Politics and Poetics HANDOUT 617.11.2016
Thebes, Narcissus and political crisis: Ovid’s Metamorphoses
1. Recap
‘Politics’ in the Met. is complicated in part because:
- Ovid’s carmen perpetuum is fragmented, polyphonic: individual epic heroes appear only as flashes; there are no ongoing opposing factions, or groups on the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ sides of history.
- Readers get lost in a labyrinth of stories: epic drive (towards an ending/political goal) is lost/prone to a myriad deviations.
- Political ‘seriousness’ is continually undercut by the elegiac, comedic, the paradoxical, playful and ironic, and also – a related point – by the overt aestheticization of violence. [Compare your notes on ekphrasis and art in the Aeneid]
Live political/politicized issues that cannot simply be reduced to political belief or partisanship. Examples suggested so far:
- The politics of metamorphosis: empowering, or destabilizing?
- Allusion to the poet’s authority or creative power, relative to that of the Princeps or emperor.
- Ovid’s fascination with (the politics of) time.
2. Metamorphoses 3: introductory points
- Exceptionally, a book about a city, unified by this location
- Thebes not Rome
- Not successful foundation, but failed, tragic foundation
- Civilization undone by civil war
- Epic becoming tragedy/infected by elegy?
- Met.3 a key book in terms of exploring Ovid’s response to the Aeneid
Political readings of Met.3
….as an index of the Metamorphoses’s provocative ‘reversal’ of the Aeneid’s civilization-building teleology. Nb., as David Quint puts it: ‘the Aeneid decisively transformed epic for posterity into an overtly political genre.’
…as a book that, in indirect and subtle ways, does important ideological work by elaborating a negative mirror-image of Rome and its evolution.
….as a complex meditation on civil war and its role in Roman history
…as a suggestive portrayal and examination of the theme of artistic failure, and of the punishment of artists by tyrannical powers (cf. especially Tristia 2.105-9, where Ovid compares himself to ‘innocent’ Actaeon).
See Tr.2.105-9:
‘Why did I see anything? Why did I make my eyes guilty? Why was I so thoughtless as to harbour the knowledge of a crime? Actaeon was unaware when he caught sight of Diana naked: nevertheless, he became prey for his own hunting dogs. Clearly, among the gods, even bad luck must be atoned for, nor is serendipity an excuse when a deity is wronged. On that day, when my terrible mistake (error) got me banished….’
…as engaging with and exploiting the political intensity of (Athenian) tragedy
‘In Attic drama, Thebes consistently supplies the radical tragic terrain where there can be no escape from the tragic in the resolution of conflict or in the institutional provision of a civic future beyond the world of the play’ (Froma Zeitlin, 1990 ‘Thebes : theatre of self and society in Athenian drama’ in Winkler and Zeitlin Nothing to do with Dionysus? P131)
…as paradigmatic of an ideologically loaded reflection on modes of representation (visual, written, oral) in Ovidian poetry.
3. Actaeon’s voice: imperial oppression and going beyond the verbal
A. Met.3.201-5
'me miserum!' dicturus erat: vox nulla secuta est!
ingemuit: vox illa fuit, lacrimaeque per ora
non sua fluxerunt; mens tantum pristina mansit.
quid faciat? repetatne domum et regalia tecta
an lateat silvis? pudor hoc, timor inpedit illud.
“O woe is me!” he tries to say; but no words come. He groans – the only speech he has – and tears course down his face/mouth which is not his own. Only his mind remains unchanged. What is he to do? Shall he go home to the royal palace, or shall he stay skulking in the woods? Shame blocks one course, and fear the other.
B. Met.3.229-231
clamare libebat:
'Actaeon ego sum: dominum cognoscite vestrum!'230
verba animo desunt; resonat latratibus aether.
He longs to cry out: “I am Actaeon! Recognise your own master!” But words fail his desire. All the air resounds with their barking.
C. Met.3.237-41
iam loca vulneribus desunt; gemit ille sonumque,
etsi non hominis, quem non tamen ederepossit
cervus, habet maestisque replet iuga nota querellis
et genibus pronis supplex similisque roganti240
circumfert tacitos tamquam sua bracchia vultus.
There are no more places for wounds. He groans and makes a sound which, although not human, is still one no deer would utter, and fills the heights he knows so well with mournful cries. And now, down on his knees like a suppliant in prayer, he turns his face in silence towards them, as if stretching out beseeching arms.
