Re: VIRGIL: Why is Aeneas like Berenice's lock?
Yvan Nadeau wrote: >many years ago I wrote a brief note for Latomus: > >"Caesaries Berenices (or, the Hair of the God)", Latomus, 41 (1982) >101-3. > >I discovered after it had appeared in print that a number of my >observations had already caught the eye of the lynx-like Agatha >Thornton. But obviously both she and I wasted our sweat if this is >still thought to be a joke, nearly twenty years later!! It's nearly 40 years since Agathe H. F. Thornton wrote her article, "A Catullan Quotation in Virgil's Aeneid Book VI", AUMLA 17 (1962), 77-9. She argues that there is no incongruity because the Catullan line, if properly read, is not at all humorous, and Fletcher's reference to Pope is ill-considered: "This Lock has been carried off by Zephyros, and laid in the lap of Venus, who has changed it into a brilliant constellation, assigning it its place between the Virgin, the Lion, Callisto and Bootes. It is this divine Lock that from the vault of heaven addresses her former Lady, the Queen of Egypt. The main burden of her speech is sorrow at her severance from her mistress. She laments the inexorable harshness of the iron that cut her off (47). She recalls with longing her sweet companionship with the queen. What more apt quotation could Virgil have put in the mouth of Aeneas to express his sorrow at his forced departure from Dido?" And she concludes: "What seems to be in the way of a serious interpretation of the above line is the fact that either the Catullan line is taken as comic or else the equation of a lock of hair with Aeneas is felt to be incongruous. Questions such as these depend on the taste of the time. Whether Catullus found cause to smile at this line is hard to decide, but not important, because he was translating, not composing himself. The corresponding Greek line could not possibly have been humrous in the Alexandrine original, because such humour would have been most irreverent from a poet to his queen. It is only when this line is taken as part of an elaborate homage, wrought with the highest art and dedicated by the poet to a great queen, that it can be appreciated. This is surely how Virgil took it, and together with all the association of its context placed it in the mouth of Aeneas, expressing in the most succinct way by this quotation all that is involved in the relationship between Dido and Aeneas." (I haven't yet seen Yvan Nadeau's Latomus article.) Simon Cauchi, Freelance Editor and Indexer Hamilton, New Zealand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
Re: VIRGIL: sicque/quicquid
On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Philip Thibodeau wrote:
> I think I would now agree. It is avoidance of dysphony, not ambiguity,
> that motivates the preference for et sic. There are cases where authors
> mention forms which are avoided because of their ambiguity, but these are
> distinct from discussions of euphony and dysphony. But then what is it
> that makes -cqu- dysphonous? For I don't think that we want to say that it
> is just somehow dysphonous by nature. Wilkinson, in his Golden Latin
> Artistry, suggests what I think is a good explanation: "Latin tended to
> discard such tongue-twisting words as the early 'stlites' and 'stlocus'...
> Cicero preferred the words 'formarum', 'formis' to their synonyms
> 'specierum', 'speciebus' on grounds of comfort in utterance ('commoditatem
> in dicendo'). Further, it has been noted that when a Latin critic or
> grammarian says a word is, or is not, euphonious, he often seems to mean
> that it slips more, or less, easily from the mouth... Indeed, someone
> criticized by Philodemus... held that the *only* form of cacophony was that
> caused by difficulty of enunciation," (p.18). So -cqu-, as a rare
> consonant cluster, would be comparatively hard to pronounce, esp. in
> comparison with the much more common -ts- of 'et sic'. In other words, it
> is not the ear that is offended, but the tongue.
It's a bit hard for me to believe that the -cqu- combination would have
been considered difficult to pronounce, when that very combination is what
resulted when prefixes such as "ad" were added to words beginning with
qu-. For example, ad + quiescere = acquiescere. That kind of
assimilation was done for greater ease in pronunciation. Evidently
"sicque" was avoided by classical poets, but it can't have been because of
difficulty of pronunciation.
Randi Eldevik
Oklahoma State University
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VIRGIL: A big top 100 list?
