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Propertius 4.5, Ovid Amores 1.6 and Roman Comedy1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

J. C. Yardley
J. C. Yardley
Affiliation:
The University of Calgary
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Extract

‘The absence of Roman comedy … from the influences which the [Augustan] poets like to name proves only that they were not creditable, not in fashion, not that they had made no contribution.’ So Jasper Griffin in his recent book on the Roman poets. Griffin observes that scholars have been deterred from postulating Roman comic influence on the Augustan poets merely by the ‘magisterial pronouncements of the great scholars’, and he amasses considerable circumstantial evidence to support his theory that the Augustan poets, and especially the elegists, were indeed indebted to Roman comedy. He observes, for example, that Cicero provides evidence for the continuing popularity of Roman drama; that (a very important point) Horace complains of the popularity of the Roman comedians whom ‘powerful Rome learns by heart’ (Epist. 2.1.60-1); that the same poet, despite his denigration of Roman comedy, obviously knew and referred to it; that Roman comedy seems to be the source, or a source, for the ‘naughtiness’ of elegy and the rejection of traditional Roman values (with the comic amatores distressed by contemporary mores and the elegists flouting them); that if the elegists do not acknowledge their debt to the Roman comic poets, then no more does Horace in the Odes acknowledge his manifest indebtedness to Hellenistic poetry, claiming instead to be following Sappho and Alcaeus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 33 , 1987 , pp. 179 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

NOTES

The following are cited by author's name only in the notes:

Barsby, John, Ovid: Amores book 1 (1973).Google Scholar

Brandt, Paul, P. Ovidi Nasonis Amorum libri tres (1911).Google Scholar

Brotherton, Blanche, The vocabulary of intrigue in Roman comedy (1926).Google Scholar

Fedeli, P., Properzio, Elegie, libro IV (1965).Google Scholar

Fedeli, P., Sesto Properzio, II primo libro delle elegie (1980).Google Scholar

Fraenkel, Eduard, Elementi Plautini in Plauto ( = Plautinisches im Plautus), trans. Munari, F. (1960).Google Scholar

Griffin, Jasper, Latin poets and Roman life (1985).Google Scholar

Lodge, Gonzalez, Lexicon Plautinum (1924).Google Scholar

McGlynn, P., Lexicon Terentianum (1963).Google Scholar

Reitzenstein, Richard, Hellenistische Wundererzählungen (2 Auflage, 1963).Google Scholar

Richardson, L. Jr., Propertius Elegies I-IV (1976).Google Scholar

Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (1956).Google Scholar

Spranger, Peter P., Historische Untersuchungen zu den Sklavenfiguren des Plautus und Terenz (1960).Google Scholar

Tränkle, Herman, Die Sprachkunst des Properz und die Tradition der lateinischen Dichtersprache (1960).Google Scholar

Watson, Lindsay, ‘Ovid Amores 1.6: A parody of a hymn?’, Mnemosyne 35 (1982) 92–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Yardley, J. C., ‘The elegiac paraclausithyron’, Eranos 76 (1978) 19–34.Google Scholar

2. Griffin 199.

3. Very few have had the temerity, before Griffin, to admit the influence of Roman comedy. Two exceptions are McKeown, J. C., ‘Augustan elegy and mime’, PCPS 25 (1979) 71–84Google Scholar and Netta Zagagi, who has suggested that Ovid may have been acquainted with Plautus' Bacchides (Tradition and originality in Plautus: Studies of the amatory motifs in Plautine comedy [1980] 63, n. 149)Google Scholar.

4. Griffin (202 note 23) rightly refers to Sat. 2.3.259, which begins one of the closest poetic paraphrases to be found in Latin of any scene from Roman comedy (Terence, , Eunuchus 46-9, 57–63Google Scholar, also paraphrased by Persius, Sat. 5.172-3).

5. On this see also Preston, Keith, Studies in the diction of the sermo amatorius in Roman comedy (1916) 21Google Scholar (on such terms as damnum, nequitia, dedecus etc.).

6. Fantham, Elaine, ‘Roman experience of Menander in the late Republic and early Empire’, TAPA 114 (1984) 299–309Google Scholar.

7. According to Donatus on Terence, , Phorm. 47Google Scholar it is a gladiatorial metaphor: see further Brotherton 71, Fedeli ad loc., Tränkle 133.

8. See Fantham, Elaine, Comparative studies in Republican Latin imagery (1972) 85Google Scholar. Fantham observes that both eludere and palmae reveal a gladiatorial origin for the metaphor, which she sees as deriving from Terence.

9. Nine times in Plautus, twice in Terence, and twice even in the fragments of Caecilius (8 and 75).

10. See Phoenix 34 (1980) 256Google Scholar.

11. See Fedeli's introduction to the poem and his commentary passim, Wheeler, A. L., ‘Erotic teaching in Roman elegy’ Part 1 CP 5 (1910) 440–50Google Scholar, Part 2 CP 6 (1911) 56–77Google Scholar.

12. Most. 193 illam anum interfecero site fameque atque algu ∼ Prop. 1-2, 70.

13. E.g. Leo, F., Plautinische Forschungen (1912) 147Google Scholar, Day, A. A., The origins of Latin love elegy (1938) 90Google Scholar. Most recently Gutzwiller, Kathryn J., ‘The lover and the lena: Propertius 4.5’, Ramus 14 (1985) 107Google Scholar: ‘Propertius was apparently familiar with Plautus' source (probably Philemon)’.

14. Plautus, , Trinumm. 245Google Scholar, Terence, , Phorm. 47–8Google Scholar. Propertius may possibly have had the latter in mind since it is Geta who is to be ‘stung’ (porro autem Getaferietur alio munere).