Compare the voice of Ovidian exile:
D. Ex Ponto 2.7.42:
Vixque habet in nobis iam nova plaga locum
There is scarce space in me for wounds made new
E. Ex Ponto 4.16.52 (the final word)
Non habet in nobis iam nova plaga locum
There is no space in me for wounds made new.
F. Tristia 3.14.43-50
Saepe aliquod quaero uerbum nomenque locumque,
nec quisquam est a quo certior esse queam.
Dicere saepe aliquid conanti (turpe fateri)
uerba mihi desunt dedidicique loqui.
Threicio Scythicoque fere circumsonor ore,
et uideor Geticis scribere posse modis.
Crede mihi, timeo ne sint inmixta Latinis
inque meis scriptis Pontica uerba legas.
Often I am at a loss for a word, a name, a place, and there is no one who can inform me. Often when I attempt some utterance – shameful confession! -words fail me: I have unlearned my power of speech. Thracian and Scythian tongues chatter on almost every side, and I think I could write in Getic measure. O, believe me, I fear that Sintic and Pontic language may be mingled with some Latin in my writings.
4. An anti-Aeneid?
Met.3.1-17
Iamque deus posita fallacis imagine tauri
se confessus erat Dictaeaque rura tenebat,
cum pater ignarus Cadmo perquirere raptam
imperat et poenam, si non invenerit, addit
exilium, facto pius et sceleratus eodem.5
orbe pererrato (quis enim deprendere possit
furta Iovis?) profugus patriamque iramque parentis cf. fato profugus,Aen.1.2
vitat Agenorides Phoebique oracula supplex
consulit et, quae sit tellus habitanda, requirit.
'bos tibi' Phoebus ait 'solis occurret in arvis,10
nullum passa iugum curvique inmunis aratri.
hac duce carpe vias et, qua requieverit herba,
moenia fac condas Boeotiaque illa vocato.' Cf. dum conderet urbem,Aen.1.5;
tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem, Aen.1.33
altae moenia Romae, Aen.1.7;
et Mavortia condet /moeniaAen.1.276-7
And now the god, having laid aside his bull-disguise, owned up to who he really was, and reached the fields of Crete. But the girl’s father, ignorant of what had happened, bids his son Cadmus to go and search for the lost girl, and threatened exile as a punishment if he does not find her – pious and wicked in the very same act. After roaming all over the world in vain (for who could search out the secret loves of Jove?) Agenor’s son becomes an exile, shunning his father’s country and his father’s wrath. Then, as a suppliant he consults the oracle of Apollo, seeking in this way to learn in what land he is to settle. Apollo replies ‘A heifer will meet you in the wilderness, one who has never worn the yoke or drawn the crooked plough. Follow where she leads, and where she lies down to rest upon the grass see that at that spot you found your city’s walls and call the land Boeotia.’
Continued allusion to/reworking of the Aeneid:
E.g.
- Cadmus’ defeat of the great serpent at Met.3.50-95 replays Hercules’ defeat of monstrous Cacus in Aeneid 8 (Cacus is not a snake, but the description of Hercules throttling him at Aen.8.260-1 is echoes in the hymn to Hercules that tells of him strangling snakes as an infant), and symbolically takes revenge on the snakes that kill Laocoon and his sons in Aeneid 2. Note Cadmus wears a Herculean-looking lion-skin cloak.
- Juno’s punishment of Semele, near the beginning of the book, sees her decide not to play her usual role of angry rhetorician and catalyst for epic war (Aeneid 1.36ff.). Instead, Ovid makes her quiet and wily; she disguises herself as Beroe, a nurse, and gets inside Semele’s head, in a scene much inspired by Allecto’s poisonous manipulation of Amata in Aeneid 7.
- Pentheus and Dido, lost in the wilderness: at Aen.4.469-70 crazed Dido is compared to Pentheus ‘when he saw Thebes double’.
- Acoetes/Bacchus as modelled after lying Sinon in Aeneid 2?
- Bacchus the ‘outsider’ is reviled as effeminate in the same way as the incoming Trojans are insulted by Turnus and the Latins at e.g. Aen. 9.614-20
5. Seminar: Narcissus, Echo and the politics of artistic expression
- The poet as Narcissus? (Quintilian 10.1.88: Ovid, poet of illusion, was ‘too much in love with his own genius’)
- The poet as Echo?The ‘derivative’ speaker, or the genius in spite of censorship and oppression? Keep in mind the analogy Ovid draws between his punishment by Augustus and Actaeon’s unjust punishment by Diana, in the exile poetry.
