets, she can afford to do so only rarely—hence the intense sexual persuasion of those demented lovers.32 In other words, the docta puella engenders elegy precisely through her status as a courtesan.33 IDENTIFICATION OF THE VIR: HUSBAND OR PRIMARY CUSTOMER? Since the identification of the docta puella as an independent courtesan is necessary to understanding the persuasive strategies of elegy from her point of view, the status and identity of the lover-poet’s rival are likewise relevant. And as there are two types of rivals—one who appears to be a husband and one who gains access to the puella by paying—these two must be distinguished. The amount of scholarly ink spilled over the question of whether or not the rival described as a vir is a legitimate husband establishes his particular status as an issue in elegy studies. Finally, the case of Ovid’s exile, blamed in part on the Ars amatoria, virtually forces the issue.34 So a few words on the identity and status of the rival are appropriate. But I stress that law and historical practice are not the final proofs to any conclusions drawn here: elegy is. That is, though elegy invokes and plays with social, cultural, and legal issues and roles relevant to extramarital sexual relationships, everything depicted in elegy is a poetic fiction. The primary organizing—not to say generative—principle in the matter of the rival is whether or not he separates lover-poet and puella by means of money, which is an issue of elegy rather than any pressing historical problem. Generically, marital status and rights are not very interesting to elegy, though they have been of great concern to scholars. Elegy focuses not on social or legal barriers but on persuasion, which by its nature requires independence of mind in its audience. That is, the independent will of the puella (combined with her constant financial needs), rather than anything as mundane as social or marital status, is the true problem for an elegiac lover-poet. Hence the persuasion directed at the puella in the poems containing a generous rival is much more intense than anything in the poems containing a vir, a fact that

42

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

both assists in differentiating these two types of rivals and underscores the material basis for what I have designated the elegiac impasse, a struggle in which the puella demands money and goods, while the lover-poet argues for either free love or payment through poetic coin. To begin with, the primary point about any Other Man in the docta puella’s life is that he operates as an obstacle, like a comic blocking character, between lover-poet and puella. There are two basic ways for him to perform this function: either by immediate payment or by some kind of rights, through marriage, concubinage, or perhaps a contract like the merces annua (yearly payment).35 Elegy differentiates these two types of rival: the latter is usually designated a vir36—which means primarily “man” but is commonly used of husbands—and the former a dives amator, a “wealthy lover” (e.g., Tib. 1.5.47; Am. 1.8.31, 1.10.53, 3.8.9; Ars 2.161–64, 3.531), whose appeal is identified as deriving only from that wealth and his willingness to spend it on the puella (Ars 2.275; Am. 3.8.9–10; Prop. 2.16.1–2, 2.16.11–12), for he is so repellent as to be otherwise intolerable (Am. 3.8.19–20; Tib. 1.8.29–30, 2.3.59–60; Prop. 2.16.24), at least in the lover-poet’s eyes. The vir, the man enjoying some sort of stable relationship with the puella, is actually much less threatening—and hence less interesting—than the wealthy rival. Though the lexicon of marriage infuses the passages dealing with this type of rival,37 in my view it is a red herring, applied not to describe a legitimate, socially recognized marital union but to characterize the lover-poet as standing outside an existing relationship.38 At Ars amatoria 2.545, Ovid in fact distinguishes between a man with rights over a woman by custom or contract and the actual husband of a legal wife (legitima uxor). Such a distinction hardly needs making unless there are pseudomarital relationships. Naturally relevant, in considering the way elegy employs the lexicon of marriage in elegy, is the shortage of vocabulary in Latin, which encourages, perhaps necessitates, the extension of the use of specific marital words to nonmarital relationships, and thus creates an inevitable, and richly suggestive, ambiguity in certain circumstances, such as male-female sexual relationships in love elegy.39 Citing Plassard 1921,40 Copley (1956) argues that relationships like concubinage were not recognized as legitimate marriages, even if “the parties to it styled each other coniunx, uxor, maritus, etc.” (165), and proposes, speaking of Delia, that since she is not a respectable citizen woman, “she did not have conubium,” that any marriage by her “was not legal, and was recognized as such, if at all, only by courtesy. Similarly, any defection of hers would be adultery only by courtesy. . . . Her ‘husband’ was the man who semi-permanently cohabited with her” (103).41

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

43

Treggiari (1971) disputes Copley’s views in these very remarks, having accepted the identification by Williams (1968: 525–42) of Cynthia, Corinna, and perhaps Delia, as well, as free, married Roman women. She suggests both that upper-class men and other Roman citizens could, and occasionally did, marry freedwomen and that no evidence supports the view that “freedwomen-wives were more promiscuous than freeborn Roman wives” (198).42 But Tibullus 1.6 makes clear that Delia is neither chaste nor a respectable wife; the lover-poet speaks to her “mater” and asks: sit modo casta, doce, quamvis non vitta ligatos / impediat crines nec stola longa pedes (1.6. 67–68: “Only teach her to be chaste, although the headband does not / hold back her tied hair nor the long stola her feet”).43 And certainly Delia is shown in this poem to be quite the opposite of respectable in both dress and behavior (see lines 17–28). Even if she were to be thought a freedwoman wife, this entire poem, in which she uses techniques taught her by the lover-poet, to cheat on both himself and her vir, makes clear that she is not a chaste, well-behaved, respectable matrona. These lines link Delia’s nonmarital status and her lack of sexual fidelity—both generic necessities for the docta puella. In addition to scattering about the words vir, coniunx, uxor, sponsus, and maritus, each elegist offers a striking example of other misapplied words from the technical vocabulary of Roman marriage. In each case, the vows and treaties—formal parts of marriage alliances—are linked explicitly with the bed and the sex to be shared therein by the agreeing parties. Further, in each instance it is clear that the puella involved cannot be a respectable wife, as she is either flagrantly cheating on the lover-poet (Tib. 1.5, Am. 3.11), who notably does not reside with her, or she has just lost a boyfriend and is obviously not a marriageable citizen woman (Prop. 3.20). The sanctification of extramarital sex is consistent, even predictable, in a genre that notoriously rejects marriage and standard social-sexual mores and replaces them with its own code of values.44 These three elegies demonstrate that the genre is willing to play with the formal language and elements of citizen marriage, if not to engage in them.45 In my view, elegy’s playfulness and flexibility with the terminology of citizen marriage, overt in these three poems, extends everywhere else in the genre. Tibullus 1.5, famous for its fantasy of marriage to Delia,46 begins with the opposite state of affairs. Despite the lover-poet’s faithful service to her, and his prayers on her behalf during her illness (9–16), she has left him for somebody else: omnia persolui: fruitur nunc alter amore, / et precibus felix utitur ille meis (17–18: “I performed all obligations: now another man enjoys my love, / and the lucky man takes advantage of my prayers”). The

44

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

lover-poet revokes his prior angry and defiant words (1–6), and begs Delia for mercy (which in the elegiac context means pity, taking the form of reception into her bedroom): parce tamen, per te furtivi foedera lecti, / per venerem quaeso compositumque caput (1.5.7–8: “Be sparing, nevertheless, I beg you, by the treaties of the secret bed, / by our sex and your head placed down [by mine]”).47 In this couplet, Tibullus creates an oxymoron48 that will be very useful to elegy: foedera lecti, the agreements/treaties/pacts of the bed, or sexual alliance (the phrase recurs at Ars 3.593). The word foedus applies to formal marriage agreements and can be used to describe parts of wedding ceremonies; see the OLD, s.v. foedus, 3. (It can also apply to nonmarital sexual liaisons and to nonsexual friendships.) In linking the sex and the foedera, Tibullus invokes marriage only to reject it firmly and repeatedly by basing the alliance not in wedlock but in sex, with lecti, venerem, and compositum caput, and by identifying the bed (the sex) as secret, furtivi. This poem provides further evidence that Delia is not a wife, for its extended fantasy of turning her into one (and a country wife at that!) is strongly marked as impossible by the word fingebam (I imagined, I dreamt, I pretended), which introduces (20) and concludes (35) the digression, modified by demens (maddened) at line 20. Further, though the relationship of Delia and the lover-poet is constituted as extramarital by the word furtivi, the arrival of the wealthy rival lover (dives amator, 47), facilitated by the lena (48), underscores again the material basis of the docta puella’s sex life.49 No husband or vir interferes here between lover-poet and puella, for the obstacle between them is her generic infidelity.50 Even the lucky man now enjoying Delia’s favors is only a temporary problem, as the lover-poet points out to him emphatically in the last section of the poem,51 predicting that his time of woe will come too, when Delia will abandon or cheat on him as well (68–76). Propertius 3.20 employs the lexicon of both contractual obligation and wedlock in what clearly is not to be a citizen marriage. It offers a consolation prize to a puella recently abandoned by a mariner merchant. Significantly, the prior relationship is marked as both sexual and nonmarital, as the absent lover has given the girl up to go off and make money,52 and the girl is beseeching the gods in vain: Credis eum iam posse tuae meminisse figurae, vidisti a lecto quem dare vela tuo? durus, qui lucro potuit mutare puellam! tantine, ut lacrimes, Africa tota fuit? at tu, stulta, deos, tu fingis inania verba: forsitan ille alio pectus amore terat. (1–6)

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

45

Do you believe he can even remember your looks now, the man whom you saw set sail away from your bed? He’s hard, the one who could exchange a girl for money! Was all of Africa so valuable [to him] that you should weep? But you, foolish girl, you invoke the gods, you bring up empty words: perhaps he is wearing out his heart for another love.

Having set up the opening of his approach by reminding the girl of her abandonment, the lover-poet goes on to list her attractions and make a pitch for himself (perhaps the first version of the “love-the-one-you’re-with” argument): est tibi forma potens, sunt castae Palladis artes, splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo, fortunata domus, modo sit tibi fidus amicus. fidus ero: in nostros curre, puella, toros! (6–10)53 You have a powerful beauty, you have the arts of chaste Athena, and a glorious fame shines out from your learned grandfather, and your house might be happy, if only you had a faithful boyfriend. I’ll be faithful: jump into my bed, girl!

The lover-poet then goes on to seek the complicity of the sun and moon in facilitating his new liaison—he needs more night because there are agreements and arrangements to make: tu quoque, qui aestivos spatiosius exigis ignis, Phoebe, moraturae contrahe lucis iter. nox mihi prima venit! primae data tempora noctis! longius in primo, Luna, morare toro. foedera sunt ponenda prius signandaque iura et scribenda mihi lex in amore novo. (11–16) And you, who drive the summer fires more slowly, Phoebus, reduce the journey of the lingering light. The first night is coming to me! the granted times of the first night! Delay longer, Moon, for the first bed. Treaties must be established first, and oaths signed, and my obligation must be recorded in this new love.

Cupid and Ariadne54 will witness the arrangements, and Venus will assist. Why? Agreements are necessary for a reliable love-relationship. Hence the lover-poet curses any man who disrupts or violates one, wishing upon him all the misery of the thwarted elegiac lover: haec Amor ipse suo constringit pignora signo: testis sidereae torta corona deae.

46

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

quam multae ante meis cedent sermonibus horae, dulcia quam nobis concitet arma Venus! namque ubi non certo vincitur foedere lectus, non habet ultores nox vigilanda deos, et quibus imposuit, soluit mox vincla libido: contineant nobis omina prima fidem. ergo, qui pactas in foedera ruperit aras, pollueritque novo sacra marita toro, illi sint quicumque solent in amore dolores, et caput argutae praebeat historiae, nec flenti dominae patefiant nocte fenestrae: semper amet, fructu semper amoris egens.

20

25

30

Amor himself binds up these pledges with his seal: the twisted crown of the starry goddess is a witness. How many hours will give way before my speeches, what sweet arms Venus will stir up for us! 20 For where the bed is bound by an unreliable pact,55 the night of watch has no avenging gods, and desire soon releases the chains from those on whom it placed them: let our initiatory auspices protect our faith. Therefore, whoever broke the altars sworn upon for treaties, 25 and polluted the sacred marriage rites with a new bed, let him have whatever kinds of sorrows are customary in love, and let him offer up his head for keen gossip, and let his mistress’s windows not open up for him as he weeps at night: let him always love, always lacking the enjoyment of love. 30

Lines 11–30 are riddled with the language of formal marriage contracts and even wedding ceremonies, though it is clear that no such legally recognized, binding relationship is intended. As noted above, the woman of this poem has already been sexually involved with a man not her husband, and her putative hold on him is not legal or familial but corporeal (her beauty, figurae, line 1) and sexual (her bed, lecto, line 2). Further, the lover-poet begins his persuasion by saying that her house lacks not a husband (maritus), but a boyfriend (amicus, 9),56 and rather than invite her into his house as a wife, he invites her to jump into his bed (10: in nostros curre, puella, toros!), an invitation that has no part of any Roman wedding ceremony or engagement contract.57 Regardless of the primarily sexual nature of this new relationship (13, nox prima, primae noctis; 14, primo toro; 16, amore novo), the proposition is made as a metaphorical marriage, with contracts to sign in the presence of witnesses, pre-wedding omens to be taken, and so forth. This language is not ambiguous, but its use here is obviously face-

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

47

tious, standing in for little more than a promise to do better by the puella than her previous boyfriend did. Though the lexicon of marriage here is not to be taken at face value, it merits articulation, if only to demonstrate that elegy uses the legal and social terminology of marriage to describe aspects of extramarital sexual relationships. To begin with, even fidus in lines 9 and 10 suggests the fides (faith) that is essential to any close or binding relationship in Rome, and is thus a constitutive part of the concept of Roman marriage. Lines 15–16 identify recognizable elements of a Roman marriage contract: foedera ponenda, iura signanda, lex scribenda invoke respectively the terms of an agreement between two parties, the rights58 each party retains under the agreement, and the contract (lex) signed by both parties.59 Line 17 recalls both the legally required witness to either a contract or a wedding, the pledges (pignora) of the parties to the contract, and the act of sealing fast (constringit) the tablets on which such contracts are inscribed.60 The witness of Ariadne’s crown (testis, line 18), the constellation established by Bacchus as his pledge that she would be his wife, further invokes marital security. Lines 21–26 provide more elements of weddings and marriage: foedere (21); the omens or auspices to be taken before the wedding (24, omina prima), and faith (24, fidem); the altars by which the agreements are sworn (25: pactas in foedere . . . aras); and the holy marriage rites (26, sacra marita). Notably absent, of course, are parents or family guests, and witnesses. The lover-poet then reverts to the world of elegiac love and suffering, by wishing elegiac misery on anyone who violates the type of fidelity he is proposing (27–30), in a thematic return to the opening scene of the poem, in which the couple’s relationship is sexual but not marital. This clever poem plays wittily with the lexicon of formal marriage ceremonies and relationships, though any elegiac puella reading it would certainly understand that it is not a genuine proposal of marriage.61 Thus Propertius 3.20 offers extensive evidence of Roman love elegy’s readiness to exploit, here in slightly mocking fashion, the language and legal elements of wedlock, to use the lexicon of marriage where marriage is not intended. Amores 3.11 likewise employs, though to a much lesser degree, the lexicon of spousal relations, in a context clearly marked as not marital. Chapter 3 contains a fuller discussion of this poem, so I focus here on the status of the lover-poet’s relationship to the puella. The lover begins by claiming that he has had enough of her cheating and that his prior servitude to her now humiliates him (1–16). He then turns to the subject of their relationship, in which he believed himself to have some permanent standing with her: quando ego non fixus lateri patienter adhaesi, / ipse tuus custos, ipse vir,

48

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

ipse comes? (17–18: “When did I not cling patiently to your side, / I myself your guard, I myself your man, I myself your companion?”). The status of vir, which he claims here, is not marital, as the next couplet reveals (never mind that the two have not been cohabiting, as is evident from his frequent nights of exclusion and her admission of other lovers, lines 9–16): scilicet et populo per me comitata placebas: / causa fuit multis noster amoris amor (19–20: “Naturally, you even used to be attractive to the public, accompanied by me: / my love was the cause of love for many”). The woman who goes out to be sexually attractive in public is certainly not a respectable citizen wife, regardless of any guard placed upon her. In addition, the loverpoet acknowledges a rival, an adynaton for a Roman husband: rivali non erat aegra meo (26: “She wasn’t sick to my rival,” i.e., when my rival came to her house).62 In the second half of the poem,63 the girl’s hold on the lover-poet is revealed: her beauty (forma, 37) and body (corpus amo, 38: “I love her body”). The lover expatiates briefly on the contrast between her looks and her mores, then asks her to spare him, in a prayer that invokes legal rights and closely echoes Tibullus 1.5.7: parce per o lecti socialia iura (45: “Oh, be merciful, by the shared rights of the bed”). The lecti socialia iura recall the furtivi foedera lecti of Tibullus 1.5.7 and identify the relationship as primarily sexual. In these lines of Tibullus and Ovid, both speakers present their love for, and sexual relationship with, the puella as existing on a plane higher than mere courtesan-client interactions, as analogous—because of the lover’s passion—to the sacred and legal nature of marriage.64 But the sexual nature of the relationship is strongly marked by the proximity, in the line, of the bed (lecti) to the rights/oaths (iura, Am. 3.11.45) and agreements (foedera, Tib. 1.5.7). Ars amatoria 3.593 (foedera lecti) further establishes these treaties as generic, part of any elegiac relationship. The foedera and iura are sexual in nature and are thus consistent with elegy’s tendency to treat its sexual passions as more than merely physical, as demonstrating a metaphorical marriage of loving hearts, if not citizen bodies and households.65 These treaties and oaths, however, are naturally unstable (see Prop. 3.20.21, non certo . . . foedere), often secret (as in Tib. 1.5.7), and easily violated by the puella (Ars 3.593, where they have been shared with another man). It is a rhetorical move typical of elegy to try to shore up fragile and unreliable relationships by dressing them in the language of marriage—a linguistic wedding dress, as it were—but even that lexical garment is transparently self-canceling, as sex, in the context of extramarital relationships in Rome, is no solid basis for a solemn pact like a foedus. See also Amores 2.17.23–24: tu quoque me, mea lux, in quaslibet

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

49

accipe leges; / te deceat medio iura dedisse foro (“You too, my darling, receive me under whatever kind of laws you like; / it suits you to give orders in the middle of the forum”). Whether one reads toro (bed) or foro (Forum) in line 24, it is clear that no genuine legally recognized relationship is being proposed here, especially since the rest of the poem offers the usual exchange of poetry for sex. These laws and rights (leges and iura) are sexual treaties, with all the binding power of the bed. These examples should demonstrate adequately that Roman love elegy uses the lexicon of marriage to describe nonmarital relationships. Perhaps the clearest example of this misapplication comes in Amores 2.7, where the amator uses conubium, a standard word for marriage, to describe sex with his mistress’s slave: quis veneris famulae conubia liber inire / . . . velit? (21–22: “What free man would want to enter into the marriage-sex of a slave?”).Thus the regular application of words for husband and wife should neither surprise nor be taken at face value. Furthermore, though characters described as vir, uxor, maritus, and coniunx appear intermittently in Ovid and Tibullus, their relations are anything but marital, at least in the traditional Roman prescription for respectable marriage. For one thing, this man brings his “wife” (mostly described by the overtly elegiac word puella, rather than femina or uxor) to dinner parties, where he permits her such unwifely behavior as arriving separately from himself (Am. 1.4.13–14), singing love songs to young men or lounging about with her upper garments excessively relaxed (Tib. 1.6.17–18), playing suggestively with her food and wine (Tib. 1.2.21–22, 1.6.19–20; Am. 1.4, passim), and disappearing into the cloakroom with another man (Am. 1.4.53–54).66 He also apparently tolerates the presence of both serenading exclusi amatores (Am. 2.19.39–40, Tib. 1.6.31–34) and the gifts of other men (Am. 3.4.45–48). He seems to know that his puella has other suitors—Ovid uses the word rivalis to describe his lover-poet’s oppositional relationship to the lax vir at 2.19.60,67 a triangle structure no legitimate Roman husband would publicly tolerate.68 The puellae of these men often go off on secret religious rituals (Tib. 1.6.21–24, Am. 2.2.25, Ars 3.635–38),69 which in the context of elegy are understood to be her opportunities to cheat on her vir. As Stroh (1979: 335) notes, the elegiac puella accepts the advice of a lena on exploiting her lovers, which makes little sense if she is married70 or marriageable (cf. Barsby 1973: 107). Further, the elegiac vir feels a need to guard his puella, not only by keeping out invading suitors but by keeping her inside her own bedroom, by placing a special watchguard (custos) over her (Tib. 1.6.9–10, Ars 3.619–58); as Stroh (1979: 323) notes, what respectable Roman wife would tolerate that treatment?71 Such lack of trust implicitly acknowledges

50

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

the puella to be a sexually free agent rather than a potential object of assault by random strangers.72 A woman of that description cannot be considered a true Roman wife, at least not according to the standards prescribed for upper-class marriages.73 Hence a man of the vir’s description likewise cannot be a legitimate Roman husband, and certainly not an elite husband.74 A further argument against seeing the vir as a true and legitimate husband is to be found in Propertius 2.7, for whatever one thinks of its sublata lex (repealed law) in relation to the Augustan marital legislation,75 this poem describes official and legitimate Roman marriage, in terms of both its original purpose and of Augustus’s programs—procreation (see appendix).76 The very thought that the elegiac puella, whether or not she is under the control of a vir, could become a mother is impossible.77 Falling birthrates and rising divorce rates among the upper classes notwithstanding, a man with all the rights of a Roman husband (even the diminished powers of Roman husbands in the late Republic and Principate, when manus, a husband’s legal control over his wife, was less common) could not have tolerated the types of behavior openly and repeatedly practiced by the elegiac puella.78 Though there was certainly extramarital adultery in the elite Roman marriage, the power of the husband to take revenge on his wife and her lover remained his private right until the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, which transferred that right to a public criminal court, though he was authorized to act as its agent under specified and very limited circumstances.79 And even the elder Julia, famed for her adultery, practiced it with more caution than the elegiac puella (not least because she had no financial motive for it): as she said herself, she received passengers only when the hold was full, meaning that she took lovers only when she was already pregnant, so that she could be certain that her children were truly her husband’s.80 Thus she observed the primary role of a Roman wife—to give her husband legitimate heirs. Prior to the lex Iulia, a husband (or father) had the right, under certain circumstances, to kill both parties caught in extramarital adultery, but elegy never even hints at such a prospect. It never presents the meetings of such a puella with her lover-poet as illegal or even risky socially (much less physically) to either party. The elegiac rendezvous is complicated and tricky, perhaps excitingly dangerous (cf. Am. 2.19; Ars 2.243–48, 3.599–608), but not potentially lethal. The elegiac loverpoet resents the vir but does not fear him.81 Hence, again, the man described as vir or even coniunx cannot be a legitimate Roman husband.82 The final reason preventing the elegiac vir from being a true husband is simply generic: if he were, the puella would then be a true wife, which in the context of elegy is impossible, for two main reasons. First, as I have

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

51

noted, both above and in the chapter 1, the elegiac puella is independent, a sexually free agent, with the power to say either yes or no, a power she exercises too often for any respectable Roman wife or potential wife.83 Second, as I have remarked elsewhere (e.g., James 1998a: 12), marriage would be the death of elegy, and even the mere possibility of marriage would render a great deal of elegy not only pointless but ludicrous. In the elegiac universe, marriage destroys love84—and here it is relevant that in no poem containing a vir does an elegiac lover-poet express either the desire to be that vir or to take his place. Nor, in fact, does any elegiac lover-poet either ask his domina to divorce her husband or leave her vir, to marry or cohabit with himself instead.85 As the lover-poet does not fear the vir, neither does he envy him.86 The threat of the elegiac vir, whether he is a coniunx, a maritus, or a primary customer, is that he impedes access to the puella because he appears to have some sort of rights to, or claim over, her.87 Hence he appears mostly in paraclausithyra (see appendix), the true point of which is to allow the lover-poet to complain about being stuck outside the door while the puella is locked inside, whether or not the vir is inside with her. The lover-poet assumes that the vir holds no interest or attraction for the puella, that she feels the same way toward him that the lover-poet does: that is, that she considers him an unappealing inconvenience that she must tolerate, regardless of her own feelings. The real identity of the vir, in other words, is a physical obstruction—a door or wall, rather than a real person, much less a true husband.88 In short, the puella herself is proof against the legitimate spousal status of the vir. Once again, what may appear to be an individual characteristic of a specific woman—that Delia or Corinna is actually married to a man with a name of some sort—turns out to be a generic necessity: these women can be neither married nor always accessible to a lover-poet.89 Thus the vir operates as an intermittent generic inconvenience on the obstacle course of elegiac love, a course that is governed not by any particular man’s rights (iura) but by the puella’s status, which makes her both sexually independent and financially needy. As Copley points out, treating the primary vir as a husband allows the elegist to retain “the atmosphere of adultery, with all its titillating aspects and interesting problems” (1956: 103; cf. also Conte 1994: 49). In addition, the lexicon of marriage allows the lover-poet to gloss over his puella’s profession and social status, to invoke, as it were, the atmosphere of Catullus rather than that of Horace, who rarely fails to mark his puellae as members of the demi-monde.90 Thus the lexical confusion supports the persuasive program of elegy, which aims to avoid at all costs any mention of the puella’s profession. Finally, it also allows the lover-poet to present

52

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

himself and the puella as united in desire—that is, as taking the same side against the vir, the state of affairs preferred by the lover-poet.91 The elegists skate very close to the edge with the lexicon of marriage, using it to flaunt their unconventionality, their refusal to settle down and go along with the Augustan regime’s desire for respectable marriage and childbirth among members of their class. The fictionality of elegy’s characters, the generic requirement that it involve no actual married persons, in fact allows the elegists to portray marriage as shaky, pointless, as full of intrigue, deception, and recreational sex, as perhaps even only a sham disguising just the kinds of behaviors that Horace’s Ode 3.6 criticizes. In other words, by playing around with the lexicon of marriage, the elegists can eat their cake and have it too: they transfer the traditional sanctity and fidelity of Roman marriage into the realm of elegiac extramarital love, and depict marital relationships as sordid, unloving, boring, adulterous. They borrow the excitement and intrigue of adultery, as Copley notes (1956: 103), as a means of demonstrating the lover-poet’s desperate devotion but disparage marriage as dull, formal, functional. But they do so relying on their readers’ recognition that no elegiac love relationship can involve marriage. Thus the discourse (discours) of elegy is at odds with its fable (or story), a structure that adds greatly to the genre’s tension, irony, and humor.

THE EVIL HOUSEMOTHER In exitium lena callida meum The lena clever at my destruction. Tibullus 1.5.48

The lover-poet’s worst enemy is not actually the rival, whether he be a tedious vir or a paying rival. That status belongs to the lena, whose presence in the puella’s house constitutes a greater danger than all other obstacles put together, because she reminds the puella of her inescapable social circumstances and material needs, which force her to require payment from her lovers, the very things that the lover-poet attempts to erase with elegy. Further, the lena explicitly devalues poetry in a fashion so systematic that her words ultimately constitute the puella’s final protection against male elegiac sexual persuasion. In other words, the lena provides an articulated, calculated ratio—a logical system of ethics—that perfectly matches and counters all of elegy’s male persuasive tactics92 aimed at achieving easy access (faciles aditus, Tib. 2.4.19) to the puella. Though the lover-poet’s blanditiae might occasionally be effective against a given rival (see, e.g.,

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

53

Prop. 1.8), against the lena’s advice they are useless. In fact, they are the butt of her ridicule (cf. esp. Prop. 4.5.55–56), which of course the lover-poet cannot bear. Hence, in the case of the lena, his flatteries and persuasions generally—and quite rapidly—convert to extreme abuse and vituperation (cf. Tib. 1.5.49–56, 2.6.53–54; Prop. 4.5.75–79; Am. 1.8.113–14). The curses hurled against her, and the punishments desired for her, signify the failure of the lover-poet’s elegiac ars and ingenium, for there is no attempt to counter her logic even with unadulterated praise of beauty, elegy’s most powerful weapon.93 The lena’s power of speech is so great that it overcomes elegiac male persuasion,94 for as we shall see below, throughout elegy, the puellae enact every piece of her advice, and the behaviors they engage in, as they do so, are precisely those that engender the greatest critical attention and countervailing rhetoric from their lover-poets. The instruction of Acanthis and Dipsas offers almost a decoding ring to the apparently capricious and promiscuous behavior of the elegiac docta puella95 and further marks her as generically a courtesan. Before examining the lena passages, a few words on the identity of this old woman are in order. As Williams (1968: 542–43) notes, her “prototype is in Greek New Comedy and Roman comedy: she could be a maid like Scapha in the Mostellaria or a nurse or an elderly woman whose daughter, together with other young girls, was starting on the same profession under her guidance (as in Cistellaria).”96 She seems, as in the case of Scapha, to have the status of a retired senior colleague—too old to continue practicing her profession but not too old to give advice.97 Barsby (1973: 91), citing Balsdon 1962: 224–27, identifies the lena as “a woman who for her own profit arranges introductions between girls and men, and covers a wide range of operations, from those of the professional brothel-keeper employing a large establishment to those of the old nurse arranging liaisons for a particular client.” He notes (107) that such women did exist in Rome, citing Digesta 23.2. 43 and Ulpian, fragment 13.2, for laws about them.98 Elegy acknowledges her existence in New Comedy: compare Amores 1.15.17, where the comic lena is called improba (bad). For our purposes here, several other points are relevant. First, in elegy as in New Comedy, the lena—unlike the pimp (leno, cited, for example, at Am. 1.10.23)—has no powers of ownership over the puella. New Comedy regularly depicts the pimp as controlling and owning meretrices (who in such cases are commonly flute girls or dancers rather than the more substantial hetairai), but the lena has no such right of possession, because the elegiac puella must be a free agent.99 Thus, as Griffin (1985: 114–15) says, the lena, a minor figure in New Comedy, takes on an anomalous and exaggerated role

54

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

in elegy. Her presence in Roman love elegy further marks the puella as a courtesan, rather than either a respectable wife or a lower-level prostitute. Significantly, in elegy the lena is an advisor, and therein, for the adulescentes of comedy and the lover-poets of elegy, lies her power, for she can persuade the puella against him (see, for example, the speeches of Syra in Hecyra and Scapha); hence without exception the lover-poets see the lena as their personal enemy.100 Since her primary function is to provide countervailing rhetoric, her social status is a lesser issue; hence she may be, as Williams observes, a maid (Scapha in Mostellaria), an assistant (Astaphium in Truculentus), or an experienced free-agent senior colleague (Syra in Hecyra). (For the in-house lena, see Cistellaria.)101 She may even be the puella’s mother, who must train her daughter in her own profession (see Asinaria and Eunuchus).102 Regardless, the lena figure operates to counter the lover’s interests, and he reacts abusively, in words if not in deeds, by cursing her violently.103 Further, the lena’s speeches—often characterized as cynical, even venal—carry both the weight of her experience and a glimpse of the puella’s own future.104 She reminds the puella that her youth and beauty will fade with time (the elegiac lover-poets make similar forecasts: Tib. 1.8.41–46, 2.4; Prop. 3.25.11–18; Ars 3.163–66). The consequences of age are alike in both predictions: lovers will vanish, leaving her lonely and impoverished (a dominant vision in Horatian lyric, but still an inescapable prospect in elegy).105 The appropriate course of action, given these inescapable truths, however, differs according to whose advice is being expressed. The lover and the lena argue precisely opposed positions, and in elegy hers will always ultimately win, at least as long as a man wants the puella enough to pay for her time. The lover proposes that the solution to eventual old age, loneliness, and poverty is present sex (Prop. 1.19 and passim). The lena, however, thinks more practically about financing those long years without amatory activity or income; thus she advises a strict policy of payment for admission to the bedroom, even in the case of the attractive young man whom one might wish to receive gratis, for sheer pleasure (Am. 1.8.67–68—he is to bring gifts extorted from his own older, wealthy lovers). In addition, as Newman (1967: 397) remarks, she “[n]aturally takes a jaundiced view of his pretensions,” so that she “urges the girl to treat wealth as ingenium” (talent). Further, in fact, she advises a series of strategies for extracting every possible coin from every available suitor. Hence her advice again marks the puella’s behavior, as seen throughout elegy, as professional and generic rather than capricious and individual.

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

55

The two primary lena passages of Roman love elegy are Propertius 4.5 and Amores 1.8 (the lena is mentioned prominently in Tib. 1.2, 5, and 2.6, but her speech is never reported). Their structures are remarkably similar, which is not surprising, given that Ovid often operates on a Propertian model. Here that resemblance is to the point both because its degree is anomalous (that is, other poems on standard topoi show rather more variety from one author to another),106 and because it firmly establishes the lena’s function within elegy, which is to oppose the lover-poet’s interests at every turn. Both poems open with a description of the lena’s powers and close with the lover-poet’s curses on her; in both, the lena’s speech occupies the center of the poem, and they give virtually indistinguishable advice to the puellae (presumably Corinna and Cynthia).107 The lover-poets rather ludicrously present those puellae as apparently pure, so that the lena’s advice constitutes perversion of her: animum nostrae dum versat Acanthis amicae (Prop. 4.5.63: “while Acanthis twists the soul of my girlfriend”); haec sibi proposuit thalamos temerare pudicos (Am. 1.8.19: “She planned to assault chaste bed-chambers for her own benefit”). The lover-poet considers the lena his personal enemy and sees her advice as aimed directly against him (Prop. 4.5.17–18, Tib. 1.5.47–48). Indeed, she does mock him and the value of his poetry—but only as an example of how useless poetry is. Her attack, in other words, is ad poetas rather than ad hominem (Prop. 4.5.53–58, Am. 1.8.57–62).108 Regardless, in devaluing poetry and in specifically referring to the lover-poet, the lena places herself in direct opposition to the values and interests (not to mention the bank accounts) of the elegiac lover. Hence he fears, hates, and curses her, frequently wishing her a savage, hungry, thirsty old age (Am. 1.8.113–14; Tib. 1.5.49–56, 2.6.53–54) or an unquiet death (Prop. 4.5.1–4, 75–78). He describes her as a horrifying old hag, losing her hair and teeth, and as possessing magical powers over elements animal (Prop. 4.5.10), vegetable (Prop. 4.5.11, Am. 1.8.7–8), mineral (Prop. 4.5.9), metereological (Tib. 1.2.43–44, 49–50; Am. 1.8.9–10), and astronomical (Prop. 4.5.13, Am. 1.8.11–12). She can also change her own shape (Prop. 4.5.14, Am. 1.8.13–14). Her greatest power, however, is over impoverished lovers and poets—a power she exercises through persuasive speech (Prop. 4.5.19–20, Am. 1.8.19–20).109 Despite the many similarities between the two poems, the lenae themselves are not identical in behavior, nor are the bases they offer for their persuasion. Acanthis begins by appealing to the puella’s fondness for finery; Dipsas begins with the puella’s attractiveness as an exploitable commodity. In addition, much of Dipsas’s instruction is taken up with theory rather than practical instruction: the first forty-five lines of her

56

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

speech expatiate on basic principles before she reaches the tactical and strategic advice that characterizes Acanthis’s lesson. Propertius 4.5 begins with a curse on the lena, now apparently dead.110 The opening lines reveal how much the amator hates and fears the lena (1–4), to whom in a long introduction he attributes not only immoral persuasion but also witchcraft. She is so learned at persuasion that she could make the famously chaste Hippolytus and Penelope give in (5–8). Her magical powers are asserted in the next lines: she can make magnets lose their power, turn birds against their young, move grass from the hills to a ditch, and cause crops to be drowned by a flash flood (9–12).111 She is also hostile to men, particularly the paranoid lover-poet: audax cantatae leges imponere lunae et sua nocturno fallere terga lupo, posset ut intentos astu caecare maritos, cornicum immeritas eruit ungue genas; consuluitque striges nostro de sanguine, et in me hippomanes fetae semina legit equae. (13–18) Daring to place laws on the enchanted moon and to take on the skin of a wolf at night, so that she could blind watchful husbands with her cunning, she scratched out the undeserving faces of crows with her fingernails; and she consulted the screech-owls about my blood, and against me she collected the hippomanes, the seeds of pregnant mares.112

Here the lena’s offense against the lover is obvious—she uses her magical powers to oppose him. Her worst powers, however, are those of persuasion, and she brings all her talents to bear on them, arguing on the grounds of materialism, in her lengthy speech to the puella.113 She begins by saying that if the puella likes various luxuries (21–26),114 there is a general principle for acquiring them: sperne fidem, provolve deos, mendacia vincant, / frange et damnosae iura pudicitiae! (27–28: “Disdain faith, throw over the gods, let lies win out, / and break the vows of expensive chastity!”). Once this principle, obviously hostile to the lover-poet’s interests, is in place, all that remains is tactical instruction, and as I will argue below, these strategies appear throughout elegy. The first part of the lesson offers ways of keeping a lover so confused, uncertain, and frustrated that he will keep giving money and gifts: et simulare virum pretium facit: utere causis! maior dilata nocte recurret amor. si tibi forte comas vexaverit, utilis ira: post modo mercata pace premendus erit.

30

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

denique ubi amplexu Venerem promiseris empto, fac simules puros Isidis esse dies. ingerat Aprilis Iole tibi, tundat Omichle natalem Maiis Idibus esse tuum. supplex ille sedet—posita tu scribe cathedra quidlibet; has artis si pavet ille, tenes! semper habe morsus circa tua colla recentis, litibus alternis quos putet esse datos.

57

35

40

Also, pretending you have a man makes for a price: use your excuses! Love runs back greater, after a night’s delay. 30 If by chance he has pulled your hair, his anger is useful: later, once peace has been purchased, he can be pressed again. Then when you have promised sex, in a purchased embrace, pretend that these are your pure days dedicated to Isis. Let your maid Iole get the April gifts for you, let Omichle remind him 35 that your birthday is on the Ides of May. He’ll sit a suppliant—you write something at your desk set by; if he quakes at these arts, you’ve got him! Always have recent bite-marks around your neck, which he may think were given in a quarrel with somebody else.115 40

The next lesson concerns how to behave in the lover’s presence: nec te Medeae delectent probra sequacis (nempe tulit fastus ausa rogare prior), sed potius mundi Thais pretiosa Menandri, cum ferit astutos comica moecha Getas. in mores te verte viri: si cantica iactat, i comes et voces ebria iunge tuas. (41–47) And let not the shameful deeds of importunate Medea appeal to you (naturally she suffered contempt, daring to ask first), but rather the expensive Thais of clever Menander, when the comedic courtesan wounds clever Getas. Take on your man’s customs: if he hurls out arias, go along with him and, tipsy, join your voice in.116

According to Acanthis, the courtesan needs to be clever, not impassioned like Medea, and she should play the games preferred by her suitor.117 The most alarming instruction comes next. According to Acanthis, not only should the puella allow in only paying customers, but she should pay no attention to their social class. Most of all, she should ignore poetry as an offering in exchange for sex:

58

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

ianitor ad dantis vigilet: si pulset inanis, surdus in obductam somniet usque seram. nec tibi displiceat miles non factus amori, nauta nec attrita si ferat aera manu, aut quorum titulus per barbara colla pependit, cretati medio cum saluere foro. aurum spectato, non quae manus afferat aurum! versibus auditis quid nisi verba feres? “Quid iuvat ornato procedere, vita, capillo et tenuis Coa veste movere sinus?” qui versus, Coae dederit nec munera vestis, istius tibi sit surda sine aere lyra. Let your doorkeeper keep watch for the generous: if an empty hand knocks, let him sleep, deaf, up against the drawn doorbolt. And don’t let a soldier, not practiced at love, be distasteful to you, nor a sailor, if he brings coin in his hardened hand, or the one from whose barbarian neck a sale placard hung, when he ran, chalk-marked, in the middle of the forum. Look to the gold, not the hand that offers the gold! Once you’ve heard a poem, what do you take away but words? “Why is it pleasing, darling, to go out with decorated hair and to move your tender limbs in a Coan dress?” Who gives verses, and not the gift of a Coan dress, let his lyre be unheard by you, without coin.118

50

55

50

55

The principle of line 53—aurum spectato, non quae manus afferat aurum—and the sneering dismissal of poetry in 54, followed by the mocking quotation of the first two lines of persuasive verse aimed by the Propertian lover-poet at Cynthia (1.2.1–2) are perhaps the lena’s most frightening and dangerous instruction, from his perspective, for they attack both him and poetry as an offering to be exchanged for sex. The final instruction is cut off by a coughing fit, but its substance is clear. The puella needs to earn money while she’s young: “dum vernat sanguis, dum rugis integer annus, utere, ne quid cras libet ab ore dies! vidi ego odorati victura rosaria Paesti sub matutino cocta iacere Noto.” his animum nostrae dum versat Acanthis amicae, per tenuem ossa sunt numerata cutem. (59–64) “While your blood is in its springtime, while your age is free from wrinkles,

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

59

take advantage, lest the next day take away from your looks! I have seen the rose garden, about to bloom, at fragrant Paestum fall flat in the morning, cooked by the South wind.” While Acanthis twisted my girlfriend’s heart with these words, the bones could be counted beneath my thin skin.119

This argument is, of course, familiar to the elegiac lover, as he too regularly reminds his beloved that one day she will be old and undesirable. In his view, however, impending old age justifies present free love rather than necessitating more intensively and aggressively profiteering sex (Tib. 1.1.69–74; Prop. 1.19.25–26, 2.15.49–54; Ars 3.59–84). Hence his vindictive delight at Acanthis’s discomfort and ill-health. He closes the poem with a gruesome depiction of her symptoms, her disgusting old age, and his vitriolic curses upon her (65–78). It is not hard to figure out why the elegiac amator hates the lena; our interest here is in the professional standards she establishes: the girl must always be on the lookout for money; she must not care what kind of man offers it; she must be ready to lie and deceive at all times, to break dates, and so on; and she must spurn poetry for hard cash. Complaints about all these principles, as well as their individual occurrences, fill Propertian elegy, as the table at the end of this chapter shows. Amores 1.8, Ovid’s lena poem, is his longest elegy. As Kratins (1963: 153) notes, it is the only poem in the Amores in which the lover-poet is not the “chief actor,” but merely the narrator, in what Gross (1996: 97) calls “an unusually passive role . . . an unseen and speechless auditor” until the end of the poem. As Gross argues, Dipsas actually uses the lover-poet’s own language and rhetoric, thus displacing him as erotodidact. It begins with a lengthy description of the lena’s powers, and a brief comment on her name, Dipsas,120 which he considers appropriate, meaning that she is a drunkard (1–4). A list of Dipsas’s magical powers121 follows: she can turn rivers back in their courses (6); she uses various charms and spells, including the infamous hippomanes (7–8); she can control the weather (9–10). The lover-poet attributes other magical powers to her, describing her as a witch (11–18). But her worst offense is against himself—she turns her considerable powers of persuasion on his puella, and he happened to overhear: haec sibi proposuit thalamos temerare pudicos; nec tamen eloquio lingua nocente caret. fors me sermoni testem dedit; illa monebat talia (me duplices occuluere fores) (19–22) She planned to assault chaste bed-chambers for her own benefit; and indeed her speech did not lack harmful eloquence.122

60

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

Luck made me a witness to her lecture; she was warning things like this (the double doors hid me).

Dipsas begins with flattery of the puella’s beauty, which she sees as a valuable commodity not being adequately exploited. A wealthy and attractive young man has taken a shine to the puella: scis here te, mea lux, iuveni placuisse beato? haesit et in vultu constitit usque tuo. et cur non placeas? nulli tua forma secunda est; me miseram! dignus corpore cultus abest. tam felix esses quam formosissima vellem: non ego, te facta divite, pauper ero. (23–28) Do you know, my dear, yesterday you caught the attention of a rich young man? He stood still and clung [with his eyes] to your face. And why wouldn’t you appeal to him? Your beauty is second to no one’s; but woe is me! Your dress doesn’t take advantage of your looks. I wish you were as rich as you are gorgeous: if you become wealthy, I won’t be poor.

Dipsas encourages her to take action, as the stars are now properly aligned for profitable love (29–34), and emphasizes the new young man’s wealth at beato (23, blessed, wealthy), and dives (31, wealthy), invoking it again at 32, 34, and probably also 28 (te facta divite = “if you become wealthy”). This introduction focuses on exploitable opportunity: the rich young man is ready to pay and the stars are in a favorable arrangement. In the next section, the puella blushes and Dipsas turns to the practical—that beautiful young women should not only play the field for gain but should learn to use the appearances of modesty for calculation and gain, as the real thing is an obstruction: erubuit! decet alba quidem pudor ora, sed iste, si simules, prodest; verus obesse solet. cum bene deiectis gremium spectabis ocellis, quantum quisque ferat, respiciendus erit. (35–38) She blushed! That modesty certainly suits your white face, but if you fake it, it is profitable; the real thing usually gets in the way. Though you’ll be looking right at your lap with downcast eyes, however much each man brings, he is worth looking back at. ludunt formosae: casta est quam nemo rogavit; aut, si rusticitas non vetat, ipsa rogat. (43–44)

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

61

Pretty girls play around: she’s chaste whom nobody has pursued; or, if her lack of sophistication doesn’t forbid her, she herself pursues.

In these lines, Dipsas gently teases the puella’s apparent diffidence and encourages her to use it to her advantage.123 The third principle in Dipsas’s lesson is to take advantage of time. While the puella is young, she should focus on her career, as it were, for—again, chastity is wasteful and pointless: labitur occulte fallitque volatilis aetas, et celer admissis labitur amnis aquis. aera nitent usu, vestis bona quaerit haberi, canescunt turpi tecta relicta situ: forma, nisi admittas, nullo exercente senescit; nec satis effectus unus et alter habent. certior e multis nec tam invidiosa rapina est; plena venit canis de grege praeda lupis. (49–56) Fleeting age deceives and slips away secretly, and the swift river slips away with its running waters. Bronze shines with use, a good dress seeks to be worn, abandoned roofs grow old with gross neglect: beauty, unless you let men in, ages when no one uses it; nor does just one or another man have enough of an effect. Your theft will be surer from many, and less resented; a full booty comes to the white wolves from a flock.

The final principle is that the puella should pay attention only to money. Social class and poetry are irrelevant—everyone, including the beautiful puer delicatus, must pay: ecce, quid iste tuus praeter nova carmina vates donat? amatoris milia multa leges. ipse deus vatum palla spectabilis aurea tractat inauratae consona fila lyrae. qui dabit, ille tibi magno sit maior Homero: crede mihi, res est ingeniosa dare. nec tu, si quis erit capitis mercede redemptus, despice: gypsati crimen inane pedis. nec te decipiant veteres circum atria cerae: tolle tuos tecum, pauper amator, avos. qui, quia pulcher erit, poscet sine munere noctem; quod det, amatorem flagitet ante suum. Look, what is that bard of yours bringing you besides new poems? You’ll read many thousand lines of a lover.124

60

65

62

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

The god of bards himself, attractive in a golden cloak, handles the harmonious strings of his golden lyre. 60 Whoever gives, let him be greater to you than great Homer: believe me, it’s a matter of talent to give. And, if someone has been bought off, with a price on his head, don’t look down on him: the charge of a chalked foot is empty. And don’t let ancient wax portraits around the atrium fool you: 65 take your grandfathers off with you, poor lover. The one who, just because he’s handsome, will ask for a night without a gift; the gift he can give, let him demand in advance from his own lover.

Here Dipsas and Acanthis are in total accord: poetry is pointless, social rank irrelevant. (No wonder the elegiac lover-poets hate the lena so much.) Her exposition of fundamental principles concluded, Dipsas turns to strategies. She elaborates extensively on the first, that the puella must ask little until the man has really fallen in love, and then she may torture him like a slave. Hence her first task is to secure his affections, first by pretending to be in love with him and then by controlling and limiting his access to her, to keep him uncertain of his hold on her: parcius exigito pretium, dum retia tendis, ne fugiant; captos legibus ure tuis. nec nocuit simulatus amor: sine credat amari et cave, ne gratis hic tibi constet amor. saepe nega noctes: capitis modo finge dolorem; et modo, quae causas praebeat, Isis erit. mox recipe, ut nullum patiendi colligat usum neve relentescat saepe repulsus amor. surda sit oranti tua ianua, laxa ferenti; audiat exclusi verba receptus amans; et quasi laesa prior nonnumquam irascere laeso: vanescit culpa culpa repensa tua. sed numquam dederis spatiosum tempus in iram: saepe simultates ira morata facit. quin etiam discant oculi lacrimare coacti, et faciant udas ille vel ille genas; nec, si quem falles, tu periurare timeto: commodat in lusus numina surda Venus. Demand your price sparingly, while you’re holding out the nets, lest they flee; burn the captive ones by your laws. And pretended love doesn’t hurt: let him think himself loved125 and beware, lest this love be settled free for you. Often refuse nights: one time invent a headache;

70

75

80

85

70

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

63

another time, there will be Isis, who can offer excuses. Soon admit him, so that he not get too used to suffering 75 and so that repulsed love not, as often, grow weak. Let your door be deaf to the one praying, open to the one bringing; let the admitted lover hear the words of the excluded lover. And sometimes, as if you’re already hurt, grow angry with him when he’s hurt: your charge will vanish, erased by your countercharge. 80 But never give too much time to anger: often delayed anger makes quarrels. Indeed, let your eyes learn to weep on command, and one or the other make your cheeks wet; nor, if you have deceived someone, fear to perjure yourself: 85 deaf Venus lends her powers to deceptions.

Once the puella feels sure of the lover’s devotion, she may begin extracting all his money, and Dipsas provides detailed information on how to do so: servus et ad partes sollers ancilla parentur, qui doceant apte quid tibi possit emi, et sibi pauca rogent: multos si pauca rogabunt, postmodo de stipula grandis acervus erit; et soror et mater, nutrix quoque carpat amantem: fit cito per multas praeda petita manus. cum te deficient poscendi munera causae, natalem libo testificare tuum. (87–94) And let your slave and clever maid be prepared for their parts, who can properly instruct him on what should be bought for you, and let them ask a little for themselves; if they ask many men for a little, soon there will be a great pile from the stubble. And your sister and mother, and also your nurse, should pluck your lover; the booty sought by many hands happens quickly. When you’ve run out of reasons for asking for gifts, tell him it’s for your birthday cake.

The puella must remember to keep the lover unsure of her, so that he’ll keep giving. The fact or appearance of a rival will help: ne securus amet nullo rivale caveto: non bene, si tollas proelia, durat amor. ille viri videat toto vestigia lecto factaque lascivis livida colla notis; munera praecipue videat quae miserit alter: si dederit nemo, Sacra roganda Via est. (95–100)

64

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

And watch out that he not love securely, lacking a rival: love doesn’t last well, if you take battles away. Let him see signs of a man all over the bed and your neck bruised with love-marks; and especially let him see the gifts that another man has sent: if no one has given them, you can seek them on the Via Sacra.126

More strategies follow, for pretending to borrow money, for buttering up a lover, and so forth: cum multa abstuleris, ut non tamen omnia donet, quod numquam reddas, commodet ipsa roga. lingua iuvet mentemque tegat: blandire noceque; impia sub dulci melle venena latent. (101–4) When you’ll have taken much off him, but he has not yet given everything, ask him to lend you what you’ll never return. Let your speech help and hide your intention: flatter and soak him; dangerous poisons hide beneath sweet honey.

Here Dipsas reaches the end of her instruction, so she brings her speech around to herself. The puella, she says, will benefit by, and be grateful for, her advice. (Perhaps she is winding up for a pitch that the puella should send money her way.) The lover’s shadow betrays him, and he can barely keep from assaulting her; the poem ends with his curse on her (111–14). The underlying fact assumed by both Dipsas and Acanthis is that the puella must earn her own living. Their argument actually revolves around the next step: how much she should dedicate herself to gaining money. In their view, the puella has no time to lose—not even for love, and certainly not for poetry—so she must exercise every possible opportunity to charge money or to raise her price. Thus the primary principle of the lena’s argument is one that the lover-poet can hardly bear: that sexual fidelity to a single man is not only a pointless waste of time and resources but even, as it were, a form of negligence, of personal and professional irresponsibility.127 So the puella, according to Acanthis and Dipsas, must be unfaithful: a courtesan relying on a single lover—especially a useless poor poet—is at best a fool. Each such woman needs therefore to practice infidelity assiduously. Acanthis directly relates deception and promiscuity to material wealths: if you like luxuries,128 she tells the puella, you must be ready to cheat (Prop. 4.5.21–28). Chastity, it turns out, is a property granted by male sexual indifference: ludunt formosae: casta est quam nemo rogavit (Am. 1.8.43: “Pretty girls play around: she’s chaste whom nobody has pursued”). Such a thesis

Men, Women, Poetry, and Money

/

65

can, of course, only drive an elegiac lover-poet mad with rage. A supporting point follows naturally, to the further derangement of the lover-poet: that the puella must take advantage of youth and beauty while she can. The passage of destructive time is a favorite persuasive point for the lover-poet, who uses it to support his argument that the puella should grant him her sexual favors immediately (Tib. 1.1.69–74; Prop. 1.19.25–26, 2.15.49–54; Ars 3.59–82; as noted above). Here that same point is deployed against him. Dipsas’s rhetoric is so perfectly matched against his that he treats her, as Gross (1996: 197) argues, as a rival “who possesses the potential to undermine or disrupt the very axioms on which an amatory relationship is based and thereby to displace him.” With these two principles—that the puella should practice infidelity and promiscuity, and that she must take advantage of her youth and beauty while she can—firmly established, the lena can move on to methodology, which is primarily deception. Dipsas and Acanthis explicate the various strategies that a courtesan must use in her program of draining a man’s bank account, the first being deception, and the second being to maintain his interest by way of various methods. As I noted above, we can see the docta puella practicing these principles, strategies, and tactics throughout elegy.129 First, on the principle that everyone must pay to get into her bedroom, the puella should ignore class, status, background, and profession (Prop. 4.5.49–54, Am. 1.8.63–66). Complaints about this exact behavior occur at Propertius 1.8, 2.16, 2.32, Tibullus 1.6, 2.3, and Amores 3.8. From this principle it follows that impoverished poets or the formerly wealthy should not be preferred or given a discount: Propertius 4.5.53–58 and Amores 1.8.57–66. The elegiac lover-poets lament this phenomenon in Tibullus 2.4, Propertius 2.16, and Ars amatoria 2.273–86 and argue against it everywhere. The poor lover should be locked out but the generous one received (Prop. 4.5.47–48, Am. 1.8.77); this principle is enacted or bemoaned at Tibullus 1.5.67–68, Amores 3.8.1–10, and Propertius 2.16. Logically, given these principles, the puella must practice deceit of all sorts, not sexual deceit alone. Thus, advises Acanthis, she can drive up her price by pretending she has a vir: et simulare virum pretium facit (4.5.29: “Also, it drives up your price to pretend you have a man”).130 Dipsas assumes that the puella will actually have another man around, and instructs her in the utility of this suitor. This strategy both raises the price and creates exciting intrigue that will help to keep the lover interested. The praeceptor Amoris advises this same stratagem (3.579–610), though for the latter motive only, and Propertius 2.23.19–20 complains of it. Other ways of keeping up the lover’s interest include regularly refusing him on the

66

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

grounds of illness (Am. 1.8.73) or the rituals of Isis (Prop. 2.33, 4.5.34; Am. 1.8.74). As Conte (1994: 49) notes, these rules (also recommended by the praeceptor in Ars 3) are “a true grammar of actions that are the duty of the elegiac puella, who is supposed to dispense shrewdly not only erotic satisfactions but also calculated and seductive erotic disappointments.” The puella may use other tactics such as inventing an error by him, which requires him to pay up before making up (Prop. 4.5.31–32; Am. 1.8.79–80). Rivals increase a lover’s interest (Prop. 4.5.39–40, Am. 1.8.95, Ars 3.593–94).131 The puella should feel free to lie to him (Prop. 4.5.27–28, Am. 1.8.85–86). Excuses for getting gifts and money include conveniently timed birthdays (Am. 1.8.93–94, Prop. 4.5.35–36) and loans (Am. 1.8.101–2). In addition to the puella, the rest of her household must play its part in getting gifts and goods out of the lover (Prop. 4.5.35–36, Am. 1.8.87–92). Table 1 lays out all these instructions and the points at which they are practiced or cited in elegy; it is a representative rather than exhaustive list. Both the pervasiveness of these stratagems throughout elegy and the persistence with which the lover-poets complain about them further demonstrate the material basis of the genre and thus further mark the docta puella’s identity and profession as generic rather than individual. The lena’s advice, however, seems to overshadow the puella’s practice of it— commentators, for instance, note such instances (see Barsby 1973 and McKeown 1987 on Am. 1.8) but do not make the connection that the generic puella engaging regularly in these tactics is necessarily a professional, and that Dipsas and Acanthis, far from corrupting innocent young girls, merely solidify strategies and principles that the puellae already know. In other words, the lena’s speech procures the puella’s pardon from both lover-poet and many readers, who have not understood that Dipsas and Acanthis, rather than perverting the innocent puella, are simply articulating the principles that drive many of the episodes and laments of elegy.132 As I hope to have demonstrated here, the elegiac docta puella practices the arts of her profession expertly, and Roman love elegy implicitly dramatizes her strategies everywhere. When the lover-poet complains about them, he casts them for the most part as the character flaws of a given woman who is inconstant, unfaithful, greedy, and capricious.133 Thus, whenever the puella hears these complaints, she can only think that he knew what he was getting into when he became attached to her, and that such complaints are disingenuous—designed, like nearly everything else said to her in elegy, to get her to comply with his wishes, and admit him into her bedroom without charge. Kratins (1963: 157) remarks that Amores 1.8 “gives us a glimpse behind the backdrops of the stage in which the lover’s

table 1. The Lena’s Advice, Enacted in Elegy Lesson

Acanthis (Prop. 4.5)

Dispas (Am. 1.8)

All that matters is money.

line 53

Class and status of suitors don’t matter.

line 53

lines 61–66

Poetry is useless.

lines 55–58

lines 57–62

Puellae like luxuries.

lines 21–26

Pretend it’s your birthday / celibacy ritual to Isis. A rival (invented, if necessary) keeps a lover’s interest alive.

lines 33–36

lines 74, 93–94

lines 29, 39–40

lines 95–100; cf. Ars 3.593–600

line 30

lines 73–76 lines 73–74

Regularly lock him out. Pretend to be ill or have a headache. Pretend to be jealous of a rival girl. Break dates for promised nights. Time is passing; take advantage of youth. Lock out the impoverished man. Learn to weep on command, as tears weaken a lover. Don’t hesitate to lie.

lines 79–80; cf. Ars 3.675–78 lines 33–34 lines 59–62

lines 47–48

lines 49–54 see also Ars 3.59–80 lines 77–78 lines 83–84

lines 27–28

lines 85–86

In Elegy Prop. 2.16.11–12 Tib. 1.5.67–68 Tib. 2.4.14 Am. 3.8.9–10, Rem. 305–6 Prop. 1.8; 2.16.27–28 Tib. 1.6, 2.3.59–60 Tib. 2.4.13–20 Am. 3.8 Ars 2.273–80, 3.547–52 Tib 2.3.49–58 Am. 1.10 Prop. 1.2; 2.16, 24; 3.13 Ars 1.417–18, 429–30 Prop. 2.33 Am. 2.5, 3.3, 3.8, 11, 12, 14 Tib. 1.5, 1.6, 2.3 Prop. 1.8; 2.6, 8, 9, 16, 32 Prop. 2.17.12 Am. 2.19.11–12, 3.11.25–26 Ars 2.445–54 Prop. 2.20 Prop. 2.17 Tib. 1.8.63–64 passim, as seen in the puella’s infidelity Tib. 1.5.67–68 Prop. 1.16 Prop. 3.25.5–6 Tib. 2.6.41–43 passim; Am. 3.3, 11, 14 Prop. 1.15, 2.5.28

68

/

Concepts, Structures, and Characters

world exists. The reality behind the backdrops is disillusioning—deceitful, cynical and mercenary—and, although the poet is not attracted by innocent love and instead enjoys the sophisticated sexual game based on the existence of bawds and courtesans . . . he cannot quite admit such sordidness as the natural counterpart to his pleasant world of pretense.” The desire not to pay her provides another reason for this self-deceit, which the puella will, and the reader should, easily recognize as convenient and self-serving. CONCLUSION These discussions of the lover-poet, the docta puella, the vir, and the lena should establish the material background and social contexts in which the poetic-erotic adventures and interactions of Roman love elegy take place. Though, in fact, more could be said about each of these characters, I hope to have laid out adequately here the necessary parameters for the docta puella’s reading of elegy, which will follow in chapters 3 and 4. It bears repeating here that since the puella demands material rather than literary recompense for her sexual favors, she will listen with resistance to her loverpoet’s pleas to be allowed into her bedchamber either gratis or in exchange for poetry. A great majority of the contents of Roman love elegy are male sexual persuasion, both explicit and implicit, and keeping in mind its material and social conditions will help to make those forms of persuasion more evident. It will also help to demonstrate how this genre, which Gutzwiller (1985: 112) calls “intrinsically one-sided,” exposes its speakers as disingenuous, fully aware of the privileges they enjoy in the hierarchy of Roman social class, ready to exploit their every social, gender, and material advantage, in order to achieve their goal of unpurchased sexual access to the docta puella, who both professionally and generically cannot afford to grant it.

part ii

The Material Girls and the Arguments of Elegy; or, The Docta Puella Reads Elegy

This page intentionally left blank

3

Against the Greedy Girl; or, The Docta Puella Does Not Live by Elegy Alone

This chapter treats the kindred subjects of the greedy girlfriend and the generous rival. These topoi are related as follows: the puella demands gifts and money from her lovers (as advised by the lena; see chapter 2), the wealthy rival meets her demands, and the elegiac lover complains, arguing both that he has no means of paying her, since he is an impoverished poet, and that poetry is a better exchange for her favors than either concrete goods or coin. Underlying this set of demands and counterarguments are, first, the puella’s material needs, which her lover-poet attempts to ignore or to overcome with elegiac persuasion, which as we have seen is the natural speech of enamored poets, and second, the lover-poet’s generic voluntary poverty. Since nothing so crude as actual money is mentioned, the lover can characterize his beloved’s demands for gifts as deriving not from inevitable necessity, given her profession and social class, but from her personal avarice—in other words, not from need but from greed.1 The elegiac lovers use a variety of arguments to combat what they claim are unreasonable, unfair demands on their finances, including pleas of poverty, offers of poetry instead of gifts, mythological exempla, attempts to invoke feelings of either pity or guilt in the girl, and appeals to rather specious logic. When a wealthy and generous rival looms, the lover-poets attempt to discredit him by implying that his wealth is the spoils of violence and that he is unworthy of the puella. Read from the perspective of the female addressee, however, all these persuasive techniques ignore her material needs, as the docta puella cannot actually live on poetry alone. Further, since gifts of poetry are designed, in Tibullus’s significant phrase, to provide easy access to the puella (2.4.19: ad dominam faciles aditus), they are in fact suspect, the product not of the Muses’ inspiration but of calculating male sexual desire, as an appropriately learned and intelligent woman will figure out. Often the male 71

72

/

The Material Girls

persuasive strategies backfire by reminding the puella of her dependent status. Even the apparent capitulations are specious: Tibullus 2.4 suggests that the good, ungreedy puella (bona . . . nec avara, 45) will receive gifts from her lover after her death, when they will be of his choosing rather than hers, and can do her no material good; the clever twist of Ovid’s Amores 1.10, which promises to be generous if the puella will stop asking, aims not only to save the lover from requisite gift giving but to make her stop asking. These male persuasive strategies, intended to appeal to a learned female love object, cannot help failing, since they do not address the basic social inequities of the elegiac love relationship. As I have noted, the paradox of the docta puella is that she may well appreciate the artistic offerings of her lover but not be able to afford them, or at least not often (cf., for instance, Am. 3.8.5–8 and Prop. 2.26.21–26; see discussion below). To her, poems offer only elegiac male persuasion, but no material benefit, and they underscore the gender divide of elegy, in which the male speaker retains a financial advantage over his beloved, despite his claims to be her helpless slave. VOLUNTARY POVERTY AND THE ELEGIAC RECUSATIO From the perspective of the docta puella, the generic Alexandrian recusatio that is programmatic to elegy establishes the lover as poor by choice and thus unlikely to offer her much material opportunity. That is, he refuses to pursue a career that might reward him financially,2 in favor of serving his mistress; in return, he expects his puella to do likewise and reject monetary concerns, at least in his case (cf. Rosivach 1986: 183–84).3 (Naturally, he retains the ancestral respectability that allows him to feel superior to the wealthy, but lower-class, rival.) Thus elegy establishes an insoluble tension between the impoverished but noble lover-poet and his financially needy girlfriend, who, it should be noted, does not have the opportunities that he rejects. From her point of view, then, her lover-poet’s claims of poverty are false because that condition is optional. Further, the elegiac recusatio is doubly suspect because, unlike the original Callimachean gesture of refusal, it is not based on a purely aesthetic principle but is instead a generic strategy employed in the pursuit of sex. That is, where the original Alexandrian recusatio claimed no motive other than a literary one for rejecting epic poetry, the Roman elegiac recusatio initiates a program of poetry motivated by sexual desire, disguised as love.4 It is functional and strategic rather than aesthetic; hence its sincerity is dubious, at least from the perspective of its chief beneficiary, the docta puella to whom the subsequent poetic production will be addressed. And since elegy and elegiac speech are consistently

Against the Greedy Girl

/

73

identified as the necessary language in matters of love (see chapter 1, on hortatory elegy), whether for persuasion or for expression of such topoi as the recusatio, even the choice of meter already announces the poetic speech aimed at her as part of a genre of sexual persuasion.5 Voluntary poverty for the lover is in fact the opening move of elegy, as the docta puella will surely notice. It is the first topos of postprogrammatic elegy in Propertius’s Monobiblos (1.2) and is actually programmatic in Tibullus 1.1. This elegy establishes the opportunities rejected by the poet, who prefers a life of farming. Since all these rejections occur, like so much else in Tibullus, in hortatory subjunctives, they are even more overtly marked as voluntary. Under the guise of a prayer, the very beginning of Tibullus’s corpus links elegiac love with deliberate penury:6 divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat auro et teneat culti iugera multa soli, quem labor adsiduus vicino terreat hoste, Martia cui somnos classica pulsa fugent; me mea paupertas vita traducat inerti, dum meus adsiduo luceat igne focus. (1–6) Let some other man pile up gleaming gold for himself, and own many acres of tilled earth— the one whom constant struggle terrorizes, when the enemy is near, and whose sleep the trumpet blasts of war chase away; let my poverty draw me away in a lazy life, as long as my hearth burns with a constant fire.

The poem goes on to describe a comfortable and generous establishment— no subsistence farming in elegy, after all—but not an especially grand one.7 Notably, however, this life unburdened by politics, business, and war leaves the lover free to devote himself to his beloved:8 non ego divitias patrum fructusque requiro, quos tulit antiquo condita messis avo: parva seges satis est, satis est requiescere lecto si licet et solito membra levare toro. quam iuvat immites ventos audire cubantem et dominam tenero continuisse sinu aut gelidas hibernus aquas cum fuderit Auster, securum somnos imbre iuvante sequi! hoc mihi contingat: sit dives iure, furorem qui maris et tristes ferre potest pluvias. (41–50) I don’t need the riches and fruits of fathers, which the harvest established by an ancient ancestor provided:

74

/

The Material Girls

a small field is enough; it’s enough to rest on my couch, if that’s allowed, and to relieve my limbs on my customary bed. How pleasant it is to hear the harsh winds while lying in bed and to hold my mistress to my soft side or when the winter south wind pours down freezing waters, to seek sleep safely, to the pleasing sound of rain! Let this be my fortune: let that man be wealthy by right, who can tolerate the ocean’s rage and harsh rainstorms.

Very cleverly, this poem proposes as the source of dispute between lovers not his penury and her need, but his impending absence on a profiteering military expedition: o quantum est auri pereat potiusque smaragdi, / quam fleat ob nostras ulla puella vias (51–52: “Oh, let however much there is of gold and emeralds be destroyed rather than that any girl should weep on account of my travels”). His patron Messalla, he says, can go on missions and bring back spoils (53–54), for he himself has already been taken prisoner: me retinent vinctum formosae vincla puellae (55: “The chains of a beautiful girl hold me captive”). Immediately, the lover-poet volunteers for another useful loss connected to his sacrifice of money and military victory—his personal glory: non ego laudari curo, mea Delia: tecum / dum modo sim, quaeso segnis inersque vocer (57–58: “I don’t care for being praised, my Delia, as long as / I am with you, I seek to be called lazy and inactive”).9 This rhetorical move is designed to establish an agreement, an exchange, between lover and beloved: he abandons fame—always a goal for noble Romans—and even incurs blame (to be segnis, lazy, and iners, inactive, is unthinkable for a traditional elite Roman male),10 as long as they are together, a period he immediately designates as lifelong: te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora, / et teneam moriens deficiente manu (58–59: “May I be looking at you, when my final hour has come upon me, / and may I hold you with my failing hand as I die”). The description of his death rituals, which takes another four couplets, then leads easily into a plea—based on the perfectly natural fear that death is nigh, for a man still young and fit enough to serve on a military mission!—that Delia grant him her sexual favors: interea, dum fata sinunt, iungamus amores: / iam veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput (69–70: “Meanwhile, as long as the fates are allowing it, let us join loves: / already Death is coming, its head covered by shadows”). If Death seems distant, however, there’s always disfiguring, unattractive, and embarrassing old age to be cheated by means of present sex: iam subrepet iners aetas, nec amare decebit, / dicere nec cano blanditias capite. / nunc levis est tractanda venus, dum frangere postes / non

Against the Greedy Girl

/

75

pudet et rixas inseruisse iuvat (71–74: “Already inactive old age is sneaking up, and it will be inappropriate to love / or to speak flatteries with a whitehaired head./ Now must light-hearted sex be engaged in, while it’s not shameful / to break doorposts and it’s still fun to get into sexual quarrels”).11 The exchange of money, glory, and risk for poverty, anonymity, and love is thus complete, and the poem returns to its beginning: hic ego dux milesque bonus: vos, signa tubaeque, ite procul, cupidis vulnera ferte viris, ferte et opes: ego composito securus acervo dites despiciam despiciamque famem. (75–78) In this arena I’m a good general and soldier: you, standards and trumpets, go far away, bring wounds to greedy men, and bring them wealth, too; let me, safe on my piled-up harvest heap, despise wealth, and despise hunger.

Thus, despite its wishful and wistful atmosphere, this poem proposes, to the lover’s satisfaction, an arrangement that erases anybody’s need for money and therefore eliminates the beloved’s grounds for expensive demands.12 Read from Delia’s point of view, however, its sacrifice is both voluntary and self-serving, designed to create his access to her without material benefit to herself. Propertius’s Monobiblos likewise announces early on the lover-poet’s condition of inglory and penury assumed on account of love, though his speaker seems less pleased with the arrangement than Tibullus’s. In poem 1.6,13 the lover explicitly does not fear the dangers of travel and warfare— he consistently claims that he is prevented from any public activity like war or epic poetry, because a conspiracy of hostile gods, fates, and the tyranny of Cynthia have forced him into a different, and harsh, kind of service. He would travel all over with Tullus, but Cynthia restrains him (1–6). He contemplates the benefits intellectual and financial of a long voyage, and ponders whether they are worth the punishment Cynthia will mete out if he goes: an mihi sit tanti doctas cognoscere Athenas atque Asiae veteres cernere divitias, ut mihi deducta faciat convicia puppi Cynthia et insanis ora notet manibus? (13–16) Or is it worth so much to me to get to know learned Athens and gaze upon the wealth of Asia, that Cynthia should complain harshly at me when the ship was departing and mark my face with her crazed hands?

76

/

The Material Girls

Unlike himself, Tullus is actually safe, never having fallen in love and thus being at leisure to defend his country (21–26), says the poet-lover, who then claims that his love-slavery is involuntary: non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus armis: / hanc me militiam fata subire volunt (1.6.29–30: “I wasn’t born ideal for praise, nor for weapons: / the fates want me to undergo this other kind of warfare”).14 As a recusatio of lucrative military service, Propertius 1.6—rather than proposing a bargain between lover and beloved—makes the excuse of inability. Though this poem doesn’t assume poverty in the same overt fashion as Tibullus 1.1, the “wealths of Asia” indicate the profit motives of the rejected military mission and thus imply a financial opportunity lost to the speaker.15 But like Tibullus 1.1, it assumes character flaws incurred in the service of love, flaws that prevent military duty. The lover-poet’s claims that Cynthia physically restrains him, and that his servitium amoris is harsh, are intended to exculpate him from the charges of cowardice and laziness—his character flaw is extrema nequitia, line 26, a defect rather vaguer than inertia, but certainly not one that any traditional Roman noble would have proclaimed. This poem is a more bitter and morose recusatio than Tibullus 1.1, but its ultimate effect is the same: it makes the Propertian lover-poet’s claim that he is not fit for profitable public, military duty because of love. The next poem offers the same argument about epic poetry. The structures are similar: a friend—Tullus in 1.6, Ponticus in 1.7—has opportunities refused by the lover-poet. In 1.7, Ponticus can write a great epic, equal to the Iliad, but the elegiac lover must stick to his pathetic love poetry: Dum tibi Cadmeae dicuntur, Pontice, Thebae armaque fraternae tristia militiae, atque, ita sim felix, primo contendis Homero (sint modo fata tuis mollia carminibus), nos, ut consuemus, nostros agitamus amores,16 atque aliquid duram quaerimus in dominam; nec tantum ingenio quantum servire dolori cogor et aetatis tempora dura queri. (1–8) While the sad weapons and fraternal warfare of Cadmus’s Thebes are being related by you, Ponticus, and—may I only be so lucky—you’ll compete with Homer for first place (only let the fates be kind to your poems): I, as usual, am chasing after my love affairs, and seeking remedy against my harsh mistress; and I’m forced to serve not my talent as much as grief, and to complain about the harsh times of my life.

Against the Greedy Girl

/

77

Here the lover-poet identifies his inglorious (and, ultimately, unprofitable) poetic practice as inevitable not because of his defective talent but because of his passion (7–8). He takes some pride in this function and, in fact, hopes to be of use to other unhappy lovers: hic mihi conteritur vitae modus, haec mea fama est, hinc cupio nomen carminis ire mei. me laudent doctae solum placuisse puellae, Pontice, et iniustas saepe tulisse minas; me legat assidue post haec neglectus amator, et prosint illi cognita nostra mala. (9–14) In this way the length of my life is being worn away, this is my fame, from this direction I want the name of my poetry to go. Let them praise me as the only one to have pleased a learned girl, Ponticus, and for having often tolerated unfair threats; let some abandoned lover read me constantly after such troubles, and may my evils, once he’s learned of them, be helpful to him.

He warns Ponticus not to boast too much about his poetry, for Cupid strikes harder when arriving late, and if Ponticus falls in love, he’ll have to give up epic, for war poetry does not appeal to the docta puella (or if it did, it probably would not provide the results an elegiac lover-poet wants): et frustra cupies mollem componere versum / nec tibi subiciet carmina serus Amor17 (19–20: “And in vain you’ll want to write soft poetry, / but delayed Love won’t provide you poems”). In the rest of this poem, the lover-poet proclaims that ultimately he will receive recognition for the public service his poetry performs—but that recognition will come posthumously from other enamored young men, and can thus be of no political or financial value to him.18 Propertius 1.7 and 1.9 dramatize the steps of the recusatio and the subsequent assumption of hortatory elegy—a language characterized in opposition to the noble poems of myth, epic, and science. In 1.7, as noted above, the lover-poet warns that if Ponticus should fall in love, he would seek to make elegy, too. Sure enough, in poem 9, Ponticus has fallen in love and will, according to Propertius’s speaker, have to turn to love poetry:19 quid tibi nunc misero prodest grave dicere carmen aut Amphioniae moenia flere lyrae? plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero: carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor. i quaeso et tristis istos compone libellos, et cane quod quaevis nosse puella velit! (9–14)

78

/

The Material Girls

What good does it do you now, you wretch, to sing a heavy song or to weep the walls of Amphion’s lyre? Mimnermus’s poetry does more good when you’re in love than Homer’s: peaceful Love wants soft songs. Go on, I dare you, and put away those unhappy volumes, and sing what any girl would want to hear!

This poem virtually performs Ponticus’s recusatio for him, and in its erotodidaxis (“teaching of love”; see appendix) fully identifies elegy as the required language of love, a language that mandates abandonment of epic, a language designed to appeal to women.20 It thus marks the elegiac recusatio as a gesture necessitated by genre, and if embrace of the genre is, as Propertius’s poetry depicts it, involuntary (because love overpowers even the epic poet), it is not therefore immediate and inevitable. The recusatio of epic and the assumption of elegy are here shown as the first step in any poet’s love affair, but Ponticus’s resistance, implicit in 15–18 and even the final couplet, 33–34, suggests that elegy, along with its attendant slavery and poverty, may be more voluntary than the Propertian speaker claims.21 Propertius 3.23, at the end of Propertius’s love poetry, reinforces the nature of elegiac speech as learned, designed to please girls, and incompatible with profit-making. The lover-poet has lost his writing tablets, which have previously served him well, by means of the inscription of elegiac persuasion: Ergo tam doctae nobis periere tabellae, scripta quibus pariter tot periere bona! has quondam nostris manibus detriverat usus, qui non signatas iussit habere fidem. illae iam sine me norant placare puellas et quaedam sine me verba diserta loqui. (1–6) So my very learned writing-tablets have been lost, with which so many effective phrases have been lost! The usage of my own hands wore them down long ago, which assured confidence in them, even without my seal. Even without me they knew how to pacify girls, and to speak certain learned words without me.

These tablets successfully transported messages between lover and puella; most important of all, they arranged assignations with the right kind of girl: non stulta puella / garrula (17–18: “a talkative girl, not a foolish one”). The tablets have fallen into enemy hands—that is, the lover fears they’ve become merchant account books, the most vile use of all22—and their loss pains the lover-poet (19–20) so much that he actually offers a reward for

Against the Greedy Girl

/

79

them (21–24), the very thing he hates to give his mistress: quas si quis mihi rettulerit, donabitur auro: / quis pro divitiis ligna retenta velit? (21–22: “If anybody brings them back to me, he’ll be rewarded with gold: / who would want wood kept in place of riches?”). This poem, right at the end of Propertius’s official amatory corpus, emphatically opposes love poetry and profit, and overtly identifies the purpose of learned elegiac speech as sexual persuasion (here, ironically, performed almost without the lover-poet’s participation). Such an identification will of course hardly be news to a docta puella. Ovid’s version of the recusatio follows the course identified in Propertius 1.7 by showing elegy as the inevitable result when any epic poet falls in love. His speaker wittily blames Cupid: the lover-poet claims to have been preparing to compose an epic when the naughty little god attacked and turned him to elegy instead (Am. 1.1.1–4). The poet protests, eventually arguing that his material isn’t right for elegy and he isn’t in love: nec mihi materia est numeris levioribus apta, / aut puer aut longas compta puella comas (19–20: “I have neither material suited for lighter meters, / nor a boy or a girl with long, styled hair”).23 The solution to this impasse? Cupid’s arrow, of course: the god strikes, the poet burns, and accepts elegy as his genre—no more public, war poetry for this elegist:24 me miserum! certas habuit puer ille sagittas: uror, et in vacuo pectore regnat Amor. sex mihi surgat opus numeris, in quinque residat; ferrea cum vestris bella valete modis. (25–28) Woe is me! That boy had unerring arrows: I’m on fire, and Love rules in my previously empty breast. Let my work rise up in six feet, and fall back in five;25 farewell, iron wars, with your meters.

So facetious a recusatio could hardly convince any docta puella that this particular lover-poet is a sincere suitor, especially in combination with the following two poems.26 Amores 1.3 especially points out the guile of this amator, who first announces that he’s fallen in love with a girl, claims the usual lack of resources, then announces his literary bona fides as compensation. His family isn’t elite and his parents aren’t wealthy (7–10), but he has other advantages to offer: at Phoebus comitesque novem vitisque repertor hac faciunt et, me qui tibi donat, Amor et nulli cessura fides, sine crimine mores, nudaque simplicitas purpureusque pudor. (11–14)27

80

/

The Material Girls

But Apollo and his nine companions and the Finder of Grapes perform this function, and Love, who grants me to you, and Faith yielding to nobody, habits without accusation, and naked sincerity, and blushing modesty.

Further, the lover-poet promises, not only will he be faithful (15–18)—he’ll make her famous as well: te mihi materiem felicem in carmina praebe, provenient causa carmina digna sua. carmine nomen habent exterrita cornibus Io et quam fluminea lusit adulter ave quaeque super pontum simulato vecta iuvenco virginea tenuit cornua vara manu. nos quoque per totum pariter cantabimur orbem iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis. (1.3.19–26) Provide yourself to me as happy subject for song: the songs will come out worthy of their cause. In song Io, terrified by her horns, has a name, and the girl whom the adulterer tricked in the shape of a water bird, and the one carried over the ocean, when he was disguised as a bull, who held the curving horns in her virginal hand. We too shall be jointly sung throughout the entire world and my name will always be linked to yours.

As every reader of this poem notices, here the lover-poet draws on the mythic exempla of three victims of that divine serial rapist Jupiter—Io, Leda, and Europa—though naming only Io, and then in his promise to link his puella’s name with his own, leaves out her name entirely.28 Thus Amores 1.3 virtually assures even a minimally learned puella that this particular suitor will travel on at some point. Further, the overprotestations of 13–15, especially purpureus pudor, combined with the utter anonymity of this puella—no name, no identifying features, no details of any kind—virtually advertise the generic nature of the elegiac penury (or modest finances, at any rate) identified in 7–10, and make unmistakable the calculation behind the exchange of voluntarily impoverished versification for sex and the life of romantic elegiac liaisons. Amores 1.15 further marks the opposition of elegy and profit, this time adding a new lucrative profession to be avoided by the lover-poet—law. The poem’s opening identifies elegy in the usual fashion, as useless, virtually motionless: Quid mihi, Livor edax, ignavos obicis annos ingeniique vocas carmen inertis opus,

Against the Greedy Girl

/

81

non me more patrum, dum strenua sustinet aetas, praemia militiae pulverulenta sequi nec me verbosas leges ediscere nec me ingrato vocem prostituisse foro? (1–6) Why, consuming Envy, do you criticize my age as lazy and call my poetry the work of an inactive talent, and criticize me because I don’t, in the custom of my ancestors, while I’m young and strong, pursue the dusty prizes of warfare nor learn windbaggy laws nor sell out my voice in the unappreciative forum?

The amator goes on to claim that the energetic pursuits recommended by Livor are temporary (mortale opus, 7), while the fame his poetry brings him will make him immortal, and he adduces the usual examples of literary fame from the past, which end, significantly, with elegy: donec erunt ignes arcusque Cupidinis arma, discentur numeri, culte Tibulle, tui; Gallus et Hesperiis et Gallus notus Eois, et sua cum Gallo nota Lycoris erit. (27–30) As long as there are fires and arrows, Cupid’s weapons, your verses, learned Tibullus, will be learnt; Gallus will be known in the West, and Gallus will be known in the East, and along with Gallus, his Lycoris will also be known.

This latter comment, of course, is the persuasive tactic of Amores 1.3, to grant poetic immortality to the unnamed beloved. This sphragis (“seal,” concluding) poem argues that any use of language besides poetry is venal; it thus places poetry on a higher, if less remunerative, plane of human activity, and attempts to place elegy among the higher orders of poetry, as well. But the next poem, Amores 2.1,29 jerks the amator back to reality and reminds both him and the readers that elegy has a mortal, earthbound purpose, one that separates it from other forms of poetic composition. Amores 2.1 overtly reiterates the reasons behind the elegiac recusatio of public poetry. Trying once again to write war poetry, Ovid’s alter ego is foiled once again by love (2.1.11–22). Though the amator defends himself by praising the power even of love poetry (23–28), as he has done in 1.15, the closing poem of the previous book, he specifies that epic is of no use to him in matters of the heart (29–32) and goes on to describe the utility of love poetry (33–38).30 These sites in Ovid’s elegy further mark the recusatio of public, remu-

82

/

The Material Girls

nerative poetry, a gesture that his eponymous speaker, like Propertius’s, feels inclined or obliged to repeat. Since, as I have argued, Ovid’s elegiac practice exposes the previously more covert strategies of elegy, the programmatic opening of his Amores makes evident the generic functions operating behind the elegiac recusatio of public poetry and military service. Those functions are persuasive, intended to exchange one of the lover-poet’s several options for the puella’s only resource—sex. That is, from the perspective of the docta puella, the penury and unremunerative elegy assumed in the elegiac recusatio are voluntary, optional, since the lover can always return to other activities and careers (as, indeed, he usually claims to do at the end of each poet’s elegiac opus), but the sex demanded by the lover in that recusatio is the only thing she has to offer, and once she has given it up, she loses all her leverage31 in this relationship—a relationship that, despite the protestations of the lovers, is unequal and temporary. Thus she will necessarily view the recusatio with suspicion. Ovid’s Ars amatoria does not advise voluntary poverty for its pupils, as it purports to be a love manual rather than a love poetry manual, but it certainly advises voluntary thrift in pursuit of love: hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi (Ars 1.454: “This is the task, this is the struggle, to be joined first without having to give a gift”). The section of Ars 1 prior to instruction on courtship details the financial risks to hopeful lovers, who must constantly guard their wallets from the depradations of elegiac puellae. The way to maneuver around and through this situation is through speech, specifically elegiac flatteries: ergo eat et blandis peraretur littera verbis (455: “Therefore let a letter go first and be scratched through with soft words”). Though the praeceptor does not assume here that every pupil can write good elegy, he openly recommends elegiac language; specifically, he instructs his students in the art of writing persuasive love letters, which are perhaps the next best thing to poetry. Thus Ovid further identifies elegiac language as the generic speech of lovers unwilling to pay for sex. The rich guy will always win, says the praeceptor in Ars 2, so the poor guy must be cautious, meek, and, above all, flattering: non ego divitibus venio praeceptor amandi; nil opus est illi, qui dabit, arte mea. secum habet ingenium qui, cum libet, “accipe” dicit; cedimus, inventis plus placet ille meis. pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi; cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam. pauper amet caute, timeat maledicere pauper,

165

Against the Greedy Girl multaque divitibus non patienda ferat. me memini iratum dominae turbasse capillos; haec mihi quam multos abstulit ira dies! nec puto nec sensi tunicam laniasse, sed ipsa dixerat, et pretio est illa redempta meo. at vos, si sapitis, vestri peccata magistri effugite et culpae damna timete meae.

/

83

170

I don’t come here as a teacher of love for rich men; the one who gives has no need for my art. He has his own talent who says, “This is for you!” whenever he wants; I concede, he’s more popular than my creations. I’m a bard for poor men, because I was an impoverished lover; 165 since I couldn’t give gifts, I gave words.32 Let the poor man love carefully, let the poor man fear cursing, and let him put up with many things not tolerated by the rich. I remember when I got angry and messed up my mistress’s hair; how many days that anger stole away from me! 170 And I don’t think I tore her tunic, and I didn’t feel myself doing it, but she said so, and it was bought back with my money. But you fellows, if you’re smart, avoid the mistakes of your teacher, and fear the damages of my error.

This passage assumes a generic state of poverty for love poets, and since, as noted above, the praeceptor does not expect that every male reader of his textbook will be a thwarted, enamored epic poet in need of elegiac composition, he advises a nonpoetic sort of recusatio for his pupils—a financial recusatio, as it were, a strategy that requires the same sorts of speech and words as elegy. The praeceptor advises his pupils to act poor, to pursue sex and love without using money. Thus Ovid establishes the voluntary poverty of the recusatio as generic not only to love poets but to all young men in pursuit of love and sex. To a docta puella, then, reading the recusatio of epic and assumption of elegy, protestations of involuntary poverty incurred therein may well ring false, as elegy and elegiac language are identified as generic, and the recusatio is thus motivated by sexual desire rather than purely aesthetic principle. Ovid’s nearly relentless emphasis on the personal, financial, and sexual motivations underlying the recusatio identifies its elegiac incarnation as self-serving rather than aesthetic or divinely mandated. It is the first step in the love-war game (see Romano 1972: 817) of elegiac sexual relationships, and it marks the purpose of elegiac poetry as sexual persuasion directed by an elite male at a woman who cannot afford it.

