LOVE, DEATH AND METAMORPHOSIS IN THE NAMES OF THE LIGURIANS

Virgil commemorates the Ligurian leaders, Cinyrus and Cupauo, with a eulogistic apostrophe,Footnote ⁴ a special honour given to no other commander within the Etruscan catalogue.Footnote ⁵ Such a rare apostrophe attracts the reader's attention and invites contemplation of the Ligurian names. Virgil calls the leaders Cinyrus and Cupauo, and uses the term Ligus to refer to their nationality. As we are about to see, the Ligurians' names and nationality are etymologically and intertextually connected with amor, mors and the transformation of Cycnus. In effect, the evocative assemblage of names has an almost proemial function—in other words, the names introduce and reinforce the themes and subject matter of the upcoming Cycnus episode.

Before exploring the etymological and intertextual significance of the name Cinyrus, a few words must be said regarding its contentious transmission. Serious problems in the manuscript tradition lead to the preservation of several different forms and variants of the name, including Cinyrus, Cinyras, Cinirus, Cunarus and Cunerus.Footnote ⁶ The problematic transmission has led to considerable debate and discussion, as well as various attempts to resolve the issue through emendation or alternative spellings. While Mynors, Williams and O'Hara print the vocative Cunare,Footnote ⁷ Harrison and Henderson accept Timpanaro's argument in favour of Cunere.Footnote ⁸ Paschalis gives preference to Cunerus, but suggests that Cinyrus/Cinyras may have been a ‘learned correction’.Footnote ⁹ Page selects the vocative Cinyre (< Cinyras), while Ahl argues for the form Cinyre (< Cinyrus).Footnote ¹⁰ Richards simply concludes that the evidence does not support changing Cinyra or Cinire.Footnote ¹¹ No consensus has been reached and the problematic transmission of the name admittedly precludes definite interpretation.

Yet, compelling evidence suggests that the variant Cinyrus would be a suitable choice for introducing and reinforcing the thematic content of the upcoming Cycnus episode. In his study of sound- and wordplay, Ahl connects the Latin name Cinyrus to κινυρός (‘wailing, plaintive’),Footnote ¹² an extremely rare Greek adjective that only appears in one Homeric simile (κινυρή, Il. 17.5)Footnote ¹³ and in Apollonius' Argonautica, where it is explicitly connected with the death of Phaethon (κινυρόν, Ap. Rhod. 4.605).Footnote ¹⁴ Apollonius uses κινυρὸς in his description of the Heliades, the maiden sisters transformed into poplar trees after the death of their brother Phaethon (Ap. Rhod. 4.603–5):

Stricken with grief, the sisters tearfully utter a wailing lament (κινυρὸν … γόον, Ap. Rhod. 4.605). In the address to the Ligurian leaders, the name Cinyrus allusively evokes the κινυρὸς γόος of the Apollonian Heliades, even as Virgil introduces his own account of the grief and transformation resulting from Phaethon's demise.

The term Ligus strengthens the connection between Cinyrus and the laments engendered by Phaethon's death in Apollonius. On the nocturnal voyage up the Eridanus river, the Argonauts perceive the sharp lament of the Heliades: νύκτας δ᾽ αὖ γόον ὀξὺν ὀδυρομένων ἐσάκουον | Ἡλιάδων λιγέως (Ap. Rhod. 4.624–5). In order to illustrate the shrill quality of the Heliades' weeping, Apollonius employs the adverbial form of λιγύς (λιγέως, Ap. Rhod. 4.625), which appears frequently in connection with melancholic utterances of grief.Footnote ¹⁵ Virgil employs the Latin Ligus, a word phonetically connected to the adjectival form λιγύς, to identify the nationality of the Ligurian contingent (Ligurum ductor fortissime bello, 10.185). Taken together, Ligus and Cinyrus allusively recall both the plaintive wails (κινυρὸν … γόον, Ap. Rhod. 4.605) and the shrill weeping (ὀδυρομένων … | λιγέως, Ap. Rhod. 4.624–5) of the Apollonian Heliades.Footnote ¹⁶ The name and nationality anticipate the themes and subject matter of Virgil's embedded Cycnus-myth by evoking the Apollonian model of the mourning Heliades. In the lines that follow, an elegiac Cycnus takes up the lament of Phaethon's silent arboreal sisters, giving voice to his grief amidst their shady boughs (populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum | dum canit, 10.190–1).Footnote ¹⁷

