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ELEGIAC AMOR AND MORS IN VIRGIL'S ‘ITALIAN ILIAD’: A CASE STUDY (AENEID 10.185−93)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

Sarah L. McCallum
Sarah L. McCallum*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In Book 10 of the Aeneid, Virgil presents an epic catalogue of Etruscan allies who return under Aeneas' command to the beleaguered Trojan camp (10.166–214), including the forces from Liguria. The account of the Ligurians initially conforms to the general pattern of the catalogue, as Virgil briefly introduces and describes the two leaders. But the description of Cupauo's swan-feather crest leads to a digression about the paternal origins of the avian symbol. Cupauo's father Cycnus, stricken with grief for his beloved Phaethon, was transformed from a mournful singer into the swan that bears his name (10.185–93):

      non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello,
      transierim, Cinyre, et paucis comitate Cupauo,
      cuius olorinae surgunt de uertice pennae
      (crimen, Amor, uestrum) formaeque insigne paternae.
      namque ferunt luctu Cycnum Phaethontis amati,
      populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum 190
      dum canit et maestum Musa solatur amorem,
      canentem molli pluma duxisse senectam
      linquentem terras et sidera uoce sequentem.
Virgil not only places the Ligurians in a central position within the catalogue, but also devotes more verses to them than to any other contingent, including his own Mantuans (10.198–206). At the very heart of this prominent passage lies the embedded tale of Cycnus, the erotic and sorrowful centrepiece of Virgil's Etruscan catalogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 693 - 703
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of Canada in May 2012 and the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association in January 2013, where I was grateful to receive helpful comments and feedback from those in attendance. The final version presented here has benefited from the generous encouragement and critical feedback of Michael Dewar, Fanny Dolansky, Alison Keith, Richard Thomas and the anonymous readers of CQ, all of whom I thank sincerely. This research was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

1 The Ligurian passage consists of thirteen verses framed by nineteen and seventeen lines of the catalogue proper (10.166–84 and 10.198–214). For a discussion of the overall structure of Virgil's catalogue of Etruscan forces, see S.J. Harrison, Vergil Aeneid 10 (Oxford, 1991), 107–9.

2 Ancient etymologies connect elegy to funeral lament (ἔλεος, εὖ λέγειν, ἔ ἔ λέγειν): see R. Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds, 1991), s.vv. elegeus, elegia, elegiacus. For further discussion and bibliography regarding the erotic and sepulchral facets of elegy and the interconnected themes of amor and mors, see A.M. Keith (ed.), Latin Elegy and Hellenistic Epigram: A Tale of Two Genres at Rome (Newcastle, 2011); and T.R. Ramsby, Textual Permanence: Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition (London, 2007).

3 For discussion on Virgil's experimentation with erotic elegy throughout the amatory narrative of Dido and Aeneas in Aeneid 4, see Newton, F.L., ‘Recurrent imagery in Aeneid IV’, TAPhA 88 (1957), 31–43 Google Scholar; F. Cairns, Virgil's Augustan Epic (Cambridge, 1989), 129–50; N. Horsfall (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 1995), 124–5; D. Nelis, Vergil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds, 2001), 67, 166, 184, 385; and S.J. Harrison, Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (Oxford, 2007), 210–14.

4 Harrison (n. 1), 119 on 10.185–6 suggests that the combination of litotes and apostrophe strikes a panegyrical note.

5 The only other address in the catalogue belongs to the territory of Mantua: qui muros matrisque dedit tibi, Mantua, nomen (10.200).

