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Bridal Songs: Catullan Epithalamia and Prudentius Peristephanon 3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Jacqueline Clarke
Jacqueline Clarke*
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide
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Extract

Prudentius' account of the martyrdom of the young Spanish girl Eulalia in Peristephanon 3 is particularly interesting because not only does it consist of her defiance of an order to pay homage to the pagan gods but also a rejection of pressures to get married. If martyrdom constituted an act of rebellion against the conventions of pagan society, then female martyrdom was doubly so and the ways in which it was presented to a community in which Christianity was still struggling to establish its reputation is worthy of detailed examination. Prudentius was arguably the Christian poet most influenced by his pagan predecessors, making an active effort to compose poetry worthy of the great Latin poetic tradition. When examining the classical antecedents of Peristephanon 3, scholars have largely concentrated upon its Virgilian echoes, emphasising the heroic dimensions of Eulalia's conduct by comparing her to Virgilian ‘heroines’ (the Sibyl, Camilla and Dido) who challenge conventional female roles. Some critics have pointed to elements of an epithalamium within the poem but they have related this imagery to late antique epithalamia or to the Song of Songs rather than looking for antecedents within classical poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 40 , 2006 , pp. 89 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2006

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References

1 Palmer, A-M, Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford 1989) 169–77Google Scholar; Malamud, M.A., ‘Making a Virtue of Perversity: The Poetry of Prudentius’, Ramus 19 (1990) 75–7Google Scholar; Kubiak, D.P., ‘Epic and Comedy in Prudentius' Hymn to St. Eulalia’, Philologus 142 (1998) 312–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Petruccione, J., ‘The Portrait of St. Eulalia of Mérida in Prudentius' Peristephanon 3 ’ AB 108 (1990) 98–102 Google Scholar; Roberts, M., Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor 1993) 99 Google Scholar. Petruccione develops Roberts' suggestion of epithalamial content in lines 201-5 but confines his discussion to the last part of the hymn (131ff.), the torture, death and subsequent miracles. The observations of both scholars will be acknowledged and discussed in the course of this paper; as stated above, both use late antique poetry or the bible to support their observations of epithalamial content. No scholar has employed the Catullan epithalamia as a basis for exploring the hymn in its entirety; Palmer (n. 1) 168 does draw some comparisons between Perist. 3 and Canili. 61 and 62 but only in a fleeting way.

3 Wiseman, T P., Catullan Questions (Leicester 1969) 20–5Google Scholar.

4 Wheeler, A L., ‘Tradition in the Epithalamium’, AJPh 51 (1930) 208 Google Scholar. See further Roberts, M., ‘The Use of Myth in Latin Epithalamia from Statius to Venantius Fortunatus’, TAPhA 119 (1989) 321–48Google Scholar who discusses a number of late antique epithalamia in detail. There is also a somewhat racy epithalamium composed by Ausonius, the Cento Nuptialis, from otherwise innocuous Virgilian lines.

5 ‘cui dono lepidum novum libellum?’ / Veronsensis ait poeta quondam (‘To whom am I to give my charming new little book?” the poet of Verona once said): Ausonius, Praef. 4.1–2 Google Scholar ( Green, R.H.P., The Works of Ausonius [Oxford 1991]Google Scholar). While Green classes Catullus among the ‘poets who are quoted quite clearly [in Ausonius] and sometimes by name, but whose appearances are rare’ (xxi) he does suggest at least eight likely influences of the Catullan corpus (including the long poems) on Ausonius: see 370,382,437,446, 452,470, 628,650. Prudentius in turn read Ausonius and was influenced by him: Malamud, M.A., A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (Ithaca and London 1989) 14 Google Scholar. Roberts (n. 2) 8 comments that Prudentius' poems are probably intended for a readership of highly educated aristocrats and church-people, the sort of audience who would be acquainted with Catullus’ verse.

6 Baker, R.J., ‘Dying for Love: Eulalia in Prudentius Peri Stephanon Liber, 3’, in Lee, K. et al. (eds), Multarum Artium Scientia: A ‘Chose for R. Godfrey Tanner (Auckland 1993)Google Scholar. He alludes to such things as the preoccupation with the feet of the beloved and the tryst of the puella with her lover which he equates with Eulalia's night-time journey (17). In the course of this paper many of his observations will be noted or commented upon. It is true that the distinction between these two forms of poetry can become somewhat blurred at times, for epithalamia and love elegy have many common motifs: see Thomson, O., Ritual and Desire: Catullus 61 and 62 (Aarhus 1992) 40 Google Scholar; Roberts (n. 4) 346.