Following the address of Cinyrus, the focus shifts to Cupauo, the son of Cycnus. Swan feathers adorn the crest of Cupauo's helmet (cuius olorinae surgunt de uertice pennae, 10.187), signalling his paternal lineage by evoking Cycnus' legendary metamorphosis (formaeque insigne paternae, 10.188). Cupauo, bedecked with olorinae pennae (10.187), symbolically re-enacts his father's transformation into a swan—the plumes, though merely attached to the helmet, appear to spring up from the uertex or crown of his head (surgunt de uertice, 10.187).Footnote ¹⁸ Cupauo's name, like his avian costume, symbolically replicates the metamorphosis of Cycnus from enamoured human into snowy swan, and prefigures the forthcoming myth of transformation. The first syllable of the name Cupauo (cŭp-) echoes that of the Latin verb cŭpire (‘to long for, desire’) and its cognates (Cŭpido, cŭpidus), while the component -āuo simultaneously suggests the nouns ăuis (‘bird’) and ăuus (‘forefather’).Footnote ¹⁹ As the reader scans from left to right, the name Cupauo mirrors the transformation of Cycnus from passionate lover (cŭp- ≈ cŭp idus) into a swan (-āuo ≈ ău is), while also evoking his status as a Ligurian forefather (- āu o ≈ ău us). Virgil formulates the name Cupauo to inscribe the legendary past of Cycnus onto his warrior son, whose appellation and appearance allusively adumbrate the upcoming narrative of love and transformation.Footnote ²⁰

To sum up, the nomina Ligurum allusively introduce and reinforce the central themes and subject matter of Virgil's embedded Cycnus myth. Cinyrus and Ligus, evocative of the Apollonian Heliades, anticipate the upcoming account of Cycnus' grief and lamentation over the death of his beloved Phaethon (10.189–91). The highly symbolic name Cupauo prefigures the erotic aspect of Cycnus, his passionate transformation into a swan and his ancestral significance within the Ligurian digression. To go one step further, the lexically charged names may have generic, as well as thematic, significance in relation to the Cycnus episode.Footnote ²¹ Names associated with death and desire underscore the aesthetic shift that occurs as Virgil diverges from the epic catalogue to tell an elegiac tale of love and lament.

ELEGIAC AMOR AND MORS IN THE INTRODUCTORY FRAME (AEN. 10.185–8)

Two elegiac gestures—one sepulchral, one erotic—frame the introductory verses of the Ligurian digression. More overt than the allusive nomina Ligurum, the funerary and amatory embellishments in the introduction initiate and reinforce Virgil's elegiac experimentation within the central Cycnus panel. In the opening lines (10.185–6), a creative redeployment of the epitaphic ‘passer-by’ motif emblematizes the sepulchral aspect of elegy. Virgil counterbalances the funerary elegiac gesture with a parenthetical address of Cupid and Venus reminiscent of erotic elegy and written with Propertian flare (10.188).

