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Some Critical Observations on Valerius Flaccus' Argonavtica. II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. W. Garson
R. W. Garson
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Extract

The critics have not been generous towards Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica as a whole, but their praise of his Medea episode, whether moderate or immoderate, has been fairly unanimous. W. C. Summers writes: ‘Valerius manages to treat the same theme with originality and power; in psychological probability his version seems to me superior to anything that has reached us from antiquity’. And J. M. K. Martin: ‘Where he displayed the most distinct originality, where he parted company with the Alexandrian poet with greatest advantage to himself and his readers, is in the treatment of the episode of Medea and Jason’. Earlier articles of mine have endeavoured to illustrate Valerius' basic originality, i.e. that, however much he takes over from others, the final product is something new and distinctive.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , May 1965 , pp. 104 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1965

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References

page 104 note 1 The Silver Age of Latin Literature, p. 44.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 ‘Valerius Flaccus—Poet of Romance’, Greece & Rome vii (1938), 138.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 ‘The Hylas Episode in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica’, C.Q. N.S. xiii (1963), 260–7Google Scholar and ‘Some Critical Observations on Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. I’, C.Q. N.s. xiv (1964), 267–79.Google Scholar

page 104 note 4 ‘In Apollonius she is barbaric, unsophisticated, a child of nature: in Valerius she is a figure of the stage, not without beauty and pathos, but essentially melodramatic’ (Butler, H. E., Post-Augustan Poetry, p. 185)Google Scholar. ‘The Medea of Valerius is a simple girl, romantically rather than tragically in love’; ‘Apollonius follows the Greek tradition of Medea as the strange foreign woman, fiery and ruthless and barbaric … Valerius was content with a gentle-souled Medea’ (Mozley, J. H. [ed.], Valerius Flaccus, pp. xiiiGoogle Scholar and xiv). ‘Valerius departed from the conventional conception of Medea as a clever and mature woman. … He consistently depicts her as a shy, self-conscious girl’ (Martin, J. M. K., op. cit., p. 144).Google Scholar

page 106 note 1 Valerius does show independence in the actual nightmares. Whereas Apollonius' heroine begins with an impressionable girl's romantic dream that she and not the fleece is Jason's longed—for prize and—a particularly realistic touch—wakes up with a start when she imagines her parents screaming in anger at her desire to go with Jason, in Valerius the first nightmare foreshadows the murder of Medea's children, the second brings to life her present moral dilemma: supplex hinc sternitur hospes | hinc pater. Both these themes receive a new emphasis in the Roman epic (see below).

page 108 note 1 See 6. 674, 7. 156, 294, 324, 331, 386, 435, 462, and 8. 95–108, Medea's address to the serpent, which, for all its sentimentality, Valerius adds to illustrate her genuine remorse.

page 108 note 2 Cf. a similar observation with regard to Hypsipyle in the first part of this study, C.Q. N.s. xiv (1964), 272–3.Google Scholar

page 108 note 3 Apart from 8. 445 f., see 5. 219–20 furias infandaque natae | foedera el horrenda trepidant sub uirgine puppem and 6. 667 ad extremos agitur Medea furores.

page 109 note 1 Note also Ap. 3. 997 f., where Jason's reference to Ariadne, who was deserted, is, to say the least, infelicitous.

page 110 note 1 Valerius suggests a turning-point at 7. 461–2.

page 110 note 2 See ‘The Hylas Episode in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica’, C.Q. N.s. xiii (1963), 264.Google Scholar

page 110 note 3 In the first part of this study (C.Q. N.s. xiv [1964], 276), we saw Valerius striving for a similar effect with Pelias, but to a more marked degree.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 It is here that we find the most specific description of the physical effects of Medea's love in its early stages: nullae te, nata, dapes, rum ulla imiabant | tempora. rum ullus tibi turn color, aegraque uerba | errantesque genae atque alieno gaudia uultu | semper erant (162–5). Coming at this stage of the narrative it underlines the development in Medea. Far from being still the hesitating girl, she is determined to escape the consequences of her bold defiance (cf. 8. 3–5).

page 111 note 2 The idea that Valerius puts into Aeetes' mind, spem sibi iam rerum uulgi leuitate serentem (270), is a sinister echo of many a political intrigue at Rome, be it late republican or early imperial.

page 112 note 1 As in the preceding articles, Latin forms of proper names are used throughout for convenience.

page 112 note 2 By explaining the allusion in his catalogue Valerius paves the way for the particular sting in Gesander's taunts to his laggard followers in the ensuing battle, nempe omnes cecidere series, nempe omnis ademptus | ante pater, (282–3), and for the pathetic irony of Aquites' plea for his life, ‘teque per hanc, genitor’, inquit, ‘tibi si manet, oro | canitiem … ’ (305–6).