6 The apparatus criticus for 10.186, as presented by R.A.B. Mynors (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Oxford, 1969), shows the confusion in the MSS at this point: ‘186 Cunare Dseru.: Cinyr(a)e, Cynir(a)e, Cinire (quae idem ualent) MVω: Cinerae P2 (cinere ceuv): Cunerae P1 : Cumarre R’. See also Servius on Aen. 10.185: ‘Cycne; Cunare, quidam duci nomen datum tradunt a Cunaro monte, qui in Piceno.’ A strikingly similar problem of transmission occurs in the Horatian corpus: Horace refers four times to a mistress whose name is variously preserved as Cinara, Cinira, Cinyra, Cinura, Cynara, Cynira, etc. See Hor. Carm. 4.1.4 with the apparatus of E.C. Wickham and H.W. Garrod (edd.), Q. Horati Flacci Opera (Oxford, 19122), and Hor. Carm. 4.13.21, Ep. 1.7.28 and Ep. 1.14.33 with F. Klingner (ed.), Q. Horati Flacci Opera (Leipzig, 1959). J.D. Morgan makes an intriguing argument in favour of the variant Cinyra/Cinura: see R.F. Thomas, Horace Odes Book IV and Carmen Saeculare (Cambridge, 2011), 88–9 on Hor. Carm. 4.1.3–4.

7 See Mynors (n. 6), 339 on Aen. 10.186; R.D. Williams (ed.), The Aeneid of Virgil Books 7–12 (London, 1973), 81 on 10.186; and J. O'Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996), 223–4.

8 See S. Timpanaro, Contributi di filologia e di storia della lingua Latina (Rome, 1978), 289–317; Harrison (n. 1), 119 on 10.185–6; and J. Henderson (ed.), Virgil Aeneid VII–XII, Appendix Vergiliana (Cambridge, 2000), 184 on 10.186.

9 M. Paschalis, Virgil's Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names (Oxford, 1997), 350–1.

10 See T.E. Page (ed.), The Aeneid of Virgil Books VII–XII (London, 1931), 75 on 10.186; and F. Ahl, Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca and London, 1985), 33.

11 Richards, H., ‘Notes on the Aeneid ’, The Journal of Philology 5 (1873), 134–41Google Scholar.

12 On the connection between Cinyrus, κινυρός (‘wailing, plaintive’) and κινύρομαι (‘utter a plaintive sound, lament’), see Ahl (n. 10), 33 n. 11; O'Hara (n. 7), 224; and Paschalis (n. 9), 351. However, Paschalis (n. 9), 350 connects Cinerus, his preferred variant, to Ἔρως (≈ -erus).

13 The simile compares Menelaus, bestriding the corpse of Patroclus, to a mother cow wailing over her first-born calf (ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ αὐτῷ βαῖν᾽ ὥς τις περὶ πόρτακι μήτηρ | πρωτοτόκος κινυρὴ οὐ πρὶν εἰδυῖα τόκοιο, Homer, Il. 17.4–5).

14 On the two occurrences of κινυρός in the Iliad and the Argonautica, see Ahl (n. 10), 33 n. 11; O'Hara (n. 7), 224; and Paschalis (n. 9), 351. In his comparative study of the Aeneid and the Argonautica, Damien Nelis classifies the Virgilian Cycnus myth (10.189–93) as a potential ‘imitation, involving verbal allusion and/or similarity of action’ related to the Apollonian description of the Heliades (Ap. Rhod. 4.603b–626), but does not include this particular correspondence in his detailed discussion: see Nelis (n. 3), 478, 503.

15 See LSJ s.v. λιγύς II. See also LSJ s.v. λιγυρός. For discussion of potential wordplay between Ligus and λιγύς, see Ahl (n. 10), 33; M.C.J. Putnam, Artifices of Eternity. Horace's Fourth Book of Odes (Ithaca and London, 1986), 44; O'Hara (n. 7), 224; Paschalis (n. 9), 351; and A. Barchiesi (ed.), Ovidio Metamorfosi. Volume I (Libri I–II) (Milan, 2005), 268 on 2.367–80. Ahl (n. 10), 33 n. 10 further notes that the Greek adverb λιγέως suggests lamentation in Homer, and thus denotes sounds that are not only clear but also melancholy.

16 It is perhaps worth noting that Virgil's Heliades inherit the poplar form of their Hellenistic predecessors (ταναῇσιν ἐελμέναι αἰγείροισιν, Ap. Rhod. 4.604; populeas inter frondes, Aen. 10.190).

17 Ahl (n. 10), 33 and Paschalis (n. 9), 351 suggest that Ligurum (10.185), through its phonetic connection to λιγύς, is evocative of the plaintive singing of Cycnus.