84

/

The Material Girls

TO THE GREEDY GIRL Carmine formosae, pretio capiuntur avarae. Pretty girls are captivated by poetry, greedy girls by money. Corpus Tibullianum 1.1.7

Complaints about obligatory generosity recur throughout Roman elegy, and they come in a wide variety, exhibiting several persuasive approaches in their protests but never acknowledging that the demanding girl needs substance for her livelihood. Such an acknowledgment would require admitting that the inequity in the elegiac love affair in fact materially favors the lover over the beloved and would thus topple the reversed power structure of servitium amoris. So the lover-poets vociferously protest what they depict as the relentless demands of their mercenary sweethearts for needless, useless luxuries. They cover over, or erase, the obvious financial imbalance between lover and beloved—for if she were wealthy, or even materially comfortable and stable, the puella would presumably not be so demanding of her suitors—by depicting the gifts she requests as luxuries rather than necessities.33 The primary defenses are therefore offenses: first, to claim poverty, as established in the elegiac recusatio, and second, to characterize the puella as greedy rather than needy.34 Further strategies range from the emotional appeals of Tibullus 2.4, to the attempts of Propertius 1.2 to convince Cynthia that she is beautiful and accomplished and hence needs no costly adornment, to the implicit threats of Amores 1.10 that the greedy puella is less attractive. The Ars amatoria reverts obsessively to this theme (cf. Ars 1.405–36, 2.161–74, 2.273–80, 3.129–32, 3.533–52), expatiates on a variety of ways to deal with the problem, and complains bitterly about exigent puellae. Its ultimate counsel is that the prospective lover should always seem on the verge of giving without actually ever delivering and should use written flatteries—in other words, something like elegiac poems—to attempt evasion of requisite generosity.35 If one cannot avoid giving gifts, they should be cheap (Ars 2.261–70; on the inexpensive gifts preferred by lovers, see Sharrock 1991: 44–45). The elegiac lover-poets wax both emotional and rhetorical on the subject of their material girls, always decrying mandatory generosity and almost always attempting to refute the generic necessity of giving gifts. Further, they attempt to persuade their puellae that poetry is better than material gifts, that their poems should be more than enough. They try every approach but one: conspicuously missing from all the greedy girl elegies are actual promises of gifts. Tibullus introduces the topic of materialism in poem 1.4, the homosex-

Against the Greedy Girl

/

85

ual erotodidaxis of Priapus, but throughout his poetic corpus it applies equally to women. In fact, the Tibullan lover-poet criticizes the material girl far more harshly than the acquisitive boy, as he uses Priapus to attribute this fault in boys to an agent provocateur of some sort, and further uses the topic as a means of praising poetry: heu male nunc artes miseras haec saecula tractant: iam tener adsueuit munera velle puer. at tua, qui venerem docuisti vendere primus, quisquis es, infelix urgeat ossa lapis. Pieridas, pueri, doctos et amate poetas, aurea nec superent munera Pieridas. carmine purpurea est Nisi coma: carmina ni sint, ex umero Pelopis non nituisset ebur. quem referent Musae, vivet, dum robora tellus, dum caelum stellas, dum vehet amnis aquas. at qui non audit Musas, qui vendit amorem, Idaeae currus ille sequatur Opis, et tercentenas erroribus expleat urbes et secet ad Phrygios vilia membra modos. Alas, now the ages treat unhappy arts badly: already the tender boy has learned to want gifts. But you, who first taught how to sell love, whoever you are, may an unhappy stone weigh down your bones. Boys, love both the Muses and poets, for even golden gifts cannot conquer the Muses. Only in song is Nisus’s hair purple; if there were no songs, ivory would never have shone out of Pelops’s shoulder. The one whom the Muses sustain, shall live, while the earth bears trees, while the sky holds stars, while the river carries waters. But the one who doesn’t hear the Muses, who sells his love, may he chase the chariots of Ida’s Opis, and fill out three hundred cities in his wanderings, and cut off his lower members to Phrygian drumbeats.36

60

65

70

60

65

70

Despite its imprecation of self-castration upon the greedy boy, this complaint actually spends more time praising poetry, and therefore poets, than criticizing avaricious youths. In fact, the Tibullan lover-poet is generally very forgiving of Marathus, the love object of this poem: in 1.8, he urges Marathus’s new beloved, the girl Pholoe, to be easy on her young suitor. With Delia, the lover-poet is much more peremptory: in 1.5, after an extended fantasy of rural marriage to her and a long curse upon the lena

86

/

The Material Girls

advising her to demand gifts, he attempts to bully her into giving up her demands: at tu quam primum sagae praecepta rapacis / desere: nam donis vincitur omnis amor (59–60: “But you, abandon the teachings of that greedy witch / right now: for all love is destroyed by demands for gifts”). Adding a little sweetener to his threat, the lover-poet expands upon the virtues of the impoverished lover—service rather than material goods:37 pauper erit praesto tibi semper: pauper adibit primus et in tenero fixus erit latere; pauper in angusto fidus comes agmine turbae subicietque manus efficietque viam: pauper ad occultos furtim deducet amicos vinclaque de niveo detrahet ipse pede. (61–66) The poor man will always be right there for you: the poor man will arrive first and be stuck to your tender side; the poor man will be your companion in the narrow lines of the crowd and will stick out his hand and create a path for you: the poor man will secretly take you to your hidden friends and will himself remove the shoe from your snowy foot.

All in vain, of course, as persuasion cannot alter Delia’s material needs: heu canimus frustra nec verbis victa patescit / ianua sed plena est percutienda manu (67–68: “Alas, I’m singing pointlessly, for the door is not opening, conquered by my words / but must be knocked upon instead by a well-filled hand”). A brief threat to the wealthy lover follows, but since threats also cannot affect the situation, the lover-poet must content himself with standing guard in the usual fashion of the impecunious elegiac lover, in just the fashion he has previously described. And, of course, even to suggest the legitimacy of an exchange of services for sexual access already acknowledges the puella’s needs, if not for material goods then for services she might otherwise have to pay for. In other words, this passage implicitly admits that the lover owes his puella something, an admission she may be glad, if surprised, to see. In 1.8, the Tibullan lover-poet goes even further in granting the puella’s right to make demands, but he encourages her to make them of old men, who have to pay because they don’t really belong in the realms of love and sex (whereas youth should be freely indulged): munera ne poscas: det munera canus amator, ut foveat molli frigida membra sinu. carior est auro iuvenis, cui levia fulgent ora nec amplexus aspera barba terit. (29–32)

Against the Greedy Girl

/

87

And don’t be asking for gifts: let a white-haired lover give gifts, so that he can warm up his frozen limbs in a soft lap. A young man is more precious than gold, whose light face shines and on whose embraces a harsh beard does not grate. neu Marathum torque: puero quae gloria victo est? in veteres esto dura, puella, senes (49–50) And don’t torment Marathus—what glory is there in a conquered boy? Be hard on the old men, girl.

Still, the lover-poet doesn’t feel that he should have to pay for love, whether with a boy or a girl, and his primary strategy in combatting the demands of his beloveds is to threaten that their intransigence will come back to haunt them.38 Poem 1.9 continues to rant about greedy boys, blaming chiefly that corrupter of love, the ugly rich old man. Poem 2.3 introduces the demanding puella Nemesis, who is consistently associated with greed for needless luxuries. She is in the country villa of a former slave, now a member of the nouveau riche, and the lover-poet laments the typical female greed that impoverishes him: heu heu divitibus video gaudere puellas: iam veniant praedae, si Venus optat opes: ut mea luxuria Nemesis fluat utque per urbem incedat donis conspicienda meis. (49–52) Alas, alas, I see that girls rejoice in riches: now let booty come forth, if Venus desires wealth: so that my Nemesis may float in luxury and go about through the city, to be admired in my gifts.

In the final couplet, the lover-poet heads off to the country, like a yoke animal, to his mistress’s fields (79–80).39 Reading this poem, Nemesis will find neither acknowledgment of her present and future material needs nor reason to abandon her generous suitor. It should perhaps, however, prepare her for the next poem, which addresses her directly. Poem 2.4 is Tibullus’s most extended expression of the greedy girl theme, and in it the lover-poet pulls out all the stops, relying heavily on appeals to pathos, mixed with a few warnings about how lonely the harsh and demanding girl will be when she’s old, and even suggests that rarest of things in elegy—a stable, long-term, marital relationship of lover and puella, in which the lover will bring gifts to his beloved’s grave after her death. What this elegy does not contain is a promise of gifts. It begins emotionally (though as Bright [1978: 207] remarks, “Rhetoric is . . .

88

/

The Material Girls

[its] dominant feature”), suggesting that the lover-poet must give up his ancestral liberty and enter into slavery, in which state he will be tortured by his puella (1–6). The speaker goes on to proclaim that he’d rather undertake the kinds of travels he has consistently refused in the past (especially in 1.1) than suffer his present misery (7–10). These lines reveal the obverse side of the bargain he originally offered Delia in 1.1: voluntary poverty and inglorious safety in exchange for his reception by her. Here he’d rather go on dangerous journeys than be treated cruelly by Nemesis (though both the form of her cruelty and her name have yet to be revealed). What is responsible for his present misery? The failure of elegy to override Nemesis’s demands: nunc et amara dies et noctis amarior umbra est: omnia nam tristi tempora felle madent. nec prosunt elegi nec carminis auctor Apollo: illa cava pretium flagitat usque manu. (2.4.11–14) Now the daytime is bitter and the shadow of night is even more bitter: for all the hours drip with miserable poison. And neither do elegies do any good, nor Apollo, the sponsor of poetry: that girl keeps demanding a price with her hollowed hand.

His poetry isn’t getting him where he wants to be—in his mistress’s bed.40 Why? She’s demanding gifts, which he claims he can provide only by means of crime, particularly against the goddess who has let him down: at mihi per caedem et facinus sunt dona paranda, ne iaceam clausam flebilis ante domum: aut rapiam suspensa sacris insignia fanis: sed Venus ante alios est violanda mihi. illa malum facinus suadet dominamque rapacem dat mihi: sacrilegas sentiat illa manus. (21–26)41 But I must provide gifts by means of slaughter and crime, so that I won’t have to lie weeping before her locked house: or I’ll snatch the standards hung on holy temples: but I must attack Venus before all others. For she urges evil crime and gives me a predatory mistress: let her feel my sacrilegious hands.

The typical curse follows on the discoverer of costly luxuries—for before girls knew of them, apparently they took lovers for free, but now they charge admission (27–34). Further standard imprecations ensue, on the divinity that made girls pretty and on the greedy girl herself (35–44). He hopes the greedy girl will suffer a violent death and enjoy no funeral mourning; as Bright

Against the Greedy Girl

/

89

(1978: 212–13) notes, this treatment genericizes both the greedy girl and her suitors, rather than arguing directly at Nemesis herself. At this point the lover-poet changes tactics and appears to make an offer, by way of praising the nonmaterialistic girl: at bona quae nec avara fuit, centum licet annos vixerit, ardentem flebitur ante rogum: atque aliquis senior veteres veneratus amores annua constructo serta dabit tumulo et “bene” discedens dicet “placideque quiescas, terraque securae sit super ossa levis.” (45–50) But the girl who was good and not greedy, may she live a hundred years and be wept for over her burning pyre: and some elderly gentleman, honoring their long love, will put an annual garland on her built-up tomb, and as he leaves, he’ll say, “May you rest well and quietly, and may the earth sit lightly over your bones.”

The present material value of such gifts is nil, however, so the rhetorical strategy being employed here is again an appeal to emotion (and an annual garland is less than munificent, in any case).42 The lover-poet seems to recognize the futility of asking his puella to be bona . . . nec avara, for he changes tactics again, this time appearing to give in: vera quidem moneo, sed prosunt quid mihi vera? illius est nobis lege colendus amor. quin etiam sedes iubeat si vendere avitas, ite sub imperium sub titulumque, Lares. quidquid habet Circe, quidquid Medea veneni, quidquid et herbarum Thessala terra gerit, et quod, ubi indomitis gregibus Venus adflat amores, hippomanes cupidae stillat ab inguine equae, si modo me placido videat Nemesis mea vultu, mille alias herbas misceat illa, bibam. (51–60) I’m making truthful warnings, but what good does the truth do me? I must cultivate love by her dictate. Wherefore, if she orders me to sell my ancestral properties, go under the sale-placard and under someone’s rules, Lares. Whatever poison Circe has, whatever Medea, and whatever herbs Thessaly bears, and whatever fluid, when Venus breaths passions into the untamed flock, drips from the loins of a mare in heat, if only Nemesis will look upon me with a peaceful face, let her mix up a thousand other potions, I will drink them.

90

/

The Material Girls

In this passage, the lover certainly seems to be conceding to his demanding girl, but in fact these lines offer her nothing. The exchange here is yet another form of the Tibullan speaker’s love-for-voluntary-loss offer: he’ll risk his life at her hands if only she’ll receive him.43 But he never says, in the words of Jupiter to Juno at Aeneid 12.833, do quod vis (“I give what you want”). His physical suffering does not bring Nemesis any good, material or other; thus she cannot perceive this deal as any kind of useful exchange for herself. Furthermore, this poem implicitly acknowledges throughout the loverpoet’s social and financial advantage over her: the specter of need that underlies the demands of the elegiac woman may recall to Nemesis her financial dependence upon her lovers. Despite the speaker’s claim to be enslaved to his beloved (2.4.1–4, 53–60) and her freedom to refuse him, he retains the upper hand outside their relationship because he has property (53) and she evidently does not. And the suggestion that she will be better rewarded by not asking than by asking is, from her perspective, disingenuous: if the good puella will receive gifts from her aged lover after her death, they will presumably be of his choosing rather than hers and will do her no material good. Given elegy’s distaste for sexual activity among the elderly, lines 45–49 conjure up not a stable extramarital liaison but a marriage, an event that elegy never even considers seriously. The prospect of marriage— an elegiac adunaton—may further remind Nemesis of her dependent, insecure social status, for as Veyne remarks (1988: 2), the elegiac lover will do anything for his beloved except marry her. Nemesis knows that her loverpoet will eventually move on, as Tibullus’s alter ego regularly does, so the suggestion of a long-term and stable relationship can carry no weight with her. Further, lines 19–20 make suspect his gifts of poetry, for a motive like the desire for sexual access implies little divine inspiration and is thus hardly likely to persuade a docta puella. In addition, the speaker complains copiously about Nemesis’s harshness and the criminal activities that he suggests will be his means of meeting her demands (a strategy less flattering than that of Prop. 1.2, which attempts to persuade Cynthia that she looks better without costly adornment). Read from Nemesis’s point of view, Tibullus 2.4 offers nothing substantive, not even the resigned promise of Ovid’s Amores 1.10.63–64, to give gifts if she stops demanding them. All it offers is a hint of praise in the distant future if she ceases to ask for gifts: the apparent capitulation of 53–54 (a rather impractical course of action)44 and 55–60 do not actually suggest that the speaker will bring her anything at all. Thus to Nemesis, this poem offers only elegiac male persuasion, but no material benefit.45 Finally, in the

Against the Greedy Girl

/

91

intransigence of both parties, it demonstrates the gender and class divide, for the puella cannot afford free love and the elite lover, who can afford to believe that he’s actually in love, can’t believe that it’s love if he has to pay for sex (or at least his girl’s time). Hence the elegiac impasse, in which the irresistible force and the immovable object (one is tempted to call them the irresistible object and the immovable force) conduct their amorous hostilities over love and material goods. Propertius’s Monobiblos heads straight into the problem of the demanding girlfriend. In fact, after the programmatic 1.1, the problem of money versus love is its opening move. Propertius’s alter ego takes a relatively flattering approach to Cynthia’s desire for expensive goods by arguing that she needs no costly adornments.46 He offers up the exempla of mythical heroines, who needed no jewelry or makeup to attract hero-lovers but undercuts this argument by comparing the faces of these mythic beauties to the artwork of Apelles—rather inapposite, given his prior statements that both Amor and nature need no decoration: nudus Amor formae non amat artificem (1.2.8: “Naked Love does not love the artificer of beauty”). As if recognizing this misstep, the lover immediately alters his tack slightly by claiming that it was the modesty (pudicitia, 24) of the heroines, rather than effort (studium, 23), that attracted their glorious lovers. Then he changes the subject to himself and Cynthia: he does not fear seeming worse (vilior, 25) than the heroes, for if a girl attracts just one man, she’s plenty adorned already. Especially, he goes on to say, because Cynthia has every possible charm, both physical and literary (27–30). The final couplet offers her an exchange rather like that offered to Delia in Tibullus 1.1—if you stay just this way, you’ll be the love of my life: his tu semper eris nostrae gratissima vitae, / taedia dum miserae sint tibi luxuriae (31–32: “On account of these graces, you’ll always be the most pleasing woman in my life, / as long as wretched luxuries disgust you”).47 Implicit in that dum (while) is a threat (also articulated in Ovid’s first poem on the same subject, Am. 1.10): if you keep asking for expensive gifts, I’ll stop wanting you.48 Evidently, however, flattery and appeals to myth are less successful than the lover-poet might like, for he must resort in 1.8 to distraught appeals to pathos, in his effort to keep Cynthia from going off to Illyria. For once, his strategy works, and he exults that though his rival had already given gifts and was poised to give more, Cynthia chose her poet instead—a feat he accomplished not by competitive donation, but by his poetry: quamvis magna daret, quamvis maiora daturus, / non tamen illa meos fugit avara sinus. / hanc ego non auro, non Indis flectere conchis, / sed potui blandi carminis obsequio (37–40: “Although he gave great gifts, although he was

92

/

The Material Girls

going to give greater ones, / nonetheless she did not greedily flee my embrace. / I was able to turn her not with gold, not with Indian conch shells, / but with the submission of soft song”). Similar triumphant sentiments famously recur in 2.14 and 2.15, in which the lover has attained everything he seeks from his girl, by pretending not to want her. Naturally, this being Propertius’s elegy, such a happy state of affairs can’t last: in the very next poem the amator has again lost his puella, whose material needs cannot be met by poetry. In 2.16, the hated Illyrian praetor has returned and is occupying her time and attention. The lover complains about Cynthia’s mercenary infidelity, contrasting his love and her avarice, though he advises her to use up the praetor’s profits and then send him back: Praetor ab Illyricis venit modo, Cynthia, terris, maxima praeda tibi, maxima cura mihi. (1–2) Your praetor has recently come back, Cynthia, from Illyrian lands, your greatest booty, my greatest worry. quare, si sapis, oblatas ne desere messis et stolidum pleno vellere carpe pecus; deinde, ubi consumpto restabit munere pauper, dic alias iterum naviget Illyrias! Cynthia non sequitur fascis nec curat honores, semper amatorum ponderat una sinus. (7–12) Therefore, if you’re smart, don’t abandon the offered harvests, and seize the dull sheep from a full flock; then, once his gifts are used up and he’s poor all over again, tell him to sail again through other Illyrias! Cynthia doesn’t follow standards, nor does she care about honors, but she alone always weighs the purses of her lovers.

The lover wishes a rather grotesque physical punishment for her greed (13–14, that her legs should break from constant sexual activity), then begins to complain about greedy girls and the materiality of the love life in modern Rome, in which pretty girls receive uncivilized, ugly, but generous suitors: ergo muneribus quivis mercatur amorem? Iuppiter, indigna merce puella perit. semper in Oceanum mittet me quaerere gemmas, et iubet ex ipsa tollere dona Tyro. atque utinam Romae nemo esset dives, et ipse straminea posset dux habitare casa!

15

20

Against the Greedy Girl

/

numquam venales essent ad munus amicae, atque una fieret cana puella domo; numquam septenas noctes seiuncta cubares, candida tam foedo bracchia fusa viro; non quia peccarim (testor te), sed quia vulgo formosis levitas semper amica fuit. barbarus exclusis agitat vestigia lumbis— et subito felix nunc mea regna tenet!49 Therefore can anyone buy love for gifts? Jupiter, a girl is being destroyed by unworthy material goods. She’s always sending me into the Ocean to seek jewels, and she orders me to take gifts from Tyre itself. I wish nobody at Rome were rich, and the leader himself could live in a thatched hut! Girlfriends would never be for sale in exchange for gifts, and a girl would grow white-haired in a single house. You would never lie for seven nights straight, your white arms wrapped around such a vile man; it’s not because I’ve done wrong (you can testify), but because fickleness was always a friend to pretty girls. That barbarian stamps his feet, when his loins have been shut out— and suddenly now he’s happy and holds my kingdoms!

93

25

15

20

25

After a very brief mythological example, the lover-poet returns to lamenting his own condition of rejection, then begins to warn and curse, using the example of Mark Antony, led to destruction by notorious passion (infamis amor, 39), and wishing destruction on all the luxuries given to Cynthia by the praetor (37–46). Finally, he resorts to threats of divine retribution, to be incurred by Cynthia because she has broken her faith with him—Jupiter will eventually punish her, he claims (47–56). Such warnings can, of course, hardly scare Cynthia, and they certainly will not affect her financial imperatives. Propertius 3.13 details the types of luxuries that the elegiac puella demands, and likewise blames general Roman wealth for her avarice: Quaeritis, unde avidis nox sit pretiosa puellis, et Venere exhaustae damna querantur opes. certa quidem tantis causa et manifesta ruinis: luxuriae nimium libera facta via est. (1–4) You’re asking why the night is so profitable for greedy girls, and wealths used up by Venus bemoan their ruin. There is indeed a sure and obvious cause for such disasters: the path for luxury has been made too free.

94

/

The Material Girls

This poem connects the avarice of the elegiac puella and the destruction of Rome by foreign wealth (a standard topos in Roman moral discourse), and describes a Rome in which conspicuous consumption of easily available foreign goods has infected all levels of society. Despite its claim to be concerned with greater public issues and morality, however, this poem’s true complaint is that girls don’t give in to persuasion but demand a price instead (13–14). In the old pastoral days, flowers and fruit sufficed as gift offerings in love (25–38, in general, and especially 33–34). Now, however, all sorts of foreign luxuries are openly required of suitors (5–14). This poem’s complaint about greedy girls (avidis puellis, 1) renders it a querela (complaint, lament), which is appropriate for Propertius, who uses laments as part of his persuasion. Nothing in this poem, however, is likely to convince the puella, for whom, as Gutzwiller (1985: 110) points out, the very luxuries condemned here are professional necessities. She will, rather, consider this poem evidence of her lover-poet’s miserliness. Unlike Tibullus and Propertius, Ovid is in no hurry to get the topic of complaining about the mercenary demands of the elegiac beloved. But in Amores 1.10, his major exposition of the theme, he more than makes up for the delay in a tour de force that applies all the persuasive techniques of elegy—appeals to logos, ethos, pathos, and mythohistoric exempla—and then appears, like Tibullus 2.4, to give in.50 Amores 1.10 begins, like Propertius 1.3, with a series of mythological references to the heroines Helen, Leda, and Amymone, whose beauty overwhelmed men and gods. You were like them, says the lover-poet to his puella, and I even feared that Jove himself would come assault you (1–8). But now things have changed, and I’ve recovered from that madness. Why? Because you’re asking for gifts (9–12). McKeown (1989) ad loc. notes that the puella’s request for gifts is “not so very reprehensible,” so that the amator is shown to be overreacting. The gifts do, however, serve a significant function for the puella, who needs material goods as well as cash in order to maintain her elegance and attractions, and as both Zagagi (1980: 118–20) and Davidson (1997: 109–12) point out, the gift exchange allows both partners to elide the commercial basis underlying their sexual relationship. Thus the lover both overreacts and ignores the function of these gifts. Here the lover-poet implicitly threatens the puella with removal of his affections, which he characterizes as a flaw in himself—a fault corrected by her own flaw: donec eras simplex, animum cum corpore amavi; / nunc mentis vitio laesa figura tua est (13–14: “When you were pure, I loved soul along with body; / now your beauty has been damaged by the defect of your mind”). A brief excursus on

Against the Greedy Girl

/

95

Venus and Cupid, like a musical trill, establishes sex as innocent, a harmless activity unrelated to war and commerce (15–20).51 The serious argumentation gets under way in a set of exempla and logical questions, all of which require ignoring the material needs of the elegiac puella and pretending that she and her lover-poet are equals: stat meretrix certo cuivis mercabilis aere et miseras iusso corpore quaerit opes; devovet imperium tamen haec lenonis avari et, quod vos facitis sponte, coacta facit. sumite in exemplum pecudes ratione carentes: turpe erit ingenium mitius esse feris. non equa munus equum, non taurum vacca poposcit, non aries placitam munere captat ovem. sola viro mulier spoliis exultat ademptis, sola locat noctes, sola licenda venit et vendit quod utrumque iuvat, quod uterque petebat, et pretium, quanti gaudeat ipsa, facit. quae venus ex aequo ventura est grata duobus, altera cur illam vendit et alter emit? cur mihi sit damno, tibi sit lucrosa voluptas, quam socio motu femina virque ferunt?

25

30

35

The prostitute stands out, salable to anybody for a fixed price and she seeks miserable wealths by obeying orders with her body; nevertheless she curses the command of the greedy pimp and, what you do freely, she does by force. Take for example the flock animals who have no rationality: 25 it would be disgraceful for wild animals to have a milder character. The mare doesn’t make demands of the stallion, nor the heifer of the bull, nor does the ram capture the happy ewe with a gift. Only a woman rejoices in spoils taken off a man, only she sells her nights, only she comes available 30 and sells what pleases both, what each was seeking, and sets a price by her own enjoyment. The sex to come will please both equally, so why should one sell it and the other have to buy? Why should pleasure be costly to me and profitable to you, 35 which a man and a woman create in joint motion?

In the context of elegy, references to prostitutes and pimps are risky, since the elegiac puella occupies a social position closer to them than to the loverpoet,52 so he reverts to his previous theme—sex as natural and nonprofit—

96

/

The Material Girls

this time relying on examples from the animal world (25–28).53 These exempla, along with the principles of 15–20, allow the lover-poet to characterize the puella as anomalously violating the very nature of sex (29–32). Thus he can claim that both partners equally seek and enjoy sex, a view that again requires ignoring the inequity in their social and financial conditions—an inequity that the docta puella cannot afford to ignore. The rhetorical questions of 33–36 further rely upon the invented equality of lover-poet and puella, arguing from the points made in 31–32, that both partners seek sex, both enjoy it, and the activity itself is joint.54 But elegy nowhere establishes that the puella seeks lovers, at least not in her youth; rather, they seek her, as the docta puella knows. Thus the lover-poet, again on shaky grounds (as after 21–24), must change strategies. He turns to other examples, continually characterizing payment—in any sort of circumstance—as contemptible and disgraceful (37–42), arguing that the intangible benefits of gratia accrue only when a favor has been done for free (43–46). This admission of course suggests that the puella is in fact performing a service for her lover, that their sexual relationship originates in his desire, not in mutual desire; hence the lover-poet must implicitly threaten, as he has already done in 1–12, that her continued demands for gifts will alienate him from her (45–46). But this suggestion returns him to the original impasse, so he changes tactics yet again, this time adding pathos to his mythohistoric exempla, adduced on the principle that purchased favors go bad: parcite, formosae, pretium pro nocte pacisci: non habet eventus sordida praeda bonos. non fuit armillas tanti pepigisse Sabinas ut premerent sacrae virginis arma caput; e quibus exierat, traiecit viscera ferro filius, et poenae causa monile fuit. (47–52) Leave off, pretty girls, demanding a price for the night: vile booty does not have a good outcome. It was not worth so much to have made a deal for the Sabine armbands55 that their weapons should crush the head of the holy virgin; with the sword, the son stabbed through the same uterus from which he had come out, and the cause of the penalty was a necklace.

These examples, however, don’t remotely fit the present situation (they’re even less apposite than the animals of 25–28), so the lover-poet gives up. Demanding a price is unworthy in law and social relations, but not in love—as long as the donor is rich:

Against the Greedy Girl

/

97

nec tamen indignum est a divite praemia posci: praemia poscenti quod dare possit, habet; carpite de plenis pendentes vitibus uvas, praebeat Alcinoi poma benignus ager. (53–56) But still, it’s not unworthy for prizes to be sought from a rich man: he has the wherewithal to give gifts to the demander; snatch the grapes from full hanging vines, let the happy field of Alcinous supply fruits.56

The poor man can perform services, as in Tibullus, and the poet can make girls eternally famous: officium pauper numeret studiumque fidemque; quod quis habet, dominae conferat omne suae. est quoque carminibus meritas celebrare puellas dos mea: quam volui, nota fit arte mea. scindentur vestes, gemmae frangentur et aurum; carmina quam tribuent, fama perennis erit. (57–62) Let the poor man count duty, zeal, and fidelity; whatever each man has, let him grant it all to his mistress. And in fact it is my gift to celebrate deserving girls in song: the one whom I choose becomes famous by my art. Dresses will be shredded, jewels and gold will be broken; but the fame that songs give will be eternal.

Ultimately, the lover-poet pretends defeat: he’ll give, he says, as long as she doesn’t ask: nec dare, sed pretium posci dedignor et odi; / quod nego poscenti, desine velle, dabo (63–64: “It isn’t giving, but being asked for a price, that I disdain and hate; / what I refuse when you ask, stop demanding, and I’ll give”). This apparent concession, however, is as vague and materially useful as the voluntary suicide of Tibullus 2.4, for how can any puella rely on such a promise? Further, this offer continues the pretense of equality between lover and puella: he says he’ll voluntarily give her gifts (which of course will be of his choosing rather than hers), a pretense that, as Zagagi (1980: 118–20) points out, elides the reality of her circumstances and needs and of their relationship. The bargain offered here requires her to stop making demands, but from her point of view, it’s a losing proposition, designed to get her to give sex in hopes of getting gifts. But if she should inquire about those gifts, the deal would be off. This bargain boxes the puella in, so her only recourse is to refuse it. The lover-poet’s offer seems to be made out of resignation, but it is the final strategy in his program of getting access to his beloved without pay-

98

/

The Material Girls

ing. Proof that such is his design is found in Ars amatoria 1.399–454, the instruction on avoidance of gifts. Lines 399–418 identify the dangerous dates on the Roman calendar, dates on which gifts are given. The worst is the girl’s birthday, but any day requiring a gift is an evil one (417–18). Still, you can’t escape, says the praeceptor, for a woman will eventually get something out of you: cum bene vitaris, tamen auferet; invenit artem / femina, qua cupidi carpat amantis opes (419–20: “Even though you’ll take successful evasive action, nonetheless she’ll bear it away; a woman finds / the means by which she can snatch the wealth of her desiring lover”).57 So, you must pretend you’re going to give, but if you do give a gift, you’re lost, as she’ll feel free to drop you: promittas facito, quid enim promittere laedit? / pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest (443–44: “Go ahead and promise, for what does it hurt to make promises? / anybody can be rich in promises”). If you pull this off properly, she’ll have to keep giving you sex for free, to redeem her past concessions: ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque dabit (454: “So that she not have given free what she has already given, she’ll keep on giving”). The previous line sums up the major task of the young would-be lover: hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi (453: “This is the task, this is the struggle, to have sex first without giving any gift”),58 and it identifies the constant standoff of the elegiac lover and the elegiac puella,who are divided by her material needs and his desire to ignore them. The solution dictated by elegy to the problem of the greedy girl is, of course, elegy itself, as previously noted: it is designed to erase her material needs with rhetoric, to overcome the elegiac impasse. That is, poetry—the persuasive, hortatory language of elegiac flattery designed to make the puella stop demanding gifts of the poet, even if in fact she continues to suffer material need—is the poet’s primary weapon in the elegiac militia amoris, and thus the poets keep offering it59 to the puella whose cupped hand keeps demanding the material goods she needs for her livelihood. RIVALEM PATIENTER HABE? OR, HOW TO COMPETE WITH A GENEROUS RIVAL At Ars amatoria 2.539 the praeceptor advises his male pupils that they must “patiently tolerate a rival” (rivalem patienter habe) in the puella’s life, though he says it is the hardest task in his instruction (542). He has, of course, already advised them to have more than one girlfriend (387–414) and to make their girlfriends jealous (433–66). It goes without saying that a woman as desirable as the elegiac beloved will attract more than one lover

Against the Greedy Girl

/

99

at a time, and of course her profession requires her to do so. Like her literary grandmother, the comic courtesan, the docta puella is never short of suitors. Given the lover-poet’s devotion to his puella, we might expect a significant amount of elegiac couplets to be dedicated to this problem, and we might expect a fair amount of ad hominem invective aimed at criticizing specific foes. Oddly, however, elegy pays relatively little attention to the rival, and gives remarkably few details about him. Still, he is always lurking about,60 though he never has a name,61 and his presence, or his threatened presence, constantly brings the lover-poets back to the problem of money, for two reasons: (1) the rival is willing and able to pay62 where the lover-poet claims he cannot; and (2) the possibility that the puella might take in another man without charging him admission is too dreadful a prospect for the lover-poet to contemplate, so he must impute his rival’s reception to an opened bankbook. Regardless, the rival allows opportunity for laments and self-satisfaction by the lover-poet, who can contrast himself with his wealthy but unworthy rival, always to his own moral, if not financial, advantage. The rival also offers further opportunity to castigate the puella for her mercenary values, a convenience useful to elegy’s program, driven by voluntary poverty, of antimaterialism. This tactic fails, however, when the Other Man is a wealthy rival suitor for the puella’s favors. The lover-poet can offer his beloved advice on how to get away from her vir (see, for example, Tib. 1.2.9–14, Ars 3.483–84 and 615–58) but against the generous rival, he can offer only elegiac complaints, and those complaints are intensified by his need, once again, to erase the puella’s financial and social condition. Thus, the passages attacking the puella for receiving a wealthy rival are all of a piece with the greedy girl poems: in both, the girl is seen as acting unworthily and mercenarily, and the lover-poet offers himself as a model of higher moral and artistic worth. Against both the demanding girl and the wealthy rival, the lover-poet as usual hurls elegies. The existence, or even the possible existence, of a rival offers the elegiac lover-poet so many poetic opportunities that it is hard to know where to begin, but, notably, most of these topoi avoid the subject of the rival himself. They include the self-aggrandizement of the lover-poet’s epic jealousy (Prop 2.6); claims of his own moral and literary superiority and his abject devotion to the puella (both passim); complaints about her mercenary nature (passim) and sexual fickleness (also passim, but see particularly Prop. 2.5.28 and 2.6.1–6); abuse of the lena, who advocates for the wealthy rival (Tib. 1.5, 2.6); the near-existential despair of Tibullus 2.3 and 4; the peremptory instructions of Tibullus 1.5; insults to the brutish rival, his profession, status, or character (Prop. 2.16, Tib. 2.3, Am. 3.8); dire pre-

100

/

The Material Girls

dictions of the puella’s future destruction (Prop. 2.16); and more. Ultimately, however, the rival’s existence serves primarily to underscore the lover-poet’s special relationship to the puella and, again, her generic condition of financial need, which necessitates her infidelity. Like the recusatio poems, the rival poems and passages, when read from the puella’s perspective, operate as persuasion—even when that persuasion is only implicit, as in the emotional appeals of the querela and the vows of eternal devotion— and its purpose, from her viewpoint, is the same: to induce her to devote herself sexually to the lover-poet, without charge.63 The dives amator (generous rival) is a threat because his admission to the puella’s bedroom means of course that the lover-poet has been excluded, and that another’s material goods outweigh his own poetic offerings (see Tib. 1.5.67–68, Prop. 2.16.27–28, Am. 3.8.1–24). The vir represents no real threat to the lover-poet’s fantasy of consuming love between himself and his puella; as I have suggested, his real function is that of a wall between them. The generous rival, however, endangers the lover-poet’s security even when he is only a possibility. Thus any apparent rival must be criticized as unworthy of the puella,64 and she must be criticized as unworthy as well. Tibullus’s speaker scornfully disdains his rivals for Delia as “another man” (alter, 1.5.17), a mere “somebody or other” (nescio quem, 1.6.6), a man whose only feature is his wealth (1.5.47–68), an effeminate fop (1.6.39–40).65 He scorns Nemesis’s new suitor, a recently freed and newly wealthy slave, as having often been put up for sale at public auctions (2.3.59–60). Propertius’s speaker describes his most prominent rival, the Illyrian praetor, as uncivilized (barbarus, 2.16.27), a bank account (maxima praeda, 2.16.2 = “greatest booty”), rather than a real lover; he wishes impotence on his rival (2.9.47–48) and sexual injury on Cynthia (2.16.13–14); and he complains often about Cynthia’s fickleness.66 Significantly, the Propertian speaker does not rebuke or abuse his friends for falling in love with his own puella: in 1.5 he warns Gallus that Cynthia is dangerous and destructive, that loving her is a terrifying form of slavery, but he offers the prospect of mutual consolation between himself and Gallus: sed pariter miseri socio cogemur amore / alter in alterius mutua flere sinu (29–30: “But equally wretched we would be trapped in a shared love, / each to weep mutual griefs in the other’s lap”). In 2.34, Lynceus appears to be making moves on Cynthia (here not named). The lover-poet interprets this behavior as personal betrayal of himself by his friend. He’s willing, he says, to share every other aspect of his life with Lynceus—even to let Lynceus be in charge of his life—except this one: lecto te solum, lecto te deprecor uno: / rivalem possum non ego ferre Iovem (17–18: “I pray you

Against the Greedy Girl

/

101

alone away from the bed, from the bed alone: / I can’t bear even Jove as a rival”). When it appears that Lynceus has actually fallen in love (i.e., is not simply making passes at Cynthia), the lover-poet virtually rejoices, in a triumphant manner that mixes spite, compassion, and advice: Lynceus ipse meus seros insanit amores! / solum te nostros laetor adire deos (25–26: “My Lynceus himself has gone mad for late love! / I rejoice that you alone are approaching our gods”). The Propertian lover-poet claims that his own practice of love poetry is so superior that it will protect him against Lynceus: aspice me, cui parva domi fortuna relicta est nullus et antiquo Marte triumphus avi, ut regnem mixtas inter conviva puellas hoc ego, quo tibi nunc elevor, ingenio! (55–58) Look at me, to whom only a small fortune has been left at home, and no ancestor’s triumph in an ancient war, how I rule girls joining in at banquets. I have been brought to this point by the talent for which you mock me!

From here he goes on to praise poetry and its eternal powers, predicting his own poetic success. In the context of elegiac rivalries, this poem indicates that the lover-poet is less threatened by another poet as a rival—for he is confident in his own verse, and if the puella should choose another poet over himself, that choice would still value poetry over material goods. In the realm of poetry, the lover-poet can compete, but against paying rivals he cannot or will not. Thus, even the two named poet-rivals do not threaten the Propertian lover-poet as much as the generous rival does.67 Such a structure of values suggests that again, in the matter of the rival, the puella’s character and mercenary practices are the lover-poet’s true concern. Throughout Roman love elegy, rivals come and go, but the lover-poet’s assaults on the puella’s material interests remain constant, whether their grounds are her demands for money and gifts, her admission of a paying rival, or her attention to the lena’s professional and financial advice. Naturally, in Roman love elegy, these poetic persuasion-assaults always revert back to the amator, his poetry, and his claims that he and poetry are more valuable than anything else. Amores 3.8 provides the best demonstration of this structure. The lover-poet in this poem cannot understand why his puella prefers the newly wealthy (recens dives, 9) soldier to himself. Typically, he complains more extensively and repetitively than do Propertius and Tibullus about the low status, ill-gotten gains, and base character of the rival. Tibullus’s speaker sneers (2.3.59–60) at the former slave now purchasing Nemesis’s favors; Propertius’s speaker calls the Illyrian

102

/

The Material Girls

praetor a barbarus (2.16.27). The Ovidian amator, however, abuses and denigrates his rival for fourteen lines (3.8.9–22). Appropriately, this abuse is introduced and concluded by sections mixing praise of poetry with laments about the mercenary values currently reigning in the domain of love: Et quisquam ingenuas etiamnunc suscipit artes aut tenerum dotes carmen habere putat? ingenium quondam fuerat pretiosius auro, at nunc barbaria est grandis habere nihil. cum pulchre dominae nostri placuere libelli, quo licuit libris, non licet ire mihi; cum bene laudavit, laudato ianua clausa est: turpiter huc illuc ingeniosus eo. ecce, recens dives, parto per vulnera censu praefertur nobis sanguine pastus eques. hunc potes amplecti formosis, vita, lacertis? huius in amplexu, vita, iacere potes? si nescis, caput hoc galeam portare solebat, ense latus cinctum, quod tibi servit, erat; laeva manus, cui nunc serum male convenit aurum, scuta tulit; dextram tange, cruenta fuit. qua periit aliquis, potes hanc contingere dextram? heu! ubi mollities pectoris illa tui? cerne cicatrices, veteris vestigia pugnae: quaesitum est illi corpore, quicquid habet. forsitan et quotiens hominem iugulaverit ille indicet: hoc fassas tangas, avara, manus? ille ego Musarum purus Phoebique sacerdos ad rigidas canto carmen inane fores.

5

10

15

20

And does anybody really take up liberal arts or think that tender song still has rewards? Talent was once more precious than gold, but now it’s a great barbarity to have nothing. Although my books have pleased my mistress well, 5 where my books are allowed to go, I am not. Though she praised me well, the door is closed to the praised one: though I am acknowledged as talented, disgracefully I go hither and thither. Look! that guy who got rich recently through war wounds, a knight fed on blood, is preferred to me. 10 Can you really embrace him, darling, with your beautiful arms? Can you really lie in his embrace, darling? In case you don’t know, that head used to wear a helmet, and his side, which awaits your pleasure, was girded with a sword.

Against the Greedy Girl

/

His left hand, which a recent gold ring fits badly, held the shield; touch his right hand, it was bloody. That right hand, by which somebody died, can you really touch it? Alas, where is that softness of your breast? Look at the scars, the signs of his ancient battles: whatever he has, he earned with his body. Perhaps he’ll tell you how how many men’s throats he has cut: will you touch those confessed hands, greedy girl? But I, the pure priest of the Muses and Phoebus, am singing a useless song before unyielding doors.

103 15

20

The Ovidian lover-poet, not one to content himself with insults obiter dicta, extends his critique of the rival to body parts: the head, the side, both hands, various scars.68 The lover, however, cannot actually have seen scars on this rival’s body—he assumes their presence on the grounds that this rival is a soldier. Thus he genericizes this relatively specific man. That is, the poem provides no details of facial features, physique, hair, and so forth, but presents the rival as simply Soldier, ergo battle-scarred, ergo unattractive and unworthy. The argumentation goes awry, however, at line 20, for in this respect, of course, the soldier is little different from the puella herself.69 Such an argument will not sway her much, so the amator must swing back to the unworthiness of the soldier’s profession, rather than devalue his rival’s body as available for a price. Such criticisms allow him to present himself as physically more pure because of his dedication to the Muses (another benefit to choosing elegy over profiteering war missions!), as in lines 23–24. Alas, the liberal arts are no longer helpful—the financial gains of war outweigh poems: discite, qui sapitis, non quae nos scimus inertes, sed trepidas acies et fera castra sequi, proque bono versu primum deducite pilum: nox tibi, si belles, possit, Homere, dari. (25–28) Learn, you who would be smart, not what we inactive men know, but follow frightening battle lines and fierce war-camps, and instead of a good poem, lead a squadron: the night may be given to you, Homer, if you practice war.

Even the gods employ payment, as the example of Danae shows (29–34). A brief Golden Age passage ensues (35–44), followed by a typical lament about destructive human ingenuity that seeks fortune by adventure and environmental devastation (45–54). Finally, the lover-poet says, he’s willing to put up with the current mercenary values everywhere else, from business

104

/

The Material Girls

to law to government, but not in the realm of love (55–60). He complains that his girlfriend cares only about money and curses riches acquired from lovers (61–66). Thus, even this poem, which begins with a specific rival, converts into a typical elegiac lament about the devaluation of poetry in the mercenary modern age, and about the greediness of the elegiac puella. In other words, the lover-poet turns away from the present rival and reverts to pursuing his usual program of antimaterialism, a highly motivated program indeed, whose primary beneficiary is himself. Through the lover-poet’s determination to focus on himself and his beloved, then, the elegiac rival, rather like the vir, becomes less a specific man than a generic necessity, an obstacle between lover and puella. Thus the rival is overtly genericized in elegy: like the puella, he has no specific life or biography; he is simply the Other Man. Like the vir, he comes between lover and beloved, but unlike the vir, he poses a genuine, if generic, threat to the amator, because his reception means that the puella is deliberately excluding her lover-poet rather than being locked up unwillingly by another.70 Thus poems about and to the vir often focus on his stupidity and the general inconvenience of his existence, but poems on the rival go to surprising lengths to avoid discussing him in any kind of even semirealistic detail, treating him instead simply as Soldier, Praetor, Ex-slave. This genericizing treatment allows the lover-poet to revert to his preferred topics— himself and his puella. The benefits of this approach are numerous: he avoids making a higher bid for the puella’s time; he can characterize her as greedy, himself as pathetically devoted, and the rival as nothing special. Thus he can avoid fearing that the puella actually prefers her wealthy suitor to himself, and he can continue aiming elegy at her. In this way, elegiac alchemy converts a specific man into a generic man and turns the focus back to the impoverished poet and the material girl. CONCLUSION As elegy is the primary weapon in the lover-poet’s campaign to gain his lady’s favors, it must also be aimed not only at the greedy girl but also at his bitter enemy, the generous rival. In both cases, Roman love elegy verges on invective, abandoning flattery for reproach and blame, aimed like a laser beam at the puella’s practice of her profession. Further, these topics begin to reveal new dimensions to the lover’s character, dimensions that include a tendency toward anger and even violence (as we shall see later; cf. esp. Prop. 2.6), and thus contradict elegy’s oft-proclaimed male passivity. Hence the problem of the rival, which on its face seems to be about sexual jealousy,

Against the Greedy Girl

/

105

turns out to be primarily about money. It is a subset of the greedy girl theme. Sexual jealousy is merely a symptom of the real problem—that the lover-poet cannot control the puella71—the root cause of which is her profession. Nothing can really be done to overcome this obstacle; as a result, a peculiar principle arises, that men who cannot offer poetry should pay, but poor men can offer services (Tib. 1.5.61–66, Ars 2.161–233). Poets, especially, should not have to pay, but be allowed to give only poetry (Am. 1.10.53–62, Ars 3.531–52).72 Elegy is the only solution against the rival, for the lover-poet is determined not to pay, but to beat out the rival with words alone. The exchange of poetry for sex, idealized at Propertius 2.26.21–26, is never reliable enough for the lover-poet’s comfort. When, for instance, at Propertius 1.14, the amator places love and money in polar opposition (especially at line 8: nescit Amor magnis cedere divitiis = “Love cannot yield to great riches”) and offers to forego wealth as long as his beloved remains peaceably with him (23–24), he is speaking wishfully, as she can derive no benefit from his voluntary poverty. Significantly, this poem is addressed to Tullus rather than to Cynthia—it could hardly persuade her—but as it is available to her to read (particularly in the volume of poetry entitled the Cynthia Monobiblos), she can recognize this offer as a piece of implicit persuasion. It will necessarily fail, however, as Cynthia cannot afford her amator’s voluntary poverty. Since he cannot tolerate her economic policies, lover and puella wind up in a stalemate, or elegiac tug-of-war, in which he throws poetic accusations, laments, and instructions, trying to dislodge her by appealing to everything but her bankbook, her primary reference guide. This approach does no good, however, as the Tibullan speaker complains: nec prosunt elegi nec carminis auctor Apollo: / illa cava pretium flagitat usque manu (2.4.13–14: “And neither do elegies do any good, nor Apollo, the sponsor of poetry: / that girl keeps demanding a price with her hollowed hand”). The puella may be justified in considering her lover-poet a disingenuous cheapskate, for if she is his poetic inspiration (cf. Tib. 2.5.111–12, Prop. 2.1.1–16, Am. 1.3), she might think he should be willing to pay. In his view, however, poetry is how he gains access to her (Tib. 2.4, Am. 2.1, Prop. 2.26), and since poetry is eternal, she should either institute a sliding scale for fees, so that the poor poet can give cheap gifts (Prop. 1.3.24, Ars 2.261–70) or poems alone (Ars 3.533). Thus Amores 3.12, in which the amator’s poetry has turned against him by serving as advertising for the puella (7–12), demonstrates with typically Ovidian irony the double-edged sword of elegy: it makes the poet no money, gains him entry into the puella’s bed, but brings her the kind of profitable notoriety that excludes and evades him—

106

/

The Material Girls

ironically, she appears to make more money from his poetry than he does.73 Such a conclusion brings an end to elegiac love, hence it is not surprising that elegy prefers to avoid this prospective poetic result. It is equally, however, not an accident that this very scenario is articulated at the end of Ovid’s Amores, just as the persuasive tablets are lost at the end of Propertius’s practice of love elegy proper. As the puella’s beauty engenders male sexual passion, and her profession enables its expression in poetry,74 her pursuit of her material needs both offers subject matter for elegy and ultimately brings the elegiac impasse to a conclusion, by forcing the loverpoet to recognize the limits of elegiac love. Thus, to the docta puella, the penury and unremunerative poetry assumed in the elegiac recusatio are voluntary, optional, since the lover can always return to other activities and careers, but the sex he demands in the recusatio is the only thing she has to offer, and once she has given it up, she loses all her leverage. Read from the perspective of the female addressee, all these tactics ignore her material needs, as poetry cannot support her. Further, since poetry is designed, in Tibullus’s phrase ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero (2.4.19: “I seek easy access to my mistress through poetry”) to provide easy access to the puella, it is suspect, the product not of the Muses’ inspiration but of calculating male sexual desire, as an appropriately learned girl will figure out. And if she doesn’t figure it out for herself, the lena is always there to remind her, to direct her attention back to the bottom line.75 But even without a deconstructing lena at hand, not to mention that pesky generous rival, male elegiac persuasion may backfire by actually reminding the puella of her dependent status. The apparent capitulations are clearly specious: the posthumous memorial gifts of Tibullus 2.4 can do Nemesis no present or even future material good; and the clever offer of Amores 1.10, to give if the puella will stop asking, is actually designed not only to protect the lover from involuntary generosity, but to get her to shut up. These male persuasive strategies, intended to appeal to a learned female love object, cannot help failing, since they do not address the basic social inequities of the elegiac love relationship. The paradox of the docta puella is that she may indeed appreciate the artistic offerings of her lover but be unable to afford them. To her, elegies offer only male persuasion, but no material benefit, and they underscore the gender divide of elegy, in which the male speaker retains a financial advantage over his beloved, despite his claims to be her helpless slave. These sites in elegy, when viewed from the puella’s perspective, reveal something of its ethical disingenuities, which

Against the Greedy Girl

/

107

favor the male lover socially and materially. Reading elegy from the docta puella’s perspective reveals these two crucial structural elements of elegy— the recusatio and the topos of the greedy girl—to be primarily tactics of male sexual persuasion rather than the purely aesthetic and ethical stances that the elegiac lover-poets proclaim them to be.

4.

Characters, Complaints, and the Stations of the Lover; or, Adventures and Laments in Elegy

The previous chapter examined explicit persuasion in the elegies about the greedy girl or the rival; this chapter focuses on implicit elegiac persuasion and on the standard episodes and attitudes of elegy. Since the elegiac lover seeks always to be the received lover (receptus amans, Prop. 2.14.28, Am. 1.8.78), these elements are aimed at the same goal as every other argument in elegy—reception into the puella’s bedroom. Implicit persuasion takes two forms—first, the elegiac querela, or lament, and second, the lover’s characterization of himself as pathetic and the puella as cruel.1 Much of the episodic content of Roman love elegy explores standard events, stances, and attitudes, the typical and even required actions of the lover, many of them inherited from New Comedy (see Thomas 1979). The performance of these various amatory duties and ethical stances—the paraclausithyron, servitium amoris, militia amoris2—expressed in querelae is so structural to elegy that its individual instances function as part of the lover-poet’s generic obligations in elegiac pursuit. These elements in elegy provide much of its standard vocabulary and contents. They will be immediately familiar to any reader of the genre; my purpose here, as before, is to consider them from the perspective of the docta puella, who is likewise familiar with them. THE QUERELA: “JUST ANOTHER BOY’S LIFE RUINED, JUST ANOTHER BROKEN HEART” In many ways, Roman love elegy might be described as a genre of lament, querela (though examination of those laments often reveals them to be selfinterested complaints instead), a designation natural enough to a poetic genre thought to have been derived from funeral mourning.3 But where Greek elegy grieves for, say, comrades fallen in the warfare of extramarital 108

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

109

sexual passion, Roman love elegy laments primarily, in a program of backdoor persuasion,4 the lover-poet’s pitiful condition, to be blamed on Amor and the puella, and his lack of access to his mistress, whom he calls his domina. The querela is thus the overarching unifying element in virtually every address made by the lover-poet to the docta puella. In theory, it is a form of self-address not used in communication, much less persuasion; it provides the basic vocabulary and attitude of Roman love elegy but is limited to no single topic and is concentrated in only a single elegy, Propertius 1.18. Rather, it informs and suffuses the entire genre, as the table below demonstrates. Expressions of lament crop up throughout each elegist’s corpus but rarely receive full treatment, as they have on their own no specific substance or subject matter, other than the pitiful suffering of the lover-poet, and no direction in which to go. The spineless, pathetic lament of the querela may, in concentrated or extended form, be too much even for the prostrate loverpoets of Roman love elegy; further, it is not by itself very interesting to either the poet or his readers (much less to the docta puella). Moreover, a protracted expression of pure querela would reveal what the lover-poets ordinarily attempt to conceal, and what the docta puella already knows: that their primary interest is in themselves. Hence each poet develops a strategy for sidestepping the full-blown querela: Propertius uses the characteristic anger and resentment of the lover-poet; Tibullus employs a reflexive turn away from present circumstance toward fantasy, along with a kaleidoscopic approach to subject matter; Ovid combines wit, mischief, and manifest insincerity with his speaker’s increasing desire to avenge himself on women. The result is that while the elegiac lover-poets avoid a concentrated expression of the querela, they diffuse it throughout their works, creating the appearance of lament as a characteristic of the genre, without actually focusing on it. In other words, they put the querela to work at the main task of Roman love elegy—male sexual persuasion—by using its lexicon to invoke by implication a whole constellation of standard elegiac themes: sad lover, cruel girl, harsh separation, and so on. Any docta puella reading an elegiac poem will note that its elements of querela are aimed at her in persuasion rather than being part of its ostensible self-address. Whether she would find a pure or concentrated lament persuasive (or any more interesting than the elegists do) is debatable, though of course she cannot afford to give in to elegiac persuasion often. But she will see that its strategic deployment in small doses throughout implies a great deal more than its few words actually state, and allows elliptical and implicit, if formulaic and generic, persuasion, chiefly by characterizing her as harsh, love as misery, and her lover-poet as wretched.

110

/

The Material Girls

The querela is easy to identify, as its lexicon of mourning is unmistakable, regardless of the context or of the topic of a given elegy. This lexicon allows the Roman love elegist to present himself as a man of constant sorrow (hence the jarring and disorienting effect, for many readers, of the Ovidian lover-poet’s gleeful play). He weeps (flere, lacrimae) constantly and loves to think of his puella’s grief after his death (Prop. 1.15.40, 2.17.18; Tib. 1.1.61, 63; Am. 1.3.18); he is perpetually wretched (tristis, miser) and weeping (fleo, lacrimans) either because Cupid, Venus, and his girl are hard, savage, and cruel (dura, saeva, crudelis) or because he is separated from his beloved. He experiences love as physical and emotional anguish (dolor), illness, and madness (furor). He adverts to his suffering constantly in interjections of woe (heu, ei, io) and descriptions of his unhappy condition (tristitia, miseria). He proclaims in lament (queror, querela) his absolute devotion to the puella, his condition of degradation, servitude, or captivity to his domina, who is often angry, greedy, capricious (levis), and faithless (perfida) and always uncontrollable, and he acknowledges the irresistible, overwhelming power of love. All these topoi are expressed in the querela.5 (These words also appear in all standard figures of elegy, and they operate to characterize the lover-poet as passive and pitiful.) Its nature and purpose—resentful lament intended to persuade by pathos—are likewise evident, especially when seen from the puella’s viewpoint, a perspective that also foregrounds its underlying anger. The topoi of the querela are numerous, falling into four main groups: (1) the problem of money versus poetry (discussed in chapter 1), (2) the lover-poet’s own meritorious character, as evidenced by his devotion and suffering, (3) the uncompliant puella, and (4) the separation of lover and puella. These groups divide further, as table 2 demonstrates, into subtopics (this list is representative, not exhaustive, and I will deal with only a small selection from these topics). A large majority of individual poems in the corpus of Roman love elegy exhibits one or more of these topics,6 combined variously but unified by the lexicon of lament and a program of implicit persuasion by pathos, superimposed over a resentment that generally smolders rather than rages (though it occasionally threatens to break out). A review of instances and applications of elegiac lament provides striking lexical support for a pattern long observed of the elegists: in Propertius and Tibullus, love itself is a condition of misery, suffering, loss of self-control, and servitude or captivity under a demanding, greedy, intransigent, capricious, often faithless woman; in Ovid’s poetry, the lover-poet considers love an enjoyable game until he discovers that his puella has cheated on him, at which point he begins to experience elegiac misery.7

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

111

table 2. The Topoi of Querela in Elegy 1. Money vs. poetry Greedy girl Unworthy rival Failure of poetry 2. Lover-poet’s suffering/devotion Devotion in her illness Servitium amoris Pathetic suffering Total devotion Cruelty of Amor/Venus Militia amoris/obsequium 3. Uncompliant puella Deceitful Cruel/hard Capricious Faithless 4. Separation of lover and puella Doors Hers Vir’s Voyage Ocean Country

Tib. 2.3, 4; Prop. 1.2, 2.16, 3.13; Am. 1.10 Tib. 1.5, 6, 2.3; Prop. 2.9, 16, 32, 4.8; Am. 3.8 Tib. 2.4; Am. 3.8; Ars 2.274, 3.552 passim Tib. 1.5; Prop. 2.9, 28; Am. 2.13; Ars 2.315–36 Prop. 2.17, 25, 3.11; Tib. 2.3, 4; Am. 2.17, 3.11 Tib. 1.5, 6, 2.3, 4; Prop. 1.12 and passim Tib. 1.2, 2.4, 6; Prop. 2.20, 24; Am. 1.3 Prop. 1.1, 3.24; Tib. 1.2, 5, 6; Am. 1.1, 2.10; Ars 1.18; Rem. 530 Am. 1.9, 2.12, 3.11; Ars 2.179–260; Tib. 1.5, 6 passim Tib. 1.6, 8; Prop. passim; Am. 2.5, 9, 3.3, 8 Tib. 1.8, 2.6; Prop. 1.7, 2.22b.43, 24.47 Prop. 2.22 Tib. 1.6; Prop. 1.15, 2.5, 9, 16, 17, 32, 3.14; Am. 3.8, 11, 14 Tib. 1.5; Prop. 1.11; Am. 1.13, 2.16, 3.6, 10 Tib. 2.4.39–40, 2.6; Prop. 1.16, 2.17; Am. 1.6, 2.2–3 and 16, 3.4 Tib. 1.2, 1.6; Am. 2.2–3 and 19, 3.4 Prop. 1.8, 2.32 Prop. 2.26; Am. 2.11 Prop. 2.19; Tib. 2.3; Am. 3.6

As I noted above, Propertius’s elegiac practice is shot through with the querela, and the table demonstrates the range of topics seen in his poetry.8 Propertius 1.18 is a classic querela: it enacts standard elegiac postures in an apparent attempt to practice the goal expressed at 1.1.27–30—the freedom to travel where no woman goes and to express the sentiments of rage, as desired at 1.1.28. Its vocabulary identifies it as a querela, a lament designed to persuade: querenti (the complaining one, i.e., himself, 1); dolores (griefs, 3, 13, 26), weeping (6, 15),9 querelae (29). In my view, it is the only pure querela in Roman love elegy, and notably it is both short and unstable, even in its ostensible purpose of relieving the lover-poet’s grief by allowing him to complain safely (impune, 3) to the rocks and trees. Such self-address may give brief comfort, but it does the lover-poet no real good, and in any case,

112

/

The Material Girls

elegy sees very little point in wasting speech on mere self-expression, even in a poem purporting to be precisely that. So he turns from his inanimate audience and immediately addresses Cynthia, in line 5, at the very beginning of his querela: unde tuos primum repetam, mea Cynthia, fastus? quod mihi das flendi, Cynthia, principium? qui modo felices inter numerabar amantis, nunc in amore tuo cogor habere notam. quid tantum merui? quae te mihi carmina mutant? an nova tristitiae causa puella tuae? (5–10) From what point shall I first review your contempt, my Cynthia? What beginning do you give me, Cynthia, of weeping? I who recently was counted among the happy lovers, now am forced to carry a mark for love of you. How have I deserved this much? What incantations change you against me? Or is a new girl the cause of your harshness?10

This querela focuses on Cynthia’s current cruelty toward the lover-poet. He therefore immediately follows up this opening with instruction and argumentation in the form of demonstrating his own mild (and therefore meritorious) temperament and his kindness and fidelity toward her, to be attested by the auditory trees, on which he has inscribed her name: sic mihi te referas, levis, ut non altera nostro limine formosos intulit ulla pedes. quamvis multa tibi dolor hic meus aspera debet, non ita saeva tamen venerit ira mea, ut tibi sim merito semper furor et tua flendo lumina deiectis turpia sint lacrimis. an quia parva damus mutato signa colore, et non ulla meo clamat in ore fides? vos eritis testes, si quos habet arbor amores, fagus et Arcadio pinus amica deo, a quotiens teneras resonant mea verba sub umbras, scribitur et vestris Cynthia corticibus!11 So bring yourself back to me, fickle girl, since no other girl has brought her lovely feet across my threshold. Although this grief of mine owes many miseries to you, my own anger never would have come so harshly that I should always be a justified rage for you, and that your12 eyes should be fouled by weeping in falling tears. Or is it because I’ve given small signs, by way of changed color,

15

20

15

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover and no fidelity calls out from my face? You will be witnesses, if trees harbor any passions, beech and pine tree, friendly to the Arcadian god Pan— ah, how often my words resound beneath the soft shade, and Cynthia is written on your bark!

/

113

20

The persuasion dissolves into an ambiguous resolution: sed qualiscumque es, resonent mihi “Cynthia” silvae,/nec deserta tuo nomine saxa vacent (31–32: “But however you treat me, let the woods resound to me, ‘Cynthia,’/and the lonely rocks not lack your name”). Though this statement appears, in the adversative sed (but), to contain some kind of surrender, there is no guarantee that the lover-poet’s shouts of “Cynthia!” are uttered with loving intent or intonation. That is, the puella reading this apparently transcribed querela will note that the fashion in which he calls her name in fact depends upon her treatment of him: qualiscumque es governs the couplet and allows a subtle threat of further complaint rather than prayer or praise. Thus this poem merges persuasion and resentment along with peremptory instruction in standard querela format. When read from the puella’s perspective, it offers the usual sorts of elegiac male persuasion, superimposed upon the lover-poet’s anger at her. It consists of emotional appeals: his loneliness and isolation (1–4), her cruelty to him (5–10), his devotion to her, such that he would never cause her any grief (11–30) and that she is present to him even when they are far apart (31–32). These querelae rest on appeals to her pity for his misery, a misery she could cure by receiving him again, as he suggests in line 11. Thus again even what claims to be a soliloquy on a deserted and distant beach reads instead, to the puella, as male elegiac persuasion. As the querela unifies Roman love elegy—a genre notable for its expressions of self-pity—its constituent elements, consisting primarily of lover’s devoted, passive suffering and puella’s caprice, infidelity, cruelty, or intransigence, can be found everywhere, even when they are virtually inappropriate, as at the end of Propertius 3.7, a poem lamenting for once not an elegiac erotic disaster but the shipwreck of a friend. After seventy lines about his friend and the dangers of ocean travel, the lover-poet concludes by reverting to himself, and his servitium amoris: at tu, saeve Aquilo, numquam mea vela videbis:/ante fores dominae condar oportet iners (3.7.71–72: “But you, savage north wind, will never see my sails:/it’s suitable for me to be planted, immobile, at my mistress’s doors”). This couplet sums up the advantages, detailed at greater length in Tibullus 1.1, of the elegiac love life, in which the lover-poet exchanges risk and glory for love, poetry, and infamy. It also telescopes, in the six words of the last line, all the typi-

114

/

The Material Girls

cal postures, characteristics, and activities of elegy (lover-poet immobile at the threshold of his mistress, performing his generic obligation as an exclusus amator), and thus does not need to add the other details, which are simply understood: he’s weeping, hoping to get inside, while she is cruelly ignoring him. Hence even a poem lamenting the death of a friend at sea ends up returning the subject matter back to its primary generic focus, the loverpoet and his puella, and recalling the lover-poet’s own form of suffering and trial. Since Propertius’s corpus is by far the largest of Roman love elegy proper, it comes as no surprise that his use of the lexicon of querela outweighs, as it were, that of Tibullus and Ovid. The peculiarly Propertian feature is his emphasis on the puella. That is, the Propertian lover-poet focuses, oddly, less on his own misery than we might expect, and more on his uncontrollable beloved. Tibullus, for example, uses miser to describe the loverpoet, or any lover, more than does Propertius, but complaints about female infidelity feature in Propertius more than in either Tibullus or Ovid. In his elegies, perfidia, betrayal, seems to mean exclusively sexual infidelity, committed chiefly by Cynthia but also by his friends Gallus (1.13.3) and Lynceus (2.34.9). In Propertius, laments of saevitia and crudelitas, savagery and cruelty, center on Cynthia; in Tibullus and Ovid this charge is spread around, directed also at Venus and Cupid.13 Likewise, the word durus in Propertius applies more consistently to the puella than to its other primary objects (door, threshold, Amor, general harsh conditions of love, and unloving man who can leave a loving girl); in Ovid and Tibullus it describes primarily the obstacles between lover-poet and puella (door, threshold, vir, guard). Most revealing of all, in Propertius the word levis, which means both light (as in frivolous, nonserious elegy) and sexually fickle, is almost always used to signify Cynthia’s sexual infidelities; in Tibullus and Ovid, by contrast, it more often means either sex or elegy.14 The spirit of the querela so suffuses and characterizes Propertius’s work that it can be found in virtually every elegy in his corpus: even in his few happy, celebratory poems, morose—even morbid—thoughts and complaints crop up almost predictably, operating to support the lover-poet’s usual program of elegiac sexual persuasion. Thus, for instance, poem 2.15, which begins joyously—O me felicem! o nox mihi candida! (1: “Oh, happy me! Oh, night bright for me!”)—leads to a minor complaint (11–17),15 that Cynthia kept a garment on during their ecstatic lovemaking.16 Death naturally follows this complaint: dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus amore: nox tibi longa venit, nec reditura dies (23–24: “While the fates are allowing us, let us sate our eyes with love: a long night is coming for you, and the day

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

115

will not return”).17 This turn of thought allows the lover-poet to wax fantastic on the subject of lovers, fidelity, and separation, and thus leads him to one of his favorite declarations—his own eternal fidelity: huius ero vivus, mortus huius ero (36: “I shall be hers while I’m alive, dead too shall I be hers”). This thought returns him to the joys of the previous night, which have the power to make him immortal (37–40). Reverting to Cynthia, the lover-poet has now created the opportunity—within his poem celebrating their epic sex on the previous night—for persuasion by pathos. Soon they will all die, so she should give in to him: tu modo, dum lucet, fructum ne desere vitae! omnia si dederis oscula, pauca dabis. ac veluti folia arentis liquere corollas, quae passim calathis strata natare vides, sic nobis, qui nunc magnum spiramus amantes, forsitan includet crastina fata dies. (49–54) Now you, while it’s still light, don’t abandon the fruit of your life! If you give all your kisses, you’ll give little. And as the petals drop off the drying flowers, which you see floating in the bowls, so for us, who now as lovers breathe mightily, perhaps tomorrow will close in our fates.

Although this elegy contains little of the lexicon of lament, it reverts regularly to the lamentable: possible separation of lover and puella (31–36); total devotion of lover for puella (25–30, 31–36); the passage of time leading to death, a favored topic for love elegy (24–26, 36). This last topos allows the lover-poet to bring up a favorite argument: sex as a means of present compensation for future death. This celebratory elegy thus demonstrates the ubiquity of lament in elegy: even a happy poem, one commemorating the best possible kind of elegiac sex (that obstructive garment notwithstanding) ends with consciousness of death that will separate the lovers. And as always that thought leads to the lover-poet’s proposal for more (free) sex, which he presents as benefiting both parties. To the puella, however, this poem constitutes a request invoking both the topoi and the spirit of the querela, for more of what she just gave him. Thus even this rare celebratory poem reflexively turns to lament, because lament is the standard attitude of Roman love elegy. In Tibullus the querela unifies what often seems like disjointed poetic practice.18 Though his poems famously wander from one topic to another, in a hazy kaleidoscopic fashion, they retain a coherent character lent them

116

/

The Material Girls

by the lament, which in Tibullus’s hands is less energetic and more wishful than in Propertius and Ovid. His characteristic bent toward fantasy and wish fulfillment (see Miller 1999) regularly breaks up the pure lament, but always only temporarily. Poem 1.5, for example, mostly dealing with the lover-poet’s distress over Delia’s new, generous lover, breaks off instruction to Delia in the following way, beginning with the classic interjection of the querela: heu canimus frustra nec verbis victa patesci/tianua sed plena est percutienda manu (67–68: “Alas, I’m singing in vain, for the door is not opening, conquered by my words/but must be knocked upon instead by a well-filled hand”). Poem 1.6 begins with a complaint aimed at Cupid (1–4), using classic formulations and words of the querela, and then goes on to complain about Delia’s multiple infidelities:19 Semper ut inducar blandos offers mihi vultus, post tamen es misero tristis et asper, Amor. quid tibi, saeve, rei mecum est? an gloria magna est insidias homini composuisse deum? nam mihi tenduntur casses; iam Delia furtim nescio quem tacita callida nocte fovet. illa quidem iurata negat, sed credere durum est: sic etiam de me pernegat usque viro. ipse miser docui, quo posset ludere pacto custodes: heu heu nunc premor arte mea.

5

10

So that I should always be taken in, you show me a gentle face, then after you are unkind and harsh, Amor, to me in my misery. What business, savage one, do you have with me? Or is it a great glory for a god to have plotted ambushes against a man? For the nets are being put out for me; already clever Delia 5 is secretly keeping some other man warm in the silent night. She certainly denied it with an oath, but it’s hard to believe: that’s how she keeps denying it about me to her man. Wretched me, I myself taught her the arrangement by which she could trick the door guard: alas, alas, now I’m being pressed by my own art. 10

As is typical of Tibullus’s practice, the lament encompasses other standard elegiac topoi: erotodidaxis (lines 11–14 describe the lover-poet’s prior instruction of Delia); secret communications between lover-poet and puella, even in the presence of her vir (15–28); divine punishment for female infidelity (43–56, 77–84); the lover’s total devotion (69–74). The querela of lines 1–10—a formulaic opening—allows Tibullus to spread a wide net in pursuit of the primary theme of this poem: the amator’s desire to be with his puella.

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

117

To Delia, then, this entire poem offers nothing more than elegiac male persuasion by pathos, with a few barely submerged threats (73–74, 77–84), ending with the Tibullan lover-poet’s favorite scene: the mutual devotion of himself and his beloved in their old age: nos, Delia, amoris/exemplum cana simus uterque coma (85–86: “Let us, Delia, each with white hair, be an example of love”). Prayer and beseeching are so characteristic of the Tibullan lover-poet that he even prays on behalf of his beloved Marathus, whose cheating heart has been broken by a dura puella. These lines demonstrate that misery is the condition of any elegiac lover, even one who doesn’t write poetry: neu Marathum torque: puero quae gloria victo est? in veteres, esto dura, puella, senes. parce precor tenero: non illi sontica causa est, sed nimius luto corpora tingit amor. vel miser absenti maestas quam saepe querellas conicit et lacrimis omnia plena madent! (1.8.49–54) Don’t torment Marathus—what glory is there in a conquered boy? Be hard, girl, to the old men. Spare the tender boy, I pray: he has no harmful condition, but too much love has tainted his body with the yellow weed of mourning. Or how often the wretched one hurls sad complaints at the absent girl, and everything is wet, full of his tears!

Marathus’s own lament, generously included by his erstwhile lover-poet, further characterizes elegiac love as a state of suffering and grief, naturally engendering complaint: “quid me spernis?” ait. “poterat custodia vinci: ipse dedit cupidis fallere posse deus. nota venus furtiva mihi est, ut lenis agatur spiritus, ut nec dent oscula rapta sonum; et possum media quamvis obrepere nocte et strepitu nullo clam reserare fores. quid prosunt artes, miserum si spernit amantem et fugit ex ipso saeva puella toro? vel cum promittit, subito sed perfida fallit, est mihi nox multis evigilanda malis.” “Why do you reject me?” he said. “The guard could have been slipped. The god himself agreed to let lovers be able to deceive. The ways of secret love are known to me, so breath is drawn

55

60

55

118

/

The Material Girls

silently, so that stolen kisses make no sound; and I can slip in, even though it’s the middle of the night and open the doors without any noise. But what good are my arts, if the savage girl rejects her wretched lover and flees right out of his bed? Or when she promises, but, suddenly traitorous, deceives me, I must spend the night on guard duty amid many evils.”

60

The lover-poet offers sympathy, reinforces the character of Pholoe as dura, and strikes a practical note that is in general too little heeded by the elegiac lovers: desinas lacrimare, puer: non frangitur illa,/et tua iam fletu lumina fessa tument (67–68: “Stop weeping, boy: that girl is not broken,/and your tired eyes are already swelling from tears”). This poem is crucial for establishing complaint as the elegiac lover’s primary key, as it were, in song—even lovers who aren’t poets lament (cf., again, Horace 1.25.6–8).Thus the querela may be called the natural, or at least the inevitable, form of speech for any elegiac lover, even, as we shall see, that impudent and playful amator of the Amores. In general, Tibullus spreads both the spirit and the lexicon of the querela throughout his poetry, even placing it in Priapus’s complaint about greedy boys: heu male nunc artes miseras haec saecula tractant (1.4.57: “Alas, how badly this age now treats the wretched arts”). In Tibullus, the language of the querela tends to be applied to the lover-poet’s wretched condition, which sometimes appears to be virtual paralysis. The hallmark of Tibullan querela is its structure: lament culminating in beseeching or prayer.20 He prays similarly to Nemesis, invoking both the privileged status of poets and the spirit of her dead sister: ars bona: sed postquam sumpsit sibi tela Cupido, heu heu quam multis ars dedit ista malum! et mihi praecipue, iaceo cum saucius annum et (faveo morbo cum iuvat ipse dolor) usque cano Nemesim, sine qua versus mihi nullus verba potest iustos aut reperire pedes. at tu, nam divum servat tutela poetas, praemoneo, vati parce, puella, sacro. (2.5.107–14) Art is good: but after Cupid raised up his weapons, alas, alas, to how many that art gave evil! And to me especially, since I’ve been lying wounded for a year and (I’m favoring my illness, since the very pain is pleasing) I keep on singing Nemesis, without whom no verse of mine can find words or the right meter. But you [sc. Nemesis], since the patronage of the gods protects poets, I’m warning you, girl, spare the holy bard.

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

119

This structure creates an atmosphere of helpless grief associated with the state of elegiac love. This condition is strongly marked in 1.8, where Marathus, hopelessly in love with the cruel Pholoe, performs the rituals of the elegiac lover—chiefly, of course, weeping.21 Thus, as these passages demonstrate, lament underlies all of Tibullus. It is never far from the surface, and it is characteristic of this lover-poet’s view of the life of love that he extends its expression to others suffering love as well. Any reading puella, however, will recognize the spirit and the occasional expression of persuasion, aimed directly at herself—in 1.3.83, for instance, in the middle of a long fantasia about his imminent death and hoped-for cure (on this poem, see below). The words of prayer (precor, oro) and prayers for mercy and kindness (parce) are more common in Tibullus than in Propertius or Ovid, and their function will be clear to the docta puella: persuasion by pathos, a hallmark of Roman love elegy. In Ovid’s hands, the querela seems somewhat denatured, partly because his elegies are more overtly rhetorical than either Tibullus’s or Propertius’s, and his standard feature, the unexpected twist at the end of a poem, tends to cause readers to revise their readings of the poem and to perceive in it a lack of “sincerity.” Moreover, Ovid tends to use the standard lexicon of the querela less than Tibullus and Propertius do. There are nonetheless plenty of standard elegiac laments in the Amores, for regardless of their effect on readers, or their perceived intent, they contain the same standard elements of the querela as are found in Propertius and Tibullus: cruel girl, unavailable girl, faithless girl, uncontrollable Amor/amor, and so on. Amores 2.5, for example, constitutes a form of elegiac querela, with a typically Ovidian surprise ending. It begins by recalling very recent events (the puella’s infidelity, which the lover-poet witnessed at the previous night’s dinner party), seeming to be a self-address. But, like Propertius 1.18, it turns immediately to addressing the puella, in line 4. Among Ovid’s Amores, it contains a relatively high number of words of lament and expressions of the suffering typically described in the querela. Given the multiple ironies of Ovid’s elegiac practice, Amores 2.5 is perfectly placed as a poem berating the puella for having been unfaithful: it follows immediately on poem 2.4, which describes the “hundred causes” (line 10) that the lover-poet will always be in love with somebody, and the myriad types of girl that attract him. Shortly after, in poems 2.7 and 2.8, it turns out that the amator has already been cheating on Corinna by having sex with her hairdresser. Thus, in the overall structure of the Amores, this poem’s consistent attitude of misery and its confessions of helpless passion carry little weight. Notably, however, 2.5 does offer the first instance of an injured male

120

/

The Material Girls

heart in the Amores. The lexicon of lament is strewn throughout: me miserum (8: “wretched me”); miser (13: “wretch”); dolor (33: “grief”); torqueor infelix (53: “unhappy, I am being tortured”); doleo (59: “I am grieving”); queror (twice in line 60: “I am complaining”). This poem depicts the lover-poet in the throes of a typical elegiac dilemma: he has proof of the puella’s infidelity, but he continues to love her, though unhappily. Further, he now associates his passion with death: Nullus amor tanti est (abeas, pharetrate Cupido),/ut mihi sint totiens maxima vota mori (1–2: “No love is worth so much—go away, quivered Cupid—that my greatest prayers should so often be to die”). This lament devolves, however, into male sexual jealousy, directed at the puella, for the lover-poet immediately begins to address her: vota mori mea sunt, cum te peccasse recordor,/o mihi, perpetuum nata puella malum (3–4: “My prayers are to die, when I recall that you have cheated,/oh, girl born a constant evil to me”). He goes on switching back and forth from a first-person recollection to a second-person address directed at the puella. The final section of the poem describes his accusation to her, her self-defense (her beauty), and their reconciliation with a kiss. Even this resolution, however, unsettles him, because her kissing technique has improved, so he assumes that she has been to bed with her other teacher (57–62). The multiple ironies of this complex sexual triangle are beyond the scope of this chapter; what I’d like to point out here is that reading this poem from the puella’s perspective demonstrates two forms of hypocrisy, one generic to elegy and the other specific to this particular elegiac loverpoet. The generic hypocrisy is the pretense that a courtesan should be faithful to one man;22 specific to the Ovidian lover-poet is the aggressive infidelity that he practices and even boasts of, as seen in the preceding poem. If we assume that this puella is Corinna, on the grounds that Corinna is prominent in the next three poems, and then again in poems 12–13, she will be well forewarned that her lover-poet is habitually faithless.23 Further, she will note that what saves her from his rage is not his helpless love for her (that would be a Propertian touch) but her beauty. This poem both recalls to the puella the superficial attraction her loverpoet feels for her and potentially reminds her of, as it were, her expiration date, when her beauty will fade (in elegy, an everimpending moment). Thus even a poem that presents an apparently plausible basis for lament unravels when read from the docta puella’s perspective, for from that viewpoint, its lament is hypocritical.24 From the puella’s perspective, all the querela does is attempt to get sex for free, particularly in this case, as a paying client is present. The querela

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

121

is the lover’s formulaic, virtually reflexive reaction to any obstacle or setback on the path of elegiac love, and hence the puella will treat it as such. Though elegiac lament ostensibly exists to allow the lover to relieve his agonies by confessing them, it operates as a form of indirect sexual persuasion by attempting to invoke her pity; it regularly addresses her in her absence; and the dispersion of its lexicon throughout elegy, even into poems purportedly celebrating the happy union of lover and puella, marks it as reflex speech, generic rather than specific, and thus unlikely to have much effect on a well-read docta puella. CHARACTERS AND COMPLAINTS: THE CRUEL GIRL, THE WEEPING LOVER In the poems about the greedy girl or the rival, the lover-poet offers spurious logic, but when it comes to making his case by way of characterization, he opts for appeals based on ethos (character, both his and hers) and pathos (her emotions, via his suffering), in an effort to secure her compliance with his wishes. That is, he offers up his own mild character and pathetic devotion as an implicit argument for the puella’s reception of him, and he complains about her cruelty and his suffering, in the elegiac querela or lament, as a means of inducing her guilt and pity, so that she will receive him. Complaints of her cruelty aim at invoking guilt; complaints of his suffering, at invoking pity. Overall, the characterizations of himself and his beloved, along with his interactions with others, allow the lover-poet to provide implicit forms of what is elsewhere explicit: elegiac male persuasion. The usual lexicon accompanies all this indirect persuasion: the lover is wretched (miser) and sad (tristis), weeps (flere) copious tears (lacrimae) as he utters his complaints (querelae) and lamentations (heu, ei), and suffers grief and sorrow (dolor); the puella is hard (dura) or cruel (saeva).25 As we will see here, elegiac complaints of the lover’s own misery, accusations of the puella’s harshness, and general expressions of lament (querela) are so intertwined that they can barely be disentangled; hence the instances I cite are chosen almost arbitrarily. Even the separation of querela and characterization may be somewhat arbitrary, as the former could be said to subsume the latter. The persistent specificity of the characterizations of lover and puella, however, persuades me to treat them separately from the general elegiac lament. Most of this material within elegy will be familiar to its readers; my articulation of it here is aimed at demonstrating it as secondhand persuasion—that is, as intended to induce compliance in the puella. Since these characterizations and complaints are so ubiquitous and

122

/

The Material Girls

so easily recognized, I will limit my discussions of them to a few examples and trust that any further reading in elegy will reveal more. The puella’s role in this game of indirect persuasion, despite any personal feelings she may have,26 is to enforce this passivity and dependence in her suitors (see again the instructions of Dipsas and Acanthis on this point, Am. 1.8.75–82 and Prop. 4.54.29–44; see also Ars 3.577–610) by exercising her right and power to lock him out, to say no. As I argue below, these behavior patterns are standard postures in the partnered-opposition game of elegiac love. But it is crucial to note that despite the regular claims of the recusatio that passivity and inactivity are innate characteristics of the lover-poet (see chapter 1), this claim is undermined first by the contrary argument that Amor and the puella have forced the lover-poet into his state of passive dependence, and second by elegy’s constant awareness, as noted above, that such a state of affairs is unnatural and impermanent.27 Ultimately, the lover-poet can always return to his superior social status, while the puella will only age into poverty and isolation. The lover-poet’s awareness that he is violating gender and class roles in submitting to a woman—and a courtesan, at that—is linked to his awareness that his attachment to her will not actually endure forever, that he will at some point have to return to the world of men, politics, and public life, despite his present desire not to.28 The experienced puella knows the same truth (see, for example, Syra of Terence’s Eunuchus, Scapha of Plautus’s Mostellaria, Astaphium and Phronesium of Plautus’s Truculentus), so she must do her best to withstand her lover’s complaints by recognizing them for yet another form of elegiac male persuasion—expressed this time in appeals to emotion rather than to logic or morals. From the puella’s perspective, then, all the behaviors and sentiments enacted and expressed by her lover-poet are no more than implicit forms of male elegiac persuasion.29 Thus the main point, for the puella’s reading of the obligatory figures and postures of elegy, is that she recognizes them as motivated by the same interests that impel complaints about her greed, the lena, or the other men she receives—the lover-poet’s desire to gain unpurchased access to her bedroom. The expression of apparently sincere emotions in the fulfillment of these ritualized steps in the elegiac courtship game produces a tension, an internal contradiction, which the puella reads as backhanded sexual persuasion bearing the signs of both resentment and a guilty conscience.30 This dissonance is the natural result of the disingenuities of the genre of Roman love elegy, as the guilty conscience derives from the lover-poet’s awareness that he holds the upper hand, for as I have noted before, his social

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

123

status, his means, and his masculine (and therefore dominant) gender give him leverage over the puella. At the same time, precisely because his status, means, and gender have made him accustomed to dominance,31 particularly over subalterns, the lover-poet resents the various duties required in pursuit of elegiac sex. Thus a certain anger can be glimpsed here and there, in complaints about how disgraceful it is for a free man to serve a woman; in threats of violence, as noted above; in a desire to see the puella weep on his account (on these, see chapter 5); and in threats that one day the puella will regret her present cruel abstinence, when she is old and will no longer be able to attract lovers, either paying or versifying. This resentment further suggests that the elegiac love relationship is both temporary and unnatural, given Roman social hierarchies and realities. The implicit persuasion of the standard querela and elegiac characterizations are backed up by threats that expose the disingenuities inherent to Roman love elegy. Recognizing all these elements, stated both explicitly and implicitly, the puella must play her part very carefully as she receives the various offerings and ritual obligations of her lover-poets.

“Pretty Girls Have Hearts Made of Stone”: Elegy’s Cruel and Faithless Girls The elegiac docta puella is constructed as rather an oxymoron: she is beautiful and physically tender, but emotionally hard-hearted, cruel, capricious, and fickle. She appreciates (and sometimes writes; cf. Prop. 2.1) poetry but does not value it enough to exchange sex for it very often. She is intellectually discerning, physically beautiful, and emotionally untouched by her complaining lover’s pathetic devotion. Hence the lover-poet must again employ his powers of characterization, this time applied to herself, as sexual persuasion. But from her perspective, each of his descriptions of her— whether loving and celebratory or complaining and abusive—is designed to induce sexual compliance in her by persuading her to be not cruel but kind instead, to be a nice puella rather than a saeva puella. Further, the substance of his complaint is always her refusal to admit him, whether or not she is cheating on him.32 Thus in her view the lover-poet complains because she is uncompliant—she won’t do what he wants. Such complaints are of course unlikely to persuade any docta puella that she should be accomodating rather than demanding. The words used to describe the puella as cruel and fickle33 are spread throughout elegy, applied not only to her self but also to her door, her customs, and the harsh conditions of love that she forces upon the lover-poet. The primary charge against the docta puella is that she is hard-hearted

124

/

The Material Girls

and pitiless (a foremother of la belle dame sans merci), as well as faithless. This lament operates on precisely the same principle as the selfcharacterization offered by the lover-poet (see below): it is designed to invoke either pity or guilt in the puella, so that she will relent and admit him. Kennedy (1993: 74) notes of elegiac complaints: “The language of pain involves a subtle attempt at coercion. The lover . . . is trying to impose on the beloved a self-image of hard-heartedness which she may very well wish to reject as not being ‘really’ her.” As he points out, though, her only way of escaping “the discourse in which she is being entrapped and her identity constructed for her is by submission (sexual or otherwise) to the lover.” Thus the “lover’s discourse emerges as an incessant attempt to control.” The docta puella will recognize this rhetorical bind easily. Her job both professionally and poetically is to resist it. The lover-poet occasionally acknowledges that duritia, hardness, is a standard characteristic of the docta puella—see, for example, Tibullus 1.8.50: in veteres esto dura, puella, senes (“Be hard, girl, to the old men”),34 but he prefers to describe his own beloved as an exception, as unnaturally hard. He thus contributes to the appearance of a “real” woman rather than a generic or poetic one. Two interesting facts must be noted, however: first, the two women most consistently described as hard and faithless— Propertius’s Cynthia and Tibullus’s Nemesis—cast a shadow over the other elegiac puellae; and second, that the proportion of laments about the puella’s hardness and fickleness is considerably lower than one might expect. That is, Cynthia and Nemesis are more commonly described as cruel than Corinna and Delia, so they create an overall impression of harshness in the elegiac puella. In Propertius, the lover-poet complains of a hard or cruel puella sixteen times (more often, when associated hardships and suffering are included);35 Tibullus’s speaker twice calls Nemesis hard or cruel (2.4.6, 2.6.28); the Ovidian amator/praeceptor refers to hard or cruel girls (Am. 1.9.19, 2.4.23; Ars 2.527), but never makes this complaint about a present puella.36 Other complaints are similarly registered: charges of infidelity (forms of levitas and perfidia) are aimed at the puella twelve times in Propertius,37 at Pholoe in Tibullus 1.8.63, and at the nameless girl of Amores 3.3.10.38 The construction of Pholoe in Tibullus 1.8 as a girl who is hard (dura, 50), cruel (saeva, 63), proud (superba, 77), and faithless (perfida, 62), as well as demanding (29–33) both identifies her as an elegiac puella and further marks the elegiac puella as greedy, cruel, and faithless. The language of the querela arises in a very high percentage of poems in Roman love elegy; the cruelty and infidelity of the puella are a source of lament, but other complaints outweigh it by a surprising degree (see table

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

125

2 above). In fact, the primary focus of elegiac lament is not the puella but the lover himself, as she will not fail to notice. Further, the poems complaining of the puella’s faults often manage to do so by focusing more on the lover than the girl, and without the lexicon of elegiac reproach. Even those poems that take the puella’s faults as their topic demonstrate primacy to the lover-poet’s self-interest. Propertius 1.15, for instance, makes a great deal of hay out of Cynthia’s apparent readiness to cheat on him during his illness, but reverts to his own miserable condition of love, which merits her fidelity. Saepe ego multa tuae levitatis dura timebam, hac tamen excepta, Cynthia, perfidia. aspice me quanto rapiat fortuna periclo! tu tamen in nostro lenta timore venis. (1–4) Often I have feared many harsh things from your fickleness; nevertheless, Cynthia, this treachery was unexpected. Look into what danger fortune snatches me! But you still come late in the face of my fear.

He suspects her of being especially dressed up to meet a new man (5–8). After comparing her, to her disadvantage, to an array of devoted mythical heroines, ladies who pined away or actually died on account of faithful love, the lover-poet turns, in a typically elegiac (and especially Propertian) move, from Cynthia’s failing to his own devotion and the suffering he would undergo if some evil befell her: multa prius: vasto labentur flumina ponto, annus et inversas duxerat ante vices, quam tua sub nostro mutetur pectore cura: sis quodcumque voles, non aliena tamen. (29–32) Many things first: rivers would flow from the sea, and the year would lead its seasons backward, sooner than the love of you would be changed in my heart: be whatever you like, just not somebody else’s.