page 112 note 3 If a respectable Virgilian pedigree for the bald statement be sought, cf. Aen. 9. 569–76.Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 Owing something to Apollonius' Cavern of Hades (2. 735 f.), the description of Amycus' cave is a happy addition in Valerius' epic, especially infelix domus et sonitu fremebunda profundi (4. 180), where the assonance of ‘u’ admirably conveys the booming sound of the waves, and the alliteration of ‘s’ what Lawrence, D. H. called ‘wild white sibilant spray'. A less satisfying, because exaggerated, effect is achieved in at uarii pro rupemetus: hie trunca rotatis | bracchia rapt a uiris strictoque immortua caestu | ossaque taetra … (4. 181–3). The ideal letter for the wrenching of limbs is ‘r’, but if so frequent an occurrence of it is intended to represent the great number of the severed limbs, then surely we have here the triumph of literalism over good taste.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 Likewise Valerius has nothing to match Apollonius' tedious preliminaries to Jason's combat with the fire-breathing bulls (Ap. 3. 1246–89).

page 115 note 2 Cf. Ap. 2. 43–44 The image in Ap. 2. 40–42 reappears in Val. 4. 190 sidereo … ore, and 331 siderea de fronte.

page 115 note 3 He even goes so far as to make the shades of Amycus' victims reappear in order to glut themselves on the spectacle of his death (4. 258–60), an idea which is possibly inspired by Ap. 2. 915 f., where the ghost of Sthenelus is allowed to see the Argonauts.

page 115 note 4 Valerius, like Apollonius, marks the stages of his narrative with similes, but such a close imitation is the exception rather than the rule (cf. also Ap. 3. 1293–5, where Jason's stand against the bulls is compared to that of a rock against the beating waves, and Val. 7. 581–4, where the bull charging against Jason is likened to the sea beating on rocks). In Apollonius the resounding punches give rise to a simile taken from a shipyard, in Valerius the combatants' cries give rise to one from a forge—cf. Ap. 2. 79–82 and Val. 4. 286–8. And elsewhere the points in the story amplified by similes are different in the two versions–cf. Apollonius' fighting bulls simile for the all-out tussle (2. 88–89) as well as (91) when Amycus stretches up to strike Pollux from above, and Valerius' hurricane simile marking Amycus' initial attack (4. 261–2), and 4. 280–1, where the pause in the boxing match is likened to one on the battlefield.

page 116 note 1 A comparison of Ap. 3. 1289–319 and Val. 7. 559–606, Jason's combat with the fire-breathing bulls, and of Ap. 3. 1354–403 and Val. 7. 610–43, Jason's combat with the Earth-born, reveals a fair degree of independence on Valerius' part. After a similar beginning, in which Jason stands firm against the bulls and, thanks to Medea's protection, cannot be made to budge, Valerius alters and elaborates the details of the actual struggle. In Apollonius Jason seizes one horn and kicks the bull to the ground. The second bull is overcome in the same way. In Valerius' much more circumstantial account Jason forces the first bull down by his sheer strength after seizing its horns, while the second bull, already weakened through Medea's influence, falls without a struggle and Jason has but to press down on it to fit on the yoke. In the combat with the Earth-born Valerius rivals neither Apollonius' length nor his profusion of similes. Whereas Apollonius makes Jason throw a boulder at the Earth-born right at the beginning and attack them after they have already started killing one another, Jason in Valerius attacks them as soon as they appear and only when unable to cope witfi their growing numbers does he throw his drugged helmet into their midst so as to make them kill one another.

page 116 note 2 How much better placed is Valerius' brief mention of Hercules—redit Alcidae iam sera cupido | et uacuos maesto lustrarunt limine monies (4. 247–8)! Inevitably the thought flashes through the heroes' minds that Hercules would be a match for the monster confronting them. The lament in Apollonius, coming after the successful fight, has much less point and merely retards an already dis-jointed narrative.

page 117 note 1 For Valerius' habit of echoing Virgil's construction cf. Arg. 4. 488–9Google Scholar and Aen. 9. 318–19.Google Scholar

page 118 note 1 Of the various echoes from Virgil two are outstanding in that they are rare examples of Valerius' transferring a word or phrase from an identical context without making any appreciable alteration: cf. Aen. 3. 215Google Scholar and Arg. 4. 428Google Scholar, where ira is used of the Harpies by both poets in the concrete sense of ‘minister of wrath'—a usage nowhere noted by Lewis and Short, which actually quotes the Virgilian example under the normal meaning of ira; and cf. Aen. 3. 227–Google Scholar diripiuntque dapes contactuque omnia foedant | immundo and Arg. 4. 454–5 diripiunt uerruntque dapes foedataque turbant | pocula, both referring to the Harpies. Some of the examples of imitatio considered previously have been subtle in the new context, others rather futile because there has been no point of contact. Here for the first time we have slavish copying within the same context.Google Scholar

page 118 note 2 See ‘The Hylas Episode in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica’, C.Q. N.s. xiii (1963), 265, and the previous page for Jason's particularly poor showing in Apollonius just after Argo has come through her ordeal.Google Scholar

page 120 note 1 Something more interpretative from the aesthetic point of view than Merone's, E. informative Sulla Lingua di Valeria Flacco(Armanni, Naples, 1957).Google Scholar