18 As an anatomical term, the noun uertex denotes the crown or topmost part of the human head, from which the hair radiates: see Lewis and Short s.v. uertex III and OLD 2 s.v. uertex 2. Hollis, A.S., ‘Hellenistic colouring in Virgil's Aeneid ’, HSPh 94 (1992), 269–85Google Scholar, at 277 goes so far as to wonder whether the plumes are actually growing from Cupauo's head, in imitation of the fantastical locks of hair that appear in Hellenistic verse.

19 Paschalis (n. 9), 350 suggests that the name Cupauo evokes Cupido and auis with reference to Cycnus' metamorphosis. Difference in vowel length does not preclude wordplay between -āuo and the nouns ăuis and ăuus: see Ahl (n. 10), 56–7, who comments on and provides examples for abundant wordplay across vowel quantities in Latin literature.

20 As Harrison (n. 1), 119 on 10.185–6 observes, no other extant sources feature the name or character of Cupauo.

21 I allude here to the discussion of Conte, G.B., ‘Proems in the middle’, YClS 29 (1992), 147–59Google Scholar, at 149, who suggests that proems interweave and superimpose thematic (quid) and programmatic information (quale).

22 Though absolute certainty remains impossible, the proem is generally regarded as a non-Virgilian interpolation. For further discussion and bibliography, see Austin, R.G., ‘ Ille ego qui quondam ’, CQ 18 (1968), 107–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G.B. Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets (Ithaca, 1986), 84–5; L. Gamberale, ‘II cosiddetto preproemio dell'Eneide’, in A. Butteto and M. von Albrecht (edd.), Studi di filologia classica in onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo, 1991), 963–80; Horsfall (n. 3), 24; Farrell, J., ‘Ovid's Virgilian career’, MD 52 (2004), 41–55 Google Scholar; J.M. Ziolkowski and M.C.J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (New Haven and London, 2008), 22–5; I. Peirano, The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context (Cambridge, 2012), 76–7, 248–9; and P. Knox, ‘Incipit’, in R.F. Thomas and J.M. Ziolkowski (edd.), The Virgil Encyclopedia (Chichester, 2014), 651.

23 The other occurrences in the Aeneid of the narrative self-referential ego in the dative and the ablative are: mihi, 1.8; mihi, 6.266; mihi, 7.44; mecum, 9.528; and mihi, 12.500.

24 For discussion and examples of the ‘passer-by’ motif, see R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, 1962), 230–4; E. Wolff, La poésie funéraire épigraphique à Rome (Rennes, 2000), 45–53; and C.C. Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-Century Attic Funerary Epigrams (Berlin and New York, 2008), 219–24.

25 See e.g. CE 123.1 frequens uiator saepe qui transis lege; CE 1152.3 tu qui uia Flaminea transis, resta ac relege; CE 1879.1 tu uiator qui transis rist(a) leg(e) tit(ulum) obiter.

26 See e.g. CE 1330.2 terris quicumque uiator transieris et dixeris [h]ui[c] tumulo Auito [h]aue.

27 The embedded ‘passer-by’ motif characterizes the Etruscan catalogue as a series of epitaphic commemorations. Indeed, with the exception of Asilas, all of the leaders either ‘perish’ from the text, never to be seen again (Massicus, Astur, Cinyrus, Cupauo and Ocnus), or reappear only to be slain (Abas, 10.427; Aulestes, 12.290). Harrison (n. 1), 106–7 observes that, unlike other epic catalogues, the Etruscan catalogue introduces heroes without significant roles.