Thus even a poem that begins with specific complaints about Cynthia turns to the lover-poet’s own hopeless dedication to her.39 Tibullus typically integrates complaints about the beloved into a kaleidoscopic series of subjects. When the lover-poet complains, either on his own account or on behalf of the unhappy Marathus, he merges the puella’s cruelty, greed, or infidelity into a series of other problems. Poem 1.8 begins with a long description of the unhappy young man’s behavior, and his

126

/

The Material Girls

attempts to hide his symptoms (1–8), especially his futile grooming and dressing rituals (9–14), with which the puella herself need not bother (15–16). As noted above, Pholoe is constructed in this poem as a typical elegiac puella: she’s demanding gifts, as understood from the lover-poet’s prohibition at line 29 (munera ne poscas = “You shouldn’t ask for gifts”); she’s hard, again understood from the speaker’s prohibition: in veteres esto dura, puella, senes (50: “Be hard, girl, to the old men”). Marathus himself laments that she has been refusing him, and not because she’s locked in, but because she has been seeing someone else and breaking dates with him. Pholoe, reading this poem, would find the lover-poet’s rhetoric very familiar, for it characterizes her as greedy, hard, savage, cheating, contemptuous, and proud—in other words, as an elegiac puella. This characterization is, in every case, linked to arguments by pathos, on behalf of Marathus, and appeals to age (his present youth and her own impending old age). She is instructed to be generous to him because he’s young and beautiful (29–30, 49–50); she should do so now because one day she’ll be old and repellent (39–48), and will regret her present cruelty (77–78), as Marathus now regrets his own former intransigence (69–76).40 Thus this poem demonstrates a typical elegiac preoccupation with the male lover, even in the midst of a complaint about a girl’s faults. Tibullus 2.6 likewise manages to slide through a variety of topics, characterizing Nemesis as cruel and faithless, while not actually reproaching her. It begins with the lover’s wish that he could go off to war with Macer rather than be a lover (1–10); he then vows a farewell to love, and promptly admits that he can’t stop loving.41 The mention of hope (spes) in line 20 turns the lover-poet to a new topic, which returns him to an old one: the goddess Hope encourages farmers, hunted animals or fish, prisoners or slaves, and, finally, lovers: spes facilem Nemesim spondet mihi, sed negat illa./ei mihi, ne vincas, dura puella, deam (27–28: “Hope promises me that Nemesis will be easy, but that girl refuses./Woe to me, hard girl, don’t defeat a goddess”). He pleads with Nemesis on the basis of his devotion to her dead young sister, then must suddenly stop, as he has caused his beloved to weep (29–40). To comfort her, the lover-poet finds a way of excusing her cruelty by blaming it on another—the infamous lena: nec lacrimis oculos digna est foedare loquaces:/lena nocet nobis, ipsa puella bona est (43–44:”She doesn’t deserve to foul her expressive eyes with tears:/it’s the lena who harms me, the girl herself is good”).42 Reading this elegy, Nemesis will see herself repeatedly characterized as cruel because she causes the lover-poet suffering. She will also recognize her suitor’s criticism of the lena Phryne as wishful thinking that allows him to complain of their separation without

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

127

blaming her. This is the same rhetorical move that the Tibullan amator followed at 1.5.47–60, and it perhaps indicates his consciousness that accusations of cruelty and harshness may not be the best approach to the bedroom. Regardless, Nemesis will certainly see her lover-poet’s attention repeatedly reverting to himself, as he manages here to slide away from her cruelty and infidelity to his own grievous state, substituting pity for guilt as the emotion he wants to induce in her. The case of the cruel girl is one of the most striking deviations in Ovid’s elegiac practice, for she is virtually absent. Her doors, threshold, and door guard are hard throughout (Am. 1.6.28, 62, 68, 73, 74; 2.1.22; 3.1.53; 3.11.10; Ars 2.636; Rem. 508, 677). The Ovidian speaker—lover-poet in the Amores, praeceptor Amoris (teacher of love) in the Ars amatoria—recognizes the existence of the elegiac cruel girl (Am. 1.9.19, 2.4.23; Ars 2.527, 3.476) but never presents his own suffering under her. He does suffer her infidelity, which causes him to endure standard elegiac agonies,43 but as always he focuses on himself even more than the other elegiac lover-poets do. Poem 3.11 explores the lover-poet’s misery at being in love with a faithless girl: rather than berate her, in Propertian style, he focuses on his own condition.44 First he reviews his suffering and its attendant indignities, detailing his services to her, his struggle against love, and her infidelity (1–28). He swears off, claiming to be cured of his passion. The cure is short-lived, however, as the patient suffers an immediate relapse; he explores the puella’s hold over him—a hold that, as she will certainly note, is purely physical. As Gross (1975–76: 155) notes, the conflict between his physical attraction to the puella and her infidelity “is constantly repeated with clever variations of phrase”: nequitiam fugio, fugientem forma reducit; aversor morum crimina, corpus amo. sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum et videor voti nescius esse mei. aut formosa fores minus aut minus improba vellem: non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos. facta merent odium, facies exorat amorem: me miserum! vitiis plus valet illa suis. (37–44) I flee her faults, but her beauty leads the fleeing one back; I turn away from the crimes of her customs, but I love her body.45 Thus I can live neither without you nor with you and I seem not to know my own will. I would rather you were either less beautiful or less bad: such a great beauty does not make for bad morals.

128

/

The Material Girls

Her behavior deserves hatred, her face argues for love: wretched me, she is stronger than her faults.

He goes on to plead for her fidelity on grounds relating strictly to himself: he wants her to justify his passion by deserving it—in other words, by being faithful: parce per o lecti socialia iura, per omnes, qui dant fallendos se tibi saepe, deos, perque tuam faciem, magni mihi numinis instar, perque tuos oculos, qui rapuere meos. quicquid eris, mea semper eris; tu selige tantum, me quoque velle velis anne coactus amem. (45–50) Be sparing, oh, by the shared rights of the bed, by all the gods who often give themselves to you to be forsworn, and by your face, the image to me of a great divinity, and by your eyes, which have stolen my own. Whatever you will be, you will always be mine; you just choose, if you also want me to want, or if I should love coerced.

Here the lover-poet echoes Propertian language and suffering perhaps more strongly than anywhere else:46 the girl’s habit of perjuring herself by the gods and her own eyes recalls Cynthia’s forsworn eyes and gods (Prop. 1.15); her beautiful face and eyes, which stole the lover’s, recall Propertius 1.1; and the vow of line 49 echoes the end of Propertius 1.15.47 The plea here is based purely on pathos—there is no more offering of specious logic, as in 3.3 and 3.8. The only argument is, “I love you, and wouldn’t you rather I loved you willingly?” The puella will surely note that she is being offered neither new reasons nor new incentives for her desired fidelity. This poem provides a transition from the puella’s character to the characterization of the lover as wretched and pathetic, but here his misery is blamed on her rather than Cupid,Venus, or the generic condition of love. Amores 3.11 merges the heartless girl and the wretched lover but focuses primarily on him rather than her. It is thus consistent with elegy’s attempt at indirect persuasion by characterization.The lover-poet begins by aiming to invoke guilt in the puella and ends by seeking to invoke pity, the former deriving from a focus on her and the latter from a focus on himself, which as always is his favorite topic.

The Pathetic Lover in Elegy: “Pity Me, My Darling, and Carry Me Away” Just as he offers up rhetorical portraiture of his beloved, the elegiac loverpoet depicts himself with persuasive intent aimed directly at his beloved. In

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

129

contrast to the puella, the lover demonstrates himself to be weak, spineless, and hopelessly in love. The lover-poet’s favorite source of lament is as always himself. He claims to be utterly devoted to his beloved, but he spends a great deal more time complaining about himself and his misery than praising or addressing her. The lover’s lament proclaims misery in the hopes of invoking pity in the puella (this rhetorical appeal is appropriately called a miseratio); her pity will ideally result in admission. The characterizations of the lament are all linked to a condition that the puella could easily cure: the misery of love; the injustice of the male lover’s suffering, caused by the infidelity or harshness of a cruel girl; the failure of Cupid and Venus to protect or help him; love as a kind of disease whose primary symptom is destruction of his reason, a symptom that causes him to become weak and unmanly, to violate his gender and class norms by becoming the passive slave of a woman. The puella, reading carefully, will note that her lover resents his suffering and hence also resents her. Elegy thus presents the lover-poet as violating all standards of upperclass Roman masculinity, through both servile behavior and inertia of character. So fundamental is this characterization of the lover-poet to elegy that some form of it appears in the beginning of each elegist’s oeuvre. Tibullus describes the lover-poet’s condition, in his programmatic poem 1.1, as one of servitude: me retinent vinctum formosae vincla puellae,/et sedeo duras ianitor ante fores (55–56: “The chains of a beautiful girl hold me captive,/ and I sit as the guard before hard doors”). His second poem, the first postprogrammatic elegy, begins with lament: adde merum vinoque novos compesce dolores,/occupet ut fessi lumina victa sopor (1.2.1–2: “Pour the pure stuff and press down new sorrows with wine,/so that sleep may take over the tired man’s conquered eyes”). In book 2, he inserts a similar complaint even into a festival poem—Cupid, he says, is in the country, to evil effect: illic indocto primum se exercuit arcu:/ei mihi, quam doctas nunc habet ille manus! (2.1.69–70: “There he first trained himself on his inexpert bow:/ woe is me, what expert hands he now has!”). Propertius’s programmatic opening to the Monobiblos is unified by the spirit and expression of lament: Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus (1.1.1–2). Cynthia first took wretched me captive with her eyes, though I had been contaminated by no previous desires. in me tardus Amor non ullas cogitat artis, nec meminit notas, ut prius, ire vias (1.1.17–18)

130

/

The Material Girls

For me, late Love meditates no arts, nor remembers, as before, how to go down known paths. in me nostra Venus noctes exercet amaras, et nullo vacuus tempore defit Amor (1.1.33–34) Against me my Venus forces bitter nights, and useless Love is absent at no time.48

Even Ovid, that famous joker, inserts comic complaint into his programmatic Amores 1.1. After Cupid shoots him, the lover-poet laments: me miserum! certas habuit puer ille sagittas./uror. (Am. 1.1.25–26: “Wretched me! that boy had unerring arrows./I’m on fire”). In 1.2 he describes the physical discomfort of love (despite not yet having a beloved), which has caused him to toss and turn, sleepless: lassaque versati corporis ossa dolent (4: “and the tired bones of my much-tossed body ache”). Notably, however, the lover-poet’s self-presentation is not consistent throughout elegy. On the one hand, he claims eternal fidelity to the puella, but even Propertius’s speaker, who protests that stance more consistently and vehemently than the other elegiac amatores, proclaims his opportunities, and his inclinations, for straying (Prop. 2.22, 23).49 Although the elegiac lover-poet usually describes himself as passive and helpless, he resents his exclusion and his pseudo-servitude. Indeed, at times he threatens, or comes close to threatening, his puella with physical violence (Tib. 1.6.73–74; Prop. 2.8.25–28, 2.15.17–20; Am. 2.5.30, 45–48); once he actually does strike her (Am. 1.7). Significantly, though elegy overtly disavows such behavior (Prop. 2.5.21–26; Tib. 1.6.73–74, 1.10.59–66; Ars 2.169–74; Am. 1.7, passim), that very disapproval acknowledges its existence as always a possibility in the elegiac love relationship.50 Further, the lena alerts the puella that her lovers may turn violent (Prop. 4.5.31–32), and that their violence may be turned to her financial advantage, as she can charge them for damaged property.51 Elegiac violence bespeaks the lover-poet’s resentment of the puella (particularly in Prop. 2.8, in which the lover-poet actually threatens to kill his beloved) and of his servitude toward her. Chapter 5 contains a detailed discussion of elegiac resentment and violence, which merit brief notice here because the puella is always aware of them, and her awareness affects her reception of her lover-poet’s depiction of himself as helplessly devoted to her. In Propertius’s programmatic poem 1.1, for example, the lover-poet suggests that his condition is nearly fatal (though a particularly cynical or skeptical reading puella might note that he can still compose poetry with the

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

131

best of them) and claims to be willing to undergo surgery and cautery as last-ditch methods of saving him—primarily so that he can vent his rage and escape Cynthia: fortiter et ferrum saevos patiemur et ignis, sit modo libertas quae velit ira loqui. ferte per extremas gentis et ferte per undas, qua non ulla meum femina norit iter (27–30) Bravely I would tolerate both the knife and the flames,52 if only there might be the freedom to speak what resentment wishes. Take me among distant people, and take me over the waves, where no woman will ever know my path.53

Here the lover-poet depicts himself as near death, in such poor condition that his friends fear for him; he is willing to suffer physical torment in order to escape his servile condition. Notably, again he asks not to be relieved of his passion but only to be able to speak his mind (an ability that suggests some diminution of passion but later proves useless; see above, on Prop. 1.18). Though the subjunctives in this statement suggest that this goal is unreachable, it is hard to imagine what complaints this resentful lover-poet might have omitted, here or in the rest in of the Monobiblos, let alone books 2 and 3. Certainly the puella will take note of this resentment, which— though it seems aimed at Cupid and Venus—can have no object in person other than herself.54 Anger and its expression are hallmarks of Propertius’s poetic corpus. At the same time, however, the drastic solutions proposed here imply the degree of his suffering, and they are designed to invoke pity in the puella. To her, all these measures read as signs of desperate misery, which as always she could easily cure. To the puella, Propertius 1.1 offers the standard, virtually ritual, elements of the querela, the lover’s lament, and is therefore little able to persuade her to give him what he wants. This poem programmatically establishes the elegiac lover as miserable and passive, the helpless slave of a cruel mistress, and the dupe of useless or hostile Amor.55 Though the male elegiac lover-poet presents himself as utterly passive, virtually feminized in his subjugation to a woman made of sterner stuff, such a self-portrait might well cause a docta puella to roll her eyes with disbelief—particularly as she knows that her helpless suitor is angry and may turn violent. If she’s an experienced courtesan,56 as most of elegy’s puellae seem to be, she may have heard these protestations before (after all, elegy adverts to crowds of young men serenading at their beloved’s doorsteps,57 so she may hear such love calls often). Thus she will recognize the self-

132

/

The Material Girls

proclaimed helplessness and dependence of her poetic suitors as a posture assumed in the courtship game of elegiac love—a posture he can exchange for a rather more forceful attitude, whenever the mood strikes him. ADVENTURES IN ELEGY; OR, THE STATIONS OF THE LOVER The standard amatory episodes and attitudes expressed in querelae—the paraclausithyron, servitium amoris, militia amoris—are effectively generic obligations in the pursuit of elegiac love. Each stance or activity constitutes another step in the elegiac courtship, what we might call the stations of the lover. In Roman love elegy, these events and their accompanying physical postures (e.g., lying prostrate outside the puella’s door, tossing and turning in the single-occupancy sleepless bed) are virtually ritual elements in the elegiac rake’s progress,58 and they correspond to the puella’s occupational obligations as detailed by the lena and the praeceptor Amoris—that is, primarily her need to refuse her suitors regularly, according to the lena (Prop. 4.5.30, 33–34, 37, 47–48; Am. 1.8.74–78), and occasionally, according to the praeceptor Amoris (Ars 3.579–88). So expected and standardized are these postures and behaviors that they have the specific nomenclature listed above, and they sometimes appear to be offered up in elegy almost as a receipt—a proof to the puella that another elegiac graduation requirement has been fulfilled (e.g., the garland, the empty bottle of wine, and the poem left at her door).59 As a result, the instances of these elegiac topoi can seem perfunctory, not only to the puella but to the reader as well,60 a quality that further reveals the disingenuities of Roman love elegy, which sometimes gives the impression of being formulaic while claiming to express uncontrollable passion spontaneously. Each of these figures has been thoroughly examined in previous studies,61 so my discussions of them here can be brief, pointed toward the docta puella’s view of them.62 Since many of the poems that express one figure also express another, my procedure will be to look at selected sections of different poems rather than to examine single poems in detail, not in pursuit of an in-depth analysis of a given text but in search of the range of these elegiac topoi and of the puella’s reception of them.

“Just You and Me”: The Lover-Poet Seeks to be Alone with the Puella The Roman elegiac lover wants one thing: to be alone with his beloved. For this goal to be achieved, a few other events must occur, all of them generi-

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

133

cally impossible on any long-term basis. The puella must be rendered both kind and chaste. She must love only her poet and no other, ever. Ideally, in fact, she will pay attention only to him.63 Anything that might come between them is thus an enemy. The persistent fantasy haunts Roman love elegy that somehow the lover-poet and his puella might exist together alone, apart from every other person. The lover-poet wishes to separate his beloved and keep her all to himself. Tibullus’s speaker imagines this joyous isolation as occurring in the countryside (1.1, passim; 1.2.71–74, 1.5.21–30); Propertius’s provides no specific location, though he shows a marked preference for the puella’s bedroom;64 Ovid strikingly violates this elegiac tendency by deliberately omitting it (yet another reason that he is often seen as not a true elegist). His speaker’s pronounced Casanova syndrome (see Am. 2.4) further marks his failure to desire his own total isolation with his puella. I suggest, however, that Ovid both proves the rule of elegy and points out the general insincerity and unreliability of the elegiac lover-poet, even in this most basic urge: Tibullus’s speaker—despite his constant desire to be alone apart with his beloved—writes love poems to not one or even two named beloveds, but to three; and even Propertius’s speaker is not completely faithful to Cynthia, regardless of his near-constant protestations of eternal devotion. That is, even the urge for isolation of lover-poet and puella turns out to be another bit of elegiac sleight-of-hand, as the lover-poet cannot sustain that desire for long (and of course the docta puella cannot afford it at all). The elegiac urge for total joint isolation from society turns out, in fact, to be most powerful whenever something, or someone, threatens to separate lover and puella. Thus Propertius 2.6, one of elegy’s strongest expressions of desiring to separate puella from all other social interactions, begins with a powerful assault on Cynthia’s fidelity—he compares her to famous courtesans of legend and comedy (1–6)—then goes on to complain about general corruption of women by male sexual desire and even by erotic art (27–34). The poem ends by complaining that female sexual chastity cannot be enforced by a man and then swearing the lover-poet’s customary oath of eternal fidelity to Cynthia (37–42). This poem’s urge to separate Cynthia even from sisters, mother, female friends, is engendered not by love of Cynthia but by sexual jealousy—the lover-poet suspects that these visitors are not kin and that some of the female visitors are actually men in disguise (13–14)! Likewise, Tibullus 1.2, which fantasizes about sheepherding with Delia in the isolated countryside, is motivated by overwhelming jealousy: Delia is presently locked up by her vir. Poem 1.5 begins by acknowledging a sep-

134

/

The Material Girls

aration between lover-poet and Delia but develops an extended fantasy on a pastoral farm life with her, in which the only others will be household slaves and the occasionally visiting Messalla, his patron. Delia’s rich lover (dives amator, 1.5.47), blamed on the lena, turns out to be the engine of the lover-poet’s desire to kidnap Delia to a country hideaway (where he apparently plans to keep her so busy that she’ll have no time for infidelity).65 Regardless of the lover-poet’s wishes from one moment to the next, the docta puella must practice her profession with others willing to pay her in coin rather than meter. Furthermore, elegy generically requires at least the occasional threat of separation. Hence the lover-poet develops the argument that no other is worthy of his puella, that he loves her so devotedly as to merit both her fidelity and her undivided attention, and that nothing should come between them. These arguments are generally brought forth at the first threat of a separation of any kind. Thus the poems about rivals, discussed in chapter 2, argue that the other man is unworthy of the puella, who should love only her lover-poet. Separations caused by other sorts of objects engender arguments so standardized as to have generic names—paraclausithyron and propempticon—but the point is always the same: nothing should come between lover-poet and puella. As I have noted above, I consider the propempticon a subset of the paraclausithyron, because in elegy its function is to dissuade the puella, to change her mind, to keep her in Rome. I have discussed the two separately here because different types of arguments are deployed, depending on whether the object between lover-poet and puella is human (a guard or vir), architectural (a door), or geotopographical (a journey, usually overseas). It is worth nothing that elegy records rather more success for the propempticon than for the paraclausithyron, but then a sea journey is a great undertaking for the puella, who may well be of two minds about it to begin with. Further, while elegy generically requires separation of lover-poet and puella, that separation can be short-term only, as the poetry will have to stop if the girl isn’t around. The primary points to note, from the docta puella’s viewpoint, are that separation engenders elegies, and that in those elegies the lover-poet offers her only persuasion, never the material substance she requires.

We Should be Together: The Paraclausithyron and the Propempticon Elegy establishes geographical distance between lover-poet and puella as a taboo in Tibullus 1.3, where, in a marked reversal of the ordinary arrangement, it is the lover-poet who has gone away. Delia is depicted as having

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

135

feared his voyage (9–26), rightly as it turns out, for the amator is sick and praying to recover. After a typically Tibullan set of fantasies, first of the preocean-faring golden age and then of his happy afterlife in Elysium, the lover-poet reaches the heart of his persuasive prayer, which turns out to be aimed not at healing divinities, but at Delia: at tu casta precor maneas, sanctique pudoris adsideat custos sedula semper anus. haec tibi fabellas referat positaque lucerna deducat plena stamina longa colu; at circa gravibus pensis adfixa puella paulatim somno fessa remittat opus. tunc veniam subito, nec quisquam nuntiet ante, sed videar caelo missus adesse tibi. tunc mihi, qualis eris longos turbata capillos, obvia nudato, Delia, curre pede. hoc precor, hunc illum nobis Aurora nitentem Luciferum roseis candida portet equis. But you, I pray, remain chaste, and let the busy old lady always be there, a guardian of your holy chastity. Let her tell you stories and when the lamp is placed by draw out the the long threads on the full distaff; but let the tired girl attached to the heavy baskets slowly let go her work in sleep. Then suddenly I’ll come, and let nobody announce it in advance, but I’ll seem to have been sent from the sky. Then, just as you are, with your long hair in disarray, run to meet me, Delia, with bare foot. This I pray, may shining Aurora bring me, with her horses, this glowing Daystar.

85

90

85

90

The joyous reunion of lover-poet and puella rests, of course, on the most crucial element—Delia’s chastity, which must be guarded by a chaperone.66 Even as this reverse-separation poem operates to justify the lover-poet’s claims on the puella, it reveals his anxiety about her activities in his absence. Such anxiety fuels every poem lamenting or attempting to prevent separation of lover-poet and puella and demonstrates the purpose of these poems as, once again, male elegiac persuasion, which any docta puella will perceive. In the propempticon the lover-poet employs a great deal of alarming details about the dangers of travel; though he offers them as evidence of his concern for her, the puella will recognize them as persuasion in disguise. The paraclausithyron focuses instead on the lover-poet’s misery and devotion, aiming to persuade the puella to admit him. In both cases, the lover-poet

136

/

The Material Girls

attempts to persuade the puella that he is her most devoted lover and thus deserves her returned, exclusive devotion.

The Paraclausithyron: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” The paraclausithyron67 is a well-established topos not only of Roman love elegy but of New Comedy and Greek elegy before it.68 As Copley (1956: 44–47) notes, Lucretius’s description of this practice69 may suggest that night-time serenading at the door of the beloved was something of a native custom in both Italy and Greece.70 Perhaps so, but more to the point for elegy is the fact that groups of carousing young men were certainly recognized as a form of domestic assault force (not to say a public nuisance).71 Even more relevant is the custom of assaulting a bordello in the hopes of gaining entry by force and access to the female inhabitants without payment. This custom is acknowledged literarily in, for example, Herodas’s second mime, and in various New Comedies.72 This type of assault may be found in Amores 1.9,73 a fact that underlies and undercuts the ethical stances of the elegiac exclusus amator (not to mention his claims for helpless passivity). But since the elegiac lover-poet can’t openly acknowledge his beloved’s social status and profession, he must omit any threat of actually breaking down the door.74 What he wants to break down is her will, so he must employ persuasion, here again chiefly of the implicit type, via appeals to his devoted character and her potentially vulnerable emotions. A peculiar logical argument does accompany these appeals, and a familiar one it is: that one day the puella will be old and undesirable, so she should let him in now. But even this threat must be handled delicately, as the only abandoned aged female is the retired prostitute (moecha senescens, in Copley’s phrase [1956: 59]), so the lover-poet treads lightly with this potential reference to his puella’s profession. Since he must attempt persuasion without acknowledging that his beloved is a courtesan, his threats are aimed primarily not at her but at the obstacles between them: door, door guard, vir. To the puella he often directs persuasion in the form of instruction on methods of escape (getting the guard drunk, slipping out via the rooftop)—significantly these instructions involve not his admission into the house but her exit from it. (The puella in this type of paraclausithyron is obviously being locked in by avir, rather than locking out her lover-poet.) Thus it is crucial that elegy never practices the diffamatio (defamatory speech) or anything like the public humiliation of the puella proposed in Catullus 42 (which fails notably), for such abuse would undercut elegiac persuasion and render it impossible once and for all. From the viewpoint of the docta puella, the paraclausithyron offers pre-

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

137

cisely that—elegiac male persuasion—as should be evident from a few examples of both its persuasive functions, as directed at the puella, and of its professional functions, advised to the puella by both the lena and the praeceptor Amoris. According to both Dipsas and Acanthis, the elegiac courtesan must regularly lock out her suitors, both because she should have more suitors than she can accommodate, so that if one is admitted another must be excluded, and because properly enforced exclusion keeps a young man’s interest keen, and therefore increases the courtesan’s profit from him. This subject is discussed in chapter 2, so here all that is necessary to point out is that Dipsas recommends regulated exclusion at Amores 1.8.73–76 and Acanthis at 4.5.30, 33–34. (See also Ars 3.473–74 and 577–610, which the praeceptor follows up with instruction on the next step in the game of exclusion: how to get away from the vir, to meet your properly-buttemporarily excluded lover, 611–52.) Ovid’s Amores 2.19 is a long plea to be forced into the paraclausithyron; the lover-poet praises Corinna for having properly excluded him on a regular basis, and asks his puella’s vir to allow him to lie outside lamenting: sic mihi durat amor longosque adolescit in annos (23: “Thus my love will last and grow up into long years”), he says. Generically, the paraclausithyron must fail at its immediate goal (reception into the puella’s bedchamber), but it is nonetheless a necessary element in the pursuit of the docta puella, for it allows the lover-poet to demonstrate his total devotion to her. As I have noted, its pure form seems to have held little attraction for the elegists, who either combine it with other topoi or invent a twist to provide variety to the standard form.75 Tibullus’s first paraclausithyron, poem 1.2, integrates the querela along with peremptory instruction of Delia (15–16). Since in this poem a vir has posted a guard, by way of a locked door, over Delia, the persuasion is doubly buried under pathetic complaints: the lover-poet must lament his condition as sad enough to rouse Delia’s pity, so that she will sneak out of the house to join him. Even the excursus on Venus’s protection of lovers (17–40) serves to characterize the speaker as deserving Delia’s sexual favors because of his courage (16, 24) and his effort (23). Most extraordinary of all is his absolute devotion to her (27–30), which sends him out into the dangerous night despite his fear—a feat that further merits him admission. He even claims not to mind the elements (29–30)—and here it is relevant to note that cold and rain at night are typical features of the paraclausithyron (apparently the elegiac lover is never locked out on a warm summer night)—as long as Delia will eventually admit him. Even the discussion of the spells cast on his behalf by the good witch’s magic (42, magico saga ministerio) operates to prove his devotion: he asked only that the vir not notice

138

/

The Material Girls

his entry into her bed (55–58). When the witch said she could cure him of his passion for Delia (59–62), the lover-poet sought instead that Delia return his love, for he doesn’t even want to be able to live without her (63–64).76 The rest of the poem further explores his abject devotion to Delia, presumably in the hopes of inducing her either to slip out of the house and join him or to receive him, at a later point, rather than another suitor.77 Thus Tibullus’s exclusus amator poem functions, through both its querela and its standard elements of the paraclausithyron, as yet another form of elegiac male persuasion of the puella. The madness (dementia, line 11) with which he spoke abusively to the door, however, also bespeaks the anger and resentment of the foiled lover-poet, which he elsewhere directs at the lena (poem 5). And in its warning at 87–96 to the laughing on-looker (a source of great resentment to an exclusus amator; see also Am. 3.11.15–16), this poem further implies the anger and resentment buried beneath the passive and inert surface of the pathetic lover-poet. Propertius’s most significant paraclausithyron famously inverts the role of complainers: in 1.16, the door laments at having to suffer endless, and rather boorish, overnight threshold campers. The majority of this poem consists of a typical exclusus amator’s speech, in which the anonymous, or generic, lover details how he suffers grief (21) and the elements (23–24), seeks a slight opening through which to address his mistress, on the presumption that she will melt and relent on hearing his grief (27–32). That mistress is, of course, lying with another man at the moment (33), a situation made possible, apparently, only because the door will not open to send the lover’s persuasion-by-pathos up the stairs to her ears. The brilliant joke of this poem is to turn the door itself into an elegiac lamenter. It is wounded (5, saucia) by night-time quarrels; complains (6, queror) of being struck;78 and tolerates the infamy of its mistress’s busy nights (9; it shares infamy, on her account, with the Propertian lover-poet; cf. 2.3.4, 3.25.1–2). The lover besieging the door naturally takes a different perspective: he describes the door as being virtually an elegiac puella (17, crudelior; 43, perfida) and blames it for her refusal to see him. Significantly, however, the door identifies the lover-poet’s complaints (13, gravibus . . . querelis) as elegiac flattery: ille meos numquam patitur requiescere postis,/arguta referens carmina blanditia (15–16: “He never lets my posts rest,/bringing out songs with shrill flattery”). Even the door recognizes the paraclausithyron as another form of elegiac persuasion-bypathos. Of course, the quoted lover-poet is fairly obvious about this purpose of his song:

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

139

o utinam traiecta cava mea vocula rima percussas dominae vertat in auriculas! sit licet et saxo patientior illa Sicano, sit licet et ferro durior et chalybe, non tamen illa suos poterit compescere ocellos, surget et invitis spiritus in lacrimis. (27–32). Oh, if only my little voice, tossed through a hollow crack, could strike upon the little ears of my mistress! Even if she were tougher than Sicanian rock, even if she were harder than iron and steel, still she would not be able to control her little eyes, her spirit would rise up in unwilling tears.

The humor of the two complainers, door and lover, makes this poem a more interesting paraclausithyron than others, but both of course complain about the tedium of the entire business. Strikingly, both speakers here blame the puella for their situation. This poem presents lover-poet and door as both suffering because of Cynthia’s infidelity and intransigence. Thus it extends elegiac pathos from the lover to an inanimate part of a building. The specific detail of the door’s former grandeur (1–4) adds to its current pathos. Although this poem does not characterize the puella overtly, it implicitly provides several conflicting depictions of her: the door complains of frequent assaults by young men (6, saepe; 47, semper), and describes her nights as scandalous (9, infamis);79 the lover-poet quoted by the door identifies the puella as cruel (17, though he calls the door more cruel). Although he thinks that she would melt on hearing him (as quoted above, 29–32), such confidence is naive, given how often she appears to refuse him. Propertius 1.16 depicts the puella as hard—a standard attribute of the elegiac beloved, and one she is regularly, as here, encouraged to renounce in the usual desired fashion, by opening her door. The clever twist of this poem—that both door and lover-poet are unhappy because of his exclusion and the mistress’s sex life—will easily be recognized, when read by the puella who sees herself described therein, as standard male elegiac persuasion. Ovid integrates the double function of the amator’s exclusion (both persuasion of the puella and maintenance of his interest in her) into his entire amatory corpus. Amores 1.6 is Ovid’s only extended paraclausithyron,80 and it too offers variation on the standard form of the exclusus amator’s lament: it has a refrain that gives the effect of the passing of time, and is addressed to a ianitor, a door guard. These twists may be Ovid’s own con-

140

/

The Material Girls

tribution to this subgenre, as well as an attempt to inject some interest into this necessary but somewhat tedious element of elegy (cf. McKeown 1989: 122). In this poem the lover-poet presents himself as absurdly wasted away by love and attempts in vain to gain the sympathy of the chained ianitor. The structure of this elegy is marked by repetitions of the refrain at eightline intervals in the main body of the poem (at lines 24, 32, 40, 48, 56). Interestingly, the argument does not develop as smoothly as one might expect, from beseeching the ianitor to pleading the lover-poet’s pitiable condition to offering rewards and then, ultimately, threats and abuses followed by a final statement of the lover-poet’s sad state.81 The lover-poet jumps around, back and forth, amid these arguments, showing no steady progression (perhaps rendering the illogical thought processes of the less-thansober lover). There is a mild curse on the ianitor at 41 and an insult at 63–64; there are contrary depictions of the lover and Amor as unthreatening because of love and drink at 5–8 and 33–39, but tough and dangerous at 57–60. Much of the poem is taken up with apparently irrelevant and unrelated elements: perhaps the ianitor has his own girlfriend on the other side of the door (45–46); the wind rattles the door and the lover wishes it would knock the door down (49–54); the city is silent at night (55); dawn breaks (65–66). The progression of the poem is temporal, as marked in the refrain tempora noctis eunt; excute poste seram (“The hours of the night are going by; draw back the door bolt”); hence this paraclausithyron is more narrative (in monologue form) than argumentative or persuasive.82 The puella is not actually addressed in this poem, but she is of course the object of the lover-poet’s efforts (we might imagine, from other paraclausithyra, that she can hear him), as evidenced in the closing section, where the lover-poet leaves her proof of his pathetic and long-suffering devotion (67–70). No vir appears to be locking her up in this case, as will be the case in 2.2–3, so it is reasonable to assume that this ianitor is her own slave (it seems unlikely that this lover-poet would omit mention of a male controller of both puella and ianitor). Notably the lover-poet offers no bribe to the ianitor (not even the tiny amount advised by the praeceptor at Ars 2.255–60 and 3.651–52), nor does he mention his willingness to pay the puella herself (such a remark would yank the veil off elegiac persuasion). The ianitor may be seen as performing his function in elegiac courtship (as advised by Dipsas at Am. 1.8.77, Acanthis at Prop. 4.5.47–48, and the praeceptor at Ars 3.581–82 and 587–88), giving the lover-poet his necessary opportunity to lie outside weeping—an activity that keeps his passion alive. Thus this paraclausithyron fulfills an elegiac obligation of both the fictive lover-poet and the elegist himself, who must include a paraclausithyron

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

141

somewhere in his corpus. The true object of its persuasion is of course the puella, and whether she hears it83 or not, the garland left on the doorstep is both the sign of the lover’s devotion and the vehicle of his persuasion, as she will easily recognize. At the end of Amores 1.6, all parties have done their jobs and can move on to the next stage.84 In general, the elegiac paraclausithyron serves a variety of generic functions; like the querela, it seems to be relatively uninteresting to the poets in its pure and concentrated form, so each elegist finds a way of merging it with other topoi or providing a twist for the sake of variety. References to the condition of the exclusus amator occur regularly, so that it seems virtually omnipresent in elegy (and indeed both the lenae and the praeceptor Amoris advise the girl to be sure that her lovers spend a fair amount of time outside her door). In fact, if the puella is successful at her professional practice, she will have more suitors than she can accommodate (and here it is worth recalling that the elegiac lover doesn’t want only a short visit with her—he wants to stay all night), and the presence of locked-out lovers lamenting outdoors will please the lover indoors (receptus amans: Am. 1.8.78, Prop. 2.14.28). Thus, logically, she will have to lock men out. The arguments, such as they are, of the exclusus amator will be familiar by now: characterizations and complaints, accompanied by an insistent plea to be let inside. Here those implicit forms of persuasion overtly serve an explicit form, one of limited scope and appeal but no material substance. Hence they are predestined to fail, as the puella cannot afford to heed them.

“Baby Please Don’t Go”: The Propempticon The propempticon—a sending-off song—may be considered a subset of the paraclausithyron, as both lament the separation of lover and puella. The object between them is an impending journey rather than a present door, but the propempticon is actually an attempt to persuade the puella not to go, so the lover-poet pulls out all the stops in his attempt to keep her home. Generically, this trip is the puella’s attempt at a profitable overseas mission: she is understood, sometimes explicitly but most often implicitly, to be planning to accompany a military man on his overseas mission. The immediate precursor of Roman love elegy’s propempticon appears to be Gallus; McKeown (1998: 222) notes that “it is reasonable to infer from Verg. Eclogue 10 and Prop. 1.8 that Gallus introduced the prompemptikon to Augustan elegy in a poem (or poems . . . ) lamenting his desertion by Lycoris.” As McKeown notes, the propempticon is a traditional topos in ancient poetry. Stroh (1971: 40–41) discusses the original Greek version as having

142

/

The Material Girls

a single function—to send off a traveler—and a two-part form, the first lamenting the departure, and the second reversing attitude and hoping that since the trip must occur it will not be dangerous. As he points out, Propertius’s famous propempticon, 1.8, violates this structure by first wishing that bad weather will delay or halt Cynthia’s journey, then surprisingly hoping for decent sailing; the lover-poet also plans, rather contradictorily, both to continue lying outside her door as an exclusus amator (1.8.22) and to follow her on her journey (23–24). Stroh 1971 notes (41 n. 93) that in Amores 2.11, his own propempticon, Ovid follows the more usual pattern of the genre; he cites Görler (1965: 347) as noting that Ovid could not have failed to notice that the first part of Propertius 1.8 violates the genre by attempting to hold up the departure. But as I will argue, in Roman love elegy, the nature of the propempticon is the same as virtually everything else—persuasive lament, intended to keep the puella from going. The elegiac propempticon demonstrates forceful reaction (as in Prop. 1.8), pathos (as in Prop. 2.26), or fantasy of an ecstatic sexual reunion (as in Am. 2.11), but from the docta puella’s viewpoint, it is simply more male elegiac persuasion designed to demonstrate her lover-poet’s eternal devotion, which is so great that she should stay rather than go. To perform its necessary functions, the Roman elegiac propempticon merges the excluded lover’s lament and a standard principle in love poetry (perhaps all of Augustan lyric and elegiac poetry)—the aggressive devaluation by the lover-poet of profiteering travel in favor of the life of love at Rome. Underlying these elegiac stances of sorrow and countercultural defiance is a third problem, at which every elegiac propempticon at least hints: that the puella’s reason for taking the trip is to make money by engaging herself for a fixed term to a soldier who wishes her company on his travels. Roman Comedy is full of such looming military threats to the domestic lover’s peace (see Plaut. Bacch., Miles, Epidicus, Truculentus). A minor but telling example occurs in Terence’s Hecyra, where the young courtesan Philotis has recently turned from a two-year hitch in Corinth, with a soldier she calls inhumanissimus (85); she describes the experience as so miserable that she spent the whole time wishing she could come home to her friends, and she complains that the soldier let her talk only of what interested him (85–95). This tedious experience is precisely what elegy’s loverpoets predict for the girls who are thinking of signing on for such a stint— it’s a wonder none of them quotes this passage (though if they did, they’d have to allude to the puella’s unmentionable profession). The elegists have, as one might expect, plenty of other disincentives to offer their wandering girls, chiefly dangerous, uncomfortable sea travel;

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

143

unpleasant climates and conditions awaiting at the end of the journey (apparently no docta puella ever contemplates a trip to the tropics, only to icy, snowy, climates with rocky terrains);85 the unworthy nature of the rival (usually indicated with a contemptuous expression like quicumque est iste— ”that fellow, whoever he is,” Prop. 1.8.3), and of course their own eternal devotion. An occasional swipe at the puella’s motives is not unusual (Prop. 1.8.2 and passim). Notably the elegiac propempticon ends with rather more success for the lover-poet than does the paraclausithyron, even if that success is fantasized, as when the lover-poet imagines their reunion, either safely (and sexually) on land or in a shared drowning at sea. There are, however, reasons other than poetic persuasion for this success. On a generic level, the reason is simple: a faraway girl leaves no occasion for poetry, but a present yet inaccessible girl can engender hundreds of lines. Intratextually, as it were, the puella may well have her own reasons for staying in Rome rather than traveling to distant, uncivilized, dangerous places with no client other than the contracting soldier, who generically must be dull and boorish. Propertius 1.8 is the most famous propempticon in elegy. In fact, its editorial history demonstrates that the elegiac propempticon has been poorly understood for generations.86 The manuscripts reproduce a single poem of forty-six lines, but editors have long divided it into two linked poems: 8a, a propempticon of twenty-six lines, and 8b, a celebration of the first poem’s success. This is not the place to discuss the poem’s textual and editorial tradition (I read it with Fedeli 1984 as a single poem); our purpose here is to revisit it from the docta puella’s perspective, to see the arguments and flattery it aims at her. It begins by exclaiming, with intense anxiety, about the madness of Cynthia’s plans to go overseas: Tune igitur demens, nec te mea cura moratur? an tibi sum gelida vilior Illyria? et tibi iam tanti, quicumque est, iste videtur, ut sine me vento quolibet ire velis? tune audire potes vesani murmura ponti fortis, et in dura nave iacere potes? tu pedibus teneris positas fulcire pruinas, tu potes insolitas, Cynthia, ferre nives? (1–8) Are you mad, then, and does my love not delay you? or am I lower to you than freezing Illyria? And does that fellow, whoever he is, already seem worth so much to you that you’d be willing to go sailing on any wind without me? Are you strong enough to listen to the sounds of the angry ocean, and are you able to lie down in a hard ship?

144

/

The Material Girls

Are you able to press down on the frosts with your tender feet, Cynthia, and put up with unaccustomed snows?

The lover-poet manages to sneak in a few pathetic references to himself (1, 2, 4), then switches to the dangers and discomforts of the journey. Having reminded Cynthia of the risks she faces, the lover-poet can revert to himself and his overwhelming devotion to her, which causes him to wish that winter storms will arise to prevent her departure (9–16). These prayers, of course, continue to remind Cynthia of the genuine dangers of sea travel, but they also allow the lover to offer yet more proof of his devotion: however false she may be to him, he hopes she’ll be safe, and he’ll go looking for her everywhere, claiming her as his own (21–26). In the next line it becomes evident that Cynthia has changed her mind—defeated, so the lover-poet claims, by his importuning: hic erit! hic iurata manet!/rumpantur iniqui! vicimus: assiduas non tulit illa preces (27–28: “She’ll be here! she’s sworn to stay! to hell with my enemies!/I’ve won: she couldn’t bear my constant prayers”). The rest of the poem both takes a dig at her original financial motive for going and praises her implicitly for valuing him and his poetry over the rival’s wealth: quamvis magna daret, quamvis maiora daturus, non tamen illa meos fugit avara sinus. hanc ego non auro, non Indis flectere conchis, sed potui blandi carminis obsequio (38–40) However much he gave her, however much more he was ready to give, she still didn’t greedily flee my lap. I was able to turn her not with gold, not with Indian conch shells, but with the flattery of soft song.

Even in this jubilant victory song, Cynthia finds praise and flattery—her reward for staying (see esp. 42: Cynthia rara mea est). In other words, from her perspective even the victory song continues to aim persuasion at her, by criticizing material concerns while praising poetry and poverty. This poem, located prominently between 1.7 and 1.9 (poems to Ponticus, on the powers of love to keep a man at home and of elegy to seduce a woman), strongly marks the opposition of poetry and wealth, love and travel. (We may perhaps wonder less at this poem’s success in persuading Cynthia to stay when we recall that in antiquity sea travel is dangerous, military companion service likely to be dull, and Rome more enjoyable, perhaps more profitable, than the war camp.) Propertius 1.8 establishes the success of the elegiac propempticon, and if the puella’s perspective reveals that success as accomplished perhaps more by the unpleasant prospects of the trip than by the

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

145

devotion of her poet, he can still record himself the victor in this debate, and by means of poetic persuasion rather than payment.87 The propempticon tends, like the song of the exclusus amator, to promise total devotion and eternal fidelity. Its romantic visions of the lover-poet waiting patiently and hopefully for his beloved’s return, searching for her all over the Mediterranean, or simply following her, are exaggerated versions of the paraclausithyron’s night-long vigil, and of as much value to her. Since present reception into the bedroom is not the immediate goal of the propempticon, its expressions of passionate love and fearful concern for the puella’s safety carry more apparent sincerity, perhaps, than the paraclausithyron’s laments of frigid temperatures and hard thresholds. Both, however, attempt to remove obstacles architectural and geographical between amator and puella. Those obstacles are, as always, posed by the puella’s profession, which requires her to receive numerous paying customers and to consider contracts for overseas duty. By focusing on his devotion to her, the lover-poet hymning her with propemptica and paraclausithyra can attempt to evade mention of her financial concerns (though, as noted above, they arise at Prop. 1.8.2 and 38). Those concerns, however, must always be the deciding factor in the success or failure of the persuasive poem, for just as the lover insists on ignoring her profession as much as possible, so the puella can never afford to forget it.

Servitium Amoris: The “Prisoner of Love” Servitium amoris, or the slavery of love, is a hallmark of Roman love elegy.88 Since, as Copley (1947: 291) points out, neither Catullus nor Horace professes this condition, as an element of Roman love poetry, it is really a property of elegy.89 Under this ethical stance, the lover-poets portray themselves as the helpless slaves of their dominae—a word with a strict technical meaning in the class structure of Roman society—unjustly suffering the indignities and abuses of servitude. We have seen that to an elegiac lover, love means suffering, characterized primarily as a state of slavery; in Conte’s words, “the concept of the lover-poet as slave” is at “the center of [elegy’s] . . . ideological system” (1994: 37). As many readers have noted, the elegists depict themselves as violating their own class and gender norms by subordinating themselves to the control of a woman, and a pretty disrespectable woman at that.90 For a free, not to say elite, Roman male, the condition of slavery would be a disgrace, and the love elegists proclaim their own disgrace both loudly and widely. But of what, exactly, does elegiac servitium amoris consist? To answer this question it is necessary to consider a few aspects of slavery in antiquity.

146

/

The Material Girls

To begin with, slavery meant any number of things in antiquity, but signified chiefly that one’s body was the property of another, that the slave body was absolutely used and controlled by that other.91 Indeed, the ancients did not shy away from appalling physical abuse of slaves. Ancient Greeks and Romans kept themselves supplied with slaves primarily by means of war; hence there were, as Thalmann has demonstrated (1996: 116–18), two ways of accounting for the fact of slavery—one circumstantial, one moral. The moral explanation for slavery is a familiar one and functions as a supporting rationale: that some persons are inferior by nature and are thus suited to slavery. The circumstantial explanation relies on bad luck, chiefly captivity caused by warfare, theft, or piracy. This basis for slavery accounts for the “noble soul” unjustly enslaved.92 Since slave-owning Greeks or Romans—particularly elite Romans in the late Republic and the Principate—were familiar with well-educated slaves, they could not pretend, as American slave owners did, that all slaves were naturally inferior to themselves. Elite Romans in fact depended heavily upon both the training and the intellectual labor of their educated slaves (see, for example, the relationship of Cicero and Tiro; slaves were in charge of important educational functions within the elite Roman household; in the context of ancient literature, it is relevant that, as scribes, they were also the means for acquiring copies of texts).93 Thus perhaps even their household staff provided the Roman love elegists with exemplars of the circumstantial slaves, whose loss of liberty is not their own fault, who suffer it the more keenly for having once been free, and who seem therefore to merit kind treatment by their owners. And, as McCarthy (1998) argues, the object position of the slave— the very loss of freedom of speech—allows for a consciousness of private internal thoughts not knowable to the master, and thus creates an anxiety in the slave owner, who can never quite trust the necessary slave.94 Even the privileged, educated, trusted slave, however, must provide labor for the master, a kind of labor the elegiac lover-poets never undergo. So what kind of slavery is this? In both historical and mythic accounts of enslavement via warfare, the moment of loss of liberty entails a period of lamenting, of reviewing one’s former freedom and imagining one’s future duties and suffering under a harsh owner (the Trojan women are the most prominent exemplars of this moment in the tragic life of the once elite, now captive and enslaved).95 Being interested less in the work performed by slaves than in the position of passivity, helplessness, loss of agency and selfcontrol that is created by circumstantial slavery, the Roman love elegists use servitium amoris as a vehicle for exploring not so much their labor for a mistress but the tragedy of their enslavement by her. As Fitzgerald (2000:

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

147

73) notes, the “potentially servile” behavior of servitium amoris takes “a form that is sufficiently remote and fictionalized to be harmless.” Hence, in Roman love elegy, servitium amoris operates to foreground the lover-poet’s suffering in what is, to the docta puella, a metaphorical and voluntary form of slavery.96 Any docta puella, whether or not she has once been a slave herself, will recognize the selective nature of the servitude endured in elegiac servitium amoris. She—actually supporting a household of slaves—can afford neither to have one whose job it is to lie about weeping nor to give up without payment the sexual favors that constitute her form of control over her poet-lovers. Thus, to her, servitium amoris is another voluntary obligation—of inactivity in this case—fulfilled in the pursuit of unpurchased sex. It is another form of elegiac male persuasion. Further, she knows that her lover-poet will not be able to sustain his servile stance for long, as that condition is unnatural to him. Indeed he regularly expresses, and occasionally indulges in, an urge to violence against his beloved (see chapter 5), an urge that belies the passivity of servitium amoris.97 Thus the puella can hardly take seriously her lover’s claims to be her helpless slave. Furthermore, to the puella, servitium amoris offers another variation on the persuasion-by-characterization strategy already seen in the querela and the paraclausithyron. In fact, love slavery allows a double persuasion: to flatter the puella by raising her to the status of domina and also to present the lover-poet as meritorious by way of his helpless devotion and his willingness to suffer like a slave. A further twist is that the lover-poet may also use the figure of servitium amoris to describe the puella as harsh and cruel rather than noble and elevated, in which case he is trying to shame her into receiving him. In Roman love elegy, servitium amoris is presented, predictably, through two contrary physical behaviors98 or attitudes: the helpless, passive slave enduring torture and the officious, busy factotum (see, for example, Tib. 1.5. 61–66; Am. 1.9, 3.11; Ars 2.177–336).99 Both strategies attempt to earn unpurchased admission to the puella’s bed, the former by appeals to pathos (the lover-poet’s suffering) and the latter by service. This goal will of course be familiar to the puella, who must view such pleas with some skepticism, particularly given that by virtue of her social class, she is closer to actual, not poetic, slavery than any elegiac amator.100 Thus even on its own terms, servitium amoris in Roman love elegy is both absurd and self-canceling, because it consists of prominent lamentation but very little work.101 Elegiac lover-poets volunteer for slave labor (see, for example, Tib. 2.3.79–80) or the suffering inherent to the loss of liberty (Tib. 2.4)—both part of the fantasy life of elegiac passion—but they never actually do any work.102 Propertius 2.26, which offers to follow

148

/

The Material Girls

Cynthia on her sea voyage, demonstrates a potentially suicidal degree of devotion but offers her precious little in the way of either the material goods she needs or any practical, useful service.103 The services recommended by the praeceptor Amoris at Ars 2.209–32 are so minor as to be immaterial to the puella—their primary beneficiary is the amator himself, as holding mirrors, warming cold hands, and attending to tender feet all require close physical proximity. Thus these services are their own reward, even if they are beneath an elite lover’s status. Even the services that the lover-poet claims to have undertaken already, like the prayers for Delia’s recovery in Tibullus 1.5 and the guardianship of Amores 3.11, are always depicted as having occurred in the past. Elegy never actually presents a lover-poet in the middle of some slave-like labor or service.104 Further, the services cited in elegy are not duties specific to slaves, as prayers for health can certainly be offered by non-slaves. The guardianship of Amores 3.11, for instance, is overtly described as sexual companionship of the puella by the lover-poet rather than purely servile duty: quando ego non fixus lateri patienter adhaesi,/ipse tuus custos, ipse vir, ipse comes? (17–18: “When did I not patiently stay glued to your side,/I myself your guard, I myself your man, I myself your companion?”).105 From the docta puella’s viewpoint, the only true service of servitium amoris is voluntary suffering, and that service is, as we have seen in chapter 2, useless to her. Servitium amoris is thus closer to obsequium, the duties and obligations of attendance of a free man to his patron, than to actual slavery. As Oliensis (1997) demonstrates, the elegiac lover-poets perform obligations toward their puellae that resemble those of a cliens (client, dependent) for his patronus (see also della Corte 1982: 554; Labate 1984: 200–219; White 1953: 87–91; Wyke 2002: 172–73). And in fact elegy overtly recommends the use of obsequium in courtship. Priapus urges confidence in its use over boys: obsequio plurima vincet amor (Tib. 1.4.40: “By obsequium love will conquer most things”). He advises the lover to go as a companion wherever the boy wants and to engage in any activity—long travel on land or in a boat, hunting or practicing for battle (41–52). The same language recurs in the next poem, where the lover-poet recounts to Delia all the services that a poor man will perform for his beloved; this assistance likewise primarily takes the form of accompaniment (a form of service congenial to the lover) wherever the puella goes.106 At Ars amatoria 2.177–232, the praeceptor Amoris echoes the words of Tibullus’s Priapus: enough of your presence and obsequium will make your beloved soft (mitis) toward you (Tib. 1.4.53, Ars 2.178); flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus (Ars 2.179: “Through obsequium the curved branch is bent away from the tree”). Rather absurdly, the praeceptor

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

149

claims that obsequium will allow one not only to cross raging rivers but also to tame tigers, lions, and bulls; he cites the example of Milanion, who followed Atalanta and eventually won her heart (this example is familiar from Prop. 1.1). He gives specific and detailed instructions for obsequium, which mostly involve following and imitating the puella (2.197–214), though a few of the services identified by Tibullus recur (making a path through the crowd, attending to her feet by producing a stool and either putting on or removing her shoes). In this passage the praeceptor’s advice merges aspects of clientela and slavery (2.223–28) but significantly all the services involved are merely incidental, the byproduct of the lover’s constant presence (as advised in 223–24): holding up a mirror (215–16) or warming up the puella’s hand when she is cold (213–14). Otherwise the lover’s primary service seems to be producing himself at his puella’s request, being at her beck and call.107 That the single practical result of servitium amoris is simply to stay in the puella’s presence can be seen from the instructions to slip over her rooftop and into her bedroom, as proof of passion for her (243–46)—a proof that is guaranteed a reward, according to the praeceptor: laeta erit et causam tibi se sciet esse pericli;/hoc dominae certi pignus amoris erit (247–48: “She’ll be happy and she’ll know that she’s the cause of the risk you took;/ this will be a sign to your mistress of your sure love”). Such risk to the self, proposes the praeceptor, engenders passion in the puella.108 Thus the actual labor of servitium amoris is little or nothing more than the lover’s constant presence, which the puella may see as benefiting himself more than her, particularly as it is already his overall goal. In other words, elegy constantly promises service via servitium amoris but never actually delivers.109 Even Propertius’s speaker, who proclaims his slavery and servile condition more, perhaps, than the speakers in Ovid and Tibullus combined, never offers instances of actual servile duty or labor. If Lyne (1979) is correct and Propertius is the inventor of elegiac love-slavery, then even in its origins it is designed to demonstrate degradation and emotional suffering rather than to describe the performance of useful duties. In other words, when directed at a docta puella it appeals to her emotions. As the elegiac lover-poets enact it, servitium amoris would be better designated inertia amoris, for it is a state of mind rather than a social status—a passivity that apparently allows as its only activity the prone paraclausithyron, with much shedding of tears. From the puella’s perspective, spending the night prostrate and, perhaps, drunk at her door constitutes neither slavery nor service.110 Roman love elegists focus on the loss of liberty created by slavery111 but rarely on the labor it enforces. Thus the lover-poets depict themselves more as prisoners of war than actual working slaves,112 a

150

/

The Material Girls

pathetic and pitiable condition that allows them to foreground, frequently in military terms, the aggressive agency of Cupid or the puella who have jointly taken them captive: Cynthia prima . . . miserum me cepit (Prop. 1.1: “Cynthia was the first to capture wretched me”); me retinent vinctum formosae vincla puellae (Tib. 1.1.55: “The chains of a beautiful girl hold me bound”);113 quae me nuper praedata puella est (Am. 1.3.1: “The girl who has recently taken me as war-booty”).114 Since the activities identified in servitium amoris and obsequium are primarily those that can occur in the puella’s presence, they neither constitute nor promise any significant financial benefit to her.115 They do, however, offer the lover further opportunity to demonstrate his devotion to her—a dedication that, as usual, he hopes will merit his reception into her bedroom. The puella will, then, look upon her lover-poet’s claims to be her slave with a rather dubious eye, recognizing that this slavery is metaphorical, involves no particular labor, and confers upon him the opportunity to spend time with her without paying. CONCLUSION: THE QUERELA AND THE STATIONS OF THE LOVER My conclusion here can be brief, as the material covered in this chapter is widely recognized as standard equipment for Roman love elegy. My purpose in reviewing this well-trodden ground is to point out that when the puella hears the substance of the characterizations and complaints aimed at her, and when she observes the performance of obligatory duties on her behalf (and, as I argued in chapter 1, even the poems not addressed to her are available for her to read), she will recognize them as forms of implicit persuasion designed to create unpurchased access to her bedroom. She will also recognize the lover-poet’s habitual focus on himself, which in the case of this implicit persuasion, allows him to ignore absolutely the material conditions of her life. That is, where the greedy-girl poems occasionally acknowledge the puella’s needs and profession (as at Am. 1.10.53–56), the poems of complaint and characterization do not. In them, the lover-poet clings tightly to the illusion that individual personality and particular circumstances, rather than social class, material needs, and conformity to generic practice, govern his case. Even in writing highly generic language (dura, saeva puella; me miserum; heu; etc.), the lover-poet manages to pretend that his situation is unique, special to himself, rather than the inevitable result of the docta puella’s social status and profession (not to mention the genre of love elegy). Thus he presents the puella as inordinately cruel, himself as extravagantly miserable, and his love as unprece-

Characters, Complaints, and Stations of the Lover

/

151

dented in its degree of devotion and suffering. She, however, recognizes all these claims as nonsense. Her job, professionally and generically, is to enforce the right amount of amatory grief, to display the right amount of resistance, and above all to ignore every plea for mercy. Pholoe responds correctly, then, in Tibullus 1.8 (67: non frangitur illa = “That girl is not broken”) for, as the lena instructs (Am. 1.8.67–68), even the beautiful young boy must bring a gift (how much more so, then, must the adult man?). A docta puella hearing herself called cruel even by her non-poet-lovers will eventually become immune to the charge, as well as to the rest of their generic laments. She will recognize this medium of sobs and sorrows, in the place of argument, as nothing more than male sexual persuasion. It can hardly have escaped notice that the obligatory generic figures, adventures, and services of Roman love elegy are expressed in the form of lament. The lover-poet always pities himself as he sets out for his beloved’s door, as he faces the prospect of her departure, as he submits himself for the tortures of love-slavery. Though he claims that he has no choice but to suffer, from her viewpoint he always has another option. He can simply pay up. Wealthier men may outbid him occasionally or even often, but to the docta puella, her poet’s claims of poverty can only ring false, and his willingness to suffer torture, misery, even poison (as in Tib. 2.4.55–60, Prop. 2.1.51–56), if only his beloved will receive him amicably, can do her no material good. Like the characterizations of himself as miserable and her as cruel, and the pathos of the querela, an emphasis on the obligatory services and suffering of the lover is simply another implicit form of male elegiac persuasion. If servitium amoris is, as Copley (1947: 298) observes,“a virtual synonym for amor,” then the male voice of the genre designates love as misery in a gesture designed to induce pity in the puella. We should remember, however, that amor in Roman love elegy is, as we have seen, a way of saying sexual desire. The lover-poets, after all, do not worship their belles dames from afar in courtly fashion, and they have in mind as a reward for poetry, suffering, and service, something considerably more carnal than a mere token of a lady’s favor. They constantly seek a back door into the bedroom, avoiding as it were the ticket booth. In addition, as McCarthy (1998: 178) points out, servitium amoris is actually designed to gain control of the puella: “[R]ecognizing that masters fear becoming dependent on their slaves, the author imagines a slave’s elaborate show of deference having the power to reduce the mistress’s independence.” The puella will certainly perceive this desire underlying not only servitium amoris, but the paraclausithyron and the propempticon as well, for in one case the lover-poet is keeping tabs on her nocturnal activities and in the other he is seeking to inhibit her freedom of

152

/

The Material Girls

trade, so to speak. Whatever the original functions of these figures and tropes (on which see Copley 1947 and 1956, Murgatroyd 1976 and 1981, Lyne 1980), in Roman love elegy they are retrofitted to the single purpose that governs all address to and attendance upon the docta puella: male sexual persuasion aimed at unpurchased entry into the bedroom.

part iii

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience, in Roman Love Elegy

This page intentionally left blank

5. Necessary Female Beauty and Generic Male Resentment Reading Elegy through Ovid

It is a given of scholarship on Ovid that he plays with and stretches the boundaries of genre. His designation of the Metamorphoses as a unified poem (carmen . . . perpetuum, Met. 1.4) in epic meter marks this tendency as self-conscious and deliberate. In the context of Augustan Latin poetry, such a program merits investigation. Scholars divide over the purpose, effect, and success of Ovid’s playful assault on genre, though it is probably safe to say that many, if not most, readers find him flippant, often shockingly and inappropriately so, with the result that his work is judged inferior to that of his contemporaries and predecessors (see Boyd 1997: 1–12), and that he himself is found wanting in morals, aesthetics, taste, and character.1 The Amores and Ars amatoria have been criticized for appearing to mock, satirize, parody, make fun of the works of Propertius and Tibullus, as well as Catullus and, presumably, Gallus; as a result Ovid himself has been criticized as an inferior poet, and as personally and morally defective. Such criticism ignores the playful, self-parodic elements of elegy as a whole; it further fails to establish why satirizing a genre is necessarily a bad thing or why literary satire should indicate an author’s inadequate understanding or appreciation of the genre. This type of criticism rests on the romantic misreading of elegy and the sincerity requirement (on which, see chapter 1).2 In this chapter, I take the view that Ovid knows what he is doing in his Amores and Ars amatoria—and here it is relevant to note that he worked persistently in the genre of love elegy for some twenty-seven years, revising and republishing the Amores, adding book 3 to the Ars, adding the Remedia amoris to his corpus, and undoubtedly revising poems.3 Given that Ovid spent so much of his life working consistently in elegy, it strains credulity to argue that he did not really understand the genre (especially as he and Propertius were friends; Tr. 4.10.46). Finally, since Ovid edited his 155

156

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

original five books down to three, and certainly revised many of the poems that remain, many years after he began composing elegy, it cannot really be argued that he did not know what he was doing.4 I take it as a given not only that Ovid considered each poem in the Amores appropriate and necessary for his poetic program but also that his placement of them is deliberate (particularly the early location of 1.7 and 1.14 and the relatively central position of 2.13–14), designed to showcase particular issues and problems in elegy. The remarks of Johnson (1985: 27), on Ovid’s editing process, merit quotation here: [T]he carefully selected, highly polished corpus now undergoes an ironic meditation on the limitations of both love elegy as a genre and on irresponsible, selfish love: the poems are now arranged (in a manner that recalls the ironies of Horace) to display not only the vacant obsessions of the poem’s hero and his genre but also the disordered sensibilities and the destructive erotic fashion that have helped create them. In 2.19 and in 3.12 we hear the voice of a master who can describe the limitations of his own art and what those limitations mean about art and the world it serves.

Conte (1994: 44) speaks of “Ovid’s work in ‘interpreting’ and revising the code of elegy.”5 Our task here is to investigate some of the problems Ovid causes as he does so. What, then, is Ovid doing with Roman love elegy? Why does he find room in elegy for poems about striking a woman (Am. 1.7), her sudden baldness (1.14) and abortion (2.13–14), the lover-poet’s constant priapic condition (2.4) or failure therein (3.7), his willingness to be both exploitive and openly abusive with his mistress and her slaves (2.2–3, 2.7–8), the pimping services of his own poetry for his girlfriend (3.12), and so on? Why does Ovid’s love elegy openly express so much insincerity and so little elegiac passion and suffering? Why did he keep returning to amatory elegy in the Ars and the Remedia, focusing so intently on disingenuity, deception, infidelity, and depicting a regularized, systematic male anger and revulsion against women? To answer these questions with more than a perfunctory or reflexive explanation relying on speculation about Ovid’s own personality, we must rephrase them and, paradoxically, focus more on Propertius and Tibullus’s poetry than on Ovid’s. The real question is, what in previous Roman love elegy makes Ovid find it appropriate to write his Ars amatoria and Amores in this fashion? In his own defense, Ovid himself claimed in Tristia 2 that he wrote nothing more shocking or illicit than Tibullus and Propertius, that his Ars contains nothing not already said in elegy. As I shall argue here,

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

157

Ovid’s defense of the Ars (against Augustus’s accusation of immorality and violation of the leges Iuliae) also constitutes a defense of the Amores against the accusations of romantic-minded critics of inferior, unworthy poetry.6 I propose, in this chapter, to examine some of Ovid’s most “unelegiac” poems, the ones most distasteful to critics and readers, and trace their relationship to prior elegy. It will be my argument throughout that Ovid exploits and exposes elegy’s inherent disingenuities—particularly those based in privileges of gender and class—by making explicit what was always present but usually only implicit, and hence easily overlooked, in the works of Propertius and Tibullus:7 a powerful resentment against the docta puella, a desire for physical and emotional revenge against her, an awareness of the risks faced by courtesans, and the constant, though submerged, consciousness of the social, legal, and sexual advantages of being an elite man in ancient Rome. What I will particularly argue is that Ovid does not add hypocrisy, exploitation, and pretense to Roman love elegy—he lays them bare. As Mack (1988: 62) points out, “Ovid offers us glimpses of real life behind the elegiac conventions. In real life, actions have consequences. Part of Ovid’s analysis of the conventions entails bringing some of these consequences into the fictional world of elegy” (emphasis mine). “Ovid’s analysis of the conventions” will guide us to a rereading of Tibullus and Propertius. The jarring, unsettling, and disorienting effect that his Amores and Ars have on many readers is deliberate and strategic and should be considered not an unfortunate side effect of his mishandling of elegy but a shock effect designed to make readers rethink at least Roman love elegy, if nothing else.8 This phenomenon is particularly true of the poems that have traditionally been criticized as evidence of Ovid’s questionable or poor taste; as we shall see, in those instances Ovid is pressing hardest at the gender and class inequities of elegy. The problems he exposes in these poems are strongly gendered, in that they represent actual risks and needs of the docta puella, risks and needs based in her profession. In the first part of this chapter I will focus on addressing the questions raised above by reading Propertian and Tibullan elegy side by side with Ovidian elegy, to see how Ovid capitalizes on minor, even fleeting, passages in their works, in ways that showcase the problems and risks of the courtesan’s life, from her need to remain beautiful to the constant danger of violence arising from the lover-poet’s anger at her, which Ovid reveals as not incidental or passing but persistent. In the second part of the chapter, I will look briefly at how in the Ars amatoria Ovid systematizes the lover’s resentment of the docta puella and demonstrates a revulsion against women underlying elegy’s façade of passion.

158

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

OVID READS ELEGY To begin with, meter. Ovid preferred the elegiac couplet to all other meters. Even his poetry from exile, which he identifies as letters, are in the elegiac couplet.9 He calls his verses leves elegi at Epistulae ex Ponto 4.5.1, sending them to the learned ears (doctas aures) of the consul Sextus Pompey, and he jokes in Ex Ponto 4.12 and 14 about how his friend Tuticanus’s name cannot easily be fitted into the elegiac meter, which he proprietarily calls “my meter” (meos . . . modos, 4.12.6; numeris . . . meis, 4.14.2). Even his invective poem, the Ibis, is in elegiacs. Thus it is fair to say that Ovid felt he understood the meter and its applications.10 In Tristia 2, his defense of the Ars amatoria, Ovid points to the elegiac practice of his predecessors as equally adulterous,11 though he of course notes, and even quotes (247–50), his own warning notice in the Ars, that the poem is not meant for respectable wives. This defense of the Ars gives us a guide through Roman love elegy as a whole, from Propertius to Ovid himself. First, as Ovid12 notes, readers do not need instructional literature or formal didaxis—they can learn adultery by example from any source: nil igitur matrona legat, quia carmine ab omni / ad delinquendum doctior esse potest (Tr. 2.255–56: “Therefore let the wife read nothing, because she can become / more learned at sinning from any poem”); persequar inferius, modo si licet ordine ferri, / posse nocere animis carminis omne genus (Tr. 2.263–64: “I shall pursue below, provided that it may be laid out in order, / that any type of poem may harm souls”). He cites Ennius’s Annales (a nationalistic poem, if there ever was one) as providing examples of extramarital sex—Ilia and Venus, the founding mothers of Rome (259–62). Inducements to adultery abound outside literature: the public games, the Circus Maximus, even the temples of Jupiter and Juno, which may cause a woman worshiper to recall Jupiter’s many extramarital affairs (289–92). Other temples too can lead to thoughts of adultery, as the Greco-Roman gods do not obey the Julian laws (293–300). Ovid goes on to point out that all types of poetry, from the Greek lyrics to the Homeric epics, from Greek tragedy to New Comedy, from Roman epic to Latin love poetry, also provide examples of adultery and illicit extramarital sex, including Vergil’s Eclogues and Aeneid. As Nugent (1993: 250) puts it: “Ovid . . . demonstrates . . . that all poetry is erotically charged” (emphasis original). She further notes the glee with which he defends his Ars: “Ostensibly defending himself . . . Ovid has a field day proving that every author who has ever committed an act of literature has potentially contributed to the delinquency of a matrona. His prurient survey of classi-

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

159

cal poetry, in which he exposes the bawd in every bard, is a tendentious and witty tour de force.”13 For our purposes here the relevant passage is in Tristia 2; it deals with love poetry, particularly that of Tibullus and Propertius. credere iuranti durum putat esse Tibullus, sic etiam de se quod neget illa viro. fallere custodes idem docuisse fatetur, seque sua miserum nunc ait arte premi. saepe, velut gemmam dominae signumve probaret, per causam meminit se tetigisse manum, utque refert, digitis saepe est nutuque locutus, et tacitam mensae duxit in orbe notam; et quibus e sucis abeat de corpore livor, impresso fieri qui solet ore, docet: denique ab incauto nimium petit ille marito, se quoque uti servet, peccet ut illa minus. scit, cui latretur, cum solus obambulet, ipsas cur totiens clausas excreet ante fores, multaque dat furti talis praecepta docetque qua nuptae possint fallere ab arte viros. non fuit hoc illi fraudi, legiturque Tibullus et placet, et iam te principe notus erat. invenies eadem blandi praecepta Properti: destrictus minima nec tamen ille nota est. his ego successi.

450

455

460

465

Tibullus thinks it difficult to believe his girlfriend swearing [to him], since that’s how she used to swear about him to her man. He confesses that he himself taught her how to deceive her guards, and says that now he, a wretch, is being pressed by his own art. 450 Often, as if he were examining a jewel or seal of his mistress, he recalls that he touched her hand under that pretext; and, as he retells it, he often spoke to her with fingers and nods, and drew out a silent note on the surface of the table; and he teaches what liquids make the bruise vanish from the body, 455 the kind that is usually made by a pressing mouth: then he asks of that inadequately watchful “husband,” to watch him also, so that she may sin less. He knows the man who is barked at, when he walks alone, and why he coughs so often, before the closed doors, 460 and he gives many lessons for such a secret affair, and he teaches the art by which “brides” can deceive their men. This was not a danger to him, and Tibullus is read and liked, and he was known when you were already the leader.

160

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

You will find the same lessons of soft Propertius: but he is not touched by even the smallest mark [of disfavor]. I followed them.

465

In these lines Ovid quotes extensively (certainly from memory, as he could not bring his library with him to Tomis) from Tibullus, at some points almost verbatim, as seen below. TIBULLUS 1.6.7–10 illa quidem iurata negat, sed credere durum est: sic etiam de me pernegat usque viro. ipse miser docui, quo posset ludere pacto custodes: heu heu nunc premor arte mea.

TRISTIA 2.447–50 credere iuranti durum putat esse Tibullus, sic etiam de se quod neget illa viro. fallere custodes idem docuisse fatetur, seque sua miserum nunc ait arte premi.

TIBULLUS 1.6.19–20 neu te decipiat nutu, digitoque liquorem ne trahat et mensae ducat in orbe notas.

TRISTIA 2.453–54 utque refert, digitis saepe est nutuque locutus et tacitam mensae duxit in orbe notam.

TIBULLUS 1.6.25–26 saepe, velut gemmas eius signumque probarem, per causam memini me tetigisse manum:

TRISTIA 2.451–52 saepe, velut gemmam dominae signumve probaret, per causam meminit se tetigisse manum!

TIBULLUS 1.6.13–14 tunc sucos herbasque dedi quis livor abiret quem facit impresso mutua dente venus.

TRISTIA 2.455–56 et quibus e sucis abeat de corpore livor, impresso fieri qui solet ore, docet.

TIBULLUS 1.5.15–16 at tu, fallacis coniunx incaute puellae, me quoque servato, peccet ut illa nihil.

TRISTIA 2.457–5814 denique ab incauto nimium petit ille marito, se quoque uti servet, peccet ut illa minus

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

161

I propose to expand upon the point that Ovid makes to Augustus, that there is nothing in his Ars not already to be found in Propertius and Tibullus.15 He argues to the princeps that just as no infamy attaches to their works, none should attach to his.16 Here I hope to demonstrate that this argument extends to the Amores as well, by looking at the relationships of Amores 1.4 and 2.5, 1.7, 1.14, 2.13–14, and 3.7 to the works of Propertius and Tibullus.17 Three of these discussions will provide detailed examinations; the others will be very brief. The themes I will mainly focus on here are the mutual distrust and deception of lover and puella; her material needs and professional necessities, including money, gifts, infidelity, and the need to remain beautiful; the risks that elegiac sex poses to the puella; and the lover’s anger, which regularly turns to violence and often wishes for revenge, on account of those needs. So what are the charges against Ovid’s Amores? They are numerous, but I will restrict my discussion here to the issues cited above, that the subject matter of many of his elegies is considered inappropriate and unworthy. My point is simple: since many of the Amores expand upon a brief passage, sometimes no more than a couplet, of Propertius and Tibullus,18 Ovid should be seen as exploiting what is already established in elegy, rather than fouling or even merely mocking the genre. I will argue here that these poems, in which Ovid does expand on a small, even passing, episode are those that earn the greatest degree of critical disapproval, precisely because they focus on degraded, unattractive, unpoetic topics that seem to have little to do with love. But it is crucial to underscore that the seeds were planted in prior elegy, and that rereading Roman love elegy through Ovid will reveal them.19

Elegiac Erotodidaxis The erotodidaxis of Tibullus, from poem 1.6, provides a good starting point for a review of how Ovid expands upon preexisting themes and issues in elegy. Amores 1.4, a general favorite because of its evident absurdity and its lively imagined scene of a Roman dinner party, is firmly based in Tibullus 1.6, the erotodidactic element of which is firmly established in ipse miser docui (Tib. 1.6.9: “I myself, wretch, taught [her]); fingere tunc didicit (11: “Then she learned to pretend”); and so forth. (Ford [1966: 645] notes that Tib. 1.2.21–22 is also a source for this poem.) It is fair to say that Amores 1.4, and its companion poem, Amores 2.5, take off from the banquet scenes of Tibullus 1.6, which merit reproduction in full here: at tu, fallacis coniunx incaute puellae, me quoque servato, peccet ut illa nihil,

162

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

neu iuvenes celebret multo sermone caveto neve cubet laxo pectus aperta sinu, neu te decipiat nutu, digitoque liquorem ne trahat et mensae ducat in orbe notas. (15–20) But you, unwatchful “spouse” of the deceptive girl, watch out for me too, so that she not sin at all, and beware lest she welcome young men with long talk or lie back with her dress open at the breast to her lap, or trick you with nods, or trail the liquid with her finger and draw out notes on the surface of the table. saepe, velut gemmas eius signumque probarem, per causam memini me tetigisse manum: saepe mero somnum peperi tibi, at ipse bibebam sobria supposita pocula victor aqua. (25–28) Often, as if I were examining her jewel or seal, I recall that I touched her hand under that pretext; often I prepared sleep for you in undiluted wine, but I myself, victorious, drank sober goblets, with water slipped into them.

Amores 1.4 expands extensively on this scenario; in Amores 2.5, the lover-poet is placed in the position of the deceived vir.20 An excellent discussion of Amores 1.4 maybe found in Miller 2003 (see also Ford 1966 and the other sources cited in Miller 2003); my discussion here is limited to the basis of this poem in Tibullus 1.6. It begins by setting up the scene: the lover-poet speaks to his puella, complaining that her vir will be going to the same dinner party that they will be attending; he wishes that it could be the vir’s last meal, then laments that he will be able only to look at her, while her vir will be able to touch her (1–10).21 He then begins his erotodidaxis, explaining to her how to handle the situation: ante veni quam vir; nec quid, si veneris ante, possit agi video, sed tamen ante veni. cum premet ille torum, vultu comes ipsa modesto ibis ut accumbas, clam mihi tange pedem; me specta nutusque meos vultumque loquacem: excipe furtivas et refer ipsa notas. verba superciliis sine voce loquentia dicam; verba leges digitis, verba notata mero. cum tibi succurret veneris lascivia nostrae, purpureas tenero pollice tange genas; si quid erit, de me tacita quod mente queraris, pendeat extrema mollis ab aure manus;

15

20

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

cum tibi, quae faciam, mea lux, dicamve, placebunt, versetur digitis anulus usque tuis; tange manu mensam, tangunt quo more precantes, optabis merito cum mala multa viro. quod tibi miscuerit, sapias, bibat ipse iubeto; tu puerum leviter posce quod ipsa voles: quae tu reddideris, ego primus pocula sumam, et, qua tu biberis, hac ego parte bibam. si tibi forte dabit quod praegustaverit ipse, reice libatos illius ore cibos; nec premat indignis sinito tua colla lacertis, mite nec in rigido pectore pone caput, nec sinus admittat digitos habilesve papillae; oscula praecipue nulla dedisse velis. Arrive before your man; I don’t see what we can do, if you come before him, but still come before he does. When he presses the couch, and you, his companion, go with a modest expression, to recline, secretly touch my foot. Look at me and my nods and my expressive face: pick up and return secret notes. I’ll speak communicative silent words with my eyebrows; pick up those words with your fingers, words marked in the wine. When you think of our love making, touch your blushing cheeks with your tender thumb; if you have any complaint, in your silent mind, about me, let your soft hand pull on the bottom of your ear; when I say or do things, darling, that please you, twist your ring all about on your finger. Touch the table with your hand, as people do in prayer, when you’re wishing many evils on your man, which he deserves. Whatever he mixes up for you to taste, make him drink it; then you lightly ask the boy for what you want. The goblet you give back, I’ll take first for my drinking, and where you drank, I’ll drink from that part. If by chance he hands you a plate from which he tasted, throw back that food tasted by his mouth. And don’t let him press your neck with his unworthy arms, nor put your soft head on his bony chest. Not let your dress or your touchable breasts receive his hands; and especially don’t try to give him any kisses.

163 25

30

35

15

20

25

30

35

The kisses are particularly forbidden, for if they occur, the lover-poet threatens to become a manifestus amator (39: “acknowledged lover”) and

164

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

demand them for himself. He next turns to his fears of what may be going on beneath her clothing—and he has reason to fear, he says, because he himself has done plenty of canoodling under the capacious overgarments of a mistress (41–48); he therefore forbids her to do likewise, and instructs her to remove her overcloak, which he calls conscia, an accomplice (49–50). The next instruction returns to the wine: vir bibat usque roga (precibus tamen oscula desint), / dumque bibit, furtim, si potes, adde merum (51–52: “Keep wheedling your man to drink (but still let there be no kisses in your requests), / and while he’s drinking, secretly add pure wine, if you can”). The goal here is to get the vir to pass out, so that puella and lover-poet can meet in the cloakroom. The poem ends with the lover-poet’s sad anticipation of the end of the party, when the puella and the vir will go home, and he will have to spend the night outside her door; he asks her to be sexually unresponsive to the vir and to tell him the next day that she refused to have sex with the vir, whether or not it’s true. Amores 2.5 takes up this triangle structure from the position of the vir. The lover-poet laments that he continues to love his puella, though she has been unfaithful (1–13), then addresses her. She thought he was asleep at the dinner party, but he saw her carrying on secret communication with another man: ipse miser vidi, cum me dormire putares, sobrius apposito crimina vestra mero: multa supercilio vidi vibrante loquentes; nutibus in vestris pars bona vocis erat. non oculi tacuere tui conscriptaque vino mensa, nec in digitis littera nulla fuit. sermonem agnovi, quod non videatur, agentem verbaque pro certis iussa valere notis. iamque frequens ierat mensa conviva relicta; compositi iuvenes unus et alter erant: inproba tum vero iungentes oscula vidi (illa mihi lingua nexa fuisse liquet), qualia non fratri tulerit germana severo, sed tulerit cupido mollis amica viro.

15

20

25

I myself saw, wretched and sober, when you thought I was sleeping, your misbehavior, with the wine placed by. I saw you both saying many things with gesticulating eyebrow; 15 a good part of your voice was in those nods. Your eyes were not silent, and there were notes drawn in the wine on the table, and there was some letter writing with your finger. I recognized you conducting a conversation, which was not to be seen, and your bidden words communicated by prearranged signs. 20

Reading Elegy through Ovid And then everybody was getting up, once dinner was done; the young men were passed out here and there. Then truly I saw you, exchanging wicked kisses (it was clear to me that tongues were exchanged), such as a sister does not give to her harsh brother, but such as a soft girlfriend gives a desiring man.22

/

165

25

Commentators have not failed to notice the parallelism of the passages from Tibullus 1.6 to Amores 1.4. McKeown (1989) on Amores 1.4.19–20 cites Tibullus 1.6.19–20; on Amores 2.5.51–54, he cites Tibullus 1.6.27. I suggest, further, that the availability of the puella’s bosom to wandering eyes and hands (Am. 1.4.35–37) may also be found in Tibullus 1.6.15–18. Moreover, the entire situation of Amores 1.4, and particularly the loverpoet’s strong erotodidactic stance, are suggested by Tibullus 1.6. In fact, Tibullus 1.6 is also a generating source for Amores 2.5, and it is crucial to this literary relationship that the lover-poet describes his rival as a teacher and the puella as a pupil: illa nisi in lecto nusquam potuere doceri; / nescioquis pretium grande magister habet (2.5.61–62: “Those [kisses] could never have been taught except in bed; / some teacher or other has had a great reward”). Perhaps the most frustrating point, to the lover-poet, is that he has been out-taught. He says that these kisses were much better than the ones he himself had taught her (55: haec quoque, quam docui, multo meliora fuerunt; the competitive erotodidaxis here is a particularly Ovidian touch). The relationship between Tibullus 1.6 and Amores 1.4 and 2.5 is not accidental. Ovid capitalizes on the structure of erotodidaxis and the elegiac lovetriangle of Tibullus 1.6. That is, he found in Tibullus 1.6 a scenario ripe for further exploration and literary exploitation. As he does elsewhere (see below for more examples), he takes a few lines from another elegist and makes a poem or, as in this case, two out of those lines.23 In so doing, as we shall see, he exposes some of the seamier side of the elegiac love affair, which is easily ignored in favor of the dreamy professions of love found in Tibullus or the agonized resentment and devotion of the lover-poet in Propertius. Here the poems force various issues on the reader, such as the somewhat sordid nature of public sexual contact (the vir’s wandering hands; sexual play on the couch at dinner; the hasty meeting of lover and puella in the cloakroom); the threat of public violence over sexual rivalry (the lover fears he’ll lay hands on the puella in 1.4; in 2.5 he actually raises his hands against her);24 the rather pathetic communicative food-play. In addition, the infidelity of both puella and lover-poet recalls apparently habitual public sexual play by her with other young men (Tib. 1.6.17–20) and by him with

166

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

other women (Am. 1.4.47–48; the same activity occurs at Prop. 1.4.13–14). Finally, the last couplet acknowledges a constant lack of trust in the elegiac relationship: in effect, the amator asks his puella to lie to him. When she does, will he be able to believe her? This poem, early in the narrative trajectory of the Amores, establishes the elegiac love relationship as one lacking in trust, founded on and requiring complex deception of multiple parties. Amores 1.4 and 2.5 demonstrate Ovid’s close reading of and interaction with his elegiac elder brothers and provide us with a pattern in which he expands on a minor, passing moment in Propertius and Tibullus and reveals it as more significant than it seems—often, in fact, as systemic and generic; he thus often reveals the tunnels undermining elegy’s smooth surface. In these subterranean passages we find such unamorous topics as violence, the physical signs of age, and a constantly seething male anger, nourished by the lover-poet’s systematic resentment at not being able to control the puella. In addition, Ovid’s focus on sex and the puella’s beauty (as well as her body) directs us to look for the same elsewhere in elegy. As I hope to demonstrate here, all the points for which Ovid is criticized (except, perhaps, for his astonishing and often disturbing wit), from physicality to deception, from rhetoric to exploitation, from anger to violence, turn out to have a foundation in prior elegy.

Violence and Beauty: The Risks and Requirements of the Puella’s Profession A primary charge against Ovid’s amatory elegiacs is that they focus too much on sex but relatively little on love; that is, that his speaker does not seem to be really in love with any woman but rather in search of sexual adventures. This complaint might well be restated as follows: in the Amores, Ovid pays attention not to the heart, as Propertius and Tibullus are thought to do, but to the body. It is worth noting that, aside from the prominent exception of 3.7, the impotence poem, the body focused on in the Amores is the puella’s. Indeed, 1.5, by far the most popular of the Amores, is little more than a catalogue of praiseworthy body parts (mysteriously, a head or face is not among them); elsewhere in the Amores, the puella’s body receives what seems an inordinate amount of attention (cf. Hexter 1999: 331): in 1.7 the lover-poet strikes her physically; in 1.14, her hair falls out; in 2.13–14 she has an abortion.25 All this corporeality has led readers to conclude that both Ovid and his eponymous speaker are more interested in the body than in the mind and heart. And indeed the Ovidian lover-poet does speak of loving a puella’s body rather than her personality, where the

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

167

Propertian lover-poet claims, and often seems, to be primarily enamored of Cynthia’s character, and the Tibullan lover-poet appears to be in a sometimes agitated dream-state of love having little to do with any woman’s appearance. But, as I shall argue here, this very aspect of Ovid’s elegy—its emphasis on carnality, as it were—reveals the same basis in all of elegy. That basis is in male sexual attraction to female beauty, which is both the generating agent of the lover-poet’s sexual desire and the physical target of his anger when he realizes that he cannot control the puella. Ovid’s focused exposure of the connections between female beauty and male sexual aggression retrospectively reveals the same phenomena in Propertius and Tibullus.

Observing the Puella’s Body: Youth, Beauty, Age, Hair, Pregnancy, and Stretch Marks Hair. Amores 1.14 is perhaps the most peculiar poem in the whole of Roman love elegy. I leave aside here the question of why Corinna’s hair fell out (a bad dye, a permanent wave gone awry?), and likewise I leave out the poem’s many, relatively well-observed ironies and absurdities (the hair was patient, obedient, long-suffering, etc.) and the mystery of its prior color.26 The utility of this poem in dating the publication of the second edition of the Amores to between 16 and 8 b.c.e. (on which see McKeown 1987: 78–79) allows us to note that, even if a previous version of this poem had been included in the first edition of the Amores, its revised presence in the second edition, some ten to eighteen years after Ovid began writing in elegiacs, demonstrates Ovid’s strategic design both in including a poem on a puella’s sudden baldness and in placing it so prominently in the first book of his new Amores, for it is the last love poem before 1.15, the sphragis (conclusion) to the book.27 In any case, I take both its presence and its placement as significant, and will discuss here its focus on the importance of the puella’s hair in attracting her customers/lovers. The poem begins with a couplet in which the lover-poet says, “I told you so,” to his puella. He had been warning her not to overtreat (medicare) her hair and now it has fallen out (1–2). A lengthy eulogy to the hair follows, praising its beauty, patience, and suffering (3–34), after which the lover-poet warns the puella to stop looking at herself in the mirror and lamenting, for no illness or evil spell cast by a rival has harmed her hair; she herself was the agent of its demise (35–44). Now she’ll have to wear a wig made from the hair of captive Sygambrian women and will blush with embarrassment whenever someone praises her hair (45–50). Suddenly, she can barely con-

168

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

tain her tears, looking at her now-dead curls in her lap. Cheer up, the loverpoet tells her, the damage is repairable, and soon you’ll be noticed for your own hair again (51–56).28 Aside from the information this poem provides about hairdressing (curling technology, dyeing, styling with pins and combs, and so forth), what Amores 1.14 offers us is some insight into the puella’s need for elaborate hairstyles, as a means of attracting men. The lover-poet claims to have enjoyed watching her hairdresser (ornatrix) do his beloved’s hair of a morning, and indeed as the praeceptor Amoris he will later advise women to let their lovers watch their morning styling session, as long as the hair cooperates (Ars 3.235–50); see below. Because the docta puella needs to look elegant, to stand out in a crowd, in order to attract male attention, she must maintain elaborate, eye-catching hairstyles.29 The numerous details about the length, color, texture, and general behavior of the puella’s longsuffering hair testify to the attention paid to it by the lover-poet, a degree of attention suggesting that hair is a primary attraction of the elegiac puella (cf. Prop. 2.1.8), as indeed can be seen in lines 47–50: o quam saepe comas aliquo mirante rubebis et dices “empta nunc ego merce probor: nescioquam pro me laudat nunc iste Sygambram; fama tamen memini cum fuit ista mea.” Oh, how often, when someone is marveling at your hair, you will blush and say, “Now I’m being praised for purchased goods: now that man is praising some Sygambrian woman instead of me; but I remember when that glory was mine.”

The utility of elaborate hairstyles in attracting men makes them a professional necessity. Thus in Propertius 2.18.23–38, we find the lover-poet worrying that his puella is dyeing her hair in order to catch the attention of other men. This poem closely links hair treatment and intent to attract men:30 nunc etiam infectos demens imitare Britannos, ludis et externo tincta nitore caput? ut natura dedit, sic omnis recta figura est: turpis Romano Belgicus ore color. illi sub terris fiant mala multa puellae, quae mentita suas vertit inepta comas! deme: mihi per te poteris formosa videri; mi formosa sat es, si modo saepe venis. an si caeruleo quaedam sua tempora fuco tinxerit, idcirco caerula forma bona est?

25

30

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

cum tibi nec frater nec sit tibi filius ullus, frater ego et tibi sim filius unus ego. ipse tuus semper tibi sit custodia lectus, nec nimis ornata fronte sedere velis. credam ego narranti, noli committere, famae: et terram rumor transilit et maria. Now, madwoman, do you copy the painted Britons, and pull off a deception, your head tinged with an alien sheen? Every figure is right just as nature gave it: Belgian color looks foul on a Roman face. May many evils befall the girl after death, who, lying foolishly, changed her own hair! Get rid of it: to me you can seem beautiful on your own; you’re beautiful enough to me, if only you come to me often. Or if some girl tinted her temples with blue dye, would blue therefore become beautiful? Since you have neither a brother, nor any son, let me be your brother, and let me alone be your son. Let your own bed always be your guard, nor desire to sit out [on view] with an overly decorated hairdo. Don’t force me to believe gossiping talk: rumor crosses both sea and land.31

169

35

25

30

35

Here the lover-poet repeats a typical theme—that excess decoration of the self is not necessary for a docta puella (cf. Prop. 1.2, for example; see also Kennedy 1993: 73)—and rather than complain, as usual, of the cost, he associates the hair dye with an attempt to catch attention32 (lines 36 and 38 particularly suggest that a courtesan would go out to show off a new hairstyle and that it would indeed attract attention), and his protesting reaction should by now be predictable. This humorously overblown little poem is obviously an important source for Amores 1.14, but as usual Ovid goes a few steps further. The accusations of war paint and blue hair in Propertius are patently and deliberately absurd, and, I propose, in a game of elegiac one-upsmanship, Ovid goes Propertius one better by making Corinna’s hair fall out. While on the one hand this disaster makes the scene as Boyd (1997: 117) says, “simply ridiculous,” on the other it potentally raises some important questions about the puella and her profession, especially with its focus on the public attention that her hair and hairstyle ordinarily receive (47–50, as cited above), a point that reinforces the same in Propertius 2.18.35–38. The professional implications for the puella of this grooming catastrophe are in fact significant, as it seriously damages her ability to attract men. Typically,

170

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

then, Ovid takes a minor theme in elegy (and in Greek and Latin literature generally; see McKeown’s [1989] headnote to Am. 1.14) and builds on a few lines of Propertius, exposing, in his inimitable absurdist style, a fact about the docta puella’s life: she needs fancy hairstyles in order to attract male interest, and those styles are not without risk. That such is the case can be seen in the lengthy and detailed instructions to women, at Ars amatoria 3.133–68, about hairstyles. The praeceptor begins with a typical precept: munditiis capimur: non sint sine lege capilli: / admotae formam dantque negantque manus (133–34: “We are captivated by elegance: do not let your hair be a mess: / the dresser’s hands give and deny beauty”). Noting that different hairstyles suit different faces and different women (135–36), he goes on to describe six different styles (137–48), only to note that he can’t keep up with them all, since every day creates a new hairstyle (149–52), though he opines that a natural hairstyle suits many (153–58).33 A clue about the need to attend carefully to hair comes a few lines later, when he notes that although men go bald (161–62), women can dye their hair and wear wigs: femina canitiem Germanis inficit herbis, et melior vero quaeritur arte color, femina procedit densissima crinibus emptis proque suis alios efficit aere suos. nec rubor est emisse: palam venire videmus Herculis ante oculos virgineumque chorum. (163–68) A woman stains her white hair with German herbs, and a color better than her true one is sought by artifice; a woman goes forth thick-haired with purchased locks and with coin she makes someone else’s hair hers in place of her own. And she does not blush in buying: we see them come openly [to buy] by the shrines of Hercules and the Muses’ chorus.

