Roman Flood Narrative
Ovid narrates the tale of Jupiter's decision to punish
humanity for its sins with a great, cleansing flood. Only one
righteous couple, Deucalion and Pyrrha, are saved. Their boat
eventually lands on Mount Parnassus.
"One house has fallen, but far more than one have deserved to
perish. To the ends of the earth, the dread Fury holds sway. You
would think men had sworn allegiance to crime! They shall all be
punished, forthwith, as they deserve. Such is my resolve."
Some of the gods shouted their approval of Jove's words, and
sought to increase his indignation: others played the part of
silent supporters. Yet all were grieved at the thought of the
destruction of the human race, and wondered what the earth would
be like, in future, when it had been cleared of mortal
inhabitants. They inquired who would bring offerings of incense to
their altars, whether Jove meant to abandon the world to the
plundering of wild beasts. In asnwer to their questions, the king
of the gods assured them that they need not be anxioius, for he
himself would attend to everything. He promised them a new stock of
men, unlike the former ones, a race of miraculous origin.
Now he was on the point of launching his thuderbolts against
every part of the earth, when he felt a sudden dread lest he should
set light to the pure upper air by so many fiery bolts, and send
the whole vault of heaven up in flames. He remembered, too, one of
fate's decrees, that a time would come when sea and earth and the
dome of the sky would blaze up, and the massive structure of the
universe collapse in ruins. So he laid aside the weapons forged by
the hands of the Cyclopes, and resolved on a different punishment,
namely to send rain pouring down from every quarter of the sky, and
so destroy mankind beneath the waters.
He wasted no time, but imprisoned the North wind in Aeolus'
caves, together with all the gusts which dispel the gathering
clouds; and he let loose the Soouth wind. On dripping wings the
South wind flew, his terrible features shrouded in pitchy darkness.
His beard was heavy with rain, water streamed from his hoary locks,
mists wreathed his brow, his robes and feathers dripped with
moisture. When he crushed the hanging clouds in his broad hand,
there was a crash; thereafter sheets of rain poured down from
heaven. Juno's messenger Iris, clad in rainbow hues, drew up water
and supplied nourishment to the clouds. The corn was laid low, and
the crops the farmer had prayed for now lay flattened and sadly
mourned, the long year's toil was wasted and gone for nothing.
Nor was Jupiter's anger satisfied with the resources of his
own realm of heaven; his brother Neptune, the god of the sea, lent
him the assistance of his waves. He sent forth a summons to the
rivers, and when they entered their king's home: "No time now for
long exhortations!" he cried. "Exert your strength to the utmost:
that is what we need. Fling wide your homes, withdraw all
barriers, and give free course to your waters," These were his
orders. The rivers returned to their homes and, opening up the
mouths of their springs, went rushing to the sea in frenzied
torrents.
Neptune himself struck the earth with his trident; it trembled
and by its movement threw open channels for the waters. Across the
wide plains the rivers raced, overflowing their banks, sweeping
away in one torrential flood crops and orchards, cattle and men,
houses and temples, sacred images and all. Any building which did
manage to survive this terrible disaster unskaken and remain
standing, was in the end submerged when some wave yet higher than
the rest covered its roof, and its gables lay drowned beneath the
waters. Now sea and earth could no longer be distinguished: all
was sea, and a sea that had no shores.
Some tried to escape by climbing to the hilltops, others,
sitting in their curved boats, plied the oars where lately they had
been ploughing; some sailed over cornlands, over the submerged
roofs of their homes, while some found fish in the topmost branches
of the elms. At times it happened tht they dropped anchor in green
meadows, sometimes the curved keels grazed vineyards that lay
beneath them. Where the lately sinewy goats croppsed the grass, now
ugly seals disported themselves. The Nereids wondered to see groves
and towns and houses under the water; dolphins took possession of
the woods, and dashed against high branches, shaking the oak trees
as they knocked against them> Wolves swam among teh flocks, and the
waves supported tawny lions, and tigers too. The lightning stroke
of his strong tusk was of no use, then, to the wild boar, nor his
swift legs to the stag -- both alike were swept away. Wandering
birds searched long for some land where they might rest, till their
wings grew weary and tehy fell into the sea. The ocean, all
restraints removed, overwhelmed the hills, and waaves were washing
the mountain peaks, a sight never seen before. The greater part of
the human race was swallowed up by the waters: those whom the sea
spared died from lack of food, overcome by long-continued famine.
There is a land, Phocis, which separates the fields of
Boeotia from those of Oeta. It was a fertile spot while it was
land, but now it had become part of the sea, a broad stretch of
waters, suddenly formed. In that region a high mountain, called
Parnassus, raises twin summits to the stars, and its ridges pierce
the clouds. When the waters had covered all the rest of the earth,
the little boat which carried Deucalion and his wife ran aground
here. Of all the men who ever lived, Deucalion was the best and
most upright, no woman ever showed more reverence for the gods than
Pyrrha, his wife. Their first action was to offer prayers to the
Corycian nymphs, to the deities of the mountain, and to Themis, the
goddess who foretold the future from its oracular shrine.
Now Jupiter saw the earth all covered with standing waters.