The Ligurian digression begins with an exceptionally self-conscious gesture toward the funerary poetics of elegy. In the address to Cinyrus and Cupauo, Virgil assures the two heroes that he could not pass them by when recounting the Etruscan allies: non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello, | transierim, Cinyre, et paucis comitate Cupauo (10.185–6). Virgil's first-person intrusion into the narrative brings the poet and his artistic process to the foreground, an effect heightened by his unprecedented use of the nominative self-referential ego. The narrative voice uses the nominative self-referential ego nowhere else in the Aeneid, an interesting anomaly overlooked by commentators, including Servius. Excluding the spurious four-line frontispiece (ille ego, qui quondam …),Footnote ²² there are five occurrences of the narrative self-referential ego in other grammatical cases, each of which appears in a passage of invocation.Footnote ²³ Such moments of intense literary self-consciousness are frequent loci for poetic experimentation, and the Ligurian apostrophe is no exception. Virgil's commemoration of the Ligurians begins with innovative reinterpretation of the ‘passer-by’ motif commonly found in Latin funerary inscriptions.Footnote ²⁴ In conventional examples of the ‘passer-by’ motif, the departed engages the passing traveller in an imaginary dialogue, asking the wayfarer to suspend his journey long enough to read the commemorative inscription,Footnote ²⁵ or to hail the deceased.Footnote ²⁶ When Virgil reassures Cinyrus and Cupauo that he could not pass them by (non ego te … | transierim, 10.185–6), he evokes the dialogic exchange of the ‘passer-by’ motif, but shifts the focus from the request of the deceased to the response of the wayfarer. As he addresses the Ligurian heroes, Virgil plays the part of a roadside traveller responding to an imaginary behest inscribed on a funerary monument.Footnote ²⁷ An inversion of the embedded epitaph, the phrase non ego te transierim invites the reader to supply the request that compels Virgil to pause and linger over Cinyrus and Cupauo. Virgil's creative redeployment of the ‘passer-by’ motif imitates the poetic practices of elegists, who experiment with epitaphic material to convey the themes of death and lamentation associated with the sepulchral aspect of elegy.Footnote ²⁸ Interrupting the progress of the catalogue, the initial epitaphic gesture recalls the funerary poetics of elegy and sets the generic tone for the upcoming Cycnus episode.

While the initial epitaphic gesture imbues the Ligurian apostrophe with sepulchral elegiac color, a parenthetical reproach to Amor in the final line of the address evokes the erotic aspect of elegy. Following the description of Cupauo's emblematic swan-feather crest, Virgil rebukes Amor in a parenthetical aside: crimen, Amor, uestrum (10.188). By placing the noun crimen (‘indictment’, ‘reproach’) in apposition to the olorinae pennae (10.187), Virgil suggests that the swan-feather crest is a standing indictment or reproach to Amor and an emblem of his culpability for the fate of Cycnus.Footnote ²⁹ The noun Amor functions as a generic signpost for Virgil's engagement with erotic elegy.Footnote ³⁰ Furthermore, as Keith observes, the parenthetical address ‘conjures up an Amor strikingly similar to the god of the elegiac poets’.Footnote ³¹ To go one step further, the Virgilian parenthesis calls to mind the Amor of Propertius in particular. In the elegies of Propertius, Amor merits reproach for his perpetual victimization of the impassioned elegiac amator.Footnote ³² A Propertian model also informs the syntactical structure and tone of the Virgilian phrase crimen, Amor, uestrum. In his own indictment of Love, the lover-poet places Baiae aquae in apposition with crimen amoris, effectively blaming the god for the acts of sexual misbehaviour committed at the seaside resort: a pereant Baiae, crimen amoris, aquae! (Prop. 1.11.30).Footnote ³³ A repetition of the phrase crimen Amoris appears in the second collection of Propertian elegies, when the lover declares that Amor is to blame for his devotion to one woman (hoc si crimen erit, crimen Amoris erit, Prop. 2.30.24).Footnote ³⁴ As the introductory panel draws to a close, the parenthetical rebuke of Amor recalls the amatory poetics of Propertius and initiates the engagement with erotic elegy that continues in the description of Cycnus.Footnote ³⁵

Together with the initial epitaphic gesture (non ego te … transierim, 10.185–6), the parenthetical rebuke of Amor (crimen, Amor, uestrum, 10.188) frames the introductory segment of the Ligurian digression. Virgil's juxtaposition of funerary and amatory elements replicates in miniature the fusion of sepulchral and erotic poetics in contemporary amatory elegy. The elegiac frame has thematic and programmatic implications for the Cycnus episode that follows. In the hands of Virgil, Cycnus becomes a figure of passion and lamentation, the literary embodiment of the two facets of Roman elegy.