These lines both recall Amores 1.14.45–50 and look ahead to the praeceptor’s next lesson on hair, at 235–50. In this passage, he has just been warning his female pupils to keep men away from their toilette, as all the makeup and the unclean clothing, the mixing-up of potions, and the cleaning of teeth will repel men rather than attract them. Notably, however, he does not forbid male witness to the hairstyling, as long as nothing untoward occurs: at non pectendos coram praebere capillos, ut iaceant fusi per tua terga, veto. illo praecipue ne sis morosa caveto tempore nec lapsas saepe resolve comas;

235

Reading Elegy through Ovid tuta sit ornatrix: odi, quae sauciat ora unguibus et rapta bracchia figit acu; devovet, et tangit, dominae caput illa simulque plorat in invisas sanguinolenta comas. quae male crinita est, custodem in limine ponat orneturve Bonae semper in aede Deae. dictus eram subito cuidam venisse puellae: turbida perversas induit illa comas. hostibus eveniat tam foedi causa pudoris inque nurus Parthas dedecus illud eat! turpe pecus mutilum, turpis sine gramine campus et sine fronde frutex et sine crine caput.

/

171 240

245

250

But I do not forbid you to provide your hair for open 235 combing, so that it may lie spread out over your back. But especially beware lest you become peevish at that time, and don’t often pull at your slipped tangles. Let your hairdresser be safe: I hate the girl who ravages her hairdresser’s face34 with her nails and stabs at her arms with a snatched-up pin. 240 The girl curses, and touches her mistress’s head and at the same time weeps, bloodied, into the hated locks. The woman who has thin hair should put a guard on her doorstep or always get her hair done at the Bona Dea’s shrine. I was unexpectedly announced, arriving, to a certain girl: 245 in a rush, she put her wig on backward. Let the cause of such shame come to our enemies, and let that disgrace befall Parthian daughters-in-law. An unhorned flock is ridiculous, a meadow without grass is ridiculous, and a shrub without leaves, and also a head without hair. 250

For our purposes here, what is relevant is the puella’s need for beautiful hair. Lines 243–46 implicitly warn women that men will find them unattractive if their hair does not meet expectations; 247–50 explicitly state revulsion at insufficient hair in women—in fact, 249–50 virtually identify hair as necessary equipment for courtesans, as natural as horns on herd animals, grass in fields, and foliage on shrubbery. The other danger, for a woman, of hair, is that it will begin to betray her age by going gray. Though the other elegists pay less poetic attention to hairstyles, they do not miss a chance to remind their puellae that old age is on its way, and that its advance messenger—gray or white hair—will arrive beforehand. Thus, for instance, in Tibullus 1.8 the lover-poet warns Pholoe that one day she will have to dye and pluck out those treacherous strands:

172

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

heu sero revocatur amor seroque iuventas cum vetus infecit cana senecta caput. tum studium formae est: coma tum mutatur, ut annos dissimulet viridi cortice tincta nucis: tollere tum cura est albos a stirpe capillos. (41–45) Alas, love and youth will be called back too late when white old age stains your old head. Then you’ll have to practice at beauty: then your hair will be altered, so that, dyed with the green bark of the nut it can dissemble your years. Then you’ll have a care to pluck those white hairs out from the root.

The Propertian lover-poet likewise forecasts the tweezers in Cynthia’s future, as he bids her farewell:35 at te celatis aetas gravis urgeat annis, et veniat formae ruga sinistra tuae! vellere tum cupias albos a stirpe capillos, a! speculo rugas increpitante tibi, exclusa inque vicem fastus patiare superbos, et quae fecisti facta queraris anus! has tibi fatalis cecinit mea pagina diras: eventum formae disce timere tuae! (3.25.11–18) But may heavy old age weigh you down with hidden years, and may wrinkles arrive, dangerous to your beauty! Then you will want to pluck the white hairs out from the root,36 alas! while the mirror is chastising your wrinkles; and may you, locked out, in turn suffer [someone else’s] proud contempt, and when you’re old may you lament your own deeds! My page has sung these dreadful fates for you: learn to fear the demise of your beauty!37

Eventually, of course, as the puella becomes even older, reaching the age of the lena, her hair will become very thin, as well as completely white (cf. Prop. 4.5.71 and Am. 1.8.111, for the nearly bald Acanthis and Dipsas). Hair is necessary for the puella’s professional viability, and is a primary marker of it; thus in her youth she needs elaborate hairstyles, and as she ages she needs dye, tweezers, and wigs, to disguise white or thinning hair. In other words, she must disguise the process by which time will eventually transform her into the lena.38 Amores 1.14 focuses on elaborate styling measures to achieve attractive, eye-catching hair and thus exposes at length the puella’s need to remain beautiful and to attract male sexual attention. It also identifies the puella’s hair as perhaps the major signifier of her state of

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

173

beauty, which is her means of livelihood. It is a typically Ovidian strategy that the utter absurdity of the situation—an exaggeration by great proportions of a preexisting elegiac element—draws attention to both this poem and the problems that it highlights for the puella. Pregnancy and Abortion. Amores 2.13–14, the poems about Corinna’s abortion, likewise open up a professional concern for the elegiac puella, and they are probably the most widely criticized of the Amores; see Gamel 1989: 200 n. 2 (to her list may be added Arkins [1990], who wishes to excise them entirely, and Barsby [1973: 18], calling them an incidence of Ovid’s “lapse of taste” in the Amores).39 These two strongly gendered poems bring together two minor themes in Roman love elegy: the lover-poet’s service to his ailing puella (for which he of course expects a sexual reward) and the problem of stretch marks caused by pregnancy, which the lover-poet generically finds unattractive.40 As Mack (1988: 62) has noted, it is part of Ovid’s program of showing “glimpses of real life behind the elegiac conventions. . . . Before Ovid, elegiac sex had no undesirable effects. . . . But in real life people like Corinna could get pregnant.” In focusing on these two minor themes, Ovid reminds his readers of the consequences of elegiac sex. In addition, Amores 2.13–14 focus on the puella’s body and thus recall the dangers of both pregnancy and abortion for courtesans, who are professionally at higher risk of both than nonprostitutes; further, they retrospectively suggest that the previous female illnesses of Roman love elegy might well have been related to pregnancy and abortion. I will argue, here, in other words, that the topic of abortion in the Amores reveals what was already hiding in plain sight in Propertius and Tibullus. To begin with, even the opening of the previous poem associates Corinna with the bed and particularly with sex in the bed: ite triumphales circum mea tempora laurus: / vicimus; in nostro est ecce Corinna sinu (2.12.1–2: ”Go, triumphal laurel wreaths, around my temples: / I have conquered; behold, Corinna is in my lap”).41 This poem celebrates the military triumph of the lover-poet in gaining sexual access to Corinna (the whole poem is riddled with military metaphors), and it may be assumed that his goal, after an arduous campaign, takes no other form than to have sex with her. Thus it is appropriate that the next poem shows the potential result, for Corinna, of that sex: she is sick, near death, from an abortion, which she underwent without her lover-poet’s knowledge: Dum labefactat onus gravidi temeraria ventris, in dubio vitae lassa Corinna iacet. illa quidem, clam me tantum molita pericli,

174

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

ira digna mea, sed cadit ira metu. sed tamen aut ex me conceperat, aut ego credo: est mihi pro facto saepe, quod esse potest. (1–6) Since she rashly destroyed the weight of her pregnant womb, Corinna lies, exhausted, in danger for her life. She certainly attempted so much risk unbeknownst to me she has earned my anger, but anger falls to fear. But, nevertheless, either she conceived it by me, or so I believe: I often accept as fact what is merely a possibility.

He prays at length to Isis to help (7–18) and to Ilithyia, goddess of childbirth (19–22),42 promising to sacrifice to her and to put up a votive tablet in her honor (23–26). He closes by warning Corinna not to have a second abortion. Poem 2.14 is a long screed against women and abortion,43 and it ends with the hope that Corinna will survive this abortion but not a second one. Many of its arguments are familiar to modern readers: why do girls make war against their insides—just to prevent stretch marks (1–8)? What if, the lover-poet asks her, various important figures from the past had been aborted (9–18)? What if your own mother or mine had aborted (19–22)? It is no great trouble to give up a few months for a pregnancy (23–28); only savage madwomen like Procne and Medea kill their children, but no Jason or Tereus did you wrong (29–34). Not even wild animals would abort (35–36). Women who have abortions deserve to die themselves (37–40), except for this woman, this time, but if she does it again, let her pay the price (41–44). The only motive imputed to Corinna is vanity: ut careat rugarum crimine venter (2.14.7: “so that your belly could lack the defect of wrinkles”). But stretch marks are a significant professional hazard to the docta puella, for (unlike a street prostitute, scortum, whose interactions with men are fleeting and may not even require removal of the toga worn by registered prostitutes) her livelihood depends on extended intimate relationships with men who want to look at every part of her body and who find stretch marks unattractive (see McKeown 1998 on 2.14.7). Note, for instance, the fetishistic attention to Corinna’s own various body parts (at least those below the neck) in Amores 1.5: ut stetit ante oculos posito velamine nostros, / in toto nusquam corpore menda fuit (17–18: “As she stood before my eyes, with her negligée put aside, / there was no fault anywhere on her whole body”). There, this very lover-poet details the perfections of her shoulders, arms, breasts, side, and particularly her flat stomach (planus . . . venter, 21) and youthful thigh (iuvenale femur, 22). He concludes with implicit praise of

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

175

her total perfection: nil non laudabile vidi (23: “I saw nothing not praiseworthy”). The desire to see the puella’s naked body in full and at leisure occupies, strikingly, the poem that immediately follows 2.13–14, in which the lover-poet fantasizes himself as the cheap ring he is sending to his girlfriend. Amores 2.15 again fetishizes the puella’s body, which would be easily accessible to the disguised ring-lover. But the sight of her naked body, he predicts, would turn him back into a man again, and one in a condition ready for immediate sexual action (25–26). That such attention to the elegiac male’s powerful sexual desire for the beautiful puella (here marked as such in line 1, formosae . . . puellae) follows the abortion poems cannot be accidental. Indeed, it marks that desire as generic, and it recalls the same desire as articulated in Propertius 2.15. The desire of the lover-poet in Propertius 2.15 to see Cynthia in full detail occupies the central part of the poem—see particularly line 12, oculi sunt in amore duces (“The eyes are the leaders in love”) and 23, oculos satiemus amore (“Let us sate our eyes with love”)—and causes him to threaten her with physical violence (on which, see below) if she continues to come to bed wearing a garment. The only possible excuse for a cover-up? Signs of age, such as drooping breasts and pregnancy stretch marks: necdum inclinatae prohibent te ludere mammae: / viderit haec, si quam iam peperisse pudet (21–22: “Sagging breasts do not yet keep you from playing around: / let her worry about these things, if having given birth already embarrasses some woman”). It is crucial to note the shame or modesty about childbirth, which here is strongly marked as disfiguring a woman and making her sexually unattractive.44 The praeceptor Amoris himself acknowledges this problem, when in his discussion of compensatory sexual positions (on which see below) he advises women who have given birth to disguise the evidence: tu . . . cui rugis uterum Lucina notavit (3.785: “you . . . whose belly Lucina has marked with wrinkles”).45 Thus Corinna’s putative fear of stretch marks is based not on vanity but on professional necessity: elegiac women need to attract men sexually, but elegiac men don’t like stretch marks. Hence pregnancy is a professional risk too great to take (though abortion is, as Ovid shows here, also a great risk). Furthermore, in antiquity (and, absent modern medicine, even now) pregnancy and childbirth were very dangerous, and in any case, the common recourse to infant exposure is not a viable alternative to pregnancy for Corinna, as it still risks both childbirth and pregnancy with its attendant disfiguring marks. In addition, the elegiac docta puella, as McKeown (1998: 277) rightly notes, is professionally always at risk of pregnancy, all the more so given that prevailing medical opinion at the time considered the middle

176

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

of the menstrual cycle, when ovulation occurs and conception is most likely, to be the least likely time for conception. The sex that elegy so insistently seeks presents a constant hazard46 to the docta puella in the form of unwanted pregnancies—and here it is worth recalling that, just as no elegiac lover-poet either proposes marriage to his beloved or asks her to leave her vir for himself, nowhere in Amores 2.13–14 does the lover-poet claim that he would have wanted the child or that he would have married her and raised the child. Thus Amores 2.13–14 showcase the serious risk that pregnancy and abortion both pose to the elegiac puella, as well as articulate the unpleasant and desperate procedures employed in antiquity.47 Further, Amores 2.13–14 take the topic of the ailing puella to its most gendered extreme—men can catch a fever, but they can’t get pregnant. What more female condition is there than pregnancy? What more female medical procedures than childbirth and abortion? They thus call for a review of the other instances of the topos of the unwell puella. As we shall see, Amores 2.13–14, Tibullus 1.5, and Propertius 2.28 share thematic, linguistic, and structural elements;48 hence, I suggest, Ovid retrospectively raises the possibility that the poetic illnesses of Delia and Cynthia were or could have been pregnancy-related. In elegiac attendance on a sick girlfriend, the lover usually takes on religious rituals aimed at procuring her health; he worries about her, performs various services, and usually expects a sexual reward once she recovers (Tib. 1.5.17–18, Prop. 2.28.62, Ars 2.315–36), especially if he has performed the rituals himself rather than hiring them out, as would be more common.49 At Tibullus 1.5.7–18, the lover-poet describes his services to Delia in her ill health, with a typical emphasis on himself. More significantly, the passage begins and ends with references not only to the bed, but to sex in that bed, and thus places Delia’s illness in the context of elegiac sex, further implying that her illness is pregnancy-related: parce tamen, per te furtivi foedera lecti, per venerem quaeso compositumque caput. ille ego cum tristi morbo defessa iaceres te dicor votis eripuisse meis: ipseque te circum lustravi sulpure puro, carmine cum magico praecinuisset anus; ipse procuravi ne possent saeva nocere somnia, ter sancta deveneranda mola; ipse ego velatus filo tunicisque solutis vota novem Triviae nocte silente dedi. omnia persolui: fruitur nunc alter amore, et precibus felix utitur ille meis.

10

15

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

177

Be merciful, nevertheless, I beg you, by the treaties of the secret bed, by our sex and your head placed down [by mine]. It was I, when you were lying exhausted from your sad illness, I am said to have brought you back with my prayers. 10 And I myself circled around you three times with purifying sulfur, when the old lady had already sung in her magic spell; I myself took care that harsh night-spells not harm you, with the holy cake offered up in worship three times; I myself, covered with a headband, and with my tunic loosened 15 made the nine prayers to Trivia in the silent night. I performed every obligation: now some other man is enjoying my love, and he, lucky one, is benefiting from my prayers.50

McKeown (1998) on Amores 2.13.2 notes that Ovid echoes Tibullus 1.5.9, cum tristi morbo defessa iaceres: lassa Corinna iacet (“Corinna lies exhausted”).51 Likewise the promise of ritual offerings at Amores 2.13.23–26 echoes Tibullus 1.5.9–16, in its focus on the lover-poet’s personal service on behalf of the ailing beloved. As Murgatroyd (1980) on Tibullus 1.5.11–12 notes, ipse (“I myself”) is strongly marked to demonstrate the lover-poet’s devotion to the puella, as he takes on the functions normally performed by a hired saga (wise woman/witch).52 It would certainly be appropriate, however, for a lover to perform rituals to help save a woman whose ailment was brought on by himself. In Amores 2.13, the lover goes a bit further, offering Ilithyia gifts and a votive marker: ipse ego tura dabo fumosis candidus aris, ipse feram ante tuos munera vota pedes; adiciam titulum servata naso corinna: tu modo fac titulo muneribusque locum. (23–26) I myself, dressed in white, will give incense to your smoky altars, I myself will bring votive gifts before your feet; I will add a tablet, ovid, for corinna saved: you just make the place for the tablet and the gifts.

Here it is worth noting that the amator in Amores 2.13 not only offers to perform rituals and give votive offerings, but to put up a thanks tablet inscribed with his own name, which will forever credit him with helping to save Corinna and will presumably make an impression on her when she goes to the same shrine to offer her own thanks for her recovery. The tablet also implicitly recalls that he was the cause of her illness. Propertius 2.28, with its two distinct halves, provides a structural model for Amores 2.13–14 (it is recorded as a single elegy in all but one manuscript).53 In its first thirty-two lines Cynthia54 is ailing, and the poet prays

178

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

to Jupiter on her behalf; in the second half she seems to take a turn for the worse, then recovers. It deals with the topos of the ailing puella in a marked fashion by blaming her beauty for her illness, specifically excusing the usual seasonal problems (by contrast, Ars 2.315–18 cites an autumnal ague), though the climate is presently malicious (3–6). He first suggests that Cynthia’s illness is her own fault, brought on by failure to worship the gods adequately (5–6). But then, it turns out, perhaps boasting of her own beauty is the culprit (13–14),55 having engendered the envy of the goddesses, and specifically the goddesses involved in the judgment of Paris, Minerva, Venus, and Juno, who are well known to resent beautiful women. The loverpoet therefore goes over their heads, appealing directly to Jupiter, who is known to have a soft spot for pretty human women: Iuppiter, affectae tandem miserere puellae: / tam formosa tuum mortua crimen erit (1–2: “Jupiter, have mercy at last on an afflicted girl: / if such a pretty girl dies, it will be your fault”). This appeal, it turns out, is utterly appropriate, for the state of beauty itself is dangerous to human women. How? The mythical exempla tell the story, as the lover-poet takes a lengthy excursus through the heroines of Greek myth who suffered persecution because of their beauty (usually by Juno). He speaks of Io (also = Isis), Ino, Andromeda,56 and Callisto, all of whom were endangered because of beauty,57 then offers Cynthia a peculiar, and rather cold comfort: if she does die, she can commiserate with Semele: quod si forte tibi properarint fata quietem, illa sepulturae fata beata tuae, narrabis Semelae, quo sit formosa periclo,58 credit et illa, suo docta puella malo. (25–28) But if by chance the fates shall have rushed peace upon you, those blessed fates of your burial, you will tell to Semele, at what risk a woman is beautiful,59 and she will believe, a girl made learned by her own suffering.

The striking thing about this list of women is that most of them were punished not quite for their beauty but because Jupiter had sex with them, attracted by their beauty,60 after which they were persecuted by Juno while they were pregnant. In other words, the putative cause for Cynthia’s illness (her negligence of the gods; her boasting of her own beauty) is here undone, as none of these women was punished for boasting about her own beauty (if lines 21–22 are Propertian, they may fit: Andromeda was put out as a victim to the sea monster because her mother Cassiopeia boasted that her own beauty was greater than that of the goddesses, but Andromeda never made

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

179

any such claims of herself; if the lines are spurious, Andromeda may be ignored). Io and Callisto were harassed, driven all over in wild wanderings, turned respectively into a heifer and a bear, and their pregnancies were particularly targets of Juno’s wrath.61 In addition, their pregnancies were either hidden (Callisto and Io) or fatal (Semele), and in the most marked instance, that of Semele, the puella is not simply compared to her but depicted as talking to her about the dangers of being beautiful. Here the application of the epithet docta puella to Semele in line 29 is striking and deliberately underscores the connection between the two women. We have already seen that pregnancy is a primary risk of female beauty in Roman love elegy, and the presence of Semele marks both pregnancy and abortion as the two greatest dangers to beautiful women even more closely, for her death was in fact intended by Juno as an abortion of sorts of her baby, Bacchus.62 In addition, the agent of the death is the baby’s father, a fact that strongly links sex and death for beautiful women. That the baby survives while the mother dies so dramatically further marks the risks of sex to women. Semele hardly needs instruction from Cynthia about the dangers of being beautiful, but she is the perfect partner for a chat with the beautiful docta puella, for this reason (which again marks her out as different from Io and Callisto): she, alone among the human women impregnated by Jupiter,63 seems to have had an ongoing and affectionate relationship with him, qua himself (i.e., not disguised as a bull, swan, or human husband), rather than being the victim of a quick hit-and-run operation or a bizarre animal assault. In other words, Jupiter’s relationship with Semele is closer to an elegiac love affair than any of his other involvements with human women. The presence of Ino in Propertius’s list serves to mark this fact, as she was Semele’s sister and, as Ovid later tells it, she raised up the baby Bacchus and was publicly proud of him. She thus incurred the wrath of Juno, who sent an evil spirit to drive Ino and her husband, Athamas, mad; Athamas killed one of their children, and Ino, in an attempt to escape him, ran off a cliff carrying their other child. In other words, she and her two children were killed because Juno was jealous of Jupiter’s attraction to Semele’s beauty and of Semele’s baby. She was subsequently transformed into the sea goddess Leucothoe, as Propertius notes (see Ov. Met. 4.461–542 for her story). Her inclusion further tightens the link of these mythical heroines to pregnancy, suffering via vengeful harassment, and death; it proves, rather than violates, the rule that these heroines were placed at risk because of beauty, sex, and pregnancy.64 Finally, the beginning and end of the poem’s first half thematically invoke Jupiter’s tendency to pity the pretty girls persecuted by his wife.

180

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

Lines 33–34, placed by many editors after 1–2, properly belong as the manuscripts preserve them, since this particular ailing puella has certainly not attracted Jupiter’s attention, and hence Juno has no reason to hate her:65 nunc, utcumque potes, fato gere saucia morem: et deus et durus vertitur ipse dies. hoc tibi vel poterit coniunx ignoscere Iuno: frangitur et Iuno, si qua puella perit. (31–34) Now, as best you can, bear with your fate: both the god and the hard day [i.e., the final day] can be reversed. And Juno his wife could grant you this mercy: even Juno is upset, if any girl perishes.

The lover-poet goes on to promise that if Cynthia survives, he will write a poem praising Jupiter, and she herself will come to worship him as well:66 pro quibus optatis sacro me carmine damno: scribam ego “Per magnum est salva puella Iovem”; ante tuosque pedes illa ipsa operata sedebit, narrabitque sedens longa pericla sua. (43–46) For which desired services, I obligate myself with a holy song: I shall write, “My girl was saved by great Jove”; and she herself, worshiping, will sit at your feet, and sitting there will tell her long dangers.

Reading this elegy through the prism of Amores 2.13–14 helps to uncover its subtext of beauty, pregnancy, and death, which may be a formulaic narrative for the elegiac puella.67 At the end of Propertius 2.28, Cynthia seems to have recovered, and the lover-poet instructs her to observe the due religious rituals (dances for Diana, ten nights of celibacy for Isis), and then to reward him for his worry and his service: tu quoniam es, mea lux, magno dimissa periclo, munera Dianae debita redde choros, redde etiam excubias divae nunc, ante iuvencae; votivas noctes et mihi solve decem! (59–62) Since, my light, you have been released from great danger, return the dance gifts owed to Diana, and even return your celibate nights to the now-goddess, formerly a heifer;68 and also repay ten votive nights to me!

This deeply ironic, perhaps even cynical, conclusion perfectly fits the context, for if this poem suggests that Cynthia’s illness was related to preg-

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

181

nancy and abortion, the lover-poet’s demand for ten consecutive nights with her—a number equal to those devoted to Isis—should cause the reader to recall how she might have become pregnant in the first place. This request both trivializes Cynthia’s illness and threatens to cause it again. As if to underscore this point, a lengthy screed against the celibacy rite to Isis comes only a few poems later, at 2.33.69 In the first twenty lines, the loverpoet notes that Cynthia has observed the ten nights of celibacy (1–2); he rants against the ritual for the next eighteen lines, then requests that since she has enjoyed his suffering during their sexual separation, they have sex three times (presumably in a single night), after the ritual. That this structure, in which the puella owes her lover-poet a lot of sex after her ten nights devoted to Isis, recurs so soon after the illness poem seems hardly accidental, and it reinforces his attraction to Cynthia as primarily sexual rather than anything more elevated.70 Here in poem 2.33 this demand should remind the reader of the danger that his desire poses to Cynthia, as seen so recently in 2.28. Thus rereading Propertius and Tibullus through the prism of Amores 2.13–14 reveals a hidden subtext in Roman love elegy: that elegiac sex can actually meet its biological function by causing a pregnancy,71 so that it poses a serious risk to the puella. In addition, Amores 2.13–14 demonstrate by their subject matter the enormous gap between the lover-poet’s experience of sex and the puella’s—hers must always be tinged with fear, as contraception in antiquity was unreliable, its supply unpredictable,72 and abortifacient remedies both dangerous and extremely painful.73 Curran (1978: 224) notes that the rapes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses are set against a “grim background of medical helplessness, in which intercourse, pregnancy, and childbirth mean potential destruction for the women.” In Amores 2.13–14 Ovid foregrounds this background and demonstrates it to be a constant occupational hazard for the docta puella, for whom sex is not the one-time flying assault so common in the Metamorphoses but her only means of making a living. Under such circumstances, her material demands seem rather less than as depicted by her lover-poets and her occasional show of reluctance perhaps less pretended than it seems.74 Finally, Amores 2.13–14 refocus the elegiac lens aimed at the puella’s body, reminding the reader that it is in fact her body75 and that it is at risk every time she has sex. Hence the lover-poet’s diatribe against women who have abortions rings especially of elegiac self-centeredness (especially since, as previously noted, he never says he would have wanted the baby)76 and points toward the strongly gendered nature of elegiac relations, sexual and other, in which once again he enjoys the benefits of being male, while the puella remains vulnerable to what Rousselle (1992: 324) calls “the burden of sexuality.”77

182

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

In the context of the dangers posed by sex to the docta puella, then, as pushed by Ovid into prominent relief, the assertion of the Propertian amator at 2.28.2 that Cynthia deserves to live for the same reason that she is endangered—her beauty—raises an alarming note. In addition, it retrospectively revises the impression of his devotion toward her as based in her compelling and powerful personality and her talents rather than her physical appearance. We have previously seen that the Ovidian lover-poet’s attraction to women has been founded primarily, and quite openly, on their beauty, but Propertius 2.28 demonstrates the same for the Propertian loverpoet. Reading Amores 2.13–14 urges a reexamination of elegy’s articulation of its focus on female beauty. The elegiac focus on beauty is marked at such points as Propertius 1.4, where Bassus has been praising many girls on the basis of their beauty. Propertius programmatically marks beauty as being of the first order at 2.1.5–16, where Cynthia inspires poetry first by her appearance (5–8) and then by other means.78 Poem 2.2 is entirely devoted to her beauty; 2.3 argues that her true attractions are her dancing, musical talent, and poetry (17–22) but focuses at much greater length on her beauty (9–16, 29–45). He later observes epigrammatically the power of beauty: heu quantum per se candida forma valet (2.29.30: “Alas, how powerful shining beauty is of itself”). At 2.32.1–2, her beauty is enough to cause any man to fall in love with her at first sight; at 2.34.1–4, the lover-poet fears entrusting her even to his friend Lynceus, because any man would fall for beauty. Tibullus too notes the power of beauty over a lover-poet—me retinent vinctum formosae vincla puellae (1.1.55: “The chains of a beautiful girl hold me bound”)—and at 1.9.5–6 the beautiful are granted the right to cheat with impunity once. (Though here the beautiful beloved is a boy, it is safe to say that his beauty is what attracted the lover-poet to him in the first place, and as soon as the boy demonstrates signs of physical maturity, his male lovers will lose interest in him.) Taking the Ovidian amator’s attraction to women to be primarily physical, with little attention to character or talent,79 we can see from these passages that any elegiac lover’s protestations of true and everlasting love notwithstanding, present beauty is what first attracts him to a woman and what keeps him attached to her throughout elegy. Certainly the experienced puella knows this fact80 and will thus listen skeptically to any claims that her amator will be devoted to her forever.81 She needs to stay beautiful as long as she can, and the elegiac sex that her lover-poets so urgently seek from her presents her with a constant risk to both her present beauty and, in fact, her very life. What Mack (1988: 81) says of Heroides 1 applies here as well: “Ovid comments on the conventions of elegy, show-

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

183

ing how inadequate they are to real life.” Though elegy is patently a fiction, some of its fictions are virtually fantasies. They are very male fantasies, at that, and none more so than the belief that elegiac sex is purely a matter of desire for both men and women. Thus, again, reading Ovid offers a key to the rest of elegy, in which we can see how the intersecting narrative lines of love, sex, beauty, and potential destruction all converge on the body of the puella, and in so doing they refute the elegiac lover-poet’s usual protestations that what he loves about her is her singularity, her mind, her learning, her talent, and so forth.82

The Lover-Poet’s Body Betrays Him: Elegiac Male Passivity in Amores 3.7 Amores 3.7, the impotence poem, provides another instance of Ovid’s pressure on the most gendered points of Roman love elegy, this time the phallus. Like 2.14–15, it is one of the most criticized of the Amores, as its subject matter is usually considered unworthy.83 One of the longer poems in the Amores, 3.7 is thematically well suited to the narrative trajectory of book 3, in which the lover-poet increasingly finds himself powerless to control both his mistress’s sexual conduct (3.3, 3.8, 3.11) and his own continuing passion for her (3.11, 3.12).84 My remarks here will be few and as usual pointed to Ovid’s exploitation of either a passing or a latent element in elegy, in this case the same event alluded to elliptically at Tibullus 1.5.39–42, where the lover-poet has been attempting to forget Delia with other women: saepe aliam tenui: sed iam cum gaudia adirem, / admonuit dominae deseruitque Venus. / tunc me discedens devotum femina dixit, / a pudet, et narrat scire nefanda meam (“Often I held another woman: but when I was just about to approach climax, / Venus reminded me of my mistress and abandoned me. / Then leaving me, the woman said I was under an evil spell, / oh, shame, and she claims my [mistress] knows evil things”). Thus again Ovid takes a minor moment in elegy and creates an entire poem out of it, in which he focuses on something that might otherwise remain hidden, but is in fact always a possibility. Just as the sex constantly sought by Roman love elegy poses the threat of pregnancy to the puella, it also implies at least occasional male sexual impotence. Even to point to this possibility reminds Ovid’s readers (if by now they needed reminding) that although Roman love elegy traditionally claims to be a genre of love, it is also a genre of sex, and that poetic sex must inevitably resemble actual intercourse, which is known to disappoint as well as fulfill. In this poem Ovid literalizes and corporealizes the standard passivity of the elegiac lover-poet (usually seen, for instance in servitium amoris, as

184

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

noted in Sharrock 1995: 164), locating it in the one part of himself that an elegiac lover-poet expects to perform according to instruction (as opposed, say, to that notoriously fickle organ, his heart). The amator’s experience here is obviously gendered, for as pregnancy is a female condition, sexual impotence is a male one. Thus again Ovid marks the gendered nature of elegiac relations, in which even the sexual experience of the two partners diverges widely.85 The sexual equality fantasized at Ars amatoria 2.681–92 and Propertius 2.15, with its depiction of the frenzied Cynthia, is here undone not only by the lover-poet’s failure but also by all the labor the puella puts into dealing with it (7–12, 55–60, esp. 73–74). In Roman love elegy, male sexual impotence is proverbially blamed on either an agent of evil (a jealous girlfriend or a saga) or on infidelity (it is assumed that a man having sex with more than one woman will inevitably turn up unable with one of them), and indeed the puella of this poem suspects both those causes (79–80).86 Rather strikingly, the lover-poet never offers even a retroactive self-defense against the charge of sleeping around, thus leaving open the possibility that, despite his claim to have been seeking this very girl (2), he has not been saving himself for her.87 This poem, despite its masculine subject matter, reverts to female beauty as the generating agent of male sexual desire: at non formosa est . . . puella? (1: “Well, isn’t she a beautiful . . . girl?”). Thus Amores 3.7 again marks beauty as a generic necessity for the puella. Ovid here reveals the shallowness of this approach to love, marks it as elegiac, and genders it male.

The Docta Puella Faces Elegiac Violence: The Lover-Poet’s Constant Anger Amores 1.7, in which the lover-poet lengthily regrets having struck his mistress, is a locus classicus for scholarly disapproval of Ovid’s poetics and personality. Its subject is thought tasteless and, even worse, its style tedious. Scholars and commentators have certainly noted the elegiac lover’s tendency toward violence; each gives slightly different lists of citations to the other moments of violence in Roman love elegy, comedy, and other related genres.88 As Barsby (1973: 91) notes, speaking of the episodes of violence in Propertius and Tibullus, “Ovid quite openly proclaims his debt to the tradition by using not only its details but its language.”89 Borrowing his designation, I propose to look here at the “tradition” of violence in Roman love elegy, keeping in mind that its mere existence should raise some troubling questions about the genre, and particularly about its attitude toward and treatment of the docta puella. Though commentators readily note that the theme of the lover’s violence

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

185

against his mistress is standard equipment for elegy (Tib. 1.1.73–74, 1.3.64, 1.6.73–74, 1.10.53–66; Prop. 2.5.21–26, 2.15.17–20; Ov. Am. 2.5.45–46; Ars 1.664–706, 2.169–76, 3.567–70), none discusses it seriously as demonstrating the lover-poet’s angry resentment of the puella and as a real threat to her. Nor, interestingly, does any commentator cite Propertius 2.8, in which the lover-poet threatens to kill first Cynthia and then himself. Only Barsby (1973: 91) notes that this violence does not actually occur—it is all wishful violence, as we shall see below.90 In my view Amores 1.7 takes this elegiac urge and explores it, bringing together the character traits of Ovid’s particular eponymous lover-poet and the real exploitation of and danger to the puella.91 Before looking at the tradition of violence in elegy, it will be helpful to identify its forms. Elegiac violence comes in two types: the rixa, or quarrel, a form of sexual play between lover-poet and puella, and the lover-poet’s assault on the puella’s house and person. Male lovers like the rixa, as they can interpret it as a sign of the puella’s passion, but they both want and fear the physical quarrel—it is shameful because there is no honor in striking a woman92 but desired because of the lover-poet’s constantly seething resentment against his beloved. Tibullus 1.10.53–66 distinguishes between the rixa and the assault: sed veneris tunc bella calent, scissosque capillos femina, perfractas conqueriturque fores; flet teneras subtusa genas: sed victor et ipse flet sibi dementes tam valuisse manus. at lascivus Amor rixae mala verba ministrat, inter et iratum lentus utrumque sedet. a lapis est ferrumque, suam quicumque puellam verberat: e caelo deripit ille deos. sit satis e membris tenuem rescindere vestem, sit satis ornatus dissoluisse comae, sit lacrimas movisse satis: quater ille beatus quo tenera irato flere puella potest. sed manibus qui saevus erit, scutumque sudemque is gerat et miti sit procul a Venere.

55

60

65

But then the battles of love heat up, and the woman complains that her hair has been torn and her doors have been shattered. She weeps, bruised on her tender cheeks: but the victor himself 55 weeps that his maddened hands were so powerful. But naughty Love supervises the angry words of the quarrel, and he sits, unyielding, between the two.

186

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

Ah, he is stone and steel, whoever strikes his own girl: he rips the gods from the sky. Let it be enough to tear the thin dress from her limbs, let it be enough to have disordered her hairdo, let it be enough to have moved tears: four times lucky is he whose girl weeps when he is angry. But whoever is savage with his hands, let him carry a shield and sweat and be far from gentle Venus.

60

65

Propertius 3.8 famously celebrates the joys of the rixa: Dulcis ad hesternas fuerat mihi rixa lucernas, vocis et insanae tot maledicta tuae, cum furibunda mero mensam propellis et in me proicis insana cymbia plena manu. tu vero nostros audax invade capillos et mea formosis unguibus ora nota, tu minitare oculos subiecta exurere flamma, fac mea rescisso pectora nuda sinu! nimirum veri dantur mihi signa caloris: nam sine amore gravi femina nulla dolet. quae mulier rabida iactat convicia lingua haec Veneris magnae volvitur ante pedes. There was a sweet quarrel for me before the lamps yesterday, and so many curses from your wild voice, when, mad with wine, you threw the table over and at me you threw full goblets with your crazed hand. You go right ahead and boldly attack my hair and mark my face with your beautiful fingernails, and threaten to burn my eyes by throwing fire at them, and make my chest bare with torn garment! For surely these are given to me as signs of true passion. For no woman grieves, unless for a fierce love. The woman who hurls abuses with a furious tongue, she is being rolled about before the feet of great Venus. non est certa fides, quam non in iurgia vertas: hostibus eveniat lenta puella meis! in morso aequales videant mea vulnera collo: me doceat livor mecum habuisse meam. aut in amore dolere volo aut audire dolentem, sive meas lacrimas sive videre tuas. (19–24) There is no sure faith that you cannot turn into disputes: let a placid girl come to my enemies.

5

10

5

10

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

187

On me, let my peers see my wounds on my bite-marked neck: a bruise demonstrates that I have had my girl with me. I want either to grieve in love or to hear her grieving, to see either my own tears or yours. odi ego quae numquam pungunt suspiria somnos:93 semper in irata pallidus esse velim. (27–28) I hate the girl whose sleep sighs never pierce: I always want to be pale before an angry girl. aut tecum aut pro te mihi cum rivalibus arma semper erunt: in te pax mihi nulla placet. (33–34) For me, there will always be warfare either with you, or on your behalf with my rivals: on your account no peace is appealing to me.94

As these passages demonstrate, love-battles are a regular and enjoyable part of elegiac courtship, particularly since they are interpreted as proof that the puella loves her poet.95 Propertius 2.15, however, demonstrates how easily the rixa can escalate out of control. It begins joyously: O me felicem! o nox mihi candida! et o tu lectule deliciis facte beate meis! quam multa apposita narramus verba lucerna, quantaque sublato lumine rixa fuit! nam modo nudatis mecum est luctata papillis, interdum tunica duxit operta moram. (1–6) O happy me! o night shining for me! and o you little bed made blessed by my darling! How many words we spoke with the lamp placed by, and what a quarrel there was when the lamp was removed! For now she struggled with me, with her nipples bare, and now she caused a delay with her tunic covering up.

But the lover-poet’s anger soon threatens to break out into real violence. He complains that Cynthia persists in wearing a garment (either a breastband or a thin garment), when he wants all her clothes to come off (11–16), then threatens violence if she does it again: quod si pertendens animo vestita cubaris, scissa veste meas experiere manus: quin etiam, si me ulterius provexerit ira,

188

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

ostendes matri bracchia laesa tuae. necdum inclinatae prohibent te ludere mammae: viderit haec, si quam iam peperisse pudet. (17–22) But if, being persistent, you come to bed clothed, you’ll feel my hands by way of your torn garment: indeed, if my anger pushes me further, you’ll show bruised arms to your mother. Drooping breasts don’t yet keep you from playing around: let some other woman look to them, if anyone is embarrassed by childbirth.96

This passage again demonstrates the ira, rage, that typifies the Propertian lover-poet, and is constantly seeking expression on the puella’s body, in ravaged hair, torn clothes, bruises, and tears.97 The rixa, then, substitutes for a physical assault by functioning as the sanctioned outlet for the lover-poet’s anger and violence, which are always simmering beneath the surface.98 Tibullus 1.1.73–74 likewise suggests that the rixa and the physical quarrel are closely related:99 nunc levis est tractanda venus, dum frangere postes / non pudet et rixas inseruisse iuvat (“Now must light-hearted sex be engaged in, while it’s not shameful / to break doorposts and it’s still fun to get into sexual quarrels”). The rixa is generated by mutual sexual passion, evidenced by jealous rage and a certain loss of self-control; the physical assault arises from a variety of causes, but its engine is the lover-poet’s anger (ira), and without exception he loves to see his puella suffer from it. Nevertheless, actually striking the puella is shameful and, as both the praeceptor and Acanthis point out (Ars 2.167–74; Prop. 4.5.31–32), potentially expensive. The desideratum, then, in the case of anger and resentment is to make the puella weep in one’s presence. There is no greater aphrodisiac for the lover-poet than her tears; there is also, as we will see, a powerful urge toward violence against her, which is constantly submerged but subconsciously felt.100 Tibullus 2.5 designates just such anger as systemic, constant, but repressed, and always seeking an outlet: ingeret hic potus iuvenis maledicta puellae, / postmodo quae votis inrita facta velit: / nam ferus ille suae plorabit sobrius idem / et se iurabit mente fuisse mala (101–4: “Here a drunken young man will bear curses against his girl, / things which afterward he will wish undone: / for that same wild young man, when sober, will weep to his girl / and swear he was out of his mind”).101 That drink should provide the impetus for the expression of abuses and curses suggests that the anger motivating them is poorly hidden, even from the lover’s own consciousness, and hard to contain; that such should be the case even for an

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

189

anonymous young man marks this anger as generic to elegiac love and, hence, to elegy. As Kennedy (1993: 56) points out, noted in chapter 4, the lover-poet’s assumption of servitium amoris “needs to be seen in the light of . . . his pleasure in sexual aggression and domination.” Before returning to the violence that is always a possibility in elegy, it will be useful to begin with a brief review of Amores 1.7, which will make simpler a rereading of the violence in Propertius and Tibullus.102 The loverpoet begins by seeking rhetorically to have his hands bound, since he has used them to strike his puella in a state of madness (1–4; furor is repeated in lines 2 and 3). He imagines that his furor could have driven him to extraordinary, epic crimes like those of Ajax and Orestes, but notes that he has instead torn his puella’s hair, though she is still beautiful in tragic disarray, like various mythic heroines (6–18).103 Anyone else would have reproached him but the puella’s fearful tears accused him silently; he wishes that his arms had fallen off, as they were the agents of the damage (19–28). If he had struck even a lowly member of the plebs, he would be punished (29–30). He compares himself to the epic hero Diomedes, who in Iliad 5 struck Aphrodite, then imagines a Roman triumphal parade, as after a military victory (31–40). It would have been better to leave bite marks on her (as in standard elegiac sex),104 but if his blind rage (caeca ira, 44) had to force him to attack her, why not just shout at her and threaten her, or tear her clothes in disgraceful fashion? (41–48).105 Instead, he tore her hair and scratched her cheeks; she stood pale and fearful, then began to weep (49–58). Then he first realized what he had done and three times threw himself at her feet begging forgiveness, but she fearfully cast him away. He urges her to attack him in return, as revenge lessens grief (59–66). In the final couplet, he instructs her to tidy up her hair, so that the sight of his crime will no longer be in evidence (67–68).106 The keys to reading this poem, for our purposes, are its regular focus on the puella’s fear and its veiled suggestions about the cause of the loverpoet’s attack.107 Her fear is mentioned or invoked at lines 4 (flet . . . puella = “My girl is weeping”), 20 (pavido est lingua retenta metu = “Her tongue was restrained by pale fear”), 22 (lacrimis = tears), 39 (tristis captiva = sad captive), 45 (timidae . . . puellae = “the frightened girl”), 51 (astitit illa amens albo et sine sanguine vultu = “She stood still, out of her mind, with her face pale and bloodless”), 53 (exanimes artus et membra trementia vidi = “I saw lifeless veins and trembling limbs”), 57 (suspensaeque diu lacrimae fluxere per ora = “and the long-suspended tears flowed down her face”), 60 (lacrimae = tears), 62 (formidatas . . . manus = “fearsome hands”), and 63 (dolorem = grief). The physical harm done her appears directly or is implied

190

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

at 4 (laesa puella = “injured girl”), 11 (digestos . . . laniare capillos = “tear her dressed hair”), 40 (laesae . . . genae = “her scratched cheeks”), 41 (livere = bruise) and 42 (notam = mark, in reference to the preferred lovebruises), 50 (ingenuas ungue notare genas = “mark her freeborn108 cheeks with my fingernail”), 67 (sceleris tam tristia signa = “such sad signs of my crime”), and 68 (recompositas . . . comas = “rearranged hair”). Why did the lover-poet attack her? Out of furor (madness, 2–3) and caeca ira (blind rage, 44). What should he have done instead? The mark on her face should have been a bruise on her neck from a love-bite (41–42), or he should have shouted to scare her (45: timidae inclamasse puellae), using moderate threats (46: nec nimium rigidas intonuisse minas), or torn her tunic (47–48). What happened in this fictive incident of domestic violence seems clear enough. The question is what made the lover-poet angry enough to strike his puella. McKeown (1989) on 46 suggests that this violence might have been engendered by her infidelity. Support for his thesis comes from a later point in the poem: minuet vindicta dolorem (63: “Revenge will lessen grief”).109 Barsby (1973: 89) and Showerman (1977) ad loc. suggest that the sorrow is the lover-poet’s; McKeown (1989: 162) sees it as hers. The statement is deliberately ambiguous and in fact has the flavor of an elegiac maxim, hence editors punctuate it as a parenthetical remark,110 but I incline to McKeown’s view. Thus the lover suggests that the puella take the remedy that benefited him a few minutes before. The elegiac injury to be avenged is always infidelity,111 as we shall see, and the method both desired and threatened is violence. Further, when the puella perpetrates it against the lover, he is thrilled by her passion, but he both fears and wishes to enact it against her. In Ars amatoria 1 Ovid makes programmatic the lover-poet’s desire to hurt the puella in revenge for his own feelings of injury,112 but that desire is already established in elegy, as the elegiac lover-poet is constantly hiding his anger at her—compare, again, Tibullus 1.10.63–64: quater ille beatus / quo tenera irato flere puella potest (“Four times lucky is he / whose girl weeps when he is angry”). At Propertius 1.1.28, the lover-poet is programmatically constituted as angry at his puella but not able to express or act on his anger: sit modo libertas quae velit ira loqui (“Only let there be the freedom to speak the things that anger wants to say”).113 When the lover-poet disavows harmful violence, he acknowledges the anger that motivates it, which appears to be a standard condition in him, as seen above. In Propertius 2.5, often cited as yet another reference to elegiac violence, the lover-poet is angry because Cynthia has been unfaithful:

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

191

Hoc verum est, tota te ferri, Cynthia, Roma, et non ignota vivere nequitia? haec merui sperare? dabis mihi, perfida, poenas. (1–3) Is this true, Cynthia, that you can be spoken of all over Rome, and live in no secret misbehavior? Have I deserved to hope for this? You’ll pay the penalty to me, faithless one.

He threatens to transfer his affections elsewhere, taking his poetic tributes with him, and as he does he marks all elegiac puellae as deceitful and faithless: inveniam tamen e multis fallacibus unam, quae fieri nostro carmine nota velit, nec mihi tam duris insultet moribus et te vellicet: heu sero flebis amata diu. (5–8) I shall nevertheless find one girl, from so many treacherous ones, who would want to become known by my poetry, and wouldn’t insult me with such hard ways, and would prick you: alas, too late, you will weep, long-beloved.

Then he threatens to go away, fearing that he’ll get over his anger: nunc est ira recens, nunc est discedere tempus: si dolor afuerit, crede, redibit amor. non ita Carpathiae variant Aquilonibus undae, nec dubio nubes vertitur atra Noto, quam facile irati verbo mutantur amantes: dum licet, iniusto subtrahe colla iugo. (9–14) Now my anger is fresh, now it’s time to leave: if grief were absent, believe, love will return. The Carpathian waves do not change so much under the north winds, nor is the black cloud turned so under the variable south wind, as easily as angry lovers are changed by a word: while it’s allowed, take your neck out from that unworthy yoke.

He then tries to persuade her to stop misbehaving, for he will seek revenge, as even injured sheep fight back (17–20). In the regularly cited passage on violence, the lover-poet lists the types of revenge he will not take: nec tibi periuro scindam de corpore vestis, nec mea praeclusas fregerit ira fores, nec tibi conexos iratus carpere crinis, nec duris ausim laedere pollicibus: rusticus haec aliquis tam turpia proelia quaerat, cuius non hederae circuiere caput. (21–26)

192

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

I will neither tear your dress from your perjured body, nor will my anger break down your closed doors, nor, though angry, would I dare to tear your curled hairs, nor wound you with hard thumbs. Let some bumpkin seek such disgraceful fights as these, whose head ivy does not surround.114

Here it is relevant to note the lover-poet’s focus on himself (mea ira, 22; iratus, 23) and her infidelity, which has engendered his anger (periuro . . . corpore, 21). It is also crucial to note that he forswears physical violence not because it is simply wrong, nor even on the grounds that Cynthia doesn’t deserve it, but because it is beneath his lofty status as a poet.115 Thus the lover-poet does not quite disavow violence against women as bad; his impulse toward it is obvious,116 and his desire for revenge in fact impels this entire poem. The compensatory nature of the invective poetry he threatens to write about Cynthia is marked in igitur ( = therefore), line 27, which suggests that he would like to turn violent instead. Finally, it will be noticed that the forms of violence he forswears here are virtually the same as the ones threatened in 2.15: clothing torn from the puella’s body (2.5.21, 2.15.18; see also Tib. 1.10.61); bruises made by his hands (2.5.24, 2.15.20 ; see also Tib. 1.10.55), and his ira is noted everywhere in 2.5, as at 2.15.19. Poem 2.8 takes the lover-poet’s anger at the puella’s infidelity to a new level—murder-suicide. Cynthia has dropped him for somebody else, and he despairs, first contemplating suicide and then threatening to kill both Cynthia and himself with the same sword.117 A friend has apparently urged him to be calm, but the lover-poet cannot. Demonstrating his possessiveness, he proclaims: Eripitur nobis iam pridem cara puella: et tu me lacrimas fundere, amice, vetas? nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae: ipsum me iugula, lenior hostis ero. possum ego in alterius positam spectare lacerto? nec mea dicetur, quae modo dicta mea est? (1–6) A girl long beloved by me is being torn away: and you forbid me, friend, to shed tears? No enmities are bitter except those of love: cut my throat, I shall be a gentler enemy. Can I look upon her placed in another man’s lap? And will she no longer be called mine, who recently was called mine?

He goes on, noting that great leaders and cities have risen and fallen in turn (7–10), and to complain that she never loved him despite his many gifts and

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

193

poems (11–12). His agitation gets the better of him, and he begins to rant about his devotion to her and her cruelty to him (13–16). He then threatens to kill himself (17–18). Haemon’s suicide at Antigone’s death provides a lofty precedent (21–24), except that Cynthia is not dead. The lover-poet decides to take her with him: sed non effugies: mecum moriaris oportet; hoc eodem ferro stillet uterque cruor. quamvis ista mihi mors est inhonesta futura: mors inhonesta quidem, tu moriere tamen. (25–28) But you won’t get off: it’s right that you die with me; the blood of each of us will drip from this same steel. Although this death of mine will be unworthy: certainly it’s an unworthy death, but you’ll die nevertheless.

Papanghelis (1987: 125) calls this “Murder as one of the Fine Arts.”118 The wrath of Achilles at losing Briseis to Agamemnon provides another lofty precedent—this time not for suicidal grief but for destructive rage: omnia formosam propter Briseida passus: tantus in erepto saevit amore dolor. (35–36). He suffered everything on account of lovely Briseis: so much does grief rage when love has been snatched away. inferior multo cum sim vel matre vel armis, mirum, si de me iure triumphat Amor? (39–40) Since I am much lower in both birth and weapons, is it surprising, if Love rightly triumphs over me?

Peculiarly, this poem does not appear on any commentator’s list of violence in elegy.119 It is certainly exaggerated in tone, and as Richardson (1977: 233) notes, it is deliberately incoherent in organization.120 Though it is exaggerated and not serious even on a superficial level,121 the death threat in this poem demonstrates the lover-poet’s rage at the puella, and it speaks particularly to his anger at not enjoying his usual position of mastery relative to women, particularly women of a lower class, a position ordinarily guaranteed him by his gender and status, an elite Roman male, but forbidden him by the rules of elegy. Since violence is forbidden, poetry is, as usual, his tool, this time for revenge. But in the case of his resentment and anger toward the puella, it is a poor substitute.122 This anger and resentment toward the puella take on a generic dimension in the Ars amatoria, where the lover-poet—now designating himself

194

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

the praeceptor Amoris, or teacher of Love—seeks revenge against an entire class of women (on this character see especially Verducci 1980). His anger at them is ill submerged, regularly surfacing in outbursts that demonstrate a double basis: female sexual deception and material demands.123 The former, however, outweighs the latter as a source of injury and provides a poorly hidden engine to the praeceptor’s instructions. He opens the poem lightly, with a fanciful metaphor comparing Cupid and Achilles, both savage sons of goddesses (Ars 1.18). As Chiron the centaur was Achilles’ tutor, he will be Cupid’s (17). This is a peculiar opening to a poem purporting to enable the successful pursuit of love, and it should, as Mack (1988: 149) points out, alert the reader that something is awry—absurd as the comparison of Cupid and Achilles is, it reveals “a deep likeness [between them]: both Cupid and Achilles make war, both elegy and epic are about victory and defeat.” In this gendered battle, the praeceptor has lined up with the men, which means he is preparing hostilities for women, as the next two lines demonstrate, for he predicts that his past experiences with love will give him better control over the flighty and resistant little god: quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, / hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero (23–24: “As much as Love has pierced me, as much as he has burnt me violently, / by so much will I be a better avenger of the wound he made”). Revenge is thus established early on as a motif for the Ars.124 McLaughlin (1979: 270) argues that the agents of revenge are not the lovers and the objects not puellae, but we have already seen otherwise; hence we should be prepared here for hostility toward women. Here, however, the praeceptor’s fanciful poetic metaphor breaks down (it is not coincidental that he drops it in the next line), for even on a metaphorical level humans cannot control, much less actually avenge themselves against, divinities.125 Thus this couplet requires investigation. As the praeceptor’s experiences with love/Love have come about via women, it follows that his wounds have been dealt not by Cupid but by puellae. Hence his metaphorical revenge against Cupid will take the form of a vicarious revenge against women, carried out by his squadrons of properly trained lovers. In other words, the praeceptor’s anger toward women is programmatic for this poem. His next statements therefore naturally focus on what later (Ars 3.671) turns out to be the true purpose of the praeceptor’s agenda—utilitas, practical advantage or self-interest: non ego, Phoebe, datas a te mihi mentiar artes, nec nos aeriae voce monemur avis, nec mihi sunt visae Clio Cliusque sorores servanti pecudes vallibus, Ascra, tuis;

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

195

Usus opus movet hoc: vati parete perito. vera canam. (25–30) I will not, Phoebus, lie and say that my arts were given by you,126 nor was I alerted by the voice of an airy bird, nor did Clio and Clio’s sisters appear to me, guarding the flocks in your valleys, Ascra; Utility/Need motivates this work: obey an expert bard.127 I shall sing true things.

The disclaimer that follows, excluding respectable women (especially wives) from his target audience, also excludes them from his target prey. The praeceptor Amoris seeks revenge not against wives but against meretrices, courtesans (435: sacrilegas meretricum ut persequar artes),128 because they are the women who have sought gifts and goods from him, who have deceived him, who have cheated on him with other men. Thus the generating motive for the Ars is the praeceptor’s desire to hurt women as payback for his own erotic disappointment. The praeceptor regularly instructs his pupils to deceive women in return, first by using fictitious tears (659–62), to induce the girl’s pity, which will presumably get the young lover close enough to enact the next instruction, about initiating sexual contact by mixing kisses in with flattering words (663–82). With this advice the praeceptor pivots over to his next topic, the advantages of sexual violence, for anyone who stops at a kiss is a fool: oscula qui sumpsit, si non et cetera sumit, / haec quoque, quae data sunt, perdere dignus erit (669–70: “Whoever has taken kisses, if he doesn’t also take the rest, / will deserve to lose also the things that were given”). Not only do women like force, he says, but it also gives them an excuse for having had sex (indeed, this may be the way to avoid giving a gift beforehand, as instructed in 453–54): vim licet appelles: grata est vis ista puellis; quod iuvat, invitae saepe dedisse volunt. quaecumque est Veneris subita violata rapina gaudet, et inprobitas muneris instar habet. at quae, cum posset cogi, non tacta recessit, ut simulet vultu gaudia, tristis erit. (673–78) You can call it force: girls like that kind of force; what is pleasing, they often wish to have given involuntarily. And even the girl who is violated by a sudden snatching of sex rejoices, and the infraction has the appearance of a gift. But the one who, when she could have been forced, goes away untouched, though she may fake happiness on her face, will be sad.

196

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

Mythical exempla follow, of women who fell for the men who raped them, leading back to a restatement of the main principle of this lesson: scilicet, ut pudor est quaedam coepisse priorem, / sic alio gratum est incipiente pati (705–6: “So naturally, as it’s shameful for a girl to start first, / it is thus pleasing to suffer129 it when somebody else starts it”). This entire passage justifies rape of courtesans; certainly such rape is a well-recognized possibility, as seen in New Comedy, when an armed force sets out to break into the house of a meretrix and punish her for various putative infractions; see, for example, Adelphoe 120–21, Eunuchus 771–816, Persa 569 (cf. also Hor. Ode 3.26, as Copley [1956: 56–58] discusses; McKeown [1989: 267] on Am. 1.9.19–20 cites further parallels, to which may be added the “broken doors” of Prop. 2.5.22, 3.25.30, and Tib. 1.10.54). The risk of rape may thus be what most motivates the elegiac puella to demand money up front. Here the praeceptor’s gleeful instruction of rape leaves a woman no real way to refuse, and since it specifically depends on her preestablished deceptiveness, this lesson authorizes and encourages rape, which amounts to the lover’s reward for his prior services, indignities, and suffering. Stated so baldly (that is, lacking the usual elegiac periphrases, euphemisms, and epic exempla), it is rather shocking, and it certainly reveals the praeceptor’s animus toward women. In Ars amatoria 2, the praeceptor issues a manifesto that recalls his prior lengthy instruction on avoidance of gift giving, and in it he links the violence and expense of elegiac love: non ego divitibus venio praeceptor amandi; nil opus est illi, qui dabit, arte mea. secum habet ingenium qui, cum libet, “accipe” dicit; cedimus, inventis plus placet ille meis. pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi; cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam. pauper amet caute, timeat maledicere pauper, multaque divitibus non patienda ferat. me memini iratum dominae turbasse capillos; haec mihi quam multos abstulit ira dies! nec puto nec sensi tunicam laniasse, sed ipsa dixerat, et pretio est illa redempta meo. at vos, si sapitis, vestri peccata magistri effugite et culpae damna timete meae.

165

170

I don’t come here as a teacher of love for rich men; the one who gives has no need for my art. He has his own talent who says, “This is for you!” whenever he wants; I concede, he’s more popular than my creations.

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

197

I’m a bard for poor men, because I was an impoverished lover; 165 since I couldn’t give gifts, I gave words.130 Let the poor man love carefully, let the poor man fear cursing, and let him put up with many things not tolerated by the rich. I remember when I got angry and messed up my mistress’s hair; how many days that anger stole away from me! 170 And I don’t think I tore her tunic, and I didn’t feel myself doing it, but she said so, and it was bought back with my money. But you fellows, if you’re smart, avoid the mistakes of your teacher, and fear the expenses of my error.131

As I have previously noted, this lesson instructs the narratee that the poor man can’t afford violence, so he must put up with fewer privileges and lesser status in love. The resentment engendered by this state of affairs continues to smolder throughout the Ars, and it seeks an outlet in nonphysical forms of revenge against the puella, as we shall see below. Ovid shows constant low-grade male anger at the puella, not as specific to his own elegiac practice but as generic to elegy in general because it is an inevitable result when the elite, even if not wealthy, lover-poet encounters a woman he cannot control, whom he must persuade chiefly with money and material goods. The standard elegiac condition of servitium amoris is always presented as beneath the lover-poet’s station in life, as we have seen, and he deeply resents not only that he suffers it but that his suffering is witnessed. Such resentment cannot simply evaporate; hence it occasionally breaks out into violence against the puella, and as we have seen here it simmers along in the regularly expressed desire for violence. In Amores 1.7 and the Ars amatoria, Ovid shows this anger and resentment to be systemic, part of the condition of male elegiac passion, and he further showcases the dangers it presents to women.

Ovid and Roman Love Elegy As I hope to have shown here, by focusing a laser beam onto the most gendered pressure points of Roman elegy, Ovid’s elegiac practice directs his readers to look back at Propertius and Tibullus, where we will find precisely the same problems, issues, and emotions expressed. The often inappropriate wit deployed in these poems (which there is not space to consider here) further marks them as points demanding careful examination, not dismissal. Thus Ovid pulls a veil away from elegy and shows it, despite its protestations to the contrary, to be entangled in the social conditions of its own time, in which, as we have seen throughout, the puella’s profession and

198

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

social class force her to be grasping, to carry on multiple sexual involvements simultaneously (though of course never with more than one elegiac poet at a time!), and to exploit her lovers’ desire for her at all times. Further, as Ovid shows, elegy has always been conscious that male sexual desire for beautiful women forces those women to maintain their beauty by means elaborate (hairstyles), painstaking (hair dye, tweezers), and dangerous (the unpleasant, even agonizing abortifacient treatments necessary to curtail pregnancy). So much for elevated, “true” love. Though Ovid has often been said to parody, mock, satirize, make fun of Roman love elegy, and to degrade it as he does, the very points at which he is said to do so offer road signs, as it were, directing his readers to the same absurdities, conflicts, disingenuities, and structures of exploitation in Tibullus and Propertius. It is worth repeating here what was said in the beginning of this chapter, that all these topoi and poems survived the editing process that reduced the Amores from five books to three; hence their presence in the second edition is purposeful. Ovid’s technique of expanding on those minor points of elegy whose discomfiting content is easily overlooked, taking them to their fullest (and sometimes most illogical) conclusions, and marking them with his typically shocking wit, amounts to an implicit commentary on, and reader’s guide to, the conditions and practices of Roman love elegy, in which male lovers retain permanent advantages and privileges of sex and class, which they deeply resent losing even temporarily. In the Ars, as I shall argue below, he formalizes that commentary, articulating in systematic fashion and at length what had previously been uttered only as impassioned lover’s laments or threats (remarks easily dismissed as motivated, local, transitory). He thus demonstrates these pressure points to be structural elements of the bioeconomic system of elegiac love. SYSTEMATIZING ELEGIAC RESENTMENT: THE PRAECEPTOR AMORIS AND THE LOVER-POET Readers have long noted the praeceptor’s hostile treatment of women in the Ars amatoria,132 which is ultimately revealed as a physical revulsion against the natural, nonartificial state of women, especially in Ars 3 and the Remedia amoris. Its source remains a mystery, though if we assume, as Ovid encourages us to do, that the praeceptor is the same poetic character as the lover-poet of the Amores, we can see that his narrative trajectory of erotic games, disappointment, and failure leads him from the lively, almost spritely play of, say, Amores 1.1–6 to the more complex developments of 1.7–2.14, to the increasingly fragmented and ultimately bitter entangle-

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

199

ments of Amores 3, in which the lover-poet suffers a sexual catastrophe (3.7), reveals the shallow basis of his attachment to women (2.15, 2.19, 3.4), and openly asks to be deceived (3.11, 3.12, 3.14).133 Such a flawed erotic career seems to lead the lover-poet into cynicism; certainly he has become hostile and suspicious toward women, and he has developed the desire to hurt them (Ars 1.23–24, as above) in revenge for his own suffering. The solution to his inability to control women? Elegiac erotodidaxis, a longstanding element of the genre, which ultimately includes instruction on the antidote to love (the Remedia amoris). As we shall see, however, the problems that plagued the lover-poet in the erotic practice of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid cannot be conquered by elegy, even instructional elegy, for they are governed by the material and social circumstances that guided and controlled the love relationship of elegy proper: the puella’s need to make money by her beauty while she can, a need that leads her to professional infidelity, fancy grooming rituals, and even, as Ars 3 reveals (though Prop. 2.15 had noted it long before), cover-ups and dissembling even in the most intimate interactions. Poetry, it turns out, cannot defeat material needs, even when it is organized down to a detailed science of control and domination. In addition, as the Remedia reveals, male sexual desire for female beauty continues to be unaffected by poetic means, no matter what a lover does. The lover-poet begins to resent and hate all women, even as he may fall in love with one or another, but his resentful hatred cannot cure him of his desire for female beauty. Hence that hatred intensifies as poetic narrative time passes. The praeceptor’s resentment and revulsion against women,134 visible in the beginning of his instruction, support and justify his hostility toward them throughout and make predictable his desire for violence against them. A convenient lesson, the first and most basic principle of the Ars, that all girls can be captured135—prima tuae menti veniat fiducia, cunctas / posse capi: capies, tu modo tende plagas (269–70: “First, let confidence come to your mind, all girls / can be captured: you will capture, you just spread your nets”)—is designed to encourage the young trainee, but genericizes all women (and, as Wright [1984: 2] points out, is contradicted at Ars 3.9–24, where the praeceptor says that most women are chaste).136 Unfortunately, women are better than men at hiding their desire (275–76). Such skill rather contradicts his next piece of advice, that female desire is greater and less controlled than male (281–82).137 This principle, however, is crucial to part of the praeceptor’s program for revenge, as it later supports his endorsement of rape (1.673–74; see discussion below), which in turn supports the lover’s goal of free love.138

200

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

The stumbling block in the path of successful courtship? That infernal and inconvenient, but familiar female greed. Obligatory generosity, it will be recalled from chapter 3 and elsewhere, is a major source of the elegiac lover’s anger at the puella. The praeceptor Amoris expatiates in detail on the evils and the inevitability of gift giving. Avoid celebratory holidays, he says; court on national days of mourning, and especially avoid your girlfriend’s birthday (405–18). But this strategy will achieve only limited success, as women have their ways: cum bene vitaris, tamen auferet: invenit artem / femina, qua cupidi carpat amantis opes (419–20: “Even though you’ll take successful evasive action, nonetheless she’ll bear it away; a woman finds / the means by which she can snatch the wealth of her desiring lover”). A list of female wiles and pleas follows (421–28), but it is assumed that they are all fallacious: quid, quasi natali cum poscit munera libo et, quotiens opus est, nascitur illa sibi? quid, cum mendaci damno maestissima plorat elapsus que cava fingitur aure lapis? multa rogant utenda dari, data reddere nolunt; perdis, et in damno gratia nulla tuo. non mihi, sacrilegas meretricum ut persequar artes, cum totidem linguis sint satis ora decem. (429–36) What, when she asks for a gift for a cake, as if it’s her birthday, and however often she needs to, she has herself a birthday? What, when she weeps, all grief-stricken at a fake loss, and pretends that her earring fell from her earlobe? They ask to be given many things on loan, but don’t want to return them; you lose, and in your loss there’s no favor. To follow out the sacrilegious arts of courtesans, not even ten mouths with as many tongues would be enough.

The basis of the praeceptor’s long-standing resentment against women is both material and personal: women are greedy and, to justify their greed, they tell lies. Turnabout becomes fair play, then—female fallaciousness justifies male fallaciousness:139 promittas facito, quid enim promittere laedit? / pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest (443–44: “Go ahead and make promises, for what does it hurt to promise? / Anyone can be rich in promises”) and at quod non dederis, semper videare daturus (449: “But what you won’t have given, always seem about to give”). Lines 453–54 demonstrate the elegiac impasse, in which the lover wishes to have sex for free, while the puella, being unable to afford free love, makes material demands of him: hoc

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

201

opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi: / ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque dabit (453–54: “This is the task, this the toil, to be joined first without having to give a gift: / so that she not have given for free what she gave, she’ll keep on giving”).140 This tactic obviously requires that the lover continue to lie to the puella, a strategy justified, according to the praeceptor, by her own deceptiveness. The praeceptor Amoris returns to the necessity of false promises and deceptions later in Ars amatoria 1, again showing his animus against women. He says that the gods approve of false oaths in matters of love (631–42), that one should keep one’s word in all other matters, but lie freely to women, because they are liars and thus deserve to be deceived: ludite, si sapitis, solas impune puellas (643: “Deceive with impunity, if you’re wise, only girls”) and fallite fallentes; ex magna parte profanum / sunt genus: in laqueos, quos posuere, cadant (645–46: “Deceive the deceivers; by a majority, they are a vile / species: let them fall into the traps that they have set”). The praeceptor’s personal anger toward women is evident here, as these lines betray his desire to see women suffer his revenge. As if to justify his anger, he offers two very strange examples: Thrasius, the messenger to the mythical king Busiris, and Perillus, the craftsman of King Phalaris’s hollow bronze bull. For their troubles, both were put to death by the kings, a punishment the praeceptor deems fair and uses to justify deceiving women: iustus uterque fuit, neque enim lex aequior ulla est quam necis artifices arte perire sua. ergo, ut periuras merito periura fallant, exemplo doleat femina laesa suo.141 (655–58) Each [king] was just, for indeed no law was ever more fair than that the artisans of death should perish by their own art. Therefore, so that the perjuries may rightly deceive the perjuring girls, let a woman grieve, wounded by her own example.

The problem with these examples is that they have nothing to do with women and sexual deception142 but function instead to demonstrate the praeceptor’s attitude toward women, and the final pentameter here shows the state he prefers for them. The violence in the examples of Thrasius and Perillus suggests an alarming degree of anger toward women in the praeceptor. As noted above, Ars amatoria 2 details the tedious labor that the pauper, or miserly, lover must endure in his courtship of an elegiac puella. Obsequium, discussed in chapter 4, is the coin for the pauper lover (2.177–232), but notably he is likely to find some of its services shameful:

202

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

nec tibi turpe puta (quamvis sit turpe, placebit) / ingenua speculum sustinuisse manu (215–16: “And don’t think it disgraceful (though it is disgraceful, it will be useful) / to have held up a mirror [for your primping puella] with your freeborn hand”).143 Obsequium must also be aimed at the puella’s household staff, whom the lover should likewise court (251–60). As before, the praeceptor focuses on the odiousness and indignity of this duty: nec pudor ancillas . . . nec tibi sit servos demeruisse pudor (251–52: “nor let it be a shame to have sought favor with maids and slaves”). To court the slaves of a courtesan might cause any would-be lover’s gorge to rise (and here it is worth recalling that by definition a young man in pursuit of elegiac love does not work for a living, but is a member of the leisure class). A palliative is offered: the lover may also give cheap gifts to the puella (261–70), such as fruit, songbirds, and nuts. These are the miserly lover’s preferred gifts (see Sharrock 1991: 44–45), though it is hard to imagine what an elegiac mistress would want with a thrush. The inexpensive gift of poetry is likely to be of little help, except perhaps with that rarest of birds, the actual docta puella: quid tibi praecipiam teneros quoque mittere versus? ei mihi, non multum carmen honoris habet. carmina laudantur sed munera magna petuntur: dummodo sit dives, barbarus ipse placet. aurea sunt vere nunc saecula: plurimus auro venit honos, auro conciliatur amor. ipse licet venias Musis comitatus, Homere, si nihil attuleris, ibis, Homere, foras. sunt tamen et doctae, rarissima turba, puellae; altera non doctae turba, sed esse volunt. utraque laudetur per carmina; carmina lector commendet dulci qualiacumque sono. his ergo aut illis vigilatum carmen in ipsas forsitan exigui muneris instar erit. Why should I instruct you also to send tender poems? Woe is me, poetry doesn’t have much honor. Poems are praised, but great gifts are sought. as long as he’s rich, even the barbarian is appealing. Now is truly the golden age: the greatest honor comes to gold, love is procured by gold. You, Homer, could approach accompanied by the Muses, if you brought nothing, Homer, you’ll go away. Still there are learned girls, the scarcest crowd; another crowd is the unlearned, but they want to be [learned].

275

280

285

275

280

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

Let each be praised in poems; the reciter will commend the poems, whatever their quality, with a sweet voice. Therefore to either of these groups, perhaps a nightwatch poem144 will have the appearance of a small gift for them.

203

285

In this passage the praeceptor’s contempt for even the learned girl is evident (not that it has been very deeply submerged in the past), as he doesn’t even require that the poems be good—just that they succeed in their goal, which is to get the versifying suitor into the girl’s bedroom. The reward for all this loathsome service comes halfway through book 2: once the girl has accepted her suitor and begun to develop a relationship with him, he can take a short break from her (345–72). Though female jealousy is dangerous, the praeceptor does not fear it so much as to advise fidelity: nec mea vos uni donat censura puellae; / di melius! vix hoc nupta tenere potest (387–88: “Nor does my authority grant you to a single girl; / good gods! Even a bride can hardly hold to that”). Though cheating is risky, it is still to be expected (and here it is worth noting that in Ars 1 there was instruction on raping the puella’s maid), and in any case the praeceptor does not dream of limiting his graduates to a single woman. In fact, he gives detailed advice on how to keep the number-one girl from finding out about the number-two girl (391–408) and how to handle the problems that will arise when she does, inevitably, find out. (The proper procedure is to deny, remain calm, and get her into bed, because the agent of injury will also be the agent of healing—sex.)145 Then the praeceptor changes his mind and reverses course, advising his students to advertise their infidelity, to flaunt it (425–44). Why? If things are too easy for the puella, she’ll lose interest. A rival will goad her into a passionate state, which the praeceptor finds very arousing: fac timeat de te tepidamque recalface mentem; palleat indicio criminis illa tui. o quater et quotiens numero comprendere non est felicem, de quo laesa puella dolet! quae, simul invitas crimen pervenit ad aures, excidit, et miserae voxque colorque fugit.146 ille ego sim, cuius laniet furiosa capillos; ille ego sim, teneras cui petat ungue genas, quem videat lacrimans, quem torvis spectet ocellis, quo sine non possit vivere, posse velit. (445–54) Make sure she’s unsure of you, and reheat her cooling heart; let her go pale at the sign of your crime. Oh, four times and uncalculably happy

204

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

is he on whose account an injured girl grieves!147 As soon as the accusation comes to her unwilling ears, she falls down, and her voice and color flee the miserable girl. May I be he whose hair she shreds in a rage; may I be he whose tender cheeks she seeks with her nails, whom she looks at weeping, whom she glares at with reddened eyes, without whom she can’t live, even if she wanted to.

In these lines the praeceptor demonstrates his desire to see women jealous, unhappy, and weeping (indeed, at Ars 3.591–610, he advises women to act this way, to flatter their suitors). Ideally, this moment will be followed by sex, which as before will soothe the raging girl: candida iamdudum cingantur colla lacertis, inque tuos flens est accipienda sinus; oscula da flenti, Veneris da gaudia flenti: pax erit; hoc uno solvitur ira modo. cum bene saevierit, cum certa videbitur hostis, tum pete concubitus foedera: mitis erit. (457–62) Already your white neck should surely be surrounded by her arms, and, weeping, she is received into your lap; give kisses to the weeping girl, give the joys of Venus to the weeping girl: there will be peace; in this way alone is anger released. When she has raged thoroughly, when she will seem an enemy for sure, then seek the treaties of sex: she will be gentle.

Such an episode will make the lover feel in control of the puella, whom he has pursued and courted so assiduously (such control, it will turn out, is the the primary goal for the entire Ars; see below). It will also give him some relief for his prior suffering.148 Shortly after this enjoyable lesson comes the hardest part of the ars amandi: putting up with a rival (511–600): rivalem patienter habe (539: “patiently tolerate a rival”); nil . . . ars mea maius habet (542: “My art has nothing harder”). To achieve this difficult goal, the praeceptor recommends that the lover act ignorant, though he admits that he himself cannot always maintain that pose: hac ego, confiteor, non sum perfectus in arte; quid faciam? monitis sum minor ipse meis. mene palam nostrae det quisquam signa puellae et patiar nec me quo libet ira ferat? oscula vir dederat, memini, suus; oscula questus sum data: barbaria noster abundat amor. (547–52)

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

205

I confess, I am not perfect in this art; what am I to do? I am weaker than my own advice. Should someone openly give signs to my girl and I put up with it, and rage not take me where it will? I remember, her man gave her kisses; I complained that kisses were given; my love overflowed at this outrage.

Here he seems to be recalling the forbidden kisses of Amores 1.4.38–40. This anecdote, of course, gives the praeceptor away, as in this instance he was the rival and another man was her primary lover. His feeling of entitlement is nonetheless clear—he wishes to control the puella completely, and any obstacle to that state of affairs is deeply resented. The praeceptor’s desire to control the puella operates even during sex. His famed discussion of mutual sexual pleasure and, ideally, simultaneous climax (which is undercut by his instruction at 731–72 that when time is short, the lover should dig in and reach the goal first) has often been cited as an example of a protofeminist manifesto of women’s rights to sexual pleasure. But in fact it is no more than a restatement of the praeceptor’s typical desire to be in control, to know what his puella is feeling, to keep her dependent upon him. The passage occurs in a discussion of the advantages of older women, who are more sexually experienced: illis sentitur non irritata voluptas; quod iuvat, ex aequo femina virque ferant. odi concubitus, qui non utrumque resolvunt: hoc est cur pueri tangar amore minus; odi, quae praebet, quia sit praebere necesse, siccaque de lana cogitat ipsa sua; quae datur officio, non est mihi grata voluptas; officium faciat nulla puella mihi. me voces audire iuvat sua gaudia fassas, utque morer meme sustineamque, roget; aspiciam dominae victos amentis ocellos; langueat et tangi se vetet illa diu. haec bona non primae tribuit natura iuventae, quae cito post septem lustra venire solent. Pleasure is felt by them not in vain; what pleases, let a man and woman take equally. I hate sex that does not resolve each partner: that’s why I’m less touched by love for a boy; I hate the girl who provides because it is necessary to provide, and is thinking, all dry, about her wool work;

685

690

685

206

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

the pleasure that is given out of duty is not pleasing to me; let no girl do any duty by me. It pleases me to hear her voice confessing her joys, and let her ask me to slow down and hold myself back; 690 may I look at the conquered eyes of my mad mistress; and let her lie exhausted and forbid herself to be touched for a long time. Nature did not give these goods to first youth, which usually come quickly after age thirty-five. crede mihi, non est Veneris properanda voluptas sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora. cum loca reppereris, quae tangi femina gaudet, non obstet, tangas quo minus illa, pudor: aspicies oculos tremulo fulgore micantes, ut sol a liquida saepe refulget aqua; accedent questus, accedet amabile murmur et dulces gemitus aptaque verba ioco. sed neque tu dominam velis maioribus usus desere, nec cursus anteeat illa tuos; ad metam properate simul: tum plena voluptas, cum pariter victi femina virque iacent. hic tibi servandus tenor est, cum libera dantur otia, furtivum nec timor urget opus; cum mora non tuta est, totis incumbere remis utile et admisso subdere calcar equo. Believe me, the pleasure of Venus should not be rushed but should be gradually drawn out in a long delay. When you find the places, which a woman rejoices at having touched, no modesty interferes, by which you are less allowed to touch them: you’ll see her eyes flashing with a trembling light, as the sun often shines off running water; let complaints arise, let an amorous murmur arise and sweet moans and words suited for play. But neither should you, applying greater sails, either abandon your mistress, nor should she go ahead of your course; hurry to the goal post together: pleasure is full then, when a man and a woman lie back equally conquered. You serve this course, when free leisure is granted, and fear does not press your secret work; when delay is not safe, it is advantageous to lean in with all your oars and to dig your spur into the horse below.

720

725

730

720

725

730

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

207

Advanced as these passages are, in terms of granting women a right to sexual pleasure, they retain some of the praeceptor’s standard themes and interests. He likes to see women lose their self-control (691: amentis . . . dominae); he wants them under his control; his priority is always male sexual pleasure before anything else. There is a strange, almost wistful atmosphere in the lines about female climax—this is the point at which, presumably, the puella is not pretending, when she expresses genuine feeling. The desire to give a woman pleasure, however, is rather undercut by the pleasure the praeceptor himself takes from seeing her conquered by sensation.149 Female sexual pleasure, in other words, is a sign of male sexual prowess, as will be made clear again in Ars 3. Ars 3, directed at women, evinces the praeceptor’s usual themes; it is primarily devoted to making women less unattractive,150 and in its attention to various female faults of physique and etiquette (which there is not space to explore here; see Levine 1981–82, Churchill 1985, and Downing 1990), suggests that spontaneous behavior and lack of elaborate grooming (cultus) make a woman repulsive to men.The complex instruction begins with the arrival of the suitor’s first letter. Instructions on proper correspondence courtship ensue (469–98), followed by instructions on acting cheerful. In early courtship, it turns out, female anger—so arousing later on—is repellent, as it (and contempt, as well) distorts otherwise attractive facial features (499–520). The subsequent instruction on material requests advises women to let each give according to his talents: rich men can give gifts, lawyers can plead cases, poets can write songs (531–34).151 The first real truth about men begins at 577: they need a challenge in order to love, so the puella should occasionally reject her suitors and force them to enact the role of an exclusus amator, because what is easy does not nourish a long love (579: quod datur ex facili, longum male nutrit amorem). The puella should even invent a rival lover, for that way she can keep her lover’s interest alive, as signs of competition reinflame the male heart: quamlibet extinctos iniuria suscitat ignes: / en ego, confiteor, non nisi laesus amo (597–98: “An insult revives fires, no matter how dead they are: / look, I confess, even I don’t love unless injured”). But significantly, this rival should be false rather than real. Likewise, if the puella has a vir, she should occasionally pretend to fear him; if she doesn’t, she should pretend she does, for danger is exciting: quae venit ex tuto, minus est accepta voluptas; / ut sis liberior Thaide, finge metus (603–4: “The pleasure that comes safely is less well received; / even if you’re freer than Thais, fake some fear”). The ancilla should help in this game by pretending that the vir has returned, so that the young man will have to hide. The excitement will

208

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

rouse his interest further. A long digression follows, on evading the custos and the vir (611–58). The next real lesson comes about by accident: the praeceptor advises women not to trust their friends and maids, when he gives himself away, then decides to give up the whole game: haec quoque, quae praebet lectum studiosa locumque, crede mihi, mecum non semel illa fuit. nec nimium vobis formosa ancilla ministret: saepe vicem dominae praebuit illa mihi. quo feror insanus? quid aperto pectore in hostem mittor et indicio prodor ab ipse meo? (663–68) That friend, too, who eagerly supplies a meeting place and a bed, believe me, she has been with me not just once. Nor let too pretty a maid minister to you: often she has supplied herself to me in place of her mistress. Madman, where am I being carried away? Why am I being sent with unprotected breast against my enemy and being betrayed by my own testimony? viderit utilitas; ego coepta fideliter edam: Lemniasin gladios in mea fata dabo. efficite (et facile est) ut nos credamus amari. (671–73) To hell with self-interest; I will bring forth my project faithfully: I’ll give swords to the Lemnian women against my own fate. Make sure (and it’s easy) that we believe we are loved.

This is the heart of the praeceptor’s instruction to women, and it reveals another basis for his anger against them. Women should flatter a man’s ego by pretending to love him152—but if a woman asks for gifts or cheats on him with an actual rival, it will be impossible for him to believe that she loves him. In addition, if a woman actually does love a man and becomes too jealous, not just arousingly jealous, she can cause disaster, or at least a lot of inconvenience: sed te, quaecumque est, moderate iniuria turbet, / nec sis audita paelice mentis inops (683–84: “But let an insult, whatever it is, disturb you moderately, / nor become mad when you hear of a rival”). The example of Procris and Cephalus ensues, which again there is not space to examine here, but at its end, the praeceptor reverts suddenly and awkwardly to his task: sed repetamus opus: mihi nudis rebus eundum est (747: “But let us take up our task again: I must go through naked matters”). The “naked matters” include behavior at dinner parties (748–68) and sexual positions that disguise or compensate for various physical defects (signs of age,

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

209

stretch marks, short legs, and so on, 769–88). Finally, even in the moment of sexual climax, the praeceptor recommends well-disguised deception: tu quoque, cui Veneris sensum natura negavit, dulcia mendaci gaudia finge sono. (797–98) And you, to whom nature has denied the sensation of sex, fake sweet joys with a lying sound. tantum, cum fingis, ne sis manifesta, caveto: effice per motum luminaque ipsa fidem. (801–2) Only, when you fake it, beware lest you be obvious: make it credible by way of your movements and your very eyes.153

The final two couplets of instruction recur to the praeceptor’s two primary themes for women—gifts and looks:154 gaudia post Veneris quae poscet munus amantem, illa suas nolet pondus habere preces. nec lucem in thalamos totis admitte fenestris: aptius in vestro corpore multa latent (805–8) But the girl who asks her lover for a gift after the joys of Venus, that goddess does not want her prayers to carry weight. Nor let light into the bedroom, through the fully opened window shutters: it’s better for many things on your body to stay hidden.

From beginning to end, then, the praeceptor’s primary concern is to ease and enable the male experience of elegiac love by curtailing and controlling female participation. The illusions of female beauty and free love must be maintained, though it is fairly clear by this point that even this fictive character hardly believes in them any longer.155 Throughout the Ars amatoria, then, the praeceptor regularly expresses anger and resentment toward women; he suspects them of infidelity and reproves their material demands; he finds their natural state and spontaneous behavior repellent; and he wishes to avenge himself on them by cheating and hurting them in return. His anger (ira) recurs regularly and seeks expression in the desire for violence and in resentment that he can’t afford it. By the time this particular amorous adventurer finishes with elegy, in the Remedia amoris, he has spelled out in great detail all the things that can go wrong with elegiac love, and, as always, they have to do with male disappointment in female realities.

210

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

CONCLUSION I hope to have shown here that there is intent to Ovid’s apparent deviation from the elegiac norm—reason in his rhyme, as it were. His assault on elegy is not hostile attack but affectionate play with the genre’s inconsistencies, absurdities, and hypocrisies. Underlying this play are some surprising and disturbing revelations about male and female lives in ancient Rome.156 The goal of Roman satire, according to Horace, was to tell the truth with a smile (ridentem dicere verum), and that, I propose, is what Ovid does with elegy. His sometimes shocking wit is chosen for effect, and ideally that shock effect will cause readers to stop and pay attention.157 The most disturbing points in Ovid’s amatory corpus are those in which he is retrospectively revising prior Roman love elegy, to show that its own patent fictions did in fact mask some truths—if not specific biographical truths, then generic and social truths. These particular revelations notably point to the lives of women, particularly the elegiac women who were always subject to the exigencies of their gender and class in the caste society of ancient Rome. In Ovid’s hands, elegy regularly bumps up against reality. Like Don Quixote centuries later, the Ovidian amator must inevitably become disillusioned by too many adventures in which others do not play their literary roles to his satisfaction. When the fiction of poetic passion is revealed, the lover-poet quits the field and turns to guiding other young men through the obstacle course of elegiac love. His instruction leaves no room for fantasies of happy love on a smooth course. It is the final farewell to elegy, and if the Remedia demonstrates that even the great Ars can fail, that failure is blamed not on wayward and unpredictable human emotion but on the elegiac puella, who will always disrupt and disappoint her lovers’ illusions, because her profession requires her to demand compensation and to practice infidelity (Rem. 299–324). In other words, the realities of the puella’s life will inevitably defeat the fantasies of elegy, even when those realities are poetic and generic fictions rather than biographical or historical fact. Ovid reveals elegiac love to be necessarily, generically short-lived. The reason for its genesis and the means of its pursuit are also the cause of its dissolution: the socially and economically dictated facts and needs of the docta puella’s life. What Ovid also reveals is the hypocrisy and disingenuity of the elegiac male, whose social status grants him the means and leisure to pursue courtesans, and whose profession provides the grounds for asking to be received either gratis or in exchange for poetry. The puella, whose professional viability is limited, bears all the risks of elegiac love, from her looks to her person to her very life. Though he wails like a tragic hero, the amator risks only

Reading Elegy through Ovid

/

211

his time, money, and ego. Ovid’s disconcerting wit often points to just this cognitive dissonance, and his surprising choice of topics—hair, violence, rape of slaves, pregnancy, abortion, impotence, sexual postures, and constant willful self-deception—marks the gap between the lover-poet’s experience of elegiac love and the puella’s. Though scholars tend to think of Ovid as coming significantly after Propertius and Tibullus, it is important to remember that he was writing elegy alongside them, in the Heroides and the first edition of the Amores. I think it safe to say that he composed in virtually simultaneous response at least to Propertius, exploiting, revealing, and commenting on elegy’s disingenuities and ill-hidden secrets. His final elegiac corpus (the second edition of the Amores, the Ars, and the Remedia) constitutes a final, even posthumous retrospective on this very improbable poetic genre, and it repeatedly, insistently directs us to reread elegy with attention to just those hypocrisies and secrets. Doing so opens up the genre’s further dimensions, which for all Ovid’s wit and play (mostly, alas, passed over herein) are often very disturbing. They are, however, as Ovid demonstrates, inherent to the genre from its very inception in the figure of the docta puella.

6.