Heh perceived that one alone survived of so many thousand men, one
only of so many thousand women, and he knew that both were
guiltless, both true worshippers of god. So, with the help of the
North wind he drove away the storm clounds and, scattering the
veils of mist, displayed heaven to earth and earth to heaven. The
sea was no longer angry, for the ruler of ocean soothed the waves,
laying aside his trident. Then he called to the sea-god Triton, who
rose from the deep, his shoulders covered with clustering
shellfish. Neptune bade him blow on his echoing conch shell, and
recall waves and rivers by his signal. He lifted his hollow
trumpet, a coiling instrument which broadens out in circling
spirals from its base. When he blows upon it in mid-ocean, its
notes fill the furthest shores of east and west. So now, too, the
god put it to his lips, which were all damp from his dripping
beard, and blew it, sending forth the signal for retreat as he had
been bidden. The sound was heard by all the waters that covered
earth and sea, and all the waves which heard it were checked in
their course. The sea had shores oncemore, the swollen rivers were
contained within their own channels, the floods sank down, and
hills were seen to emerge. Earth rose up, its lands advancing as
the waves retreated, and after a long intervl the woods displayed
their treetops uncovered, the mud left behind still clinging to
their leaves.6
Expressions in Virgil and Ovid
The Aeneid
The femme fatale, Medea or Clytemnestra, is not always evil.
In the case of Dido, with whom the Roman hero Aeneas falls in love
in Carthage on his quest for the new Troy, can represent true love
or honest passions. But this love can prevent the hero from doing
his "duty."
Carthage, where the exiles had now arrived, was a spot on the coast
of Africa opposite Sicily, where at that time a Tyrian colony under
Dido, their queen, was laying the foundations of a state destined
in later ages to be the rival of Rome itself. Dido was the daughter
of Belus, King of Tyre, and sister of Pygmalion, who succeeded his
father on the throne. Her husband was Sichaeus, a man of immense
wealth, but Pygmalion, who coveted his treasures, caused him to be
put to death. Dido, with a numerous body of friends and followers,
both men and women, succeeded in effecting their escape from Tyre,
in several vessels, carrying with them the treasures of Sichaeus.
On arriving at the spot which they selected as the seat of their
future home, they asked of the natives only so much land as they
could enclose with a bull's hide. When this was readily granted,
she caused the hide to be cut into strips, and with them enclosed
a spot on which she built a citadel, and called it Byyrsa (a hide).
Around this fort, the city of Carthage rose and soon became a
powerful and flourishing place.
Such was the state of affairs when Aeneas with his Trojans
arrived there. Dido received the illustrious exiles with
friendliness and hospitality. "Not unacquainted with distress," she
said, "I have learned to succor the unfortunate." The queen's
hospitality displayed itself in festivities at which games of
strength and skill were exhibited. The strangers contended for the
palm with her own subjects, on equal terms, the queen declaring
that whether the victims were "Trojans or Tyyrians should make no
difference to her." At the feast which followed the games, Aeneas
gave at her request a recital of the closing events of the Trojan
history and his own adventures after the fall of the city. Dido was
charmed with his discourse and filled with admiration at his
exploits. She conceived an ardent passion for him, and he for his
part seemed well content to accept the fortunate chance which
appeared to offer him at once a happy termination of his
wanderings, a home, a kingdom, and a bride. Months rolled away in
the enjoyment of pleasant intercourse, and it seemed as if Italy
and the empire destined to be founded on its shores were alike
forgotten. Seeing which, Jupiter despatched Mercury with a message
to Aeneas, recalling him to a sense of his high destiny and
commanding him to resume his voyage.
Aeneas parted from Dido, though she tried every allurement
and persuasion to detain him. The blow to her affection and her
pride was too much for her to endure, and when she found that he
was gone, she mounted a funeral pyre which she had caused to be
prepared, and, having stabbed herself, was consumed with the pile.
The flames rising over the city were seen by the departing Trojans,
and though the cause was unknown, gave to Aeneas some intimation of
the fatal event.
The following epigram we find in Elegant Extracts:
Unhappy, Dido, was thy fate
In first and second married state!
One husband caused thy flight by dying,
Thy death the other caused by flying.7
Vergil's poem, like Apuleius' Metamorphoses, involves a journey
that is a spiritual quest for identity. The real battle involves an
interior struggle to integrate forces of human soul. A reader of
the Aeneid, with the assurance given by the initial prophecies, can
miss the double dilemma which plagues Aeneas, whose destiny is only
slowly unfolded to him through blind choice, gradual revelation,
and irrevocable loss. The two greatest tests involved the fates of
Priam and of Dido. Both rulers welcome a helpless stranger and are
in turn destroyed by person so received, Sinon in the second book
and Aeneas in the fourth; fire is the agent of destruction in each
case. Troy sinking into own ashes and Dido consumed on her sad
funeral pyre.
Throughout the first six books the pictures that rise into focus
are opening prophecy of Jupiter to Venus, Aeneas' dream of Hector
on the night of Troy's fall, his vision of gods fostering Troy's
ruin, divine omens revealed in home of his father Anchises, his
gathering of exiles on a hill near Troy, his departure from
Buthrotum after Helenus' prophecy, his departure from Carthage
after Dido's suicide, the division of expedition following boat
burning in Sicily, and the culminating prophecy of Anchises in the
underworld.
