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Man and Beast in Lucretius and the Georgics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Monica R. Gale
Monica R. Gale
Affiliation:
Girton College, Cambridge
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Extract

The overwhelming importance of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura for the interpretation of the Georgics is recognized by almost all critics. As W. Y. Sellar expressed it over a hundred years ago, ‘the influence, direct and indirect, exercised by Lucretius on the thought, composition and even the diction of the Georgics was perhaps stronger than that ever exercised, before or since, by one poet on the work of another’. Richard Thomas' recent commentary attempts to play down the extent of this influence, contending that ‘the debt of Virgil to Lucretius in the Georgics is predominantly formal’, and manifests itself chiefly on a verbal level, whereby the poet seeks ‘to create a didactic appearance for his poem’. The aim of this paper is to reassert the pervasive importance of Lucretian ideas, as well as Lucretian language, throughout the poem, and particularly in Virgil's presentation of the physical and metaphysical relationships between man and beast.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 414 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 Sellar, W. Y., The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil (Oxford, 1883), p. 199.Google Scholar

2 Thomas, R. F., Virgil: Georgics (Cambridge, 1988), i.4Google Scholar. Mynors' recently-published commentary (Mynors, R. A. B., Virgil: Georgics (Oxford, 1990))Google Scholar also limits itself to pointing out specific Lucretian echoes, without exploring Virgil's engagement with the DRN as a whole. Mynors would presumably have addressed the matter of Lucretian influence in his introduction, had he lived to complete it.

3 Ibid., ii, 130f.

4 Virgil's two proems also contain verbal and thematic echoes of the Lucretian passages. His claim to be the first to have brought down the Muses from the Aonian mount to Italy (3.8ff.) is modelled on Lucretius' praises of Ennius and Epicurus (cf. ‘primus … deducam Musas’ with ‘primus … detulit coronam’ (DRN 1.117f.); ‘me … tollere humo’ with ‘tollere contra … oculos’ (DRN 1.66f); ‘victorque’, ‘primus … referam tibi’ with ‘primus’, ‘refert nobis victor’ (DRN 1.71, 75); and see further Hardie, P. R., Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), pp. 48–51)Google Scholar. The invocation of a goddess and the encomiastic element are also, of course, present in Lucretius' first proem, and the proud boast of 19f. (where the metaphor of the Italian games is used to suggest that Virgil intends to surpass his Greek models) is perhaps not unrelated to Lucretius' emphasis on Epicurus' Greek nationality (1.66) and his reflexions on the poverty of the Latin language (1.136–45). It may also be relevant that Virgil discusses Octavian's Trojan ancestry (34–6), which included Lucretius' ‘Aeneadum genetrix’, although she is not explicitly mentioned by Virgil. Correspondences between Virgil's second proem and Lucretius 4.1–25 are discussed below.

5 Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics (Princeton, 1979), p. 177.Google Scholar

6 Miles, G. B., ‘Georgics 3.209–294: Amor and Civilization’, CSCA 8 (1975), 177–97.Google Scholar

7 Thomas, op. cit., ii.49.

8 Wilkinson, L. P., The Georgics of Virgil (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 128fGoogle Scholar.; Liebeschuetz, W., ‘Beast and Man in the Third Book of Virgil's Georgics’, G&R 12 (1965), 68–72.Google Scholar

9 2.317–22; 1.259–61; 2.352–66.

10 2.263–5; 4.547f., 638–41, 678–83, 710–21; 4.984–1010; 4.1197–1207.

11 6.738–829.

12 5.932.

13 Cf. Schiesaro, A., Simulacrum et Imago: Gli Argomenti Analogici nel De Rerum Natura (Pisa, 1990), pp. 122–33.Google Scholar

14 See Murley, C., ‘Lucretius De Rerum Natura Viewed as Epic’, TAPA 78 (1947), 336–46Google Scholar; Hardie, op. cit., pp. 193–219; Mayer, R., ‘The Epic of Lucretius’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 6 (1990), 35–43.Google Scholar

15 The Lucretian simile has been well analysed by various authors: see especially Townend, G., ‘Imagery in Lucretius’, in Dudley, D. R. (ed.), Lucretius (London, 1965), pp. 95–114Google Scholar; West, D., The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 74–8Google Scholar and ‘Virgilian Multiple-Correspondence Similes and their Antecedents’, Philologus 114 (1970), 262–75Google Scholar; Pasoli, E., ‘Ideologia nella Poesia: lo Stile di Lucrezio’, Lingua e Stile 5 (1970), 367–86Google Scholar; Leen, A., ‘The Rhetorical Value of the Similes in Lucretius’, in Bright, D. F. and Ramage, E. S. (eds.), Classical Texts and their Traditions: Studies in Honour of C. R. Trahman (Chico, California, 1984), pp. 107–23Google Scholar; Hardie, op. cit., pp. 219–23; Schiesaro, op. cit.