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status How the Docta Puella Serves Elegy

My final discussion assesses the results of reading Roman love elegy from the viewpoint of the docta puella (as well as rereading it through an Ovidian lens) and then speculates further about how such a project assists in either clarifying the purposes and workings of elegy or in adding complexity and depth to both the poetry and its contexts. My three focal points are the poetic, political-historical, and female-social axes of elegy (which, perhaps more than any other ancient genre, requires a specific kind of generic woman); and my chief goal is to ask both what functions elegy serves in its very specific historical period and why the figure of the docta puella is needed for those functions. That is, what do the elegists find in this particular woman that meets their poetic needs and goals, which are their personal and professional needs and goals as well? Why, in a time of solidifying peace and prosperity associated with eroding personal and political freedom and responsibility, is the poetic vision of servitude to a noncitizen woman, who makes her living by beauty and sex, so compelling to these elite male poets? Wyke and others have argued that the docta puella is nothing more than a metaphor for elegiac love poetry. Their aim is to separate her from any historical, “real” woman, an aim I support absolutely, as the focus on identifying a historical analogue to any elegiac woman misses the point of the genre. But I would like to pursue this issue further and ask, why this particular metaphor? The puella, as I hope to have shown here, lives in the world of material needs and financial practices; her professional lifespan (like that of elegy itself) is short, so her need to pursue her profession while she can is intense. And it is just this need that allows the elegiac lover-poet to wash up so often, complaining loudly, at her locked door. That is to say, her needs allow her lover-poets to commit elegy. In other words, the 212

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

213

puella’s profession engenders all the circumstances that elegy needs, that make elegy possible.1 Yet elegy insists on ignoring that profession, acknowledging it only clandestinely and grudgingly, while expecting readers to recognize it immediately. But the fictional docta puella does bear a relationship to historical reality and, as I noted in chapter 1, fiction and reality are not utterly divorced. Before reviewing the results of this approach to Roman love elegy (and I repeat here that this approach simply balances the dominant male voice of both the genre and its recapitulation in scholarship, rather than claiming primacy), it may be useful to review a few aspects of the social contexts in which it was produced. By the time elegy begins to flourish, Rome is a decaying form of a very limited representative government; a gerontocracy with a seven-hundred-year tradition of strictly distinguishing its citizens by their social class; a slaveholding society in which concepts of mastery, dominance, and servitude are all-pervasive; a male culture that creates female subjection by handing child-brides (from age twelve or so) over to adult males; a caste society whose most elite members were, at the time of Roman love elegy, becoming radically reduced in power and stature; a tottering public entity slowly devolving into a monarchy, a form of government long despised by the Romans. The elegiac lover-poets, once members of Rome’s elite (if not its ruling elite, as they are knights, equites, rather than senators), are now being converted into that most pointless of persons, private citizens, just when the princeps is diminishing the dimensions of their private life as well, by urging them to marry and produce children.2 The docta puella allows the elegist time and space in which to explore the meaning of private life, of choices determined by that apolitical organ, the human heart, and attributed to that most capricious of ancient divinities, Cupid. The puella can offer this opportunity because she exists outside the realm of politics—since she is generically a courtesan, she is not subject to legislation mandating procreation, nor does she cause one to violate antiadultery legislation (both of which, as I have said, were, in my opinion, proposed when Propertius was preparing to publish his Monobiblos; see appendix). In other words, the docta puella falls below the radar of inquisitive and intrusive public notice. Paradoxically, then, her profession makes her a safe choice for a love object, but it also necessarily limits her utility as well, both because any liaison with her already has an expiration date built in and because she herself, in pursuing her profession, must inevitably disappoint the lover-poet so much that he eventually moves on. The amator tries to imagine a space in which he and his beloved can exist free of outside influences and directives (see especially Tib. 1.5, but also Prop. 2.14.9–10 and 2.15.37–40, as well as

214

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

Am. 1.3.15–20),3 but this land over the rainbow cannot actually exist. The lover-poets signal that their departure from elegy is motivated as much by their own larger poetic goals (Am. 3.15, Prop. 4.1) as by their disillusion with the puella; thus we may say that the fantasy of safe, private elegiac love collapses from both sides. But, significantly, the figure of the docta puella and the escape offered by elegy continue to pull at both Propertius and Ovid, whose subsequent works do not abandon elegiac concerns. It may want restating here that poetry was very important in antiquity, and perhaps never more so than in the Principate, for during this time Rome had an unprecedented number of extraordinarily talented poets, whose help Augustus sought for his propaganda and moral reform (see White 1993 on the importance of poetry in this period). Poets and politicians often went hand in hand, as the embassy of Octavian and Maecenas to meet Antony in Brundisium, for a last chance at preventing civil war (Hor. Sat. 1.5), demonstrates. No one was more conscious of the public value of poetry, architecture, art, and spectacle than Augustus, who consistently sponsored all of them as part of his program of remaking Rome.4 The unforeseeable flowering of that most improbable genre, Roman love elegy, in the midst of Augustus’s burgeoning reform may well, in fact, have both delayed and helped to determine his legislative intrusion into the bedchamber. That is, if elegy flourishes around the time of Augustus’s first and failed attempt to force the elites into marriage and to punish adultery as a state crime rather than a private matter, it does so as an implicit protest, as scholars have well recognized, against Augustus’s incursions into private life.5 As many scholars have argued, in the last decades of the Republic, elite women were becoming more independent and liberated, particularly sexually, and elite marriages were increasingly love matches, or at least personal choices, rather than family mergers. Treggiari (1991a: 105–8) traces a growing tendency toward strong affective bonds in marriage and family life (perhaps partly under the influence of literary portraits of romantic love), a phenomenon that would encourage elite Romans to think of their marriages and private life as rewarding rather than obligatory6 (see also Treggiari 1991b: 260). A forcible return to business marriages would have meant that their private lives were not only less personally meaningful but not even their own to determine fully. Poets, even those dependent on patrons closely linked to the princeps, had a means of expressing their hostility toward such diminution. As Wallace-Hadrill (1985: 184) remarks: “Propaganda” and “dissent” are perhaps too complex and distracting terms to be usefully applied to the Augustan poets. But . . . their attitude to love had considerable political repercussions. The benefit and

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

215

danger of the poets to Augustus was not that they could support or oppose any particular measure of his, but that they could (intentionally or not) articulate acceptance or rejection of the social order he was struggling to restore and of his own role in doing so.

Whether or not the poets voiced “acceptance or rejection” of Augustus’s social program, they did articulate and enact attitudes relating to it, and in the case of the elegists, they chose a remarkably peculiar means of doing so, a means dependent absolutely on the figure of the docta puella.7 When the elegists represent themselves as devoted to women recognizably based on the independent courtesan of Roman Comedy, they take on the role of its hapless male protagonist, the adulescens inamoratus, though of course they are considerably more articulate than the witless youths of comedy. By removing all trace of parental influence and financial support from the lover, elegy appears to make its male speakers relatively free agents. But it is noteworthy that by borrowing the comic meretrix, these elite male poets place their fictional selves in the position of the young men of comedy, who are generically under heavy pressure from their parents to enter into arranged citizen marriages, an imperative that they bitterly resent and loudly protest. Elegy presents no such parental force, but the pressure to marry may have needed no articulation, as it was extraliterary rather than integral to any poetic plot. That is, where the adulescens feels coerced by his father into an unwanted marriage, the elegist feels the same urge, more subtly expressed, from his princeps. Hence his poetic involvement with an unmarriageable woman all the more marks his protest against merger-marriage.8 What is striking here is that the docta puella both marks that protest and serves as its vehicle (as seen by Hallett 1973), by means of her social status, so far beneath the concern of the court, by her literary doctitude, which requires erudite and elegant poetry, and by her profession, which for her lover-poets mandates elegiac male sexual persuasion.9 To answer the question asked above—why this particular woman in this particular period?—I begin by returning to the figure of Gallus, as his is the lead that the elegists take up. His four books of love poems called Amores surely provided a competitive inspiration for Propertius and Tibullus and, subsequently, Ovid. Even presuming that Gallus’s elegiac works also made room for poems on nonamatory topics, it seems likely that he left something between forty and eighty elegies behind. Further, the elegists almost certainly managed to keep copies of his Amores even after the damnatio memoriae (edict to erase the memory) ordered against him by the princeps. Though the Qasr Ibrîm fragment has been considered disappointing, I take

216

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

the reverence of the elegists and Vergil toward Gallus to indicate that the rest of his poetry was of a higher level.10 In any case, the quality of his work is perhaps less important to the remaining elegists than the model he left them: the upper-class Roman male, trained as both poet and politician, lover and soldier, impoverished aesthete and provincial administrator, who placed his beloved between himself and his public duties to patron, princeps, nation. Though she did not end Gallus’s career (in fact, she probably did little even to delay it), Lycoris (a.k.a. Volumnia Cytheris)—or rather the poetic figure of Lycoris—created a space in which the lover-poet could suspend both himself and his public life. In Vergil’s tenth Eclogue and, perhaps in Tibullus’s fantasies of the pastoral love life as well (on which see Johnson 1990 and Batstone 1990), this space is marked as rural, a place in which history and politics do not exist, where the passage of time is suspended in the eternal, seasonal activities of the farming and herding life, wherein life changes little from one decade to the next. Notably, however, it is Lycoris herself, in Eclogue 10, who returns to the realm of passing time and progressing history and thus drags the lover-poet back into politics and war, as, generically, the docta puella cannot afford to exist in ahistorical time and nonmaterial circumstances.11 In following her, presumably to dissuade her from her intended stint as companion to a soldier, Vergil’s Gallus may still be evading his own political and military obligations. Thus love and pastoral poetry (from which love is not absent) keep him away from politics. That this is a poetic fiction is of course known from Gallus’s extensive political service, at which he was successful until he overstepped his bounds in the year 26 b.c.e., approximately when Propertius’s Monobiblos is thought to have been published. Further, it seems unlikely, given the strong basis of Roman love elegy in Roman Comedy that all, or even a majority, of Gallus’s Amores had a rural setting, for the various plots and obstacles of elegy can arise only in a city.12 Though Tibullus 1.10 and 2.5 depict a ruralized version of elegiac love in the country, its male participants are not poets. And poetry is what interests poets. McCarthy (1998: 185) rightly notes that poetry “itself is the real hero of elegy: it is the means by which the author both obtains instrumental use of a woman and . . . helps himself to the spirited rebellion she enacts.” Indeed, and it is significant that the elegists are so faithful to both mistress and meter. Horace too heroizes poetry and employs it for many of the same ends that McCarthy identifies in elegy (specifically “competition for standing within the elite,” 185), but he employs a much wider range of matter and meter. The elegists cling tightly and stubbornly to this one topic and this one woman, the docta

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

217

puella, who offers them a space to focus on themselves and their poetry, in the middle of the eternal city, with commerce, politics, and social life going on all around them. As marked by the recusatio, this poetic space is free from the operations of normal life (thus we may note that no elegiac loverpoet has parents or even siblings—an unlikely state of affairs in real life but an absolute condition for the make-believe world of elegy);13 hence its chronology is deliberately fragmented beyond reconstruction, as poetic fiction does not yield to calendars. Narrative development and coherence, however, are clear, as the lover-poets engage in their amorous adventures, indulge in their elegiac arguments and postures, and hopelessly pursue the ever receding mirage of eternal faith with a woman who, despite the poetic opportunity she offers for freedom from politics and history, is absolutely and necessarily mired in the passage of time (so destructive to her professional practice) and the material needs of daily life. Elegy’s intense focus on the body of the docta puella, as both the means by which she makes her living and the physical space through which the lover-poets can delay engaging with the world of politics, the blank slate on which they can write their poetry and physically exorcise their frustrations, perhaps offers a suggestion about her anomalous and short-lived poetic importance. This is poetry that focuses intensely on male-female sexual relationships, in a time when such relationships were beginning to receive official scrutiny.14 Augustus’s desire to see the elite classes increase in size and settle down into stable, secure marriages signals, as previously noted, a major change in the lives of the members of those classes. Not only were the men who had previously been masters of the Roman world suddenly no longer politically free agents, in a male universe in which politics were the only thing that mattered, but even their private lives, which had for a couple of generations been an increasing source of meaning and fulfillment, were no longer their own to control. The elegists will certainly have had, in the words of Hallett (1973: 114), a “feeling that they were not vitally needed in the Roman governing and expanding process,” regardless of whether or not they were personally inclined either to participate in political life or to resent their exclusion from it. The docta puella offers a few of these men an opportunity to escape the narrowing confines of their public and private lives; to try on roles of servitude, immobility, loss of self-control (on this topic, see McCarthy 1998); to create a poetic space devoted to the personal life and the pursuit of nonreproductive sex; to make a poetic gesture of refusal to compliant public service of military, public, and personal obligations.15 Since Augustus’s failed attempts in 28 or 27 b.c.e. to force the elites into procreative marriage, it was

218

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

obvious that he had designs on their personal and sexual lives (and indeed, as I have noted, Julius Caesar had already begun measures intended to increase the population of the upper classes),16 and his desire to see them procreate identifies the purpose of the elite woman’s body, at least as long as she was of childbearing age. Such a bull’s-eye drawn on the body of the marriageable elite woman marks it effectively as public space. Paradoxically, then, the body of the independent courtesan, extramarital sex with whom was still beneath official notice, becomes private space, as it is untouched by political programs, but not (unlike the body of the street prostitute, the scortum) on constant public view. At the same time, the elegiac focus on Amor, which (like Venus) in Roman love elegy means both love and sex, intensely personalizes malefemale relations and attempts to identify them as private, as sources of joy and fulfillment, misery and frustration (not to mention poetry), rather than as corporate mergers aimed at repopulating the upper classes or, as Propertius 2.7 suggests, the military. (I take the elegiac lack of interest in collaborative public poetry, which the princeps greatly desires, to be genuine, though of course its Alexandrian excuse of inadequate talent is laughably absurd.) Through her very unmarriageability (which, for the elite men composing and consuming Roman love elegy, long predates Augustus’s marital legislation), then, the docta puella enables and engenders elegy. It is thus not so much the case that, as the praeceptor Amoris says, marriage precludes love, via the constant availability of the wife (Ars 3.585–86), as that it precludes poetry, at least poetry of the type that interests the elegists. Elegy and legitimate marriage, it turns out, are not only mutually exclusive but mutually destructive as well.17 By the time Roman love elegy really begins to blossom, it has become clear that the Roman Republic will never return. The fate of Gallus serves recent notice to the upper-class readers and writers of poetry that their participation in public life must henceforth be a form of service to the princeps rather than to that formerly common public enterprise, the Republic. Perhaps even more important, the fate of Gallus’s poetry announces publicly the vulnerability of poetry to politics, and especially to the princeps’s wrath.18 The death of Gallus and the destruction of his poetry were not moves calculated to appeal to poets; wisely, Augustus did not thereafter censor even the suppressed strains of rebellion in elegy, though he can hardly have favored the genre. Elegy, it may be, allowed these poets to delay participating in public life and respectable marriage during a period of intense and constantly oscillating adjustment to their lives. But that the princeps desired men like them to marry and have children can be seen from his

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

219

treatment of his own daughter, Julia, an elegant and learned lady herself: in the year 20 b.c.e. he required his right-hand man and best friend Agrippa to divorce his wife (Augustus’s own niece) and marry Julia, though Agrippa was not only old enough to be Julia’s father but had even stood in for him at her first wedding, four years earlier, to her ill-fated cousin Marcellus, when Augustus was too ill to attend in person (Cassius Dio 53.27). The purpose of this wedding was clear: the princeps wanted offspring (and, in fact, Julia delivered them, five in eight years; surprisingly, this marriage seems to have been happy). Although the dynastic imperative to this particular union was obvious, it was unlike previous arranged marriages in the family (which chiefly functioned to cement political alliances), in that reproduction was its overt purpose. Further, as Augustus did not otherwise hesitate to use the women in his family as public models for proper female behavior,19 the marriage of Julia to Agrippa, for procreative purposes, must also have served as a potent example of Augustus’s preferred model for elite marriage,20 a model antithetical to Roman love elegy, and a model evaded, at least poetically, via elegy. The docta puella serves elegy’s purposes not merely by way of her body but, even more importantly, by way of her brain, and specifically her intelligence, her learning, and her “doctitude,” her ability to read discerningly (see Habinek 1998: 124–31). As I remarked in chapter 1, Yeats’s formulation of Roman love poetry as calculated “to flatter beauty’s ignorant ear” mistakes the nature of elegy’s chosen beloved, whose ear is erudite instead. And as we have seen, the praeceptor Amoris sets out a hefty course of reading for a proper elegiac puella. If she makes it all the way through Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon, Sappho, Menander, Propertius, Tibullus, Varro, Vergil, and Ovid himself, she will be learned indeed, for even to understand many of them requires a considerable body of background knowledge. The elegiac puella, then, not only receives learned, showy poetry but reflects it back. To court her is to boast of one’s own poetic prowess.21 The well-educated upper-class Roman woman would most likely know all this poetry as well (see Hemelrijk 1999 on this issue), but in her case, as Habinek (1997) argues, that knowledge is useless. For the docta puella, however, it is a professional advantage, as it attracts elite, educated lovers (always constituted as preferable to the likes of soldiers), and the fictive lover-poets of elegy aim to capitalize on that advantage by using her appreciation of poetry to gain unpurchased access to her bedroom. So poetry begets sex and sex begets poetry—and even when the poetry is refused and the sex denied, as so often occurs in elegy, more poetry is generated anyway. In this tightly closed recirculating system, status, money,

220

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

female beauty, and poetry are the poles around which everything revolves. It is thus distinct from other forms of poetry, even of love poetry, as they do not celebrate the docta puella. But, significantly, this poetry is repeatedly characterized as calculated to please women (never previously a major concern for Roman citizen males), so much so that it turns out to be a genre in which an actual historical woman, namely, Sulpicia, can compose her own verses. It thus provides an example of a Roman female reader’s reception of love elegy, and a very positive reception it is, too. Sulpicia’s poetry, like male elegy, uses her own name and identity; gives her beloved a name associated with poetry;22 prefers Rome to the country; evades family entanglements; desires isolation with her beloved; seeks to be known publicly for loving him; differentiates between her elegant, erudite, upper-class self and a common prostitute rival; bitterly resents infidelity by her beloved; searches for proof that he loves her in return for her devotion; and identifies poetry as the means of sexual persuasion.23 Where she identifies her status as an elite woman, in contrast to the scortum, she invokes the male lover-poet’s disdain for a lower-class rival. Since Sulpicia is the elite woman writing love elegy, it follows that her speaker does not need to offer verse in place of cash; hence in her case poetry is freed from the elegiac impasse. But other obstacles, from family obligations to fevers, come between the docta poeta and her inscribed beloved. What elegy primarily offers Sulpicia is a means of exploring female sexuality and expressing female sexual anxiety and insecurity. Thus this genre of poetry that women like, and that looks like women (see Keith 1994), allows a female voice to speak of its own erotic concerns. Significantly, as Hallett (1989: 71) points out, Sulpicia appears to “portray herself as having much in common with the mistress celebrated by her male elegiac colleagues.”24 Elegy and the docta puella, then, allow Sulpicia to experiment with, in Hallett’s conception, herself as both “same” and “other.” Catullus’s Lesbia and Horace’s numerous women offer no such opportunity. Sulpicia’s sex and status, however, foreshorten the trajectory of her poetic narrative. The usual plots and arguments of elegy are not available to her speaker, hence her poems are few and short, though learned, graceful, and accomplished.25 She offers a significant poetic reminder of both female reception of love elegy and the unspoken social circumstances that dictate the plots and predetermine the resolutions of elegiac love.26 These social structures and circumstances—the puella’s status and sexual profession; the lover’s self-proclaimed poverty and poetic profession— paradoxically both generate the substance and stances of Roman love elegy and eventually foreclose its happy resolution. The lover-poet trades in one

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

221

kind of passivity and servitude (political) for another (erotic), only to find, eventually, that he cannot remain in the timeless, apolitical realm of love poetry forever.27 Thus the political imperatives to write public poetry and to be fruitful and multiply will, in the end, be preferable to the docta puella’s economic imperatives, which require her to devalue the one distinction the lover-poet can offer her (poetry), not only on the generic level (i.e., that poetry does not pay the bills) but on the individual level as well. That is, the puella must professionally value money and material goods over poetry, though she must generically also appreciate poetry. She will therefore necessarily receive other, lesser men, in preference to the loverpoet. Hence his characteristic anger at her matures into disillusion, and he departs from elegiac love for more elevated fields of endeavor. As I noted in chapter 1, however, even in their “higher” works, Propertius and Ovid reflexively return to issues brought up by their time in elegiac service: female sexuality, women’s feelings of love, the threat of physical violence that coercive male desire poses to women, even—as we have seen—the dangers of sex and pregnancy to women. All these issues, and more, are made topics of poetry by the elegiac docta puella. Culham (1987: 15) cautions that the “study of women in ancient literature is the study of men’s views of women and cannot become anything else. It can aid in the entirely laudable goal of eventually getting at the contradictions between the literary image and the reality. It is very difficult to do that, however, while remaining in the literary text itself.” I think it safe to say, however, that literary texts reflect aspects of life, even if not verifiable historical or biographical incidents.28 Keeping in mind that the elegiac woman is a generic, poetic fiction, we can still see ways in which she points readers toward aspects of the lives of historical women,29 one of them being, for instance, the fact that the sex pursued recreationally in elegy may well have lethal consequences for women. Fear of pregnancy is a reality just as much as actual pregnancy is and may well influence a woman’s actions, decisions, and relationships.30 Another reality to be descried from elegy, especially in reading it from the puella’s viewpoint, is that it dramatizes “the truly dangerous knowledge . . . [that] women and men do not share a common experience” (Culham 1990: 162). Men may worry about baldness (Ars 3.161), but not because hair is a signifier of their youth and sexual viability;31 a man may fear a woman’s sexual rejection, but she must fear his violence (cf., as previously noted, Newman 1997: 299). As Gamel (1990: 171) remarks, the “lived reality” of women’s lives in antiquity “can only be reconstructed textually.”32 She further (172) notes that Ovid’s elegies “dramatiz[e] the problems of Roman social and political relations with special attention to ques-

222

/

Problems of Gender and Genre, Text and Audience

tions of gender.” Veyne (1988) argues that elegy is a literary game, but within the genre its games can have serious, even lethal consequences for women, consequences that elegy reveals as extratextual as well. Reading Roman love elegy from the viewpoint of its primary auditor, the docta puella, does much to restore balance to what has been called, not without good cause, an “obstinately male” genre (Lowe 1988; disputed by Wyke 1994). The overwhelming dedication of the elegists to this one female figure, who is anchored in the life of the body, the mercantile exchange of sex for material goods, and the destructive passage of time, not only gives us a glimpse into the lives of such women but also underscores the inequity that is inevitable to her sexual relationships in a caste society. Reading the arguments and orisons of the elegiac lover-poet from the perspective of their intended female audience demonstrates the comfortable self-delusion of those who can afford to ask to be loved for themselves (a concept relatively alien to Rome, in any case); reveals the disingenuity of and exploitation by the privileged male toward his chosen beloved, who is his domina (mistress) only poetically, as she is far below him socially; and reminds us not to take at face value anything these elite male speakers say about themselves. The docta puella’s economic imperative, at odds with her generically constituted intellect and erudition, combined with the bleak prospects of her golden years, predestines her to the condition of disposable goods—a true waste of female knowledge. Nonetheless, only this female figure, introduced by none other than Gallus, offers the elegists what they need, as they seek to write poetry on subjects of their own choosing and to determine the course of their private lives and sexual activities. She does so, paradoxically, by belonging to a subject lower class, engaging in sexual commerce, and consuming the poetry nominally and generically inspired by her. Through the docta puella, the lover-poet can measure himself against others, from friends to patrons to rivals both wealthy and lower-class. Through her, the elegists—the historical Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus—can measure themselves up against other poets and measure their own contemporary reception, both at public recitations33 and in the form of each other’s responsive poetry. Through the contested yet shared space of her body and her generic intellect, the elegists can take on poetic topics from war to politics, myth to fantasy, dominance to servitude, love to old age, and sex to gender. Despite her immutable foundation in the here-and-now of Roman mercantilism of sex and class, then, the docta puella proves a remarkably capacious and flexible poetic canvas, on which the elegists inscribe their desires, fears, ambitions, and joys, most of them poetic in nature, as befits poets. Her very apartness, combined with

Poetry, Politics, Sex, Status

/

223

her obstinately material circumstances, allows these poets to explore poetically and metaphorically their own changing times. Thus the lover-poets record, on the puella’s body, as it were, their own angers and frustrations at seeing themselves diminished in stature and subordinated to new hierarchies of power and relevance politically, socially, culturally, and historically, as well as their desire to avoid that diminution by escaping into sex, love, and poetry.34 Those records take the form of fetishistic praise of female beauty, physical violence against the female body, hopeless declarations of eternal devotion, absurd arguments against material concerns, and patently untenable postures of subjection. At the same time, the elegiac docta puella sets a new standard for women in Rome: independent, intelligent, educated, able to think for themselves. That such a woman would be proposed as a sexual ideal in ancient Rome could not have been predicted before elegy (not even with the precedent of Catullus’s Lesbia, who is always represented as unique rather than generic) in itself poses a challenge of sorts to the new government’s desire for procreative matrimonial mergers (cf. Hallett 1973). And that some of Rome’s most popular elite poets could present themselves poetically as slavishly devoted to such a woman, a generic rather than an individual woman, a sexually free woman, likewise constitutes an implicit challenge to the princeps’s treatment of citizen women and particularly elite women as sources of reproduction whose sexual activities were under observation as belonging to the public realm.35 Finally, although the elegiac docta puella is a generic and generically necessary poetic fiction, she is nonetheless a formidable female figure, and reading elegy’s focus on her from her viewpoint directs readerly attention to a small but important class of women whose livelihood and social circumstances are recorded in Roman love elegy. This poetic female is a prism through which the poets make visible such historical concerns as the need to attract men with beauty;36 the urge to stay young; the dangers of sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and old age; and the intense scrutiny of male eyes aimed in particular at the bedroom. No other woman but the beautiful, learned, demanding, intelligent, and independent docta puella could have enabled such a poetic achievement as the short-lived but significant genre of Roman love elegy. Reading its poems from her perspective helps both to focus on the elegiac woman as a generic individual and to counterbalance the male voice of the poetic speaker in a genre that, as it seeks to control and subordinate its female love object, also uniquely foregrounds her and memorializes her poetic and historical existence.

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix

adulescens. “Young man,” usually in his twenties. The usual protagonist of New Comedy, q.v. adunaton. A Greek term meaning “impossibility.” Alexandrian. Adjective applying to the extremely learned, allusive, complex poetry produced by Callimachus and his circle of librarian-poet friends at Alexandria in the third century b.c.e. This is poetry that explicitly announces itself as small, slender, graceful, aimed not at the public (like Homeric epic) but at the learned inner circle. Applied to postCallimachean poetry, it means Alexandrian-style poetry, full of quotations from and allusions to prior poetry. Like all the poetry of the second half of the first century b.c.e., Roman elegy is Alexandrian in style. The poetry of Horace, Vergil, Catullus, Lucretius, and the love elegists is often called Roman Alexandrian poetry. See Callimachus; see also Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) articles “Hellenistic Poetry at Rome” and “Callimachus.” amator. Latin noun meaning “lover” (Prop. 2.3.16). This term is often used by elegy scholars to designate the speaker of Roman love elegy, who uses the same name as the author but must be understood as an assumed persona. aporia. Greek term meaning “inability,” or helplessness. Augustan marital legislation. See leges Iuliae. Augustus. Born Octavian in 63 b.c.e., he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Julius Caesar (i.e., in Caesar’s will) ; he immediately took the name Caesar and sought revenge against the conspirators who had killed his adoptive father. For the sake of clarity (to avoid speaking of two Caesars in the year 44 b.c.e. and following), scholarly convention designates him Octavian until the year 27 b.c.e., when the Senate voted him the name Augustus. One of the most intelligent leaders of antiquity, Augustus guided the transition of Rome’s government from a

225

/

226

Appendix

republic (a limited form of representative government whose ruling body was the senate) to a monarchy (the Roman Empire) while claiming to restore the republic. He declared himself not the ruler, emperor, or dictator (a technical term in Roman history, designating a temporary single ruler) but the princeps, which means more or less “first citizen,” and he described himself as “first among equals,” rather than ruler or leader. Regardless, after his victory over his former ally Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (a victory engineered by his right-hand man and, later, son-in-law, Agrippa), it was clear that he was the ruling power in Rome. He pursued an extraordinary program of rebuilding Rome both physically and morally, by rebuilding public structures and temples and by sponsoring both public games and poets. He had only a single child, Julia, by his first wife, Scribonia, whom he divorced on the day of Julia’s birth. He later married Livia, whom he took from her first husband while she was pregnant with her second child. Despite all his hopes, he and Livia had only one child, who died shortly after birth. In an effort to acquire male offspring to designate as his heir, he married Julia off first to his nephew, Marcellus, who died young, and then to his friend and ally Agrippa; he later exiled her under the leges Iuliae (q.v.). See OCD article. blocking character. A term from New Comedy, this describes any character who stands between the young male protagonist and his beloved. Fathers and rivals are the primary blocking characters. carmen perpetuum. “Unified poem.” A poem with a single theme; usually an epic poem, in epic meters. Ovid called his Metamorphoses a carmen perpetuum (Met. 1.4), thus setting off centuries of dispute over genre, as its meter is epic and it certainly tells of “bodies changed,” but it has no single plot. cliens, clientes. A dependent, usually lower-class male in a social-political relationship with a patronus, usually an upper-class man with political power. comedy.

See New Comedy.

cursus honorum. “Course of honors.” This is the term for the standard course of public office and duties undertaken by Roman elite males on their way to both the Senate and the consulship. See OCD article. damnatio memoriae. “Erasure of memory,” that is, erasure of evidence of one’s existence. This was the fate of the poet Gallus, when the princeps Augustus revoked his amicitia (political alliance/personal friendship). See OCD article; see Gallus. docta puella. “Learned girl,” the generic love object of Roman elegy (Prop. 1.7.11, 2.11.6, 2.13.7–14; Ovid, Am. 2.4.17, Ars 2.281; cf. also Catull. 35.16–17). She is educated and intelligent, able to judge and evaluate the erudite persuasion aimed at her.

Appendix

/

227

diffamatio. A defamatory speech, intended to embarrass and insult publicly. See Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD) entry. domina. This term originally defines a woman slave-owner; the elegists use it metaphorically to describe a woman as having similar power over her lovers. See OLD entry. elision. A “sliding together” of two words, with a corresponding loss of a syllable. Words ending in -m or a vowel will elide with a word beginning with h- or a vowel. Thus magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae (Aen. 6.307) is pronounced magnagni-meroum, puer-innuptaeque puellae. erotodidaxis. “Teaching of love.” Traditional topic in ancient poetry. In elegy, see Tibullus 1.4; Ovid, Ars amatoria. See also Wheeler 1910–11. exclusus amator. “Locked-out lover,” the character who performs the paraclausithyron. See Copley 1956. Gallus, Cornelius. The original love elegist; he wrote four books of love poems called Amores, in which he lamented his unhappy love for a woman called Lycoris, said to have been based on his mistress, Volumnia Cytheris. He seems to have been a close friend of Vergil’s, and was revered by the poets of his period. He was also a political ally of Augustus, and committed an offense by claiming too much credit, as provincial governor of Egypt. Augustus revoked his amicitia (a term meaning both friendship and political alliance) and ordered a damnatio memoriae of him, an erasure of his existence. As a result, for centuries only a single line of his poetry survived; the total is now up to eleven. Gallus committed suicide when Augustus proclaimed his offense. See OCD article. Gigantomachy. A poem in epic meter relating the assault by the Giants and the Titans against the Olympian gods. The Ovidian amator is planning to write such a poem in Amores 2.18. Golden Age. The ancient equivalent of a Garden of Eden myth. This is the time before history, when humans neither fought, nor took to the dangerous sea, nor had to work hard. Animals cooperated; the earth gave forth food of its own volition, and so on. Hesiod’s Works and Days reviews the various ages of man; see also Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.89–253. hetaira. A Greek word meaning “female companion.” In the context of heterosexual relationships, this word means “girlfriend,” whether on a short-term or long-term basis. Hispala Faecenia. A freedwoman forced to make a living as a prostitute; Livy (39.9–19) says that her character was better than her profession. She was instrumental in saving Rome, as Livy tells it, from the menace of the Bacchanalia, a cult thought to be widespread and orgiastic. She warned her young lover Aebutius not to join; through family

228

/

Appendix

connections of his, word of her warning reached the consuls, who summoned her and forced her to tell what she knew. Once they found out about the cult, they took action against it, stamping it out of existence. She was rewarded not only with money but with the promise that her children, if she married a citizen, would be Roman citizens. Horatia. As Livy (1.26–27) tells her story, she is engaged to a young Etruscan, one of the Curiatii. He and his brothers fought her three brothers; when the single survivor, her brother Horatius, brought home proof of having killed her fiancé, Horatia wept. Her brother killed her on the spot; though he was brought up on charges, his father argued on his behalf that she had violated family honor and that he himself would have killed her (under patria potestas, q.v.). Horatius was given a symbolic punishment. ingenium. “Talent.” Ingenium is inborn rather than acquired, and is a necessity for poetry. See OLD entry. Julia.

The only child of Augustus (q.v.), by his first wife, Scribonia, whom he divorced the day Julia was born. Her father married her at age fourteen (two years past the legal minimum age for women) to her cousin Marcellus, who died young. Four years later, she married Agrippa, to whom she bore three sons and two daughters; all of them were said to resemble their father, despite her apparently habitual adultery (hence her famous quip, recorded by Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.5.9, when someone noted this resemblance, that she took on passengers only when the hold was full, meaning that she engaged in affairs only when she was already pregnant). This marriage was apparently happy, despite the great difference in their ages. After Agrippa died, Augustus forced his stepson, Tiberius, to divorce his beloved wife, Vipsania, and marry Julia; the marriage was not happy, and Julia’s adultery increased. In the year 2 b.c.e., Augustus either discovered it or was forced to admit that he knew of it; he exiled Julia to the island of Pandateria, under the lex de adulteriis coercendis (see leges Iuliae). Scribonia voluntarily went into exile with Julia, who was eventually recalled to the mainland but never allowed to return to Rome. She died in exile. According to all accounts, she was beautiful, witty, gentle, well-educated, and charming. Later, her daughter, Julia the Younger, was also exiled for adultery. See OCD article.

Julian laws.

See leges Iuliae.

lena. An older woman, a retired courtesan or prostitute who advises younger professional women. She is usually described as hideously ugly (aged, wrinkled, toothless, nearly bald) and alcoholic; in elegy, she is always suspected of being a saga and practicing evil magic. See OLD entry. leges Iuliae. A name granted to a range of laws passed at Augustus’ instigation in either 18 or 17 b.c.e. They are called the Julian laws, moral legis-

Appendix

/

229

lation, marital legislation, and marriage laws. The two of relevance here are the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (the Julian law on punishing adulteries) and the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (the Julian law on the social classes that are required to marry). In the year 9 c.e., Augustus passed the lex Papia Poppaea (named after the two consuls of the year, who were both bachelors, an irony that did not escape notice at the time), in which he tightened some restrictions on the marital law and loosened others (della Corte [1982: 540] considers it more severe than the lex Iulia). The two laws became fused and are often referred to as the lex Iulia et Papia. It is difficult to tell exactly what is required under each law. Carter 1982: 141–44 is an excellent summary; see also Cantarella 1987: 122–24. the adultery law: Augustus made adultery, for the first time, into a public concern, a matter of state. He established a permanent court (quaestio) devoted entirely to investigating and punishing cases of adultery. Under this law, members of the upper classes were forbidden to commit adultery, under penalty of severe fines and exile. This law sought primarily to control female adultery; it even required husbands to bring their wives up on charges of adultery. If they failed to do so within a prescribed period, they would be charged themselves with pimping (lenocinium). Men were punished for adultery, but less harshly than women. A new offense, stuprum, designating sex with an unmarried member of the target classes, was also designated as publicly prosecutable (see Csillag 1976: 178ff.). Informants were rewarded for turning in violators. the marriage law: Under this law, members of the upper classes were encouraged to marry and multiply. The law attempted to force men between twenty-five and sixty, and women between twenty and fifty, into marriage and parenthood. Limitations on inheritances were put into effect; divorced women were supposed to remarry within six months and widows within a year (extended by the lex Papia to eighteen and twenty-four months respectively); betrothal to a girl under twelve counted as marriage under the law; marriages between freeborn persons (except senators and certain of their male descendants) and freed slaves were made valid (unless one of the parties was a woman known for sexual activity). Parents of three or more children enjoyed certain legal and political advantages under the ius trium liberorum (“right of three children”). These laws were extremely unpopular with their target classes. A thorny, much-discussed issue is whether or not Augustus attempted to pass a version of marital legislation in the year 28 or 27. Propertius 2.7 is the primary piece of evidence, along with a passing remark in the preface to Livy’s history, and the episode in Suetonius, Divus Augustus 34, which describes a failed attempt to pass laws on

230

/

Appendix

adultery, modesty (pudicitia), and social classes required to marry. This episode has no date, but may be presumed to predate the Julian laws, as it is difficult to see how Augustus could have failed to pass such laws after he had already done so. Many scholars believe that Propertius 2.7, which speaks openly of a repealed law (lex sublata) that would have required the lover to marry, refers to an early attempt to force the upper classes into marriage and procreation (the speaker also refuses, famously, to father children for the army). I am among those scholars; I consider it unlikely that Augustus would simply have sprung these laws ex nihilo in the year 18. Many of his particular honors were prearranged by negotiation between himself (or his agents) and appropriate parties in the senate. For example, according to Dio (53.16) he badly wanted to take the name Romulus as an honorific, but was persuaded by apparent resistance (it carried overtones of royalty, always repugnant to the Roman nobles) to be given the name Augustus instead, in the year 27. What he presents in the Res Gestae (34.2) as an honor motivated by popular impetus was in fact the result of considerable negotation. In this period, it seems unlikely that he could have forced such wide-ranging and intrusive legislation through the senate on his own, given that he had to accede to the senators’ preference on his own name into account. Thus I think it more likely that in 28 or 27 he brought up the idea of the Julian laws but found such resistance that he waited until his power was fully consolidated. I further think that the elegists knew, at least as of the composition period of Propertius’s second book, that, as Syme (1939: 443) puts it, “reform was in the air.” Though Badian (1985) has argued that the lex sublata (repealed law) of Propertius 2.7 is merely an outdated taxation measure, this argument seems unconvincing for several reasons. First, there is no consciousness of taxation in Propertius, whose poem speaks only of required marriage and fatherhood. Second, the later Julian laws and the lex Papia, which the lex sublata of Propertius suspiciously resembles, are promulgated not because the treasury is running out but because the population of the upper classes is running low. As Cohen argues, even the adultery law is aimed not at remoralizing the upper classes, but at repopulating them, for it is “symptomatic of, and contributes to, the degeneracy of an elite who are perceived as failing adequately to reproduce themselves” (1991: 124). Della Corte likewise sees Augustus as concerned less with morals than with procreation, and thus speaks (1982: 543) of his “demographic politics.” Julius Caesar had taken steps to increase the population of the elites and to reward those who had three children (Suet. Iul. 20.3, 42; della Corte [1982: 541] notes that Julius was certainly not a moralist), and as Syme (1939: 444. n. 4) points out, Cicero wanted the censors to forbid celibacy even earlier than that (Leg. 3.7). Further, the persistent concern shown by Augustus for increasing the population of his elite citizens argues against an interest in tax measures; when Augustus had the entire speech of the censor Q.

Appendix

/

231

Metellus Macedonicus, De prole augenda (“On the need to increase progeny,” originally delivered in 131 b.c.e.), read into the Senate record (Suet. Aug. 89.2; Livy Per. 59, which remarks that Metellus thought “everyone should be ordered to marry for the purpose of having children”), he was not concerned with either sexual morals or taxes— indeed, as everyone well knew at the time, he himself had already violated the restrictions of the later laws, when he stole Livia, pregnant, from her husband; he committed other adulteries as well. Finally, the tax measure argument leaves no way of accounting for a rationale by which Augustus would repeal moral/marital legislation in 28 or 27, only to reinstate it in very strict form in 18 or 17, and then to reinforce it some twenty-five years later with the lex Papia. The episode at Dio 56.1–10 (9 c.e.) in which Augustus harangued the knights who protested these laws at a public game, provides further evidence of his dedication to the repopulation of the upper classes, as he spoke to them not of morals, adultery, or taxation, but of having children. It may be worth noting here that it is very common for a newly established single ruler (by which I mean, in the modern world, dictator) to enact means of encouraging and enforcing his population to procreate: Hitler, Mussolini, and the Ceausescus of Romania placed considerable resources into not only encouraging but monitoring female fertility. Williams (1993: 267 n. 19) promises a reply to Badian’s argument. In the meantime, of the enormous amount of material on this subject, Cohen 1991 and Cantarella 1991 give useful analyses of the intent of the Julian laws. Fantham 1991 provides an overview of sexual offenses in the Republic, which may be helpful background to the leges Iuliae and their interest in sexual conduct. Lemnian women. Women on the island of Lemnos were reputed to be so hostile to men that they killed all the men who came there. lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. See leges Iuliae. manus. “Hand.” In Roman marriage, manus designates a form of control over the bride. A marriage cum manu (“with hand”) meant that the bride’s father handed legal authority over her to her husband; in a marriage sine manu (“without hand”), her father retained it. By the time of the elegists, there seem to have been very few marriages cum manu, as families preferred to keep both their rights over their daughters and their rights to the property granted as her dowry. See OLD entry. meretrix. “Prostitute.” In Latin, this word literally means “woman who earns.” See OLD entry. meter (feet, number). Greek and Latin poetry is organized not by rhyme schemes but by metrical patterns. Each line of poetry follows a predesignated arrangement of long and short (also called heavy and light) syllables; depending upon the meter, some variation may be allowed. A unit of meter is called a “foot,” and the word for “number” is used to mean meter. Different meters are associated with different types of

232

/

Appendix

poetry and drama; within drama, different meters are used for choral odes, arguments, soliloquys, and so forth. See OCD articles. Elegy is based upon the meter of epic (called the dactylic hexameter). It is organized into units of two lines each (called jointly a couplet or a distich), the first line of which is a hexameter. The second line is called the pentameter, but is actually made of up of two halves, each having two and a half feet. The pentameter is thought of as weaker than the hexameter. Ovid regularly puns on these terms, saying for example that the personification of his poetry (Elegia, in Am. 3.1) has feet of different lengths, or that Cupid stole away a “foot” from his intended epic meter (Am. 1.1). The very arrangement of the meter announces to the reader that elegy is a sort of “secondary” or lesser poetry than epic (e.g., Vergil or Homer). Elegy makes much of its diminished status. militia amoris. “Warfare of love.” A standard figure of Roman love elegy, borrowed from New Comedy. This metaphor indicates the male lover’s need to be ready to take military-style action against hostile forces, whether those be a woman’s guardians and doors or his own rivals for her favors. See chapter 3 for a brief discussion; Amores 1.9 gives an Ovidian overview. Monobiblos. “Book of single subject.” The first book of Propertius’s elegies was published under the title Cynthia Monobiblos,” which more or less means Book of poetry dedicated to Cynthia. New Comedy. So called to distinguish it from Old Comedy (Aristophanic) and Middle Comedy, a genre extant only in fragments. New Comedy begins with Menander in fourth-century b.c.e. Greece, and introduces standardized plots in which obstacles to true love are overcome by a variety of means. In a typical plot, a young man falls madly in love with a girl he believes he cannot marry, either because his father wishes him to marry someone else or because she is a prostitute; after a series of comic interchanges and episodes, the girl is revealed to be a citizen’s daughter and thus marriageable (in such plots, the prostitute is always miraculously a virgo intacta, not having yet begun to practice her profession). If the young man (adulescens) is in love with a practicing courtesan (meretrix), he attempts with the help of ancillary characters (slaves or hangers-on, ordinarily called parasites) to defraud either her pimp or his father, so that he can have access to her, but he will never be able to marry her. Various blocking characters—fathers, pimps, rivals— interfere with the young lovers, but ordinarily all is cleared up at the end. Many of these plots depend upon double identities, long-lost daughters, and so forth. Only a single complete play of Greek New Comedy is extant (Menander’s Dyskolos), but fortunately there remains quite a body of Roman adaptations of them, in the extant works of Terence and Plautus. In the Roman tradition, a playwright translated and adapted a Greek play, retaining the Greek names and setting. Much scholarship has been

Appendix

/

233

consumed with how much the Roman comic poets made free with their Greek originals; it is usually agreed that Terence’s doubleplots were his primary method of innovation (he tended to combine plots from two different Greek plays), and that Plautus’s methods of innovation were more varied, with a high degree of lexical independence. See Halporn (1993) for a discussion of the relationship of Roman Comedy to its Greek originals. I have argued (James 1998a) that the cultural differences of Greece and Rome notwithstanding, their sexual mores and familial structures were similar enough that the Romans could understand the plots of New Comedy as relating to themselves. See OCD articles. obsequium. Literally, “state of following.” The English word “obsequious” comes from this word. It describes the kinds of obeisances and observations that a cliens owed his patronus, a chief duty of which was literally following him around on his business in the Forum and elsewhere. See OLD entry. Ovid. Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 b.c.e.–17 c.e. Ovid was a knight (eques) from Sulmo, about ninety miles north of Rome. He was trained at law, and even took a minor public office, but left law for poetry. In Tristia 4.10, his autobiography, he claims to have recited his first poem in public at about the time he first shaved (this is usually presumed to be at about age eighteen, therefore in the year 25 b.c.e.). He married very young, at his father’s instigation, but divorced after a year; he does not seem to consider that relationship even a marriage. His second wife, he says, was unworthy of him, but he and his third wife were very happy. She worked hard on his behalf in his exile, unfortunately to no avail. He was astonishingly prolific, publishing five books of love poems called the Amores, edited down to three books; four books of erotodidaxis (Ars amatoria 1–3, Remedia amoris); a tragedy (Medea, now lost); the Heroides (letters from mythical heroines to the men who abandoned them); a poem on women’s facial make-up (the Medicamina faciei feminae, incomplete); a poem on the Roman festal calendar (the Fasti, incomplete); the Metamorphoses; two sets of poetic letters from exile (Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto); and a few other minor poems. In the year 8 c.e., when Ovid, aged fifty-one, was the leading poet in Rome, the emperor Augustus suddenly relegated him to Tomis on the Black Sea. The charges were, famously, carmen et error (Tr. 2.207: “a poem and a mistake”). The poem is clearly the Ars amatoria, thought to instruct respectable wives in adultery, and thus in violation of the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. The problem is that the Ars had been in circulation for ten years when Augustus exiled Ovid, who defends his poem in Tristia 2. Of the error, he says he cannot speak. Vats of ink have been spilled trying to figure out what the mistake was (see Thibault 1964), but it remains an insoluble mystery. It is worth noting that in the year 8 c.e., as Augustus he was preparing to modify the lex de mar-

234

/

Appendix

itandis ordinibus (but, notably, not the lex de adulteriis ) with the lex Papia Poppaea, Ovid’s Ars amatoria might have provided him with a convenient excuse under which to hide the error, the unknown cause of Ovid’s exile. Holleman (1971: 462) notes that the lex Papia was passed “almost immediately after Ovid’s relegation.” Ovid found Tomis nearly intolerable, though he seems to have learned the local language well enough to compose poetry in it, and he claims that his Latin degenerated in exile. Ovid spent the rest of his life pleading to be allowed either to return to Rome or to move somewhere more pleasant, to no avail. Augustus died in 14 c.e., and Tiberius after him continued to ignore his pleas. The famous episode referred to in Seneca (Controversiae 2.2.12), attributed to Pedo Albinovanus describes a friend warning Ovid that his poetry is too risky and risqué, and proposing to remove three unidentified lines. Ovid agreed, but on the grounds that he could likewise protect any three lines he wished. The lines, naturally, were the same. One of them was the infamous Ars amatoria 2.24, semibovemque virum, semivirumque bovem (“half-bull man, half-man bull,” describing the Minotaur). This anecdote is probably apocryphal, but it speaks to the recognition, even in antiquity, that Ovid was fully aware of how shocking his poetry could be. See OCD article. paraclausithyron. Song sung outside a locked door; this is the song of the exclusus amator. It is a lament with intent to get inside. See OCD article. parasite. A hanger-on, literally, a person who gets meals off someone else. This character from New Comedy performs various services for a patron. The word is often translated as “mooch” or “sponge.” See OCD article. patria potestas. “Paternal power.” This is the absolute power a Roman father historically had over every member of his household (which included slaves as well as children and wife). Patria potestas included a power of life and death, though that right seems to have been rarely exercised. It was a lifelong power; thus a man fifty years of age, with children or grandchildren, could still legally be under his own father’s patria potestas. See OCD article. patronus. “Patron.” An upper-class Roman man would agree to become the patron to a man of lower status (cliens), which meant being ready to exercise influence on his behalf. In the morning, a patronus would arise early, expecting to be greeted by his clientes; as he went about his business, they were supposed to go along, forming a large crowd that visually signaled his importance. Business patronage is not the same as literary patronage or sponsorship. patruus. One of the most unpopular characters of Roman society: the father’s brother. It is his job to see that his brother’s sons are self-

Appendix

/

235

disciplined, ready to serve Rome. As the avunculus (mother’s brother), a man could be indulgent with his nephews, but not as a patruus. The patruus and the censor (a Roman official, responsible for assessing and taxing private possessions, registering people for their appropriate social classes, and so forth) are proverbially stern, dull, tough old Romans. See OLD entry; see also Hallett 1984. praeceptor amoris. “Teacher of love” (Ars 1.17). This is the persona Ovid employs in the Ars amatoria and the Remedia amoris. Amor means both “love” and “Cupid,” the little god of love. Since Latin did not distinguish in manuscripts between lowercase and uppercase letters, Ovid can make the joke that his persona is both the “teacher of love” and the “Teacher of Cupid.” princeps. “First citizen.” This is the title Augustus used for himself, rather than dictator (a technical term not carrying its English connotations) or imperator (a military term). The reign of Augustus (36 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) is called the “Principate.” Under this title, Augustus could call himself such things as “first among equals” (primus inter pares) and “father of his fatherland” (pater patriae). It is the root of the English word “prince,” but is not associated with royalty, which the Romans would not have tolerated. The term princeps allowed Augustus to support the fictions of the “Republic restored” (res publica restituta), which in part is how he managed to maintain control of Rome and its territories, thus both preventing a return to the previous century of off-and-on civil war and bringing the Roman Republic to a final close. See OCD article. principate. The reign of Augustus. See princeps. programmatic. A term used of the introductory poem to a book of poems, which is written last and generally contains themes, attitudes, and values characteristic of the book as a whole. Such poems often discuss poetry more than other subjects. Thus, for instance, Horace’s Ode 1.1 prefers poetry to all other occupations; Amores 1.1 gives a brief description of the Cupid’s assault on the speaker; and so on. Occasionally a poem in the middle of a book will take a programmatic stance; Propertius 2.10 starts off with a very programmatic beginning, proclaiming that it is time to write war poetry, though the following poems do not pursue that program. The recusatio is standard to the programmatic poem of the Augustan period. propempticon. A “bon-voyage” poem. See OCD article. Propertius. Sextus Propertius, born before 57 b.c.e., died probably between 16 b.c.e. and 2 c.e.. He was a knight (eques) apparently of Etruscan ancestry, from Umbria; in other words, not born and raised in Rome. His family may have lost property and assets in the proscriptions of the second triumvirate. His patron was Maecenas, and he and Ovid became friends (Tr. 4.10.45–46); nothing is known of his personal life (not even

236

/

Appendix

his full name), though Pliny the Younger later claims that his friend Passennius Paullus is descended from Propertius (Ep. 9.22.1). If so, presumably Propertius either married or adopted at some point. He seems to have taken no part in public or political life. Books 1–3 of his elegies are devoted to elegiac love; book 4 takes on nationalist themes, including stories from Roman history and myth, but it gives significant space to poems about love, and includes two (4.7 and 8) about Cynthia. See OCD article. puella. “Girl.” Standard description of the beloved of Roman elegy; she may be anywhere from approximately seventeen to forty-five, if she has managed to stave off the signs of old age. See OLD entry. querela. “Complaint” or “lament.” Perhaps the essence of Roman love elegy. See chapter 3; see also OLD entry. relegatio. Exile with a specific destination. Augustus’s daughter and granddaughter were relegated into island exile; Ovid was relegated to the Black Sea. This form of exile does not necessarily entail appropriation of one’s estate (though Augustus had Julia the Elder’s villa burned) nor does it revoke citizenship. See OCD article. recusatio. “Refusal,” or “regrets.” A formal poetic figure. This gesture is generic to any Alexandrian or Callimachean poetry; the poet declines to compose a great epic, a poem of public interest, a poem of nationalistic purpose, or a poem praising his patron. Depending upon his genre, the poet will usually blame a divinity (Apollo, Cupid, or the Muses), lack of adequate talent, or a girlfriend (as in elegy), for his recusatio. An elegist may depict himself, as in Amores 1.1 or 2.18, as having been in the middle of an attempt to write a “higher” form of poetry, when an external force interrupted him and sent him back to elegy. See OLD entry. Roman Comedy.

See New Comedy.

Romanitas. “Roman-ness.” This is what distinguishes a Roman from anybody else in the world. For upper-class Roman males, Romanitas historically meant discipline (emotional, physical, military, and so forth), self-control, superiority to subjects of monarchies, selfsufficiency and toughness (i.e., not needing anything as petty as love), and so forth. A true Roman male was strong and active, rather than passive and weak. Thus the elegists all depict themselves as lacking in adequate Romanitas, particularly through generic figures such as servitium amoris. Romanitas is not an actual Latin word but a coinage used by modern scholars to invoke standard Roman values. saga. An old woman who practices witchcraft; usually associated with the lena, as at Tibullus 1.5.59. See OLD entry. servitium amoris. “Slavery of love.” A generic figure of Roman love elegy. The lover presents himself as a hopeless slave to his cruel and indifferent mistress (domina). See chapter 4.

Appendix

/

237

sphragis. “Seal.” A Greek word used to designate the final poem of a collection. It will often proclaim the poet’s accomplishment or the eternal power of poetry (cf. Am. 1.15 or Hor. Ode 3.30). See OCD article. suasoria. “Persuasion.” Part of an oration. See OLD entry. Tarpeia. A Roman girl who betrayed Rome out of either greed (as Livy tells it) or love for the enemy Sabine commander Tatius (as in Prop. 4.4). She was crushed to death under the shields of the Sabines. See OCD article. Tereus. The husband of Procne; he developed a terrible lust for her sister, Philomela, while transporting her for a visit. Once they arrived on land, he raped her, cut out her tongue to keep her from telling what he had done, and kept her prisoner. She wove a tapestry that narrated these events, had it sent to her sister, who “read” and understood it, then retrieved her secretly. The two sisters then killed Itys, Procne’s son by Tereus, and fed him to his father, in revenge. See OCD article on “Philomela.” Tibullus. Albius Tibullus, born between 60 and 48 b.c.e., died perhaps in 19. A knight whose patron was Vallerius Messalla Corvinus (himself an orator as well as a politician and soldier); if his poem 1.3 represents any biographical truth, he saw some military service. He seems to have been friends with the poet Horace. See OCD article. Trivia. Another name for the goddess Hecate, thought to inhabit crossroads (tri-via = three roads). She is associated with dark magic. See OCD article. tutor. A legal guardian assigned to a Roman citizen woman. This could be her husband, father, brother, or other man (preferably a family member), who looked after her interests. Women were not allowed to make certain kinds of decisions (or to make wills) without the approval of a tutor. See OCD article “guardianship, Roman.” univira. “Woman faithful to a single man.” A Roman ideal for women. Historically, a woman was supposed to marry only once; even if her husband died a year after marriage, when she could be as young as thirteen, she would never remarry. Female sexual chastity was so important to Rome that it provided the legendary impetus for Rome’s revolt against the Etruscan tyrants and had a cult worship in both the elite classes (Pudicitia Patricia) and, eventually, in the plebeian class (Pudicitia Plebeia). Participation in various religious ceremonies was restricted to such women. Augustus’s marital legislation effectively did away with this long-standing ideal by requiring widows to remarry, though by that time there seem to have been few univirae left, as elite Romans of both sexes often married two or three times. The elegists do not use this word, which is barely attested. Verginia. A poor but honorable Roman girl, daughter of Verginius and fiancé of Icilius. Livy (3.44–48) tells how the magistrate Appius

238

/

Appendix

Claudius conceived an overpowering lust for her and sought to have her registered as a slave so that he could make her his possession. Though she managed, with the help of friends, to evade his clutches, her father stabbed her fatally with a sword, in order to preserve her from Claudius, saying as he did that he would rather see her dead than dishonored. See OCD article. vir. Latin word meaning “man.” It is also used to mean “husband”; the vir who occasionally comes between lover and puella in elegy is not a husband (see chapter 1). See also OLD entry. Volumnia Cytheris. The freedwoman Volumnius (i.e., his former slave, freed by him for a relationship of sexual companionship). She was a famous actress and used the name Cytheris as her stage name; Quinn (1982: 152–53) notes that she performed Eclogue 6 on stage and impressed Cicero greatly. After she left Volumnius, she became Mark Antony’s mistress for a time and even went on some of his political-military missions with him. Treggiari (1971: 196–97) gives information on her life. Later, she was Gallus’s mistress and is thought to have been the model for his poetic mistress Lycoris. We do not know this woman’s original name. “Volumnia” is taken from the name of her owner, Volumnius; “Cytheris” is a stage name, signifying a relation to Venus. See OCD article “Cornelius Gallus.”

Notes

1. introduction 1. On this issue, see Thomas 1988, Wyke 1989a, Kennedy 1993: 43. Otis was already complaining in 1938 (198 n. 29) that nineteenth-century romantic criticism interfered with understanding Ovid’s elegies, and before him Smith (1913), as Skoie (2000: 291) points out, had already argued against biographical readings of elegy (except in the case of Sulpicia; see below). Though I agree with Conte (1994: 158–59 n. 19) that the modern field of studies in Latin poetry has mostly dispensed with reading elegy as sincere, it remains the case that classics at large has not kept up with this development. Further, the available commentaries largely predate it, with the result that many who read elegy without intending to be specialists receive very outdated notions about it. Translators too continue to read elegy as though it reliably represented biography. For example, Lee assumes a biographical background to at least Tibullus’s elegy and dismisses the views of those who think otherwise (Lee 1990: esp. xiv–xv). Even if critics no longer seek to derive a chronology of an actual love affair (though cf. Griffin 1985: 118, on Prop. 2.20), many continue to assume some degree of biographical truth to elegy, a truth that will help to explain the poems. For recent examples of romanticism redivivus, see Arkins 1990 and Griffin 1985. See also Thomas 1988 on Griffin; as Thomas notes (56–67), to establish that poetry reflects “elements of Roman life” does not actually explain Roman poetry. 2. As Hemelrijk (1999: 53) notes, Ovid and Martial badly missed the literary resources of Rome when they were away. It may seem, particularly to nonclassicists, that elegy also could only have been read at the library table, but its original audience had the advantage of both witnessing its performance by the author and then absorbing it at home with a copy of the text (our silent reading cheats elegy of much of its necessary dramatic dimension); in addition, those readers were much more likely than any postclassical readers to have much of the relevant material committed to memory.

239

240

/

Notes to Pages 4–5

3. On performance of poetry, see Ov. Tr. 2.518–20 and 4.10.41–54. See also White 1993: 25–27, 36–63; Gamel 1998. 4. In fact, elegy self-consciously adverts to its own doctitude: cf., e.g., Prop. 3.23, where the speaker laments having lost his “learned writing-tablets” (3.23.1: doctae tabellae), on which he used to send persuasive elegiac messages to attractive girls. These tablets were so talented that they could even speak learnedly and persuasively without his agency: illae iam sine me norant placare puellas, / et quaedam sine me verba diserta loqui (3.23.5–6: “Even without me they knew how to pacify girls / and to speak certain learned words without me”). Such a practice of sexual persuasion hardly allows either for Yeats’s ignorant beauty or for spontaneous emotional self-expression. 5. On this specific issue, see Gamel 1998: 81. On Roman education in general, see Bonner 1977; on the evidence for the education of women, see Hemelrijk 1999 and Habinek 1998: ch. 6. Though I do not agree with all of Habinek’s conclusions, I find his discussion of this topic thought-provoking and helpful. 6. Fitzgerald (1995: 4 and 241 n. 4) locates this standard view of poetry in John Stuart Mill’s 1883 designation of poetry as “overheard.” Fitzgerald discusses Quinn 1982 on Catullus as inventing the type of poetry that seems to be overhead, a deliberately created illusion (Fitzgerald 1995: 4–5). Though parts of some elegies might in fact seem to be overheard, they never maintain this illusion for long—they inevitably reflexively turn to addressing another, very often the beloved but noncompliant puella. 7. Papanghelis’s (1987) study of love and death (two subjects associated closely in romanticism) in Propertius helps to reveal a reason for the tempation to read “truth,” biography, or “genuine” passion in Roman love elegy, but the erotics of death in Propertius are unrelated to their counterpart in Victorian romanticism. Propertius may “occasionally sound like Keats, the most aesthetic-decadent among the early nineteenth-century Romantics” (Papanghelis 1987: 216) but his poetry contains so much that would confound (and occasionally even disgust) Keats and other romantics that the apparent similarity is misleading. 8. Indeed, as I have remarked elsewhere (James 1998a), a society that requires a man to behave differently with his nephews, depending upon whether they are his brother’s children or his sister’s (see appendix entry on patruus; see also Hallett 1984), sees spontaneous, “natural” behavior as counterproductive. Cf. Cantarella (1987: 127–28), citing the tale of Cato wishing to expel Manilius from the Senate because he had kissed his wife in public in the presence of their daughter (Plut. Cat. Min. 7.17): “[E]very display of emotion, in the context of family life in general and conjugal life in particular, was vigorously reproved.” See also Gamel 1998. 9. Cf. the ancient Roman mythic exempla of Tarpeia and the execution of Horatia by her brother (Livy 1.26), as punishment for her perceived treason, in weeping over the body of her fiancé, killed in battle by the same brother. Though this act was controversial, it was excused by their father, who claimed

Notes to Pages 5–6

/

241

that his daughter had been killed justly (iure caesam, 1.26.9). The suicide of Lucretia (Livy 1.58) demonstrates the same perspective: as Livy tells it, she values Roman communal social and sexual values so much that she refuses to allow her unwilling complicity in her rape by Tarquin to provide an example for later women inclined to illicit sex. These examples, along with the long persistence of paternal control over married women, in the form of manus (control; see appendix), indicate that Rome and family take precedence over marriage and private love relationships. 10. See James 1998a. Roman Comedy provides further evidence that personal feelings of love were not valued socially, much less politically, in ancient Rome. 11. I hardly need point out that common uses of the verb “love” in English entail objects ranging from chosen life partners and family members to friends, passing fashions, entertainment, and food. I mostly avoid designating elegy as “love” poetry; “elegiac love” herein signifies the pursuit of elegiac sexual relationships. 12. See, among others, Allen 1950, Cherniss 1962, Wyke 1987b and 1989b. 13. McCarthy (1998: 177) notes that although modern elegy studies no longer treat the love affairs as biographical, there is still a school that finds in elegy “an index to the author’s feelings about his marginalized place in the world.” There is, in other words, a tendency to assume some genuine biography in elegy, even if it is biography of emotion or political inclinations rather than personal sexual history, a tendency to seek some aspect of the poet’s own life in his elegiac output. To her list of such scholarship, I would add Newman 1997 and Lee (1990: xv), who insists that Tibullus’s depiction in 2.6 of the death of Nemesis’s little sister must represent a genuine event and remarks of any who would dispute that designation that the “incredulity of some modern literati is itself a phenomenon beyond belief.” 14. In the late 1990s Hollywood celebrities lined up to appear on The Larry Sanders Show, playing themselves usually as neurotic, self-centered, selfobsessed, and almost pathologically insecure. The one-time musician Kinky Friedman has provided even more complex examples in his series of murder mysteries, in which he and his friends investigate crimes that never actually occurred. In one instance, Friedman has used a perfectly innocent living person as a fictive murderer. 15. This is so not least because an identical structure governs Roman satire; see Anderson (1982) on the operation of the first-person persona of the author in satire, especially his comment that this very eponymous character is “subject to criticism by design of the poet” (viii). Thus the Romans in particular (see Clay 1998) would have understood the speakers of elegy as fictive personae as established by their own native literary tradition. Of course, already in antiquity there were attempts to connect the fictions of elegy with the actual lives of the poets: in his Apologia, Apuleius declares that the names Lycoris, Delia, and Cynthia are pseudonyms for the women actually loved by Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius. Perhaps Catullus’s Lesbia, usually identified as Clodia Metelli,

242

/

Notes to Pages 6–7

exerted an influence on Apuleius; perhaps, as Wyke has noted (1990: 114–17), strict biographism holds tighter when it comes to women. (Hence, perhaps, the treatment by Smith [1913] of Sulpicia’s work as “genuine” or biographical, despite his refusal to treat male elegy as such; see Skoie 2000 on this subject.) In any case, Apuleius’s equations demonstrate the power of elegy’s fictive structure, for many a scholar has accepted his identification of Delia as an unknown Plania and of Cynthia as a woman named Hostia, thought to be the descendant of a poet named Hostius and often presumed therefore to be a member of the elite classes. The only textual support for this identification is Prop. 3.20.8: splendidaque a docto fama refulget avo (“and a glorious reputation, from your learned ancestor, shines upon you”). But this woman cannot be Cynthia, as the poem repeatedly presents her as a new girl (see chapter 2), and it has long been recognized that Hostia is not actually metrically equivalent to Cynthia, as it will cause elision (see appendix) and could thus ruin the prosody of a line. (Although, as Judith Hallett has pointed out to me, Propertius does prevent elision of the initial “h” in several locations, this problem would be harder to avoid on the massive scale that would be required if every “Cynthia” in his poetry could be replaced by “Hostia.”) Misreadings of Prop. 3.20 abound, and they provide numerous instances of Bright’s remark (1978: 101) on Tibullus that Apuleius’s identifications have interfered with “free assessment” of the characters of elegy. (In any case, the examples of Terence and Plautus, one a slave and the other not from the upper classes—not to mention Livius Andronicus— should remind us that learned ancestors should not necessarily be thought members of the elite and do not necessarily confer freedom, much less elite status, on their descendants.) It is also worth noting that most scholars reject Apuleius’s equation, following the list of love poets, of Vergil’s Corydon and Alexis in Eclogue 3 as Vergil himself and the slave boy of Vergil’s friend Pollio. There is no reason to accept the women as real but reject the boy Alexis as fictional; cf. Kennedy 1993: 85. 16. Certainly not as predictable as the scheme of Clarke (1976) regarding the presence or absence of evident literary models and apparent personalized autobiographical details. See also Hemelrijk 1999: 176–77. 17. In fact, each elegist employs particular strategies in separating the contents of his poetry from his own actual life. Tibullus’s specialty is the dreamy, hazy, vague atmosphere he creates with his extensive use of the subjunctive mood. Propertius creates a separate universe of myth as a background and a constant referent for the events and contents of his elegies. Ovid’s legendary farcical superficiality, his propensity to stretch situations to their breaking point, to take elegiac topoi and conventions to their illogical conclusion, have succeeded in convincing most readers that at least Corinna does not represent any historical woman or truth (though at Tr. 4.10.59–60, Ovid himself appears to suggest otherwise). 18. Cf. Veyne (1988), who refers to the male speakers in all of elegy simply as Ego. I will use the title praeceptor Amoris (“teacher of love”) to designate the first-person speaker of Ovid’s Ars amatoria. Otis (1938: 197 n. 29) notes that

Notes to Pages 7–8

/

243

the Ovid of the Amores is a “stock amatorial Ego,” a structure now recognized as governing the rest of Roman love elegy as well. 19. As, for instance, Tib. 2.14.19: ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero (“I seek easy access to my mistress through songs”). Such a remark makes no sense if women do not read elegies. 20. See James 1997: 61–62; see also Gold 1993a: 95 n. 17 (“Certainly, we can say that a female audience is strongly implied in these works and must have been expected to read, digest, and engage with the poetry”). Prop. 3.2.10 boasts of a whole crowd of reading girls pursuing his works (turba puellarum). Cf. also 3.9.45: haec urant pueros, haec urant scripta puellas (“Let my writings burn boys, let them burn girls”); whether one reads urant (“burn,” “set on fire”) or curant (“cure”), this line seeks a female readership for elegy. On the education of Roman women, see also Hemelrijk 1999, Gutzwiller and Michelini 1991: 77–78, and Habinek 1998, 122–36. 21. On the problem of the complex gendered structure of partnered opposition that underlies Roman love elegy, see below. 22. In fact, since the education of the Roman elites required its students to practice taking different sides in arguments and disputes, a practice that required pupils to take female points of view from time to time, even elegy’s original male readers would have known how to understand it, however temporarily, from the perspective of its female addressees. See Gamel 1998. 23. Cf. Gutzwiller and Michelini 1991: 78: “[F]eminists, however, by focusing on ancient women, on what we know or can imagine them to have been, have brought into view a cultural substructure that previously was invisible. Feminist scholarship is not just an alternative or reverse image, then, but a way of completing our knowledge by taking account of gender polarity as a central aspect of human cultures.” See also Henderson 1989: 53, on Woman as the absent but necessary element in satire. 24. As Miller and Platter (1999a: 446) remark, “[T]he aporetical nature of elegy . . . is systematic, and . . . any attempt to reduce the genre to a more easily resolvable set of interpretive problems necessarily involves a misreading of the polyvalent discourses out of which these texts are constructed.” Like any rich literary genre, and perhaps more than some, elegy defies simplistic or limited approaches. 25. On the ways the lover-poet identifies with the docta puella and sees her as both his equal and his opposite, see Hallett 1989. On the generically partnered opposition of lover-poet and puella, see Romano 1972. Though she discusses the Ars amatoria, much of what she says applies to the rest of Roman love elegy, which enacts the instruction inscribed in the Ars. On elegy’s homoerotic component, see below. 26. I have noted elsewhere (James 1997) that Ovid’s Heroides demonstrate his view that elegy is a vehicle for female voice and perspective; Sulpicia’s participation in elegy extends that view to historical, rather than mythical, women. 27. On which see Culler 1982, Gamel 1989, James 1997, with bibliographies.

244

/

Notes to Pages 8–9

28. See Gold 1993a, Kennedy 1993, Wyke 1994. The terms domina and servitium amoris are defined in the appendix. 29. Ovid regularly articulates and explicates this conflict of elegy, with the result that he is commonly considered so insincere and shallow as not to deserve to be part of elegy at all. Romano (1972: 817) describes sexual relations in Ovid’s Ars amatoria as a “love-war game” whose object is to “outmanoeuver . . . the partner” (819). Chapter 5 discusses Ovid as both a reader and a composer of elegy, whose poems focus very tightly on its gendered elements and problems. 30. To speak of “the elegiac female” or “Elegiac Woman,” in the phrase of Wyke (1990: 117), is to adopt the analytical schemes of poststructuralist feminist work in elegy. It is crucial to note that this designation speaks not of individual poetic females (i.e., Delia, Nemesis, Cynthia, Corinna) but of the generic elegiac woman. The Latin word used overwhelmingly for her is puella rather than femina; amica is seen occasionally, as in Am. 2.5.26 and 3.7.20, Ars 2.157, and Prop. 2.6.41–42. On this subject in general, see the works of Wyke (1987a, 1987b, 1989a, 1989b, 1990, 1994, 2002). I will discuss the identity of the elegiac woman in chapter 2. 31. There have been a few glimpses at the female perspective. Kennedy (1993: 20) notes of Tib. 1.3 that it is “open to us to wonder what . . . [Delia’s] reaction . . . might be,” and Newman (1967: 397) nods to the lena’s reaction to the lover’s arguments. (See chapter 2 and the appendix, on the lena.) Such occasional acknowledgment of the female auditor’s possible interpretations of the persuasion aimed at her has not yet constituted a fully developed approach. 32. Wyke 1990: 117. See also Wyke 1987a on the relations between the elegiac woman and actual Roman women. Under any definition of “reality” or “real life,” particularly the real life of women, Corinna’s abortion in Am. 2.13–14 qualifies as an instance of elegy’s fictions engaging with their analogous external realities. On these poems, see Gamel 1989. 33. Halporn (1993: 210 n. 24) rightly warns, speaking of the courtesans in Menander and Plautus, that we must “avoid confusing them with women who belonged to that social and economic group in Athens and Rome. In the absence of supporting external evidence, it would be a contravention of standard historical methodological principles to attempt to write social history from these comedies” (emphasis original). Indeed, and it would be lunacy to attempt to do so on the basis of elegy, which avoids contact with social reality. I will argue, however, that elegy regularly shows its recognition of certain aspects of the lives of women in “that social and economic group” in Rome. 34. Prop. 2.4.17–18 specifies that love of boys is less dangerous than love of girls; Ov. Ars 2.683–84 claims that sex with boys is a less interesting challenge (if only in terms of timing) than sex with women. And Prop. 3.12 marks elegy as more concerned with the love of women than the love of men or boys: it criticizes the man who could leave a faithful woman to go off on a profitable military mission. No similar remark anywhere in elegy acknowledges the generic status of male love objects as poetic love objects equivalent to the docta puella.

Notes to Pages 10–11

/

245

35. For example: tener, 1.4.58 (tender); blanditiis, 1.4.71 (flatteries); torquet, lento . . . amore, 1.4.81 (“tortures [me] with unresponsive love”); tenero, 1.8.51 (tender); ludebat, 1.8.71 (deceived); formosis, 1.9.6 (beautiful boys); formam, 1.9.17 (beauty); flevisse, 1.9.29 (wept); teneros . . . pedes, 1.9.30 (tender feet); blanditias, 1.9.77 (flatteries); vinctum, 1.9.79 (chained); regna (1.9.80). 36. Oddly, Veyne (1988) asserts that Tibullus’s homosexuality, inferred from Lilja’s 1965 biographical reading of Tibullus, is proof that “the elegists’ lives have nothing to do with their poetry” (241, n. 46). He remarks without textual reference that if he did “conclude that he [Tibullus] did prefer boys, it is because in his case the causal probabilities converge in an extraordinary way” (145). This reasoning appears to rely on an interpretation of Tibullus as at least semimisogynist, the view that the Tibullan lover-poet “loves Delia only vaguely and in the optative mode” (147), and the argument that the negative portrait of Nemesis suggests that Tibullus came to hate women because of a single woman in his life: “A relationship with a woman may have evoked some attraction in him mixed with a lot of repulsion, so he transformed his own rejection of women into the infidelity of one” (147). But see Bright 1978: 231, contra Lilja 1965 (and thus proleptically contra both Veyne 1988 and Lilja 1983): “[O]f the three erotic relationships [in Tibullus], it is Delia who is distinctively treated, not Marathus.” Such scholarly disagreements indicate both the complexity of sexuality and love in elegy and a lack of consensus on the genre’s treatments of those subjects as well as of women. 37. Priapus, in Tib. 1.4, recommends obsequium (see appendix), which is not involuntary, in the pursuit of boys. The companionship Tibullus’s lover-poet provides Marathus in 1.8 and 1.9, however, is to help him, as a sort of second, in the pursuit of a girl. 38. Tib. 1.1.51–52: o quantum est auri pereat potiusque smaragdi, / quam fleat ob nostras ulla puella vias (“Oh, let however much there is of gold and emeralds be destroyed, rather / than that any girl should weep on account of my travels”). 39. This is, in many ways, the most telling proof that elegy is generically less interested in homoerotic love than in love between men and women, for there is nothing elegy cares more about than poetry. Hence the love object required for poetry is generically more important than the love object merely praised by poetry. See Fineberg 2000: 424, n. 10 on the connections between the “cruel and mercenary nature” of the puer delicatus and “his role as passive love object.” 40. See, e.g., Tib 1.1.59–68, 1.6.85–86, 2.4.45–50; Prop. 1.4.27, 1.12.20, 1.19.11 and 25–26, 2.6.41–42, 2.9.40–46, 2.20 entire, 2.25.9–10, 3.15.46; Ov. Am. 1.3.2, 5, 26, and 2.19.23, 3.11.49; Ov. Ars 1.38, 2.12, 3.579. 41. The lover-poet is aggrieved because Marathus has deceived him with another adult man, for mercenary motives, rather than because Marathus is swooning for a girl. 42. Cairns (1979: 207) notes that the transience of the puer’s attractiveness “increases the urgency of the lover’s passion,” but it also puts a short term limit on that passion and limits it to the erotic. The passion for the puella, however,

246

/

Notes to Pages 11–13

is often described as transcending both sexual desire (for instance, Prop 1.11.23, tu mihi sola domus, tu, Cynthia, sola parentes = “You alone are my home, Cynthia, you alone my parents”) and time (Prop. 1.12.20, Cynthia prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit = “Cynthia was the first, Cynthia will be the end”) and Tib. 1.1.39–60, which imagines the aged lover-poet eventually dying in his puella’s arms. 43. Ov. Am. 1.8.67–68 also mentions young men who are old enough to pursue women but still young enough to be pursued by older men. See Quinn 1972: 247–54 on the changing sexual role of men, from boys to youths to adults; see also Cairns 1979: 147: “[A] beloved turned lover was . . . of great psychological interest to the ancient reader.” This transformation is inconceivable for a female beloved. 44. Horace articulates this pattern more frequently than the elegists; for the looming threat of old age to the puella, see chapter 5. 45. In fact, they usually pray instead either that the puella should return her lover’s affections (Tib. 1.2.63–64) or deserve them (Am. 3.11). Prop. 2.5.5–8 suggests that the lover will leave Cynthia for another woman then immediately acknowledges that his anger will fade; 2.6 ends with his usual declaration of devotion. 46. Stroh (1971: 110–11) considers this a programmatic statement for all of elegy; it serves as the epigram to his book. 47. See, for instance, the persuasion of Am. 2.11.31, in which the lover-poet is attempting to persuade Corinna to abandon her planned overseas voyage: tutius est fovisse torum, legisse libellos (“It’s safer to nurture your bed and read books”). See also Catull. 35, on the girl more learned than Sappho’s Muse (16–17: Sapphica puella / musa doctior) and her passion for the poet Caecilius—a passion conceived by his poetry, but experienced and expressed sexually. 48. For a full discussion of the recusatio, and the way the puella receives it, see chapter 3. 49. On this topic, see also Stroh 1971. He too sees elegy as a genre of utility (Nutzlichkeit) and “courtship poetry” (werbende Dichtung) aimed at sexual persuasion. My study differs from his primarily in attempting to read that persuasion from its intended target’s viewpoint. In addition, Stroh focuses most intensely and extensively on Propertius, but, as I hope to show, sexual persuasion pervades all of Roman love elegy. Insofar as the internal poetic programs of Propertius and Tibullus are persuasive, the famous remark of Day (1938: 71 n. 21) that “the whole of Ovid is rhetorical” may be extended to them as well. 50. On the puella’s reasons for demanding gifts, see both next section, “The Docta Puella—Poetry and Personality,” and chapter 3, section titled “To the Greedy Girl.” But even when elegy ignores the material and social conditions of the puella’s life, as indeed it mostly does, it takes for granted both that an appropriate beloved will need to be persuaded (otherwise she would not be very interesting to elegy—she would be a scortum, a common prostitute, not a domina; see, e.g., Prop. 2.23 or 4.8) and that the typical elegiac puella will demand costly gifts whether or not she needs them.

Notes to Pages 13–16

/

247

51. Gross (1996: 198) renders eloquium as “amatory persuasion,” which it certainly is in elegy. For an overview of amatory persuasion in antiquity, see Gross 1985. 52. Lines 15–17 invoke epic and scientific didaxis, alternate types of poetry. 53. This impasse is a structural and necessary element in elegy, dividing lover and beloved: she demands costly gifts; he tries to persuade her out of her demands. See next section; see also chapter 3, on the greedy girl. 54. See also, among others, blandi carminis obsequio (Prop. 1.8.40: “the flattery of soft song”), carmina lenia (Prop. 1.9.12: “gentle songs”); verba blanda (Ars 1.467–68: “soft words”); dulcibus verbis (Ars 2.152: “sweet words”); blanditias molles auremque iuvantia verba (Ars 2.159: “soft flatteries and words that please the ear”). In poem 3.4 of the Corp. Tib., Apollo instructs the use of both prayer (multa . . . prece, 64), and “soft complaints” (blandas querellas, 75). As Keith (1994: 32) notes, citing specifically blanditias elegosque leves, mea tela, resumpsi (Amores 2.1.21: “Once again I took up flatteries and soft elegies, my weapons”), blanditiae and dulcia verba (Am. 2.19.17) virtually equal “elegiac poems.” Rem. 379 characterizes the genre of love elegy similarly: blanda pharetratos Elegia cantet Amores (“Let soft Elegy sing quivered Cupids”). Elegy thus establishes flattery and “whispered sweet nothings” as tools in sexual persuasion, as of some two thousand years ago. 55. These lines invoke both tragedy and epic, public poetry of a higher nature, but useless in sexual persuasion. 56. Prop. 3.2 likewise boasts of the preference of girls for elegiac verse: miremur, nobis et Baccho et Apolline dextro, / turba puellarum si mea verba colit? (3.2.9–10: “Should we be astonished if, with both Bacchus and Apollo / on my right, the crowd of girls cultivates my words?”). Lynceus here is falling in love with the lover-poet’s own Cynthia; see discussion below, in chapter 2, section on the rival, titled “Identification of the Vir.” 57. Like Am. 1.15, this poem praises all poetry as eternal and includes elegy among the poetic accomplishments of the past. 58. Prop. 2.2 provides an example of this sort of composition, praising Cynthia’s beauty as divine or better. Significantly, its closing distich is a prayer that she will never age; the last lines of 3.25, Propertius’s farewell to Cynthia and elegy, wish just the opposite on her. Prop. 2.3 continues by praising her accomplishments as well; 2.25.1–4 likewise announce the praise-designs of elegy. 59. Typically for Propertius, this poem immediately changes direction in both unpredictable and confusing fashion, by switching to a complaint about the relative values, in a love affair, of fidelity and money. See chapter 3, on the greedy girl. 60. When she refuses, in poem 12, the lover blames the wooden tablets as accursed: his ego commisi nostros insanus amores / molliaque ad dominam verba ferenda dedi! (21–22: “Mad! I entrusted my loves to these tablets? / and gave them soft words to be taken to my mistress!”). Like Prop. 3.23, this poem considers elegiac composition a higher purpose than its opposite occupation—

248

/

Notes to Pages 16–18

business; the amator claims that his failed tablets should actually have belonged to a lawyer or an accountant, the very fate that the Propertian lover-poet fears for his lost tablets in Prop. 3.23. Judith Hallett has reminded me that in this poem, females other than the puella—Nape the slave and the tabellae themselves—operate as instruments of elegy, as indeed Elegia herself does as well, in Am. 3.1; in 3.9, Elegia is personified as a mater of poetry. 61. For this opus, he proposes a reading audience of lovers both male and female: me legat in sponsi facie non frigida virgo / et rudis ignoto tactus amore puer; / atque aliquis iuvenum, quo nunc ego, saucius arcu / agnoscat flammae conscia signa suae / miratusque diu “quo” dicat “ab indice doctus / composuit casus iste poeta meos?” (2.1.5–10: “Let a girl who is not cool in her promised lover’s face read me / and an inexperienced boy, touched by unfamiliar passion; / and let one of the young men wounded by the same arrow as I am now / recognize the overt marks of his own passion / and having marveled for some time, let him say, ‘Taught by what informant / has that poet composed my catastrophes?’ “). 62. In the context of elegy, ingenium (one’s talent) means poetic production. 63. Here Ovid puns on the two meanings of the word fulmen, lightning-bolt and door bolt. See appendix for the Gigantomachy. 64. Usually the elegists fear the sorts of speech that draw down the moon and so on; here they seem of the same order as elegy itself. See appendix on the legendary magic powers of song and incantation. 65. See also the speech of Elegia in 3.1, to Tragoedia: quam tu non poteris duroreserare cothurno, / haec est blanditiis ianua laxa meis (45–46: “The door you couldn’t unlock with your harsh tragic rhythm / has been softened by my flatteries”). 66. These words closely echo another programmatic recusatio of Prop. 3.4, in which the lover-poet rejoices that the Roman victory over the Far East will bring great celebration into Rome, and will offer an enormous reward to the men who fought in the battle (3.4.3: magna, viri, merces); but his main interest in this occasion is that he can watch the triumphal procession from his window, reclining in his girlfriend’s lap. 67. Am. 2.18 demonstrates the same principles by dramatizing them: the lover-poet tells his epicizing friend Macer how his puella disrupted his own grand poetic production in a very immediate fashion—though he told her to go away so he could write epic, she curled up in his lap and wept. On his subsequent attempt to write tragedy, the divine power of his girlfriend was equally ruinous (17: dominae numen . . . iniquae), with the result that he determines either to write a handbook of love or mythic love letters—in other words, either Ovid’s own Ars amatoria or Heroides. See appendix on militia amoris. 68. There are several prior steps, in Ars 1.1–454: first, find the girl; second, get to know her ancilla, who will supply you with information about her and will mention your name to her; third, choose the right time for your approaches, because the wrong time can be disastrously expensive. These steps all occur before the lover and the puella have actually begun courting.

Notes to Pages 19–20

/

249

69. This is the lover’s primary goal, as the praeceptor has just declared: hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi (Ars 1.453) 70. This, of course, is the girl to whom a hopeful lover can quote Propertius: elige cui dicas, “tu mihi sola places” (Ars 1.42: “Choose the type of girl to whom you can say, ‘You’re the only one for me’ “); the second half of the pentameter quotes directly from Prop. 2.7.19. Such a description further marks the docta puella as generic, a product and function of elegiac poetry. 71. The Latin here contains a pun on the word numeros, which means both number and meter and thus especially identifies elegy as blanda, soft and flattering. 72. Speech and general behavior are to be gentle when a young lover is courting: dextera praecipue capit indulgentia mentes (2.145: “Clever gentleness especially captures the mind”); dos est uxoria lites; / audiat optatos semper amica sonos (2.155–56: “A quarrel is a wife’s dowry; / let a girlfriend always hear desired sounds”); blanditias molles auremque iuvantia verba / affer, ut adventu laeta sit illa tuo (2.159–60: “Bring out soft flatteries and words that please / the ear, so that she will be happy at your arrival”). The example of Odysseus proves the utility of language to lovers: non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulixes, / et tamen aequoreas torsit amore deas (2.123–24: “Odysseus was not handsome, but he was eloquent: / and he still twisted sea-goddesses with love”). 73. Most scholars acknowledge elegy’s persuasive goals, but have not recognized persuasion as its explicit nature. Williams (1980: 128), for example, drily observes of Prop. 2.13.1–8 that its language, content, and technique are Alexandrian, but not its “purpose.” He notes that this poem, which he calls “partly . . . programmatic,” attempts in its second to exercise half the purpose proclaimed in its opening recusatio (to bowl Cynthia over with poetry) and thus “serves a practical purpose in his love affair with Cynthia.” This acknowledgment of programmatic utility goes no further. But cf. Conte 1994: 55 (and 161 n. 32, on Stroh 1971, on Tib. 2.4.19–20: “Elegy had to be ‘useful’; otherwise there was no point in continuing to write it.” See appendix on programmatic poetry. 74. Fitzgerald (1995: 22) points out that “it is a commonplace of Catullan criticism that Lesbia was unable to comprehend Catullus’s conception of love, a conception that it is the critic’s task to explicate.” (A reading from Lesbia’s perspective might well argue that she surely understood it—she just didn’t share it; Skoie [2000: 285] cites Dorothy Parker’s poem “From a Letter from Lesbia” to this effect.) This position of critical superiority to the love object fails, in two respects when it comes to elegy: first, the puella’s required reading list of (see Ars 3.329–46) outweighs that of later critics, as some of its most crucial authors survive only in fragments; second, the critical view that replicates the male lover-poet’s perspective forgets, or fails, to recognize him as based on an already old literary character, the senseless lover whose irrationality make him generically a figure of fun rather than of empathy and identification. The elegiac lover-poet bears no one-to-one correspondence with the comic adulescens (see

250

/

Notes to Pages 20–21

appendix), but he certainly argues that young man’s passions, and passionately; see James 1998b. 75. As Bright (1978: 150) puts it, “ ‘Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today’ is the elegist’s rule”; cf. also McCarthy 1998: 191 n. 24. 76. Still, the dissolution of a specific relationship does not mean that the poet necessarily dismisses the issues of elegy altogether: Ovid and Propertius continue significantly in their later books and works to hash out the gender issues that preoccupy elegy, and specifically the problem of male perspective versus female perspective on those very issues. That is, Propertius’s self-proclaimed nonamatory or postamatory volume, book 4, obsessively reverts to and rehearses many of the same gender issues of his previous three books of poetry; Ovid’s works show a consistent interest in gender issues, in female sexual desire, and in the responses of women to both male sexual desire (to such an extent that many episodes in his Metamorphoses center on the way women fear it but cannot avoid it) and to their own desire (against which they struggle much more than the men and male gods do). 77. Keith (1992: 334–35), noting that the ancients assumed the word “elegy” to derive from G G lAgein (“e e legein”), a Greek refrain of mourning and lamentation (a derivation Luck [1982: 109] calls “fanciful”), remarks that elegy must complain: “what is there to write about, after all, when a love affair goes smoothly? All too often, the genre seems to depend upon the frustration of the lover/poet.” Indeed it does, and the agent of that frustration is the generically noncompliant puella. 78. And, of course, Roman Comedy, the plots of which are chiefly dedicated to procuring citizen marriages for its male protagonists, again offers a literary precedent for the dissipation of the elegiac love affair, as the courtesan cannot be a permanent life-partner for a citizen male. 79. See James 1998a. The historical poets may have been involved with women from any social class, some of whom could well have been respectable wives like Clodia, widows (James 1998a: 11 n. 37), or divorcées, but generically, the poetic, fictive elegiac puella is, as I shall argue here, represented as a courtesan. This is thus the place to correct my own prior erroneous statements: first, in describing Corinna as an “upper-class Roman woman” (James 1997: 68) and, second, in remarking that “it should not automatically be assumed that the dominae of elegy are meretrices” (James 1998a: 11 n. 37). Relative to her hairdresser, Cypassis (the subject at hand), Corinna enjoys a higher social and material status, but generically she is not an elite Roman woman. Roman men, and for all we know Roman poets, may have had affairs with elite women, but the generic female of Roman love elegy must be a courtesan, as her profession constitutes the primary barrier between herself and her lovers: she cannot marry them because she cannot legally marry anyone; she must demand money from them constantly, as they are her only source of support. As I have noted below, greed is the only complaint not made against Lesbia. Why not? She has no need to be greedy. The docta puella does. It was precisely the process of reading elegy from her perspective that laid bare to me the genre’s

Notes to Pages 21–22

/

251

obsession with money and material girls; hence I am glad to correct here my previous errors. 80. Halporn (1993: 201–2) considers “courtesan” an outmoded euphemism not applicable to the women of Menander or Plautus, rightly arguing (202) that the meretrices of Plautus “might better be described as women with a commodity to sell, combining the elements of sex and companionship.” He omits Terence’s courtesans, specifically Bacchis and Thais (of Hecyra and Eunuchus); I am not certain his description applies to them, and in any case it is too long to use on a regular basis, so I have chosen to stick with the word “courtesan” to describe the elegiac puella. 81. See Randall 1979. It is worth noting here both that these names differ radically from the Greek names of the courtesans in New Comedy and that the name of the only specified elegiac puer, Marathus, is not significant in the same fashion. Hence, contra Newman 1977: 283, the nomen elegiacum is not a means of being “given personhood.” It is a sign of a generic nature. 82. And as McKeown (1984: 21) points out, “Corinna” is a Latinized diminutive for kore, the Greek word meaning girl, puella in Latin; “Corinna” is also metrically equivalent to puella. This set of equivalences further genericizes Corinna. Levine (1981–82: 37) likewise notes this genericity to the elegiac puella, particularly in Ovid, who “portrays generic women, his Corinna, the eternal Kore.” 83. The date of composition for the Heroides is indeterminate but is in any case anterior to the final versions of the Amores and Ars amatoria, as witness their inclusion in Am. 2.18 and in the puella’s reading list at Ars 3.345. It is improbable that the Heroides exercised no ultimate influence on Ovid’s elegiac love poetry. 84. See James 1997: 61 and Oliensis 1997: 152. 85. Tib. 1.1.52 further marks the docta puella as generic, for though the elegy names Delia as the present beloved, the lover-poet is prepared to give up risky but lucrative travel and labor for any girl, ulla puella. Mea would fit the meter here equally well (on the grounds that a short syllable can take the place of a long syllable, as a breve in longo), so I take ulla to be generically significant, part of a gesture designating a class of women as elegiac beloveds. 86. Elegy adverts to the learned girl at Prop. 1.7.11, 2.11.6, 2.13.7–14; Ov. Am. 2.4.17; Ov. Ars 2.281( cf. also Catull. 35.16–17). Again, cf. Ov. Ars—doctae, rarissima turba, puellae (2.281: “learned girls, the scarcest crowd of all”). Indeed, Ars 3.329–46 prescribes learning and literary appreciation as necessary qualifications for this class of women: the praeceptor provides his female readers with a virtual Ph.D. reading list of Greek and Latin authors and genres to be learned (a list ending prominently with Ovid’s own Amores and Heroides). Such study marks the docta puella’s doctitude as a generic necessity of Roman love elegy. There are nonelegiac learned women in elegy, such as Arethusa in Prop. 4.3, but she is not part of elegiac persuasion, so she falls outside my scope here; I note, however, that she describes herself as puella (4.3.72)—she may in fact be an elegiac puella under contract to a military man away on a mission. The

252

/

Notes to Pages 22–24

learned girl of Catull. 35, unlike the elegiac puella, appears to be actively seeking the poet rather than receiving his proposals; on the other hand, the Ovidian speaker speculates that there are women reading elegy who might receive him in exchange for poetry, as a means of gaining a reputation (2.17.27–30; see also Prop. 2.5.5–8). 87. Cf. Baker (1973: 111), who points out that non stulta puella (Prop. 3.23.17) is a “periphrasis for docta puella.” Such a periphrasis emphasizes the puella’s intelligence as well as her erudition. Cf. also Prop. 2.23.21–22. 88. Fitzgerald (1995: 22) remarks: “As any of the respectable bald heads could have told Yeats, Catullus’s Lesbia was anything but ignorant, hence the pseudonym that associates her with Sappho.” 89. Cf. Kennedy 1993: 72: “The beloved has her own ‘strategies’ for negotiating her lover’s attempts discursively to maneouvre her, as we shall see. The beloved’s wishes, impulses and desires will not coincide with and be a perfect match for those of the lover.” As he says, the “lover’s discourse . . . work[s] to depersonalize the beloved, to make of her a tractable object.” Her job is to resist that operation. 90. Ovid articulates this requirement in Am. 2.19 and Ars 3. The various lena elegies likewise spell out an explicit logic to this strategy, although they provide a different motive. See chapter 2, section on the lena, “The Evil Housemother.” 91. Hence elegy’s dependence on appeals to pathos—the lover’s feelings of misery or the puella’s feelings of pity—which are less easily critiqued and refuted than logical arguments or mythical exempla. On this form of implicit persuasion, see chapter 4. 92. See also Hallett 1989. 93. On the concepts of woman as poem and poem as woman, see Wyke 1987b and 1990; on Elegia as the embodiment of the elegiac puella and the elegiac poem, see Keith 1994. 94. The elegiac meter can of course serve other purposes, as in Tibullus’s celebration poems or Ovid’s exile poetry; but the genre of Roman love elegy absolutely depends upon the docta puella—perhaps another reason that the puer drops out of elegy, as a love object, after Tibullus book 1. 95. See, among others, Prop. 2.1, Ov. Am. 1.3, Tib. 2.3 and 2.4, on the beloved as the inspiration of elegy. 96. On love slavery, see chapter 4; on love clientela, see Oliensis 1997. 97. Typically of Ovid, this poem undercuts its own argument by leaving out the name of the woman in question; hence it underscores the generic nature of the docta puella, who is learned but fictional, or even, as in this case, anonymous. On other girls wishing to have a name through elegy, see Prop. 2.5.5–6 and Ov. Am. 2.17.27–30. 98. Catullus’s Lesbia may seem more real and more fully realized than any (or even all) of Horace’s girlfriends, but this very fact, a fact of appearance, is one of the elements separating Catullus from the elegists, who deliberately avoid treating their dominae as specific women with lives outside the texts.