In the second six books pictures retain the quality of
interludes, but become lengthier and more concrete: the gathering
for war of Latin clans, ritual and tale of Heracles at altar in
Pallanteum, Aeneas' survey in Arcadia of the future site of Rome,
the famous description of Vulcan's magic shield, the council of
gods on Mount Olympus, midnight sail of Aeneas returning to his
camp on Tiber, the council of Latins in their king's palace,
prayers and treaties at the altar before the closing battle, final
dialogue and reconciliation of Jupiter and Juno. All these vivid
images expressed Roman worldview ideals.
At the beginning of Book V Aeneas resolutely sails from
Carthage to Italy, though somber thoughts afflict his mind as he
gazes back upon walls aglow with flames of Dido's pyre, because the
outrage of her embittered love will accompany him on his journey as
a memory from which he will never wholly recover; again in the
tenth book, following outbreak of war in Italy, Aeneas sails down
Tiber to rejoin forces encamped near the shore, and again his mind
is cast into past and future, this time encouraged by the Arcadian
treaty and by the company of Evander's son Pallas. Beteen night at
Carthage and night on Tiber, Aeneas has experienced his two
greatest revelations: dream vision of underworld and the shield
engravings. He has also suffered his heaviest losses; division of
the expedition in Sicily and drowning of chief pilot Palinurus and
slaughter of many men. As Aeneas leads fleet on both occasions,
burden of choice weighs equally. Aeneas sailed form Carthage in
blind obedience; but from Pallanteum he sails with fullest
knowledge of commitment that obedience entails and the coming
inevitable losses.
A comparison of the two night rides emphasizes change in
Aeneas that occurs in central section of Vergil's epic. An
ilustration of this same change arises from comparison of closing
lines of second and eighth books. In setting out from Troy, Aeneas
turns from hopeless ruin of past to a future promised but still
obscure and he raises his father Anchises on his shoulders as
expedition begins exile. Responsibility for the past and
dedication to the future are the key expressions.
Aeneas pays a heavier price for his achievements than the
long toil and weariness of battle; his task is accomplished only
after he has learned the essential tragedy of all human experience,
after he has accepted the paradox that great hopes are freighted
with painful responsibilities and great achievements qualified by
remembrance and eternal suggestion of human limitation. The poem is
a story of success, but also of the high price of success. Painful
mystery of tragic waste and shame and inevitable dissatisfaction
intensifies the difficulty of achievement and sets the
accomplishment in relief against background of all human
experience. Aeneas must share emotionally in ruin of Dido and
Turnus and must continue to endure awareness of these things as
price and form of his glory.
It is at least as painful for Aeneas to fulfill his destiny as
it is for others to experience consequences of his decision. The
cause is noble but by inspiring violence and destruction it
involves a tragic waste of noble spirits sacrificed to the cause.
Aeneas is forever cast in a double role: Roman leader fulfilling at
any cost his obligation to his nation and man enduring pity and
despair at the very moment of victory. His acceptance of a
knowledge of sorrow is both the cost and the gain of his
accomplishment, and the task accomplished is what gives deliverance
from and at same time significance to the torment of those who
failed.
Three vivid pictures stand out as powerful expressions: the
sword buried in breast of Dido, the magic shield raised on Aeneas'
shoulder, and the sword buried in breast of Turnus. In the
tripartite scheme of the twelve books, these three pictures occur
as final scenes in each of three main acts: Books 1-4, tragedy of
love; books 5-8, tragedy of vocation; books 9-12, tragedy of war.
Aeneas' future depends on the burial of others' hopes. Let us
analyze one book in which the role of the gods is particularly
emphasized.
Aeneid 10
Book 10 opens with a concilium deorum (1-117); the second word
of the first line is interea (meanwhile), indicating the
simultaneity of this scene with the action in the previous book.
(Nowhere else does Vergil present scenes simultaneous with others
elsewhere in the poem; his presentation otherwise is consecutive).
Nowhere else in the poem do the gods meet in assembly. Such a lofty
beginning bespeaks the importance of the book. First Jupiter
complains that other gods have ignored his instrucions to stay out
of the conflict on earth; then Venus and Juno plead their
respective claims, and Jupiter concludes by displaying seeming
neutrality: fata viam invenient. (The fates will find a way.)
Venus' plea recalls the Sybyl's vision to Aeneas and Jupiter's
own prophecy to her. Venus laments that a second army opposes the
Trojans, though the Sibyl had forecast this (6.88-90) and Aeneas
had not been surprised or shocked by the revelation (6. 103).
Venus knew the diffiiculties her son would have to face, but she
expresses resentment here, unfairly, and compounds her emotional
outburst by adding Tydides to the enemies of the Trojans. Her plea,
calculated to win Jupiter's sympathy rather than to withstand
argument, is demolished by Juno. As her last bidding, Venus asks
that she be allowed to save Ascanius. She no longer asks the same
for Aeneas. Her dream is reduced from lofty hopes of empire to
salvation of her grandson. Here is her great concession and rebuke
of Jupiter, for in words reminiscent of the latter's promise of
empire, imperium sine fine dedi (1. 279), she now denies his
promise and her hope. At this point it seems that the great task
that was founding of Roman race has ended abortively.
