Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T13:29:39.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Philemon and Baucis in Ovid's Metamorphoses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Alan H. F. Griffin
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The number of religious motifs found in the Philemon-Baucis tale (Met. 8.611–724) is strikingly large. Brooks Otis is right to see the story primarily as a theodicy, designed to vindicate the power and influence of the gods. He draws attention to the contrast and balance of the Philemon-Baucis and Erysichthon episodes at the centre of the Metamorphoses: the Philemon-Baucis is a story of piety and its reward, the Erysichthon is a story of impiety and its punishment. At the midpoint of the poem Ovid tells two moralistic tales. The charm of the Philemon-Baucis can be attributed in large measure to the way in which Ovid tells the story: “he is not closely involved with the characters of Philemon and Baucis and allows humour and touches of cynicism to colour his narrative about them. The tone is sympathetic [ and the edifying character of the tale makes it stand out among the I generally tragic, erotic, and vengeful stories which fill the Metamorphoses.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 1991, pp. 62 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

NOTES

1. Otis, Brooks, Ovid as an Epic Poet 2 (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 413–4Google Scholar.

2. Galinsky, G. Karl, Ovid's Metamorphoses (Oxford, 1975), pp. 197–204Google Scholar, points out that Ovid has shifted the emphasis of the Philemon-Baucis from its original religious themes to its narrative qualities and has adopted a detached and amused attitude towards the protagonists.

3. Otis, Brooks, op. cit., pp. 83–85Google Scholar; Galinsky, , op. cit., p. 197Google Scholar.

4. Hollis, A. S., Ovid Metamorphoses Book VIII (Oxford, 1970), pp. 106–12Google Scholar; Bömer, F., Ovid Metamorphosen Buch VIII–IX (Heidelberg, 1977), pp. 190–3Google Scholar.

5. Melville, A. D. and Kenney, E. J., Ovid, Metamorphoses (Oxford, 1986), p. 424Google Scholar.

6. The topos can be traced back to Homer where human conduct comes under the scrutiny of gods visiting human homesteads in disguise (Od. 17.485–7). Eumaeus entertains Odysseus in his cottage at Od. 14.48ff. Demeter is entertained at the home of Celeus and Metaneira at Horn. H. 2.184ff.

7. Ovid's Metamorphoses Books 6–10 (Norman, 1972), p. 390Google Scholar.

8. ‘Ovid's debt to this poem here is obvious even from the meagre fragments remaining’ (Hollis, , op. cit., p. 104)Google Scholar. See also Hollis's, notes on Met. 8.639Google Scholar; 640; 641ff.; 644–5; 647; 664ff.; 665. Manfred Beller acknowledges Ovid's debts to Callimachus' Hecale, but suggests that Ovid may also have taken some details of the meal directly from Homer's account of Eumaeus' entertainment of Odysseus in Odyssey 14 (Philemon und Baucis in der europäischen Literatur (Heidelberg, 1967), pp. 30–31)Google Scholar. See note 13 below.

9. Due, O. S., Changing Forms (Copenhagen, 1974), p. 20Google Scholar.

10. At Horn. Il. 16.384ff. a simile describes Zeus sending a flood as the punishment for human wickedness. For Deucalion's flood see Pindar, , Ol. 9.42–53Google Scholar and Ovid, Met. 1.313—415Google Scholar.Ovid summarizes another flood story (Cerambus) at Met. 7.353–6.

11. Callimachus, , Aitia (ed. Pfeiffer, R.), fragments 54–59Google Scholar.

12. See Hollis, on Met. 8.684ffGoogle Scholar. and Pfeiffer, on Call. Aitia, fragment 54Google Scholar.

13. Beller, (op. cit., p. 31Google Scholar) suggests that the two meals prepared by Eumaeus for Odysseus (Od.14.72ff.; 414ff.) provided the inspiration for the sequence of a meal followed by an attempted sacrifice in Callimachus (Molorchus episode) and Ovid. If so, then Ovid follows the Callimachean development of the Homeric material.

