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The Unity of Tibullus 2.3*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Richard Whitaker
Richard Whitaker
Affiliation:
University of Natal, Durban
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Extract

It is a view commonly held by Tibullus' commentators and critics that the poet's art consists essentially in the more or less skilful weaving together of disparate themes into a single elegy. Leo, for example, talks of Tibullus' imagination which ‘ihn selbst und somit den Hörer gleichsam unwillkürlich von Bild zu Bilde reisst’’;

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 131 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

page 131 note 1 Leo, F., Philologische Untersuchungen 2 (1881), 24.Google Scholar

page 131 note 2 Jacoby, F., ‘Zur Entstehung der Römischen Elegie’’, Rh.M. 60 (1905), 38–105, on p.100.Google Scholar

page 131 note 3 Schuster, M., Tibull-Studien (reprint, 1968), p.16.Google Scholar

page 131 note 4 Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry, p.498.Google Scholar

page 131 note 5 art. cit. 92.Google Scholar

page 131 note 6 op. cit., p.46.Google Scholar

page 131 note 7 See especially op. cit., pp.57–61.Google Scholar

page 131 note 8 Cf. op. cit., p.500:Google Scholar ‘Tibullus … invented for himself a perfect form of composition in which a severely limited range of themes … can create variety by various forms of combination and can find unity in an adaptation of the autobiographical approach whereby the poet composed in the form of an extended mental reflection.’’

page 132 note 1 I follow the text (except where otherwise stated) and line numeration of Postgate's O.C.T.

page 132 note 2 Another Tibullan poem in which recent critics have discovered a more than formal coherence is 1.3. Hanslik, R. (in Forschungen zur römischen Literatur, ed. Wimmel, (Wiesbaden, 1970), pp.138–45)Google Scholar developing the ideas of Eisenberger, H. (‘Der Innere Zusammenhang Der Motive in Tibulls Gedicht I, 3’’, H. 88 (1960), 188–97) finds in 1.3 two dominant themes, of service to Amor and service to Messalla, the former theme eventually predominating over the latter.Google Scholar

page 132 note 3 These divisions should not be regarded as hard and'fast. Owing to the skill with which Tibullus prepares his transitions from one theme to another, it is difficult to divide his poems into sections with any exactitude. Cf. Schuster's strictures on attempts to find arithmetic correspondences in 1.3 (op. cit., pp.9–11).Google Scholar

page 132 note 4 I had already written this article when I read Copley, F. O., ‘Servitium Amoris in the Roman elegists’’, TAPA 78 (1947), 285–300. I am glad to see that my conclusions concerning the myth of Apollo and Admetus agree very closely with his.Google Scholar

page 132 note 5 This reason for Apollo's service of Admetus first occurs, so far as we know, in Callimachus, , H. 2.49 ff.Google Scholar It occurred also in Rhianus (see Copley, , art. cit. 286).Google Scholar In earlier accounts of the myth Apollo's service was a punishment for his killing of the Cyclopes (or their sons). See Roscher, W. H., Lexikon der Griecbiscben und Römischen Mythologie, s.v. ‘Admetus’’.Google Scholar

page 132 note 6 Further rustic occupations of the god may have been detailed in the lacuna after 14a.

page 133 note 1 Cf. Copley, , art. cit. 292.Google Scholar

page 133 note 2 Cf. Copley, , art. cit. 287.Google Scholar

page 133 note 3 For the necessity of servitium, after other expedients have failed, see Tib. 2.4.1–20 and Prop. 1.5.

page 133 note 4 For the shamefulness of servitium, see Prop. 1.5.26; 2.20.19–22; 2.24a.5–8; Ov.Am. 2.17.1–4:3.11.1–4.

page 134 note 1 ferreus quite often bears this specific meaning in the elegiac poets. See Tib. 1.2.65; Prop. 2.8.12; Ov. Her. 1.58; Am. 2.19.4.

page 134 note 2 In line 4 the poet skilfully adapts the Hellenistic motive of Amor as ploughman (cp. GP, Moschus I) to suit the present situation.