Juno's response is briefer and more powerful, and the reaction
of the remaining gods, their doubts and hesitations, is presented
in a passage rendered majestic by frequent alliteration (96-130).
Jupiter's remarks do not disappoint. Key lines are 107-8, marked by
the effect of spondaic beginning of 107, underscored by the three
monosyllabic words that appear first.
Line 118 shifts attention back to the ongoing struggle on
earth. Aeneas is returning during the night with newly won Etruscan
allies, and he holds the helm, with Pallas at his side.
Relationship between two is that indicated is important.
Evander, on site of Pallanteum, had entrusted his son to Aeneas.
Pallas here is learning from the older man, and also, like Dido, is
asking about Aeneas' experiences and sufferings in past. Only those
with whom Aeneas becomes involved emotionally bid him relate his
personal sorrows (2.3). Aeneas stands in loco parentis to Pallas.
Pallas has not yet had a chance to prove himself worthy. This he
will do only in battle and Vergil sets scene for this. He invokes
Muses to assist him in the enumeration of Etruscan forces and in
the very next section resumes the narrative.
Aeneas, the new Palinurus, is visited by supernatural beings as
Palinurus had been by Somnus at end of Book 5; the outcome in
former instance had been fatal, here it is joyful and optimistaic.
Palinurus is put to sleep, Cymodocea makes certain that Aeneas is
awake. Parallel is obvious and Somnus, disguised as Phorbas,
addresses Palinurus as Iaside (5. 843), but refers to his divine
birth.
When Cymodocea finishes her story and the report of events,
Aeneas, although not fully aware of import of event, prays to
Cybele for her favor and support. Then follows first scene to have
an effect on the struggle between Trojan and Italian forces: return
of Aeneas and his assumption of command. He orders his company to
prepare themselves for battle and then he shows himself at a
distance to his besieged followers. He stands high in the prow.
Turnus is not dismayed, even by flames that mark Aeneas' helmet
and shield. He displays his accustomed bravado but gives no
indication of understanding that outcome may depend upon more than
his own prowess. Aeneas' allies land, inspired by Tarachon's eager
ramming of his ship against the shore, and the allies are met by
resistance led by Turnus.
An Homeric battle scene follows: killing is routine, bodies
pile up, Aeneas, basically passive, hurls weapon after weapon. But
the outcome is inconclusive; neither side has the advantage and the
siege of the Trojan camp is unbroken.
To a large degree, this book thus far is only expository;
little presented to engage emotions. The story of the epic has not
advanced at all, with the exception of Aeneas' return to the
battlefield. The remainder of the book is devoted to three of
Vergil's finest character portrayals and it is these that give this
book qualities of greatness.
Cavalry, forced to fight afoot by unfavorable terrain, are
routed until Pallas, by word and deed, causes them to recover their
spirit. His first words mark his quality, his father and his
fatherland. Pallas fights for family and country in the same way
Aeneas does; personal glory is secondary. Pallas' aristeia turns
the tide (397-98); he is described here as a vir (man).
There now appears a match for Pallas, a perfect match, Lausus,
in some sense the most winning character Vergil drew in the poem.
His good looks and skill in taming horses and hunting have been
mentioned, but emphasis placed on his misfortune in having
Mezentius as his father (7. 649-54). Here, unfrightened by Pallas,
Lausus rallies his forces. The scales on both sides balance.
Against Turnus Pallas fights viribus imparibus (with unequal
powers), and the great enterprise is doomed in spite of a prayer to
Heracles. Heracles cannot avert impending death. So too Aeneas,
likewise guest friend of Evander, cannot be present at crucial
moment of Pallas' warring career.
Jupiter's solace of his son is grave, reminding him of limits of
human life, but also showing how one may survive after death.
Passage evokes Lucretius (1. 76-77) and forecasts afterlife for
Pallas. Pallas hurls his spear with great strength and follows up
with his sword. To no avail. The spear fails to kill and Turnus'
pierces his breat. Turnus hands the body over to the Arcadians for
burial; the last words speak of the high price Evander has paid for
Aeneas' friendship. Then he strips Pallas of his armor, reversing
the latter's wish, but is unaware of what doom he will bring upon
himself.
When in Book 12 at end, when Aeneas is on the verge of
sparing Turnus, the booty of this battle reminds him of the debt he
owes Evander and his son, and of an obligation to revenge the
latter's death. The bond of fides established in Book 8 is
satisfied and redeemed by the poem's conclusion. Yet in spite of
this fides, the internal struggle in Aeneas' mind and the emotions
that raged as he stood over Turnus might have been won by his sense
of huanitas had he not been remided of Pallas.
News of Turnus' triumph reaches Aeneas at once, and he is
transformed. He becomes a demon on the battlefield with an intent
to reach Turnus. He first captures eight youths to be reserved for
a sacrifice at Pallas' pyre (Homeric touch found nowewhere else in
poem). Pallas is Aeneas' Patroclus, whose death changes the entire
aspect of the conflict. At the end of the scene, Trojans burst from
camp; the siege is broken.
