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WOMEN SCORNED: A NEW STICHOMETRIC ALLUSION IN THE AENEID*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2013

Dunstan Lowe
Dunstan Lowe*
Affiliation:
University of Kent
*
d.m.lowe@kent.ac.uk
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Extract

Intense scrutiny can raise chimaeras, and Virgil is the most scrutinized of Roman poets, but he may have engineered coincidences in line number (‘stichometric allusions’) between certain of his verses and their Greek models. A handful of potential examples have now accumulated. Scholars have detected Virgilian citations of Homer, Callimachus and Aratus in this manner, as well as intratextual allusions by both Virgil and Ovid, and references to Virgil's works by later Roman poets using the same technique. (For present purposes I disregard the separate, though related, phenomenon of corresponding numbers of lines in parallel passages: G. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer (Göttingen, 1964) suggests several examples of such correspondences between Homer and Virgil, especially in speeches. Another purely formal mode of allusion faintly present in Roman poetry is homophonic translation (the technique which Louis Zukofsky's 1969 translations of Catullus pursue in extenso); thus Virgil's fagus, beech, corresponds with Theocritus' phagos, oak.) If genuine, the phenomenon lacks any consistent method or regular pattern (and the degree of plausibility varies); if genuine, it is very rare, even if accidents in textual transmission could have obscured some examples; if genuine, it probably originated in the Hellenistic period, although such a case has yet to be made. Virgil presently seems the earliest and most copious practitioner of stichometric allusion. A previously undetected example in the Aeneid is proposed below.

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , May 2013 , pp. 442 - 445
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2013
μνήσαιο δὲ καί ποτ' ἐμεῖο
στρευγόμενος καμάτοισι, δέρος δέ τοι ἶσον ὀνείρῳ
οἴχοιτ' εἰς ἔρεβος μεταμώνιον· ἐκ δέ σε πάτρης
αὐτίκ' ἐμαὶ ἐλάσειαν Ἐρινύες, οἷα καὶ αὐτή
σῇ πάθον ἀτροπίῃ
(Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.383–7)
sequar atris ignibus absens
et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,
omnibus umbra locis adero. dabis, improbe, poenas.
(Verg. Aen. 4.384–6)

Intense scrutiny can raise chimaeras, and Virgil is the most scrutinized of Roman poets, but he may have engineered coincidences in line number (‘stichometric allusions’) between certain of his verses and their Greek models. A handful of potential examples have now accumulated. Scholars have detected Virgilian citations of Homer, Callimachus and Aratus in this manner,Footnote 1 as well as intratextual allusions by both Virgil and Ovid,Footnote 2 and references to Virgil's works by later Roman poets using the same technique.Footnote 3 (For present purposes I disregard the separate, though related, phenomenon of corresponding numbers of lines in parallel passages: G. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer (Göttingen, 1964) suggests several examples of such correspondences between Homer and Virgil, especially in speeches. Another purely formal mode of allusion faintly present in Roman poetry is homophonic translation (the technique which Louis Zukofsky's 1969 translations of Catullus pursue in extenso); thus Virgil's fagus, beech, corresponds with Theocritus' phagos, oak.)Footnote 4 If genuine, the phenomenon lacks any consistent method or regular pattern (and the degree of plausibility varies); if genuine, it is very rare, even if accidents in textual transmission could have obscured some examples;Footnote 5 if genuine, it probably originated in the Hellenistic period,Footnote 6 although such a case has yet to be made. Virgil presently seems the earliest and most copious practitioner of stichometric allusion. A previously undetected example in the Aeneid is proposed below.Footnote 7

When Dido vows to return after death to avenge herself on Aeneas (Aen. 4.384–6), she echoes Apollonius' Medea, who threatens Jason that she will return from Hades as an Erinys (Argon. 4.383–7). This is one of many parallels observed between Apollonius' Medea and Virgil's Dido.Footnote 8 Although the concept of the dead seeking personal revenge is very old,Footnote 9 as is that of Erinyes/Furies avenging crimes by pursuing divine justice, Hellenistic heroines were apparently the first to link heartbreak with punishment by the Furies. The inspiration may have been the threat of Medea's sister Chalciope, in which familial bloodshed has an indirect role. She warns that, if betrayed by Medea, she will be murdered by Aeetes and return as an Erinys to haunt her.Footnote 10 Later heroines present personal betrayal itself as the pollution of a family bond, tantamount to indirect murder, and punishable by the vengeful spirits of the tragic stage. Thus Catullus' Ariadne invokes the Eumenides to punish Theseus (64.192–7), who, according to pre-Hellenistic sources, would not fall under their jurisdiction.Footnote 11 Medea and Dido each repeat Chalciope's extraordinary claim that they will turn into an Erinys figure after death to hound and punish their faithless lovers. This blending of two roles – the Erinys and the vengeful revenant – tightly links Dido to Medea, because both are necromancers who deal with Hecate, besides being abandoned heroines.Footnote 12