Hi! Anyone here interested if I send what the list [EMAIL PROTECTED] has been doing? ::See below::: --It seems every man, his dog, and its fleas are coming out with a top 100 --list to celebrate the millennium and we have failed to jump on the --bandwagon. So, what are the top 100 examples of classical scholarship --(whether article or monograph) which have had the most influence in our --discipline (some works might not be even from our discipline ... e.g. --Foucault), whether positively or negatively? Can we even come up with a --hundred? [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Meadows) _ I have a big compiled list of all the suggestions. I just wonder if there's any interest. >< --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
Re: VIRGIL: Aeneid Jokes
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Simon Cauchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >>More humour in Vergil "invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi" (Bk 6) >>reference to Catullus' Lock of Berenice "invitus, regina, tuo de cervice >>cessi", a singularly incongruous intertextualism at a singularly inapposite >>moment. > >I have always thought "invitus, regina" to be as bad as W. S. Gilbert's "a >thing of shreds and patches". But a closer analogy would be if The Yeoman >of the Guard were an Elizabethan operetta and Hamlet a 19th cent. tragedy, >so that we would find fault with Shakespeare's line rather than Gilbert's. >Or rather, as Fletcher puts it better, the sense of incongruity is "much as >we should feel if we came upon a line from Pope's Rape of the Lock in >Keats' Hyperion". I don't think Virgil intended the line to be humorous, >though. Despite the source from which it is taken, the effect is pathetic >(I mean, pathos is the intended effect). Isn't it? > >Aeneas does express a sense of desperation in this speech, and there's >always something a bit ridiculous about any male -- let alone an epic hero >-- making excuses and vowing he had no choice in the matter. But I suspect >there is a bimillennial cultural gulf here (as in so much else to do with >the Aeneid), and that interpretation is necessarily uncertain. Indeed; there is a parallel in Horace's _recusatio_ to Augustus at _Epist._ 2.1/250-7: I would much rather write an epic in your honour than these earth-bound _sermones_ if I had the talent. nec sermones ego mallem 250 repentes per humum quam res componere gestas terrarumque situs et flumina dicere et arces montibus impositas et barbara regna tuisque auspiciis totum confecta duella per orbem claustraque custodem pacis cohibentia Ianum 255 et formidatam Parthis te principe Romam, si quantum cuperem possem quoque. Hands up anyone who can say what verse 255 reminds him or her off. Yes, that's right, Cicero's infamous line O fortunatam natam me consule Romam. Subversion? A sly but friendly jest? Inadvertence? Or was _O fortunatam_ not yet the stock example of bad verse it had become by Silver times? Leofranc Holford-Strevens *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_* Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/267865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_* --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
VIRGIL: Re:
Free will versus Fate in the Eneid?At 10:40 PM 2/18/99 -0300, you wrote: >I am a Master's candidate and I would like to write my dissertation on the >Aeneid. Could someone suggest some themes of interest? I have no adviser as >yet. V. Iannini > >--- >To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. >Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message >"unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You >can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
Re: VIRGIL: Jokes in the "Aeneid"?
I have been enjoying this thread.
I have not seen it noticed that Mynors in his lectures on the Georgics
at Oxford in the 50s, though not in his edition (I wonder why?), explained
laetas segetes in the first line as a pun directed at two audiences.
>From its cognates the adjective laetus may originally (or for the
purposes of a pun) have come from a verb for manuring fields or an activity
even more basic. Thus to a good Italian or Cisalpine farmer the phrase
seems to refer to "properly fertilized crops", rather than to the "happy
crops" imagined by those with no experience of the real thing.
This has always seemed to me facetus in its proper sense: witty,
well-phrased, an unobtrusive score off those who don't know all the poet
expects them to know.
I see similar unobtrusive facetiae in Vergil's descriptions
(1) of how Aeneas recognizes his mother Venus in Aeneid I: pedes vestis
defluxit ad imos;/ et vera incessu patuit dea (404-5). ("Her garment flowed
down to the bottom of her feet; and in her movement the true goddess was
revealed.") Aeneas finally recognizes his mother in the way she now appears
to him as she hastens away. Well, which meaning does defluxit have
here? Does the hunter's dress in which Venus has been disguised slip down
and revert to the flowing robe associated with statues of Venus clad (with
de- in the sense of "down along" her legs until its edge touches her ankles)?
Or does the robe fall right off (de-) beneath her feet (pedes ad imos)
and does the goddess step away stark naked (vera ... patuit dea)? The verb
is used in just this sense by Ovid when Arachne's hair fell off in her
transition to a spider. The mere suggestion of a second meaning hidden
in an ambiguous verb (and this is how I take Vergil's humor at this point)
highlights the paradox of just how the goddess of sex did get to be recognized
by her son.