The scene now returns to Olympus. Jupiter sacrcastically
chides Juno by intimating Trojans current success is due to Venus'
support. His tone has an effect on Juno and she, in reversal from
begining of the book, is reduced to pleading as Venus had then
been. Turnus cannot be allowed to die at this point, for there
would be no tragedy in death of one marked by arrogance and
haughtiness, who had not yet begun to attain a bit of wisdom by
personal suffering.
Jupiter allows Turnus' fate to be postponed, and Juno
descends to earth to rescue Turnus by fashioning an image of
Aeneas, an image, unlike the man, without strength, which Turnus
pursues. All Turnus' efforts are thwarted by Juno and he arrives at
the city of his father Daunus. The void created by his absence is
filled by Mezentius, the best warrior on the Italian side after
Turnus. Juno removes one hero to save him for a later day; Jupiter
brings another forward for his last day on earth.
In Book 7, Mezentius and Lausus had been introduced togther;
Mezentius' violent nature and lack of respect for the gods are his
trademarks. Here too he advances violently. He enters upon a great
aristeia, and presents the armor from one of his first victims to
Lausus, soon to face Aenas; Lausus is, in his physical presence, a
vicarious Turnus. Mezentius' behavior is compared to a wild boar;
all attack him from a distance. His successes conclude with killing
of Orodes who warns Mezentius that his moment will soon come.
Once again the battle is deadlocked (755-61). Balance in lines
is noteworthy. Now for first time on Italian soil we see Aeneas
fighting an opponent worthy of him. Mezentius' spearcast bounces
off Aeneas' divinely made shiled and kills his companion Antores.
Aeneas' spear lodges in Mezentius groin, but is not fatal. Aeneas
gleefully and eagerly draws his sword to despatch his crippled
enemy. Aeneas thinks Mezentius to be defenseless and has not
thought about Lausus, who interjects himself to cover his father's
withdrawal. Lasus does not withdraw and Aeneas' patience runs out
and Aeneas' sword pierces the tunic of Lausus, another in Vergil's
line of young people dying before their time has fallen (812-20).
Not until this book has Aeneas become savage; but he is not
deprived of his humanity. Aeneas' reaction to his triumph over
Lausus is very different from Turnus' after the slaying of Pallas.
Line 824 is a paraphase of 9. 294 must rank as one of Vergil's
finest statement of what poem is, at least in part, about,
affection of human being for human being. Both Pallas and Lausus
represent Marcellus.
Mezentius, wounded by his son's death, returns to face Aeneas.
Note, Mezentius return is his own; Turnus' withdrawal was divinely
caused. Mezentius, mounted, rides round Aeneas firing weapons,
until Aeneas slays the horse that pins his rider as he falls.
Aeneas then stands over his foe and chides him, but Mezentius
retains his dignity and composure and begs only that his body be
spared for burial and so escape the wrath of his foes.
The Aeneid is unusually complex and rich. Its dense texture
expresses a multiplicity of meanings or opinions. Vergil offers a
variety of ways of interpreting the events that are enacted. It is
as if different voices were speaking to one another in and behind
the action. One way of looking at communicative methods of
Vergil is to observe that Vergil supplies an action which shares an
impact like Homer's. We may find an epic story delivered in a
language substantially traditional, and an epic by an epic poet who
defers to a Muse. More particularly, we may gain the impression of
an unfolding drama as we did in commenting on Odyssey in the
previous chpater: an anonymous narrator removes himself from the
stage, permitting no evident authorial interference with shape,
sequence, or texture of the narrative and little scope for own
reactions. Action and characters achieve their own momentum and
independence as in a drama. In adhering to Homeric technique in
using "epic voice" which speaks to those with positive
expectations. Vergil achieves his Roman worldview expression.
There are further voices. The poet takes liberties with
texture of narrative and its shape. He exploits devices to
insinuate ramifying meanings and messages for those prepared to
listen.
In Book 12 the reader is shown that passion can obstruct hero's
sense of duty and responsibility. The reader may follow main lines
of the drama undisturbed; may listen only to epic voice; but the
reader has the option of complexity of disquieting coment and
disturbing opinions.
In Book 7 Juno dispatches the Fury Allecto to Latium. The great
consort of Jupiter wishes her to foment war in order to hinder
Jupiter's plan, to hold up marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, to delay
alliance of Trojans and Italians. Allecto picks out Queen Amata as
her first tool, intending to make her a passionate partisan of
Turnus as Lavinia's future husband. It is a good choice. Amata is
aready seething at prospect of Lavinia's being married to Aeneas.
(7. 341ff)
If Allecto lays siege to Amata in terms that are erotically
colored, and if her siege is successful, as it is, it results in
Amata's being fired with violent passion: we deduce that this
passion is erotic and so see brilliance of Allecto's plan. Vergil
makes Amata into a Phaedra figure and what more fanatical partisan
could Turnus have than a queen who was actually in love with him?
It sounds like Dido appealing to her lover, Aeneas. The reader
senses a persistent insinuation of Vergil's, a further voice: there
is something erotic, something sexual about the emotions which
Amata displays in regard to Turnus. One notes the mode of suicide
which queen eventually chooses, despairing at apparent death of
Turnus, she hangs herself (Jocasta, Phaedra, Amata).
