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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
When Seneca comes to describe the appearance of the monstrous bull which appears out of the sea to kill Hippolytus in answer to his father's curse, he uses (among other things) a metaphor of birth: the sea's wave is said to be ‘heavy with burdened womb’ (1019f.: onerato sinu / gravis unda portat). If line 1016 is genuine – it was athetized by Leo – the sea is said to be ‘pregnant with a monster’ (tumidumque monstro). The metaphor has not passed unnoticed in modern commentaries but it has not been fully appreciated. I want to examine further linguistic aspects of the metaphor, and to consider its significance in its literary context. Seneca is a writer who likes – as he himself acknowledges – to re-work tradition: all the more significant, then, when he introduces a conspicuous metaphor into his text which does not appear to have literary antecedents.
1 Leo, F., De Senecae tragoediis observationes criticae, Berlin, 1878.Google Scholar
2 Michael, Coffey and Roland, Mayer (edd.), Seneca, Phaedra (Cambridge, 1990), p. 178Google Scholar: ‘onerato sinu suggests pregnancy’; Boyle, A. J. (ed.), Seneca's Phaedra (Liverpool, 1987)Google Scholar, on lines 1016ff.: ‘The imagery of pregnancy and birth here … seem Seneca's own. It occurs neither in Euripides nor in Ovid, Met. 15'. Liebermann, W.-L., Studien zu Senecas Tragöodien (Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie, 39) (Meisenheim am Glan, 1974), p. 37Google Scholar: ‘…wobei letzteres (sc. gravis, line 1020) freilich “schwanger” mitmeint’.
3 Cf. Epist. 79.5–6 and Mayer's note on this passage (1990: above n. 2), p. 121. Cf. Gahan, J. T., ‘Imitation in Seneca, Phaedra 1000–1115’, Hermes 116 (1988), 122–4Google Scholar; Grimal, P., ‘L'originalité de Sénèque dans la tragédie de Phèdre’, REL 41 (1963), 297–314.Google Scholar
4 Not the summit of the cliffs mentioned just before: cf. Zwierlein, O., Kritischer Kommentar zu den Tragödien Senecas (Mainz, 1986)Google Scholar (= Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur zu Mainz, Abhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, 6), p. 211: summum cacumen does not refer to scopuli… ‘und auch nicht vordergründig auf das monstrum sondern auf den Kamm des Wellenbogens (der durch das monstrum gebildet wird), also auf den “undarum globus” von 1031’.
5 Mayer (1990), p. 179: ‘If S. is accurately describing the whale here, he refers to its method of feeding; it sucks in sea water which it then expels through its mouth by raising its tongue; ore ought not to refer to the blow-hole by which it breathes…’. This is an example of scholarly love of accuracy getting in the way of common-sense. At this point in heightened narrative we are not interested in the whale's feeding-habits, but in its enormity.
6 Liebermann (1976: above n. 2), p. 38: ‘Hier geht die in gravis (1020) angekündigte Geburt eines Ungeheuers vor sich’.
7 Boyle, , ‘In Nature's Bonds. A Study of Seneca's Phaedra’, ANRW ii.32, 2 (1985), 1284–1347Google Scholar, esp. 1317–20. Quotation from p. 1317.
8 The so-called Hippolytos Stephanephoros as opposed to his earlier Hippolytos Kalyptomenos, of which only fragments survive: see Barrett, W. S., Euripides, Hippolytos (Oxford, 1964; corr. ed. 1966), pp. 10–45.Google Scholar
9 Boyle (1985, above n. 6) discusses this question, maintaining that the earlier view that Phaedra was a ‘study in baseness’ is now ceding to the opinion that she too (like the Euripidean heroine) is a reluctant victim of her passion, that she genuinely wanted to commit suicide to avoid shame, and that it is the nurse who finally induces her to give way to her passion. For what it is worth, I find myself more in sympathy with the view of Phaedra as villain of the piece. Seneca appears to depict Hippolytus as a polite and attractive young man from start to finish, although he does not like girls. The central scene between Phaedra and Hippolytus (589–718) shows Hippolytus first behaving gallantly to his step-mother when she pleads widowhood, then with righteous indignation when she confesses her love. Phaedra and the Nurse then join in a plot to feign rape (which deceives Theseus). Although Hippolytus finds himself guilty of attracting a step-mother's love (683ff.), this passage seems to me only to underline his innocence (how can he help being attractive?).
10 E.g. the terrible signs which accompany Atreus' ‘sacrifice’ of his brother Thyestes' children: the ground shook; a star shot across the sky: the sacrificial wine turned to blood; sacred images wept; the fire refused to burn; black smoke billowed forth; the sun darkened (Thyestes 696ff.). The whole universe seems to perform a danse macabre to the tune of human crime. Further examples: Troades 169ff.
11 (1986: above n. 4), pp. 208–9. In ‘Versinterpolationen und Korruptelen in den Tragödien Senecas’, Würzburger Jahrbücher 2 (1976), 214fGoogle Scholar., he defends tumuit against tonuit, in particular by comparison with Ovid, Met. 15.508ff.
12 Grimal, P. (ed.), L. Annaei Senecae Phaedra (Paris, 1965), ad loc.Google Scholar
13 Zwierlein (1976: above n. 11), p. 214: ‘…bei Seneca müßte das Meer donnern, wofür ich keinen Beleg kenne’ (cf. his note 117: ‘Das Meer fremit, stridet, mugit’).
14 Noted by Zwierlein (1986: above n. 4), p. 208. His parallel for tonuit: nemus / fragore vasto tonuit (Troad. 173f.) seems to me less good: certainly it does not parallel the adverbial use of vastum which he assumes in our passage. Liebermann (1976: above n. 2), p. 35 n. 62, does, however, have a point that sound is involved in the Medea passage (sonuere fluctus): ‘Überhaupt scheint die Verbindung von Akustischem und Visuellem in derartigen Zusammenhängen ziemlich feststehend zu sein’. Note also Thyestes 577: ex alto tumuere fluctus.
15 (1965: above n. 11), ad loc. He compares Euripides' ἱερ⋯ν κ⋯μα (Hipp. 1206–7) maintaining that Seneca's monstro is not so different from Euripides' ἱερ⋯ν, but this is going too far, I think.