(2) of Aeneas's sudden appearance bright and shiny out of the cloud
in which Venus has hidden him:
repente/ scindit se nubes et in aethera purgat apertum (1.586-7). Contrary
to the translations, there is no direct object for purgat other than the
se that it shares with scindit. The two verbs associated with the subject,
the cloud, appear therefore to describe a biological function by which
the cloud disposes of Aeneas and Anchises on the ground. Does this justify
the description of Aeneas by some of my students as "the little shit, who
was too much of a coward to approach Dido himself"?
(3) of Aeneas's fixed attention to the relief sculpture on the temple
in Book I, just at the moment when he first catches sight of Dido (sc.
out of the cloud): dum stupet obtutuque haeret defixus in uno (495, "while
he is struck dumb and stands glued to the spot in a single stare").
Well, just what is he staring at? Why, the nipple of the Amazon Penthesilea
(492), as she puts on her golden belt beneath it and dares to do battle
with men.
In an article in Vergilius a few years ago I suggested that Vergil,
like other students of Parthenius, is fascinated by the "Erotic Dispositions"
of women, a subject on which Parthenius offered Cornelius Gallus a handbook.
The speeches of Venus offer fertile research for those interested in Vergil's
particular sense of double entendre, especially when she compares Antenor's
successful actions to Aeneas's failure.
Rob Dyer (happily retired)
63 rue du Chemin Vert
75011 Paris, France
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Subject: VIRGIL: don't reply to The Classics Pages
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Re: VIRGIL: REPLY REQUIRED: The Classics Pages Subscription Verify (fwd)
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VIRGIL: Why is Aeneas like Berenice's lock?
Dear List, many years ago I wrote a brief note for Latomus: "Caesaries Berenices (or, the Hair of the God)", Latomus, 41 (1982) 101-3. I discovered after it had appeared in print that a number of my observations had already caught the eye of the lynx-like Agatha Thornton. But obviously both she and I wasted our sweat if this is still thought to be a joke, nearly twenty years later!! Yours, yn I have never met Agatha Thornton, but I have over the years come across examples of her work with pleasure, and if she reads this list I would like to apologise to her for not acknowledging her work in the above article. Yvan Nadeau [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0131-650-3575 --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
Re: VIRGIL: REPLY REQUIRED: The Classics Pages Subscription Verify (fwd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > --- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > == :)DWBH! From Jacqueline/Percy. http://www.alphalink.com.au/~plants/hensenism/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] (take your pick!) _ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
Re: VIRGIL: REPLY REQUIRED: The Classics Pages Subscription Verify (fwd)
---Kimberly Tate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Kimberly Tate [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- Forwarded message -- > Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 21:32:00 + > From: ListBot Verifier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: REPLY REQUIRED: The Classics Pages Subscription Verify > > Thank you for your request to join a ListBot list! > > YOU MUST REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE TO JOIN THE LIST. > > == Simply reply with a blank message to join. == > > The list owner has included the following welcome message: > === > Welcome to the Classics Pages Mailing list! > I hope to be sending out a letter about once a fortnight, with details of > recent updates or additions to the site: and perhaps occasionally to > direct attention to some old, but possibly neglected part of the site. > > Have you tried the Oedipus Game? > (http://www.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/oedipus/oedipusindex.htm) > Have you found any bugs ot typos? > > Thanks for joining, and hope to keep in touch. > > Andrew > === > > This verification message is used to confirm that we are able to send > you mail, and protects you in case someone forges a subscription > request in your name. If you believe this was a forged subscription > request, ignore this message and you will not be added to the mailing > list. > > If you are having problems using the reply function in your e-mail > client, the address to respond to is: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Please visit http://www.listbot.com/ if you have more questions about > the ListBot service. > > Thanks! > > Sincerely, > > The ListBot Team > Part of the LinkExchange family at http://www.linkexchange.com/ > > > > --- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > == :)DWBH! From Jacqueline/Percy. http://www.alphalink.com.au/~plants/hensenism/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] (take your pick!) _ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
VIRGIL: aeneid
I would like to discuss the meaning of death and the afterlife for Vergil in The Aeneid. __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