ELEGIAC AMOR AND MORS IN THE TALE OF CYCNUS (AEN. 10.189–93)

When Virgil proceeds to the central Cycnus panel (10.189–93), he begins the mythical narrative with an Alexandrian footnote (namque ferunt, 10.189), giving subtle recognition to the unnamed sources of his elegiac inspiration.Footnote ³⁶ In the portrayal of Cycnus that follows, Virgil contemplates the connection between amor and mors through elegiac language and motifs, thereby fulfilling the allusively programmatic introductory apostrophe. Cycnus plays the role of maestus amator, in which the two voices of elegy—mourner and lover—coalesce.

By depicting Cycnus as Phaethon's lover, metamorphosed by grief for his deceased beloved, Vergil echoes the Phanoclean version of the myth recounted in the elegiac Ἔρωτες ἢ Καλοί.Footnote ³⁷ But the decision to make the pair lovers does more than simply evoke the Alexandrian model. For Harrison, it ‘gives greater erotic colour and pathos to the tale’.Footnote ³⁸ Keith similarly maintains that it ‘allows Virgil to overdetermine the elegiac quality of Cycnus’ song by combining the elegiac motifs of love and mourning, for the motifs occur twice together in this passage (luctu … amati, Aen. 10.189; maestum … amorem, Aen. 10.191)’.Footnote ³⁹ To push these astute observations further, I contend that Virgil pays tribute to the Phanoclean elegist by creating a suitably elegiac Latin version of the Cycnus myth. In keeping with the poetics of contemporary elegy, Virgil explores the binary nature of elegy as the genre of amor and mors, an aesthetic choice exemplified by the lexical pairs denoting love and grief (luctu … amati, 10.189; maestum … amorem, 10.191). Let us now turn to a detailed examination of the erotic and sepulchral elegiac elements incorporated within the Virgilian Cycnus myth.

Virgil alerts the reader to his elegiac experimentation by placing amatus (amati, 10.189) and amor (amorem, 10.191), verbal signposts for erotic elegy, in the conspicuous final hexameter position.Footnote ⁴⁰ Furthermore, the identification of Phaethon as an amatus (Phaethontis amati, 10.189) and the image of Cycnus soothing his sorrowful passion through song (maestum Musa solatur amorem, 10.191) characterize Cycnus as an elegiac lover-poet.Footnote ⁴¹ The use of mollis, a lexical term signifying ‘soft’ elegiac verse, further affiliates Cycnus with the genre of elegy.Footnote ⁴² When the mournful lover takes on the soft plumage of a swan (molli pluma, 10.192), he becomes an emblem of poetic amores.

The behaviour of Cycnus, who attempts to console his grief by singing in the wilderness, affiliates him with the grieving lover of elegy: populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum | dum canit et maestum Musa solatur amorem (10.190–1). Virgil's sorrowful amator mirrors the wandering song of Phanocles' elegiac Orpheus, who gives voice to his grief for the beloved youth Calais in shady groves: πολλάκι δὲ σκιεροῖσιν ἐν ἄλσεσιν ἕζετ᾽ ἀιέδων | ὅν πόθον, οὐδ᾽ ἦν οἱ θυμὸς ἐν ἡσυχίῃ (Phanocles, fr. 1.3–4 Powell).Footnote ⁴³ While Orphic traits link the Virgilian Cycnus to his Phanoclean model, echoes of Eclogues 6 and 10 connect him to the figure of Gallus. The commemorations of Gallus from Virgil's predominantly pastoral collection are conspicuously elegiac and demonstrate the epic poet's familiarity with, and virtuosic deployment of, the conventional motifs of elegy. Let us take a look at the interesting connections between Cycnus and the elegiac figure of Gallus.