Notes to Pages 24–25

/

253

99. He further specifies that he has sent learned poetry (3.23.1–2) to women, and that the best recipient is a talkative but not foolish girl (17–18). This poem does not identify Cynthia as a love object—indeed, it states that the lover-poet has courted many girls with his learned poems; thus it is even stronger evidence for the generic learnedness of the elegiac puella in general. Likewise Ov. Am. 2.17.28, multae per me nomen habere volunt (“Many girls want to have a name through me”) suggests a wide population of appropriate female love objects, who must generically be readers of poetry. And cf., as noted above, Am. 2.11.31–32: tutius est fovisse torum, legisse libellos, / Threiciam digitis increpuisse lyram (“It’s safer to nurture your bed, to read books, / to strike the Thracian lyre with your fingers”). As always, the word libellos signifies slender volumes of poetry, rather than great tomes of history or philosophy. This association of a woman’s sexual activities, reading, and musical practice is a hallmark of the elegiac docta puella. Her doctitude helps to mark her as a courtesan, as respectable women of all classes were generally less welleducated than that poetic fiction, the docta puella. Sallust’s oft-cited portrait of Sempronia (Catilin. 25) demonstrates a limit to the degree of the elite woman’s appropriate learning in literature, music, and dance. See Hemelrijk 1999 on the education of elite women and on the reading habits of women both elite and declassé. 100. Cf. Prop. 2.16.11–12, Cynthia . . . semper amatorum ponderat una sinus (“Cynthia alone always weighs the purses of her lovers”). 101. In elegy, the lena is the old woman who advises the puella to be ruthlessly mercenary; she is based on similar figures in Roman Comedy (see chapter 2). Although in theory she is the female equivalent to the male pimp (leno), in practice she was not. No satisfactory translation for this word exists (“bawd” and “procuress,” both common renditions, are antiquated and, in any case, not accurate depictions of the elegiac lena), hence I have chosen not to translate this word but to retain the Latin. 102. Cf. the advice of Dipsas to Corinna at Am. 1.8.67–68, that if she wishes to be generous to an attractive young man—that is, to receive him without charge—she should instead require him to bring a gift that he has received from his own older male suitor. 103. In Hecyra, Terence dramatizes this structure in a brief dialogue between two courtesans, the young and idealistic Philotis, and the older, more cynical Syra, who describes men as advorsarios (72) and advises her to have no compassion, to use the same tactics against men that men use against women: blanditiae (68). See also Plaut. Mostell. 186–228. 104. See, e.g., Prop. 2.16.11–12, and Ars 1.419–436, about the countless ways that women (here specifically identified as meretrices, prostitutes) have of getting money out of their lovers’ purses. 105. As noted above, this fact marks another difference between the docta puella and Catullus’s Lesbia, who suffers his constant reproach on account not of her greed but her sexual independence. Catullus acknowledges the professional courtesan as a common part of the social and sex lives of the elite men of

254

/

Notes to Pages 25–28

his circle (cf., e.g., 10, 41, 42, 69, 110) and thus suggests a generic nature to her that he does not identify in Lesbia. 106. With typical hyperbole, Ovid’s praeceptor describes this class of ladies as impossibly huge: Rome has as many girls as there are stars in the sky, birds in the trees, and fish in the water (Ars 1.57–59), though he also notes that the docta puella belongs to a very small crowd, rarissima turba (2.281; rara being a term of elegiac flattery, this remark may be as much flattery of the appropriate reading female as warning to the prospective young male lover), he goes on to say that many want to be doctae. Herter (1960: 77) points out, however, that upper-class men did routinely become involved with courtesans. Elite men (like the elegists themselves) presumably sought long-term relationships with women who could hold their own in a conversation, which would mean relatively educated women. 107. Davidson (1977: 124–25) makes the same point of Athenian hetairai. See James forthcoming (“Courtesan”). 108. New Comedy offers no single dominant perspective (indeed, its individual protagonists are often the greatest objects of fun; Veyne [1988] argues that readers were expected to laugh at the male actors of elegy). See appendix. 109. See Barsby 1996 and James 1997. Once the generic elegiac characters— puella, lover-poet, rival, lena, occasional friend—are identified (see chapter 2) and its characteristic lexicon of lament (see chapter 4) is recognized, the plots of elegy become predictable, inevitable. 110. For more on the narratee, see Prince 1982: 16–26, especially 20–21 on the narratee as a character within a text; see also Prince 1973. 111. Since the end of book 2 invokes the narratees of book 3, using the second person plural (vos, line 746), it is clear that even within this poetic fiction, the women of book 3 not only can read books 1 and 2, but that they have read them, as they ask for similar instruction aimed at themselves (2.745–46). We may infer further information about both these narratees from the final chapter in Ovid’s erotodidaxis, the Remedia amoris (Cure for Love). Though Ars 2 and 3 both refer to the possibility that a puella might genuinely be in love with a man and suffer as a result (see Ars 2.445–66 on wounded female jealousy; Ars 3.501–502, 683–84, and the following exemplum of Procris, 685–746), the Remedia’s narratee is almost exclusively male. Does this structure mean that the male lover has a more fragile heart than the puella, or does it mean that the praeceptor Amoris is interested only in helping unhappy men? I will argue in chapter 3 that male disillusion with the elegiac woman is inevitable, because she must ask for gifts and money, which he will not want to give. And indeed, that request is ultimately the unforgivable offense: cf. Rem. 299–306, 321–22. 112. Though many an individual poem addresses someone else, many of these turn from the other addressee to the puella herself: Prop. 2.8 begins by addressing an unnamed friend, but turns at line 13 to Cynthia; Am. 2.19, addressed to the puella’s vir, turns to her in 19–22. Tibullus’s poems regularly move almost kaleidoscopically from one addressee to another but almost always speak to the puella at some point.

Notes to Pages 28–30

/

255

113. Though Bal (1997: 142–44) prefers”focalization,” rather than “point of view” or “perspective,” I have chosen to stay with these older terms for two reasons: first, the focalizer of elegy is actually the male speaker, and second, elegy’s generic narratee is, in a sense, larger than an individual puella. Sometimes, in fact, she is virtually a collective; see Tib. 2.3.49, Prop. 2.5.5–8 and 3.13.1, Am. 2.4, and Ars passim. Since my argument in this study is that the puella’s profession and its consequent temporal and financial exigencies will generally govern her reaction to poetic persuasion (sometimes, perhaps, in conflict with an individual inclination), I will treat the different puellae as exemplars of a class rather than as individual women (see the works of Wyke [1987a, 1987b, 1989a, 1989b, 1990, 1994, 2002] on this issue). Note that the male lover-poets act rather like members of a class themselves, as indeed they are, in a literary sense, for they take the position of the enamored heroes of Roman Comedy (see James 1998b). Thus I speak of generic perspective or viewpoint, rather than individual focalizers. For excellent applications of the concept of focalization to Latin poetry, see Fowler 1990 and Gaisser 1995. 114. The special issue of Helios (vol. 25, 1998) is entitled “Constructions of Gender and Genre in Roman Comedy and Elegy.” Maria Wyke’s groundbreaking articles have been updated in Wyke 2002, which I was able to review only briefly; Miller 2003 was still forthcoming when this book went to press. 115. As I have argued elsewhere (forthcoming [“Courtesan”]), the very category of the independent courtesan destabilizes the elite Roman male: she— unlike a wife, a possible wife, a slave, or a streetwalking prostitute—is the only woman he needs to persuade, the only woman whose consent is required for the sexual and emotional relationships that elegy so urgently seeks. Although a given man may outgrow elegiac love, as Propertius’s speaker claims to do in 3.25 and Ovid’s in Amores 1.15, and a given woman will age past her period of sexual attractiveness (as indeed is often predicted for elegiac puellae) and thus will have to retire from the field, the two social categories remain: elite male and independent courtesan, constantly in a struggle between her financial needs and his sexual and emotional desires. 116. Though Catullus is an important influence, indeed a precursor, to Roman elegy, I do not include him in its main body, as his poetic practice is primarily lyric, both metrically and thematically. His work is often relevant to elegy, though, so I will make reference to him occasionally. 117. See, for example, Stahl 1985, Cahoon 1988, Hallett 1973, and Gamel 1989, among many others. Buchan 1995, Davis 1995 and 1999, O’Gorman 1997, and Sharrock 1994 offer political readings of Ovid, in particular. 118. The apparently inescapable inequality in private relations may well be part of elegy’s dissent from the standard political and social structures of Roman society. I will discuss this issue in my concluding chapter. 119. On the chronology of Roman love elegy, see McKeown 1987: 74–89. I take the view that much of elegy is composed synchronically, though it was not published in simple chronological progression. That is, the elegists composed and performed their poems, read (and attended performances of) one another’s

256

/

Notes to Pages 30–32

poems, and responded poetically to one another’s work, in a lively, regularly circulating process of production from about 28 to 16 b.c.e. Though both Propertius and Tibullus published well before the second edition of Ovid’s Amores came out, the circumstances of public performances, circulation, and consumption of unpublished elegy meant that the elegists had access to each other’s works, even if not in final form, while they were composing themselves—hence elegy’s fluid, responsive, interactive nature. 120. These terms are defined in the appendix. A complete treatment of any one of the subjects and issues in chapters 1 to 3 could well consume an entire book-length study; see, for instance, Copley 1956, a monograph on the paraclausithyron. I have aimed, therefore, at opening up the docta puella’s perspective, rather than exploring it in every instance of a given topic—at suggestiveness rather than exhaustiveness. Thus I do not always provide an example of each topos from each elegist, though I identify relevant or parallel passages elsewhere in elegy. 121. Cf., e.g., Fredrick 1997: 190: “[E]legy exposes the semiotic dilemma of the male body defined by a vanishing capacity for political action.” I suggest in my concluding chapter that elegy shows the female citizen body as likewise diminished in its freedom and significance, in a fashion that has implications for all Roman citizens, male or female; paradoxically, the courtesan’s body is more free than the elite woman’s. 122. Hence, as I noted above, I often treat elegy as if it were a near-Homeric genre of oral-formulaic poetry—a sort of Alexandrian literary game played by both poets and readers in a collaboration that perhaps offers a space for reimagining themselves in a rapidly changing culture. See below. 123. Wyke (1994: 122–23; updated in Wyke 2002: 181–82) points to elegy’s consciousness of both reading and listening audiences, citing McKeown 1987: 63–73 on the public recitations of the elegists. See also Hemelrijk 1999: 44–45, 147–148, 244–45 n. 107, 319 nn. 7 and 8; Quinn 1982; and White 1993, which gives an overview of the social milieu of the poets. 124. On performance of, and performativity in, elegy, see Gamel 1998. 125. He excludes Ovid, much of whose poetry was read by, in Conte’s words (1994: 136) , “a vast anonymous public.” This mass audience, however, postdates Ovid’s initial interactions with elegy; certainly the other elegists knew the first edition of the Amores. 126. Though it has been thought, and said, that Ovid violates the patterns of elegy laid down by Propertius and Tibullus (who are more often believed to have actually been in love), I hope to prove otherwise here, especially in chapter 5. Lee (1962: 149–50) demonstrates that unidentified passages from the elegists can be very difficult to identify, that Tibullus and Propertius can produce Ovidian-style verse and sentiment. Such apparent interchangeability further suggests the nearly independent nature of the genre, as if it were, as a whole, free of authors. 127. See Keith 1992. 128. Cf. Skinner 1997b: 25: “Roman discourses on sex and gender had

Notes to Pages 32–34

/

257

largely to do with the currents of political, social, and economic power and their erratic, seemingly arbitrary, workings. Disturbing changes in the social milieu were represented as deviations from sexual norms; violations of ‘natural’ gender relations bear witness to the confusion caused by economic realignment and patterns of class mobility. Laments of distressed mythic heroines and ineffectual lovers seem to project anxieties triggered by a radical shift in the structure of government.” 129. Cf. Wyke 1989a: 169–70 on how elegy “persistently brings social and political poetry and its agents on to the literary stage, and exploits such politically resonant metaphors as militia and servitium amoris.” 130. For a brief review of Greek elegy, see Luck 1982: 109–10. 131. For the longest surviving fragment of Gallus’s poetry, see Anderson, Parsons, and Nisbet 1979. 132. I borrow Conte’s description of genre (1994: 114–16), always in the case of elegy including the proviso that, unlike lyric, it clings stubbornly to its single meter. Hence I do not take the view, as expressed by Miller (1994) and in correspondence, that elegy is a subset of lyric—on this matter, we have agreed to disagree. 133. On the specific chronologies of composition by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, see McKeown 1987: 74–89; he establishes it as more than likely that Propertius and Tibullus knew Ovid’s early elegies (i.e., the first edition of the Amores) very well. I thus take it that Ovid exercised an influence on them, as well as they on him. 134. Cf. White 1993: 25: “Verse-writing was to some degree a sport in which the participants vied with or spelled one another, reciting and criticizing by turn.” 135. Cf. Leach 1994: 340–42, on how the effeminization of the young lover Sybaris in Hor. Ode 1.8 “might be taken to reflect the somewhat ambivalent career prospects of the young Augustan male, who, while being encouraged to pursue an old-fashioned educational regimen, was actually being prepared to dedicate his energies to a new governmental regime where the rules and expectations of offices and rewards were in a state of change.” Elegy’s senior counterpart to Sybaris suffers at least equal confusion about the purposes of both his Romanitas and his potential responsibility to, and participation in, the devolving forms of public life in the Principate. (See appendix for these terms.) I will ultimately argue that Roman love elegy’s gender issues offer the elegists and their audiences a way of considering these problems through the poetic medium of the docta puella. 136. See again the remarks of Miller and Platter (1999a: 446), quoted above (note 24), on the aporetical nature of elegy. 137. Culham (1990: 162) warns against attempts at “new readings” that “deny the significance of the lived reality of many women whose lives embody a set of contradictory images, aspirations, imperatives, and implicit, or even carefully hidden, negotiations with power” (an excellent description of the elegiac docta puella). She goes on to say: “Literature is not more complicated, more

258

/

Notes to Pages 34–36

demanding, more meaningful, nor more difficult to negotiate than lived reality, and feminist scholarship especially ought to be careful not to devalue the competence, skills, and intelligence of women who are outside the poststructuralist preserves by placing excessive values on male-authored texts and their manipulations.” I have attempted elsewhere (James 1997) to demonstrate the utility of a “new reading” of a “male-authored text” in recuperating at least part of the lived reality of such women; I hope to do so again here.

2. men, women, poetry, and money 1. On the social status of the historical poets (and hence, their elegiac alter egos), see White 1993: 6–14. 2. My discussion of the vir is detailed, as he has often been taken for a husband. As it is a linchpin of my argument throughout this book that the puella is generically a courtesan and hence unmarriageable, the apparent evidence of marital status requires examination. 3. In the Remedia amoris, Ovid’s praeceptor Amoris recommends, as a cure for love, a return to business—not work but supervising and worrying about business (negotium, 135–68). The elegiac lover-poet is by definition a man of leisure (otium), if he so desires; cf. Conte 1994: 60–61, and White 1993, as noted above. 4. In addition, he keeps up with fashion—see the stylishly loose toga at Tib. 2.3.78; on the loose toga, see Murgatroyd 1990 on Tib. 1.6.39–40, citing Cic. Cat. 2.22 and Macr. 3.13.4. In order to qualify for the status of knight (eques), a man had to have a census evaluation of 400,000 sesterces (see OCD article, “equites”), enough to keep him comfortable, if, apparently, not enough for the rapacious puella’s demands. 5. Prop. 1.7.11, 2.11.6, 2.13.7–14; Ov. Am. 2.4.17, Ars 2.281; cf. Catull. 35.16–17. 6. On which, see Veyne 1988; Luck 1974; Kennedy 1993: ch. 5 in general; Konstan 1994: 150–59 and the sources he cited there: Hemelrijk 1999: 79–84; Lyne 1980: ch. 1. 7. See the works of Wyke (1987a, 1987b, 1989a, 1989b, 1990, 1994, 2002). The scholarly effort to differentiate by status the named love objects of elegy (a dedicated if pointless endeavor) have been recently revived by Laigneau (1999: 199–202), resulting in the identification of Propertius’s Cynthia as not only a respectable matrona but one of elite lineage as well. This deduction is based on lines 1–4 of poem 1.16, in which the door claims to have displayed a consular military victory. Laigneau considers it impossible that a courtesan could live in a consular house (202). She further cites Prop. 2.32.41–42, in which a woman is accused of stuprum (a sexual crime), as evidence of Cynthia’s respectability. But triumphal honors remained with the house when its owner moved; cf. Mark Antony’s desire to own Pompey’s house with its consular spoils (Cic. Phil. 2.68). It is not necessarily impossible that a courtesan could have lived in a former consular house. Griffin (2001: 21) records that the famous courte-

Notes to Pages 36–37

/

259

san La Belle Otero (1868–1965) successfully demanded from a lover “the priceless long diamond necklace that had once belonged to the former queen, MarieAntoinette.” The use of words like stuprum (Prop. 3.22.41) or adulterium (Prop. 2.29.38) does not identify any elegiac woman as respectable. See below, on elegy’s adoption and misapplication of vocabulary normally belonging to marriage. 8. Caprice, for example, is a common complaint of the elegists; but as Davidson (1997: 125–26) remarks, the courtesan “must always have freedom to exercise her whim and keep alive the possibility, however small, of doing something for nothing or of not returning the favor [of a gift] at all.” Hence caprice is a professional necessity. 9. See Wyke 1990: 118ff. and Keith 1994 on the resemblance of the docta puella to elegy; both are levis, tenuis, elegans (light, slender, elegant). 10. Cf. Veyne 1988: 1–2, of the elegiac puella: “[I]t is taken for granted that she distributes her favors as she likes. So . . . this heroine . . . is not a noble lady. . . . [but] someone irregular, a woman one did not marry.” See also Konstan: the elegiac puella is “to all appearances, free of paternal control, and of the control of a male guardian” (1994: 159). Further, the treatment (not to say the behavior) of the elegiac puella could not be applied to upper-class women. Ovid particularly exposes this fact when he deals with physical violence used against the girl (Ars 1.664–706, Am. 1.7, but cf. also Prop. 2.15. 17–20, as well as 2.8.25–28, in which the lover-poet threatens to kill Cynthia); see chapter 5. In the context of contemporary Roman marriage customs, which allowed women fairly easy access to divorce, such physical abuse of elite women is unlikely. Moreover, as I note below, the elite woman is not likely to be as grasping and demanding as the elegiac puella, because she does not need expensive gifts and money from her lovers. It is worth noting that Catullus’s poetry records almost every imaginable charge against Lesbia, except for greed. Nor does it threaten her with the prospect of a lonely and impoverished old age— an imprecation standard to elegy. 11. Although there is a long practice of concubinage in Rome, the docta puella is obviously not a member of that class. See Rousselle 1992: 320 on the requirements for concubines: “Rome elaborated a code of concubinage that imposed duties on concubines not unlike those required of wives. . . . The concubine was required to be faithful to her master. . . . Concubines dressed as wives did: by covering their heads and bodies they showed that they belonged to a citizen.” 12. Cf. Adams 1983: 344–48, to the effect that until the late Republic (and indeed long after, in prose), puella described a female child, but that “[b]y the late Republic the word is frequently applied euphemistically to women past puberty, who in the context may be treated as of easy virtue. Indeed it approaches the meaning ‘whore’ often, or at least is used of women who are whores” (346), citing Hor. Sat. 1.5.82. He notes, 347 n. 76, that in elegy puella “is the standard word for the mistress of the poet.” Hence, to say that elegiac “[p]uellae willingly give up their virtue for profit” (Greene 1998: 108) rather

260

/

Notes to Page 37

misses the point, for the generic elegiac puella cannot afford virtue and lacks the status for enjoying it. If “the whole amatory enterprise is . . . corrupt” (Greene 1998: 107–8), and I would agree to some extent that it is, that is so because Rome’s strict class and gender ideologies force women like the elegiac puella, born outside respectable society, to make their living by selling their sexual favors, not because—Prop. 3.13 notwithstanding—greed and mercantilism have corrupted respectable women. 13. I have argued this elsewhere (James 1998b). As Wyke (1989b: 39) notes, the “female subject that the poetic narrative constructs is not an independent woman of property but one dependent on a man for gifts,” citing Prop. 2.16.11–12. She also (1989a: 28) notes, citing Lyne 1979, that elegy studies have in fact recognized the relation of the docta puella to the courtesan. See also Gaisser 1971: 210–11 on the specific elegiac lexicon of purchasing sex; to her list of words (aurea, admittere, adducere), I would add even mater, used ironically, on the model of Satyricon 7.1, to mean lena. It seems worth noting also that frater means lover, rather than brother, in both the Satyricon and 3.1.23 of the Corp. Tib. These usages suggest a specific usage to standard family nomenclature within the Roman lexicon of the irregular, or extramarital, sexual relationships—relationships that often include a well-populated familia in the courtesan’s household. In this lexicon, vir, maritus, and coniunx cannot be firmly identified as denoting husbands; Luck (1969: 104) notes that the “terms vir or coniunx, ‘man’ and ‘wife,’ have no well-defined meaning in Latin lovepoetry”; see discussion below of the lexicon of marriage in elegy. Even the relationship of the couple in Am. 3.4 is not marital. See Copley 1956, as noted above; see also chapter 3, section on the rival. 14. See, for example, Cic. Ad Fam. 9.26. Though he was astonished that Volumnia stayed to dinner with the men, he was not offended enough at her presence to leave in protest. He found the whole business so exciting that he stayed up late at home to write a letter about it before going to bed. Volumnia, said to have been the mistress of Antony and Gallus, seems a sort of model for the docta puella; see Kennedy 1993: 88–89, especially on how the name Lycoris, assumed to be Gallus’s pseudonym for Volumnia, “could say something about both the beloved’s socio-sexual status and the role she played” in Gallus’s poetry (88). Volumnia Cytheris, as an actress, is assumed to be no better than a prostitute, though as della Corte (1982: 55) notes, she was not actually a prostitute. Still, she had to support herself once she had left her patron Volumnius’s protection. Hispala Faecenia, in Livy 39.9–19, written in the same period as the elegists, likewise offers a model of an extramarital sex partner for a citizen male, Aebutius. Significantly, the relationship appears to have been not a mere commercial contract but a genuine liaison not frowned upon even by Roman officials (perhaps not surprising, given the service she performed for Roman social and sexual mores in exposing the shocking goings-on of the Dionysia). Livy notes that her character was of a higher order than her profession. Lyne (1980: ch. 1) gives a review of the arrival into Roman society of the Greek-style hetaira or courtesan. See also Chelidon in Cicero’s Verrine orations: she is learned

Notes to Pages 37–38

/

261

in law rather than art and poetry, but she is certainly like the docta puella in other respects, at least according to Cicero, who calls her a meretrix at 5.34 and 5.38. 15. Hor. Sat. 1.2 is another, and more immediate, literary source for the elegists. Interestingly, it treats all types of women—wives, freedwomen, actresses, and courtesans—as equally risky to a lover, and designates streetwalking prostitutes and house slaves as the safest outlet for sexual urges. This satiric approach obviously rules out any sort of love relationship, much less persuasion conducted by poetry. 16. See James 1998a and the sources cited there; see also Gutzwiller 1985 and Konstan 1994: 150–59, which describes other attempts to locate the elegiac woman within historical Roman class structures. Prop. 2.23 strongly suggests that the typical elegiac puella is like the comic courtesan, esp. in lines 17–18, where she is depicted as demanding money to be gotten from her lover’s father. Ovid’s praeceptor amoris identifies Thalea, the muse of comedy, as his muse, at Ars 1.264. 17. See Luck 1974: 19–20 on the different types of comic courtesans. Davidson (1997) well distinguishes between elegant, high-class courtesans and other women who lived by their bodies; see particularly his chapter 4 on the hetaira. Though he discusses Athenian hetairai rather than Roman meretrices, much of his analysis applies to the elegiac docta puella as well. 18. Cf. Bacchis in Terence’s Hecyra and Thais in his Eunuchus; each expresses genuine attachment to the adulescens enamored of her, but also acknowledges inescapable financial pressures. In fact, the term bona meretrix (good courtesan) exists precisely to differentiate the sincere from the grasping. Gilula incorrectly argues that there is no such thing as a bona meretrix in Terence; see the remarks of Rosivach (1998: 188–89 n. 4) on the obfuscating effect of the terms “good” and “bad,” as applied to the courtesans in comedy. See also Henry 1986 on Menander’s courtesans and their generosity of mind and heart, which are clearly visible in Bacchis and Thais as well. Plautus’s meretrices can be overtly grasping, but they are also very clever and rhetorically adept, as well as absolutely clear-eyed about their needs, their present opportunities, and their long-term prospects. Griffin (1985: 118) notes that more than a few comedies feature a “loving meretrix, the girl who refuses to act the rapacious and heartless role which belongs to her.” He cites, n. 20, seven plays featuring such characters. Overall, however, New Comedy does not pretend that such young women can afford to love freely for long. 19. Cf. Thais in Eunuchus, who hopes to gain Chremes’s patronage by restoring to him his long-lost sister. Bacchis of Hecyra gains an alliance of sorts with Laches, the father of her former lover, when she unexpectedly unites that young man with his apparently estranged bride. 20. See Plaut. Mostell., etc. Not coincidentally, the courtesan’s need to remain sexually attractive as long as she can helps to account for the elegiac puella’s apparent fear of pregnancy, stretch marks, and sagging breasts (see Am. 2.14.7–8, Ars 3.81–82 and 785–86, Prop. 2.15.21–22), a fear that makes little

262

/

Notes to Pages 38–40

sense in an elite, marriageable woman. Elegy often adverts to the devastating effects of old age on women (Tib. 2.4.39–44; Prop. 3.25.11–16; Am. 1.8.45–54, 111–15, Ars 3.59–82, 163–66); Ars 2.663–702 describes the advantages of older women and the tactics they employ to hide the signs of age. See chapter 5. 21. See Gutzwiller 1985 on the necessity of luxuries in a courtesan’s life. 22. Edwards (1997: 81) notes that “Propertius . . . suggests that a common prostitute would be much less grasping than his loved one (2.23).” Indeed, but “the half-starved prostitute who sold her body among the tombs of the via Appia” (Edwards 1997: 76–77) has much lower expenses than the elegiac docta puella, and thus asks a lower price. 23. These erotic paintings were not exclusive to houses of prostitution, as people from all levels of society had them (see Clarke 1998). They are, however, standard equipment for the establishments of commercial sex (again, see Clarke 1998), and in New Comedy and elegy they are marked as objects appropriate for a meretrix. Prop. 2.6, which complains of these pictures, begins by comparing Cynthia to the famous Greek courtesans Lais and Phryne, as well as Thais, the eponymous character of a comedy by Menander, and goes on to associate such pictures with female sexual degeneration. 24. Much of the humor of Roman love elegy, to its contemporary audience, would come from just this source, as the elegists depict themselves in the role of that most callow and foolish of men, the comic adulescens. 25. Cf. Griffin 1985: 115: the lover-poets “skirt round the question of payment. . . . [T]alk of ‘presents’ blurs” the issue. 26. See Zagagi 1980: 119–20 on the terminology of gift-giving—words such as beneficium, benignitas, and gratia imply reciprocal relations of a nature more intangible and personal than concubinage and thus function to obligate the puella toward her poet-lover. Griffin (1985: 114–15) notes the disappearance of the pimp (leno) from elegy; his presence would destroy any pretense at mutual love. 27. Not that New Comedy’s plots, in which citizen daughters are miraculously identified at the last second, twins run amok, or slaves trick owners and pimps out of large sums of money, are very realistic. But New Comedy presents social pressure on young men to enter into citizen marriage, and demonstrates prostitution on a range of levels, from flute girl to senior meretrix/hetaira. Konstan (1993) argues that in Menander, and following him in Terence and Plautus, there is a model of a girl who is a prostitute by necessity but whose character is so modest and disciplined that she merits a marital-type relationship, though it cannot be a legal marriage. 28. Elegy’s regular complaints about greed, however, betray its pretenses; in the Ars amatoria and the Remedia amoris, the praeceptor Amoris drops them entirely, assuming the elegiac girl to be a demanding meretrix (Ars 1.419–36, Rem. 301–6 and 317–22); he even advises women to be less rapacious in the beginning of a relationship, so as not to scare away their new lovers (Ars 3.553–54). The only reason a man might wish to fall out of love (and thus have need of the Remedia amoris) is that he suffers the rule of an unworthy girl

Notes to Pages 40–42

/

263

(Rem. 15). What makes a girl unworthy? She asks too much of her lover (Rem. 301–2, 321–22). 29. Am. 1.4 seems an exception, but the very anonymity of the participants, and the absence of any detail about them, underscores the generic nature of elegiac social relations. 30. Regular references to her household slaves or to wealthy and generous rivals do betray elegy’s awareness of the social structures surrounding lover and puella, structures that elegy pretends to ignore or erase. 31. See White 1993. The patronage of Messalla for Tibullus and Maecenas for Propertius, and their respective recusatio poems (Tib. 1.1, Prop. 2.1, 3.1, etc.) demonstrate that the elegists do have an extraliterary relationship to the world of politics. Ovid’s autobiography, Tr. 4.10, describes his own training in law and his participation in public government. 32. On the need of the Athenian hetaira to exert careful control over her sexual partners, and the consequent necessity of persuasion, see Davidson 1977: 124–25. 33. There is an external logic to this generic status: extramarital sex with the elegiac puella is not forbidden under the leges Iuliae (and does not violate social custom before those laws); see della Corte 1982: 547 on the application of the legal loophole stuprum non committitur (“sexual violation is not committed”) to certain classes of women, including the elegiac puella. Thus, her sex life, like the elite male’s, is her own to govern. Cf. also Habinek 1997: 39 on the extension of this sexual freedom, paradoxically, to the lowest level of street prostitute, whom we might call the puella togata. 34. For a brief review of the specific issue of Ovid, the Ars amatoria, the leges Iuliae, and the reasons for his exile, see appendix. For detailed discussions, see Stroh 1979, Thibault 1964, Syme 1978, Green (introduction to his 1982 translation). On the special case of Ovid’s apparent advocacy of adultery, in violation of the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, see both Stroh 1979 and Sharrock 1994a, which reach virtually opposite conclusions. 35. See Zagagi 1980: 118–20 and Herter 1960: 81–82. The merces annua, annual payment for the exclusive rights to a courtesan’s services, is cited at Truc. 31, where the bitter and frustrated Diniarchus says that it buys only three nights. See also Asinaria, in which both the adulescens Argyrippus and his archrival Diabolus seek to arrange a contract for the exclusive services of the young courtesan Philaenium; Diabolus and his parasite put together a proposed contract with extraordinary details that correspond almost exactly with some of the behaviors of the elegiac puella. See James forthcoming (“Courtesan”). 36. Vir: Tib 1.2.21, 1.6.8; Am. 1.4.1, 2.12.3; Ars 2.554, 2.597–98, 3.484, 3.602; Rem. 34; Prop. 2.23.20, 3.14.24, 4.5.29. 37. See previous note. As Kenney (1990: 177) remarks, in his notes to Melville’s translation, “vir is ambiguous = both ‘husband’ and ‘protector,’ ‘lover.’ “ This ambiguity is inevitable in Latin, and Ovid in particular exploits it consistently. Other instances of marital nomenclature, excluding mythical exempla of spouses, include coniunx (Tib 1.2.41, 1.6.15, 1.6.33; Am. 3.4.37,

264

/

Notes to Page 42

3.13.1), uxor (Tib. 1.9.54; Prop. 2.6.42, 2.21.4, 3.13.18; Am. 2.19.46, 3.4.45), and maritus (Am. 1.9.25, 2.2.51, 3.4.27; 3.8.63; Ars 3.611; Prop. 3.13.15). See Davis 1995: 184–85 on the various types of vir in the Ars. Prop. 2.7 identifies marriage between the lover-poet and Cynthia as impossible. Propertius uses vir rather differently than do Ovid and Tibullus, denoting husband mostly when married couples, either historical (Cornelia and her daughter at 4.11.68; generic couples at 3.13.22) or mythical (2.6.24, 2.24.46), are involved. Otherwise it means simply man, not necessarily one involved in elegiac love affairs (see 2.13.38; 3.1.26, where it designates Achilles; see also 3.4.3; 4.9.26, 34, 55, where it describes men in general). Of the men involved in elegiac love affairs, it can mean simply a lover or a primary lover who does sometimes appear to be the man of the house or at least one who is presented as expecting and meriting fidelity from his puella. Notably, however, no such vir ever separates the Propertian lover-poet from his girl, though at 2.23.20, he may be implying that some puellae have invented a vir in order to deceive him, either for more money, as the lena Acanthis advises Cynthia at 4.5.29, or for intrigue. In 2.21, he teases a girl whose lover has taken a wife, but the status of these people is unclear; see Richardson 1977 and Camps 1965 ad loc. In 4.8, the language used of the foppish rival with whom Cynthia has gone off to Lanuvium is scathing—he seems scarcely a man at all. 38. By law, only Roman citizens could have iustum coniugium, legal marriage (on which see Treggiari 1991b. See Stroh 1979: 333–35 on the ways in which the terms appropriate for marriage may designate other types of relationships outside of legitimate recognized marriage. Rawson (1974: 304) remarks that even those who could not legally marry (slaves and freed slaves) employed the “trappings and ideals” of marriage. Speaking of “de facto” marital-relationships, she notes that “[m]uch of the terminology of regular family relationships can be found applied to de facto unions: uxor, maritus, coniunx are very common.” She concludes from this, and other, evidence that former slaves and members of the lower classes were “anxious to assimilate to Roman forms and practices as quickly as possible.” 39. As I will argue below, the elegists exploit this suggestive ambiguity constantly. 40. Rawson 1974 criticizes Plassard 1921, cited in Copley 1956 on this point, for misuse of inscriptional evidence in support of a view that couples who could have married preferred instead concubinage and de facto marriage. In the context of elegy, however, marriage is neither possible nor desidered. 41. Della Corte (1982: 550) notes that the word coniunx “does not imply legal matrimony but simply cohabitation more uxorio” (in the manner of a wife). See also Murgatroyd 1980: 7–8 on how maritus and coniunx need not signify spouse or designate marital relationships. Occasionally a comic adulescens will attempt, as Griffin (1985: 118) notes, to treat a courtesan “as a kind of wife, pro uxore, in uxoris loco,” citing Ter. An. 146 and 273, and Heautontimoroumenos (The Self-Tormentor) 104; see also Heaut. 98. At An. 145–46, Pamphilus is thought to have taken Glycerium more uxorio:

Notes to Pages 42–44

/

265

Pamphilum / pro uxore habere hanc peregrinam (“Pamphilus kept this foreign woman in the place of a wife”; see also 271); as Ashmore (1910) ad loc. notes, citing Donatus, “euphemistically for meretricem” or prostitute. The unmarriageable Phronesium in Truculentus remarks, of her prior relationship with the soldier Stratophanes, quasi uxorem sibi / me habebat anno (392–93: “He kept me as if a wife for a year”). Treggiari (1971: 197) notes that Cicero’s description of Volumnia as the mima uxor of Antony and their final break-up as a divorce is ironic, but it certainly demonstrates willingness to apply the lexicon of marriage to an extramarital relationship. 42. The anxiety of Diabolus in Plaut. Asin. 746–809 about Philaenium’s future fidelity to him under contract, however, suggests that courtesans contracted to a man might indeed be “more promiscuous” than either a freedwoman wife or a freeborn wife. Cf. also Tib. 1.6. See James forthcoming (“Courtesan”). 43. The vitta and the stola, headband and long overgown, are standard parts of the respectable Roman matron’s dress, and operate as public signs of her status as a married woman. Such women could of course behave infamously rather than respectably (and indeed, Clodia Metelli and Sempronia are described as violating appropriate behavior for their class, gender, and marital status; see Cic. Cael. and Sall. Cat. 25). 44. That is, the elite male elegiac lover presents himself as a debased slave to a low-class woman; he rejects public service and poetry, not to mention obligations to his politically powerful patron, in favor of irregular love; and so forth. 45. Note that each lover-poet rejects marriage either outright (Prop. 2.6.41–42, 2.7) or implicitly, as in the distaste for conjugal relations expressed at Ars 2.152–56 and 3.585–86. The serial passions of the Tibullan speaker demonstrate his lack of interest in respectable marriage, though he does offer long-term sexual relationships at 1.1.59–68, 1.6.85–86, and, indirectly, at 2.4.45–50. Currie (1964: 150–51) notes that Ovid at least did not simply hate marriage, as he depicts it fondly in Met. 8 and 12, with Baucis and Philemon, Ceyx and Alcyone; his expressed distaste for marriage suits elegy’s needs. Propertius likewise depicts a happy marriage in 4.11. 46. Lines 21–34 describe an imaginary and impossible vision of the loverpoet and Delia living an idyllic life, in which Delia plays the part of a happy farm wife in a relationship legitimate enough for her to attend and host Messalla, the lover-poet’s patron, at dinner. 47. Putnam (1973) ad loc. notes that furtivi (secret) “is transferred to lecti by hypallage,” a logical suggestion, as the bed can hardly be secret. The secret is the foedera (treaties or agreements), as well as the sex (venerem) that the lover-poet and Delia share in the bed. 48. For all we know, this oxymoron is Gallan. 49. The lover-poet rants against this material basis later at lines 60–68; see chapter 3. 50. In the next poem there is in fact a vir locking Delia up, but his status is nullified by the lover-poet’s wish to grow old with Delia—a wish that would

266

/

Notes to Pages 44–47

need some legal maneuvering, and would hence merit articulation, if Delia were a legitimate wife: nos, Delia, amoris / exemplum cana simus uterque coma (1.6.85–86: “Let us, Delia, be an example / of love, each with white hair”). 51. tu, qui nunc potior es (68: “you, who are now more powerful”). 52. Though Prop. 3.12 offers a similar situation for Postumus and Galla, they seem to be actually married (cf. the exemplum of Odysseus and Penelope at 21–36), and Postumus’s mission is military as well as profiteering. Further, Galla is immune to the lure of gifts (19), a thing never said of any elegiac puella—indeed, a generic adunaton (impossibility). 53. Some editors divide the poem into two at this point; almost all of them switch couplets around in the following passage. I read, with Richardson 1977 and the manuscripts, a single elegy without transpositions. Note also that lines 7–10 have been used to identify Cynthia (said by Apuleius to have been a woman named Hostia) as the granddaughter of a second-century b.c.e. epic poet named Hostius. This puella is not Cynthia, however, as the next lines prove by focusing on the newness of this love to the lover-poet. In addition, the lightheartedness of this invitation is uncharacteristic of the tone in which the Propertian speaker usually addresses Cynthia, which ranges from worshipful to abusive but is never light. Baker (1968 and 1969) argues that this woman is Cynthia and that the poem celebrates a “reconciliation,” “a renewal of the bond” between her and the lover-poet (1968: 338–39). If such were the case, we would expect—given this speaker’s readiness to reproach Cynthia—at least one dig at her for having let him go. In addition, this poem rather strikingly omits any of the declarations of eternal and pathetic devotion so typical of the Propertian lover-poet (see, e.g., 1.11.23–26, 1.12.19–20, 2.6.41–42, 2.9.45–46, among others). The general characteristic of “Cynthia” as an overpowering force is absent here. Hence I take this puella to be new, and definitely not Cynthia. 54. See Richardson 1977 ad loc. 55. This line echoes Tibullus’s phrase foedera lecti, as Smith 1913 ad Tib. 1.5.7 notes. Camps 1966 and Richardson 1977 ad loc. both note that the “bed” means sex. 56. Since maritus and amicus have the same prosody, and no alternate readings are either attested or conjectured, it seems safe even on technical grounds to assume that the lover-poet is offering himself as a replacement for the departed boyfriend (notwithstanding that generically, as Veyne (1988: 2) remarks, the elegiac lover will do anything for his beloved except marry her). 57. Indeed, Roman marriage rituals displace the invitation to bed onto the wedding guests, who sing ritual songs about the consummation of the marriage, thus marking marital sex not as private but as part of a community’s life. 58. The word ius (pl. iura) means law, right, oath. Dare iura means give orders; see OLD s.v. ius, 4. 59. See Murgatroyd 1980: 203–204, with citations, on the use of “lex in amatory contexts” as describing private contracts or agreements rather than public laws.

Notes to Pages 47–49

/

267

60. See Richardson 1977, Camps 1966, Butler and Barber 1964 on the elements of marriage in this poem; Butler and Barber suggest that Propertius is here referring to the tabulae nuptiales (marriage settlement agreements) that were sealed and placed on deposit. 61. Though this might be the sort of language used in making a contract for a courtesan’s exclusive services, it is hard to imagine the Propertian speaker offering to become that dullest of men, the elegiac vir. The exuberance of the poem and its emphasis on the newness of the relationship make such a scenario unlikely. In addition, one would expect a few demands for the puella’s fides and a few prohibitions on her, as well, but this poem does no such thing. The proposed contract for Philaenium in Asinaria is quite contrary to the purpose of this poem; Diabolus’s sole concern is to control Philaenium’s every move. 62. Note further that the girl is described as using flatteries and soft speech—virtually elegy itself—to tempt and placate the lover-poet: desine blanditias et verba potentia quondam / perdere (31–32: “Stop wasting flatteries and powerful words / as before”). We may infer here the kind of wheedling speech described elsewhere in elegy and represented on stage in Roman comedy. Such language is hardly necessary, on a long-term basis, for a wife, but it is characteristic of the elegiac puella. 63. This poem has often been divided into two, at line 32, but I read it, with McKeown 1987 and the manuscripts, as a single elegy. 64. This attitude may be found virtually passim in Propertius. 65. See, for example, Prop. 1.9.2–3, where the lover-poet teases his formerly resistant friend Ponticus about having fallen in love with a slave: ecce iaces supplexque venis ad iura puellae, / et tibi nunc quaeris imperat empta modo (“Look, you’re lying down, and you come as a suppliant to a girl’s orders, / and now some girl recently bought orders you about”). The rights, iura, here are clearly metaphorical. On this poem and the woman involved, see chapter 1. 66. Significantly, this is precisely the type of behavior that Diabolus plans to forbid to Philaenium, in Plautus’s Asinaria, and his intent for her is certainly not marital. 67. Am. 2.19.60: me tibi rivalem si iuvat esse (“if you like having me for a rival”). Ovid particularly exploits the ambiguous lexicon of marriage, to the point of apparent abuse. According to Stroh 1979: 337ff., he did so “with virtually malicious enjoyment” as a way of flippantly invoking the leges Iuliae. Cf. Ars 2.579, where the adulterers Mars and Venus meet for a foedus—they are specifically called amantes. 68. It is relevant to note here that even Lesbia did not flaunt her sexual license in front of her husband at banquets. Whether or not she did so, such behavior is not cited in our extant sources. Even Catull. 83, in which Lesbia’s “vir” is pleased because she speaks abusively of and to “Catullus,” does not suggest that she behaves in front of him the way, say, Delia is described as behaving in Tib. 1.6. Richlin (1981) cites a few instances of men overlooking their wives’ adultery, but in these cases the adulterous behavior is not described as having been paraded publicly.

268

/

Notes to Pages 49–50

69. Cf. Prop. 4.8, in which the lover-poet suspects Cynthia’s participation in a religious ritual is an excuse for an assignation with a rival. 70. Stroh cites Am. 1.8, but see also Prop. 4.5, and even Tib. 1.5.47–48— quod adest huic dives amator, / venit in exitium callida lena meum (“that she [sc. Delia] has a rich lover now, / the lena, clever at my destruction, has come”)—and 1.5.59–60—at tu quam primum sagae praecepta rapacis / desere: nam donis vincitur omnis amor (“but you [sc. Delia], abandon the teachings of the greedy old witch / right away: for every love is defeated by gifts”). 71. McKeown (1998: 28) on Am. 2.8 cites a variety of ancient sources (Hor. Sat. 1.2, Seneca, Martial, Juvenal, and others) on the practice of placing a guard as a custos (guard/companion) over a married woman, but he notes that they offer “varying degrees of authority.” I take anything in satire with a grain or two of salt. 72. Note, for instance, that in Am. 2.2, the puella is described as blanda (34 = soft and persuasive), a primary attribute of the docta puella. Though McKeown (1998) ad loc. argues that this puella is “certainly a married woman,” she is the domina of her vir (2.2.59), as when the lover-poet imagines him facing her in tears: aspiciat dominae lacrimas, plorabit et ipse (59: “Let him look at his mistress’s tears, and he himself will weep”). Roman husbands did not call their wives “mistress”; in addition, to weep at the puella’s tears is a hallmark of the elegiac amator. (When Ovid calls his wife domina at Tr. 4.3.9, 5.5.1, and 5.5.15, he is writing in very elegiac language. Elsewhere she is clearly identified as his wife: cf. Tr. 4.3.35 and 72 [coniunx], 4.3.49 [uxor], and 4.3.51 [nupta].) Ovid’s speaker winds up in precisely the position of this vir very shortly, in poem 2.5. As I have noted above, slaves and noncitizen freed persons did call their spouses uxor and maritus, and so on, even though they were only contubernales rather than legal coniuges. 73. Cf. Stroh 1979: 331, in reference to Cynthia’s preparations for traveling with the Illyrian praetor, in Prop. 1.8, on how the freedom of movement, especially in travel, seen in the elegiac puella is unthinkable for a Roman wife, at least in the Republic. He further notes, 333, that the girl who has boasted of being Corinna (Am. 2.17.29–30) proves that Corinna is not anybody’s wife at all; I would add that the preceding line, et multae per me nomen habere volunt (“and many women want to have a name by way of me”), likewise rules out respectable Roman wives. As Stroh (1979) notes, such public notoriety makes no sense in the context of Roman marriage. 74. See Camps’s remarks on Prop. 4.5.29: “A vir in the elegists is not usually a real husband, but a man who has established a regular arrangement with a courtesan” (1965: 100). As I have argued here, this vir is never a true husband, not even in Am. 3.13, a poem that, as Peter Green has remarked, confounds most readers of Ovid (so that most scholars omit it from their arguments), because its first line claims a wife, coniunx, for the lover-poet, who is accompanying her on a trip. This poem—a celebration of Juno and her festival—is indeed anomalous for Ovid (though not for elegy: Tibullus celebrates nonamatory events and rituals, as well), not only because of that coniunx but because

Notes to Page 50

/

269

it contains no erotic intrigues, persuasions, or even elegiac laments. It is worth noting that book 3 features several uncharacteristic poems (3.6 and 3.9, for instance). For my purposes here, the coniunx is of particular interest, rather than the festival of Juno. Unlike Green, however, I do not believe that Corinna was Ovid’s own wife; in fact, I don’t think the puella of this poem is Corinna (who is mentioned in book 3 only in references to the past, at 3.7.25–26 and 3.12.16). This particular woman seems to be the girlfriend of poem 3.10, who is there securely identified as a puella (line 2), not a word for wives (see Adams 1972). If she is also the woman of 3.11, the lover-poet there claims a near spousal status, though he has been locked out in favor of another: ipse tuus custos, ipse vir, ipse comes (3.11.18: “I myself was your guard, I myself your man, I myself your companion”). He comments at 3.11.19–20 that she has often gone about in public with him,and that his visible passion for her has engendered similar passion in others. In 3.11, 3.12, and 3.14, the lover-poet complains about the evident signs of this woman’s infidelity, which aggrieves him. It may be that the puella of 3.8–3.14 is something like Tibullus’s Nemesis; at any rate, she certainly practices all the arts of deception that both the lena and the praeceptor Amoris advise. If the coniunx of 3.13 is this puella, she is certainly not a wife. In Am. 3 Ovid experiments with the vir by putting his lover-poet in that character’s position, but this relationship is not any kind of recognized Roman marriage—if it were, we would expect references to divorce, certainly in 3.14, if not in 3.11–12. 75. For a brief review of the Augustan marital legislation, see appendix. For discussions of what the lex of Prop. 2.7 constitutes, see Galinsky 1981 and Badian 1985; my argument against Badian is that he does not account, in dismissing the theory that the princeps attempted to pass marital legislation in the year 28 b.c.e., ten years before the Julian laws, for the moralizing and punitive intent of the leges Iuliae, nor for the fact that Augustus consistently continued to attempt to control private life, sex, and marriage, despite the unpopularity of these laws, aiming in fact to intensify their effect (see Astolfi 1996: 335). See appendix for these terms. 76. The bibliography on this subject is enormous. On the original design of Roman marriage, pro liberorum quaerundorum causa (for the purpose of begetting children), see James 1998a and the bibliography there. Elegy invokes this aspect of marriage at Prop. 3.22.41–42, where Tullus is urged to return to Rome for its civic life, a future loving wife, and the expectation of many children. See also Tr. 2.351–52, where Ovid asserts that no husband ever doubted the paternity of his children because of Ovid’s poetry. On the desire of Augustus to increase the population of the upper classes, see Suet. Aug. 89.2, on Augustus’s reading of the censor Metellus’s speech De prole augenda (“On the need to increase offspring”) into the Senate record. On Julius Caesar’s efforts, before Augustus, to protect and enlarge this same population, see Suet. Iul. 42. 77. Hence Am. 2.13–14, on Corinna’s abortion: these women cannot afford to go through pregnancy. See discussion in chapter 5. 78. Here again I differentiate the elegiac puella from Catullus’s Lesbia. See

270

/

Notes to Pages 50–51

Sullivan 1976: 95 on the difference between Lesbia and Cynthia, whose numerous infidelities are linked to her financial demands (on which see chapter 3) rather than her proclivities. 79. In fact, the husband was required to act against his wife’s adultery or face charges of pimping (lenocinium). On this subject, see Richlin 1981: 381–83 and passim. 80. Mac. Sat. 2.5.10. 81. Examples of public dangers to adulterers: the humiliation of the historian Sallust (caught in adultery with another man’s wife; according to Gell. 17.18 he was beaten with whips and required to pay a fine) and the scandal of Caesar’s wife and Clodius (Plut. Caes. 9–10 relates the tale that Clodius violated the women-only rituals of the Bona Dea because he was having an affair with Caesar’s wife, Pompeia; he was caught, and Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia, because Caesar’s family must be above suspicion; Suet. Iul. 74.2 ) provide examples of public dangers to adulterers. But elegy neither imagines nor fears such risks. The physical danger facing the lover-poet comes from thugs waiting to assault unwitting lovers on foot at night (e.g., Tib. 1.2.25–28, 35–40; Prop. 3.16), never from a puella’s vir. Again, see Hor. Sat. 1.2.126–32. 82. He is, in Henderson’s term (1979: 36), “just a resident boyfriend.” 83. Edwards (1997: 81–90) cites examples of elite Roman women who engaged in acts of prostitution (usually under orders from a mad emperor like Caligula or Nero) and of elite women like Vistilia who registered themselves as prostitutes, in support of her remark that “the boundary between prostitutes and ‘respectable’ women was less than clear” (81). But all the examples she cites postdate elegy by some decades, and even the ancient sources on the reregistered elite women (Tac. Ann. 2.85 on Vistilia; Suet. Tib. 35.2 on other women) describe their motives not as financial—always the elegiac puella’s primary concern—but personal, as attempts to avoid prosecution for adultery under the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. Even the example of Julia herself, said by Seneca (Ben. 6.32) to have prostituted herself in the Forum (cited at Edwards 1997: 90), postdates the period when Roman love elegy flourished, as she was born in 39 b.c.e., married at age fourteen to her cousin Marcellus, and married again to Agrippa in 21; she lived abroad with him for some years (17/16–13 b.c.e.), and acquired her reputation for adultery later, when only Ovid was writing elegy. I doubt this anecdote in Seneca, as the ancients were prone to enormous exaggeration about sexually active women, and no other source speaks of her as taking even anonymous lovers, much less random, paying ones. On the exaggeration and alarmism in ancient Roman historical sources about the sexuality of elite women, and the tendency of scholars to accept their contents as truth, see Wyke 1989b: 40–41. 84. Cf. Ars 3.585–86, where the praeceptor says that because marriage makes women available at any time, it makes husbands unable to love their wives As Williams (1958: 28) notes, in elegy “the married state is the antithesis and frustration of the enjoyment of true love.” This is so because, as Gaisser (1983: 68) notes, a wife is “the polar opposite of the inamorata of erotic fancy”

Notes to Page 51

/

271

in elegy. Cf. Fyler 1971: 201, to the effect that a Roman matron would be a comically horrifying result, as at Ars 2.685–96, a woman who thinks of her wool and housework during sex. 85. If the Propertian lover-poet truly felt the kind of abject sexual devotion to Cynthia that critics like Arkins 1990 attribute to him, we might expect, if not a poem or two on the subject of marriage, at least a passing remark on it. Instead we get Cynthia as the absolute replacement for all family relations, particularly marriage (1.11.23–24, 2.6.42, 2.7 passim). And it is hard to imagine Ovid, who exploits every possible topos of elegy (including some that are only potential by-products of the elegiac life, such as baldness resulting from hair treatment), failing to produce some flippant or impudent witticisms on the prospect of marriage or divorce. 86. In fact, the vir is far too boring for an elegiac lover to envy; the vir’s only enviable asset is his proximity to the puella, but even that is a mixed blessing, and, ultimately, an elegiac impossibility for the lover-poet; see below. As Sullivan (1976: 89) puts it, the vir is “a vague and thwarted figure.” In fact, he is the dullest character in all of elegy. 87. The status of those rights, iura, is of course dubious; see Stroh (1979: 335), who notes (n. 53, citing Schulz 1934), that the speaker of Ovid’s love poetry at one point speaks of the iura Corinna’s vir has over here (Am. 1.4.64), but at another speaks of his own iura (2.5.30; cf. 3.11.45)—has there been a secret divorce followed by a secret marriage? As I have noted above, courtesans like the elegiac puella could enter into contracted relationships with men, which would grant those men primacy. Note, further, that even informal obligations may require a meretrix to grant temporary primacy to a given man: in Terence’s Eunuch, the courtesan Thais asks her lover Phaedria to understand that for a few days she owes herself to the soldier Thraso, who has restored her lost young sister to her; Phaedria grudgingly acknowledges the legitimacy of this obligation. In no case are these rights (iura) legal or marital. As Stroh (1978: 335) notes, in Ovid the word iura has no real legal meaning. These iura appear to have all the legal weight of the treaties of the bed, especially as marked in Am. 3.11.45, where they are lecti socialia iura (shared rights/oaths of the bed). 88. He is often nearly deaf and blind, rather like a wall, or is aided into that condition by both lover-poet and puella; cf. Am. 1.4.51–54, Tib. 1.6.27–28. 89. In fact, if these women were either married or marriageable, we might well expect to hear more about those conditions in elegy. See Adams 1972 on the various Latin terms for woman and wife; the elegiac terms puella and domina not only do not belong to the domain of marriage, but further mark the docta puella as existing outside normal, standard social statuses and relations. That is, elegy goes to some lengths to avoid using the normal words for woman (the generally more positive femina, and the generally more negative mulier; see Adams 1972 and Santoro L’hoir 1992) in favor of the term puella. As noted above, Adams (1983: 346–48) traces the development of puella into a euphemism for “women past puberty, who . . . may be treated as of easy virtue” (346). See also his discussion (348–50) of amica, another word used of the elegiac

272

/

Notes to Pages 51–53

puella, but one not appropriate for a man to apply to a respectable woman. Note further that elegy never expresses the hope that the puella will divorce her vir— if these women were actually wives, such a hope would surely be articulated at least once. 90. In Catullus certain women (Ipsitilla, Aufillena, Ameana) are marked as professionals but Lesbia is not only equal to her lover-poet in social status but is superior, a shining goddess (68.70, candida diva). As Hinds (1987: 8–9) notes, her status as a divinity cannot be maintained; but even when she is depicted as engaging in grotesque sexual behavior with numerous and anonymous men (cf. 11, 37, 58), she remains her lover’s social equal or superior. 91. Thus, not surprisingly, the poetry addressed to a puella whose vir inconveniently blocks the lover-poet’s access to her is primarily didactic—how to get away from him or his guard (cf. Tib. 1.6.9–14, Ars 3.483–98), and how to control and evade him at dinner parties (Tib 1.6.19–20, Am. 1.4), rather than persuasive or lamenting. Delia’s deception in Tib. 1.6, like that of the puella in Am. 3.12, therefore constitutes a terrible betrayal of the lover-poet—she has used his instruction to escape him as well as the dull man-of-the-house. Kennedy 1993: 182, on Am. 1.8.19, notes that the elegiac “poet-lover feels entitled to expect fidelity (at least in principle) from the girl even if she is married or otherwise the property of somebody else.” 92. Courtney (1969: 86) notes that Dipsas employs precisely the same principles of instruction that the praeceptor Amoris uses in Ars 1 and 2: first, find the target (Am. 1.8.31–68; Ars 1.41–262); second, gain control over the target (Am. 1.8.69–94; Ars 1.263–772); finally, maintain control (Am. 1.8.95–108; Ars 2). 93. See Am. 2.1.33–34: at facie tenerae laudata saepe puellae / ad vatem, pretium carminis, ipsa venit (“But often on account of the praised beauty of a tender girl, / she herself, the price for the song, comes to the bard”). 94. In fact, it is so great that the lover-poet attributes it, and other powers, to magic. 95. Since it is understood between the two women that the puella is a professional, it might well be asked why the puella needs the lena’s instruction. Again, Roman Comedy provides an answer. Among the courtesans of comedy there are a few new enough to their profession to give weight to their personal feelings of either loyalty toward a given young man (e.g., Philematium in Plaut. Mostell.) or actual affection for him (Philaenium in Plaut. Asin.) or who are simply naive about the realities of their profession and thus do not yet see themselves as necessarily forced into an oppositional relationship with their suitors (e.g., Philotis in Hecyra). In each case, comedy provides an elder advisor who insists that young men will not be faithful, that the courtesan must look out for her own interests. These particular scenes provide a wealth of sources for the elegists, in composing their own lena passages; the speeches of Astaphium and Phronesium in Truculentus provide further evidence of the ars meretricis, which is simply to gain money. The thoughtful and sensitive Thais of Eunuchus occupies a middle ground between these two ends of the continuum: she does

Notes to Pages 53–54

/

273

love the young Phaedria but is forced to shut him out temporarily, in favor of the soldier Thraso, to whom she is presently obliged for an important service. She regrets having to send Phaedria away and fears for his hurt feelings, but she also knows how to handle the soldier very smoothly. 96. It remains difficult to understand how a respectable married woman (as Williams [1968] believes the elegiac puella is) would have any dealings with a woman of this description; cf. Stroh 1979: 335, as noted above. On the scholarly treatments of the elegiac lena, see Myers 1996, esp. 3 n. 12. 97. Courtney (1969: 81) points out that “many . . . lenae were themselves retired amicae.” 98. See also Herter 1960: 75 on the existence of lenae as something like housemothers supervising brothels, in Rome. McKeown (1989: 198–201) discusses the literary history and treatment of the lena. 99. Hence, as Thomas (1988: 64) puts it, “in generic terms, the leno has no place in elegy.” The leno cited at Am. 1.10.23 is cited precisely because of his absence, which is conspicuous in elegy. Motherhood confers some power, as in Plautus’s Asinaria, but not the power of ownership. In Roman law, the lena who actually controls and profits from a practicing meretrix is presumed to have been a former prostitute herself (see McGinn 1998: 135–38). 100. The old woman who helps out the lover-poet in Tib. 1.2 is called a saga, a good witch (42), though at 1.5.59, the saga rapax who has been teaching Delia to demand gifts must be a lena. The single reference in elegy to the leno first notes his absence, then depicts him as having physical control over the puella, by right of ownership (Am. 1.10.23); the lena, in pointed contrast, has influence by persuasive speech—a power that the lover-poet prefers to arrogate to himself. Hence the lover-poet’s disapproval of her coheres with the general Greek and Roman attitude toward persuasion and force in the realm of sex: the seduction of a citizen was actually a worse crime than rape, for it involved perversion of the will; rape was recognized as an assault only against the body (and indeed, it might be rewarded with marriage to the victim) and hence constituted a lesser crime. Likewise the leno, seen as forcing a woman to have sex with other men against her will (Am. 1.10.21–24, for instance), is a much less evil and dangerous character to elegy (which of course ignores him for the most part anyway, as an elegiac puella who was anybody’s property would not be a worthy beloved for an elite poet) than the lena, who is cast as perverting the docta puella’s character into having sex with other men willingly (the lover-poet’s wealthy rivals). Thus the lover-poet at Am. 1.8.18–19 absurdly describes Dipsas as violating a chaste bedchamber (thalamos temerare pudicos). 101. In Tib. 2.6.45–50, for instance, the lena even acts as a custos or a conspiratorial ancilla, carrying secret messages for Nemesis and somebody else; telling the lover that Nemesis is out when he can hear her indoors; or turning him away on an appointed night. The lover-poet, however, blames all this behavior on the lena rather than on Nemesis herself: lena nocet nobis, ipsa puella bona est. / lena necat miserum [me] (44–45: “It’s the lena who’s injuring me, the girl herself is good. / The lena is killing wretched [me]”).

274

/

Notes to Pages 54–56

102. Gaisser (1971: 209–10) identifies the old woman of Tib. 1.6 as both Delia’s lena and mother, citing similar characters in Luc. Dialogue of Courtesans 3.6.7. 103. His hatred of her has affected critics on occasion; Buchan (1985: 72) calls Dipsas a hag, a word that does not describe her function in elegy but certainly is characteristic of the elegiac lover’s attitude toward the lena. There is no reason to believe that the lover accurately describes the lena’s appearance, and every reason to believe that he exaggerates considerably. 104. Cf. Gutzwiller 1985: 111. 105. Tibullus’s speaker occasionally fantasizes about long-term elderly love between himself and his beloved (1.1.59–68, 1.6.85–86; see also 2.4.45–50), but—particularly from him, as he names more beloveds than Propertius’s and Ovid’s speakers together—such fantasies are unconvincing. 106. See McKeown 1989: 200; on the relative dates of publication of Propertius and Ovid, see McKeown 1987: 74ff. He concludes that it is impossible to identify with certainty which of the two poems was written first. Gross (1996: 199 n. 11) notes that Am. 1.8 may actually have predated Prop. 4.5. I think it very likely that in the second published edition of the Amores, Ovid produced not only revised books of poetry but revised poems as well. Hence it seems reasonable to assume that our version of Am. 1.8 postdates Prop. 4.5 and is aware of it. Both poems demonstrate their affinity to comedy by echoing the scene of Plautus’s Mostellaria in which the young man Philolaches eavesdrops on the older Scapha persuading his beloved Philematium against him. The comic effect in this scene derives from Philolaches’s reactions to everything the two women say, and especially from his hostility toward Scapha. On the backgrounds of these poems in mime, see McKeown 1979. 107. See McKeown 1989: 200 on parallels and common details between these two poems; on the similarity of the instruction, see below. 108. Further marking the generic nature of these remarks is their purpose, which is to illustrate the principle that the origins and class of a lover don’t matter—all that counts is his money: Prop. 4.5.49–54, Am. 1.8.63–66. 109. Ovid’s placement of these lines in the same location as Propertius’s further marks the true power of the lena as persuasion, as does the fact that these are the final introductory remarks in each poem, before Dipsas and Acanthis begin to speak. 110. Her name is revealed as Acanthis ( = prickly; thorny) at line 63, and as commentators have noted, the thorns of line 1 reflect her nature, at least as it is perceived by the lover-poet. Both the thorns (spinis) and her thorny name also recall the speech of Astaphium at Truc. 227–28 who says that a prostitute must always be like a thorny bush, to pluck money out of men. On names for lenae, see Myers 1996: 7 and O’Neill 1998, 1999. 111. Camps 1965 and Richardson 1977 ad loc. note the proverbial fears that witches will blight crops. 112. The scenario of an eavesdropping lover who overhears an older woman advising his beloved against his interests can be found in Plaut. Mostell. Calling

Notes to Pages 56–58

/

275

the moon off its course and taking the shape of a wolf at night are proverbial activities for witches; birds are part of augury, both in sacrifice and otherwise; hippomanes, a fluid secreted by pregnant mares, was thought to have magical powers, particularly in love spells; see Murgatroyd 1994 on Tib. 2.4.57–58. 113. Lines 19–20 are marred by the last three words of line 19 (ceu blanda perure), and I agree with Fedeli 1984 ad loc. that we cannot figure out Propertius’s original words. The couplet describes Acanthis working verbal magic on the girl, slowly wearing away at her, as a regular water drip will eventually bore through stone (line 20). Acanthis seems to be wheedling a bit, as indicated by blanda in line 19. 114. The text of line 21 is troubled by dorozantum, a word of unknown meaning; see Richardson 1977, Butler and Barber 1964, and Camps 1965 ad loc. Whatever the object referred to in line 19, it and the others are all exotic imported luxuries: expensive Tyrian purple dye from the murex, Coan silks, Phrygian tapestries, Theban merchandise, goblets of the expensive, rare, multicolored Parthian mineral called murra. 115. Elegiac sex is quite active, sometimes rather violent: bite marks, torn hair, and quarreling are among its elements (see chapter 5, on the rixa, or sexual quarrel). April was Venus’s month and therefore a reason for lovers to give gifts. Once a year devotees of Isis spent ten days of sexual abstinence in her honor; according to this passage, that period was not fixed on the calendar— perhaps another reason that elegiac lovers are so suspicious of Isis and her rituals. 116. In elegy, Medea is called importunate because she pursued Jason; Thais is not only a standard name for a courtesan in New Comedy, but the title character of a lost play by Menander. Geta is a common name for a slave in New Comedy; the clever slave character often operates to help the adulescens meet his beloved’s price. In Thais, it may be that he was pitted against the beloved herself, in which case he appears to have lost. The drinking that the puella is expected to do here (identified in ebria, tipsy, at line 46) is a standard practice of sexual companionship for men. In fact, women were often hired as companions for drinking parties; Rosivach (1998: 1992 n. 35) cites Reinsberg 1989: 153 for the probability that many courtesans and prostitutes in antiquity developed alcohol-related illnesses. Though both Rosivach and Reinsberg are speaking of Greek hetairai, the risk to the Roman meretrix is similar. Certainly, alcoholism is a standard attribute for the retired courtesan (i.e., the lena), and the threat of Diabolus to Cleareta’s wine supply at Plaut. Asin. 799–802 bespeaks an assumption that the older lena drinks heavily. Indeed, as noted, the name Dipsas adverts to drinking; see below. 117. This strategy can be quite tedious for a courtesan. Cf. Philotis of Hecyra, who complains that the soldier to whom she was under contract for two years wanted her to talk at dinner on subjects of interest only to himself, which she found very boring (85–95). 118. At slave auctions, slaves of foreign origin had chalk marks on their feet; slaves for sale wore an information card hung from their necks and had to

276

/

Notes to Pages 59–66

demonstrate their strength and fitness at the auction. Lines 55–56 quote the opening of Prop. 1.2, a poem arguing against luxuries. 119. The rose garden at Paestum, which bloomed twice a year, was famous in antiquity; a strong south wind, or scirocco, in that region could quickly blast it flat. The lover’s thinness here signifies his poverty, hence his inability to pay for his beloved’s time. 120. See McKeown 1989 ad loc. on the double meaning of the name Dipsas—a snake and a tendency to drink. He also notes that literary and historical prostitutes in antiquity commonly took names for “reptiles and other equally unseductive animals,” citing the example of Phryne ( = toad; this is the name given to the lena of Tib. 2.6; see Murgatroyd 1994 ad loc., on Phryne and her name). The bite of the dipsas snake was said to cause a terrible thirst. The motif of biting, stabbing, and pricking is, again, of a piece with the arguments of Astaphium in Truculentus, about how a prostitute must always be needling and pricking men for money. It is worth noting, however, that most of the young comic courtesans have names like Lovey (Philaenium, Pamphila, Philumena, Philematium) or Cutey (Pasicompsa), rather than prickly names. One wonders if they changed their names upon retirement. 121. McKeown 1989 ad loc., citing Tib. 1.5, notes that these powers are “practically canonical.” 122. See McKeown 1989 ad loc. on the concession in tamen (nevertheless, indeed), and on the absurdity of the words thalamos and temerare, which aim to elevate the puella’s status and the lover-poet’s relationship with her to a rather higher level than they actually enjoy. 123. This diffidence is what makes Kratins (1963: 154) call the puella “apparently still a novice.” 124. See McKeown 1989 ad loc. on the problems of this line. 125. Plus ça change: this is the same argument that Charlotte Lucas makes to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, eighteen hundred years later, that it is advantageous for a woman, in the early stages of courtship, to pretend she loves a man more than she does. 126. The Via Sacra was a commercial center, with small establishments selling jewelry. It was also frequented by prostitutes. See McKeown 1989 ad loc. 127. These sentiments are openly articulated in the speeches of Astaphium and Phronesium in Truculentus. 128. Of course, it has already been well established, from poem 1.2, that Cynthia likes exotic and expensive luxuries. 129. Hence, as Kratins (1963: 157) rightly points out, Am. 1.8 “comes rather early . . . in order that we may appreciate echoes of it later on.” 130. Dipsas assumes that she will have another suitor—a wealthy man has been admiring her—and instructs her in the use of this rival (Am. 1.8.95–100). 131. This rival’s tooth marks are especially effective at arousing and exploiting a lover’s jealousy: Prop. 4.5.39–40, Am. 1.8.98. 132. Cf. Cairns 1979: 186, for instance, on the lena Phryne of Tib. 2.6 as “the true villain of the piece,” as though Phryne were forcing or duping Nemesis

Notes to Pages 66–72

/

277

rather than assisting her. See, contra, Murgatroyd (1989: 139), who points out that “the poet does not try to explain how the actions at 45–50 could take place without at least complicity on Nemesis’ part.” He sees the “attempt to represent the lena as the guilty party” as “tired and unconvincing.” Indeed, but it is a knee-jerk reaction, especially in the lover’s attempt to keep Nemesis from weeping. This reflex is based in the lover’s generic hatred of the lena, as seen, for instance, in Tib. 1.5. 133. Prop. 2.23 and Ars 1.399–454 do betray the lover’s recognition that he is dealing with a type or class of woman rather than a specific miraculous individual.

3. against the greedy girl 1. Elegy sidesteps the question of why a poet should love a shallow, hardhearted, mercenary, and fickle woman. If he didn’t, however, there would be no elegy. 2. Each poet mentions a specific rejected alternate profession, ruled out at least temporarily by elegy and the pursuit of love: in Tibullus the opportunity is the military (cited in 1.1 and 2.6, and presumably the occasion for his illness at Phaeacia in 1.3). Propertius’s speaker plans to write public poetry in his retirement from the field of love: he has a propensity for learned scientific and didactic poetry or tragedy (3.5.25–46; at 3.21, he plans to travel for the purpose of study, as a means of forgetting Cynthia); he also often claims to want to write Roman historical and military glory (2.1.16–42, 2.10.9–20, 3.3). The rejected antielegiac profession in Ovid is law (1.15). Elegy opposes all these professions, which are acknowledged as useless at persuading the docta puella (Prop. 2.34, Ars 1.462–66), hence the entire genre avoids politics and the military as well as epic poetry. 3. Note that although not every elegiac recusatio is addressed to a female beloved, each one may still be read from her perspective, as within the fictional world of elegy, the puellae appear to read all the poetic production—particularly the published works—of their versifying suitors, rather than only the poems addressed to themselves. See, e.g., Prop. 2.26.21–26, for a puella devoted to poetry; see also 2.3.21–22, in which Cynthia criticizes the poetry of the Greek poet Korinna as inferior to her own; as noted above, Am. 2.17.28–29 identifies the elegiac puella as reading widely. Further, although only a few of the poems in the Monobiblos are addressed to Cynthia (1.2, 8, 11, 15, 19; 18 includes speech directed at her in her absence), most invoke her and thus may be read from her perspective. 4. Mary Jaeger has pointed out to me that in Horace’s lyric practice, by contrast, the poet-speaker claims to prefer a life of modest self-sufficiency to lucrative epic and public service; his preference for the private life derives not from elegiac servitium amoris but from a more ancient Roman tradition of the simple, moderate life, combined with a personal tendency to be lazy and to prefer recreation and relaxation to war and exertion.

278

/

Notes to Pages 73–75

5. Though Roman Alexandrians do not openly discuss the financial benefits of composing public poetry like epic or scientific didaxis, they consistently present those forms of composition as more respectable, more politically advantageous, and perhaps even more publicly productive than elegy, which is marked as private, solipsistic, unproductive. Patrons prefer great epics glorifying (or at least acknowledging) themselves, so the elegiac recusatio of public poetry—epic or scientific—is meant to be understood as involving loss not only of prestige but of money as well. The portrait of Gallus in Vergil’s Eclogues likewise sets up an opposition between public (and, presumably, profitable) military service and his private love life. 6. Again, note that this poem may be read from the puella’s perspective; though she is not its sole addressee, its ultimate persuasion is aimed directly at her. 7. Cf. Lee-Stecum 1998: 34–35. Luck (1969: 71) and others point out of Tibullus in particular that Hor. Epist. 1.4.6–7 depicts him as both handsome and wealthy, and able to enjoy both conditions. His elegiac speaker’s poverty is thus all the more fictive. The poet’s audience would have found it very amusing. 8. Leach (1980: 60) calls this an “ironically self-damaging pose of simplicity” and notes that it characterizes the Tibullan lover-poet in both the Delia and Marathus poems (not to mention the Nemesis poems; see below). 9. Cf. Prop. 1.14, which similarly opposes money and love, claiming that there is no joy in luxuries without love and volunteers to be poor, as long as the puella stays happily with him: quae mihi dum placata aderit, non ulla verebor / regna vel Alcinoi munera despicere (23–24: “As long as she will be with me peaceably, I will fear to / despise neither kingdoms nor the riches of Alcinous”). 10. Leach (1980: 61) notes that iners is not appropriate to any Roman male of political, agricultural, or poetic profession. 11. See Murgatroyd 1980 on 73–74: “levis . . . has the sense ‘swift, active,’. . . . the word is common in love poetry with a variety of meanings (‘gay,’ ‘trifling,’ ‘fickle,’), all of which may be present here.” It should also be noted that when it is applied to sex, levis invokes recreational, nonprocreative sex. 12. Tib. 1.2.65–80 repeats this exchange—the lover-poet prefers a simple rustic life with Delia over a more remunerative life of warfare: for example, ferreus ille fuit qui, te cum posset habere, / maluerit praedas stultus et arma sequi (65–66: “That man was made of iron who, when he could have had you, / foolishly preferred to pursue booty and weapons”). This couplet particularly identifies elegy and profiteering war expeditions as opposite occupations (though as Veyne [1988: 38, 40] points out of the next poem, the Tibullan lover-poet does in fact go off to war on a military-political mission with his patron). See further lines 67–78, in which the lover-poet encourages this rival to go off and win both glory and money (67–70); as for himself, he’ll stay home with Delia (71–78). Poem 3.3 of the Corpus Tibullianum offers the same exchange: non opibus mentes hominum curaeque levantur (21: “The minds and woes of men are not

Notes to Pages 75–77

/

279

relieved by wealth”) and nec me regna iuvant nec Lydius aurifer amnis / nec quas terrarum sustinet orbis opes. / haec alii cupiant; liceat mihi paupere cultu / securo cara coniuge posse frui (29–32: “Neither kingdoms nor the goldbearing Lydian river please me / nor the wealths that the world holds up. / Let others want these things; may it be allowed to me to be able to enjoy / a poor but safe harvest with my dear ‘wife’ “). See chapter 2 on the meaning of coiniunx in elegy. 13. Though this poem is addressed to a male friend rather than a female beloved, it is included in a volume of poetry named for that beloved and thus may be read from her perspective; it reiterates the familiar claims of the elegiac recusatio, that the male lover-poet is unfit for military duty because of love, and its characterization of him as hopelessly devoted is designed, when read by her, to operate as implicit sexual persuasion. The picture of Cynthia delineated here is not especially flattering—a typically Propertian touch, quite in line with the inconsistent portraiture of her throughout his poetic corpus—but it certainly marks her dominance over him. 14. Further, the lover suggests that military service is easier and more rewarding than servitium amoris: at tu seu mollis qua tendit Ionia, seu qua / Lydia Pactoli tingit arata liquor; / seu pedibus terras seu pontum carpere remis / ibis, et accepti pars eris imperii: / tum tibi si qua mei veniet non immemor hora, / vivere me duro sidere certus eris (1.6.31–36: “But you, whether you go where soft Ionia leads, or where / the waters of Pactolus touch the Lydian plowed fields, / whether you go by foot, on land, or take the ocean / with oars, you will be part of received empire. / Then if some hour, not forgetful of me, shall come upon you, / you’ll be sure I’m living under a harsh star”). 15. Prop. 3.12 overtly connects military service with greed and profit, then contrasts it with the private life of love (1–6). This poem argues that a man who could leave a faithful woman for imperalist profiteering does not deserve her. Poems 3.4–5 likewise associate military service and profit, which is a life diametrically opposed to that of the elegiac lover; 3.5 further differentiates love poetry and the public poetry of epic and science. Poem 3.20 (likewise, Tib. 1.1 and 1.2.65–66) criticizes the man who is hard-hearted enough to leave behind a grieving girl for a profiteering journey: durus, qui lucro potuit mutare puellam! (3.20.3: “‘He’s hard, the man who could exchange his girl for profit!”). This remark may be seen as an attempt to set puella and profit in opposition, to convince the girl that materialism is actually contrary to her interests. 16. On the suggestive ambiguities of this line, see Kennedy 1993: 24 and 32. 17. See Kennedy 1993: 32 on the sexual connotations of the word subicere. 18. Propertius’s alter ego regularly repeats his claim that love makes him unfit for either profiteering adventure or for lucrative public poetry. In fact, this particular character positively loves the recusatio, for he performs it regularly and lengthily, often spelling out exactly what he is not doing. The opening, programmatic sections of books 2 and 3 go on for many lines about the poetry not

280

/

Notes to Page 77

being written, in favor of love and love poetry (see 2.1.17–43, 3.1.15–34, 3.3.3–12, 3.5.25–46); other poems likewise identify the other forms of poetry not being written by elegists (2.10.11–20, 2.34; 3.9). Poems 3.4 and 3.5 distinguish the lover from the warrior and businessman, overtly refusing the financial benefits of those careers; 3.7 underscores the poet’s choice of love over profitable sea excursions and echoes the decision of Tib. 1.1 to accept the inglorious pursuit of love over such lucrative but dangerous missions: at tu, saeve Aquilo, numquam mea vela videbis: / ante fores dominae condar oportet iners (3.7.71–72: “But you, savage Wind, will never see my sails: / it’s right for me instead to be planted, inactive, before my mistress’s doors”). Iners (inactive, resourceless, inert, motionless) appears twice in Tib. 1.1, at lines 58 and 71, and contrasts strongly with the active life of the warrior. Elsewhere, Propertius’s speaker criticizes the man who chooses to leave a girl behind for either war or business (3.12, 3.20). 19. The status of the woman with whom Ponticus has fallen in love is a relevant issue for the project of reading elegy from the puella’s perspective: she seems to have been recently purchased (4: empta modo), and she is described as “available enough” (25: satis illa parata). Richardson argues that this woman is a slave purchased by Ponticus and therefore is “ready to hand” (parata) at any time. Butler and Barber interpret empta as signifying that she is “either a courtesan or slave.” The relevant question here is why persuasion would be needed for a household slave. Lines 25–26 may be read as suggesting that a woman in the house is more dangerous than one living outside, because one can fall in love with her more easily, but they do not necessarily mean that this woman is a household slave. The entire poem is about the need for poets in love to write persuasive poetry designed to attract and appeal to a woman; slave status, however, obviates the need for persuasion, much less the need for the toils of poetry (on the subject of the female slave in elegy, see Fitzgerald 2000: 63–68, Henderson 1991–92, McCarthy 1998, James 1997). Further, I would argue that if this woman were to be understood as a recently purchased household slave, the Propertian speaker would be more clear about her status, as Horace is in Ode 2.4. This woman is most likely either a concubine or a courtesan who has accepted an exclusive contract for her services, and has moved into Ponticus’s house, but is not his property. That those women continue to need persuasion and gentle treatment is evident from Plautus’s Truculentus, where Diniarchus claims that the merces annua actually purchases only three nights (31–32), and Plautus’s Asinaria, where Diabolus’s proposed terms for a contract with Philaenium reveal some of the liberties such courtesans retained, even under contract; see also, as noted above, Davidson 1997: 124–25. On the different arrangements a courtesan or prostitute of any class could make, see Herter 1960, esp. 76–85. In any case, this poem assumes the absolute necessity of elegy for a man in love. Stahl (1985: 62) thinks this woman could be Ponticus’s “cook or cleaning lady,” but the poem’s designation of her as a puella (3, 14) requiring poetic persuasion (14) argues otherwise. I think she is more likely to be a concubine, whose job is not simple sexual availability or service but involves

Notes to Pages 78–79

/

281

more complex personal relations, no doubt including flirtation, coy behavior, and a show of apparent resistance. 20. The specific instruction of Prop. 1.10.22 further extends the use of flattering, soft language into conversation as well as formal composition: neve superba loqui, neve tacere diu (“Neither talk haughtily, nor be silent too long”). 21. Lines 15–16: quid si non esset facilis tibi copia? nunc tu / insanus medio flumine quaeris aquam (“Are you asking what will happen if you don’t have an easy supply of material for elegies? Now, / madman, you’re seeking water in the middle of a stream”). Lines 33–34: quare, si pudor est, quam primum errata fatere: / dicere quo pereas saepe in amore levat (“Wherefore, if you have any shame, admit your failures right away: / when you’re in love, it often provides relief to tell about the thing that’s killing you”). This last couplet suggests that Ponticus has been fighting both his emotions (or his sexual desire) and the urge to talk about them. Since in elegy to love is to compose poetry, Ponticus is attempting to avoid both love and elegy. Cf. Veyne 1988: 108: “To love is to be an elegiac poet, not an epic poet. Now this does not necessarily mean to choose to be a pure literary type and to reject public service; there is nothing to prevent one from doing both. Gallus and Tibullus did so.” And indeed Tibullus’s own corpus, especially 1.3, suggests that his eponymous lover-poet too attempted to escape elegiac love by travel on a military expedition. Thus to the docta puella, this aspect of the recusatio—that love forces a poet to abandon remunerative work for unrewarding poetry—rings particularly false. 22. Am. 1.12.25–26 echoes these lines and underscores the opposition between elegy and profit. 23. The styled hair may well indicate the kind of puella elegy requires: an elegant one, rather than a respectable one. Certainly, in his Ars amatoria Ovid contrasts both Roman matronae and mythic heroines with elegiac puellae. 24. The remaining problem? He still has no beloved! Am. 1.2 extends the conceit of an enamored poet sans beloved into a poetic triumph; only in poem 1.3 does the lover-poet claim to have found an actual object for his affections. 25. The elegiac couplet is composed of two lines: the first is the dactylic hexameter, the meter of epic, the second the so-called pentameter, broken into two halves of two and a half “feet,” or metrical units. 26. Again, as noted above, the absence of a female addressee does not mean that a docta puella could or would not read this poem and note its manifest insincerity. The pseudo-autobiographical episode presented so fancifully here is a prologue, as it were, alerting Ovid’s own readers to what they will find ahead. The first of the Amores to address a specific woman, 1.3, fulfills the lunatic logic of 1.1 by offering poetic service, in exchange for sex, to a woman so invisible as to be even less real than the generic elegiac puella. Its persuasion—that his poetry will make her famous—is undercut by the mythic exempla he uses to support this claim and the absence of any name at all for her. This poem could be offered to Anygirl. 27. This passage, and the following one, echo Prop. 3.2.9–20, in which the lover-poet also claims the sponsorship of Apollo, Bacchus, and the Muses, and

282

/

Notes to Pages 80–84

offers eternal praise to any beloved: fortunata, meo si qua est celebrata libello! / carmina erunt formae tot monumenta tuae (3.2.17–18: “Lucky woman, anyone celebrated in my little book! / My poems will be so many monuments to your beauty”). 28. On this poem, see especially Davis 1989: 70–73. 29. All three books of the second edition of the Amores were published jointly. Hence, although Am. 2.1 begins a new volume of poetry, for readers it is not separated from 1.15 by any gap of time. 30. In 2.18, the lover-poet literalizes the puella’s disruption of his attempts to write nobler material (tragedy, this time): she sits in his lap, weeps, and kisses him (5–10); he is undone and returns to elegy (11–12); then makes another attempt at tragedy; as in 1.1, Cupid laughs and sets him to writing the Heroides instead (15–26); he urges his friend Macer to give up epic and turn to love poetry himself (35–40). The programmatic 3.1 also literalizes the disruption of love poetry into tragedy, this time by staging a quarrel between the incarnations of the two genres, elegy and tragedy. Elegia persuades the lover-poet to remain true to her; he asks Tragoedia for a bit more time before turning to his greater work (grandius opus, 70). Lines 3.12.15–16 repeat the lover-poet’s choice of love over epic, a choice that has turned on him by making his puella known to other men, to his own bitter regret. Finally, 3.15, the valediction to elegy, closes Ovid’s Amores by reiterating the opposition of love poetry and public poetry: imbelles elegi, genialis Musa, valete, / post mea mansurum fata superstes opus (3.15.19–20: “Unwarlike elegy, my natural Muse, farewell, / after my death you will survive as a lasting work”). 31. As Ovid’s praeceptor amoris points out: ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque dabit (Ars 1.454: “In order that she not have given for free what she has given, she’ll keep giving it”). This line underscores the social and financial imbalance between lover and puella in elegy: in elegy the word dare (to give) is regularly used without a direct object. The puella requires the lover to give unspecified material gifts; he wants her to give sex in return. 32. This idiom, verba dare (give words) means both to speak and to deceive (see OLD s.v. verbum, 6). The praeceptor puns here on his deceptive use of speech, as advised in Ars 1. 33. As noted, see Gutzwiller 1985 on the puella’s actual need for luxuries and elegance. 34. Though the recusatio serves other functions as well, in the context of elegy, and from the docta puella’s perspective, this is its primary purpose. As noted above, the elegists do not offer the recusatio as a disinterested statement of purely aesthetic, artistic principle. In fact, the urge to compose other types of poetry is a standard feature of elegy: the Ovidian speaker regularly plans epic or tragedy (Am. 1.1, 2.1, 2.18, 3.1, 3.15) and the Propertian speaker demonstrates an occasional bent toward national themes (2.10, 4.1). Elegy presents itself as both an erotic and poetic necessity on the one hand, and a commodity to be exchanged for sex, on the other; rarely is it presented as a medium preferred in its own right. Even Propertius’s great sweeps of Callimachean rejec-

Notes to Pages 84–88

/

283

tions of public poetry devolve into concern for Cynthia; see, for example, the resolution of 3.1 into 3.2, especially 17–18, noted above: fortunata, meo si qua est celebrata libello! / carmina erunt formae tot monumenta tuae (“Lucky woman, anyone celebrated in my little book! / My poems will be so many monuments of your beauty”). Poem 3.3 likewise returns to the utility of elegy, especially at 19–20; and 3.4 converts the declined military opportunity into an occasion for celebratory snuggling with his girlfriend (15–16). 35. Line 1.449: quod non dederis, semper videare daturus (“What you will not give, always seem about to give”). Further instruction to the girls insistently forbids asking for gifts and using expensive jewelry, perfume, clothing (Ars 3.129–32, 169–72); most particularly prohibited is asking poets for gifts (3.533–34, 547–52), a taboo frequently violated by greedy girls (3.551–52). A prohibition on asking for gifts immediately after sex closes the instruction of Ars 3 (805–6). 36. Nisus and Pelops are figures from Greek mythology, known because poets write about them. Lines 67–70 refer to the male devotees of Cybele, who engaged in ecstatic forms of worship, during which they were said to castrate themselves. See Catull. 64 for an example. 37. On this service, a form of obsequium also recommended by Priapus in Tib. 1.4, see the discussion of servitium amoris in chapter 4. 38. Note, however, that the gifts demanded by boys are fairly unspecific, and not particularly characterized as useless luxuries, which is the depiction of the gifts demanded by girls. In fact, elegy regularly specifies the things its puellae want—Coan silks, Indian conch shells, jewels (Tib. 2.4.27–30; Prop. 2.16.17–18, 43–44), even, as in Prop. 2.24, peacock-tail fans, crystal balls, and ivory dice. 39. He even suggests that he’s sporting fashionable, and presumably rather costly, clothing himself, but to no avail: nunc si clausa mea est, si copia rara videndi, / heu miserum, laxam quid iuvat esse togam? (2.3.77–78: “If my girl is locked away now, if there’s only a rare supply of seeing her, / alas, wretched me, what good does it do that my toga is billowing?”). 40. Stroh (1971: 110–11) considers lines 29–30 elegy’s most powerful statements on its own utilitarian nature. Bright (1978: 209) argues, contra, that this claim for elegy is patently false in situ: “The more elaborate Tibullus becomes, the less convincing his protestations; his claim that he only writes poetry to win Nemesis is both untrue, on its face, and unreasonable. Therefore his rejection of the Muses and their gift is unnatural and melodramatic, as it occurs in lines which show with unusual openness the deliberate effects of the Muses’ arts.” But to Nemesis, the utilitarian motive of elegy is a given, as every piece of poetry aimed at her is always persuasive, whether directly or indirectly. 41. In lines 23–26 the lover-poet appears to propose assaulting Venus’s temple to gain the necessary gifts for Nemesis. Citing Pichon (1902), s.v. violare, Bright (1978: 210) suggests that considering Venus a symbol of Nemesis renders this curse “more intelligible,”as the “action carries the thought of taking Nemesis by force.” The threat of rape has already arisen in Tibullus, particularly in 1.6, where it is specifically forbidden by Cupid (51).