Juno-Allecto-Amata (Book 7) Venus-Cupid-Dido (Book 1)
The epic voice, facts of plot, tell us only that Venus helps Dido,
by working with her to fall in love with Aeneas; further voice
operating by linked imagery, ties Venus into Dido's suffering and
death and asks the reader to consider the implications of that
connection.
Throughout the poem, the beginnings of the new faintly
glimpsed in remnants of old. The poetic world of the Aeneid is
constructed to exhibit, at each crucial stage of meaning,
symbolically loaded images which open out through time and space,
pictures which contain metaphorical expressions of a spiritual
progress which will culminate in an ambiguous parable of the soul.
Story of man as an exile not merely in world but within own soul as
well.
Metamorphoses
Ovid, started as an epic poet. Amores 1, 1
I was getting ready to publicize ARMS and VIOLENT WARS in heroic
rhythms (for matter must fit meter), making my odd and even
numbered verses equal, but Cupid sniggered (so they tell me) and
stole a foot from every couplet.
Ovid begins his Metamorphoses with a reversal of demotion from epic
to elegiac. Metamorphosis is subject and essence of the poem, which
transforms everything it touches, both its content and its
structure. Metamorphoses is like no poem written before, though
virtually everything in it can be found elsewhere.
Tend to think of wonderful stories, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Narcissus, Medea, Ppygmalion, Orpheus, that linger in memory after
we have read them. All through the Middle Ages and into the
Renaissance, Ovid's Metamorphoses was generally read as a
collection of fables, though the sixteenth century poet Ariosto
recognized its principles of organization and incorporated them in
his Orlando Furioso. All of the major stories can be read by
themselves. The stories are readable in Latin or English and many
have been made available. But what about the structure and
transitions between stories and less appealing tales.
Let us start with gem of story that serves as transition from
tales of divine love and rape that make up Book 2 to stories
connected with house of Cadmus that make up Book 3.
Story of Europa
At end of 2 (836-75) we find the story of Europa and Jupiter. Only
forty lines long, but it ex[resses Ovidian artistry. Subject,
female mortal pursued by lustful male god, one of favorite subjects
in first books. The story of Europa is the fifth of its kind,
coming after tales of Apollo and Daphne, Jupiter and Io, Pan and
Syrinx, in Book 1, and Jupiter and Callisto in 2. Ovid slips the
episode's subject, love, and its location, Phoenicia, into his
first sentence. Jupiter, without telling him why, sends Mercury to
Sidon to drive the king's cattle down to the seashore. Mercury
obeys, then vanishes from the poem. A slight change of grammar,
however, gives a new piece of information. In the command, Jupiter
refers to the royal herd:
Drive to the shore the royal herd you see feeding at a distance on
mountain grass. (2. 841-2)
When the command is carried out, the royal herd has become herd of
bullocks (masc. plural rather than collectivive neuter sing) and
they arrive at the shore in a line that introduces the king's
daughter. Syntax illustrates scene: bullocks and princess sharing
a line and a place.
Scene setting begins the narrataive with editorial comment:
majesty and love do not go well together, and points up contrast
between power of Jupiter and undignified nature of the posture he
adopts (846-51). Every detail contriabutes to the absurdity of
Jupiter and proves the point. One detail points to future,
adjective formusus (beautiful). Because he is beautiful, the god is
dangerous. This is comedy, but his power is real and mortals are
weak and terror lurks just out of sight. The next few liens
describe the Jupiter-bull in detail. He is a fine animal with
those characteristics that an ancient farmer would look for in a
bull. Because it is Jupiter in a bull suit, attention to details of
taurine perfection is comical.
There are allusions to Vergil add dimension to story (parody
of Vergil's prize winning brood cow in Gergics III). Europa
marveled because the bull seemed so beautiful and unthreatening. At
first she feared to touch him but then held out flowers to the
snowy lips. Ovid shifts back into Jupiter's mind: the lover
exulted.
Ovid has Europa on back of the bull and uses one of Vergil's
favorite adjectives, ignorant, inscius, in near quotation of
Aeneaid 1 when Dido recerives in her lap the god Cupid, thinking he
is Aeneas' son, as Venus plotted she should, so she would fall in
love with Aeneas. Vergil says, "She cuddles him, ignorant of how
powerful a god was settling into her unlucky lap" 9718-19). Ovid
echoes this moving moment with changes necessary for his heroine,
who unwittingly settles herself on back of Jupiter thinking him
only a friendly bull. Thus there is a picture of ruthless
divinity's tricking of a mortal.
Now Ovid calls Jupiter deus as bull slips away with Europa,
first off the beach, then among the waves and finally over the sea.
This is Ovid's version of the story of Europa except for two lines
that open Book 3 and dispose of her: "And already the god having
put off the false likeness of the bull, had revealed himself and
was in Crete, when her father sent Cadmus to look for her." So
begins the story of the house of Cadmus, Europa's brother. What
Ovid has done with Europa, in fact, is to turn preliminaries of her
story into the story and leave the central action to be inferred.
