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Variations on a Military Theme in Ovid's Amores

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Elizabeth Thomas
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Extract

‘War with its strenuous exertions is the direct opposite of love with its languid sentimentality: nevertheless, that truism challenged ingenuity to invent reasons why they should not rather be considered as similar.’ This statement may serve as a basis for a survey of the use of the military metaphor in love poetry, in particular in Ovid's Amores, which illustrate the image in its most highly developed and perfected form.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1964 , pp. 151 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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References

page 151 note 1 Fränkel, H., ‘Ovid, A Poet between Two Worlds’ (Sather Classical Lectures, 1945). p. 28.Google Scholar

page 151 note 2 Am. i. 1. 1–4Google Scholar. The translation used throughout is that of Marlowe, Christopher in Brooke, C. F. Tucker's edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1910).Google Scholar

page 152 note 1 Am. ii. 1. 11–12, 35–38.Google Scholar

page 152 note 2 See infra, p. 162.Google Scholar

page 152 note 3 Am. iii. 15. 17–18.Google Scholar

page 152 note 4 Ibid. iii. 12. 15–16.

page 152 note 5 Ein Beitrag zur Bildersprache der antiken Erotik (Diss. Tübingen, 1930)Google Scholar. See also Pichon, R., De sermone amatorio apud latinos elegiarum scriptores (Diss. Paris, 1902).Google Scholar

page 152 note 6 (649–51) Ζεὺς γὰρ ἱμέρου βέλει

πρὸς σοῦ τέθαλπται καὶ συναίρεσθαι Κύπριν

θέλει.

page 153 note 1 (392–3)ἐ πεὶ μ' ἔρως ἔτρωσεν, ἐσκόπουν ὅπως

κάλλιστ' ἐνέγκαιμ' αὐτόν.

page 153 note 2 Translations from the Anthologia Palatina are those of the Loeb edition.

page 153 note 3 xxxvii. 11–14:

puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit, amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla, pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata, consedit istic.

page 154 note 1 The translation is that of E. C. Wickham.

page 154 note 2 See Spies, A., op. cit., p. 73Google Scholar: ‘Militare sub Amore ist auf das Banner dieser Erotiker geschrieben.’

page 154 note 3 Ovid Recalled (Cambridge, 1955), p. 49.Google Scholar

page 154 note 4 Ibid., p. 46.

page 154 note 5 Higham, T. F., ‘Ovid: Some Aspects of his Character and Aims’, Classical Review, 48 (1934), p. 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Luck, G., The Latin Love Elegy (London, 1959), p. 152Google Scholar: ‘Like Tibullus and Propertius, Ovid is a propounder of the gospel of romantic love.… He calls himself a “slave of love”, a “soldier of love”; he speaks of his own “worthlessness”, but these confessions are partly elegiac convention, partly self-irony.’

page 155 note 1 Am. i. 1. 13Google Scholar and i. 1. 21–26.

page 155 note 2 Ibid. iii. 15. 15–16. See supra, p. 152, note 3.Google Scholar

page 156 note 1 Am. ii. 10. 29–34.Google Scholar

page 156 note 2 A.A. ii. 233–4.Google Scholar

Cf. ibid. 674: hoc quoque militia est;

ibid. iii. 559:

hic rudis et castris mine primum notus Amoris;

ibid. 565–6:

ille vetus miles sensim et sapienter amabit

multaque tironi non patienda feret.

Her. vii. 32Google Scholar: frater Amor; castris militet ille tuis.

Cf. also Prop. i. 6. 29–30 ; ii. 1. 45; iv. 1. 137 ff., 148–9; Tib. ii. 6. 6–10.

page 156 note 3 e.g. Am. iii. 11. 5Google Scholar: vicimus et domitum pedibus calcamus Amorem.

page 157 note 1 Op. cit., p. 151: ‘The propositio, or thesis, is often stated right at the beginning, then developed methodically, each distich usually representing a step forward in a logical progression.’

page 157 note 2 Fränkel, , op. cit., p. 26.Google Scholar

page 157 note 3 x. I. 88.

page 157 note 4 nescit quod bene cessit relinquere (Contr. ix. 5. 17).Google Scholar

page 157 note 5 Postgate, J. P., Select Elegies of Propertius (London, 1926), pp. lxxxff.Google Scholar

page 157 note 6 Op. cit., p. 73.

page 158 note 1 Smith, K. F., Martial the Epigrammatist (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1920), p. 59Google Scholar, describes it as ‘manifestly a suasoria’. This is perhaps an exaggerated view, for the poem is not concerned with persuading Atticus, to whom it is addressed, to become a lover, or even, as the last line might suggest, to persuade a class of people to take up love, but rather its aim is simply to make a number of witty and paradoxical points.

page 158 note 2 Cf. A.A. ii. 235–8Google Scholar; Tib. i. 4. 41ff. Cf. Tib. i. 2. 29–30 and Prop. i. 16. 23–24 for the hardships suffered by the exclusus amator at his mistress's door.

page 158 note 3 Cf. A.A. ii. 244.Google Scholar

page 158 note 4 See infra, p. 162.Google Scholar

page 158 note 5 Plautus, in the Truculentus (170)Google Scholar—amator similest oppiai—shows a novel interpretation of this metaphor, where Astaphium compares a lover to a besieged hostile town, which the mistress must in this case besiege.

page 159 note 1 Am. ii. 9. 47–48.Google Scholar

page 159 note 2 Ibid. 23–24.