7 Bastiaensen, A.A.R., ‘Prudentius in Recent Literary Criticism’, in den Boeff, J. and Hilhorst, A. (eds), Early Christian Poetry: A Collection of Essays (Leiden 1993) 123 Google Scholar: “The term “contrast-imitation”, which keeps recurring regarding Christian poetry and especially regarding Prudentius … indicates that Virgilian expressions - and expressions of other classical poets - are restructured, widened, provided with a deeper background, hence changed from and, in a sense, contrasted with their original use.’

8 Wheeler (n. 4) 212-5.

9 Fedeli, P., Catullus' Carmen 61, 2nd ed., trans. Nardella, M (Amsterdam 1983) 152 Google Scholar.

10 Roberts (n. 2) 10.

11 Wheeler (n. 4) 211, 213, 215. The Prudentius text is taken from Cunningham, M P., Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Carmina (Turnolt 1966)Google Scholar, the Catullus from R.A.B. Mynors 1958 OCT edition.

12 For the original meaning, OLD s.v. def. 1. In his poetry Prudentius often employs the word in a figurative sense to refer to offspring or a line of descent, e.g. Cath. 9.17, Apoth. 182, 418,565, 1001.

13 Wheeler, A.L., Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1964) 199–200 Google Scholar.

14 bona cum bona nubet alite virgo, 19f. ‘With respect to bona virgo: the meaning ‘good/chaste’ is undoubtedly the dominant one, but prior to bona virgo Junia's beauty is emphasized - in a comparison with Venus, the naked Venus, and right after bona virgo her beauty is emphasized - in a comparison saturated with eroticism and linked to bona virgo’ (Thomson [n. 6] 146).

15 It could be argued that Prudentius also reverses the vegetation imagery of 61: unlike the passivity of the bride whose mind is bound with love as ivy entwines a tree (61.31-4), Eulalia's love actively nurtures and supports the town.

16 See Roberts' discussion on the relationship between martyr and city (n. 2, 23) who comments that ‘Prudentius invests that relationship with the warmth of parental affection’. In Roberts' discussion there is a stronger emphasis on the idea of martyr in loco parentis to the town; I would suggest that in Peristephanon 3 Prudentius places the emphasis the other way around, stressing the idea of the town as Eulalia's ‘real mother’, to make her defiance of her parents more acceptable.

17 Roberts (n. 2) 100. He makes these observations in regard to 201-5 but they could equally as well be applied to these lines. Flowers and jewels are often interchangeable in late antique literature: Roberts (n. 2) 99.

18 Malamud (n. 1) 74: ‘Under normal circumstances, a woman's role changes with time, and these different categories would be occupied successively, but Eulalia, by stepping out of the process, becomes impossible to characterize, both incorporating and rejecting the roles of child, bride and old woman.’

19 This aspect is also stressed in poem 62: complexa matris retinentem avellere natam, / et iuveni ardenti castam donare puellam, ‘… tear the girl-child clinging to the embrace of her mother and hand the chaste maid to the passionate youth’, 22-3. Williams, G., ‘Some Aspects of Roman Marriage Ceremonies and Ideals’, JRS 48 (1958) 18 Google Scholar comments: “Themes depending on a contrast between the violence of the husband and the virgin bride are frequent in marriage contexts.’

20 Baker (n. 6) 16 notes the contrast with the hesitation of the bride at 61.90 (sed moraris) but sees this as stemming from love poetry in which hesitation is an impediment to the exercise of love. He views Eulalia somewhat differently at this point in the poem, as a purposeful puella bent upon a tryst with her lover (17).

21 As R. Herzog observes, it is at this point that Eulalia's journey takes on a magical aspect and the landscape acquires a magical significance. He views the landscape as a symbolic representation of the OT flight from Egypt: Die allegorische Dichtkunst des Prudentius (Munich 1966) 27 Google Scholar.