284

/

Notes to Pages 89–91

42. Compare, however, the greater observance and financial obligation of Joe DiMaggio, who for many years had roses placed three times weekly on the grave of Marilyn Monroe, though they had been long divorced at the time of her death. 43. Bright (1978: 215) comments rightly that “the finale is so drastic, almost overdrawn, that it is hard to take quite seriously.” I would argue that it is impossible to take seriously: this passage offers a classic example of the power of the puella’s perspective to reveal the disingenuities of elegy. Nemesis sees herself described virtually as a witch intent on poisoning her suitor—these lines may perhaps offer a negative persuasion, by way of encouraging her to be less cruel than Medea or Circe; the overt persuasion they offer, that her lover will be her slave and lab rat, is of no value to her. The implicit ethical persuasion they offer, that she should show pity on her hopelessly, pathetically devoted lover-poet by receiving him, is nothing new. 44. On Tib. 2.3 and 2.4, Cairns (1979: 209–12) argues that they demonstrate “Tibullus’ striking espousal of wealth and rejection of aspects of his standard persona” (209). Cairns remarks (212) that the offer to sell the ancestral estate is “more practical and realistic” than crime, and the lover-poet’s “recourse to it is more likely” than his plan to turn criminal. But even his analysis does not demonstrate any actual promises by the lover-poet to deliver anything concrete to Nemesis, merely his willingness to undergo “every and any degradation, provided only that Nemesis smiles on him” (212). To Nemesis, the degraded lover is unlikely to be of much material good. 45. Obviously Nemesis would not read this poem as Murgatroyd (1994) does, as serious and sincere. 46. See chapter 1 on Acanthis’s mocking quotation of the opening to this poem: quid iuvat ornato procedere, vita, capillo / et tenuis Coa veste movere sinus? (1.2.1–2 = 4.5.55–56: “Why is it pleasing, darling, to go out with decorated hair / and to move your tender limbs in a Coan dress?”). Coan silk was both expensive and thin (therefore revealing); thus it is doubly disliked by elegiac lovers, who don’t want other men to ogle their beloveds. 47. Cf. Gaisser (1977: 385), noting that Prop. 1.2 seeks not Cynthia’s fidelity but her financial modesty: “Propertius’ principal interest in the elegy is to dissuade Cynthia from the use of expensive finery. . . . His plea is not that she be chaste but that she be less expensive.” He expresses a similar sentiment at 2.18b.30, in which he instructs his puella not to dye her hair—she’s pretty enough for him, he says, if she’ll just let him see her: mi formosa sat es, si modo saepe venis (“You’re beautiful enough for me, if only you’ll come to me often”). Citing Wheeler 1911: 72, Gariépy (1980) locates this kind of anticosmetic, antiadornment argument in Plautus’s Mostellaria. 48. Propertius’s speaker seems rather a cheapskate in the next poem: he gives Cynthia gifts, and faults her lack of response as ingratitude—but the gifts are fruit, and she is asleep when he gives them: nunc furtiva cavis poma dabam manibus; / omnia quae ingrato largibar munera somno, / munera de prono saepe voluta sinu (24–26: “Now I put secret gifts of fruit into her hollow

Notes to Pages 91–96

/

285

hands; / and I was lavishing all my gifts on unappreciative sleep, / the gifts often rolled out of her sloping lap”). On inexpensive and perishable small gifts as the preferred medium of erotic exchange, as opposed to the costly luxuries demanded by the puella, see Sharrock 1991: 44–45, noted above. 49. In line 27, I read exclusis with Richardson 1977 and the manuscripts, rather than excussis; see Richardson 1977 ad loc. This poem not only chastises the greedy girl but connects her materialism to her infidelity (another standard topos of elegy; see below). 50. On the language of mercantilism in this poem, see Curran 1964. 51. It is no coincidence that these are the other two occupations available to the elegist, in the forms of remunerative military missions and public epic poetry. 52. Thus it is interesting—a Freudian slip, as it were—that the lover-poet uses the word mulier in this passage. McKeown (1989) ad loc. notes that mulier (29), “used by the poets . . . generally has disparaging connotations,” and proposes that it operates here to underscore the argument of line 26. On the relative values of femina, the more polite term for woman, and mulier, the derogatory term, see Santoro L’hoir 1992; mulier is what the lover-poet calls Cynthia at Prop. 3.24.1, as he is insulting her beauty and preparing to bid her farewell for good. 53. As Curran (1964: 315) notes, we are “led from brothel to barnyards to business.” 54. See Habinek 1997: 37–38 on Ovid’s “argument from equal pleasure” in this passage (37). As he says, “Ovid transfers the notion of mutuality from homosocial to heterosexual relations and concretizes it in an exhortation to equal enjoyment, but the net effect is to disembed sex from its traditional context without disrupting other aspects of that context that he has an interest in preserving. The Ovidian amator’s pretense that his mistress can love him as freely as Calvus can love Catullus flies in the face of everything we know about the asymmetrical distribution of power between men and women in the historical Rome” (38). 55. Here the lover invokes the version of Tarpeia’s tale found in book 1 of Livy, where she is said to have allowed the Sabine enemies into the city of Rome, seeking in exchange their gold armbands; they crushed her to death with their shields. In the next couplet, the reference is to the story of Eriphile, who betrayed both the city of Thebes and her husband in exchange for a necklace. In revenge, her son killed her. 56. Alcinous is the wealthy king of Phaeacia in the Odyssey. Here Ovid echoes Propertius: the gifts specified here are fruits, poma, like those offered by the Propertian poet-lover in 1.3; the instruction to seek goods from the wealthy echoes the lines from Tib. 1.1, directed at the wolves, to steal sheep from the rich but leave the poor farm alone. This set of connections both associates the greedy puella with a ravening wolf (the association of women and wild animals runs throughout the Ars; and cf. Am. 1.8.55–56) and attempts to define elegiac gifts as modest and perishable, food rather than jewelry or clothing, and thus attacks

286

/

Notes to Pages 96–100

the material grounds on which the puella bases her demands. The pastoral and Odyssean imagery of 55–56 also recalls Tibullus’s elegiac works; on Odyssean images in Tib. 1.3, see Bright 1978. 57. Ovid uses the wonderful word emax (ready-to-spend, voraciously spendthrift) in the next line, as the praeceptor describes the approach of a peddler toward the avid girl. The following lines detail her tricks (421–34) and end with a resounding curse on women, in words that betray both the elegiac lover’s knowledge of the puella’s profession and the praeceptor’s hostility toward women: non mihi, sacrilegas meretricum ut persequar artes, / cum totidem linguis sint satis ora decem (435–36: “For me to detail out the immoral strategies of prostitutes, ten mouths, / with as many tongues, would not be enough”). 58. This line quotes directly from the very solemn line in the Aeneid, in which the Sibyl instructs Aeneas about getting in and out of the underworld. It is impossible to exaggerate how impudent, and virtually impious, these words are in the context of the Ars amatoria. 59. See especially Am. 3.1.57, where Elegia reminds the lover-poet that he has sent her—that is, elegiac poems—as a birthday gift to his girlfriends; see also Ars 3.532–52. 60. As Konstan (1986: 391) notes, the rival plays a “necessary role.” Hence one would expect elegy to focus on him rather more than it actually does. This shortage of attention to the rival further demonstrates elegy’s generic focus on its female love object and the poet-lover himself. 61. Gallus in Prop. 1.5 and Lynceus in 2.34, as potential suitors of Cynthia, do not fall into the category of the generous rival; see next note and discussion below. 62. The present rival is never another impoverished poet—the lover-poet in Prop. 2.34 does not really fear Lynceus as a rival; that Gallus is no threat is seen from his engagement in several amours throughout book 1 (poems 10, 13, 20; as Richardson [1977] on Prop. 1.13.1 notes, Gallus is “a womanizer”). Panthus of Prop. 2.21 is raised only to be dismissed: he has recently married, and since he does not appear elsewhere, his threat as a rival seems to have been minimal. 63. Even for Propertius’s speaker, who practices the querela more assiduously than those of Ovid and Tibullus, and who appears to document his charges against Cynthia regularly, the rival ultimately operates as a lens focusing back on himself, justifying his claims on his beloved. See 2.24 entire, for example. And in 2.6, the lover-poet presents himself as so devoted to Cynthia that he envies any signs of affection shown by her to other parties, even her female relatives (2.6.11–12). He resents any rival for her attention—even infants—as injuring him (9), and he fears even erotic wall-paintings (27–34), an anxiety that echoes the plan of Diabolus to remove Philaenium’s wall-paintings, at Plaut. Asin. 762–66. When Cynthia appears to be leaving him in 2.8, he threatens to kill both himself and her (25–28). 64. The rival is usually described in generic terms: forms of nescio quis (= literally, “I don’t know who,” used to mean “somebody”) are the normal designation for a nonspecific rival: see Tib. 1.6.6; Am. 2.5.62, 3.11.11. Prop. 1.8

Notes to Pages 100–108

/

287

spells this dismissiveness out more fully: quicumque est, iste (Prop. 1.8.3: “that fellow, whoever he is”). 65. Though he admits to similar garb (the fashionably loose toga) himself at 2.3.78. 66. Levitas: 1.15.1, 2.16.26; levis: 1.18.11, 2.5.28, 2.24.18. 67. In fact, the actual paying rival is less an issue than the possibility of one—and here it is worth noting that both Dipsas and Acanthis recommend to the puella that she invent a generous rival, to spur on her present suitor, if one is not actually courting her at a given time. 68. Walters (1997: 40) points out that “the scars from a soldier’s wounds are . . . the mark of manhood, the signifier permanently inscribed on his body, of his status.” This man has recently been promoted to the social class of eques and is thus the social equal of the lover, who can boast no dermatological evidence of his manhood. It is therefore peculiarly logical, if also utterly absurd, that he runs for cover to the other end of the spectrum, as a “pure priest of the Muses and Apollo,” line 23. 69. Holleman (1971: 459) notes that “quaerere corpore has the current meaning of prostituting oneself.” He sees this poem, and especially this passage, as having a political dimension and an opinion, “a social view of the equestrian order of the time . . . [and] a political implication as well.” 70. Hence in Am. 3.8, the amator complains about the puella’s newly wealthy suitor (9, recens dives) but virtually ignores her vir (here called maritus, “husband,” 63). 71. See particularly Prop. 2.6.7–14, in which the amator is jealous of babies, pictures, and Cynthia’s female relatives; he suspects her male family members are not kin, and he suspects her female relatives of being men in disguise. The absurd resentment of infants particularly marks this anxiety as not specifically sexual jealousy but as fear based in his inability to control Cynthia. 72. To these rules we might add that old men should have to give gifts, but the beautiful young boy should be admitted for free (Tib. 1.8.29–32). 73. This result might be predicted from Am. 2.17.28 (multae per me nomen habere volunt = “Many girls want to have a name through me”) and even from Prop. 2.5.5–7: inveniam tamen e multis fallacibus unam, / quae fieri nostro carmine nota velit (“Nevertheless, I shall find one girl from many cheating ones, / who would want to become known through my poetry”). 74. That is, elegy could not openly pursue sex with respectable women, even if it wanted to. 75. See chapter 2.

4. characters, complaints, and stations 1. See Murgatroyd 1980: 161: “[T]o desist from angry complaint and criticism and instead to appear miserable and contrite can be an effective way of making another relent.” See also Lee-Stecum 1998: 58 on claims of devotion as persuasive.

288

/

Notes to Pages 108–111

2. Paraclausithyron: song outside a closed door (a Greek term; in Latin, this song is performed by the exclusus amator, the locked-out-lover); servitium amoris: slavery of love; militia amoris: warfare, or military service, of love. The propempticon, a song sung to bid farewell to a departing lover, is related to the paraclausithyron. Erotodidaxis, the teaching of love, is another structural element of Roman love elegy, which space limitations do not permit me to discuss; see Wheeler 1910–11. As militia amoris tends to be used less in sexual persuasion of the puella than in the lover-poet’s self-justification, I do not discuss it here. On all these topoi, as well as other generic topics in ancient poetry, see Cairns 1972. Many of my section titles in this chapter come from traditional and popular songs on themes similar or identical to those of elegiac lament. The traditional tune, “The Train that Carried My Girl from Town,” a sort of antipropempticon, contains a verse clearly relevant to elegy: ”Wish to the Lord / that the train would wreck, / kill the engineer, / break the fireman’s neck.” Even more relevant to elegy is another verse: “There goes my girl, / somebody bring her back! / She’s got her hand / in my money sack.” My section titles come from the following sources: ”Just Another Broken Heart” (Carter Family: “Just another boy’s life ruined, / just another broken heart”), “Darling Cora Is Gone” (Odell McLeod: “Pretty girls have hearts made of stone”), “Pity Me, My Darling” (traditional), “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (Frank Loesser), “Baby, Please Don’t Go” (Muddy Waters), “Prisoner of Love” (David Bowie). 3. G G lAgein—”e e legein”—a Greek refrain of mourning and lamentation, was the ancient etymology of the word “elegy”; see Keith 1992: 334–35 and Luck 1982: 109. Hinds (1988: 31 n. 30) cites Hor. Ars P. 75 and Am. 3.9.3–4 on the connection of elegy and lament. Cf. Kennedy 1993: 32: “[T]he verb ‘to bewail’ (queri) becomes discursively constructed to signify the act of writing elegy,” and (52), accordingly, that the querela itself is elegy’s subject matter. 4. As acknowledged in Prop. 2.18, which describes the opposite results and advises silence instead; Prop. 2.14.11–20 likewise acknowledges the futility of the querela in sexual persuasion. 5. Other words mark the querela as well, primarily those having to do with misery, bitter suffering, the puella’s perfidy or greed, and the intransigence of the puella, Amor, and Venus, who may be variously deaf (lenta) or belated (tardus), as well as generally unhelpful or unyielding. Elegiac grammatical alchemy occasionally renders some of these adjectives transitive, so that they are active when describing the puella or Amor but passive when describing the lover-poet. Thus, if he is tristis (sad) as at Prop. 1.11.25, that condition may be blamed on her tristitia, harshness (Prop. 1.18.10) toward him, on tristis Amor, harsh Love (Tib. 1.6.2), or the tristes tabellae, grievous tablets, of Am. 1.12.1, which bring a message from the puella declining a rendezvous. 6. Even poems not devoted to lament often reflexively invoke the topics of lament. For example, Prop. 1.2 offers overt persuasion in direct address to the puella rather than lament, but the problem it focuses on is the greedy girl, a stock topos of elegiac lament. Prop. 3.10, a celebratory birthday poem, refers to

Notes to Pages 110–114

/

289

the moment of the lover-poet’s capture by Cynthia (15); 3.19 proclaims the uncontrollable power of love, which affects women more forcefully than men, but is certainly a standard topos of elegy. Tib. 1.3 describes the lover-poet as putty in the hands of Amor (57) and laments his absence from Delia. Am. 1.3 seeks eternal union between lover-poet and puella; 2.13 proclaims dependence upon her (16). 7. At Am. 2.5, the lexicon of lament begins to apply to the Ovidian loverpoet; previously its instances have seemed generic, ironic, comic, insincere. A further pattern of Ovid’s elegiac practice is that he exploits exhaustively Roman love elegy’s desire to see the puella suffer or weep because of her lover-poet (cf. Tib. 1.10.63–64), so that in his works much of the suffering of love is wishfully or imaginarily transferred to her. See James forthcoming (“Politics”). 8. The lexicon of lament likewise suffuses his poems: the Propertian lover regularly suffers grief and pain (dolor), complains often (queritur), sees his girl as fickle and capricious (levis), hard (dura), faithless (perfida), savage (saeva), deaf or unyielding (lenta); and describes himself as miserable, suffering sorrows (miser, tristitia). Forms of dolor: 1.1.38, 1.7.7, 1.9.7, 1.10.13, 1.14.18, 1.16.21, 1.16.25, 1.16.35, 1.17.19, 1.18.3, 1.18.13, 1.18.26, 2.5.10, 2.15.35, 2.16.13, 2.16.32, 2.22b.45, 2.25.1, 2.33.21, 3.20.27. Complaints (queror, querela): 1.4.28, 1.7.8, 1.8.22, 1.16.13 and 39, 1.18.26 and 29, 2.4.1, 2.13.20. Fickleness and caprice (levis, levitas): 1.11.16, 1.15.1, 1.18.11, 2.1.49, 2.5.28, 2.9.36, 2.16.26, 2.24c.18. Faithless (perfida, perfidia): 1.15.2 and 34, 1.16.43, 2.5.3, 2.9.28, 2.18a.19. Savage (saeva, saevitia): 1.3.18, 2.33.19. Unyielding and unhearing (lenta): 1.15.4; when she is with him, this quality is good, as it means that she is ignoring the calls of his rivals, as at 2.14.22. Miser (wretched): 1.1.1, 1.5.18 and 29, 1.7.17, 1.9.9, 1.14.21, 1.16.45, 2.1.78, 2.6.14, 2.9.42, 2.24.28, 2.33b.35, 3.23.19; note that some of these wretches are other lovers, as elegiac love, perhaps particularly in Propertius, is generically marked as a state of unhappiness. Tristis (sad, sorrowful): 1.11.25. The majority of these words appear in book 1, where Propertius establishes his particular version of elegy. 9. The transfer here of the lover-poet’s tears and rage to Cynthia indicates his present, and normal, condition, which he would not inflict upon her, as she does upon him. 10. Cynthia’s grief—tristitia—takes the form not of her own weeping but of inflicting tears upon the lover-poet. In the puella, tristitia means cruelty or harshness, and it causes sorrow (tristitia) in the lover-poet. 11. The inscription of Cynthia’s name on the trees, like the garland, the wine bottle, and the poem on the puella’s door, constitutes a form of receipt, proof of the elegiac lover’s madness adequately performed. 12. Another putative cause of her harshness may be his own tendency to commit querelae (1.18. 23–26); if so, he feels he’s already suffered enough in both enduring lonely exile and in having to address his querelae to the wrong audience, the mute elements and the talkative birds (27–30). 13. The Ovidian amator also aims it at doors: Am. 1.4.62, 1.6.73; cf. also Ars 3.581.

290

/

Notes to Pages 114–119

14. Thus it is another word, like tenuis, tener, gracilis, and so on, that describes both the elegiac puella and the genre of elegy itself; see Keith 1994 and Wyke 1990. 15. Naturally for Propertius’s work, this happy state is doomed to be shortlived anyway: the next poem returns to the querela: by reintroducing the hated Illyrian praetor, the lover-poet’s most threatening rival. 16. The poem is somewhat unclear about both the nature of the garment and the points when Cynthia removed and then replaced it: at 5–6 she is described as having bare breasts; at 21–22 it is suggested that she was covering them. The lover’s primary complaint is that the garment cheated his eyes of Cynthia’s beauty. See chapter 5. 17. The near-direct quotation of Tib. 1.1.69, as Richardson (1977) notes ad loc., “is especially pertinent here.” 18. For instance, poem 2.3, addressed to his friend Cornutus, primarily complains that Nemesis is in the country (for once he wants her in the city!), where he can’t see her, but its opening couplet prominently features the classic interjection of the querela: heu (alas), doubled before the pentameter’s caesura (2.3.1–2). The usual kaleidoscopic complaints follow, mixed with Tibullus’s hallmark fantasy of happy rural elegiac love (itself virtually an oxymoron for Roman love elegy); the exemplum of Apollo, here depicted as suffering elegiac passion for Admetus, follows, along with a lengthy complaint about mercenary modern times (35–62). A reversal of the Tibullan lover-poet’s romantic love-inthe-country concludes the poem, in a complaint about girls locked up in country houses (65–76); finally, the lover-poet returns to complaint (77–78) and evident submission (79–80). The spirit of the querela unifies this poem, which has no fewer than four addressees (Cornutus, line 1; Apollo, 27; the harvest itself, 61; and Bacchus, 63–66). Ultimately its effect—and intent—is to demonstrate the lover-poet’s devotion to Nemesis, a devotion that he consistently offers up as meriting her kindness to him (as in 2.4, the next poem, discussed in chapter 1), a kindness that is to take the form of sexual reception gratis. 19. Ironically, she has committed these offenses not only against her loverpoet but also against her vir. Worst of all, she has used the lover-poet’s instructions to commit her crimes. 20. Thus 1.4.81–84, though aimed at a boy rather than a docta puella, expresses a standard formula: the lover-poet is defeated by love, despite his expertise at erotodidaxis, and must simply beg for kindness: eheu quam Marathus lento me torquet amore! / deficiunt artes, deficiuntque doli. / parce, puer, quaeso (“Alas, how Marathus torments me with slow love! / My arts are failing, my tricks are failing. / Be sparing, boy, I beg”). See also 2.6.27–34, discussed above, for this structure. 21. The misery of elegiac love follows Cupid so that even if he moves to the country, as in 2.3, a poem celebrating the joys of the rural life, will suddenly convert to elegiac querela, here rather generously enlarged in scope to include all unhappy lovers, pitied by the lover-poet as his fellow sufferers in sorrow and shame.

Notes to Pages 119–124

/

291

22. On the elegiac lover’s awareness that the puella/courtesan will inevitably accept the attentions of a rival, see the discussion of the vir in chapter 2. Am. 1.4 is nothing but instructions by the lover-poet on how his beloved can perform exactly the operations of which he complains in 2.5; like Tib. 1.6, this poem complains because the puella has applied her learning to deceiving her teacher, the lover-poet. 23. Even from the beginning, he expects to cheat on her; assuming again that the puella of 1.3 is Corinna, he strongly implies that he will pursue serial involvements (on this, see Davis 1989). 24. Am. 3.8, discussed in chapter 2, certainly constitutes a lover’s complaint, a querela; this lament is so overtly self-interested (despite its putative basis in propounding the merits of the liberal arts, especially poetry) that it complains not about the cruel and harsh girl but about profiteering men who are preferred to poets. 25. Many of these words appear as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Other complaints include the hardness of the girl’s threshold or doors; the puella’s deceit (dolus) and treachery (perfidia); the cruelty or negligence of Amor and Venus; the inconvenience of the puella’s vir. 26. Here we may recall Thais of Terence’s Eunuchus and Philaenium of Plautus’s Asinaria, who privately confess to loving Phaedria and Argyrippus. 27. Further undercutting the notion of physical ineptitude and passivity is the figure of militia amoris, military service of love (cf. Prop. 4.1.135–142; Am. 1.9; Am. 2.12, in which entry into Corinna’s bedroom has been accomplished by the methods of warfare). See Murgatroyd 1981 and Cahoon 1988. 28. On this subject, see chapter 6. 29. For example, the propempticon, a sort of bon voyage song (or perhaps a mal voyage song) to the girl who is about to travel, is intended to persuade—if it works, she doesn’t go, as in Prop. 1.8. See discussion below. 30. Hence she treats them accordingly (not coincidentally, this treatment is what the lena advises)—allowing, say, one night’s admission after several weeks of entreaty (cf. Prop. 3.21.7); she also regularly revokes promised nights (Prop. 2.17). 31. On this subject, see McCarthy 1998. 32. Dipsas and Acanthis provide evidence that some of these rivals may be invented by the puella, but of course the lover-poet is not to know that. Ovid’s praeceptor Amoris prescribes precisely this invention tactic (Ars 3.591–610), though he disapproves strongly of genuine rivals (599–600). 33. She is also, of course, greedy (avara); see chapter 1. 34. Similarly, the puella’s generic state of need is occasionally acknowledged—see Tib. 1.8.29: det munera canus amator (“Let the white-haired old lover give gifts”); Am. 1.10.53: nec tamen indignum est a divite praemia posci (“It isn’t unworthy, however, for rewards to be asked of a rich man”); and Ars 3.531: munera det dives (“Let the rich man give gifts”), in a prelude leading up to both 533—carmina qui facimus, mittamus carmina tantum (“Let us who make songs send only songs”)—and 547: vatibus Aoniis faciles estote, puellae

292

/

Notes to Pages 124–130

(“Be easy to Aonian bards, girls”). In all such cases, however, the lover-poet is seeking a present exception for himself, or, as in Tib. 1.8, for his young friend and erstwhile beloved boy. 35. Hard (dura, duritia; also hardships caused by puella): 1.1.10, 1.6.36, 1.7.6, 1.7.8, 1.15.1, 1.16.18 (door standing in for puella); 2.1.78, 2.5.7, 2.17.9, 2.22a.11, 2.22b.43, 2.24.47. Cruel (crudelis): 1.8.16, 1.16.17. Savage (saeva): 1.1.10, 1.3.18, 1.17.9, 1.18.14; 3.16.8. 36. On this topic, see James forthcoming (“Politics”). 37. Levis/levitas: 1.15.1, 1.18.11; 2.5.28, 2.16.26, 2.24c.18. Perfida/perfidia: 1.11.16, 1.15.2 and 34, 1.16.43; 2.5.3, 2.9.28, 2.18.19. 38. Note that the infidelity of the puella of Am. 2.5 (whom I assume to be Corinna, because she figures so importantly in 2.7–8, 2.11–14), and the puella of 3.3, 3.8, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.14 provides the subject matter of all these poems, though Ovid does not apply the usual lexicon of elegiac infidelity. 39. It goes on to complain that she has endangered her eyes by swearing false oaths on them, and concludes by blaming those eyes for his present condition: quis ego nunc pereo, similis moniturus amantis, / ”O nullis tutum credere blanditiis!” (41–42: “On their account I’m now perishing, and will warn lovers in like condition: / ‘Oh, it’s not safe to believe any flatteries!’ “ 40. In addition, Marathus’s own quoted speech focuses as much on himself and his own suffering as on her; see below, on the querela. 41. This structure echoes that of Tib. 1.1. Lines 11–12 dramatize the loverpoet’s failure to give up love: magna loquor, sed magnifice mihi magna locuto / excutiunt clausae fortia verba fores (“I’m speaking great things, but the closed doors shake / the strong words right out of me speaking great things greatly”). The insistent repetition of mag- (and m- in mihi) and loc- sounds both replicates the mighty pontifications and suggests their repetition by the speaker. 42. He closes the poem by transfering culpability for Nemesis’s deception and infidelity from Nemesis herself to the lena Phryne. On the lena, see chapter 2. 43. Levitas or perfidia at 2.16.45, 3.3.10; passim in 2.5, 3.3, 3.8, 3.11, 3.12, 3.14. 44. This poem is often divided into two separate elegies, one of thirty-two lines, the other of twenty. I follow McKeown 1987 in reading a single poem. 45. Cf. Am. 1.10.13: animum cum corpore amavi; / nunc mentis vitio laesa figura tua est (“I loved soul along with body; / now your beauty has been damaged by the defect of your mind”). The puella’s fault there was seeking gifts (see chapter 2); here it’s her infidelity. 46. Lines 45–46 also echo Tib. 1.5.7–8; see chapter 1. 47. On other echoes of both Propertius and Tibullus, see Gross 1975–76. 48. Since Roman manuscripts did not distinguish orthographically between Amor the god (Cupid) and amor the human emotion, Propertius can blame both at once. The same is true for Venus, the goddess, and venus, meaning sex. 49. See also Am. 2.4 and 2.10. The three named beloveds in Tibullus signify

Notes to Pages 130–131

/

293

the tendency of his speaker to engage in, at best, serial affairs rather than remain true until old age. Lyne (1979: 122, n. 4) calls Prop. 2.22 “a very uncharacteristic poem,” with no further remark. But support for its expressions of a playboy attitude toward love and women can be found elsewhere; 2.23, for instance, speaks from experience, and 3.20 is directed not at Cynthia but at another woman, a hoped-for conquest; see chapter 3. 50. The praeceptor Amoris advises women at Ars 3.565–72 that, unlike an impetuous youth, the older man can control his temper and won’t attack a woman or her door. Prop. 2.5.21–26 lists the sorts of assaults the lover-poet won’t make, but his anger toward Cynthia is clear in periuro . . . corpore (21), mea . . . ira (22), iratus (23), duris . . . pollicibus (24); cf. also Prop. 3.25.9–10, the door never smashed. Tibullus’s speaker disapproves of striking a puella, but actually recommends violence against hair and clothing; he further speaks enviously of the man whose anger can cause his puella to weep (1.10.63–64), in sentiments echoed by the praeceptor at Ars 2.447–54. Tib. 1.3.81–82 may even be read as a reference to rape, or attempted rape, of the puella; such a reference invokes the sexual violence underlying the specter of force that haunts elegy; see chapter 5. 51. The praeceptor in fact complains of this very result, in what seems an obvious reference to one of the tunics damaged by himself at Am. 1.7.47–48 or Am. 1.5.13–14. He advises his male pupils, therefore, that though girls like force (Ars 1.673–74) it must be employed carefully, so as not to incur a financial loss because of damaged clothing (Ars 2.169–74). The praeceptor exhibits his usual self-contradictions on the subject of violence toward women: at Ars 1.664–706 he advocates the use of force on women, claiming they like it (673), but at Ars 2.161–76 he explains why violence isn’t a good idea—a lover who hits his puella will be shut out, and will also have to pay her for the damage he might not even have done (169–72). In other words, the poor man can’t afford violence. 52. This line merges terminology from medicine (steel and flame = surgery and cautery) and slavery (the tortures applied to the slave body, particularly before court testimony; the lack of freedom to speak); see McCarthy 1998: 177 and 189–90 nn. 4 and 5. In my view, the medical imagery is dominant because of context—the friends gathered either to take desperate measures or to bid farewell (“call back the fallen one”; “remedies for an unwell heart”). Obviously the ailment to be conquered is the slavery of love, on which see below. 53. In these lines, Propertius calls up Catull. 76 and 101, to bring together themes of love as an evil illness; the lover as suffering undeservedly; death; and travel. Line 29 alludes to Catullus’s famous poem on his brother’s death; Propertius’s ferte per extremas gentes et ferte per undas (Prop. 1.1.29: “Take me among distant people and take me over the waves”) echoes Catull. 101.1, multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus (“Borne through many nations and many oceans”). It also contains an echo of Catull. 65, likewise on his brother’s death: undas in Prop. 1.1.29 echoes unda at Catull. 65.6 instead of aequora in Catull. 101.1. The phrase extremas gentes in Prop. 1.1. 29 may also echo Catull. 11.2, another poem linking far travel and faithless puellae. These verbal echoes

294

/

Notes to Pages 131–132

operate to embed this couplet all the more thoroughly into the category of querela by invoking and expanding on the Catullan themes of the misery of love; the lover-poet’s suffering because of a cruel girl; the comfort and assistance provided by friends; the dangers of love and travel; and love as a fatal disease. The suffering of the lover-poet here, and his desire to complain freely, are hallmarks of the elegiac querela. 54. And cf. Ars 1.23–24: quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, / hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero (“As much as Love has pierced me, has burned me forcibly, / by that much will I be a better avenger of the wound he has made”). The praeceptor Amoris has been proclaiming his power over Cupid (1.1–22) who is here identified as the agent of his suffering, but the objects of his revenge can only be women, whom he aims to hurt by way of his army of well trained lovers. See chapter 5. 55. Hence, with Prop. 1.1 as a basis, Ovid can invoke all these themes with just a few words in Am. 1.1. See Keith 1992. 56. The lover-poets attempt in Am. 1.8 and Prop. 4.5 to present their puellae as innocent, chaste (Am. 1.8.19, thalamos pudicos), and above all not venal (a suggestion possibly supported by the blush for which Dipsas teases the puella at Am. 1.8.35), perhaps more like the junior meretrices of comedy, who are less materialistic and more idealistic (or, according to their senior colleagues, less experienced and more naive, such as Philotis in Terence’s Hecyra, Philaenium in Plautus’s Asinaria, and Philematium in Mostellaria), who still believe that they can afford to integrate free love into their professional practices. Am. 1.8 and Prop. 4.5 suggest that at least the lena thinks the puella needs reinforcement in her financial planning and professional practice. But the puellae of elegy defy such wishful portraiture, as these same lover-poets make clear everywhere else; see particularly Am. 1.10 and Prop. 2.16.11–12. 57. Prop. 1.16.45, 2.6.1–8, 2.14.21, 2.19.1–6. See also Hor. Ode 1.25, on the crowds of young men at a courtesan’s door. The barking dog also signifies the presence of a lover at the gate; cf. Tib. 1.6.31–32, Am. 2.19.39–40. The existence of the paying rival further demonstrates the puella’s status as an experienced courtesan immune to the lover-poet’s pleas of devotion meriting free sex. 58. See, for instance, Am. 1.2, which identifies symptoms of love—primarily sleeplessness—even before the lover-poet has identified a beloved. 59. Cf. Am. 1.6.67–70: the garland remains when the lover-poet leaves at dawn, as proof that he has pulled an all-nighter in fulfillment of one of his generic obligations. 60. This complaint is leveled most often at Ovid, but it could also be aimed at Propertius and Tibullus. In fact, the elegists themselves sometimes find these aspects of the genre rather tedious (Propertius’s paraclausithyron, 1.16, for instance, might be seen as a generically necessary gesture made interesting by transfering the complaint from the exclusus amator to the door itself). Many of the criticisms about Ovid’s Amores revolve precisely around his exhaustive but perfunctory treatment of the standard components of elegy. Ovid is often thought to have wrung every last drop out of the genre, with the result that

Notes to Pages 132–136

/

295

scholars have found his elegies less than compelling. See, e.g., Arkins 1990, who complains that Ovid should have cut significantly more out of the first edition of the Amores. On Ovid’s special treatment of elegy, see the next chapter. 61. Servitium amoris: Conte 1994: 37–38, Copley 1947, Day 1938, Hallett 1973, Labate 1984: 212–19, Lilja 1965: 71–89, Lyne 1979, Murgatroyd 1981, Veyne 1988: 132–50, McCarthy 1998. Exclusus amator/paraclausithyron: Copley 1956. Militia amoris: Gale 1997, Murgatroyd 1975. 62. Hence I include no discussion of militia amoris, as it is not primarily offered up in service and persuasion of the mistress. Any services rendered under militia amoris belong in my view to servitium amoris or its subsidiary, obsequium; from the puella’s viewpoint, militia amoris in fact potentially threatens her, as when the amator aims a military assault on her house; see below. 63. See, for instance, Prop. 2.6, where the lover-poet fears, suspects, and envies her every other acquaintance, male or female, adult or infant, relative or friend (2.6.9–14). 64. As Benediktson (1989: 108) notes, of Propertius’s poetry, the “scene of the poems is not the forum but the bedroom, or even the bedroom as perceived by Propertius, and that bedroom is a place disassociated from the forum; it is, in fact, the pastoral scene, the locus amoenus [pleasant place].” Only in this imaginary indoor Eden can the elegiac amator have the puella all to himself. 65. In general, elegy represents the countryside as a place where girls have less opportunity to cheat. In Prop. 2.19, for instance, the lover-poet takes comfort in the fact that if Cynthia is leaving Rome against his will, at least she’ll be going to the country, where she’ll be alone, without young men to corrupt her. 66. The fantastic vision of Delia weaving like Penelope should actually be rather amusing to the docta puella (though it may be noted that at Prop. 1.3.41 Cynthia claims to have been weaving while her lover was away). On the Odyssean elements of this poem, see both Bright 1978 and Ball 1983: ch. 4. 67. The paraclausithyron is a poem or passage in which the speaker enacts the role of exclusus amator (lover locked out), depicting himself as locked outside his beloved’s door, where he laments their separation and beseeches the agent of his exclusion (door guard, door, the puella herself, occasionally the vir, as in Am. 3.4 or even Tib. 1.6.37–38) to take pity and let him in. 68. See Copley 1956; see also Thomas 1979, McKeown 1989: 121–22, and Barsby 1996. 69. Lucr. De rerum natura 4.1177–79: at lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepe / floribus et sertis operit postisque superbos / unguit amaracino et foribus miser oscula figit (“But the weeping locked-out lover often covers / the threshold with flower-garlands, and anoints the proud / doorposts with ointment and wretchedly plants kisses on the door”). 70. And cf. Oliensis 1997: 151. 71. Hence the need to barricade the house at night, if only to protect one’s daughters from attempts at abduction-marriage. See Evans-Grubbs 1989. 72. See Terence’s Eunuchus. See also Copley 1956: 5; at 51–52 he designates

296

/

Notes to Pages 136–141

a paraclausithyron dedicated to a meretrix a “lupanar song,” which he considers a lower order of paraclausithyron (see 58), citing examples in Horace, Catullus, and Martial (160 n. 39). 73. This poem is elegy’s most extended expression of militia amoris. Hor. Ode 3.26 lists some of the lover’s arsenal, designed for breaking open doors. See Copley’s (1956) discussion of this armature, 57–58 and 160 n. 38. 74. Though cf. Am. 1.9.19–20. And note that Prop. 2.5.22 promises not to break down Cynthia’s door, a promise that needs making only if the threat is real. 75. The extant evidence suggests that the standard form of the paraclausithyron is quite short, as in Greek epigram and elegy; certainly in New Comedy, forty to seventy lines of a lamentation monologue by an exclusus amator would dull rapidly. Hence, perhaps, in Roman love elegy there is a need to twist the original form in order to maintain the reader’s (and the poet’s) interest for the length of a full elegy. 76. Cf. Prop. 1.1.19–22, in which the lover-poet, who elsewhere in the same poem desires a cure for his lovesickness, at nearly any cost, wants the witches to make Cynthia love him rather than relieve him of his passion for her. 77. It also slides into yet another of the Tibullan lover-poet’s pastoral fantasies of a happy herding life with Delia (71–76); as Leach (1980: 63) notes, his “ridiculous clamor at the closed door is justified by the mental picture” of happy country love. It is hardly likely to move Delia, however. 78. Note that the lover-poet’s violence is here displaced from the puella onto the door (5–7). It is not difficult to read the door as a sexual symbol for Cynthia; in fact, it is difficult not to read it as such, as the hard door and the dura puella are often virtually interchangeable. 79. Unless infamis is taken with dominae, which would be a very clear characterization. See Camps 1961 and Richardson 1977 ad loc. 80. Am. 2.2–3 may also be considered forms of the paraclausithyron, for although the lover-poet is not depicted in them as lying outside the gate, he is certainly attempting to persuade a custos to be ready to let the puella come and go as she likes. We might call these pre- or semiparaclausithyra, as many of their arguments, threats, and abuse are standard equipment for a paraclausithyron. 81. The structure going from prayer to arguments to insults, threats, and abuse is common in Ovid; see, for instance, 2.2, 2.7, 2.19, 3.4. 82. Perhaps the most logical progression occurs at 15–23, where the loverpoet claims to fear only the ianitor, whom he flatters absurdly as having power over him (15–16); he immediately reverses course and reclaims his social superiority by recalling the time when he intervened with the puella on the ianitor’s behalf (19–20)—a favor for which he now desires a return (a similar proposal of exchange occurs in 2.8). 83. Cf. Am. 1.8.78, where the receptus amans, the lover indoors, is to hear the exclusus amator lamenting outside; cf. also Prop. 2.14.21, where the loverpoet (for once he is the receptus amans, line 28) hears others pounding on the door and calling her.

Notes to Pages 141–146

/

297

84. It may not be an accident that the next poem in the Amores dramatizes an episode of elegiac violence, as if to demonstrate the lover’s submerged resentment at his subjugation. 85. Such travel may be easier than male elegiac servitude (cf. Prop. 1.6), but the lover would never say so to the puella. 86. That is, it may be that the relative success of the elegiac propempticon has been inadequately recognized. In the case of this particular poem, I think it safe to say that a standard element of Propertian poetics has been misunderstood: the propensity of his poems to jump from topic to topic, seemingly at random. This structure, however, reflects the disjointed state of mind of the elegiac lover; see Stahl 1985. Hubbard (1974: 52–53) locates this structure of shifting topics in mime. Thus, she says, ancient readers “used to dramatic performances of this kind would not be over-perplexed if an elegiac poet presented them with different phases of a single situation or even, as Propertius does in I.8, with an abrupt reversal of a situation” (53). On elegy and mime, see McKeown 1979. 87. Ovid’s propempticon, Am. 2.11, perhaps predictably offers standard persuasion but ends in a projected reunion of an immediate and sexual nature. It extends upon Prop. 1.8, by proposing an imaginary journey for Corinna, which the lover-poet first laments in recognizable language of the querela: me miserum (2.11.9 = “wretched me”). He then turns to hoping for her safe return, describing his own abject devotion, which he depicts as earning him an immediate sexual reward. In this poem the lover-poet focuses on the sexual potential, for himself, of her journey. Corinna can have no trouble understanding her poet’s interests in this poem, which seeks to limit her sexual activities to himself. Even the laments and the promises of this poem to await her faithfully (a devotion rather less daring than that of Prop. 2.26, in which the lover-poet determines to follow Cynthia on her voyage and die together with her) operate as sexual persuasion. The next poem, Am. 2.12, follows the structure of victory in Prop. 1.8; see McKeown 1998 ad loc. 88. Copley (1947: 285) considers it the most common figure of the genre. Murgatroyd (1981: 606 n. 56), contra, sees militia amoris as both more common and more “highly developed.” 89. Murgatroyd (1981) traces the history of the motif of lover as slave; he notes (596) that the elegists added the chains to the motif, citing specifically Tib. 1.1.55. Horace describes enduring the night watch miseries of the paraclausithyron, but never describes himself as a slave to a domina. Thus his love poetry does not present the exclusus amator as enslaved. Elegiac servitium amoris is hence marked as both elegiac and voluntary. Luck (1969: 129) points out that it “is as rare in Greek erotic poetry as it is frequent in Latin elegiac verse.” 90. Lyne (1989: 47), equating obsequium with slavery; but in my view, obsequium is a property of the dependent free man, as well, which the cliens must demonstrate for his patronus. See Oliensis 1997. 91. The bibliography on ancient slavery is enormous; a useful overview can be found in Wiedemann 1981.

298

/

Notes to Pages 146–147

92. Circumstantial slavery may also capture less noble sorts; as Thalmann (1998: 98) points out, of Eumaios and his nurse in the Odyssey, “[N]obility does not automatically accompany high birth”—hence “bad persons” can be unjustly enslaved as well as “good persons.” 93. On the necessary intellectual labor of slaves, see McCarthy 1998: 180 and Fitzgerald 2000: 13–15. 94. In her view, the slave position offers the elegists a means of exploring their relations to other elite men. 95. In Roman literary history, slaves like Livius Andronicus, Terence, and Caecilius Statilius were crucial to the transmission of Greek literature and the consequent development of Roman literature. 96. And, of course, generically the docta puella might well once have been a slave herself; the elegiac puella has often been identified as a freedwoman. Indeed Volumnia Cytheris—said to have been the model for Gallus’s Lycoris, the original elegiac puella—was a former slave. 97. Kennedy (1993: 56) notes that voluntary love slavery “needs to be seen in the light” of the lover’s “pleasure in sexual aggression and domination.” 98. It is actually manifested, however, only in one activity: inertia. See below. 99. The factotum bears a strong resemblance to the cliens of a powerful patronus; see Oliensis 1997. 100. As Kennedy (1993: 73) notes, the lover-poet’s rhetorical attempt to place himself in an object position relative to his beloved “can be considered . . . as supporting the lover’s position in his manipulation of the balance of erotic power. He wants his beloved (and perhaps his readers too) to think that he is a ‘real’ slave, while in certain respects he could be viewed as the dominator. Referring to the beloved as domina ostensibly attributes all ‘power’ to her whilst at the same time seeking to bind her into a relationship in which the exercise of that ‘power’ is a function of the fulfilment of the lover’s desire.” This analysis demonstrates what Greene (1998: 62) calls “the degree of manipulation and posturing in the elegiac stance of servitude toward the mistress.” 101. Further, as Copley (1947: 295) suggests, the actual performance of servile duties does not seem to occur in elegy because, of course, servitium amoris is part of an elegiac fantasy: “The very absurdity of the situation points up, as clearly as can be, the complete unreality of the world of romantic love, its entire divorce from actual standards of thought and conduct.” Murgatroyd (1981: 604–6) places the lover’s services to the puella under servitium amoris, citing Ars 2.209ff. As Lyne (1979: 118) puts it, citing Copley 1947: 288, the “crucially relevant aspect of slavery for the image [of servitium amoris] is . . . the servility of the slave as a social institution” (italics original). Lee-Stecum (1998: 48) claims that slavish “devotion to. . . . a girl is hard work,” but servitium amoris, in the form of lying at a woman’s door, is in fact nothing more than “a negation of comfort,” as he remarks on the next page. Lee-Stecum goes on to note, rightly, a parallel between the discomforts of servitium amoris and “the temporary hardship of war endured with the prospect of gain” (49).

Notes to Pages 147–149

/

299

102. Likewise, they love to cite Apollo and Heracles performing servile duties because of love, as examples of their own suffering (see Murgatroyd 1981: 598–99 and 598 n. 28), but again they don’t actually perform any labors for the puella. Even the servile duties they propose can hardly appeal to an elegiac mistress: see, for example, Tib. 1.2.71–74, in which the lover-poet offers to herd animals in the country as long as Delia herds them with him—hardly an enticing prospect for a sophisticated city girl. 103. For a similar dynamic, see Tib. 2.4, as discussed in chapter 2. 104. It might be argued that Am. 3.2 depicts servile activities in the loverpoet’s attentions to the puella’s dress, but since this is a puella he has only just met, he does so not in the performance of duties to an acknowledged beloved but in the hopes of acquiring a new one, and the parallel passage in Ars 1 raises the distinct possibility that the spot of dust (3.2.41–42) may well be imaginary (Ars 1.151–52), a pretext for physical contact. 105. On this poem, see above. The lover-poet has just protested his previous servile duty, as the exclusus amator/guard, precisely because of the indignity of enduring such misery despite being a free man, all for the benefit of another man: ergo ego sustinui, foribus tam saepe repulsus, / ingenuum dura ponere corpus humo? / ergo ego nesciocui, quem tu complexa tenebas, / excubui clausam, servus ut, ante domum? (Am. 3.11.9–12: “So therefore I put up, sent away so often from your doors, / with placing my free body on the hard earth? / So therefore, for the benefit of somebody-or-other, whom you were holding in your embrace, / I lay like a slave outside your closed door?”). But the worst part of the situation is not the girl’s infidelity, nor even the physical discomfort endured—it is having been seen in servile passivity by his departing rival (15–16). Tib. 1.2.87–96 likewise resents scornful witnesses to his threshold-service. 106. As Murgatroyd (1980: 161) notes of Tib. 1.5, elegiac amatory obsequiousness “seems clearly aimed at the psychology of the domina.” 107. As if to redeem these undignified activities, the praeceptor immediately raises servitium amoris to the level of military service: militiae species amor est: discedite, segnes (Ars 2.233: “Love is a type of warfare: keep away, sluggards”). 108. This midnight raid is placed between the brief passage on militia amoris (2.233–38) and the following lesson on giving cheap gifts to the puella’s slaves (2.251–60). These surrounding passages reassert both the lover-poet’s primacy over slaves and his proper Roman masculinity; thus they further mark servitium amoris as purely metaphorical. 109. Even Tib. 2.4, discussed in chapter 1, which begins by pretending to be prepared for entering into the state of slavery, devolves into laments and pleas having nothing to do with the services of slavery. 110. Notably, the lover’s chains (as in Tib. 1.1.55) not only prevent any real labor but actually encourage lament. See Fear 2000b: 237 on the analogy of servitium amoris with otium. 111. See Lyne 1979, particularly, on the slave’s loss of freedom of speech as a hallmark of Roman views of slavery.

300

/

Notes to Pages 149–157

112. Or perhaps the term should be captivitas amoris—elegiac lover-poets represent themselves as having been taken captive by the weapons of Cupid and the puella; since war captives are a primary source of slaves in antiquity, they can represent themselves as suffering the first throes of their new misery. See Copley 1947: 296 for examples of the imprisonment of the lover. See also the weaponry of Cupid in Am. 1.1 and 2.9b, and esp. Am. 1.2, in which the loverpoet describes himself as a prisoner of war in a Roman military triumphal procession. 113. The next line, et sedeo duras ianitor ante fores (“and I sit, a door guard, outside hard gates”) does describe a form of slave service, but notably, as remarked above, this labor is passive, a condition overtly marked by the following couplet: non ego laudari curo, mea Delia: tecum / dum modo sim, quaeso segnis inersque vocer (Tib. 1.1.57–58: “I don’t care, my Delia, for being praised: as long as / I am with you, I seek to be called lazy and inactive”). The lover may, in Ovid’s phrase, guard the doors of his mistress (Am. 1.9.8: fores dominae servat), but this service is inert and allows plenty of opportunity for elegiac lament. 114. It is no accident that these three remarks come in the programmatic openings to the first books of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. 115. Greene (1998: 91) notes of Am. 1.7 that Ovid shows “how the game [of love] works . . . by revealing how the elegiac stance of servitude toward the mistress is often self-serving for the amator and dehumanizing toward women.” The puella will have observed this fact.

5. reading elegy through ovid 1. Of recent scholars, Arkins (1990) takes the strongest such stance, but similar sentiments can be found in Richlin 1992c and passim in older scholarship. Hinds (1987a: 4–11) discusses the scholarly view of Ovid as “shallow and overexplicit.” 2. It also clashes powerfully, sometimes admittedly, with Ovid’s masterwork, the Metamorphoses, which cannot be easily dismissed; see Boyd 1997: 1–12. 3. On the chronology of publication of various of Ovid’s volumes of poetry, see McKeown 1987: 74–87. See also Murgia (1986a and 1986b), though his views have not won wide acceptance. 4. Indeed, the anecdote from Seneca the Elder (Controv. 2.2.12) about the three contested lines of Ovid’s poetry demonstrates that even in antiquity he was seen as fully aware of how alarming and off-putting some of his work could be and of how much some readers might object to it. 5. Conte (1994: 44) also notes that this “process of interpretation and revision is often dissimulated or at least discontinuous on the surface and has not always been grasped with significant awareness by Ovid scholars.” 6. The desire to edit Ovid has resulted in some wishful scholarly redactive reduction. For example, Lee (1962: 175 and 179 n. 9) proposes that Ovid should

Notes to Pages 157–158

/

301

have cut considerably more from the second edition; in addition to preferring to shorten 2.4, 5, 14, Lee sees the only successful poems in book 2 (which, he says [at 175], has “more successful poems . . . than 1 and 3”) as 1, 7, 8, 12, 15, and 17. This revision would cut the Amores by more than half. Nearly thirty years later, Arkins opines (1990: 829) that the first edition of the Amores was so bad that many of its poems were “fit no doubt for use as toilet paper and wrapping for fish,” so that “Ovid himself” must have been embarrassed by them. He proposes not only to shorten 2.4, 1.14, 3.1, 1.6 (here citing Lee 1962: 175) but to remove entirely 1.7, 8, 15; 2.2, 3, 6, 9b, 11, 19; 3.3, 5, 6, and 18—a judgment he considers “not too severe.” Aesthetic judgments these may be, but they certainly manage to remove almost all the poems I will review here. 7. See, as noted in chapter 1, Lee 1962: 149–50, on how hard it can be to identify the author of anonymous passages from the elegists and how “Ovidian” material can be found in Tibullus and Propertius. See also Gale 1997: 83 n. 25, on Propertius as having “anticipated traits which are usually thought of as peculiarly Ovidian.” I will argue here, rather, that Ovid brings out, as it were, the peculiarly Ovidian in Propertius and Tibullus. 8. Hinds remarks, in the Oxford Classical Dictionary’s entry on Ovid (1084): “Erotic elegy before Ovid had featured a disjunction in the first-person voice between a very knowing poet and a very unknowing lover. Ovid closes this gap, and achieves a closer fit between literary and erotic conventions, by featuring a protagonist who loves as knowingly as he writes. Ovid’s lover is familiar with the rules of the genre, understands the necessity for them, and manipulates them to his advantage. The result is not so much a parody of previous erotic elegy as a newly rigorous and zestful exploration of its possibilities.” Those possibilities are not even latent, as I hope to demonstrate here. They have been overlooked. 9. As Hinds (1985), as well as others before him, notes, Ovid’s own early poetic works, the Heroides (also called Epistulae Heroidum) are models for his letters of abandonment from Tomis. 10. It might be wondered why Ovid would persist in using the meter that led to his exile, but he feels that his Ars amatoria was unfairly faulted; in addition, he hints strongly more than once that the Ars was a pretext and the true cause for his punishment was the unnamable mistake (error, Tr. 2.207; see also Tr. 4.8.20); see Pont. 2.9.71–76, in which he suggests that the greater crime (gravior noxa, line 72) hides beneath the Ars: ecquid praeterea peccarim, quaerere noli, / ut lateat sola culpa sub Arte mea. / quicquid id est (75–77: ”And if I committed another crime, don’t ask, / so that my fault may lie hidden beneath my Art [ = Ars amatoria]. / Whatever it [the fault] is”). Judging by the worries of at least one friend at Rome, who fears having his name cited in Ovid’s letters from exile (Pont. 3.6) and the betrayal of a former friend, now pretending not to have known Ovid (Pont. 4.3), there may have been some risk in being associated with him even after his exile, but his name was still being spoken, even in high circles, particularly if his wife and friends did continue to seek his recall. In his exile poetry, Ovid routinely refers to his disgraced poem, which was

302

/

Notes to Pages 158–161

the publicly stated reason for his relegatio. Regardless, throughout his exile poetry, Ovid continues to defend both himself and his poetry; his continued use of the elegiac meter constitutes an implicit form of defense of poetry and his own poetry in particular. 11. And of course elegy always had a strong, and well-recognized, erotodidactic element as well; see Wheeler 1910–11. 12. I take Ovid’s exilic poetry to represent the voice of the actual author, particularly as it goes to such trouble to emphasize the fictionality of the amatory elegiacs. Cf. Hexter 1999: 332–33 on the different impressions of the speaking Egoes of the love poetry and the exile poetry. Thus when discussing the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto, I identify the poetic speaker as Ovid himself, rather than a fictive character. It will be noted that I do not accept the argument of Fitton Brown (1985) that Ovid invented his own exile. 13. Dante might well have agreed with Ovid on this point: “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse,” comments Francesca da Rimini at Inferno 5.137 (“Both the book and its author were Galahad,” i.e., a go-between encouraging and enabling adultery)—she and Paolo became adulterous lovers at the urging of a textual example rather than a didactic instruction. 14. Tr. 2.459–60 (scit, cui latretur, cum solus obambulet, ipsas / cui totiens clausas excreet ante fores) echoes Tib. 1.5.73–74 (solus et ante ipsas exscreat usque fores), and recalls the barking dog of Tib. 1.6.32. It also invokes Ovid’s own Am. 2.19.39–40, addressed to the unwatchful vir, based in these lines of Tibullus: incipe, quis totiens furtim tua limina pulset, / quaerere, quid latrent nocte silente canes (“Start asking, who secretly knocks so often at your / door, and why the dogs bark in the silent night”; cf. the dog at Tib. 2.4.31–34, who hushes up for a paying customer). A rock song by the New Orleans musician Dr. John inverts the signal of the barking dog: it is titled “How Come My Dog Don’t Bark When You Come Around?” and its speaker suspects his wife is having an affair with his best friend. 15. He stresses the didactic quality of his predecessors’ elegy: docuisse (2.449); sua . . . arte (450); docet (456); multa praecepta, docet (461); eadem blandi praecepta Properti (465). Here he recalls the instruction of Calliope to the lover-poet at Prop. 3.3.48–50: ut per te clausas sciat excantare puellas, / qui volet austeros arte ferire viros (“So that he may be able, through you, to charm locked up girls out [of their houses], / whoever wishes to wound strict men by skill”). This very model of instruction by example is the type of implicit instruction that Ovid is invoking in his own defense, and it is repeated at Prop. 4.1.135–36, where Horos instructs the lover-poet to stick to what he knows best, and thus to give lessons by example: at tu finge elegos, fallax opus (haec tua castra!), / scribat ut exemplo cetera turba tuo (“But you make up elegies, that deceptive genre: this is your war-camp!—/ so that the rest of the crowd may compose by your example”). Murgatroyd (1980: 186) considers “the idea of the poet teaching methods of deception to his mistress . . . entirely original” to Tibullus, a view congenial to Ovid’s argument here.

Notes to Page 161

/

303

16. Ovid slides over the thirty-five-plus year gap of time in which Augustus became more dedicated to his moral legislation. When Propertius and Tibullus were composing elegy, the Julian laws had not been passed—though like many scholars I believe that Augustus attempted an earlier version of them in the year 28 or 27 b.c.e., withdrawn because of overwhelming opposition; see appendix. (The Julian laws were passed in the year 18 or 17 b.c.e.) But as time passed Augustus became more strict rather than more relaxed about the sex lives of the upper classes (as well as freedom of speech in general; see McKeown 1984). Ovid is slightly disingenuous in using the elegiac works of Propertius and Tibullus to excuse his Ars amatoria, in that his own Amores were not censured as they weren’t didactic; on the other hand, as he points out, there is a good deal of instruction in Propertius and Tibullus. 17. McKeown (1987: 85) notes that Ovid “may have exercised a considerable influence on the development” of elegy, as Tibullus and Propertius certainly knew his early efforts in the genre, from the first edition of the Amores, and its publication presupposes prior performance and circulation in the poetry circles, as indeed Ovid claims. 18. Otis (1938: 200–201) notes that Ovid “develops” Tib. 2.6.11–12 into a whole poem (Am. 2.1); Prop. 2.22a.1–20 likewise leads to the forty-eight lines of Am. 2.4. Griffin (1985: 135) notes that the tale of the Sabine women in Ars 1 takes up Prop. 2.6.21–22. See also Prop. 2.5. 5–7: inveniam tamen e multis fallacibus unam, / quae fieri nostro carmine nota velit (“But I’ll find one girl from so many cheaters, / who would want to become known through my song”). Ovid gets an entire poem out of this couplet: Am. 3.12 examines the implications of the present (as opposed to eternal) fame granted by poetry to women. In the context of the elegiac puella’s profession, marked by fallacibus (cheaters) at Prop. 2.5.5, the result is predictable. Ovid exploits this passing remark and winds up with a poem in which poetry is the means of advertising the puella’s charms and thus attracting new customers to her. Du Quesnay (1973: 6–7, 20–23) discusses this aspect of Ovid’s composition; he sees it as reinforcing the view that the Ovidian amator “is a caricature of the elegiac lover: sentiments the earlier elegists utter in passing or situations to which they allude appear in Ovid fully developed and their minor and unobtrusive traits are exaggerated” (22), citing especially Am. 1.9 and 2.12. 19. Cf. Johnson 1985: 22–23: the Ovidian amator is “the hero of a satiric novel”; “the inventor of this species of satiric novel was, so far as we can tell, Propertius,” whose eponymous speaker Johnson describes (23) as an “idiot in love with love.” He sees them as two “poets . . . doing rather similar things in quite different ways: portraits of the human male in love, novels about masculine sexual malaise,” a description that needs, in my view, only the addition of Tibullus. Lee-Stecum (2000: 178) speaks of a Tibullus very different from the gentle, dreamy Tibullus of standard scholarship (cited 7–8 n. 2): “an unreliable, infuriating, even treacherous Tibullus.” This “Tibullus” would have been familiar to Ovid. I would add to Lee-Stecum’s comments only this: to view the Tibullan speaker as gentle and passive absolutely requires readers to overlook

304

/

Notes to Pages 162–169

his consistent urge to violence against the puella, on which see below; see also James forthcoming (“Politics”). 20. On both these poems, see James forthcoming (“Courtesan”). 21. Romans ate reclining, three to a couch; food and drink were passed around by slaves. The ancient Greeks and Romans mixed their wine with water, as pure wine (merum) was very strong and thought to cause drunkenness quickly. 22. The rest of the poem narrates the lover-poet’s outburst against the guilty pair, and the way her blushing beauty protected her from his impulse to violence; he forgives her, then she kisses him triumphantly—but her kissing technique has improved so greatly that he fears she has been in bed with her other teacher (62, magister). 23. As Judith Hallett has reminded me, Am. 3.7.25–26, in which the loverpoet recalls having performed nine times with Corinna in a single night, recalls the offer of Catull. 32 to Ipsitilla for the same number in a siesta rendezvous; likewise Prop. 2.22a.23–24 boasts of frequent continuous night-long sexual activity. See also Am. 3.9, in which the Tibullan fantasy of dying in Delia’s arms is invoked, but transferred to Nemesis. 24. See McKeown 1989 and 1998 on these passages; see also Miller 2003. 25. Note that 3.7, the impotence poem, which not coincidentally also focuses on the puella’s body—arms, thighs, tongue, general beauty—completes a structural pattern for the Amores in which Ovid places a poem (or, in Am. 2.13–14, poems) focused on the body into a more or less central position in each book. 26. On the Alexandrian technique of Ovid’s description of the hair color, see Boyd 1997: 117–22. 27. And, of course, if this poem were new to the second edition, its presence would be even more strongly marked. Alas, we cannot know. The means for dating the poem as McKeown does (1989) is the reference to the German (specifically Sygambrian) women’s hair, sent in tribute to Rome, 1.14.45–49. 28. Though since the previous hair grew well past her waist, some years (a minimum of five, I would guess) will pass before her crowning glory is fully restored. Kennedy (1993: 75–77) makes interesting comments on this poem. 29. There is little explanation, otherwise, for her need of a skilled hairdresser as a slave (ornatrix), but such a slave appears to be standard domestic personnel for the courtesan—note that Corinna has at least two such slaves (presumably not simultaneously), Nape in Am. 1.11–12 and Cypassis in Am. 2.7–8. Though the ornatrix has other duties, she must be skilled (even docta, 1.11.2) at her craft: 1.11.1–2, 2.7.23–24, 2.8.1–4. The lover-poet considers her useful also for carrying messages; see 1.11–12, esp. 1.11.3–8, and Ars 1.351–72. 30. The editorial history of this poem is a mess, with editors dividing it variously into two or three poems. Fedeli (1984) transposes lines 31–32 before 29–30; I read, with Barber 1960, Butler and Barber 1964, Camps 1966, and Richardson 1977, no transpositions, and I incline to a dipartite division. In line 29, I read per te with Fedeli, rather than certe. 31. The reference to the painted Britons (who painted their faces) is typi-

Notes to Pages 169–174

/

305

cally elegiac hyperbole; as line 26 shows, Cynthia appears to have been bleaching her hair, with a substance usually identified as spuma Batava (cited in Martial and elsewhere; see Camps 1966, Butler and Barber 1964, and Richardson 1977 ad loc.; Camps identifies the resulting color as a reddish-gold). A brother and son would presumably keep a woman from overdoing herself, as the lover-poet implies that she has been doing. The bed means the memory of their love in the bed, which should in theory keep her faithful; see the commentaries ad loc. The persuasive intent of this poem is marked by demens, which appears prominently in the beginning of 1.8, the first propempticon. It is a strong word of accusation, and it presages a barrage of argument to come. 32. Sullivan (1976: 80 n. 8) comments that “because of its rarity in Italy, blonde hair at this point was particularly fashionable. Imported blonde hair was in frequent use, particularly among disreputable women,” which is to say courtesans. 33. See Barsby (1973: 151) on how Ovid’s speaker demonstrates a preference for an “undone” style; as he notes, that hairstyle is associated with sex, as seen in similes of sleeping maenads. 34. Barsby (1973: 151 n. 10) cites both this passage and Martial 2.66, Juvenal 6.487–93 as parallels to Am. 1.14.15–18, on the mistress stabbing the ornatrix who pulls her hair and causes pain (the point there is that Corinna never had to do such a thing, because her hair was so well-behaved). Given the Ovidian elegiac male’s brutal treatment of the mistress’s female slave, particularly the ornatrix, line 239 (tuta sit ornatrix) is deeply ironic. 35. As previously noted, I read this poem as a separate elegy rather than the continuation of 3.24. He has also already warned her (Prop. 2.18a.20) that soon she will be a hunched-over old woman. 36. These words occupy the same place (the second half of the hexameter) in their line as the identical words at Tib. 1.8.45. 37. The theme of the remorseful aged courtesan is frequent in Horace. 38. Cf. Wyke 1987a: 167, on the lena as both the “polar opposite of the elegiac mistress” and her inevitable future; Wyke likewise cites Prop. 3.24–25 as predicting “the arrival of ugliness,” whereupon “mistress is transformed into hag.” 39. A more sophisticated view can be found at Watts 1973: 89: citing Balsdon 1962: 192, Watts notes that these poems “probably are ‘singularly tasteless,’ but a close examination of them reveals that they are not out of place in the collection of poems as a whole.” This remark is clarified by his later remark that “there is . . . little of literary value in either poem,” though they are “interesting as documents in the history of ideas” (100–101). He also correctly notes (101 n. 69) that “[s]ome of Horace’s early Epodes are equally unappealing,” that is, that their contents discomfit readers. 40. In general, on this poem, see the definitive arguments in Gamel 1989. 41. See the excellent remarks in McKeown 1998: 276–77 on how Ovid intends to shock the reader by juxtaposing poems 2.12 and 2.13. 42. There is some logic in seeking aid from the goddess of childbirth, as she

306

/

Notes to Pages 174–178

is in a position to help women who suffer any type of complication in pregnancy and delivery; note that since, as McKeown (1998) on 2.14.28 points out, most abortions in antiquity were procured with the use of herbal and medicinal agents rather than surgical instruments, this procedure (despite the loverpoet’s depiction of it as accomplished by weaponry) is likely to have required several days to expel the dead fetus. Hence Ilithyia can still be of help to Corinna. 43. It has thus often been cited as evidence that the Romans in general and Ovid in particular disapproved of abortion, but the issue is much more complicated. See McKeown’s (1998) headnote to 2.13; see also Cantarella 1987: 128–29, 147–51, Riddle 1992, and Watts 1973. Yardley (1977: 398 and 398 n. 5), citing Heinemann 1919: 70, suggests that Ovid is “developing a stock rhetorical theme” in his apparently antiabortion stance; see also 398 n. 4. 44. In 3.14, the Propertian lover-poet expresses the wistful desire to see women naked in public, performing in athletic competitions, as the Spartan women do—but there his concern seems to be that Roman women’s dresses disguise their bodies and their long hair hides their faces. In other words, a young man might not be able to tell what he’s getting into. Hor. Sat. 1.2 says the same thing, but of respectable women; the praeceptor Amoris recommends the use of full light when selecting the proper stranger, for many defects hide behind dim light (Ars 1.245–52). 45. Juno Lucina is the primary Roman goddess of childbirth. 46. Sexually transmitted diseases are another likely risk. 47. vestra quid effoditis subiectis viscera telis / et nondum natis dira venena datis? (Am. 2.14.27–28: “Why do you [girls] dig at your guts with scraping weapons / and give dreadful poisons to your not-yet-born children?”). 48. Cf. McKeown’s (1998) notes to Am. 2.13–14. 49. See Yardley 1973 on the general topic of visiting the sick in ancient poetry. 50. See Murgatroyd 1980 on this passage. 51. Putnam (1973) on Tib. 1.5.9–10 notes that “Lucretius uses the phrase defessa iacebant corpora (6.1178) [= “the exhausted bodies were lying still”] for victims of the plague while iaceas is common in epitaphs. Defessa therefore means ‘moribund.’ “ 52. In Ars 2, the praeceptor advises hiring the saga for these services (329–30); he prescribes more personal attendance on the puella, so that she can actually see his devotion to her. The Tibullan lover-poet has hired a saga before, at 1.2.41–64, where she performs love spells on his behalf. 53. As usual, the textual history of this poem is complicated; with Fedeli (1984) I read a single elegy, but without transpositions. 54. I take the unnamed puella in this poem to be Cynthia because the loverpoet claims that he will die if she dies; he demonstrates such desperate devotion only to Cynthia. 55. Some editors (Camps [1966] on 6, Butler and Barber [1964] on 9–12) assume that Cynthia has been boasting; Richardson (1977) assumes that a lover

Notes to Pages 178–179

/

307

has done so. Though he notes, correctly, that such an amatory compliment is unPropertian, a few lines from 3.24 do refer to the lover’s praise of Cynthia’s beauty. The lover-poet is preparing to bid her farewell, and he begins by criticizing her pride in her beauty: falsa est ista tuae, mulier, fiducia formae, / olim oculis nimium facta superba meis (1–2: “Your confidence, woman, in your beauty is misplaced, / for a long time you have become too proud to my eyes”). He lists a few examples of how he used to praise her beauty (5–8). 56. Hubbard (1974: 54) and a few other editors see lines 21–22, about Andromeda, as an interpolation, as her story does not resemble the other stories, and the couplet (which Hubbard calls “flat and prosaic”) does not articulate her eventual posthumous reward (to become a constellation), though the fates of the other heroines are listed. Benediktson (1989: 37ff.) disputes this argument, citing Enk 1962 as well as Butler and Barber 1964. I am inclined to agree with Hubbard, for reasons that will be clear shortly. 57. Ino is an apparent exception, but I will argue below that in fact she proves the rule. 58. I read sit (“one is”), with Barber 1960, Richardson 1977, Butler and Barber 1964, rather than sis (“you are”) with Fedeli 1984. 59. As Richardson 1977 ad loc. notes, this phrase means either “ ‘at what peril one is beautiful’ or ‘in what peril a beautiful woman lives.’ “ 60. Cf. Hubbard 1974: 54ff.; and see below. 61. Notably, Ovid himself tells the stories of all these women in the first few books of the Metamorphoses; we may perhaps also take their presence there as evidence that he recognized the theme of pregnancy in this poem. 62. Semele was impregnated by Jupiter; jealous, Juno disguised herself as an old woman and advised her to ask Jupiter to come visit as he would come to Juno. Semele asked, and Jupiter agreed, though he was very reluctant, for he comes to Juno in the form of a thunderbolt. Naturally, Semele was incinerated by his arrival, though he managed to snatch the baby out of her, hide it in his thigh, and give birth later on. See Ovid’s version, Met. 3.258–315. This story suggests the awareness of Greek myth of the difficulties and dangers of pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth. 63. I leave aside here the question of whether these impregnations occur in the midst of seduction or rape. 64. This explanation of Ino’s presence may resolve the problem that Benediktson (1989: 37) notes, in refuting Hubbard (1974) on this poem, that two exceptions (Ino and Andromeda) out of five “are too many to explain away” (he argues for a “stream of thought” compositional approach, linked sequentially by the themes of water and travel; since Cynthia, by contrast, is sick in bed at Rome, this solution is unconvincing). Ino’s connection to Semele’s baby links her to Jupiter’s sexual involvement with Semele. If we exclude lines 21–22 as spurious, then Andromeda is removed, leaving a pattern of four mythic heroines driven into danger and, ultimately, death by Juno’s jealousy of Jupiter’s sexual attraction to beautiful human women and her harassment of their resulting pregnancies and babies.

308

/

Notes to Pages 180–181

65. Further, the original structure provides a nice ring-composition to the first half of the poem, as it begins with seeking Jupiter’s mercy for Cynthia and ends with the possibility that his wife Juno will also be merciful toward her. Juno has been lurking behind all the mythical heroines between, so it is appropriate that she turn up at the end. 66. A further connection between Am. 2.13–14 and Prop. 2.28 is found in its second half, for, as readers have noticed, in Am. 2.13, Ovid invokes Prop. 2.28.41–42. Am. 2.13.15–16 reads: huc adhibe vultus et in una parce duobus: / nam vitam dominae tu dabis, illa mihi ([To Isis] “Turn your face this way, and spare two in one: / for you give life to my mistress, she gives life to me”). On the multiple ironies of this couplet, see McKeown 1998 ad loc. and Gamel 1989.) Prop. 2.28.41–42 reads: si non unius, quaeso, miserere duorum! / vivam, si vivet; si cadet illa, cadam ([To Jupiter] “If you pity not a single one, I beg, pity two! / I shall live, if she lives; if she falls, I shall fall”). 67. Indeed, if the woman of this poem is not Cynthia, the possible pregnancy further genericizes the risk of sex to the elegiac puella. 68. This is Io, who became associated with Isis; ten nights of celibacy are a common feature of Isis’s worship. 69. I read, with Richardson 1977, a single poem, without transpositions, especially as the last four lines recur to the sexual separation of lover and puella. I assume no fictive chronological development between 2.28 and 2.33, but I do see their placement as marked. That is, Propertius intended 2.33 to recall 2.28. 70. And indeed, as noted above, cf. Prop. 1.4.11–14, where he tells his friend Bassus that Cynthia’s legendary figure accounts for only part of his passion for her, as her other attractions include her coloring, her talents at music and dancing, and the “joys” (gaudia) they can conduct under the covering of her complicit clothing. The sexual nature of this particular interaction is underscored by gaudia, which in elegy means sexual climax. 71. Indeed, given how much sex the elegiac lover-poets claim to have had (most absurdly, of course, in Am. 3.7, but also in Prop. 2.22), it is a wonder the topic doesn’t come up more openly, as it is a standard element in sexual persuasion (usually an importunate young man is depicted as reassuring a worried young woman that she won’t get pregnant or promising coitus interruptus). In the 1980s, Planned Parenthood ran an ad campaign promoting use of contraceptives. The ads proclaimed, “They did it 9,000 times on TV last year—how come no-one got pregnant?” One might be tempted to ask the same of elegy, except that Ovid has already raised the question. 72. Though demand was high enough that the abortifacient plant silphium was hunted to extinction already in antiquity; see Riddle 1992: 28. 73. Rousselle (1992: 320) notes that a line from Aristophanes (Wasps, 480) “gives us an idea of just how unpleasant some of these abortive potions were, particularly those involving the herb rue: ‘Your agony is nothing yet; you’ve still not come to parsley and rue.’ “ Watts (1973: 95) notes that in antiquity a full pregnancy may have been “safer than an abortion.” 74. The threat of rape, as in Ars 1 (see below, on elegiac violence), carries

Notes to Pages 181–182

/

309

another obvious threat, if the puella has no time to take precautionary measures; see Cantarella 1987: 128–29 and Riddle 1992: 30 for a list of abortifacient substances. 75. The lover-poet’s assumption that she underwent a surgical procedure rather than a pharmaceutical one (far more likely, as McKeown [1998] on 2.14.27–28 notes) leads to an even closer focus on Corinna’s actual body parts. 76. Of course he doesn’t make this offer—an elegiac baby is an absolute adunaton (impossibility). 77. Hence it is logical for her to be quite active and mobile in sex (for which Prop. 2.15 and 3.8 praise her). Lucr. 4.1274–76 articulates the reason for the docta puella’s sexual mobility, as well as its reception by men: idque sua causa consuerunt scorta moveri, / ne complerentur crebro gravidaeque iacerent, / et simul ipsa viris Venus ut concinnior esset (“And so for their own sake prostitutes learn to be mobile, / so that they not be fully filled up and become pregnant, / and also so that the sex itself be more pleasing to men”). He notes in the next line (and in 1268) that such activity in sex is not allowed to wives, as they are supposed to get pregnant. 78. Likewise, 3.2 programmatically praises female beauty and links elegy to it generically: fortunata, meo si qua es celebrata libello! / carmina erunt formae tot monumenta tuae (17–18: “Lucky woman, anyone celebrated in my little book! / My poems will be so many monuments to your beauty”). 79. Cf. Am. 1.10.13–14: donec eras simplex, animum cum corpore amavi; / nunc mentis vitio laesa figura tua est (“When you were pure, I loved soul along with body; / now your beauty has been damaged by the defect of your mind”). This couplet identifies beauty as the primary and most stable attraction of the puella, and virtually establishes a principle for this lover-poet, by which what can be seen, that is, the body, is what counts. As previously discussed, Am. 3.11 demonstrates a further separation of body and personality, and establishes corporeal beauty as the puella’s most lasting and powerful attraction. Certainly, given this lover-poet’s later views, qua praeceptor Amoris, of how deceptive and dangerous women are, it is almost predictable, and peculiarly fitting, that he grows increasingly disappointed not only with female character but with the female body in general and comes to find women repugnant virtually by nature; see below. 80. Cf. Prop. 3.20.1, where the abandoned puella is said to have relied on her beauty (figura) to keep her lover around; at 3.23.13 the lost tablets are said to have carried the occasional accusation from one girl that a prettier girl (formosior) has distracted the lover-poet. Kennedy (1993: 68), discussing Am. 1.3, 2.4, and 2.10, points out the interchangeability of women in the elegiac world, and asks, of the puella, “What if ‘you’ are not an essence, but the possessor of attractive ‘features?’ “ 81. Hence the accusations of Prop. 3.24 that Cynthia’s beauty has been created by makeup (her ingenuus color, praised at 1.4.13, is now said to be a quaesitus candor, a purchased color, line 9), and the predictions of 3.25 that Cynthia will grow old, are not placed accidentally in his final poems to her: as the lover-

310

/

Notes to Pages 182–185

poet finds her less attractive (whether or not she has shown signs of age, he certainly finds her beauty less striking in these poems), he becomes able to break with her. This scenario is just what Scapha of Mostellaria relates to Philematium as the narrative of her own life. 82. Green (1996: 246 n. 6) argues that the “consequences of sex in the natural, experiential world—childbirth, change, and the consciousness of mortality, something that casts such dark shadows on Propertius’ love poetry—are absent from Ovid’s didactic lessons in the Ars Amatoria” (see, similarly, 250). I hope to have shown otherwise here: if Ars 1 and 2 focus less on these consequences, we may well note that they crop up in Ars 3, with the shameful stretch marks and, perhaps, Procris’s death. For the hopeful male lover who is the narratee of the Ars, there are indeed no “human and legal consequences” (Green 1996: 250) to elegiac sex. For the puella, there are. 83. Cf. Luck 1969: 153: in revising the Amores, Ovid’s “criteria were mainly aesthetic, it seems; otherwise he would hardly have kept such a poem as 3.7.” See Sharrock 1995 on this poem. 84. Sharrock (1995: 62) also notes a narrative arc of different types of impotence and exclusion, from 3.6 to 3.8. 85. And this despite the Ovidian speaker’s belief that women like sex as much as men do, here marked at line 5, pariter cupiente puella (“The girl was wanting it equally”); see also Am. 1.10.31–36, where mutual sexual pleasure should occur gratis, Ars 1.275–82, 341–44; and Prop. 3.19. 86. At Ars 2.387–466, where the praeceptor instructs his pupils on having a secondary affair, he assumes that the primary puella will find out about it through precisely this means, for he gives a brief lesson in the use of reinforcement aphrodisiacs (415–24). 87. Cf. Sharrock 1995: 176 n. 3. 88. See McKeown 1989 and Barsby 1973 ad loc. See also Murgatroyd 1980 on Tib. 1.6.73–74. He notes that the male lover “usually had no qualms over using violence.” 89. Stirrup (1973: 824) and McLaughlin (1979: 269) also note the tradition of elegiac violence. 90. Barsby (1973: 91) notes that “Propertius and Tibullus talk about striking their mistresses without ever doing so, and it would be typical of Ovid to go one step further than his predecessors, actually striking his mistress and probing the consequences of doing so.” I shall argue, though, that in Propertius and Tibullus the lovers speak wishfully about this erotic violence, as if they would like to engage in it but dare not. (And of course, the praeceptor Amoris gives a compelling reason for avoiding violence—it’s costly! See Ars 2.167–74, as noted in chapter 3; see also below.) Of course, in Prop. 4.8, Cynthia is represented as assaulting the lover-poet violently, with rather positive erotic results for him. And the praeceptor Amoris seeks such assaults (Ars 2.451–52) as very arousing. 91. That he does so in such high-flown, fanciful, absurd fashion is typical of Ovid and makes this poem typically unsettling. A lot of poetic technique goes

Notes to Pages 185–189

/

311

into a sordid and unpleasant situation; in case any readers miss this dissonance, the final couplet should shock them into asking some difficult questions. It should be noted that in general, the Ovidian lover-poet really likes to see his puella hurt and weeping (see Ars 2.447–53, as below), but in fact, all the elegiac lovers find the sight of the weeping puella very arousing, and if they disapprove of physical violence, they do not deny themselves verbal expression of anger. For more on these points, see discussion below. 92. Cf. Fredrick 1997: 179, on how violence toward the puella demonstrates the lover’s loss of self-control: “The wound on female flesh is thus a blot on the self-representation of the poet, a transgression of his aesthetic principles.” 93. I read quae (the girl), with Barber 1960, rather than quos (whose), with Fedeli 1984. 94. Cf. 3.5.2: stant mihi cum domina proelia dura mea (“I face tough battles with my mistress”). 95. Indeed, Tib. 1.3.63–64 establishes love battles as standard procedure for extramarital sexual relationships: ac iuvenum series teneris immixta puellis / ludit, et adsidue proelia miscet amor (“and the group of young men plays, mixed in with tender / girls; and love constantly mixes up battles”). The desire for proof of the puella’s feelings can be found in Prop. 2.8.11–12: munera quanta dedi vel qualia carmina feci! / illa tamen numquam ferrea dixit “Amo” (“How many gifts I gave, or what great poems I made! / Nevertheless that iron girl never said ‘I love you’ “). 96. Here the lover-poet refers to stretch marks from pregnancy, which are unappealing to the elegiac lover; see above. 97. See Fredrick 1997 for a psychoanalytic reading of elegiac violence; cf. his remark (179) that “[j]ealousy is also mapped onto the female body in the form of bruises and bites that represent, through displacement, the sexual difference avoided in scopophilic description.” 98. Indeed, as Kennedy (1993:55) notes, citing Veyne 1988: 225 n. 5, “Violence figures in elegiac erotic scenes, so much so in the reading of Paul Veyne that he is moved to speak in passing of ‘sadism.’ “ 99. It further argues that a certain amount of violence aimed at getting indoors (part of militia amoris; see Murgatroyd 1975) is acceptable. 100. See also James forthcoming ( “Politics”). 101. Cf. also Tib. 1.6.73–76: non ego te pulsare velim, sed, venerit iste / si furor, optarim non habuisse manus (“I would not want to strike you, but if that madness / should come, I would hope not to have had hands”); see below. See Murgatroyd 1980 on Tib. 1.10, with discussions of elegiac/amatory violence. 102. Kahn 1966 and Stirrup 1973 discuss the multiple ironies of this poem; both view it as humorous. My discussion here, focusing on the experience of the puella, does not treat formal and rhetorical elements. The most recent treatment is Greene 1999. 103. Connor (1974: 20) notes that “[a]ttacks on their mistresses’ hair are a commonplace for elegiac lovers,” though he considers it “a trivial act.”

312

/

Notes to Pages 189–192

104. Greene (1999: 415) notes that the “scars of love, bruised lips and bites on the neck, sound curiously similar to the scratches on the puella’s cheek.” 105. Buchan (1985: 70–71 n. 43) connects this point and the description of Corinna in Am. 1.5, proposing that 1.7 “can be read as relating the sequel to 1.5, suggesting that sensually going any further for the poet-lover is an act of martial excess” (emphasis original). 106. Barsby (1973) ad loc. suggests that the phrase pone . . . in statione crines (68) may be “one of Ovid’s military metaphors (‘put your hair on guard, in case I repeat my attack!’)” (emphasis original). McKeown (1989) ad loc. disputes this interpretation as “incompatible with Ovid’s profession of regret.” Given elegy’s attraction to rixae, however, I would say that Ovid may partially be expressing something like Barsby’s notion; in any case, the lover-poet seems tired of apologizing and ready to move on. Greene (1998: 85) rightly refutes the view of Connor (1974) that readers have accepted the lover-poet’s prior expressions of regret as genuine—they are too literary, extravagant, and self-centered. 107. See also Kahn 1966, esp. 884–85, on how the overload of similes (and particularly the clarification between Corinna’s hair and Cassandra’s) formally undercuts any appearance of genuine emotion in this poem. 108. On ingenuus (ordinarily = freeborn), see McKeown 1989 ad loc., to the effect that the adjective is regularly applied to freed persons as well as freeborn ones. Thus this word cannot be used as evidence that the puella is a citizen and hence a marriageable woman. 109. Dolor can mean pain, grief, sorrow, even anger. Here it seems to mean all four. 110. A passage in the next poem invokes this poem, both linguistically and thematically. Dipsas advises the puella about how to handle being caught cheating: accuse him first, so that his accusation will be erased by your accusation (Am. 1.8.79–80). The words for hurt (laesa, laeso, 79) and anger (irascere) echo back to 1.7 and provide a backdrop to it. Kahn (1966: 893) sees the dolor as the injury that the amator’s “amour-propre has suffered in an attack upon a woman.” 111. Bright (1978: 180), on Tib. 1.6.73–74 (where the lover wishes not to have had hands, if the rage, furor, to strike Delia should arise, then asks her to be faithful not out of fear but out of fidelity), notes that the lover “tries to retract the feeling of impending violence by the exhortation that Delia be faithful out of desire rather than fear, but it is far too late for such appeals.” The puella’s material demands provide another source of the lover’s anger, as seen in the Ars amatoria and the Remedia; see below. 112. Ars 1.1.23–24: quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, / hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero (“As much as Love has pierced me, as much as he has burnt me violently, / to that degree I shall be a better avenger of the wound he made”). 113. See also, as Postgate (1884) on 2.5.22 notes, 1.18.14, invoking the loverpoet’s characteristic anger at Cynthia. 114. The lover-poet concludes by declaring a poetic revenge—he will write

Notes to Pages 192–198

/

313

an insult poem that she will never be able to live down (27–30). As Postgate (1884) notes, on 22, mea ira ( = my rage) “almost = ego iratus.” See Richardson 1997 ad loc. on the precise meaning of thumbs (fists, nails, thumb-marks). An ivy wreath is the sign of a poet. 115. The rusticus of line 24 recalls the rusticus of Tib. 1.10.51–52, the sort of man who physically attacks women. (Richardson [1977] ad loc. notes that 25–26 is “possibly a gibe at Tib. 1.10.43–68.”) The further details correspond: torn hair at Tib. 1.10.53, Prop. 2.5.23; broken door at Tib. 1.10.54, Prop. 2.5.22; use of hands to hurt the puella at Tib. 1.10.55–56, Prop. 2.5.24; torn dress at Tib. 1.10.61, Prop. 2.5.21. 116. This violence can also be sexual, of course, which the Propertian lover has already felt, in 1.3; see Warden 1980: 72. 117. This poem may be the first recorded threat in Western literature of what could be called male apocalyptic violence, in the now common murdersuicide form. The equation, “If I can’t have her, no one can,” has led to countless murders of women in this country and elsewhere, often with an accompanying suicide. The urge to kill a departed woman (a wife or girlfriend) has been designated separation assault (see Mahoney 1991, as cited in Jones 1994; see also Lees 1992, Campbell 1992, Wilson and Daly 1992). Its presence in elegy is chilling, and that it has received so little notice is mysterious. Even the commentators have relatively little to say about it, except, notably, for Richardson 1977; see note 120. What is perhaps most striking and disturbing is that this poem presciently displays the same attitude toward the deranged male lover that is regularly found in contemporary media accounts of men who murder their wives or girlfriends—he is a tragic hero driven mad by jealousy of female independence or infidelity; see McNeill 1992. 118. Sharrock (2000: 229–30) suggests that the lover-poet here plans to kill his rival as well as Cynthia, a fact that might rather deromanticize this overblown male crisis. Fredrick (1997: 179) notes that the angry and violent lover-poet attempts a “realignment with both masculinity and epic,” a realignment that is, as he notes, “always temporary.” The epic comparisons here and in Am. 1.7 mark this tendency. 119. The few scholarly comments on the rage and homicidal urge expressed in this poem are backhanded. Cf. Williams 1980: 86: “Incidentally, by the end of the poem (if not before) the reader realizes that the tears with which the poem began (2) were tears of anger as much as grief: the poet is despairing but enraged” (emphasis mine). 120. Camps, on the other hand, sees a strong symmetrical structure, which he prints in his headnote: 12 lines + 4 + 8 + 4 + 12. In fact, poetic structure here, as so often in Propertius (see Stahl 1985) follows the lover-poet’s unpredictable mood swings and irrational thoughts. Richardson’s (1977) remarks on this poem merit quoting at length here: “The fatuous philosophical resignation he [the lover-poet] attempts is nicely punctured by the memory of the presents he has given her. The self-dramatization and bursts of bombast with which he hides from himself the meanness of his wish to murder her are brilliant. The

314

/

Notes to Pages 193–194

self-deception implicit in the Achilles exemplum is masterly. The poem has been alternately savagely critized and hotly defended by generations of scholars. The attackers point out the lack of coherence at various points but make the mistake of trying to divide the elegy into sensible blocks they can treat as fragments of several poems; the incoherence runs all through the poem and is its very essence. The defenders, while appreciative of the essential unity of theme and the ‘psychological’ interpretation the poem requires, are prone to rewrite the poem (to P.’s credit) in their efforts to explain the relevance of various parts.” Defense of Propertius presumably means attempts to excuse or ignore the death threat in this poem. See Bobrowski 1994 on the connections between 2.8 and 2.9. 121. Papanghelis (1987: 129) sees it as a “disinterested enterprise with a strong ironical and humorous side,” which he elaborates, 129–32. I doubt that any reading puella would find a death threat, even one made as “a piece of fictitious truculence fraught with irony, humour and sharp sexual innuendo” (Papanghelis 1987: 132), very amusing. 122. Greene (1998: 67) argues that in contrast to the Ovidian lover-poet, “Propertius’ narrator never removes the mask of elegiac lover, never abandons the elegiac fiction of sexual role inversion, in which women are portrayed as dominant and men as subservient. Moreover, the amator in Propertian elegy maintains the fiction of the devoted, dependent, passive lover and the ideal of fides upon which that fiction depends.” I would argue, contra, that Propertius’s speaker regularly peeks out from behind his mask of servitude and that his anger and resentment toward Cynthia, marked at 1.1.28 as programmatic for him, cause that mask to fall. His implicit threats of violence hardly seem servile. 123. See, as above, Prop. 2.8. Taking the poem as a whole primarily locates the lover-poet’s anger in Cynthia’s infidelity; Butler and Barber (1964) divide it into three poems, and for the central section (the murder-suicide threat) they assume a financial motive, citing teque tuamque domum (14: “you and your house”): “Annoyance caused by the household of Cynthia; sc. demands on his purse, &c.” (on 11–14). Though the household staff certainly assist the docta puella’s project of wealth redistribution by further unburdening a lover of his cash and goods, they are also complicit in her sexual infidelity (cf., for example, Tib. 2.6.44–50). The many gifts (munera, 11) do however provide a material basis for the lover-poet’s anger; hence we may say that Prop. 2.8 demonstrates both bases of the elegiac man’s resentment and desire for revenge—money and infidelity. 124. Fitzgerald (1995: 130–31) identifies revenge as a characteristic urge for “the wronged Roman aristocrat.” He notes that “Cicero’s letters are full of stories and accusations of violated friendship” and lists various revenge plots. 125. Hollis (1977) ad loc. interprets this line to mean that the praeceptor will be an avenger “by revealing Cupid’s secrets and so breaking his power over mankind.” Such may in fact be the fictive praeceptor’s intent, but since the Ars amatoria is directed at men, its instruction will serve to give them advantage over women rather than Cupid.