16 Cf. 1.744, 808; 2.1016 etc.

17 2.991–8.

18 Leen, op. cit., p. 117.

19 D. West, art. cit. (n. 15 above).

20 Cf. Leen, op. cit., pp. 115–17.

21 Pöschl, V., The An of Virgil. Image and Symbol in the Aeneid (trans. Seligson, G., Ann Arbor, 1970), p. 92Google Scholar (quoted by Leen, loc. cit.).

22 For examples of the anthropomorphic treatment of animals in other books, see 1.181f., 186, 410ff.; 2.209f.; 4.511–15 and passim.

23 Cf. Thomas, op.cit., ad loc.

24 This presumably refers to the drivers, although, as Thomas notes, the phrase is momentarily ambiguous in a context where the age of the horse is under discussion.

25 Cf. Il. 23.362–72.

26 The allusion is clearly signalled by the Lucretian phrase ‘nonne vides’, which introduces both descriptions.

27 Cf. Miles, op. cit., pp. 180f.

28 Cic. De Or. 1.234, Brut. 142; Quint. Inst. 1. pr. 5, 10.1.59, 10.3.23.

29 Cf. Thomas, op. cit., ad loc.

30 Cf. Od. 9.233f., 319–24.

31 E.g. 2.701–9, 4.732–48, 5.878ff.

32 Cf. Kenney, E. J., ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnemosyne ser. 4.23 (1970), 366–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Op. cit., p. 164. Hardie draws attention to the corresponding metrical position of the words ’hie…nomine’ in G. 3.280 and ‘haec…nomen’ in DRN 4.1058, and the use of the verb ‘(de)stillare’ in both contexts. Both poets use the etymological play to sum up their characterization of amor: ‘Virgil… exploits the general function of the Lucretian passage as a bleak summary of the reality of love; the final result of amor is this odious secretion whose use is only destructive.’

34 Cf. ‘caeco’ 1120, ‘caeci’ 1153; ‘stimuli’ 1082, ‘Veneris stimulis’ 1215; ‘ardor’ 1077, ‘ardoris’ 1086, ‘ardescit’ 1090, ‘ardorem’ 1098, ‘ardoris’ 1116, ‘ut ignis’ 1138; ‘spectando’ 1102; ‘dulcedinis’ 1059, ‘dulce’ 1062; ‘inliciaris’ 1145.

35 Cf. also Varius Rufus, De Morte fr. 4.5: ‘non amnes illam medii, non ardua tardent’. The line is part of a simile which describes the behaviour of a hunting dog, though unfortunately the object of the comparison is lost. If Hollis, A. S. (‘L. Varius Rufus, De Morte (frr. 1–4 Morel)’, CQ 27 (1979), 186–90)Google Scholar is correct in his hypothesis that the De Morte was an Epicurean poem along the lines of DRN 3, it seems very probable that Varius exploited the analogy between animals and man in the same way as Lucretius.

36 Cf. Hardie, op. cit., pp. 158–66.

37 Cf. Hunter, R. L., ‘Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil’, CQ 39 (1989), 557–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 DRN 5.925–1010. Cf. especially ‘instrato saxa cubili' with Lucretius’ ‘instrata cubilia fronde’ (5.987; cf. 970–2), ‘frondibus hirsutis et carice pastus acuta’ with the description of early man's ‘pabula dura’ in 5.939–44.

39 Op. cit., p. 195 n. 8.

40 Cf. Putnam, op. cit., p. 199; Mynors, ad loc.

41 The effect is very similar at Ecl. 6.10: ‘si quis tamen haec quoque, si quis | captus amore leget’ (cf. Coleman, R., Virgil: Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977), ad loc.)Google Scholar. Here again, amor is both the subject of the poem and the emotion experienced by the reader. Love/friendship is, of course, a central theme in the Eclogues, where its rôle is perhaps even more ambivalent than in the Georgics.

42 Cf. especially 292f. with DRN 4.If.: ‘avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante | trita solo, iuvat integros accedere fontis…’.

43 The parallelism is also emphasized, as Putnam (op. cit., p. 221) and others have noted, by the similarity of some of the symptoms produced by amor and the plague, especially forgetfulness of normal pursuits (498 and 216).