28 See n. 2, above. On sepulchral/epitaphic elements in Propertius, see W.A. Camps (ed.), Propertius Elegies Book I (Cambridge, 1961), 98–101; P. Fedeli (ed.), Sesto Properzio: Il Primo Libro Delle Elegie (Florence, 1980), 199–200, 412, 485–86, 496–9; P. Murgatroyd, Tibullus I (Bedminster, 1980), 50; Herrera, G.R., ‘Propertius 2.1.71–78 and the Latin Epitaphs’, Mnemosyne 52 (1999), 194–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and P. Fedeli (ed.), Properzio. Il Libro Secondo (Cambridge, 2005), 103–5, 337–8, 393–7. On sepulchral/epitaphic elements in Tibullus, the first elegist to include his own epitaph, see M.C.J. Putnam (ed.), Tibullus: A Commentary (Norman, 1973), 58–9; F. Della Corte, Tibullo: Le Elegie (Milan, 1980), 133, 158; Murgatroyd (this note), 50–1, 65–6, 116–7; and R. Maltby, Tibullus: Elegies, Text, Introduction and Commentary (Cambridge, 2002), 143, 201.

29 On Virgil's use of crimen to denote the ‘reproach’ to Amor, see Richards (n. 11), 137–8; Page (n. 10), 312–13 on 10.187–8; Williams (n. 7), 334–5 on 10.188; and Harrison (n. 1), 120 on 10.188.

30 On the elegiac significance of amor, see R. Pichon, Index Verborum Amatorium (Paris, 1902 [repr. Hildesheim, 1966]), s.v. amor; Cairns (n. 3), 147; and D.F. Kennedy, The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Latin Love Elegy (Cambridge, 1993), 24–5, 50–1.

31 A.M. Keith, The Play of Fictions: Studies in Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 2 (Ann Arbor, 1992), 144–5.

32 Examples of Amor's cruelty abound in Propertius (e.g. 1.1.4, 1.1.17, 1.1.34, 1.7.25–6): see Fedeli (n. 28 [1980]), 59 and 67 on 1.1.4, and 201 on 1.7.25–6.

33 On the similarity between crimen, Amor, uestrum (Aen. 10.188) and crimen Amoris (Prop. 1.11.30), see Richards (n. 11), 137–8; Page (n. 10), 312–13 on 10.187–8; Williams (n. 7), 334–5 on 10.188; Fedeli (n. 28 [1980]), 285 on Prop. 1.11.30; and Fedeli (n. 28 [2005]), 784–5 on Prop. 2.28.1–4.

34 See Fedeli (n. 28 [2005]), 859 on Prop. 2.30.24.

35 I wonder if it is possible to see an extremely subtle allusion to Phanocles' Ἔρωτες ἢ Καλοί (‘Loves and Beautiful Youths’) in this final line: the singular Amor augmented by the collective plural uestrum ≈ Amores ≈ Ἔρωτες; the genitive formae (‘form’, ‘appearance’) ≈ plural formae (‘beautiful forms’) ≈ Καλοί. An ancient commentator on Ovid's Metamorphoses provides explicit testimony that Phanocles treated the myth of Cycnus and Phaethon in his elegies (Phanocles in Cupidinibus auctor, fr. 6 Powell).

36 On the learned footnote namque ferunt (10.189), see Harrison (n. 1), 120 on 10.189; and Keith (n. 31), 144.

37 See Phanocles, fr. 6 Powell. On the influence of Phanocles, see T.P. Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester, 1979), 163; Harrison (n. 1), 111, 119–20 on 10.187–93; Hollis (n. 18), 277; and Keith (n. 31), 144.

38 See Harrison (n. 1), 119–20 on 10.187–93.

39 See Keith (n. 31), 144.

40 See Pichon (n. 30), s.vv. amare, amatores.

41 Elsewhere in the Aeneid, too, Virgil uses genre-specific terminology to characterize the artistic output of other poets: the cosmological song of the bard Iopas aligns him with natural philosophy and Hellenistic didacticism (1.740–6); and the subject matter treated by Cretheus identifies him as an epic poet, while evoking Virgil's own incipit (semper equos atque arma uirum pugnasque canebat , 9.777). See R.G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus (Oxford, 1971), 221–5 on 1.740–6; P. Hardie, Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), 52–60; and P. Hardie (ed.), Virgil Aeneid IX (Cambridge, 1994), 238–9 on 9.774–8.