page 134 note 3 dominam in line 5 clearly indicates that the poet views his relationship to his girl as that of a slave to his mistress.

page 134 note 4 K. Smith's comment on these lines (The Elegies of Albius Tibullus (reprint 1971), ad loc.),Google Scholar shows that they emphasize too the baseness of the toil, the servitium, chosen for himself by the poet: ‘The ideal lover of the elegy is not endowed with an especially strong physique, partly, no doubt, because great bodily strength or rude health is suggestive of those who have to work for a living and are therefore no better than slaves, cp. Ovid, , Trist. 1.5.72, ‘invalidae vires, ingenuaeque mihi’’; Martial, 3.46.6, ‘invalidum est vobis, ingenuumque latus”.’’Google Scholar

page 135 note 1 For just a few examples see Ter. Eun. 584–91; Cat. 68.138–40; Prop. 2.30B.31 f.; A.P. 5.100.

page 135 note 2 As regards 31 f. in particular, I concur in the interpretation of Kraus, W., ‘Der Gott der Liebenden’’, WS 79 (1966), 399–405.Google Scholar A number of the points made by Kraus are anticipated in the brief articles by Maguiness, W. S. (CQ 38 (1944), 31–2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rose, H. J. (CQ 38 (1944), 78), which are not mentioned by Kraus.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 135 note 3 fabula here is taken to bear the meaning ‘an idle tale’’, ‘something no longer believed in’’ (as in Hor. Od. 1.4.16; Prop. 3.5.45) rather than ‘byword’’, ‘laughingstock’’ (as in Tib. 1.4.83; Ov. Am. 3.1.21).

page 135 note 4 That a Golden Age is referred to in felices olim etc. emerges from 35, where contrasting ferrea saecula are introduced.

page 136 note 1 I take this person in 33 to be a rival, a dives amator, with whom the poet's girl has gone off into the country (thus Postgate (JPh 26 (1899), 182–96)Google Scholar and Bürger, R., in Charites, Festschrift Leo (1911), p.383).Google Scholar I prefer this interpretation to the alternative one according to which a fellow-lover and socius malorum is here addressed (thus Dissen comm. ad. loc; Karsten, H. (Mn. 16 (1888), 47);Google Scholar Lenz, apparatus criticus) simply for reasons of economy. A rival is definitely mentioned elsewhere in the poem, at 59 f., but a fellow-lover is not (unless, with Karsten and Lenz, we see a reference to him in 47, where tibi must then be read).

page 136 note 2 I agree with die majority of editors that we must mark a lacuna after 34. If we do not, the transition from at tu in 33 to the statement of 35–although not grammatically impossible–is simply too harsh for the invariably smooth Tibullus.

page 136 note 3 I here capitalize Venerem, as against Postgate's venerem.

page 137 note 1 She is named for the first time, most effectively, in 51.

page 138 note 1 The thought of 67 (as of 29–32) is highly compressed. The poet would seem to be reasoning along the following lines: the country is farmed for produce–rich men own farms–girls go off there with them–ergo if there were no produce girls would not go into the country.

page 139 note 1 In retrospect we can see an important difference between the poet's and Apollo's rustic servitium amoris as represented in Part I. The poet's servitium, we now realize, was self-defeating; the activities he envisaged for himself were all connected with the cultivation of the soil–but it was precisely this practice that made the country an unsuitable place for love. Apollo's servitium was (we presume) successful, since the tasks he undertook were exclusively pastoral and therefore appropriate in a non-agricultural Golden Age of Love.

page 139 note 2 See 1.3.35–^–8 and 1.10.7–12.

page 139 note 3 Note nullus, nulla, in 73.

page 140 note 1 The idea of servitium is here more strongly marked than in 5'page 14;10. Besides the phrase ad imperium dominae (79) there is also mention of chains (cp. ‘servitium sed triste datur teneorque catenis’’ in line 3 of the immediately following elegy, 2.4) and lashes in line 80.