The formal parallel occurs in Dido's curse-promise, ‘I shall be present as a shade wherever you go: you shall pay the penalty’, which is expressed similarly to Medea's curse ‘may my Erinyes persecute you’. The book and line numbers correspond: 4.386 and 4.386.Footnote 13 I am grateful to Donncha O'Rourke for observing that shadows (umbrae) potentially signify ‘ghosts’ of prior texts, or alternatively the poet's lasting fame.Footnote 14

The number connecting Virgil with Apollonius, 386, does not seem visually or mathematically significant; all the more reason to believe that Virgil observed line numbering minutely, either as a compositional technique, or with some expectation that his readers might notice them too.Footnote 15

Footnotes

*

Kate Allen and Donncha O'Rourke improved this paper with helpful comments, as did CQ's learned reader.

References

1 Scodel, R.S. and Thomas, R.F., ‘Virgil and the Euphrates’, AJPh 105 (1984), 339Google Scholar note that the Euphrates is mentioned six lines before the ends of books at G. 1.509, 4.561 and Aen. 8.726, as at Callim. Hymn 2.108. See Conington, J. and Nettleship, H., Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid, vol. 2 (London, 1884) on Aen. 9.1 resembling Il. 9.1 (in that it contains a particle referring to the previous book)Google Scholar, Morgan, L., Patterns of Redemption in Virgil's Georgics (Cambridge, 1999), 23–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Geo. 4.400 translating Od. 4.400, and Katz, J.T., ‘Vergil translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1–2 and Georgics 1.1–2’, MD 60 (2008), 105–23Google Scholar on G. 1.1–2 ‘translating’ Aratus, Phaen. 1–2. O'Rourke, D., ‘Intertextuality in Roman elegy’, in Gold, B.K. (ed.), A Companion to Roman Love Elegy (Malden, MA, 2012), 390–409Google Scholar, at 393–4 notes a comparable example in Propertius (4.1.57 alluding to Callim. Hymn 2.57).

2 Thomas, R.F. (ed. and comm.), Georgics Vol. 1: Books I–II (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar, on G. 2.41, notes that Maecenas is named symmetrically at G. 1.2, 2.41, 3.41 and 4.2. See Morgan (n. 1), at 226 n. 17 (citing J. Farrell) on Aen. 1.105 echoing G. 1.105; Gowers, E., ‘Virgil's Sibyl and the “many mouths” cliché (Aen. 6.625–7)’, CQ 55 (2005), 170–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 179 n. 45 on Aen. 4.43 echoing G. 2.43; and Nelis, D.P., ‘“Et maintenant, Erato – ”: À propos d’Énéide vii, 37’, REA 109 (2007), 269–71Google Scholar on Aen. 7.37 revisiting Aen. 1.37 (noticed independently by Hardie [n. 2], 577). Examples in Ovid are proposed by Wills, J., Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford, 1996), 159 n. 82 (allusions to Gallus at Tr. 4.10.53Google Scholar and Pont. 4.10.53) and A. Hardie, ‘Juno, Hercules, and the Muses at Rome’, AJPh 128 (2007), 551–92 (the foundations of the temple of Concordia, by Camillus and Livia respectively, are introduced at Fast. 1.637 and 6.637).

3 To my knowledge, stichometric allusions to Virgil's works have been detected in Ovid (Smith, R.A., ‘Ov. Met. 10.475: an instance of “meta-allusion”’, Gymnasium 97 [1990], 458–60Google Scholar), Propertius (D. O'Rourke, ‘“Letum non omnia finit”: reading Virgilian allusion in Propertius 4’ [Diss. Trinity College, Dublin, 2008]; ‘The representation and misrepresentation of Virgilian poetry in Propertius 2.34’, AJPh 132 [2011], 457–97; see also Thomas, R.F., ‘Genre through intertextuality: Theocritus to Virgil and Propertius’, Hellenistica Groningana 2 [1996], 227–44, at 241–4Google Scholar), Grattius (Verdière, R. [ed., tr. and comm.], Grattius: Cynegeticon Libri I quae supersunt, 2 vols [Wetteren, 1964], 1.61 n. 2Google Scholar) and Statius (Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext [Cambridge, 1998], 92Google Scholar).