14. Anderson, loc. cit.

15. Melville, and Kenney, , op. cit., p. xxviiiGoogle Scholar.

16. Ovid Recalled (Cambridge, 1955), p. 187Google Scholar.

17. Galinsky, , op. cit., p. 198Google Scholar.

18. Anderson, loc. cit.

19. Strabo, , Geography 12.571Google Scholar.

20. Strabo, , Geography 12.543Google Scholar; 571. See Hollis, on Met. 8.719Google Scholar and C. J. Fordyce on Catullus, 46.4. The island of Thynia was sacred to Apollo (, Plin.Nat. 6.32Google Scholar; see ‘Thynias’ in RE VI A, 718–20) and there is likely to have been frequent contact with the nearest oracle of Apollo, at Claros near Colophon. On the close contacts between towns on the Black Sea coast and Claros, see Parke, H. W., Greek Oracles (London, 1967), p. 140Google Scholar. Catullus mentions Thynia and Bithynia together at 31.5. The choice of Thynia is significant: mention of another small island is appropriate in a poem praising Sirmio as insularumque / ocelle (vv. 1–2). When Catullus returned from his Bithynian tour of duty he talked of leaving the ‘Phrygii.… campi’ (46.4).

21. André, J., L'Alimentation et la cuisine à Rome (Paris, 1961), p. 75Google Scholar.

22. See Haupt/Korn/Ehwald/Von Albrecht (Zürich/Dublin, 1966) on Met. 8.61 1ff.

23. See Hollis, , op. cit., pp. 110–1Google Scholar.

24. Hollis, loc. cit. The Heteroioumena seems the most likely source, but the Colophoniaca in at least six books is another possibility.

25. Lafaye, G., Les Métamorphoses d'Ovide et leurs modèles grecs (Paris, 1904), pp. 24ffGoogle Scholar.; Gow, A. S. F. and Scholfield, A. F., Nicander (Cambridge, 1953), p. 3Google Scholar.

26. Gow, and Scholfield, , op. cit., pp. 162Google Scholar; 216.

27. Antoninus Liberalis 36 (Les Métamorphoses, ed. Papathomopoulos, M. [Paris, 1968])Google Scholar.

28. Strabo, , Geography 12Google Scholar.571.

29. Hansen, Esther V., The Attalids of Pergamum 2 (Ithaca, 1971), pp. 272–4Google Scholar.

30. Hollis, , op. cit., pp. 109–12Google Scholar.

31. See Anderson, on Met. 7.354–6 and 365–7Google Scholar. Cerambus (Met. 7.354–6) was killed by a storm according to Nicander because he insulted the nymphs and Pan (see Antoninus Liberalis 22). The daughters of king Damon alone escaped the general destruction of the Telchines because they had entertained Jupiter hospitably (see Met. 7.365–7 and the scholion on Ov. Ibis 475).

32. The story of the Lycian peasants at Met. 6.313–81 has a similar aetiological character and was adapted by Ovid from Nicander (Antoninus Liberalis 35). The altar and the marsh at Met. 6.324ff. are very similar to the tree enclosure and marsh at Met. 8.620ff.

33. Met. 11.410–748. See Haupt, /Korn, /Ehwald, /Von Albrecht, on Met. 11.410ff.Google Scholar

34. Melville, and Kenney, , op. cit., p. xxviiiGoogle Scholar.

35. See Liberalis, Antoninus 35 and Met. 6.317–81Google Scholar.

36. See Hollis, on Met. 8.719–20Google Scholar.

37. See Ant. Lib. 1 (ἄχρι νῦν); 2 (ἄχρι νῦν);4 (ἄχρι νῦν); 8 (ἔτι νῦν);26 (ἄχρι νῦν); 30 (ἄχρι νῦν); 31 35 (ἄχρι νῦν); 37 (ἄτι νἔν).

