Arising from the Vivam! Simposio de Estudios Ovidianos that took place in Huelva, Spain, 5–6 October 2017, this collection captures some of the vitality that must have animated that meeting. Eleven polyglot papers consider topics from textual criticism to mythography to literary concerns and beyond: a microcosm of the multifarious and energetic nature of Ovid studies.
Richard J. Tarrant begins with ‘Editing Ovid's Metamorphoses: Past, Present, and Future’ and a reminder that ‘[j]ust as every classical text has a unique transmission, every text has a unique editorial history’ (23). What sets Tarrant's examination of the Metamorphoses’ editing history apart is his commentary on his own edition (Oxford, 2004) with suggestions for future textual critics.
In ‘La Critique du Texte des Heroides’, Gauthier Liberman considers Heroides 20–21. Given that the best manuscript is incomplete, attempts at scholarly editions have been difficult; Liberman surveys them along with the transmission history of the Heroides corpus with a focus on the troublesome Epistula Sapphus.
Antonio Ramírez de Verger's ‘Suum Cuique: Editors and Commentators on Ovid's Metamorphoses’ takes up textual criticism from 1980 to the present. Confronting a type of philological presentism — ‘The fidelity with which the works of modern philologists from the twentieth century are cited is astounding, as is the vagueness with which the contributions of previous philologists are remembered’ (83) — he then selects and explicates an example of textual variance from each book of the Metamorphoses.
Stephen J. Heyworth's gimlet eye falls on the 1978 Teubner text by Wormell and Courtney in ‘Editing and Interpreting Ovid's Fasti: Text, Date, Form’. He dissects that text's flaws, notably the editors’ ‘over-selective approach’ (107), and then gives a clarifying exposition on the near-simultaneous composition of the Fasti and the Metamorphoses and their divergence in narrative personality.
In ‘Gli Amores Ovidiani e la Tradizione Elegiaca’, Rosalba Dimundo argues that Ovid, while inspired by Propertius, ultimately creates ‘un senso nuovo, il suo’ (123). Ovid's ‘[l]o strumento fondamentale … per riformulare con assoluta libertà i suoi modelli e sopratutto Properzio è l'ironia’ (127). Overall, Ovid's verse is an ironic game, ‘un mondo di pura finzione’ (133).
Thea S. Thorsen's ‘The Second Erato and the Deeper Design of Ovid's Ars Amatoria: Unravelling the Anti-Marital Union of Venus, Procris and Romulus’ posits that the Ars contains two grand themes: a superficial message that erotic love is distinct from legitimate marriage and a deeper one that marriage itself is dangerous. Thorsen investigates the latter through the Ars’ addresses to the Muse Erato, digressions on adultery, and the Rape of the Sabine Women.
With ‘Storie dell'Altro Mondo: L'Oriente nelle Metamorfosi’, Mario Labate posits Rome as ‘un centro che ha l'ambizione di accogliere e riformulare tutte le storie del mundo e di rivolgere un sgardo panoramico a tutti gli angoli della terra’ (173). Cybele thus becomes relevant as a Phrygian (i.e. foreign) goddess who becomes part of Rome's global imperial sensibilities (179). Labate then surveys Ovid's narratives set in eastern locations, stories from another world yet also now Roman.
In ‘The Presence of Tibullus in Ovid's Epistulae ex Ponto’, Garth Tissol opines that Tibullus is an even more pervasive presence than Propertius and that ‘it is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that Ovid learned to write elegiac couplets from Tibullus’ elegies’ (189). Readings of Tibullus 2.3, 2.5 and 2.6 as precursors and intertexts of Ovid explore the poets’ interrelationship.
Rosa M. Iglesias and M. Consuelo Álvarez in ‘La Incompleta Enciclopedia Mítica de Ovidio’ offer a useful reminder that the Metamorphoses are not a comprehensive collection of myth. The authors’ survey reveals that tales from the Iliad and the Epic Cycle are missing, and a glance at other Ovidian works highlights their own gaps. Ovid's command of mythological material is vast, but he deploys it playfully and selectively: ‘su objetivo no es escribir un manual mitográfico sino poesía’ (221).
With ‘The Story of Byblis in the Vulgate Commentary on the Metamorphoses’, Frank T. Coulson highlights an obscure mid-thirteenth-century text. Discussing its treatment of Byblis as a case study, Coulson calls for more scholarly engagement: ‘the Vulgate Commentary remains a largely untapped resource for the study and interpretation of Ovid in the High Middle Ages’ (234).
John F. Miller rounds out the volume with ‘Ovid's Fasti and Renaissance Calendar-Poems: Muses, May, Celestial Might’. Focusing on three Italian humanist poets who imitated through a Christian lens Fasti 5's dissension of the Muses over the name of May, Miller illuminates not only the works themselves but also Ovidian reception in late fifteenth and mid-sixteenth-century Italy.
In conclusion, this volume has much to offer any enthusiasts of Ovid. Its papers run the gamut from textual criticism (Tarrant, Liberman, Ramírez de Verger, Heyworth) to literary interpretation (Dimundo, Thorsen, Labate, Tissol, Iglesias and Álvarez) to reception in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Coulson, Miller). One standout element is the reminder that the texts we so pleasurably argue about now are the result of the sustained, quiet, painstaking work of flesh-and-blood human beings who bequeath to us a rich legacy of philological scholarship and who even in their imperfections may yet teach, inspire and spur us to study now and into the future. The conference and volume organisers did well to choose ‘VIVAM!’ as the title, for the scholars in this collection energetically demonstrate Ovid's proud boast at the end of the Metamorphoses: ‘I shall live.’