4 On fagus/phagos, see Kenney, E.J., ‘Virgil and the elegiac sensibility’, ICS 8 (1983), 44–59, at 49–50Google Scholar; Lipka, M., ‘Notes on fagus in Vergil's Eclogues’, Philologus 146 (2002), 133–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On this and other cases of Virgilian ‘translation with paronomasia’, see O'Hara, J.J., True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996), 63Google Scholar.

5 It takes a scholar as thorough as Knauer to detect near misses in stichometric parallelism, which may be of help in textual criticism. His discoveries that the storm scene beginning at Aen. 1.81 corresponds to the Laestrygonian episode beginning at Od. 10.80 (Die Aeneis und Homer [Göttingen, 1964], 175 n. 3), and that the memory of the Cyclops at Aen. 1.201 (Cyclopia saxa) corresponds to the memory of the Cyclops at Od. 10.200 (ibid. 176 n. 2), together indicate that our text of Odyssey 10 has one line fewer than Virgil's, or that our text of Aeneid 1 has one more than his. The latter is more likely, given that stichometric marks would appear every hundred lines (Α, Β, Γ etc: see Morgan [n. 2], 223–9; van der Ben, N., ‘The Strasbourg Papyrus of Empedocles: some preliminary remarks’, Mnemosyne 52 [1999], 525–44, at 526–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lyne, R.O.A.M., ‘Horace Odes Book 1 and the Alexandrian edition of Alcaeus’, CQ 55 [2005], 542–58, at 557–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Likewise, Knauer's observations that Il. 16.1–305 correspond to Aen. 10.1–307 (this note, 298), and that the end of another passage (Aen. 10.509) corresponds to the end of its corresponding passage at Il. 16.507 (this note, 301), together indicate that our text of Iliad 16 has two lines fewer than Virgil's, or alternatively that our text of Aeneid 10 has two more than his. However, other parallels vitiate this notion (Aen. 10.476–8 with Il. 16.477–9, Aen. 10.490 with Il. 16.490).

6 Like most other formal experiments: see Luz, C., Technopaignia: Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung (Leiden and Boston, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 It receives no comment from Nelis, D.P., Vergil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds, 2001)Google Scholar or Pease, A.S. (ed. and comm.), Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus (Cambridge, MA, 1935)Google Scholar.

8 Collard, C., ‘Medea and Dido’, Prometheus 1 (1975), 131–51, at 146–57Google Scholar; Nelis (n. 7), 141–4.

9 Homer's Ajax holds a grudge after death (Od. 11.548–67) but seems incapable of acting upon it. On concepts of the vengeful dead in ancient Greece, see Johnston, S.I., Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley and London, 1999)Google Scholar. See also the promises of Fury-like vengeance in Hor. Epod. 5.91–6, Ov. Ib. 153–60.

10 ἢ σοίγε ϕίλοις σὺν παισὶ θανοῦσα | εἴην ἐξ Ἀίδεω στυγερὴ μετόπισθεν Ἐρινύς (Argon. 3.703–4, cf. 711–12). Singular and plural Erinyes represent divine punishment in both epics (Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.475–6, 713–14, 1042–3; Aen. 2.336–8, 571–4).

11 On the nature and functions of the Erinyes in Archaic and Classical Greek culture, see Padel, R., In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton, 1992), 162–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness (Princeton, 1995).

12 Argon. 3.477–8, 528–33, 860–3; Aen. 4.509–21; see Tupet, A.-M., ‘Didon magicienne’, REL 49 (1970), 229–58Google Scholar. Dido imagines herself as a sole avenger with no mention of plural Erinyes, perhaps reflecting the Roman concept of the lone, birdlike strix (see Aen. 12.861–9, Hor. Epod. 5.91–6).

13 αὐτίκ' ἐμαὶ ἐλάσειαν Ἐρινύες (Argon. 4.386), omnibus umbra locis adero. dabis, improbe, poenas (Aen. 4.386).

14 On umbrae in Virgil, see recently Gagliardi, P., ‘Le umbrae nei finali virgiliani’, Maia 59 (2007), 461–74Google Scholar and Nickbakht, M.A., ‘Aemulatio in cold blood: a reading of the end of the Aeneid’, Helios 37 (2010), 49–80Google Scholar.

15 Valerius Flaccus may have detected this correspondence between his two chief models and glossed it in a stichometric allusion of his own; however, the line numbering is only approximate. He seemingly ‘doubles’ the heroine-as-Fury trope of Apollonius' fourth book and Virgil's fourth book in his own eighth book. At loosely corresponding line numbers (385–96), the Argonauts call Jason's infatuation with Medea Furiae (390) and Medea herself an Erinys (396).