42 On the literary-critical significance of mollis as a term for ‘soft’, elegiac, verse, often in opposition to durus, ‘hard’, epic verse, see TLL 5.1.2310.55–60 s.v. durus (‘in arte poetica: prop. 2, 1, 41 duro … uersu i.hexametro epico [opp. mollis de elegiae uersibus]’) and 8.1376.80–1377.10 s.v. mollis (‘de poesi elegiaca’). F. Cairns, Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 2006), 89–90, 111–13, 232–3 discusses the Gallan origins of the Propertian motif of mollis/durus.

43 Harrison (n. 1), 121 on 10.190–1 observes the clear echo of these Phanoclean lines in Virgil's description of Cycnus. See also Barchiesi (n. 15), 267 on Ov. Met. 2.367–80.

44 See Cairns (n. 42), 90, with further bibliography.

45 Natural solitude and medicina amoris may have been features of Gallan elegy: see H. Tränkle, Die Sprachkunst des Properz und die Tradition der lateinischen Dichtersprache (Wiesbaden, 1960), 22–5; D.O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy, and Rome (Cambridge, 1975), 66–8, 71–4, 77, 91, 95, 116; Cairns (n. 42), 100–1, 111–12, 136–40; and J. Fabre-Serris, Rome, l'Arcadie, et la mer des Argonautes (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2008), 56–7.

46 For umbra as a term for ‘shade’ or ‘shadow,’ see Lewis and Short s.v. I and OLD 2 s.v. 1, 3–4.

47 For umbra as a term for ‘shade’ or ‘ghost’ of the deceased, see Lewis and Short s.v. B.2 and OLD 2 s.v. 7. The noun umbra also appears as a funerary term on Latin epitaphs: see e.g. CE 1039.3, CE 395.3, CE 1110.4, CE 753.1, CE 428.6, etc.

48 On the association of swans with old age, see Ahl (n. 10), 194. Harrison (n. 1), 121–2 on 10.192 suggests that we are not meant to take Cycnus' old age as literal, since as amator he should not be a senex. Page (n. 10), 313 on 10.192 calls the imagery of old age a ‘highly artificial expression’ intended only as chromatic description. By contrast, Ovid (Met. 2.367–80) and Claudian (VI Cons. 159–77) portray Cycnus as a kinsman and senex, rather than a lover: see F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen, Buch I–III (Heidelberg, 1969), 334 on Met. 2.367–80; M. Dewar, Claudian: Panegyricus De Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford, 1996), 176 on 170, 173; Barchiesi (n. 15), 268 on Ov. Met. 2.367–80.

49 On the epitaphic motif of astral translation/deification, see Lattimore (n. 24), 28–43. For Latin examples, see CE 569.6 non tamen ad Manes sed caeli ad sidera pergis; CE 1363.1 sidera me retinent; CE 2097.4 qui retinet merito sidera celsa suo; CE 1109.15–16 quid o me ad sidera caeli | ablatum quereris?; CE 1535b.2 accessit astris; CE 611.4 mundus me sumpsit et astra.

50 Servius says of sidera uoce sequentem: est re uera relatus in sidera, sicut uidemus in sphaera (Servius on Aen. 10.193). Harrison (n. 1), 122 on 10.193 wonders if catasterism featured in Phanocles' Cycnus myth. Claudian identifies the Swan constellation with the Cycnus of the Phaethon myth: see Dewar (n. 48), 176 on Claud. VI Cons. 173. The metamorphosis of Cycnus also recalls Horace's envisioned transformation into a swan in Carm. 2.20, as noted by Harrison (n. 1), 122 on Aen. 10.193. I discuss the ways in which imagery of swans and metamorphosis connect Virgil's Cycnus myth to Horace's poetic declarations in Carm. 2.20, 4.1 and 4.10 in ‘Heu, Ligurine: echoes of Vergil in Horace Odes 4.1’, Vergilius 61 (forthcoming).

51 Embedded epitaphic elements (i.e. the passer-by motif, astral translation/deification) characterize the catalogue as a series of sepulchral commemorations. See above, n. 27.

52 Among the other evidence I am exploring are: the eroticized deaths of Nisus and Euryalus, Pallas, and Camilla; the corresponding laments of Euryalus' mother, Aeneas and Diana in Aen. 9–11; and the lament of Juturna in Aen. 12.