page 159 note 3 Ibid. ii. 10. 31–32, 35–36.

page 159 note 4 Cf. Prop, . ii. 22. 29–32Google Scholar. The letter from Briseis, to Achilles, (Her. iii)Google Scholar points out the contrast between a warrior Achilles and an Achilles capable of tender emotions. Briseis exhorts him to re-enter the Trojan conflict, maintaining that warlike activity is not incompatible with love: arma cape, Aeacide, sed me tamen ante recepta (87), and an tantum, dum me caperes, fera bella probabas / cumque mea patria laus tua victa iacet? (123–4). See Salvatore, A., ‘Motivi Poetici nelle “Heroides” di Ovidio’Google Scholar, Atti del Convegno Internazionale Ovidiano (Rome, 1959), vol. ii, p. 245.Google Scholar

page 160 note 1 Her. xvii. 253–6Google Scholar. Cf. also xiii. 83.

page 160 note 2 Am. i. 8. 96Google Scholar. Cf. Terence, , Andria 555: amantium irae amoris integratiost.Google Scholar

page 160 note 3 Am. i. 10. 19Google Scholar. See iii. 8, which expresses Ovid's objection to the military adventurer, his rival in his mistress's affections. ‘The dives amatar … is always for choice a professional soldier: the type … bequeathed to Plautus and Terence from the Comedy of Manners in Greece. In his coarse sensuality he stands at the opposite pole from the elegist, who exaggerates by contrast his own fragility, his horror of war, and the tenderness of spirit that is bred by the arts of peace’ (Higham, T. F., op. cit., p. 112Google Scholar and note 2, where attention is drawn to K. F. Smith's note on Tib. i. 5. 47–48).

page 160 note 4 Am. iii. 2. 49–50.Google Scholar

page 160 note 5 See infra, p. 163.Google Scholar

page 160 note 6 See in particular R.A. 143–4Google Scholar and the lines immediately following.

page 161 note 1 Tib. i. 1. 73–76:

nunc levis est tractanda Venus, dum frangere postes

non pudet et rixas inseruisse iuvat.

hic ego dux milesque bonus: vos, signa tubaeque,

ite procul, cupidis vulnera ferte viris.

Prop. ii. 22. 33–34:

ille vel hic classis poterant vel perdere muros:

hic ego Pelides, hic ferus Hector ego.

page 162 note 1 See supra, p. 152.Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 Am. ii. 18. 35–40, 11–12.Google Scholar

page 163 note 1 There are numerous references elsewhere in Ovid to this stock metaphor. Am. ii. 1. 17, 20, 27Google Scholar; 19. 37–38; iii. 8. 7, 31–32; 11. 9; A.A. ii. 244, 523–6, 635–6; iii. 71; R.A. 35–36, 506–8, 677–8Google Scholar. It reflects the actual disregard of young Romans for their mistresses' front doors, which is commonly referred to in comedy as well as in elegy. In the Adelphi (101–3) Micio considers it no crime for a young man to break down doors. The most obvious parallels for the motif are Prop. i. 16Google Scholar, Tib. i. 2 , and also Hor. Odes iii. 10Google Scholar, while ProfessorEnk, in Sex. Properti Elegiarum Liber I (Monobiblos) (Leyden, 1946), p. 136Google Scholar, draws attention to Plautus, , Curculio 147 ff.Google Scholar, as the first example in Latin literature of a door being addressed as a living being. Cf. also Cat. lxvii, a conversation between door and poet. Callimachus, , A.P. v. 23Google Scholar, and Theocritus iii are among the Greek forebears of the image.

page 163 note 2 Op. cit., p. 73.

page 163 note 3 Enk, , op. cit., p. 141Google Scholar, note on Prop. i. 16. 14.

page 163 note 4 See Copley, F. O., ‘Servitium amoris in the Roman Elegists’, TAPA 78 (1947), p. 294Google Scholar. Ovid longs to change places with the ianitor, the mistress's servant, if only he may enjoy or suffer the delights of love. For to Ovid servire puellae is synonymous with amare puellam. Cf. Herrick's ‘To Anthea’.

page 163 note 5 See Copley, , op. cit., p. 299.Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 Am. i. 2. 19–30Google Scholar. Cf. also Lucr. i. 31–40.

page 164 note 2 Prop. iii. 1. 9–12. Cf. also Am. i. 2. 35–36Google Scholar. See Day, A. A., The Origins of Latin Love-Elegy (Oxford, 1938), p. 128.Google Scholar

page 164 note 3 Op. cit., p. 129, note 5.

page 164 note 4 Cf. Am. ii. 9. 16Google Scholar; 18. 18.

page 164 note 5 Cf. ii. 9. 35–38; A.A. iii. 515–16Google Scholar; R.A. 699–702Google Scholar. See Day, A. A., op. cit., p. 132Google Scholar, who finds in Ovid's appeal to Cupid, in Am. ii. 9. 13–14,Google Scholar

quid iuvat in nudis hamata retundere tela

ossibus? ossa mihi nuda reliquit Amor,

an echo of Archias'

ὁπλίευ, Κύπρι, τόξα καὶ εἰς σκοπὸν ἥσυχος ἐλθὲ

ἄλλον ἐγὼ γὰρ ἔχω τραύματος οὐδὲ τόπον.(Call., A.P. v. 98.)Google Scholar

page 165 note 1 Am. ii. 9. 3–6.Google Scholar