22 Clarke, J.R., Imagery of Colour and Shining in Catullus, Propertius and Horace (New York 2003) 184–8Google Scholar.

23 Petruccione (n. 2) 90. See also Roberts (n. 2) 94.

24 Baker (n. 6) 22 here draws a parallel with the puella's tendency to scold in love elegy. Eulalia's very name (lit. ‘sweet-spoken’) functions as an ironic allusion to the unusual eloquence and rhetorical proficiency of this young girl.

25 As Petruccione (n. 2) 97 points out, these lines are from a passage in which Virgil describes the force of sexual desire upon humans and animals. Roberts (n. 2) 93 agrees with Petruccione's interpretation of these lines.

26 Petruccione (n. 2) 98-9; Ross, J., ‘Dynamic Writing and Martyrs' Bodies in Prudentius' Peristephanon’, JECS 3 (1995) 343 Google Scholar.

27 ‘Both an arrangement with vertical spiral locks falling on either side of a central part and a high bun made up of horizontal sections of hair have been proposed’: Follette, L. La ‘The Costume of the Roman Bride’, in The World of Roman Costume, ed. by Sebesta, J.L. and Bonfante, L. (Madison 1994) 57 Google Scholar. Catullus does not allude specifically to the bride's hair but several times refers to the locks of the torches which are linked with the bride (61.78, 95). Ausonius, transposing a line from Aen. 1.319 Google Scholar, describes the bride's hair falling over her shoulders: dederatque comam diffundere ventis, Cento 3.40.

28 Petruccione (n. 2) 100. Petruccione's argument is that the sanginei croci given to Eulalia at 202 are meant to recall the colour of the traditional Roman bridal outfit. While I agree that this allusion contributes to the idea of Eulalia attired in bridal costume, I would argue that the association is present long before this verse.

29 See esp. 114-8 where the torches' flames are connected with the emergence of the flammeum and n. 22.

30 Petruccione (n. 2) 100-1 argues that the dove has hymeneal associations here, basing his argument on allusions from the Song of Songs.

31 Toynbee, J.M.C., Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca 1973) 259 Google Scholar.

32 In 61.184-8 Catullus dwells upon the bride's blush in the marriage-chamber as she waits for her husband. Blushing, of course, is a commonplace in erotic poetry, something that Petruccione (n. 2) 99 observes. Krier, T.M., ‘Sappho's Apples: The Allusiveness of Blushes in Ovid and Beaumont’, CIS 25 (1988) 2 Google Scholar, writing on the use of the blush in Ovid's poetry comments: ‘The colors of love in European literature, red and white, reside in the arousing alternatives of innocence and experience, candor and shame, the quotidian complexion of white broken by the rising blood of erotic self-consciousness’

33 See Roberts (n. 2) 25,27 on ekphrases and the power emanating from the locus.

34 See Rehm, R., Marriage to Death (Princeton 1994) 59–71 Google Scholar on Antigone as death's bride and the book in general on the conflation of weddings and funerals in tragedy. As studies in villages of rural Greece have shown, the association between death and marriage continues into modem day Greece: see Holst-Warhaft, G., Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature (London and New York 1992) 18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. She states: ‘Marriage is an appropriate mediating metaphor, since, like death, it involves separation and departure from one household to another’ (19).

35 Roberts (n. 2) 100.

36 Roberts (n. 2) 99.

37 Contrast Canill. 61.209-13: Torquatos volo parvulus / matris e gremio suae / porrigens teneras manus / dulce rideat ad patrem / semihiante labello, ‘I want a small Torquatos offering soft hands from his mother's breast, laughing sweetly to his father from his half-open mouth.’

38 Cameron, A., The Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass. 1993)81 Google Scholar: ‘Conversion of a young girl of such background to Christian asceticism had serious consequences for her family; under Jerome's persuasion, she was liable to decide to devote herself to a life of virginity, or if already married, to adopt the pattern of celibacy thereafter. These renunciations implied at best difficulties and at worst cessation of the line of inheritance, and were accompanied in some famous cases by the actual sale and disposal of vast family property, with the poor, or rather more often the church, as direct beneficiary.’ Petruccione (n. 2) 98 argues that the theme of mystical marriage present in the poem makes Eulalia's sacrifice more acceptable in the eyes of Roman society.

39 This paper is dedicated to the memory of my friend and colleague, Dr Charles Tesoriera, whose brilliance, warmth and laughter at the Catullus Symposium helped to make it such a special event.