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The sea of love

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. Murgatroyd
P. Murgatroyd
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McMaster University
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Extract

The sea of love (a convenient heading under which to group the various marine and nautical metaphors, similes, parallels, allusions, and analogies applied to love and sex) was one of the more important amatory figures. It featured in both Greek and Latin from earliest until latest times, was employed in several genres of verse (dominating whole poems on occasion), appearing in prose as well, and reached an advanced stage of development in the hands of the Alexandrians and particularly the Augustans. The purpose of this article is to provide the first comprehensive and detailed study of the sea of love from the archaic period until late antiquity.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , May 1995, pp. 9 - 25
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Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Most full so far have been Kahlmeyer, J., Seesturm und Schiffsbruch als Bild im antiken Schrifttum (Hildesheim, 1934), pp. 22–26Google Scholar; Penna, A. La ‘Note sul linguaggio erotico dell'elegia latina’, Maia 4 (1951), pp. 202–5Google Scholar; Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book I (Oxford, 1970), 78f.Google Scholar and Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse (Oxford, 1991), pp. 161–6Google Scholar. On such imagery in non-erotic contexts in Greek and Latin see Bonner, C., ‘Desired Haven’, Harvard Theological Review 34 (1941), pp. 49–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hollis, A. S., Ovid Ars Amatoria Book I (Oxford, 1977), p. 40Google Scholar.

2 The nearest approach to it in Homer is Od. 23.233ff. (in connection with marriage), where the returned Odysseus is as welcome to Penelope as land is to shipwrecked sailors. Cf. also Semonides 7.27ff. (the changeable type of woman is like the sea).

3 On the various difficulties here and for explanation see especially Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1955), pp. 191ff.Google Scholar and Koniaris, G. L., ‘Some thoughts on Alcaeus Frs. D15, X14, X16,’ Hermes 94 (1966), pp. 385–97Google Scholar.

4 For the motion cf. e.g. A.P. 5.54.4.

5 Cf. Hesychius ρετμόν' κώπη. κα τ νδρεῖον αἰδοῖον.

6 Cf. Henderson, (op. cit. n. 1) p. 164Google Scholar.

7 So e.g. Ussher, R. G., Aristophanes: Ecclesiazusae (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholarad loc. This is the standard and, I believe, correct interpretation, but cf. alsoWhitehorne, J. E. G., ‘Rowing with two oars at Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 1091’, Hermes 117, 3 (1989), pp. 363–6Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Hesychius ἔμβολον' Ἀριστοφάνης ν Θεσμοφοριαζούσαις τ αἰδοῖον, Eustath, . in Od. p. 1405, 20Google Scholar.

9 See Sommerstein, A. H., Aristophanes: Birds (Warminster, 1987)Google Scholar on 1256 and Henderson, op. cit. p. 164Google Scholar.

10 Cf. Lossau, M., Dionysus fortiter pugnans', Mnemosyne IV, 39 (1986), 389fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See Stanford, W. B., Aristophanes The Frogs (Basingstoke and London, 1963)Google Scholar and Dover, K. J., Aristophanes Frogs (Oxford, 1993) on 48Google Scholar.

12 Sommerstein, A. H., Aristophanes: Lysistrata (Warminster, 1990)Google Scholar on line 60 explains the major ambiguity there, but there could just possibly also be a simultaneous sexual ‘sailing’ pun as well. At Peace 341 perhaps an underlying erotic sense for πλεῖν is brought to the surface by βινεῖν. Henderson, (op. cit. pp. 161ff.)Google Scholar suggests many more examples of the sea of love in Aristophanes (and other Comic poets) which I regard as improbable for various reasons (e.g. they seem strained and contrived, there is no clear or specific marine or nautical reference, context is uncertain). Related river-imagery of love is also found in this period, at Eur. Hipp. 443; cf. also A.P. 12.139.3f. (Callimachus), 184.4 (Strato), Plaut. Bacch. 85f., Tib. 1.5.76 (see my commentary = Tibullus I, repr. Bristol, 1991, ad he), Prop. 1.9.16, 2.4.19f., Ovid A.A. 1.620, 2.181f., Rem. 97f., 121f., 445, 617f., 651f., Philostratus Epist. 32 Benner-Fobes (Loeb).