15. Prop. 3.9.54, though this has also been questioned (see Shackleton Bailey ad loc., who defends the reading). Fedeli ad loc., notes that the adjective is ‘prosastico e in poesia solo nella commedia, nella satira e in Marziale’.

16. See Lodge and McGlynn s.v. See further Brotherton 31-2. It can also be no coincidence that in the elegiac corpus the word astu, which occurs frequently in Plautus (twice in Terence), is found only in this poem (posset ut intentos astu caecare maritos [15]).

17. Tränkle 176. The construction does occur elsewhere in Propertius, but it is not common (4.4.66, 4.11.68; in pi. 1.1.22.) According to Bennet, C. E., The syntax of early Latin Vol. 1, The verb (1910) Plautus uses the construction 41 times.Google Scholar

18. Axelson, Bertil, Unpoetische Wörter: Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der lateinischen Dichtersprache (1945) 106–7Google Scholar.

19. Tränkle 112-3.

20. See Morgan, Kathleen, Ovid's art of imitation: Propertius in the Amores (1977) 59–68Google Scholar.

21. cf. Men. 441, Persa 682, Poen. 647, 660, 668, Pseud. 427, 1128, 1198, Rud. 1262 etc.

22. On the paraclausithyron, see Copley, F. W., Exclusus Amator: A study in Latin love poetry (1956)Google Scholar, Cairns, Francis, Generic composition in Greek and Roman poetry (1972) passim but especially 145 ff.Google Scholar, Yardley 19-34.

23. On the so-called figura subitae mutationis see Vretska, Karl, ‘Tibulls Paraclausithyron’, WS 68 (1955) 26Google Scholar. Its first occurrence in Latin seems to be Plautus, Cure. 153, but it is also found in the Alexandrian erotic fragment (Powell, , Collect. Alex 177–9Google Scholar). See further Yardley 28-9.

24. Yardley 24-34, Watson 92-102.

25. This point is now made also by Griffin 204.

26. Fraenkel 184-6. See, too, Spranger 40,95-8, Segal, Erich, Roman laughter (1968) 99–101Google Scholar. Such rôle-reversal goes back to Aristophanes, , Frogs 946 ff.Google Scholar, but it is clear that it was particularly appealing to Plautus. Spranger aptly remarks that such scenes, with arrogant slave and submissive master, have mit den wirklichen leben schlechterdings nichts tnehr gemein (Spranger 42), and if ‘real life’ is at all reflected here it will be Greek. Donatus on Terence, , Eun. 57Google Scholar states that it was accepted in palliata, but not in togata, to make slaves cleverer than their masters.

27. On sic or ita in such constructions, see Conington-Nettleship on Vergil Ecl. 9.30. It is interesting that the same construction occurs in Propertius' address to the slave Lygdamus (3.6.2 sic tibi sit, Lygdame, dempta iuga).

28. See Spranger 97 who observes that Freiheitsstreben und Freilassung der Sklaven bei Plautus eine grössere Rolle spielen ais bei Terenz.

29. See Phoenix 26 (1972) 135Google Scholar, and Fedeli's introduction to the poem (206-7).

30. Line 2 (sic tibisint, Lygdame, dempta iuga) makes it clear that, whatever his status in 4.7 and 4.8, in this poem Lygdamus belongs to Cynthia. Any explanation of the discrepancy between 3.6 and 4.7-8 in this regard involves pure speculation (see the Introductions to 3.6 in the editions of Butler and Barber, Richardson and Fedeli, and see also Camps on 3.6.41-2).

31. Plautus, , Pseud. 1239–40Google Scholar; see Spranger 47-51. Watson prefers to see this as an example of the worshipper reminding the deity of past services and asking for reciprocal benefits.

32. Cf. also Skutsch, O., Studio Enniana (1968) 145–7Google Scholar.

33. See Yardley 31-2, Watson 93-4.

34. Cf. Norden, Eduard, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zu Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (1913) 143 ff.Google Scholar

35. Cf. Fraenkel 91, note 1.

36. The receptus amans, as opposed to the exclusus, does occur in elegy (cf. Prop. 2.14.28), but a paraclausithyron is by definition the song of the exclusus and his hopes of admission are invariably frustrated.

37. Fr. 5 K. Later the same motif reappears in Petronius, Sat. 71.1.

38. The paronomasia is later picked up by Cicero (Tusc. 3.64) and used elsewhere by Ovid (Heroid. 10.38), but its origins are clearly to be sought in Roman comedy.

39. But caught by Antony, Heinz, Humor in der augusteischen Dichtung (1976) 111Google Scholar. The same word-play exists in Ars 3.436, Prop. 1.13.6 and 1.3.44.

40. See Fraenkel 99 who comments that while door-personification certainly occurred in New Comedy (in fact its first appearance is Aristophanes, , Plut. 1098)Google Scholar, Plautus si sbrigliapoi, staccandosi decisamente dagli originali, ad ammucchiare e decorare queste concezioni delta porta transformata in essere umano.

41. Reitzenstein 158 speaks generally of a ‘Benutzung der Komödie’, but of course he means Greek comedy.

42. See Lodge and McGlynn s.v. consema. Cf. also Titinius fr. 124 (Daviault).

43. See Fraenkel 108, note 2.

44. Griffin 200-1. However, the reference in Suet. Aug 89.1 (Griffin 201 note 18) is not obviously to palliata, and could (as the editors of OLD [s.v. comoedia 1 b] believe) refer to Old Attic comedy.

45. Am. 1.6. 74 ∼ Asin. 386; Am. 1.6.64 ∼ Asin. 298; Am. 1.6, 46 ∼ Asin. 629.