Question for discussion:
What kind of model is Echo for the Ovidian artist? Positive or negative? Is this a myth about political resistance, or a story about the tragedy of political censorship of artists?
namque ter ad quinos unum Cephisius annum 351
addiderat poteratque puer iuvenisque videri:
multi illum iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae; cf. Cat. 62.43 multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae
sed fuit in tenera tam dura superbia forma,
nulli illum iuvenes, nullae tetigere puellae. cf. Cat.62.45nulli illum pueri, nullae optaverepuellae
adspicit hunc trepidos agitantem in retia cervos
vocalis nymphe, quae nec reticere loquenti
nec prior ipsa loqui didicit, resonabilisEcho.
Corpus adhuc Echo, non vox erat et tamen usum
garrula non alium, quam nunc habet, oris habebat,360
reddere de multis ut verba novissima posset.
fecerat hoc Iuno, quia, cum deprendere posset
sub Iove saepe suo nymphas in monte iacentis,
illa deam longo prudens sermone tenebat,
dum fugerent nymphae. postquam hoc Saturnia sensit,365
'huius' ait 'linguae, qua sum delusa, potestas
parva tibi dabitur vocisque brevissimus usus,'
reque minas firmat. tantum haec in fine loquendi
ingeminat voces auditaque verba reportat.
ergo ubi Narcissum per devia rura vagantem 370
vidit et incaluit, sequitur vestigia furtim,
quoque magis sequitur, flamma propiore calescit,
non aliter quam cum summis circumlita taedis
admotas rapiunt vivacia sulphura flammas.
o quotiens voluit blandis accedere dictis 375
et mollis adhibere preces! natura repugnat
nec sinit, incipiat, sed, quod sinit, illa parata est
exspectare sonos, ad quos sua verba remittat.
forte puer comitum seductus ab agmine fido
dixerat: 'ecquis adest?' et 'adest' responderat Echo.380
hic stupet, utque aciem partes dimittit in omnis,
voce 'veni!' magna clamat: vocat illa vocantem.
respicit et rursus nullo veniente 'quid' inquit
'me fugis?' et totidem, quot dixit, verba recepit.
perstat et alternae deceptus imagine vocis 385
'huc coeamus' ait, nullique libentius umquam
responsura sono 'coeamus' rettulit Echo
et verbis favet ipsa suis egressaque silva
ibat, ut iniceret sperato bracchia collo;
ille fugit fugiensque 'manus conplexibus aufer!390
ante' ait 'emoriar, quam sit tibi copia nostri';
rettulit illa nihil nisi 'sit tibi copia nostri!'
One year the son of Cephisus had reached sixteen
and might seem both boy and youth.
Many youths, and many young girls desired him.
But such was his arrogance in that delicate form,
none of the youths or young girls affected him.
One day the nymph Echo saw him, driving frightened deer into his nets,
she of the echoing voice, who cannot be silent when others have spoken,
nor learn how to speak first herself.
She still had a body then and was not a mere voice.
But though she was garrulous, she had no other
trick of speech than she has now:
she can repeat the last/newest/latest words out of many.
Juno made her like that, because often when she might
have caught the nymphs lying beneath her Jove, on mountain slopes,
Echo cunningly held her in long conversations, while the nymphs fled.
When Juno realised this she said:
‘I shall give you less power over that tongue
by which I have been deluded, and the briefest ability to speak!’
And what she threatened she did. Echo only repeats the last
of what is spoken and returns the words she hears.
Now when she saw Narcissus wandering through the remote fields,
she was inflamed, following him secretly, and the more she followed
the closer she burned with fire, no differently than inflammable sulphur,
pasted round the tops of torches, catches fire, when a flame is brought near it. O how often she wants to get close to him with seductive words,
and call him with soft entreaties! Her nature denies it,
and will not let her begin, but she is ready for what it will allow her to do,
to wait for sounds, to which she can return words.
By chance, the boy, separated from his faithful band of followers,
had called out ‘Is anyone here?’ and ‘Here’ Echo replied.
He is astonished, and glances everywhere, and shouts in a loud voice
‘Come to me!’ She calls as he calls. He looks back, and when no-one
is there asks ‘Why do you run from me?’ and receives the same words as he speaks. He stands still, and deceived by the likeness to an answering voice, says
‘Here, let us meet together’. And, never answering to
another sound more gladly, Echo replies ‘Together’,
and to assist her words comes out of the woods to put her arms
around his neck, in longing. He runs from her, and running cries
‘Away with these encircling hands! May I die before what’s mine is yours.’
She answers, only ‘What’s mine is yours!’
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