13 See Athenaeus 456B, Photius Bibl. 151B.

14 See especially Kock, T., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1880–1888Google Scholar) ad loc. and Henderson, (op. cit. p. 161, n. 49)Google Scholar. To their parallels for the erotic senses of the words add (e.g.) A.P. 5.161 and 204, where females are described as boats.

15 See Kock op. cit. ad loc, where Aristoph. Peace 142 is cited for πηδάλιον of the male member.

16 On Cydias cf. Kock, op. cit. vol. II p. 188Google Scholar and the note on Athenaeus 569A in Gulick, C. B., Athenaeus The Deipnosophists (Cambridge, Ma and London, 1959), vol. VI p. 73Google Scholar.

17 So too 29f. recall Horn. Od. 12.248f.

18 Cf. Horn. Od. 12.42f.

19 The figure may be present at the start of the highly fragmentary Theoc. Id. 31 (see Gow, A. S. F., Theocritus [Cambridge, 1952], II p. 519)Google Scholar. In A.P. 7.217.4 (Asclepiades) πρωτοπλόου is a variant reading for, πρωτοβόλου and also occurs in an alternative version of the quatrain ascribed to Plato in Diog. Laert. 3.31 (see Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology Hellenistic Epigrams [Cambridge, 1965], II pp. 144f.)Google Scholar.

20 So Gow, and Page HE II, p. 241Google Scholar.

21 Gow, and Page HE II, p. 144Google Scholar.

22 Cf. e.g. Catullus 11.17ff.

23 On which see Gow, and Page HE II, p. 640Google Scholar.

24 For this cf. also A.P. 5.11.2 (anon.).

25 As Powell, J. U., Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford, 1925)Google Scholarad he. suggests, Cercidas could be alluding to Trag. Frag. Adesp. 151 Nauck δισσ πνεύματα πνεῖς, Ἔρως. If so, that could be another instance of the figure in Classical Greek.

26 Cf. Hor. C. 1.5.13 and Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc.

27 Note in particular the alliteration in both lines and the placement of words in the pentameter.

28 Cf. A.P. 5.190.1.

29 The sea of Cypris is also found in A.P. 10.21.6, 12.167.4; cf. 5.190.2 and 12.157.4 as well.

30 See Gow, and Page HE II, p. 667Google Scholar.

31 For these see Tarán, S. L., The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden, 1979), pp. 109fGoogle Scholar.

32 Cf. Táran, , op. cit. pp. 112fGoogle Scholar.

33 Other possible Republican examples are Plaut. As. 519f. (where there could be a pun on sexual ‘rowing’), Merc. 875ff. and 890f. (perhaps the sea of love specifically, in view of 887, rather than a sea of troubles in general), Caecilius 243f. Warmington (context and reference unclear), Ter.Eun. 1083(in tranquillo may denote a tranquil state or the calm of the sea), Andria 846 (Shipp, G. P., P. Terenti Afri Andria [Melbourne, 1960]Google Scholarad he. explains this as a swimming metaphor), Cic. De Oratore 3.163 (Syrtim patrimonii and Charybdim bonorum may allude to courtesans) and Catull. 68.3 (which could be our figure, in view of 5f., or a sea of troubles generally).

34 For the rejection cf. Menander 536K.

35 In addition to the definite examples noted in my main text there are some other possible instances. At Prop. 2.33B.43 interpretation is problematical but aestus could be the tide of love (so Camps, W. A., Propertius Elegies Book II [Cambridge, 1967]Google Scholarad loc). At Prop. 3.20.2, although the primary reference is to an actual voyage, there may also be allusion to our figure (cf. Fedeli, P., Properzio II Libro Terzo delle Elegie [Bari, 1985]Google Scholarad loc). In Prop. 3.24.12 the shipwreck and the Aegean may be metaphorical, but text and reference are much disputed. At Tibullus 2.1.79f. urget could mean ‘drives’ (as a wind does), and placidus (in the sense of ‘favourable, tranquil’) andadflat ( = ‘blows’) could denote a gentle breeze that leads to an untroubled amatory voyage, and at 2.4.9f. just possibly Tibullus intimates that like the cautes he wants to withstand the wild wind and shipwrecking waves rather than being tossed and wrecked on the sea of love (see my commentary = Tibullus, Elegies II [Oxford, 1994]Google Scholar on both passages). In Ovid Am. 2.4.8, 2.10.9 and Rem. 635 one cannot be sure whether the sailing is at sea or on a lake or river. At Her. 15.72 the reference may be to the sea of love or the sea of life, and at Her. 18.207f. the naval imagery may be amatory. I cannot agree with those critics who maintain that the figure is present in Hor. C. 1.14 (esp. Anderson, W. S., ‘Horace Carm. 1.14: What Kind of Ship?’, CPh 61 [1966], pp. 84–98)Google Scholar or Prop. 1.17 (e.g. Solmsen, F., ‘Three Elegies of Propertius' First Book’, CPh 57 [1962], pp. 73–88Google Scholar; Leach, E. W., ‘Propertius 1.17. The Experimental Voyage’, YCIS 19 [1966], pp. 209–32Google Scholar; Wiggers, N. E. P., Heroic Love: A Study of Propertius' Adaptation of Erotic Tradition to Personal Poetry [diss. Brown University, 1972], pp. 127ff.)Google Scholar.