44 Klepl, H., Lukrez und Virgil in ihren Lehrgedichten (Darmstadt, 1967)Google Scholar; West, D. A., ‘Two Plagues: Virgil, Georgics 3.478–566 and Lucretius 6.1090–1286’, in West, D. and Woodman, T. (eds.), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 71–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrison, E. L., ‘The None Plague and Virgil's Third Georgic’, PLLS 2 (1979), 1–65.Google Scholar

45 ‘stans…ad aram’ ~ ‘ante aras adstare (DRN 1.89); ‘circumdatur infula’ ~ ‘infula …circumdata’ (1.87); ‘inter cunctantis ministros’ ~ ‘ferrum celare ministros’ (1.90); ‘cecidit moribunda’ ~ ‘terrain…petebat…tremibunda’ (1.92, 95).

46 The horse's drooping ears and pounding hooves contrast with its light step and pricked-up ears in the earlier description (76, 84), while ‘victor equus’ reminds us of its earlier enthusiasm for victory (102, 112), now forgotten. The catalogue of symptoms in 500–8–cold sweat, dry skin, bright eyes, deep and sobbing breaths, bleeding from the nose and swelling of the tongue and throat–is taken directly from Lucretius' account, while ‘mox erat hoc ipsum exitio’ (511) echoes ‘hoc aliis erat exitio’ in DRN 6.1229. Cf. West, op. cit., pp. 80f.; Harrison, op. cit., pp. 12f.; and Thomas, op. cit., ad loc.

47 Cf. for example Ov. Am. 3.9.21f. (the lament for Tibullus), which, perhaps significantly, contains a reference to Orpheus.

48 Note too the reference to Chiron and Melampus in 550. Aside from their fame as healers, the two mythological figures also have a special relevance because their stories (like those of Saturn and Io) involve a blurring of the boundary between animal and man. The centaur Chiron was the product of the union between Philyra and the horse-Saturn alluded to in 92–4; Melampus cured the daughters of Proetus of the madness which made them believe that they were cows (Apollod. 1.9.12, Vitruv. 8.3.21). Ironically, neither is able to cure the plague, which makes men behave like animals.

49 The question was originally raised by Harrison (op. cit.); see also Thomas, ad loc; Mynors, ad 3.476.

50 Harrison compares her rôle in Aen. 6.554ff.

51 Harrison interprets 531–3 as explaining the ritual error of the Norici. But the usual interpretation of the lines (the lack of oxen is a result of the plague) is much more natural, since, as Thomas remarks ad loc., ‘the phrase tempore non alio clearly situates the events of these lines within the course of the plague.’

52 The idea that one cannot guarantee the efficacy of sacrifice, since the gods may have plans of their own, is already present in the Homeric λλ' ὃ γε δκτο μν ἰρ, πνον δʼ μργατον ϕελλεν (Il. 2.420).

53 Griffin, J., ‘The Fourth Georgic, Virgil and Rome’, G&R 26 (1979), 61–80.Google Scholar

54 See Griffin, op. cit., p. 77 n. 9 for further references.

55 E.g. 203f., 210–18, 156–96.

56 Cf. Otis, B., Virgil: a Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1963), pp. 181–90.Google Scholar

57 E.g. 25–9, 83, 86f., 170–8.

58 See Griffin, p. 78 n. 18 for further references. Even Varro remarks that bees have justly been called ‘Musarum volucres’ (RR 3.16.7). It is true that the bees' smallness has a symbolic value in the programmatic statement of 4.1–7; but the fact that they can be used to symbolize the Callimachean tenuitas of Virgil's poetry is not incompatible with the idea that they themselves have no art.

59 This emphasis on vulnerability is also part of the build-up to the plague, as Otis (op. cit., pp. 176–9) and others have pointed out.

60 Segal, C. P., ‘Delubra Decora: Lucr. 11.352–66’, Latomus 29 (1970), 104–18.Google Scholar

61 Although these actions are not in themselves cruel, since the aim is, after all, to save as many of the sheep as possible, the comparison with the barbaric northerners who drink milk mixed with blood (461–3) and the violence of ‘compesce’ (468) after the pastoral imagery of 464–7 tend to portray the farmer in a far from favourable light.

62 Cf. 3.965, 970.

63 An earlier version of this paper was read to the Literary Seminar of the Classics Faculty in the University of Cambridge in November 1990. Thanks are due to all who contributed to the ensuing discussion, and to Michael Reeve, who read and commented on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the editors of CQ for their helpful comments and advice.