Virgil describes Cycnus singing ( dum canit , 10.191) amidst the boughs and beneath the shade of Phaethon's metamorphosed sisters (populeas inter frondes, 10.190). We know from tradition that the mournful performance of Cycnus takes place on the banks of the river Po, the location of Phaethon's death and the Heliades' metamorphosis. Turning to Eclogue 6, we find a similar scene featuring: song; riverside wandering; an elegiac lover-poet figure; and Phaethon's sisters. The woodland deity Silenus sings of Gallus wandering near the river Permessus ( tum canit , errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum, Ecl. 6.64). We need to pause for a moment to consider the similarity and extreme rarity of the phrases dum canit (Aen. 10.191) and tum canit (Ecl. 6.61, 6.64). In the entire Virgilian corpus, the phrase dum canit appears only once in the tale of Cycnus (10.191). The phonetically similar phrase tum canit appears only twice: once, as we have already seen, in direct relation to Gallus (Ecl. 6.64); and once three lines earlier in relation to the story of Atalanta (Ecl. 6.61), a myth treated by Gallus in his lost poems.Footnote ⁴⁴ In Aeneid 10, the phrase dum canit is a subtle intertextual link that connects the story of Cycnus to the figure of Gallus in Eclogue 6. When we follow this thread back to Eclogue 6, we find that Gallus appears immediately after a description of the metamorphosis of Phaethon's sisters into trees ( tum Phaethontiadas musco circumdat amarae | corticis atque solo proceras erigit alnos, Ecl. 6.62–3). On the written page, Gallus appears ‘beneath the shade of the Phaethontiades’, the sisters of Phaethon who also bear witness to Cycnus' mournful song in Aeneid 10 (populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum, 10.190). In a more general way, the behaviour of Cycnus recalls that of Gallus in Eclogue 10. Cycnus uses song and the retreat into the wilderness to soothe the grief caused by the loss of his beloved Phaethon (dum canit et maestum Musa solatur amorem, 10.191). This is the very strategy adopted by Gallus in Eclogue 10, where, grieved by unrequited love, he seeks medicina amoris in the song and the solace of the wilds (Ecl. 10.50–69).Footnote ⁴⁵ In effect, the figure of Cycnus serves as an allusive reminder of Gallus, the focus of Virgil's elegiac experimentation in the Eclogues, thereby associating the myth of love, grief and metamorphosis with the genre of Roman elegy.

We have now seen the ways in which generically loaded terminology, Phanoclean imagery and Gallan echoes contribute to the elegiac feel of the Cycnus panel. The final stage of the investigation will focus on the sepulchral elegiac imagery within the passage, a suitably closural topic. Epitaphic language and funerary epigram play an important role in the poetic programmes of Roman elegists. Poets such as Propertius and Tibullus frequently use sepulchral motifs to articulate the strong thematic connection between love and death, a binary pairing that reflects the perceived origins of erotic elegy in funeral lament. In the Cycnus episode of Aeneid 10, Virgil weaves sepulchral imagery together with amatory material, thereby replicating the poetic fusion of amor and mors found in elegy. Virgil employs the noun umbra to denote the ‘shade’ or ‘shadow’ cast by the boughs of Phaethon's arboreal sisters (umbramque sororum, 10.190), whose transformed bodies serve as backdrop for Cycnus' sorrowful song. Though used for its primary sense (‘shade’, ‘shadow’),Footnote ⁴⁶ the noun umbra resonates with the themes of death and lament, thereby recalling its sepulchral significance as a term for the disembodied form of the deceased (‘shade’, ‘ghost’).Footnote ⁴⁷ Virgil also uses more explicit sepulchral imagery to associate Cycnus' metamorphosis with mors. Cycnus, newly covered in soft plumage, appears to take on the whiteness of old age (canentem molli pluma duxisse senectam, 10.192), an image of mortality.Footnote ⁴⁸ Virgil then describes the final stage of Cycnus' metamorphosis, as the newly formed swan leaves the earth and seeks the stars with a cry: linquentem terras et sidera uoce sequentem (10.193). Epitaphic inscriptions, both Greek and Latin, offer consolation for death through the imagery of astral translation or deification, in which the soul of the deceased ascends to the stars, or becomes a star in the heavens.Footnote ⁴⁹ Frequently interpreted in terms of catasterism, the Cycnus-swan going towards the stars is also reminiscent of these consolatory motifs.Footnote ⁵⁰ Virgil's incorporation of this recognizable epitaphic motif invites the reader to reflect back on the opening lines of the passage—as we have seen, the introductory frame contains an innovative example of the passer-by motif. The integration of motifs from funerary commemoration recalls the practices of the Roman elegists, whose verses feature embedded epitaphs and sepulchral motifs. Imagery associated with death, mortality and funerary commemoration identifies Cycnus' departure from the human sphere as a symbolic death, and thus an appropriately closural image for the central panel.