36 For the sake of perspective it should be noted that the sea of love did not reach as advanced a stage of development in the Augustans as militia amoris and servitium amoris (on which see my articles ‘Militia Amoris and the Roman Elegists’, Latomus 34 [1975], pp. 68ff.Google Scholar and ‘Servitium Amoris and the Roman Elegists’, Latomus 40 [1981], pp. 596ff.)Google Scholar.

37 On the text of 3 see Camps, W. A., Propertius Elegies Book III (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar and Fedeli op. cit. ad loc.

38 On the interpretation of the line see Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Cambridge, 1956), p. 85Google Scholar.

39 For the practice, and for the point of the reference in Ovid, see Henderson, A. A. R., P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris (Edinburgh, 1979)Google Scholarad loc.

40 At Prop. 3.24.15–17 many items are packed in (including the new garlands and Syrtes, and the twist to reaching port, which now denotes falling out of love), and there is a gorgeous mixture of marine and other imagery in the latter part of the poem. Ovid, Met. 9. 589–94Google Scholar consists of an extended nautical metaphor, but apart from the testing of the wind with a close-reefed sail the individual elements are unremarkable.

41 Aspera means ‘rough’ and also ‘savage’, ‘hostile’, ‘grievous’ and ‘formidable’ (OLD s.v. 4c, 9, 11, 13, 15); nigris refers to the black storm-clouds brought by the winds but also has menacing connotations of ill omen and death (OLD s.v. 7, 8).

42 See Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc. for explication and parallels. The emendation deae in 16 (which Nisbet-Hubbard favour inter alia because of the analogous dedication to Venus in C. 3.26) seems unnecessary: deo could denote a goddess (Thes. L.L. V, 1.890.16ff.) and may be deliberately ambiguous.

43 Cf. e.g. Virgil, Georgics 1. 204ff., 3.258ffGoogle Scholar.

44 See Hollis, op. cit. on 399–436, 399–400, 403 and 411–12Google Scholar.

45 There are four other possible examples in addition to those mentioned in the main text. Plutarch at Mor. 75IE will be referring to storms and calm on the sea of love if γαλνῃ denotes quiet of the sea rather than just quiet in general. In A.P. 12.252.3 Strato may have in mind an actual voyage or an amatory voyage looking for boys or tossing around during pedicatio (see my article ‘Strato A.P. 12. 252’, Hermes 113 [1985], pp. 253–5)Google Scholar. At Musaeus 212–15 Leander may be simply likening himself swimming to a ship sailing, but the idea could be that he will sail on the sea of love, guided by Hero's lamp, to harbour with her. The words ῃλον σε αủτοῖς λροῖς καταπιôυσα at Alciphron, Epist. 2.31.2Google Scholar Benner-Fobes may be intended to conjure up Charybdis.

46 See Hercher, R., Erotici Scriptores Graeci (Leipzig, 1859), II p. 516Google Scholar.

47 See Page, D. L., The Epigrams of Rufinus (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 88fGoogle Scholar.

48 See LSJ s.v. συμμεγνυμι II 2 and 3 for these meanings.

49 Cf. Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London, 1982), p. 167Google Scholar.

50 Cf. esp. Homer, Od. 11.14ffGoogle Scholar.

51 For figs so used and for topographical imagery of the anus see Adams, (op. cit. n. 49), pp. 113fGoogle Scholar.

52 LSJ s.v. κλπος 12, Adams, op. cit. pp. 90fGoogle Scholar.

53 See Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip (Cambridge, 1968), II p. 141Google Scholar.