Ovid does not tell us what happened when Jupiter and Europa got to
Crete. We know from the primary mythical tradition that she was the
mother by Jupiter of Minos and Rhadamanthus and, in some accounts
of Sarpedon. Ovid says nothing of this. Thus his tale of Europa
illustrates one of Ovid's typical approaches to material: he never
tells a story the way it has been told before. he moulds his
material into something uniquely his own, sometimes as here by
developing just a piece of story.
Why did Ovid choose to incorprate into an outline of Roman
history a terribly long lecture by the philosopher Pythagoras? Why
did he include a version of the Aeneid that is less unified and
less satisfying than Vergil's masterful reading? Otis argued that
he had to have an Augustan conclusion even though it was against
his nature. Is it as Rolfe Humprhies says, "Ovid is
bored...writings becomes perfunctory...?"
When Ovid decided to write the Metamorphoses, there were two
models: one full scale mytholgical epic; the other was collective
narrative, a loose framework of discrete tales held together by the
personality of the narrator. A second type is exemplified in
Callimachus' Aetia and in Hesiod.
Vergil had given new life to full scale epic using on grander
scale artistic principles developed for the epyllion by Catullus
and friends. The collective form would allow Ovid opportunity to
work with narratives of different types while staying within a
genre approved by poets and did not invite unfavorable comparison.
Ovid being Ovid and ever ready for a challenge, chose otherwise. He
made no attempt to avoid comparison with Vergil but went out of his
way to insure that readers would compare by treating much of same
material. At the same time he set out to excel Vergil. He would do
what no one had ever tried to do before, write Homeric Vergilian
Epic and Callimachean collective narrative all at once.
Metamorphoses contains some 250 myths and stories that
frequently run into each other so that it is hard to say exactly
where one begins or ends. No character is in evidence throughout
the poem or even a major portion of it. The poem seems to fall
naturally into segments. One of the main differences from the
Aeneid is the detachable nature of the episodes. Instead of
integrataing separable episodes into a unified whole, as Vergil
does, Ovid took pains to emphasize the separateness of stories.
Events of poem occur geographically all over world and though there
is basically an east west direction, with episodes mainly in Greece
in first books and in Italy in last, locations move about. Temporal
setting is equally varied. Though there is a vague sense of
chronological progress in the poem, from creation of world to
Augustus, Ovid seems to go out of way to disrupt continuity. Take
Heracles for instance. The poem presents a number of events from
the life of Heracles, birth, labors, death and apotheosis. Much of
his story is told in Book 9 but he reappears in Books 12, 13, 15.
Still worse even in Book 9 his death precedes his birth.
Similarly in the story of Daedalus (8 159ff) he first tells well
known part, how Daedalus devised wings for himself and his son,
Icaraus, in order to escape from Crete, how Icarus ignored his
father's instructions, flew too close to the sun, and fell into
Icarian Sea. Only at end, almost as afaterthought, does Ovid tack
on an event that took place long before and makes us reasses what
we have jsut heard about Daedalus. As a young man he threw his
nephew Perdix off a wall in a jealous rage because Perdix had
invented the saw and compass. Perdix would have been killed if he
had not been changed into a partridge by Athena, patroness of
craftsmen. We now see what we could not see before, that Icarus'
death is not an accident. Daedalus is paying for his crime with his
son's life, and the punishment neatly fits the crime.
The poem has too many major characters for continuity. We
find all the gods of the Roman pantheon, scores of minor
divinities. Nearly every hero anyone ever heard of has his story,
whether associated with Troy or Thebes or other tales. Nearly every
genre of poetry is represented somewhere.
No ancient epic has such varied subject matter as the
Metamorphses. Tales about love and hate, piety and impiety, divine
venegeance, divine justice and malevolence abound. It has comedies
and tragedies; subject matter of Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid,
scientific and philsophical historical sections and most of Greek
mythology and Roman legend.
Representation of Goddess: Circe
In both Vergil and Ovid complexity of Homeric Circe is greatly
reduced. Vergil underplays her sexual implications; and both Vergil
and Ovid, for all their stress on the danger of the passions which
she embodies, deny her a really effective male counterpart. Ovid's
Glaucus and Picus flee her advances, and his Ulysses is a pallid
lover at best. Homer's Odysseus, once asssured of his personal
saftey, takes Circe on her own terms. Ovid's Ulysses comes as an
avenger (Met. 14.290) and seems to treat the pleasures of that bed,
in a somewhat cursory narrative, only as means to his companions'
freedom (14.197-98). Homeric sexuality here becomes almost an item
in a formal contract, one body for another.
Vergil virtually eliminates the positive human side of Circe.
She becomes only the dangerous enchantress who has mysterious power
over the animal kingdom: dea saeva potentibus herbis (Aen. 7.19).
Here Vergil takes over hints of Circe as Mistress of Animals. But
being less close than Homer to the deep reservoirs of Mediterranean
myth, he loses full range of both positive and negative meaning
which such a female goddesss might carry. His Circe is primarily a
goddess of death, not death and love.
Vergil had a precedent for his limitation of Circe's
character: Argonautaica of Apollonius Rhodius. Apollonius' Circe,
though still essentially positive, is more in touch than Homer's
with the ominous, horrific side of magic. It is she who has power
to cleanse Jason and Medea of Apsyrtius' blood.