38. Malten, L., ‘Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Sagenforschung’, Hermes 74 (1939), 176–206Google Scholar; Hermes 75 (1940), 168–76Google Scholar.

39. Hollis, , op. cit., pp. 108–12Google Scholar.

40. The Georgics of Virgil (Cambridge, 1969), p. 235Google Scholar. See also Thomas, R. F. on Verg. G. 1.361–4 (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar.

41. See ‘Coot’ in Purnells Encyclopedia of Animal Life (1969), pp. 516–7; also ‘fulica’ and ‘phalaris’ in Andre, J., Les Noms d'oiseaux en Latin (Paris, 1967), pp. 75–76, 125Google Scholar.

42. Gow, and Scholfield, , op. cit., pp. 18–22Google Scholar.

43. Gow, and Scholfield, , op. cit., ‘Georgica’, fragments 70–72, 80Google Scholar.

44. Haupt et al. made no reference to Old Testament parallels to the Philemon-Baucis in the note on Met. 8.61 Iff. Von Albrecht's revision remedies the situation (Met. 8.616–724n.).

45. Hollis, loc. cit.

46. Galinsky, , op. cit., p. 198Google Scholar.

47. Riley, H. T., The Metamorphoses of Ovid (London, 1905), p. 293Google Scholar. There was an earlier discussion of the links between the stories of Lot and of Philemon and Baucis by Cheyne, T. K., ‘The Origin and Meaning of the Story of Sodom’, The New World I (1892), 236–45Google Scholar.

48. Bomer, , Ovid Metamorphosen Buch VIII–IX (Heidelberg, 1977), pp. 190–1Google Scholar; Bushnell, , ‘A supposed connection between certain passages in Ovid and Genesis 18–19’, TAPhA 47 (1916), pp. xv–xviiGoogle Scholar.

49. There is an excellent account of the Lot and Philemon stories as subtypes of the Babylonian flood myth by Fontenrose, Joseph, ‘Philemon, Lot and Lycaeon’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology, Vol. 13 No. 4 (1945), 93–120Google Scholar.

50. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford, 1985), pp. 55–56Google Scholar.

51. A theoxeny is also followed by a flood story at Met. 1.209ff. (Lycaeon and the Flood).

52. Celeus and Metaneira (husband and wife) entertain Demeter in their home: this theoxeny goes back to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

53. See Kenney, and Melville, on Met. 8.618–728Google Scholar.

54. The following parallels can be noted between Abraham's theoxeny (Gen. 18.1–15) and the Hyrieus episode in the Fasti:

1 Three unrecognized superhuman visitors (angels in Genesis;Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury in Ovid) arrive at an elderly man's home.

2 They receive a pressing invitation to accept hospitality and to rest.

3 The superhuman visitors are brusque.

4 A meal is prepared, respectfully served, and eaten.

5 The visitors promise the birth of a son (Isaac in Genesis; Orion in Ovid) to their elderly host.

6 The child's conception is miraculous.

55. According to Hesiod Orion was a son of Poseidon by Euryale (see West, , op. cit., p. 84)Google Scholar. The account of Orion's birth ἀπὸ οὔρων can be traced back no further than Pindar. The association of οὔρον with begetting is found also at Ant. Lib. 41 ('O γὰρ Mίνως αὔρεσκεν ἄπευς…) in a story which probably comes from Nicander (see Papathomopoulos, , op. cit., p. 165 n.l)Google Scholar.

56. The replenishment of the wine is a much more dramatic and effective epiphany than the parallel epiphanies at Fasti 5.51 Iff. (Hyrieus) and Fasti 4.555ff. (Demeter). For the impressive self-revelation of Demeter to Metaneira see Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974), 256–74nGoogle Scholar.

57. Bomer, , op. cit., Met. VIII 616–724n (p. 192)Google Scholar.

58. , Jos.Ant. Jud. 12.147–52Google Scholar. See The Cambridge Ancient History,2 Vol. VII, p. 265 n. 44Google Scholar.