Notes to Pages 195–199

/

315

126. In this and the following three lines, the praeceptor invokes both the Callimachean recusatio, in which the poet claims to have been instructed by Apollo to write a smaller poem, not meant for the general public, and the statement of Hesiod (Theog. 22–24) that the Muses (Clio and her sisters) appeared to him while he was shepherding and bade him to sing. 127. The word usus, which I have translated as “utility,” has a wide range of meanings, including use, usefulness, ownership, experience, advantage, selfinterest, and need. Most readers take usus here to mean experience, as repeated in vati . . . perito (“expert bard”), but I am tempted to translate usus as “need” instead, indicating the praeceptor’s perception that his work is needed rather than his claim that his experience motivated him to write. See Conte 1994: 52 on the “principle of usefulness” in the Ars. 128. That such are his intended prey can be further understood from the following passage. Line 42—elige cui dicas, “tu mihi sola places” (“Pick out the kind of girl to whom you can say, ‘you’re the only one for me’ “)—identifies the right kind of girl as one to whom a young man can quote Propertius (2.7.19), for one thing. For another, the praeceptor lists an impossibly large number of pretty girls supplied by the obliging city of Rome: as many as fish in the sea, birds in the trees, stars in the sky (1.55–59). Whatever the population of the elite Roman classes under the control of the leges Iuliae, its female component was not so numerous as this. (In fact, the shortage of women in the senatorial and equitorial classes is partly what impelled Augustus to do away with the longcherished status of univira [woman faithful to a single man]—regardless of how many actual univirae there were in Rome at this time—by forcing widows to remarry and keep having children: there weren’t enough elite women to go around.) The praeceptor does later limit the class of the truly desirable woman, that is, the docta puella, by noting that hers is a small crowd (2.281, rarissima turba); he notes that another group wants to become learned (2.282). His instruction to his female readers to be well-read especially in love poetry (Ars 3.329–46) may be an attempt to enlarge this gang of girls. 129. The word pati here contains a range of meanings: permit, suffer, tolerate, allow, experience. Its ambiguities perfectly suit the context. 130. It is crucial to note here that this idiom, verba dare (“give words”), means both to speak and to deceive (see OLD s.v. verbum, 6). The praeceptor puns here on his deceptive use of speech, as advised in the first book of the Ars. 131. See also chapter 2, for a discussion of this passage. 132. See, among others, Green 1996, Churchill 1985, Leach 1964, Levine 1981–82, Verducci 1980, Downing 1990. 133. Of course this view omits the very lively 3.2 and the brilliant wit of 2.19 and 3.4, as well as the fanciful play of 3.1, among other things. 134. He treats women as inert substance, using neuter pronouns (35: quod amare velis = “the thing you would like to love”), physical matter (49: materiam longo . . . amori = “substance for a long love”). See Hollis 1977 ad loc. on these lines; see line 263 for similar language: quod ames (“the thing you might love”). The praeceptor also describes women as animals of prey, ranging from

316

/

Notes to Pages 199–203

harmless (birds, 47; fish, presumably not sharks, 47–48) to dangerous and distinctly unappealing (46: frendens aper = “boar foaming at the mouth”). Animal imagery recurs in the beginning of the actual instruction (lines 41–262 tell where to find a girl; lines 263 and following, how to court her), in the first principle of girl hunting—that all girls can be captured. On animal imagery, see Leach 1964. Fyler (1971: 201) notes that if the praeceptor’s “system is to work. . . . [i]t is necessary to treat people as objects, the quod of the Ars (1.35) or the materia of Amores 1.iii. But the whole point of these poems is the ars’ ineffectiveness,” which I would say occurs not only because emotions are hard to regulate but also because women will not necessarily cooperate with a view of themselves as either wild animals or inert matter. 135. The reason for their vulnerability to predatory males? Like female animals (he cites horses and heifers, 279–80), human women have a powerful libido, so much so that if men agreed not to pursue women, women would pursue men (277–78). As Hollis (1977) on 281–82 notes, Prop. 3.19 also makes this argument. See Leach 1964 on the animal imagery here. 136. See Greene 1996 for an exhaustive analysis of hunting in Ars 1. 137. A great list from Greek myth follows, of women whose ruinous passions brought on large-scale catastrophes. It might be observed that the likes of Tereus are missing. It should further be noted that the description (282–342) of these women, meant to demonstrate the uncontrollable degree of female lust, ought in fact to frighten away any young man reading (but on the constructed narratee of this poem, see below), though the praeceptor repeats his point, to give his pupils confidence: female libido is more passionate than male and has a greater degree of madness; go ahead, have designs on any girl, as hardly even one out of many will turn you down (343–44). 138. Following this lesson is the passage on the utility of raping the mistress’s maid (on which see James 1997). 139. This principle will later justify cheating on the puella; see below. 140. It is no accident that this instruction is marked with the very solemn line from Vergil (Aen. 6. 129). As Hollis (1977) ad loc. notes, it is hardly credible that this echo is unconscious; he sees it as “the kind of parody which involves mocking one’s own pretension,” citing Kenney 1958: 201. Kenney there (208–9) famously describes this line in Ovid as almost tantamount to “the Devil quoting Scripture.” In my view, aside from the typically impudent Ovidian play, this line is intended to shock the reader into paying close attention to the content of the precept. It is thus doubly marked as significant. 141. See Green 1996: 255–256 on this passage. 142. Tarpeia, for instance, would have been a suitable exemplum for this precept. 143. See also 228: tum quoque pro servo, si vocat illa, veni (“Then, too, come in place of a slave, if she calls”). 144. A “nightwatch poem”is a paraclausithyron designed to flatter the girl. 145. The following digression on aphrodisiacs (415–24) is necessary

Notes to Pages 203–209

/

317

because, as noted above, in Roman love elegy a man having sex with more than one woman concurrently will become impotent. 146. This line recalls the Ariadne of Ars 1.551 (et color et Theseus et vox abiere puellae = “Her color and Theseus and her voice abandoned the girl”) and thus reinforces the impression of the puella’s unhappiness. 147. Here Ovid echoes Tib. 1.10.63–64: quater ille beatus / quo tenera irato flere puella potest (“Four times lucky is he / whose girl weeps when he is angry”). See James forthcoming (“Politics”). 148. It is hard to tell just what is going on, even fictively, in this elegiac hall of mirrors. Is he really cheating? Is she really angry and hurt? Or are both simply playacting? Dipsas advised the pretense of jealousy and hurt feelings (Am. 1.8.79–84); the properly trained puella will know how much her lovers like her show of passion. The praeceptor advises women to pretend jealous passion (Ars 3.677–78, especially dolor fictus, feigned grief, at 677), though at 683–84 he instructs against mad fits of jealousy at the signs of a rival. No wonder this house of cards eventually collapses. 149. This undercutting is reinforced by the final instruction of Ars 3, to the women: to fake their climax convincingly, if they don’t actually experience it (797–804); see below. Thus the praeceptor’s preference for simultaneous climax (pariter victi, 728) may be more ideal or theoretical than practical or even necessary. In addition, since fear is exciting, and hence advisable for the puella (Ars 3.603–10), the occasions allowing for a slow pace may be relatively rare. 150. Here it is worth recalling that as the practicing lover-poet of the Amores, he has already made it clear in several places that female beauty, rather than character (as, for instance, the Propertian lover-poet claims), is what attracts him to a woman and keeps him attached to her; see Am. 2.5.42–48; 3.11.37–48. 151. The amusing passage that follows is a long advertisement for poets and contains what by this point are obvious lies, at least about this particular bard— that poets are honest and faithful (539–40, 544). 152. The remark of the lover-poet in Prop. 2.8.12 is worth recalling here: illa tamen numquam ferrea dixit “Amo” (“That iron girl nevertheless never said ‘I love you’ “). The resentment in this poem stems as much from the imperviousness of Cynthia’s heart to him as from her infidelity to him. 153. It will be noted that these are the very signs used at the end of Ars 2 to identify a woman’s genuine pleasure. 154. That infidelity, greed, and physical defects are the true vices of women can also be found in the Remedia amoris: its male narratees are constructed as deceived (41: decepti iuvenes = “deceived young men”); the true reason that the praeceptor resents his girl, and wishes to love her no longer is her greed (301–2); he advises his male reader to keep the bedroom shutters open, so that he can see and focus on the girl’s defects (411–12, 417–18, 429–40). He further advises revenge cheating (441–88). Though lines 49–50 and 608 include women in the potential readership of the Remedia, that inclusiveness is illusory: as lines

318

/

Notes to Pages 209–214

51–52 acknowledge, women can practice very little of the poem’s advice. Its substance is devoted entirely to men. 155. He has already acknowledged that women will inevitably ask for gifts—he advises them not to do so too early in the relationship (Ars 3.553–54), as a new suitor will resist. This lesson recalls the same at Am. 1.8.69–70. 156. Thus I would disagree with the view of Otis (1938: 192) that the elegies do not prepare readers for the “seriousness” of the Metamorphoses. Feminist studies have uncovered a dark and serious side to the Amores (see Cahoon 1990, Gamel 1989, Greene 1998 and 1999, James 1997, Hemker 1985, Verducci 1980, and others). 157. Cf. the remark of Mack (1988: 147) about the infamous line semibovemque virum semivirumque bovem (Ars 2.24: “half-bull man and half-man bull”), preserved by Ovid in Seneca’s anecdote: “Ovid chose a ‘bad’ line rather than a ‘good’ line because it would make people analyze, scrutinize, and think, as they would otherwise not have done.” Whether or not actual readers do so is of course beyond the poet’s control.

6. poetry, politics, sex, status 1. Cf. Gale 1997: 85: “[T]he final renunciation of the beloved is an integral part of the story, as are her infidelity, greed, and cruelty.” 2. It should be noted here that the princeps may well have been thought to have designs, as it were, on those children. Certainly elegy presents him in that light: unde mihi Parthis natos praebere triumphis? / nullus de nostro sanguine miles erit, avows the Propertian speaker (2.7.13–14: “Why should I supply children for victory over the Parthians?/ There will be no soldier from my blood”). Augustus was in the habit of requiring the citizens of towns in Italy to swear oaths in which they placed him above their children (Raditsa 1980: 321). His interference in the family may be seen in his arrogation of patria potestas (paternal power) to himself, when he punished a knight who had removed his sons’ thumbs in order to keep them from being drafted, by ordering the man and his goods to be put up for sale (Suet. Aug. 24). I cite this incident not to defend anyone who mutilates children, but to note that it registers the diminution of the elite Roman male’s most primary and important power, patria potestas, his right to do as he likes with his children—a right that dates back as far as recorded Roman history, as the tales of Horatia and Verginia demonstrate—and hands it over to the government, in the person of the princeps. 3. For another fantasy of a new realm free of political worry, see Hor. Epod. 16, with its extraordinary vision of departing from Rome to form a new colony in paradise, free of civil strife. 4. O’Gorman (1997: 107) succinctly reviews Augustus’s building projects as subtly revising the images of the gods for purposes of reform. The political use of art has diminished little in the subsequent two thousand years, as politicians of all parties and at all levels regularly seize opportunities to create controversies about various artists and works of art. Congressional assaults on the

Notes to Pages 214–217

/

319

National Endowment for the Arts, New York City mayor Giuliani’s attacks on both the pornography of Times Square and the notorious “elephant dung” painting of the Virgin Mary, and so forth, demonstrate a continuing awareness by politicians both that art is important and that it can be of incalculable value in creating publicity for themselves. Sullivan (1972: 26) points out how controversial much of Augustan poetry was (and how ill received) in its own day, an important reminder of both the importance of poetry in Rome and the extraordinary innovations of the poets of the Augustan era. 5. As such, it may have been a relatively effective form of protest, as elegy was popular among the upper-class consumers of erudite poetry. In any case, Augustus waited until his position of control was quite secure before forcing the leges Iuliae onto his most important citizen-subjects. 6. This was the view of Metellus the censor, in 131 b.c.e., whose speech on procreation Augustus had read into the Senate record; Metellus considered a wife a necessary evil. 7. I am inclined to extend the seminal arguments of Johnson (1970) about the counterclassical sensibility to include Propertius and Tibullus as well as Ovid (if not to the same degree); simply representing disorder and male passivity constitutes a form of dissent from the classicizing atmosphere of the times. 8. Holleman (1971: 466 n. 22) speaks of the depersonalization of marriage under Augustus’s reforms and notes that “considering what he had done to his sister and his daughter” (whom he married off repeatedly both to cement political alliances and to acquire male heirs), “Augustus had personal reasons for maintaining the old fashions according to which marriage was a business-like matter of family interests and politics.” 9. Cf. McCarthy 1998: 178: “Recognizing that it is the combination of autonomy and inscrutability that makes a rebellious woman seem threatening, the author creates a mistress who never explains or excuses herself to her lover, and uses this mistress as a vehicle for his own rebellion.” 10. If an eleven-line fragment of the Medicamina or the Ibis, or even certain of his exile poetry, were all that survived of Ovid’s work after his exile, his present poetic reputation would be very dim, despite his great popularity in antiquity. 11. Thus, for example, in Prop. 3.24 and 25, the lover-poet appears to wake up from a five-year dream and see that Cynthia is not what he thought she was. Even within this poetic fiction, we may ask either if she ever was what he thought her to be or if, while he was in an altered state of consciousness (the twin delusions of love and poetry having kept him unaware of anything but love and poetry), she actually went on about her daily life and continued to age. His bitter remarks on her ”borrowed color” (3.24.8) do not answer this question. 12. Cf. Prop. 2.19, where the lover-poet predicts that Cynthia will have no opportunity to cheat in the country; Baiae, however, is a different matter entirely—a small but dangerous city (1.11). 13. Here it is worth remarking again on a difference between the elegists

320

/

Notes to Pages 217–219

and the other extant love poets of Roman Alexandrianism, Catullus and Horace, who depict themselves and their lives quite differently. Their lyric poetry portrays an active, fully engaged social life, biographical anecdotes, family closeness; they make jokes about lousy food, friends, drinking parties; they write about the Italian landscape, politics, even philosophy. None of this for elegy, which cleaves resolutely to amator and puella. Tibullus’s sister, mentioned in Tib. 1.3 and Am. 3.9, arises only in the context of his death and funeral—hardly part of his desired love life. Though Ovid mentions his own older brother in Tr. 4.10, that sibling makes no appearances in his love poetry. The familial bonds of Cupid to Aeneas, cited in Am. 3.9, do not constitute an elegiac value on family relationships, any more than do the jokes about Cupid’s “cousin” Caesar (Am. 1.2.51–52) or Venus’s having settled in her son Aeneas’s town (Ars 1.60). 14. Cf. Wyke 1989a: 41: “In the first century b.c., at a time when female sexuality was seen as a highly problematic and public concern, the poetic depiction of the elegiac hero’s subjection to a mistress would have carried a wide range of social and political connotations. And the elegiac mistress, in particular, would have brought to her poetic discourse a considerable potential as metaphor for danger and social disruption.” 15. Cf. Miller and Platter 1999a: 453–54: “Augustan elegy . . . is an oppositional discourse, not so much because it represents a determined univocal opposition to a given set of values—Augustan or otherwise—but rather in the sense that it is constructed out of values whose inherent contradictions make the conflict between elegy and Roman ideology a necessary condition of the genre’s existence” (emphasis original). 16. See Suet. Iul. on his steps to reward men who had more than three children (20.3), to guard the population of the senatorial class, in part by preventing its men between twenty and forty years of age from staying overseas for more than three years (42.1). 17. It is not surprising, then, to indulge in a moment of biographical speculation, that if Propertius did marry and have children, as Pliny the Younger claims (Ep. 9.22.1), he appears to have done so after he had stopped writing elegy, and that Ovid entered into his happy marriage after he had retired from elegy proper and begun to produce his Ars and Remedia, a posthumous commentary, as it were, on the genre. 18. Thus the prediction of Am. 1.15.29–30 that Gallus and Lycoris will be known east and west is as brave and unrealizable as the famous remark in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, “Manuscripts don’t burn.” McKeown (1984: 175) notes that the relegatio of Julia the Elder, an “untypically open and unrestrained exercise of power by Augustus[,] must have had a profound effect in the fashionable circles in which Ovid moved.” The same was certainly true of the fate of Gallus. 19. See Suet. Aug. 64.2 on how Augustus required his daughter and granddaughters to learn spinning and weaving and (73) on how he wore clothes made by his wife, sister, daughter, and granddaughters. The public relations value of imperial homespun cloth is obvious, as is its intent.

Notes to Pages 219–221

/

321

20. Judith Hallett has pointed out to me another reason that Augustus wanted the elites to procreate: he wanted to divide up the resources of the other wealthy families so that they would be less able to compete with his own household. 21. Hence Propertius claims for himself the title of Roman Callimachus (4.1.64) and Ovid places himself among the great poets of Greece and Rome, on the basis not of his masterwork the Metamorphoses (as yet unwritten) but of “unwarlike elegy” (3.15.19). 22. Cerinthus = wax, as in a wax tablet on which poetry may be written and love messages exchanged; see Roessel 1990 and Keith 1997. 23. Here Venus is her agent: exorata meis illum Cytherea Camenis/attulit in nostrum deposuitque sinum (Corp. Tib. 3.13/4.7.3–4: “Persuaded by my Muses, Venus / brought him and placed him in my lap”). 24. Hemelrijk (1999: 156–60) argues, to the contrary, that Sulpicia distinguishes herself strongly from the elegiac puella. 25. On Sulpicia, see Keith (1997) and the sources she cites. Treggiari (1991a: 106) proposes that Sulpicia’s poetry be read as presenting the premarital relationship of an affianced couple. 26. Unless her poems were, as Hinds (1987b) suggests and Holzberg (1999) argues, actually written by a man—a view I do not take. In any case, a male “ventriloquist” could not alter the plots of elegy to fit a female voice any more than an actual woman writer could. 27. And see Lee-Stecum 2000: 285 on the similarities between the life of elegiac love and the traditional political-cultural life of the Roman elite, especially in this period of unavoidable social-political evolution. Fear (2000b: 237) notes similarly a parallel between elegiac servitium amoris and the political servitium being forced onto elite Romans in this period: “[T]he dynamics of this literary form function as a pointed allegory of the Augustan settlement and its potential effect on Rome’s elite (and particularly those male members of the elite who were passing across the liminal threshold of adulthood as the establishment of the principate was in process).” 28. Currie (1981: 2735), for example, notes that “intrigues involving clandestine correspondence and lenae or corrupted maidservants were, obviously, part of real life in the Rome of Plautus or Ovid, but the description of them has clearly been shaped by literary convention.” We may assume that such literary conventions do touch on aspects of the “lived reality” of women’s lives in Rome, though it is impossible to attempt to identify any concrete incidents. 29. Cf. Sharrock 2000: 275 on how “it does matter what we think about fictional characters, for the reason that it affects how we think about real characters, precisely because the real and the fictional will not stay in separate categories. If that were not true—indeed a truism—no literature would get read. The construction of character happens in the intercourse between life and art. . . . Roman elegy walks on a tightrope, playing, at one moment, with current affairs and personal details of individuals and, at another, with abstract literary ideas that seem timeless and unreal, and then also con-

322

/

Notes to Pages 221–223

founding these opposing poles in a world which is constructed out of both art and nature.” 30. Hence Rousselle (1992: 318) argues that upper-class women in this period and after simply avoided intercourse, even within marriage. 31. Here it seems worth noting that Macrobius (Sat. 2.5.7) records this concern for Julia; he says that her hair began to go gray prematurely and that Augustus noted that her hairdressers were plucking out the gray hairs. 32. It might be noted that literature can exercise influence on life; Treggiari (1991a: 105–6) points out that literary portraits of happy love relationships may have encouraged elite Romans to seek loving marriages. 33. Cf. Wyke 1994: 124–25 on how the elite members of the audience might have felt, being placed in the position of the female addressee of elegy. One imagines that some of the women might well have wished for that poetic woman’s independence. 34. Cf. Wyke 1989a: 24: “[I]t is not the concern of elegiac poetry to upgrade the political position of women, only to portray the male narrator as alienated from positions of power and to differentiate him from other, socially responsible male types.” Even if the elegists, or their poetic alter egos, do not resent those more responsible men, they may well resent their own diminution in power and importance. 35. Here it is worth recalling that the determined bachelor Horace, Augustus’s so-called court poet, records numerous named female love objects, none of them as compelling as the elegiac docta puella, but refuses to depict himself in a generic state of servitude to them. 36. I venture to say that even Cato, proverbially the strictest of Romans, would not have desired to marry a woman he considered sexually unattractive—he himself had a concubine for his own sexual use. In general, it seems likely that Roman men preferred not to marry women they considered ugly.

Works Cited

texts, commentaries, and translations Antolín, F. N., ed. 1996. Lygdamus: Corpus Tibullianum III. 1–6: Lygdami elegiarum liber. Leiden. Ashmore, S. G., ed. 1910. The Comedies of Terence. New York. Barber, E. A., ed. 1960. Sexti Propertii Carmina. Oxford. Barsby, J., ed. 1973. Ovid, Amores I. Oxford. Reprint, Oxford. 1993. Bertini, F., ed. 1993. Amori, Publio Ovidio Nasone. Milan. Booth, J., ed. 1991. Ovid, the Second Book of the Amores. With translation and commentary. Warminster. Butler, H. E., and E. A. Barber, eds. 1964. The Elegies of Propertius. With introduction and commentary. Hildesheim. Camps, W. A., ed. 1961. Propertius, Elegies, Book I. Cambridge. ———. 1967. Propertius, Elegies, Book II. Cambridge. ———. 1966. Propertius, Elegies, Book III. Cambridge. ———. 1965. Propertius Elegies, Book IV. Cambridge. Cartault, A., ed. 1909. Tibulle et les auteurs du Corpus Tibullianum. Paris. Reprint, 1981. Hildesheim. Carter, J. M., ed. 1982. Suetonius, Divus Augustus. Edited with introduction and commentary. Bristol. Enk, P. J., ed. 1962. Sex. Propertii Elegiarum Liber Secundus. 2 vols. Leiden. Fedeli, P., ed. 1984. Sexti Propertii Elegiarum Libri IV. Stuttgart. Green, P., transl. 1982. Ovid: The Erotic Poems. With introduction. London. Henderson, A. A. R., ed. 1979. P. Ovidi Nasonis, Remedia Amoris. With commentary. Edinburgh. Hollis, A., ed. 1977. Ovid: Ars Amatoria, Book 1. Oxford. Kenney, E. J., ed. 1994. P. Ovidi Nasonis Amores, Medicamina Faciei Femineae, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris. Iteratis curis. Reprint with corrections, Oxford. 1995. Knox, P. E., ed. 1995. Ovid: Heroides, Select Epistles. Cambridge.

323

324

/

Works Cited

Lee, G., ed. 1990. Tibullus: Elegies. Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes. 3d ed. Leeds. ———. 1996. Propertius: The Poems. A New Translation. Oxford. McKeown, J. C., ed. 1987. Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary in Four Volumes. Vol. 1: Text and Prolegomena. Liverpool. ———. 1989. Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary in Four Volumes. Vol. 2: A Commentary on Book One. ———. 1998. Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary in Four Volumes. Vol 3: A Commentary to BookTwo. Murgatroyd, P., ed. 1980. Tibullus 1: A Commentary on the First Book of the Elegies of Albius Tibullus. Pietermaritzburg. ———. 1994. Tibullus: Elegies II. Oxford. Mynors, R. A. B., ed. 1958. C. Valerii Catulli Carmina. Oxford. Owen, S. G., ed. 1915. P. Ovidi Nasonis, Tristium Libri Quinque, Ibis, Ex Ponto Libri Quattuor, Halieutica Fragmenta. Reprint, 1963. Oxford. Postgate, J. P., ed. 1884. Select Elegies of Propertius. London. Reprint, New York. 1958. ———. 1915. Tibullus Aliorumque Carminum Libri Tres. Editio Altera. Oxford. Putnam, M. C. J., ed. 1973. Tibullus: A Commentary. Norman. Ramsey, J. T., ed. 1984. Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae. Chico. Richardson, L., Jr., ed. 1977. Propertius: Elegies I–IV. Norman. Showerman, G., ed. 1977. Ovid, Heroides and Amores. Second edition, revised by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, Mass. Smith, K. F., ed. 1913. The Elegies of Albius Tibullus. New York.

secondary sources Adams, J. N. 1972. “Latin Words for ‘Woman’ and ‘Wife.’ “ Glotta 50: 234–55. ———. 1983. “Words for ‘Prostitute’ in Latin.” RhM 126: 321–58. Allen, A. W. 1950. “ ‘Sincerity’ and the Roman Elegists.” CP 45: 145–60. Arkins, B. 1990. “The Anxiety of Influence: Ovid’s Amores as ␬A␯␻␴␫ß”” Latomus 49: 826–32. Anderson, R. D., P. J. Parsons, and R. G. Nisbet. 1979. “Elegiacs by Gallus from Qasr Ibrîm.” JRS 69: 125–55. Anderson, W. S. 1982. Essays on Roman Satire. Princeton. Astolfi, R. 1996. La Lex Iulia et Papia. 4th ed. Milan. Badian, E. 1985. “A Phantom Marriage Law.” Philologus 129: 82–98. Baker, R. 1973. “Duplices Tabellae: Propertius 3.23 and Ovid Amores 1.12.” CP 68: 109–13. Bal, M. 1997. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 2d ed. Toronto. Ball, R. J. 1983. Tibullus the Elegist: A Critical Survey. Hypomnemata 77. Göttingen. Balsdon, J. P. V. D. 1962. Roman Women: Their History and Habits. London. Barsby, J. A. 1996. “Ovid’s Amores and Roman Comedy.” PLLS 9: 135–57.

Works Cited

/

325

Batstone, W. 1990. “Introduction: On How Virgil’s Pastoral Makes a Difference.” Arethusa 23: 5–17. Benediktson, T. 1989. Propertius: Modernist Poet of Antiquity. Carbondale. Benveniste, E. 1971. Problems in General Linguistics. Translated by M. E. Meek. Coral Gables. Bobrowski, A. 1994. “Propertius 2.8 and 2.9 as Counterparts.” SO 69: 108–20. Bonner, S. F. 1977. Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. London. Boyd, B. W. 1997. Ovid’s Literary Loves: Influence and Innovation in Ovid’s Amores. Ann Arbor. Bright, D. 1978. Haec mihi fingebam: Tibullus in His World. Leiden. Buchan, M. 1995. “Ovidius Imperamator: Beginnings and Endings of Love Poems and Empire in the Amores.” Arethusa 28: 53–85. Cahoon, L. 1988. “The Bed as Battlefield: Erotic Conquest and Military Metaphor in Ovid’s Amores.” TAPA 118: 293–307. ———. 1990. “Let the Muse Sing On: Poetry, Criticism, Feminism, and the Case of Ovid.” Helios 17: 197–211. Cairns, F. 1972. Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry. Edinburgh. ———. 1979. Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome. Cambridge. Campbell, J. 1992. “ ‘If I Can’t Have You, No One Can’: Power and Control in Homicide of Female Partners.” In Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing, edited by J. Radford and D. Russell, 99–113. New York. Cantarella, E. 1987. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Foreword by M. R. Lefkowitz, translated by M. B. Fant. Baltimore. ———. 1991. “Homicides of Honor: The Development of Italian Adultery Law over Two Millennia.” In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, edited by D. Kertzer and R. P. Saller, 229–44. New Haven. Cherniss, H. F. 1962. “Me ex versiculis meis parum pudicum.” In Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric, edited by J. P. Sullivan, 15–30. Harvard. Churchill, L. 1985. Heroic Erotics: The Anatomy of Misogyny in the Ars Amatoria. Ph.D. diss., University of California at Santa Cruz. Clarke, J. 1998. Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 b.c.–a.d. 250. Berkeley. Clarke, M. L. 1976. “Latin Love Poets and the Biographical Approach.” G&R 23: 132–39. Clay, D. 1998. “The Theory of the Literary Persona in Antiquity.” MD 40: 9–40. Cohen, D. 1991. “The Augustan Law on Adultery: The Social and Cultural Context.” In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, edited by D. Kertzer and R. P. Saller, 109–26. New Haven. Connor, P. J. 1974. “His Dupes and Accomplices: A Study of Ovid the Illusionist in the Amores.” Ramus 3: 18–40. Conte, G. B. 1994. Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s Encyclopedia. Translated by G. W. Most. Baltimore. Copley, F. 1947. “Servitium Amoris in the Roman Elegists.” TAPA 78: 285–300.

326

/

Works Cited

———. 1956. Exclusus Amator: A Study in Latin Love Poetry. APA Monograph Series 17. Baltimore. Courtney, E. 1971. “Three Poems of Propertius.” BICS 16: 73–87. Csillag, P. 1976. The Augustan Laws on Family Relations. Budapest. Culham, P. 1986. “Ten Years after Pomeroy: Studies of the Image and Reality of Women in Antiquity.” Helios 13: 9–30. ———. 1990. “Decentering the Text: The Case of Ovid.” Helios 17: 161– 70. Culler, J. 1982. On Deconstruction. Ithaca. Curran, L. 1964. “Ovid Amores 1.10.” Phoenix 18: 314–19. ———. 1978. “Rape and Rape Victims in the Metamorphoses.” Arethusa 11: 213–41. Currie, H. M. 1964. “Ovid’s Personality.” CJ 59: 145–55. ———. 1981. “Ovid and the Roman Stage.” ANRW 31.4: 2701–42. Davidson, J. 1997. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. Reprint, 1999. New York. Davis, J. 1989. Fictus Adulter: Poet as Actor in the Amores. Amsterdam. Davis, P. J. 1995. “Praeceptor Amoris: Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and the Augustan Idea of Rome.” Ramus 24: 181–95 Day, A. A. 1938. The Origins of Latin Love Elegy. Oxford. della Corte, F. 1982. “Le leges Iuliae e l’elegia romana.” ANRW 2.30: 539–58. Downing, E. 1990. “Anti-Pygmalion: The Praeceptor in Ars Amatoria, Book 3.” Helios 17: 237–49. Du Quesnay, I. M. 1973. “The Amores.” In Ovid, edited by J. W. Binns, 1–48. London. Durling, R. 1958. “Ovid as Praeceptor Amoris.” CJ 53: 157–67. Edmunds, L. 2001. Intertextuality and the Reading of Roman Poetry. Baltimore. Edwards, C. 1993. The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge. ———. 1997. “Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 66–95. Princeton. Evans-Grubbs, J. 1989. “Abduction Marriage in Antiquity: A Law of Constantine (Cth IX.24) and Its Social Context.” JRS 79: 59–83. Fantham, E. 1991. “Stuprum: Public Attitudes and Penalties for Sexual Offences in Republican Rome.” EMC 35 (n.s. 10): 267–91. Fear, T. 2000a. “Introduction: Through the Past Darkly: Elegy and the Problematics of Interpretation.” In Fallax Opus: Approaches to Reading Roman Elegy, special issue of Arethusa 33, edited by T. Fear, 151–58. ———. 2000b. “The Poet as Pimp: Elegiac Seduction in the Time of Augustus.” In Fallax Opus: Approaches to Reading Roman Elegy, special issue of Arethusa 33, edited by T. Fear, 217–40. Fetterley, J. 1978. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington. Fineberg, B. 2000. “Repetition and the Poetics of Desire in Tibullus 1.4.” CW 92: 419–28.

Works Cited

/

327

Fitton Brown, A. D. 1985. “The Unreality of Ovid’s Tomitan Exile.” LCM 10: 18–22. Fitzgerald, W. 1995. Catullan Provocations: Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position. Berkeley. ———. 2000. Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination. Cambridge. Flynn, E. A., and P. Schweickart, eds. 1986. Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts. Baltimore. Foley, H., ed. 1981. Reflections of Women in Antiquity. New York. Ford, G. B., Jr. 1966. “An Analysis of Amores I.4.” Helikon 6: 645–52. Fowler, D. 1990. “Deviant Focalisation in Virgil’s Aeneid.” PCPS 216: 43–63. Fredrick, D. 1997. “Reading Broken Skin: Violence in Roman Elegy.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 172–93. Princeton. Fyler, J. 1971. “Omnia Vincit Amor: Incongruity and the Limitations of Structure in Ovid’s Elegiac Poetry.” CJ 66: 196–203. Gaisser, J. H. 1971. “Structure and Tone in Tibullus I, 6.” AJP 92: 202–16. ———. 1977. “Mythological Exempla in Propertius 1.2 and 1.15.” AJP 98: 381–91. ———. 1983. “Amor, rura and militia in Three Elegies of Tibullus: 1.1, 1.5, and 1.10.” Latomus 42: 58–72. ———. 1995. “Threads in the Labyrinth: Competing Views and Voices in Catullus 64.” AJP 116: 579–616. Gale, M. 1997. “Propertius 2.7: Militia Amoris and the Ironies of Elegy.” JRS 87: 77–91. Galinsky, G. K. 1981. “Augustus’ Legislation on Morals and Marriage.” Philologus 125: 126–44. Gamel, M.-K. 1989. “Non sine caede: Abortion Politics and Poetics in Ovid’s Amores.” Helios 16: 183–206. ———. 1990. “Reading ‘Reality.’ “ Helios 17: 171–74. ———. 1998. “Reading as a Man: Performance and Gender in Roman Elegy.” Helios 25: 79–95. Gariépy, R. 1980. “Beauty Unadorned: A Reading of Propertius I.2.” CB 57: 12–14. Gilula, D. 1980. “The Concept of the Bona Meretrix: A Study of Terence’s Courtesans.” RFIC 108: 142–65. Gold, B. 1993a. “ ‘But Ariadne Was Never There in the First Place’: Finding the Female in Roman Poetry.” In Feminist Theory and the Classics, edited by N. S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin, 75–101. London. ———. 1993b. “The ‘Master Mistress’ of My Passion: The Lady as Patron in Ancient and Renaissance Literature.” In Woman’s Power, Man’s Game: Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy K. King, edited by M. deForest, 279–304. Wauconda. Görler, W. 1965. “Ovids Propemptikon (Amores 2,11).” Hermes 93: 338–47. Green, C. M. E. 1996. “Terms of Venery: Ars Amatoria I.” TAPA 126: 221–63. Greene, E. 1998. The Erotics of Domination: Male Desire and the Mistress in Latin Love Poetry. Baltimore.

328

/

Works Cited

———. 1999. “Travesties of Love: Violence and Voyeurism in Ovid Amores 1.7.” CW 92: 409–18. Griffin, J. 1985. Latin Poets and Roman Life. London. Griffin, S. 2001. The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues. New York. Gross, N. 1975–76. “Ovid, Amores 3.11A and B: A Literary Mélange.” CJ 71: 152–60. ———. 1979. “Rhetorical Wit and Amatory Persuasion in Ovid.” CJ 74: 305–18. ———. 1985. Amatory Persuasion in Antiquity: Studies in Theory and Practice. Newark. ———. 1996. “Ovid, Amores 1.8: Whose Amatory Rhetoric?” CW 89: 197–207. Gutzwiller, K., and A. Michelini. 1991. “Women and Other Strangers: Feminist Perspectives in Classical Literature.” In (En)Gendering Knowledge: Feminists in Academe, edited by J. E. Hartman and E. Messer-Davidow, 66–84. Knoxville. Gutzwiller, K. 1985. “The Lover and the Lena: Propertius 4.5.” Ramus 14: 105–15. Habinek, T. 1997. “The Invention of Sexuality in the World-City of Rome.” In The Roman Cultural Revolution, edited by T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro, 23–43. Cambridge. ———. 1998. The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Empire, and Identity in Rome. Princeton. Hallett, J. 1973. “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism.” Arethusa 6: 103–24. ———. 1984. Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family. Princeton. ———. 1989. “Women as Same and Other in the Classical Roman Elite.” Helios 16: 59–78. Hallett, J., and M. Skinner, eds. 1997. Roman Sexualities. Princeton. Halporn, J. 1993. “Roman Comedy and Greek Models.” In Theater and Society in the Classical World, edited by R. Scodel, 191–213. Ann Arbor. Heinemann, M. 1919. Epistulae Amatoriae quomodo cohaereant cum Elegiis Alexandrinis. Diss., Berlin. Hemelrijk, E. A. 1999. Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Élite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London. Hemker, J. 1985. “Rape and the Founding of Rome.” Helios 12: 41–47. Henderson, J. 1989. “Satire Writes Woman: Gendersong.” PCPS 215 (n.s. 35): 50–80. ———. 1991–92. “Wrapping up the Case: Reading Ovid Amores 2.7 (+8).” Part 1: MD 27: 38–88; Part 2: MD 28: 27–83. Henry, M. 1986. “Ethos, muthos, praxis: Women in Menander’s Comedy.” Helios 13: 141–50. Herescu, N., ed. 1958. Ovidiana. Paris. Herter, H. 1960. “Die Soziologie der antiken Prostitution im Lichte des Leidnischen und Christlichen Schrifftums.” JbAC 3: 70–111.

Works Cited

/

329

Hexter, R. 1999. “Ovid’s Body.” In Constructions of the Classical Body, edited by J. Porter, 327–54. Ann Arbor. Hinds, S. 1985. “Booking the Return Trip: Ovid and Tristia 1.” PCPS 211 (n.s. 31): 13–32. ———. 1987a. “Generalizing about Ovid.” Ramus 16: 4–31. ———. 1987b. “The Poetess and the Reader: Further Steps toward Sulpicia.” Hermathena 143: 29–46. ———. 1998. Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge. Holleman, A. W. 1971. “Ovid and Politics.” Historia 20: 458–66. Holzberg, N. 1999. “Four Poets and a Poetess or a Portrait of the Poet as a Young Man? Thoughts on Book 3 of the Corpus Tibullianum.” CJ 94: 169–91. Hubbard, M. 1974. Propertius. London. James, S. 1997. “Slave-Rape and Female Silence in Ovid’s Love Poetry.” Helios 24: 60–76. ———. 1998a. “From Boys to Men: Rape and Developing Masculinity in Terence’s Hecyra and Eunuchus.” Helios 25: 31–47. ———. 1998b. “Introduction: Constructions of Gender and Genre in Roman Comedy and Elegy.” Helios 25: 1–16. ———. Forthcoming. “A Courtesan’s Choreography: Female Liberty and Male Anxiety at the Roman Dinner Party.” In Exploiting Gender and Genre in Roman Literature: Essays Presented to William S. Anderson on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, edited by W. W. Batstone and G. Tissol. ———. Forthcoming. “Her Turn to Cry: The Politics of Weeping in Roman Love Elegy.” Janan, M. 2001. The Politics of Desire: Propertius IV. Berkeley. Jardine, A. 1985. Gynesis: Configurations of Women and Modernity. Ithaca. Johnson, W. R. 1970. “The Problem of the Counter-Classical Sensibility and Its Critics.” CSCA 3: 123–51. ———. 1985. “Ringing Down the Curtain on Love.” Helios 12: 21–28. ———. 1990. “Messalla’s Birthday: The Politics of Pastoral.” Arethusa 23: 93–113. Jones, A. 1994. Next Time, She’ll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. Boston. Kahn, H. A. 1966. “Ovidius Furens: A Revaluation of Amores I,7.” Latomus 25: 880–94. Keith, A. 1992. “Amores I.I: Propertius and the Ovidian Programme.” In Collection Latomus, 327–44. Brussels. ———. 1994. “Corpus Eroticum: Elegiac Poetics and Elegiac Puellae in Ovid’s Amores.” CW 88: 27–40. ———. 1997. “Tandem venit amor: A Roman Woman Speaks of Love.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 295–310. Princeton. Kennedy, D. 1993. The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy. Cambridge. Kenney, E. J. 1958. “Nequitiae Poeta.” In Ovidiana, edited by N. Herescu, 201–9. Paris.

330

/

Works Cited

———, ed. 1982. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 2, part 3: The Age of Augustus. Cambridge. ———. 1984. “Ovid: A Poet in Love with Poetry.” Omnibus 8: 11–14. ———. 1990. Introduction and notes to Ovid, The Love Poems, translated by A. D. Melville. Oxford. Kertzer, D., and R. P. Saller, eds. 1991. The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven. Konstan, D. 1993. “The Young Concubine in Menandrian Comedy.” In Theater and Society in the Classical World, edited by R. Scodel, 139–60. Ann Arbor. ———. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton. Kratins, O. 1963. “The Pretended Witch: A Reading of Ovid’s Amores I.viii.” PQ 42: 151–58. Labate, M. 1984. L’arte di farsi amare: Modelli culturali e progetto didascalico nel’elegia ovidiana. Pisa. Laigneau, S. 1999. La Femme et l’amour chez Catulle et les élégiaques augustéens. Brussels. Leach, E. W. 1964. “Georgic Imagery in the Ars amatoria.” TAPA 95: 142–54. ———. 1980. “Sacral-Idyllic Landscape Painting and the Poems of Tibullus’ First Book.” Latomus 39: 47–69. ———. 1994. “Horace Carmen 1.8: Achilles, the Campus Martius, and the Articulation of Gender Roles in Augustan Rome.” CP 89: 334–43. Lee, A. G. 1962. “Tenerorum Lusor Amorum.” In Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric, edited by J. P. Sullivan, 149–79. London. Lees, S. 1992. “Naggers, Whores, and Libbers: Provoking Men to Kill.” In Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing, edited by J. Radford and D. Russell, 267–88. New York. Lee-Stecum, P. 1998. Powerplay in Tibullus: Reading Elegies Book One. Cambridge. ———. 2000. “Poet/Reader, Authority Deferred: Re-Reading Tibullan Elegy.” Arethusa 33: 177–215. Levine, M. M. 1981–82. “The Women of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: Nature or Culture?” SCI 6:30–56. Lilja, S. 1965. The Roman Elegists’ Attitude to Women. Helsinki. Reprint, 1978. New York. ———. 1983. Homosexuality in Republican and Augustan Rome. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 74. Helsinki. Lowe, N. B. 1988. “Sulpicia’s Syntax.” CQ 38: 193–205. Luck, G. 1969. The Latin Love Elegy. 2d ed. London. ———. 1974. “The Woman’s Role in Latin Love Poetry.” In Perspectives of Roman Poetry:A Classics Symposium, edited by G. K. Galinsky, 15–31.Austin. ———. 1982. “Latin Love Elegy.” In The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2, part 3: The Age of Augustus, edited by E. J. Kenney, 109–23. Cambridge. Lyne, R. O. A. M. 1979. “Servitium Amoris.” CQ 29: 117–30.

Works Cited

/

331

———. 1980. The Latin Love Poets: From Catullus to Horace. Oxford. Mack, S. 1988. Ovid. New Haven. Mahoney, M. 1991. “Legal Images of Battered Women: Redefining the Issue of Separation.” Michigan Law Review 90: 65–66. McCarthy, K. 1998. “Servitium amoris: amor servitii.” In Women and Slaves in the Greco-Roman World: Differential Equations, edited by S. Murnaghan and S. Joshel, 174–92. London. McGinn, T. A. 1991. “Concubinage and the Lex Iulia on Adultery.” TAPA 121: 335–75. ———. 1998. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford. McKeown, J. C. 1979. “Augustan Elegy and Mime.” PCPS 205 (n.s. 25): 71–84. ———. 1984. “Fabula Proposito Nulla Tegenda Meo: Ovid’s Fasti and Augustan Politics.” In Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus, edited by T. Woodman and D. West, 169–87. Cambridge. McLaughlin, J. D. 1979. “Vengeance with a Twist: Another Look at the Prooemium to Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.” Maia 31: 269–71. McNeill, S. 1992. “Woman Killer as Tragic Hero.” In Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing, edited by J. Radford and D. Russell, 178–83. New York. Miller, P. A. 1989. “Sive deae seu sint dirae obscenaeque volucres.” Arethusa 22: 47–79. ———. 1994. Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness: The Birth of a Genre from Archaic Greece to Augustan Rome. London. ———. 1999. “The Tibullan Dream Text.” TAPA 129: 181–224. ———. 2003. Subjecting Verses: Latin Erotic Elegy and the Emergence of the Real. Princeton. Miller, P., and C. Platter, eds. 1999a. “Crux as Symptom: Augustan Elegy and Beyond.” CW 92: 445–54. ———. 1999b. Introduction to Power, Politics, and Discourse in Augustan Elegy, special issue of CW 92: 403–8. Murgatroyd, P. 1975. “Militia amoris and the Roman Elegists.” Latomus 34: 59–79. ———. 1981. “Servitium Amoris and the Roman Elegists.” Latomus 40: 589–606. ———. 1989. “The Genre and Unity of Tibullus 2.6.” Phoenix 43: 134–42. Murgia, C. E. 1986a. “The Date of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria 3.” AJP 107: 74–94. ———. 1986b. “Influence of Ovid’s Remedia Amoris on Ars Amatoria 3 and Amores 3.” CP 81: 203–20. Myers, K. S. 1996. “The Poet and the Procuress: The Lena in Latin Love Elegy.” JRS 86: 1–21. Newlands, C. 1994. “The Ending of Ovid’s Fasti.” Ramus 23: 129–43. Newman, J. K. 1967. Augustus and the New Poetry. Brussels. ———. 1997. Augustan Propertius: The Recapitulation of a Genre. Hildesheim. Nugent, S. F. 1993. “Tristia 2: Ovid and Augustus.” In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 239–57. Berkeley.

332

/

Works Cited

O’Gorman, E. 1997. “Love and the Family: Augustus and Ovidian Elegy.” Arethusa 30: 103–33. Oliensis, E. 1997. “The Erotics of amicitia: Readings in Tibullus, Propertius, and Horace.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 151–71. Princeton. O’Neill, K. 1998. “Symbolism and Sympathetic Magic in Propertius 4.5.” CJ 94: 49–80. ———. 1999. “Ovid and Propertius: Reflexive Annotation in Amores 1.8.” Mnem. 52: 286–307. Otis, B. 1938. “Ovid and the Augustans.” TAPA 69: 188–229. Papanghelis, T. 1987. Propertius: A Hellenistic Poet on Love and Death. Cambridge. Pichon, R. 1902. De sermone amatorio apud Latinos elegiarum scriptores. Paris. Reprint, Hildesheim. 1966. Plassard, J. 1921. LeConcubinat romain sous le haut empire. Paris. Prince, G. 1973. “Introduction to the Study of the Narratee.” Reprint 1980, in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, edited by J. P. Tompkins, 7–25. Baltimore. ———. 1982. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin. ———. 1987. A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln. Quinn, K. 1972. Catullus: An Interpretation. London. ———. 1982. “The Poet and His Audience in the Augustan Age.” ANRW 2.30: 75–180. Raaflaub, K. A., and M. Toher, eds. 1993. Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate. Berkeley. Radford, J., and D. Russell, eds. 1992. Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing. New York. Raditsa, L. F. 1980. “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs, and Adultery.” ANRW 2.13: 278–339. Randall, J. G. 1979. “Mistresses’ Pseudonyms in Latin Elegy.” LCM 4: 27– 35. Rawson, B. 1974. “Roman Concubinage and Other de facto Marriages.” TAPA 104: 279–305. Reinsberg, C. 1989. Ehe, Hetärentum und Knabenliebe im antiken Griechenland. Munich. Richlin, A. 1981. “Approaches to the Sources on Adultery at Rome.” In Reflections of Women in Antiquity, edited by H. Foley, 379–404. New York. ———. 1992a. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor. Revised edition. Oxford. ———, ed. 1992b. Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome. Oxford. ———. 1992c. “Reading Ovid’s Rapes.” In Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, edited by A. Richlin, 158–79. Oxford. Riddle, J. 1992. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, Mass.

Works Cited

/

333

Roessel, D. 1990. “The Significance of the Name Cerinthus in the Poems of Sulpicia.” TAPA 120: 243–50. Romano, A. 1972. “Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, or the Art of Outmanoeuvering the Partner.” Latomus 31: 814–19. Rosivach, V. 1986. “Love and Leisure in Roman Comedy and the Amatory Poets.” AC 55: 175–89. ———. 1998. When a Young Man Falls in Love: The Sexual Exploitation of Women in New Comedy. London. Ross, D. 1975. Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy, and Rome. Cambridge. Rousselle, A. 1992. “Body Politics in Ancient Rome.” In A History of Women. Vol. 1: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, edited by P. S. Pantel, 296–336. Cambridge, Mass. Santoro L’hoir, F. 1992. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man,’ ‘Woman,’ and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose. Leiden. Schibanoff, S. 1986. “Taking the Gold out of Egypt: The Art of Reading as a Woman.” In Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, edited by E. A. Flynn and P. Schweickart, 83–106. Baltimore. Schweickart, P. 1986. “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading.” In Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, edited by E. A. Flynn and P. Schweickart, 31–62. Baltimore. Scodel, R., ed. 1993. Theater and Society in the Classical World. Ann Arbor. Sharrock, A. R. 1991. “Womanufacture.” JRS 81: 36–49. ———. 1994. “Ovid and the Politics of Reading.” MD 34: 97–122. ———. 1995. “The Drooping Rose: Elegiac Failure in Amores 3.7.” Ramus 24: 152–80. ———. 2000. “Constructing Characters in Propertius.” Arethusa 33: 263–84. Skinner, M. B., ed. 1987. Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity. Helios 13. ———. 1997a. “Ego mulier: The Construction of Male Sexuality in Catullus.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 129–50. Princeton. ———. 1997b. “Introduction: Quod multo fit aliter in Graecia. . . . “ In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 3–25. Princeton. Skoie, M. 2000. “Sulpicia Americana: A Reading of Sulpicia in the Commentary by K. F. Smith (1913).” Arethusa 33: 285–311. Stahl, H.-P. 1985. Propertius: “Love” and “War”: Individual and State under Augustus. Berkeley. Stirrup, B. E. 1973. “Irony in Amores I,7.” Latomus 32: 824–31. Stroh, W. 1971. Die römische Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung. Amsterdam. ———. 1979. “Ovids Liebeskunst und die Ehegesetze des Augustus.” Gymnasium 86: 323–52. Sullivan, J. P. 1972. “The Politics of Elegy.” Arethusa 5: 17–34. ———. 1976. Propertius: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge. Syme, R. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Reprint, 1960. Oxford.

334

/

Works Cited

———. 1978. History in Ovid. Oxford. Thalmann, W. G. 1996. “Versions of Slavery in the Captivi of Plautus.” Ramus 25: 112–45. ———. 1998. The Swineherd and the Bow: Representations of Class in the Odyssey. Ithaca. Thibault, J. C. 1964. The Mystery of Ovid’s Exile. Berkeley. Thomas, R. 1979. “New Comedy, Callimachus, and Roman Poetry.” HSCP 83: 179–207. ———. 1988. “Review Article: Turning Back the Clock.” CP 83: 54–69. Treggiari, S. 1971. “Libertine Ladies.” CW 64: 196–97. ———. 1991a. “Ideals and Practicalities in Matchmaking in Ancient Rome.” In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, edited by D. Kertzer and R. P. Saller, 91–108. New Haven. ———. 1991b. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford. Verducci, F. 1980. “The Contest of Rational Libertinism and Imaginative License in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.” Pacific Coast Philology 15: 29–39. Veyne, P. 1988. Roman Erotic Elegy: Love, Poetry, and the West. Translated by David Pellauer. Chicago. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1985. “Propaganda and Dissent? Augustan Moral Legislation and the Love-Poets.” Klio 67: 180–84. Walters, J. 1997. “Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought.” In Roman Sexualities, edited by J. Hallett and M. Skinner, 29–43. Princeton. Warden, J. 1980. Fallax opus: Poet and Reader in the Elegies of Propertius. Toronto. Watts, W. J. 1973. “Ovid, the Law and Roman Society on Abortion.” AClass 16: 89–101. Wheeler, A. L. 1910–11. “Erotic Teaching in Roman Elegy and the Greek Sources.” CP 5: 440–50 and 6: 56–77. White, P. 1993. Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome. Cambridge. Wiedemann, T. 1981. Greek and Roman Slavery. Baltimore. Williams, G. 1958. “Some Aspects of Roman Marriage Ceremonies and Ideals.” JRS 48: 16–29. ———. 1968. Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry. Oxford. ———. 1980. Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry. New Haven. ———. 1993. “Did Maecenas ‘Fall from Favor’? Augustan Literary Patronage.” In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, edited by K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 258–75. Berkeley. Wilson, M., and M. Daly. 1992. “Till Death Us Do Part.” In Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing, edited by J. Radford and D. Russell, 83–98. New York. Wright, E. 1984. “Profanum sunt genus: The Poets of the Ars Amatoria.” PQ 63: 1–15.

Works Cited

/

335

Wright, F. 1938. Three Roman Poets: Plautus, Catullus, Ovid; Their Lives, Times, and Works. London. Wyke, M. 1987a. “The Elegiac Woman at Rome.” PCPS 213 (n.s. 33): 153–78. ———. 1987b. “Written Women: Propertius’ scripta puella.” JRS 77: 47–61. ———. 1989a. “In Pursuit of Love, the Poetic Self and a Process of Reading: Augustan Elegy in the 1980s.” JRS 79: 165–73. ———. 1989b. “Mistress and Metaphor in Augustan Elegy.” Helios 16: 25–47. ———. 1990. “Reading Female Flesh: Amores 3.1.” In History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History, edited by A. Cameron, 113–43. Chapel Hill. ———. 1994. “Taking the Woman’s Part: Engendering Roman Love Elegy.” Ramus 23: 110–28. ———. 2002. The Roman Mistress. Oxford. Yardley, J. C. 1973. “Sick-visiting in Roman Elegy.” Phoenix 27: 283–88. ———. 1977. “The Roman Elegists, Sick Girls, and the Soteria.” CQ 27: 394–401. Zagagi, N. 1980. Tradition and Originality in Plautus: Studies of the Amatory Motifs in Plautine Comedy. Göttingen.

This page intentionally left blank

General Index

abduction-marriage, 295n71 abortion, 173–82, 244n32, 269n77, 308nn72,73; attitudes toward, 306n43; methods of, 305–6n42, 309n75 abortion poems: Ovid’s, 173–83, 305–9; as tasteless, 173, 305n39 Acanthis, 52–67, 137, 140, 172, 188, 264n37, 274nn109,110, 275n113, 284n46, 291n32 addressees of elegiac poems, 243n22, 254n112, 277n3, 278n6, 279n13, 281n26 adulescens: comic, elegiac lover as, 36, 249–50n74, 215, 225, 255n113, 262n24 age: process of in women/effects of on women, 11–12, 29, 38, 40, 54, 136, 167, 171–72, 208, 255n115, 262n20, 305nn35,37,38, 319n11 anger: of lover against puella, 130–31, 138, 184–97, 293n50, 312n113, 313n119, 314n123, 317n147 aphrodisiacs, 310n86, 316n145 Apuleius: and identification of elegiac puellae, 241–42n15, 266n53 ars meretricis, 253n104, 286n57 assault: by men, on puella’s house, 136, 139, 185, 188–89, 196, 295n62, 296nn73,74, 299n108 audience, divided: of elegy, 21, 27, 248n61

Augustus, 225–26; desire for procreation among elites, 269n76, 318n2, 319n8; marital legislation by, 228–31, 269nn75,76; moral reform by, 50, 214, 217–18, 303n16, 318–19n4, 321n20; and poets, 214–15; rebuilding of Rome by, 318–19n4; treatment of women in family, 219, 319n8, 320n19 autobiography in elegy, 3, 5 banquets: behavior of women at, 49, 164–66, 267n66 beauty, female, 309nn79,80, 309–10n81, 317n150; praise of, 53, 182, 306–7n55, 309nn79,80; as necessary for the puella, 23, 24, 29, 166–83 biographical reading of elegy, 239n1, 240n7, 241n13 biography, in elegy, 3, 5 bisexuality in elegy, 10–12 blanditiae. See flattery body, female: citizen, 218, 256n121; desire of lover to see naked, 306n44; as focus in Ovid’s poetry, 167–83, 304n25; of puella, 217, 218 Caesar, Julius: desire to see elites procreate, 218, 269n76, 270n81, 320n16 Callisto, 178–79 Cato the Elder, 322n36

337

338

/

General Index

Catullus, 23, 32, 51, 145, 249n74, 252n98, 253–54n105, 255n116, 259n10, 272n90, 319–20n13 characterization: of lover and puella in elegy, as strategy in sexual persuasion, 121–32 Chelidon, 260–61n14 chronology of elegy. See elegy, chronology of climax, sexual, 183, 205–7, 209, 308n70, 317n149 Clodia, 241–42n15, 250n79, 265n43. See also Lesbia Comedy, New. See New Comedy competition, poetic. See elegy concubinage/concubine, 42, 259n11, 262n26, 264n40, 280–81n19 conjugal relations in ancient Rome, 5 coniunx. See marriage, lexicon of consular spoils, 258–59n7 counter-classical sensibility, 319n7 countryside, as not suited to love, 290nn18,21, 295nn65,66, 296n77, 319n12 courtesan, 21–27, 30, 33, 35–41, 250–51n79, 261n16; contract of, 142, 145, 251n86, 263n35, 264n41, 265n42, 267n61, 271n87, 280n19; courtesan of New Comedy, 21, 30, 35, 37–41, 250n78, 250–51n79, 259n8, 260n13, 261nn16–20, 262nn21,23,26,27; as evidence for historical courtesans, 244n33; “good,” 261n18, 262n27; as translation of meretrix, 251n80 crowds, at courtesan’s door, 131, 294n57 Cynthia, 279n13, 306n54, 306–7n55, 312n113, 317n152, 319n11; attractions of, 308n70; clothing of, 114; as greedy, 276n128, 284 n47, 284–85n48; “identification” of as Hostia, 241–42n15, 266n53; image of, as overshadowing other elegiac women, 124; as poet, 277n3; tristitia of, 289n10; wearing clothing in bed, 290n16

custos, 49, 148, 208, 268n71, 269n74, 273n101, 296n80 Dante, 302n13 death: eventual, as motive for present sex, 74, 114–15 Delia: “identification” of as Plania, 242n15; status of, 42–43, 265–66n50 diffamatio, 136, 277 DiMaggio, Joe: and Marilyn Monroe, 284n42 Dipsas, 52–67, 137, 141, 172, 253n102, 274nn108,109, 276nn120,130, 291n32, 294n56, 312n110, 317n148 discours, of elegy, 27–28, 52 disillusion: of lover with puella, 40, 254n111, 309n79, 318n1 divorce, 50, 51, 259n10, 269n74, 271nn85,87, 271–72n89 docta puella, 251n86, 252n87, 258n99. See also doctitude doctitude, 4, 219, 240n4, 253n99 dog, barking: as sign of rival or lover, 294n57, 302n14 education: of elite Roman women, 253n99; of elite Romans, 240n5, 243n22; female, as wasted, 219, 222 elegiac love affair: ending of, 40, 122 elegy: Alexandrianism in 3, 5; ancient etymology of, 259n77, 288n3; brief floruit of, 32, 213–23; chronology of, 255–56n119, 257n132, 303n17; circulation of, 4, 32–35, 255–56nn119,122, 257n134; as coterie poetry, 4; erotodidaxis in, 78, 85–86, 161–65, 302nn11,15; as genre of divided audience and voice, 21; Greek, 12, 257n130, 296n75; historical audience of, 4, 32–33; hortatory, 12–21; as lamentation, 108–52, 250n77; performance of, 4, 31–33, 240n3, 256n123; performativity of, 256n124; plots of, 254n109; poetic competition of, 4, 31–33; political readings of, 255n117; politics and, 30–33, 40, 213–23, 256–57n128,

General Index 257nn129,135, 287n69, 318n2, 319n5, 320nn14,15, 321n27; as preferred by puellae, 13–21, 77–79, 220, 247n45; purposes of, 31–32; recitatio of, 4, 32, 255–56n119; as required, generic language of poets in love, 12–21; rhetorical nature of, 4, 18, 26, 30, 246n49; as sexual foreplay, 13; as sexual persuasion, 12–152 passim; social backgrounds of, 31–35, 35–68; as werbende Dichtung, 246n49 epic poetry: not of interest to girls, 13–18, 77–78; production of disrupted by love and elegy, 16–17, 78–81, 282n30 exclusus amator. See paraclausithyron fable/fabula of elegy, 27–28, 52 Faecenia, Hispala, 35, 37, 227–28, 260n14 fame: granted to girls by poetry, 24, 252n97, 253n99, 287n73 family nomenclature: as denoting sexual relationship/role, 260n13 “female” in elegy, 8 feminist classical studies, 9, 29, 243n23, 244n30, 257–58n138, 318n156 flattery, 12, 14–15, 17–19, 22, 144, 147, 247n54, 248n65, 281n20, 292n39, 298; by puella, 15, 204, 208, 267n62, 268 n72 focalization, 255n113 foedera lecti, 44, 48, 265n47, 266n55 Gallus, 4, 33, 121, 133, 215–16, 218, 222, 227, 238, 241n15, 257n131, 265n48, 278n5, 281n21, 320n18 gender-genre play of elegy, 8, 30, 250n76 gifts: cheap, as preferred by male lover, 84, 105, 202, 284–85n48, 285–86n56; poetry as, 105, 202–3, 286n59, 291–92n34 girl, cruel, 121, 123–28; absent from Ovid’s verse, 127

/

339

greedy girl, 71–107 passim, 200–2–3, 246n50, 250n79, 262–63n28, 285–86n56, 286n57, 291n33 gynesis, 22 hair, puella’s, 304–5, 312n107; fancy styles of, 168–71; gray, 171–72; as sign of her beauty, 167–73, 304–5 hairdresser. See ornatrix Heroides, 21, 251n83; as models for Tristia, 251n83 hetaira: arrival of into Rome, 260n14; Greek, 227, 254n107, 261n17, 263n31 Hispala Faecenia. See Faecenia, Hispala homoeroticism, 9–12, 244n34 Horace: attitude toward women, 261n15, 297n89, 306n44; girlfriends of, 24, 220; recusatio of, 277n4; women in, 51, 280n19, 319–20n13, 322n35 Horatia, 228, 240–41n10 Hostia/Hostius in pseudo-identification of Cynthia, 266n52 ianitor, 139–40, 296n82 illness, love as, 110, 293n52, 293–94n53, 296n76 impasse, elegiac, 14, 42, 91, 98, 106, 200, 247n53 impotence, male, 183–84, 310n84 iners, male lover as, 74, 278n10, 280n18 infidelity: of male lover, 184, 203–4, 208, 291n23, 317–18n154; of puella, 44, 64–65, 50, 190–93, 210, 292nn38,39, 317–18n154 Ino, 178–79, 307nn57,64 intercourse: motions of puella or wife during, 5, 309n77 Io. See Isis Isis, 178–81, 275n115, 308n68 ius (iura), 48–49, 266n58, 267n65, 271n87 jealousy: desired by lover, 67, 184, 203–4, 208, 254n111, 313n116, 317n148; female, 24, 313n116

340

/

General Index

Julia the Elder, 50, 219, 226, 228, 236, 270n83, 319n8, 320nn18,19, 322n31 Julia the Younger, 236 Julian laws. See leges Iuliae Julius Caesar. See Caesar, Julius knowledge, female. See doctitude laws: Julian See leges Iuliae learning: necessary for writing and reading elegy, 3, 4. See also doctitude; education leges Iuliae, 50, 158, 228–31, 244n31, 212–27 passim, 263n33, 269n75, 270n83, 303n16, 315n128 lena, 25, 30, 35, 38, 49, 52–68, 86, 99, 106, 130, 132, 151, 172, 244n31, 252n90, 253n101, 274nn102,103, 291n30, 292n42, 294n56, 305n38; advice of, to puella, 54–69, 272–73n95; elegiac, as based in lena of Comedy, 53–54; ethics of, opposed to poetry, 52–69; magical powers of, 56, 59, 274n111, 274–75n102, 276n121; names of, 276n120; as opposed to lover-poet, 54–69; persuasion by, 56–58; ugly old age of (see age) leno, 53, 95, 262n26, 273nn99,100 lenocinium, 229, 270n79 Lesbia, 21, 23, 220, 241–42n16, 249n74, 250n79, 252nn88,98, 253–54n105, 259n10, 267n68, 269–70n78, 272n90; as unlike elegiac puella, 269–70n78, 272n90 levis/levitas, 278n11, 287n66, 292n43 lex, as used in elegy, 266n59. See also marriage, lexicon of lexicon of querela. See querela libido, female, 310n85, 316nn135,137 literature, relation of to “real” life, 6, 9, 28–29, 31–34, 155–211 lover-poet: development of 11–12; as pathetic, 128–32; social and financial advantages of, relative to puella, 72, 90, 122–23 Lucretia, 241n9

lupanar song, 295–96n72 Lycoris, 216, 238, 241n15, 260n14 lyric poetry, Roman: as unlike elegy, 255n115, 257n132, 319–20n13 magic, 248n64, 272n94. See also lena Marathus, 9–11, 87, 117–18, 245n41, 251n81, 290n20, 292n40 maritus. See marriage, lexicon of marriage, Roman, 5, 41–52, 264n38, 269n76; as antithetical to elegiac love, 270–71n84; change of, under Augustus, 213–23; as death of elegy, 23, 51; of elites, 322n30, n32, n36; of elegists, after elegy, 320n17; language/lexicon of, 42–49, 51–52, 260n13, 264n38, n40, 264–65n41, 263–64n37, 264n41, 266n56, 267n67, 268n72, 279n12; pressure toward, 215; as refused by loverpoet, 265n45, 266n56, 270–71nn84,85; rituals of, 266n57, 267n60; Tibullan fantasy of, 33, 43–44, 85, 265n46 matrona: clothing of, 265n43; contrasted to puella, 158, 281n23. See also uxor; wife military service: rejected by lover, 279n15, 279–80n18 militia amoris, 18, 232, 288n2, 291n27, 295n62, 311n99 money: opposition of to love and poetry, 278n9, 278–79n12 mulier, as negative term for woman, 271n89, 285n52 murder-suicide: in elegy, 130, 192–93, 313n117, 118, 119, 313–14n120, 314nn121,122 music, popular and folk-traditional: themes of as similar to elegiac themes, 288n2 narratology, 27–28, 52 narratee, 28, 254nn110,111, 310n82, 316n137, 317n154 New Comedy, 136, 142, 232–33, 254n108, 261n17–20,

General Index 262nn23,26,27, 272–73n95, 275nn116,117; as background for elegy, 21–27, 30, 33, 35–41, 184, 250n79, 296n75. See also courtesan; lena Nemesis, 87–91, 273n101, 290n18, 292n42; as “cruel,” 124; little sister of, 118, 126, 241n13 nutzlichkeit in elegy, 246n49 obsequium, 86, 148–49, 201–3, 233, 245n37, 283n37, 297n90, 299n106, 316n143 opposition, partnered: in elegiac love life, 7, 12, 243nn21,25, 244n29 ornatrix, 119, 168, 250n79, 304n29, 305n34 Ovid, 233–34; chronology of poetry, 300n3; elegy of, as satiric, 210; exile of, 263n34; influence on elegy of, 303n17; and leges Iuliae, 157–58, 263n34, 267n167; and meter, 158; play with genre by, 155; poor reputation of, 155, 161, 300nn1–3, 300–3011n6, 318n157; as read by mass audience, 256n125; reading of elegy by, 31, 155–211, 301nn7,8; self-defense of, 156–61, 301–2n10; speaker’s voice in exilic poetry of, 302n12; treatment of elegy by, 155–211, 294–95n60; as “violating” elegy, 256n126; wife of, 301n10 paintings, erotic, 38, 262n23, 286n63, 287n71 paraclausithyron, 136–41, 234, 288n2, 295nn67,69, 296nn75,80, 316n144; dullness of, 294n60, 296nn75,80 patria potestas, 234, 318n2 patruus, 234–35, 240n8 persona of speaker in Latin poetry. See speaker perspectives: female, on poetry. See reading as a woman persuasion in elegy: implicit, 108–52, 284n43, 287n1; pathos in, 252n91 Pholoe 10, 117–19, 124, 125–26, 151

/

341

Phryne, 126, 273n101, 276n120, 276–77n132, 292n42 poetry, performance of, relation of to “real life,” 221–22. See also fame, granted to girls by poetry; gifts, poetry as Ponticus, 76–78, 280n19, 281n21 poor man, services of to girlfriend. See obsequium potency, sexual, of lover, 304n23. See also impotence pregnancy, puella’s fear of, 173–83, 221–22, 261–62n20, 269n77, 308nn71,67, 311n96 procreation, 5, 269nn75,76 professions, alternate, rejected by poets, 80, 277n2 propempticon, 141–45, 235, 291n29, 297nn86,87; as introduced to elegy by Gallus, 141 Propertius, 235–36 puella: characteristics of, 21–25, 121–28, 259n8; construction of, 21–26; financial and material needs of, 25–26, 37–41, 291–92n34; as a former slave, 292n96; function of, in elegy, 212–23; as generic fiction, 7, 21–26, 249n70, 251n86; as greedy, 84–98; as historical woman, 6; illness of, as pregnancy, 176–81; mobilis, 309n77; name of, as marker of poetry, 21, 251n81; as new standard for women in Rome, 223; as poetic fiction, 21–25, 36–41; population of, in Rome, 254n106, 315n128; as “rare,” 251n86, 254n106; as reader of elegy, 7, 277n3, 278n6, 281n26; reading elegy as, 213–23 passim; reading of elegy by, 26–28, 243n27, 251n86, 255n113; required reading for, 219; status of, 36–41; as unmarriageable, 260n13, 271–72n89; as vehicle for poets’ rebellion, 28–29, 213–23, 319n9; as word used for “prostitute,” 259–60n12 puer delicatus, 10–12, 86, 87, 244n34, 245n39, 245–46n42, 246n43, 252n94

342

/

General Index

quarrel, 249n72; sexual. See rixa querela, 108–21 passim, 150–52, 236, 288nn3–6, 289nn7,8,12, 290nn15,21, 291nn24,25; different treatments of by Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus, 109; lexicon of, 110–11, 114, 119–25, 289nn7,8, 291n25, 292nn35,37,43 rape, 181, 195–96, 199, 203, 273n100, 283n41, 293n50, 307n63, 283n41, 308–9n74, 316n138 reading: audience of elegy, 248n61; male, of elegy, 249–50n74; practices and contexts of at Rome, 7, 239n2; a woman, 7, 8, 26–28; “realities” of women’s lives, 9, 221–22 “real life” of women, and poetry, 6, 244n32, 258n137, 321n28, 321–22n29, 322n3 receptus amans, 141, 296n83 recusatio, 5, 236, 279n13, 279–80n18, 281n21, 282–83n34, 315n126; and voluntary poverty, 72–84 relegatio, 236 resentment of women by lover, 110, 122, 123, 129, 130–31, 138, 157, 184–209, 297n84, 299n105, 314n123, 317nn152,154; in Ars Amatoria, 198–209 revenge: desire for among Roman aristocrats, 314n124; against women, as desired by elegiac lover, 123, 157, 161, 193–97, 294n54, 312n112, 312–13n114, 313n123, 314n125 rival: female, 24, 203, 208, 317n148 rival: male, 10, 11, 42, 98–107, 143, 144, 204–5, 263n30, 276nn130,131, 286nn60–63, 286–87n64, 287nn67,70, 290n15, 291nn22,32, 294n57; invented by puella, 67, 207, 287n67, 291n32 rixa, 185–88, 275n115, 311n94, 312n106 Roman Comedy See New Comedy romanticism, in reading elegy, 3–5, 240n7

saga, 86, 138, 177, 184, 236, 268n70, 273n100, 306n52. See also lena; witch sea-travel, by puella, 142–43, 268n73, 297n85 segnis, lover-poet as, 74, 299n107 Semele, 178–79, 307nn62,64 separation of lover and puella, 133–45 servitium amoris, 8, 84, 145–50, 183–84, 189, 197, 236, 265n44, 292n97, 297–300; as a form of captivity or inactivity, 145–50, 300nn112,113; as obsequium, 148–49; and politics, 321n27 sex: consequences of, 310n82; as dangerous to puella, 173–82 sexuality in elegy, 7–12 “sincerity,” “sincerity requirement,” 3, 5 slavery in antiquity, 145–47; attitudes toward, 145–47, 297–99 social status. See status, social speaker, poetic, in elegy, 36, 241n15, 303–4n19; as poetic/fictive figure, 6; of satire, 241n15 “stations of the lover,” 132–52 status, social: of lover, 8, 122–23, 258n1; of lover and puella, as reversed in elegy, 26; of male narratee in Ars Amatoria, 258nn1,3,4; of puella, 11–26, 30, 37, 43, 250–51n79, 258–59n7, 259n10, 259–60n12, 268nn72,73, 276n122, 280–81n19, 312n108; of wealthy rival, 98–107, 287n68 stuprum, 258–59n7 Sulpicia, 8, 220, 321nn22–26 Tarpeia, 237, 240n9, 285n55, 316n142 television shows: structures analogous to elegy, 6, 241n14 Tibullus: biographical information on, 237; “homosexuality” of, 10–12, 245n36; Tibullan speaker as having numerous named beloveds, 133, 292–93n49 toga, loose, 258n4, 283n39, 287n65

General Index univira, 237, 315n128 usus, 315n127 uxor: in formula pro uxore, 264–65n41. See also marriage, lexicon of Verginia, 237–38 violence, against puella, 130, 131, 147, 184–97, 293nn50,51, 296n78, 297n84, 310–14; sexual, of women, 310n90; “tradition of” in elegy, 184 vir, 41–52, 238, 293nn50,51, 258n2, 260n13, 263n36, 263–64n37, 265–66n50, 267n61, 268n72, 268–69n74, 270nn80,81, 287n70, 290n19 voice, male, of elegy, 33–34 Volumnia Cytheris, 35, 37, 216, 238, 260n14, 265n41, 298n96 wife/wives: adultery by, 158, 267n68; as necessary evil, 319n6; sexual behavior of, 5, 309n77. See also matrona; uxor witch, 56, 69, 273nn96,100, 274n111,

/

343

274–75n112, 296n76. See also lena; saga woman, elegiac, 244n30. See also docta puella woman: reading as (see reading as a woman); terms for in elegy, 271–72n89 women: elegiac, as textual, 252n93, 253n98; elite, liberation of in late Republic, 214; elite, and sex, 322n30; elite, sexual behavior of in early Empire, 270n83; lives of, realities in, 9; male revulsion against, 199; older, sexual advantages of, 205–6; as readers of elegy, 243nn19,20, 251–52n86; respectable, 287n74; Roman elite, education of, 219, 253n99; treated as materia, 315–16n134; vices of, 317–18n154 writing tablets, 18, 78–79, 106, 247–48n60, 288n5, 309n80 Yeats, W. B., xi, 3, 4, 23, 219, 240n4, 252n88

This page intentionally left blank

Index Locorum

Note: This index lists passages discussed or translated but does not include untranslated parenthetical citations to elegy; lines cited only in the tables are likewise not included. Catullus 11.2 32 35.16–17 64 65.6 83 101.1 Cicero Ad Fam. 9.26 In Verr. 5.34, 38 Leg. 3.7 Corp. Tib. 1.1.7 3.1.23 3.3.21 3.3 Dio Cassius 53.16 56.1–10

293n53 304n23 246n47 283n36 293n53 267n68 293n53

260n14 260–61n14 230 84 260n13 279n12 278–79n12 230 231

Gellius NA 17–18 Horace Ars Poet. 75 Ep. 16 Ode 3.25 3.26 Sat. 1.2 Juvenal Sat. 6.487–93 Livy 1.26–27 3.44–48 39.9–19 Per. 59

270n81

288n3 318n3 294n57 296n73 261n15, 306n44

305n34 228 237 227–28, 260n14 231

345

346

/

Lucian Dial. 3.6.7 Lucretius 4.1177–79 4.1263–77 4.1274–76 6.1178 Macrobius Sat. 2.5.7–9 Martial 2.66 Ovid Amores 1.1 1.1.25–26 1.2 1.2.4 1.3 1.3.11–26 1.4 1.5 1.5.13–14 1.6 1.6.15–23 1.6.67–70 1.7 1.7.47–48 1.7.50 1.7.63 1.7.68 1.8 1.8.19–20 1.8.69–70 1.8.78 1.8.79–84 1.9.8 1.9.19–20 1.10

Index Locorum

274n102 295n69 5 309n77 306n51

22, 270n80, 320n21 305n34

79 130 281n24, 294n58, 300n112 130 281n26, 281–82n27 79–80 162–64, 291n22 174–75 293n51 139–40 296n82 294n59 184, 189–90, 297n84, 310–11n91 293n51 312n108 312n109 312n106 59–64, 276nn120, 130, 294n56 55 318n155 296n83 812n110, 317n148 300n113 296n74 94–97, 285nn50–55, 285–86n56, 294n56

1.10.13–14 292n45, 309n79 1.10.31–36 310n85 1.10.53 291n34 1.11.23–24 16 1.12.21–22 247–48n60 1.12.25–26 281n22 1.14 167–70, 304nn26–29 1.14.15–18 305n34 1.15.1–6 80–81 1.15.27–30 81, 320n18 2.1 81 2.1.5 7 2.1.5–10 248n61 2.1.17–18 16–18 2.1.21 12 2.2 296nn80,81 2.2.34, 56 268n72 2.3 296n80 2.4 133 2.5 119–20, 164–65, 304n22 2.7 296n81 2.7.21–22 49 2.8 296n82 2.11 297n87 2.11.31 246n47 2.11.31–32 253n99 2.12.1–2 173 2.13 173–76, 269n77, 305n41, 309n75 2.13.19–22 305–6n42 2.13.23–26 177 2.14 176, 269n77, 306n42 2.17.23–24 48–49 2.17.28–30 7, 253n99, 268n73, 287n73 2.18 248n67, 282n30 2.19 296n81, 302n14 2.19.60 267n67 3.1 232, 282n30 3.1.45–46 248n65 3.1.57 286n59 3.2 299n104 3.4 296n81 3.7 183–84, 304n25, 308n71 3.7.5 310n85 3.7.25–26 304n23 3.8 101–4, 287n70, 291n24

Index Locorum 3.9 3.9.3–4 3.10 3.11

304n23 288n3 269n74 48, 127–28, 269n74, 292n44, 299n105, 303n18 3.11.17–18 47–48, 148 3.11.31–32 267n62 3.12 303n18 3.12.15–16 282n30 3.13 268–69n74 3.15.19–20 282n30, 321n21 Ars Amatoria 1.1–30 194–95 1.24 314n125 1.25–28 315n126 1.29 315n127 1.35, 49 315n134 1.42 249n70, 315n128 1.55–59 315n128 1.166 315n129 1.245–52 306n44 1.263 315–16n134 1.269–70 199 1.275–82 199, 310n85 1.277–82 316n134 1.282–342 316n137 1.341–44 310n85 1.399–454 98, 277n133 1.429–54 200–201 1.435–36 286n57 1.439–40 18 1.449 283n35 1.453–54 316n140 1.454 282n31 1.455 82 1.455–82 18–20 1.551 317n146 1.643–58 201 1.669–70 195 1.673–74 293n51 1.673–706 195–96 1.706 315n129 2.24 234, 318n157 2.123–24 249n72 2.129–32 283n35 2.145 249n72 2.151–52 20

2.155–50 2.161–74 2.161–74 2.167–74 2.169–72 2.169–74 2.178–248 2.215–52 2.228 2.233 2.233–60 2.273–85 2.281–82 2.287–466 2.329–40 2.345–408 2.415–25 2.445–62 2.447–54 2.450 2.451–52 2.457–62 2.511–600 2.533–34 2.547–52 2.681–94 2.717–32 2.805–6 3 3.9–24 3.133–68 3.235–50 3.239 3.329–46 3.531–33 3.539–44 3.547 3.553–54 3.565–72 3.579 3.591–610 3.597–98 3.603–4 3.663–68 3.671–73 3.677–78 3.683–84

/

347

249n72 82–83 196–97 310n90 283n35 293n51 148–49 201 316n143 299n107 299n108 201–3 251n86, 315n128 310n86 306n52 203 316–17n145 203–4 293n50, 310–11n91 317n146 310n90 317n148 204–5 283n35 283n35 205–6 206–7 283n35 207–9 199 170 170–71 305n34 251n86 291n34 317n151 291–92n34 318n155 293n50 207 291n32 207 207, 317n149 208 208 317n148 208, 317n148

348

/

Index Locorum

Ars Amatoria (continued) 3.728 317n149 3.747–48 208–9 3.785 175 3.797–808 209, 317n148 Fasti 4.111–12 13 Remedia Amoris 41– 317–18n154 135–68 258n3 301–2 317–18n154 411–18 317–18n154 608 317–18n154 Epistulae Ex Ponto 2.9.71–76 301n10 3.6 301n10 4.3 301n10 Tristia 2.207 233, 301n10 2.351–52 269n76 2.255–56 158 2.263–64 158 2.351–52 269n70 2.447–66 159–61 2.449–65 301n20, 302n14 4.3.9, 35,49, 72 268n72 4.8.20 301n10 4.10 233 5.5.1, 15 268n72 Petronius Satyr. 7.1 Plautus Asin

Most. Truc. 31 31–32 227–28 Pliny Epist. 9.22.1

260n13 263n35, 273n99, 280n19, 291n26, 294n56 274nn106,112, 294n56 272n95 263n35 280n19 274n110

320n17

Plutarch Caes. 9–10 Cat. Min. 7.17 Propertius 1.1 1.1.19–22 1.1.27 1.1.27–30 1.1.28 1.1.33 1.2 1.2.1–2 1.3 1.3.24–26 1.3.41 1.4.11–14 1.4.13 1.5.29–30 1.6

270n81 240n8

129–31 296n76 293n52 293–94n53 190, 314n122 292n48 91, 284nn46,47, 288n6 284n46 313n116 284–85n48 295n66 308n70 309n81 100 75–76, 279nn13,14, 297n85 1.7.1–20 76–77 1.7.9–11 22 1.8 143–45, 291n29 1.8.37–40 91–92 1.8.40 15 1.9 15, 280–81n19, 281n21 1.9.2–3 267n65 1.9.9–14 77–78 1.10.22 19, 281n20 1.11 319n12 1.11.23 246n42 1.14 278n9 1.14.8 105 1.15 125 1.15.41–42 292n39 1.16 138–39, 294n60 1.16.5–7 296n78 1.16.9 296n79 1.18 111–13, 289n9–12 1.18.14 312n113 2.1.7–18 15 2.5 190–92, 313n115 2.5.5–7 287n73, 303n18 2.5.21–30 293n50,

Index Locorum 296n74, 312n113, 312–13n114 2.6 286n63, 287n71, 295n63 2.7 229–30 2.7.13–14 318n2 2.8 192–93, 286n63, 313n117–19, 313–14n120, 314n121 2.8.12 317n152 2.13a 23, 24 2.14 296n83 2.15 114–15, 175, 187-88, 290n15, 309n77 2.15.17–22 311n96 2.16 92–93 2.16.11–14 253n100, 294n56, 314n123 2.16.27 285n49 2.17 291n30 2.18 168–69, 304n30, 304–5n31, 305n32 2.18.20 305n35 2.18.24–26 284–85n48 2.22a 308n71 2.23 277n133 2.22.23–24 304n23 2.24 286n63 2.26.21–25 15–16 2.28 177–81, 306nn53,54, 306–7n55, 307nn56,57,64, 308nn65–68 2.33 181, 308n69 2.34a 100–101 2.34b.41–46 14–15 2.34b.55–58 15, 101 3.2.9–10 243n20, 247n56 3.2.17–18 282n27, 283n34, 309n78 3.3 283n34 3.3.20 7 3.3.48–50 302n15 3.4 279n15, 280n18 3.4.15–16 283n34 3.5 279n15, 280n18 3.5.2 311n94 3.7.71–72 113, 280n18 3.8 186–87, 309n77

3.8.27 3.9.45 3.10.15 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.19 3.20 3.20.1 3.20.3 3.20.8 3.21.7 3.22.41–42 3.23 3.23.13 3.23.15–16 3.24 3.25 3.25.9–10 3.25.11–18 3.25.13 4.1 4.1.64 4.1.135–36 4.5

4.5.55–56 4.8

349

311n93 243n20 288–89n6 244n34 93–94 306n44 289n6, 310n85 44–46 309n80 279n15 242n15 291n30 269n76 78–79 309n80 240n4 309–10n81 309–10n81, 319n11 293n50 172 305n36 321n21 16, 302n15 55–69, 275nn113,114, 117, 275–76n118, 291n32, 294n56 284n46 268n69

Seneca Elder Controv. 2.2.12 Seneca Younger De Ben. 6.32 Suetonius Div. Aug. 34 64.2 73 89.2 Div. Iul. 20.3 42.1

/

234, 300n4

270n83

229–30 320n19 320n19 231 230 230

350

/

Index Locorum

Div. Tib. 35.2

270n83

Sulpicia 3.13/4.7.3–4

321n23

Tacitus Ann. 2.85

270n83

Terence Eun. Hec. 85–95 Tibullus 1.1 1.1.55–56 1.1.73–74 1.2 1.2.1–2 1.2.41–64 1.2.65–66 1.2.65–80 1.2.71–74 1.2.87–96 1.3 1.3.63–64 1.3.81–82 1.4.57 1.4.57–70 1.4.81–84 1.5 1.5.7–8 1.5.17–18 1.5.39–42 1.5.48 1.5.59–68 1.5.67–68

271n87,272–73n95, 291n26, 295n72 294n56 142, 275n117 73–75, 160, 279n15 129, 300n113 188 137–38 129 306n52 279n15 278n12 296n77, 299n102 299n105 134–35, 278n12, 295n66 311n95 293n50 118 85 290n19 133–34, 176–77, 299n106 44 43 183 52 86 116

1.5.73–74 1.6

302n14, 310n88 116–17, 265–66n50, 290n21 1.6.7–16 160 1.6.9–10 306n51 1.6.31–32 294n57 1.6.32 300n114 1.6.51 283n41 1.6.73–76 311n101, 312n111 1.8 117–18, 126 1.8.29 291n34 1.8.29–32 86–87, 287n72 1.8.41–50 171–72 1.8.45 305n36 1.8.49–50 87 1.8.50 124 1.9.79 12 1.10.53–66 185–86 1.10.53–68 313n115 1.10.63–64 190, 293n50, 317n147 2.1.69–70 129 2.3 284n44, 290n18, 290n21 2.3.49–52 87 2.3.77–78 283n39 2.4 87–91, 105, 283–84n41, 284nn43,44, 45, 299n109 2.4.13–14 105, 243n19 2.4.13–20 13–14 2.4.19 243n19, 283n40 2.4.31–34 301n14 2.5.101–4 188 2.5.111–12 10 2.6 118–19, 126–27, 273n101, 277n132, 292n42 2.6.11–12 292n41 2.6.44–50 314n123 Vergil Aen 6.129

286n58, 316n140