The final flight of the Cycnus-swan brings the elegiac reverie to an end. As the focus turns to Cupauo's naval force, the description of his immense ship (ingentem … Centaurum, 10.195) threatening to hurl a huge stone projectile like its Centaur namesake (saxumque … immane minatur, 10.196) transports us back to the realm of epic. But the sudden return to epic magnitude and martial prowess serves as a generic foil for the exceptional passage that precedes it, highlighting the elegiac character of the Ligurian digression and the Cycnus myth. Despite its exceptional generic character, the Cycnus myth has thematic relevance within the catalogue. Cycnus exemplifies the connection between mors and amor, the potent force fuelling the deadly arma for which the Etruscans muster.

BEYOND THE LIGURIANS: ELEGIAC AMOR AND MORS IN THE AENEID

Within the Ligurian address and the embedded Cycnus myth, we find compelling, though perhaps surprising, evidence for Roman elegiac genre-mixing in the epic context of the Etruscan catalogue of Aeneid 10. I want to conclude by briefly considering the ways in which this evidence contributes to our understanding of the generic complexity and political and cultural significance of the ‘Italian Iliad’. First, the Roman elegiac qualities of the passage exemplify the complexity and richness of Virgil's generic experimentation within Aeneid 7–12. A catalogue of mustering armies seems an unlikely generic ‘host’ for Roman elegy, especially when compared to an explicit love story like that of Dido and Aeneas in Book 4. But despite any apparent generic incongruity, the Roman elegiac qualities of the passage work collaboratively with the immediate epic context to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the Etruscan catalogue and showcase Virgil's virtuosic facility with a broad range of poetic materials.

Second, an awareness of the Roman elegiac qualities of the Ligurian address and the Cycnus myth forces us to re-evaluate the broader significance of the passage in relation to its immediate martial epic context. Indeed, the passage is worth far more than the sum of its elegiac parts—it invites us to reconsider the catalogue of Etruscan forces, and the war for which they muster. The blending of recognizable elegiac and epic elements creates a productive tension between war and love, and public duty and private loss, destabilizing the seemingly straightforward martial pomp of the procession of Aeneas' allies. The focus on Cinyrus, Cupauo and Cycnus—figures who evoke love, death and lament—calls to mind the heavy human cost of the impending war, even as we revel in the glorious military display of the catalogue, and reminds us of the destructive passions that fuel the conflict.Footnote ⁵¹

This significant example of Roman elegiac genre-mixing exemplifies Virgil's preoccupation with the friction between personal and political, and love and war, throughout Aeneid 7–12. In my research, I aim to use this and other similar evidence to show the ways in which Virgil uses Roman elegiac language and motifs, as the war intensifies and casualties mount.Footnote ⁵² It is my belief that the accumulated evidence will invite us to reconsider the entire ‘Italian Iliad’, in the same way that the Ligurian digression offers another vantage from which to view the Etruscan catalogue.