Vergil has his own reasons for curtailing Circe's personality;
he has already transferred Aeneas' sensual temptations to an
earlier stage in the figure of Dido. Gods and men cannot
intermingle as easily in the Aeneid as they could in the Odyssey,
and Vergil's divinities are on a loftier plane and are more remote
than Homer's. Aneas' amour must be with a purely human figure,
though even Dido retains some remnants of the witch-like goddess
(See Aen. 4.478-98). Since Aeneas' journeys are concerned less with
private experience, his fate is not to encounter so stark an
embodiment of female sexuality. His Dido is not only a human
personality, She has a historical rather than purely mythic
reality. Thus his one amorous adventure has a historical framework
and historical consequences in the relations between two great
peoples (Aen 4.622-29). Vergil's hero, moving toward a divinely
preordained goal among reges et proelia (kings and battles), is
less free than Homer's to explore Circean delights; it is the
austere Sibyl, not the lovely temptress, who presides over his
journey to Hades. Aeneas, at this point, is being prepared for
battles of a different kind. His face is now set toward history,
not myth; and it is an easy task for Neptune to steer the pious
Trojans past this dea saeva and her tricks (Aen. 7. 19-21).
Vergil inverts the significance of Homer's Circe. In
Odyssey, Circe is a goddess who ultimately furthers the journey
and, proves indispensable to it. In the Aeneid, she is only a
supernatural danger and an obstruction who symbolizes the lure of
hidden passions. In this aspect, she has an important function, for
she foreshadows the violence, passion, and chthonic magic of
Allecto, with whom she shares the themes of vengeance (7. 341, 354)
and monstrousness (7. 348.) In a book in which sanity and order
give way to brutish unreason, in which the authority of Aeneas, the
gentle calm of old Latinus, and the pristine peace of the Italic
countryside retreat before irate mobs and the lust for blood,
Circe's presence in the opening lines is ominously appropriate.
Circe at the beginning poses the threat of human brutalization
which is to hang over both Aeneas' victory and Turnus' defeat.
Circe also points backward as well as forward. As a
character from the Odyssey, she recalls Aeneas' successful
completion of his years of wandering. As he passes her by, one
phase of his life closes, as did another with the death of his
nurse, Caieta, in the very first lines of the book. His safe
passage confirms his escape both from the seduction of a Dido and
from the call of the open sea. At the same time, since her island
belongs both to Odyssean myth and to Italian geography, she evokes
here, at moment of arrival in new homeland, that "magical, vaguely
sinister Italy" glimpsed in the earlier books. In this light we
may undestand her associaitions with early Italic history and myth
later in Book 7.
But we should remember that Homer's Circe is initially as
dangerous as Vergil's albeit in a different way. Vergil effectively
borrows and enriches the aura of terror and mystery which surrounds
the Homeric goddess. But characteristically his enrichment lies in
the evocative quality and the deliberate exploitation of multiple
connotations in his language, rather than in character development
or precise visual detail.
Vergil still retains the singing of the Homeric Circe: she
fills her remote groves with continual song (7. 11-12).But the
phrase song stresses the savagery of her forest home and her
affinities with the wild. Whereas Odysseus' companions hear only
sweet song, those of Aeneas hear roars and howls of lions, boars,
bears and wolves (7. 15-18). Vergil gives his chief aural emphasis
to wild animals, Homer to the goddess' song.
Circe's mysteriousness has another dimension in Vergil.
Following Apollonius, he gives up the relative transparency of
gesture and motivation; his dissolution of Homeric factuality is
clear from the start in the strange, twilight setting (7.8-10). But
it is present too in his handling of the loom, one of the details
preseved from Homer. Vergil has not only added the suggestive
synaesthesia of line 13 but also changed quality of Circe's
movements. Homeric operation is clear and simple. The physical
action is rendered in its most essential and perceptible feature.
The goddess sings at her work like a cheerful housewife. The loom,
despite the "light and lovely and radiant works like those of
goddesses" has a reassuring solidity. The activity of Vergil's
Circe is harder to visualize. This weaving seems to produce no
tangible results comparable to the Homeric. It appears, rather, as
a magical, timeless gesture. On the other hand, it is
characteristic of the complexity of the Homeric figure that her
woven works strongly contrast with the outcome of the episode. The
goddess' initial domestic busyness takes on a grim and perhaps
ironical coloring as she also throws her new guests acorns and
cornel berries.
The Roman worldview expressed itself in its practicality when
it came to architecture.In the first century B.C.E. Vitruvius, a
Roman architect and engineer, developed three characteristics of
good architecture: utilitas, firmitas, and venustas. A commodious
building is suited to its function; a firm building is sturdy; a
delightful building is pleasant to look at, walk through, live in.
Endnotes
1 Luther H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987), p. 4.
2 See Barbara Watterson, The Gods of Ancient Egypt (London:
B.T. Batsford, 1984), p. 77.
3 Ibid., p. 97.
4 Ibid., pp. 78-79.
5 Martin, Hellenstic Religions, p. 23.
6 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Mary M. Innes (London, 1955), pp.
35-39; used with permission of publisher.
7 Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable (New
York, 1962), pp. 302-03.