|
Elegy I
Ovid\'s contemporary Virgil had begun his mostfamous poem, the Aeneid, with the line \"Arms and the man Ising.\" These elegies are written in lines shorter by one foot than thehexameters that are used for more solemn epic works like the Aeneid.
Minerva (Greek Athena) is the goddess of wisdom, not normallymixed up with the love-goddess Venus. Ceres is thegrain-goddess, Diana the huntress of the forests. Apollo is the god of peaceful arts like poetry and music, Mars the god of war. Orpheus was also ademigod of music. In other words: \"Don\'t mix things up: stick to what you\'regood at.\"
Helicon was the home of the Muses,inspirers of the arts; so Cupid is rebuking Ovid for thinking that he is thecenter of the creative universe when he\'s only a participant on the fringes. Notehow even Ovid, always heterosexual, casually offers homosexuality as analternative.
How does Cupid answer his claim that he cannot write love poetrybecause he is not in love with anyone?
Myrtle is associated with Venus.
Elegy II
The stereotype of the sleepless lovesick youth waslong established by the time Ovid expressed it, but he conveys a particularlyvivid impression of it. Remember that such love-longing was diagnosed as aclinical illness in ancient times, usually treatable only by lovemaking.
Notehis ingenious examples of self-defeating struggle. He gladly surrenders to Cupid,telling him that he can celebrate a triumphal procession of the kind allotted tomilitary leaders who succeeded in adding territory to the Roman Empire, butdecorated with objects associated with Venus, such as a myrtle wreath substitutedfor the usual laurel. Captured prisoners were a feature of such processions.
\"Hosannahs\" is of course biblical Hebrew, and only a loose translationfor a word meaning \"cheers.\"
What sort of companions does he sayLove has?
Bacchus was thought of as an \"eastern\" god, and said tohave invaded and conquered India.
The final lines are an obsequious complimentto the mercy of Augustus, the same ruler who--nevertheless--was to banish thepoet from Rome.
Elegy IV
Most of these poems are addressed to single young women, mostly courtesans. Thisparticularly outrageous example of Ovid\'s humor may well be a cynical fiction.Obviously if he was trying to keep an affair such as this secret, he would nothave published the poem. (Publishing consisted in the hand-copying of works forsale, and Ovid was a best-selling author.) The humor of the poem lies in thepoet\'s frantic jealousy of his mistresses\' husband. His elaborate system ofsymbolic gestures is meant more to be amusing than serious, as the conclusionreveals. To understand this poem one needs to understand that dining was normallydone reclining on couches, leaning on one elbow, two to a couch.
The Lapithking Peirithoüs tried to make peace with the savage Centaurs, half-man, halfhorse, by inviting them to his wedding. However, the drunken Centaurs tried tocarry off the Lapith women and restarted the war they had been fighting earlier.The scene was often depicted in sculpture, notably on the pediment of the Templeof Zeus at Olympia.
The ancient Greeks and Romans mixed their water with wineto prevent its being too intoxicating, unless they were single-mindedly bent ongetting drunk.
Why is the poet especially anxious about the acts that may behidden under the couples\' robes?
Note the traditional reference to the\"cruel door.\"
Note the assumption that men\'s pleasure in lovemakingis strongly dependent on that of women.
What effect do the last two lines haveon your impression of his relationship to this woman?
Elegy V
This one is pure sex. If you are liable to be offended by the subject matter, youmay skip it. The time is the mid-day break, when almost all Italians still takean after-lunch nap. Here we meet Corinna, the main subject of these poems.
Semiramis was a mighty Assyrian Queen whose original name was Sammuramat (r.810-805 BCE), and who was responsible for huge construction projects during herreign. However, legends developed around her, first transforming her into agoddess and later into a highly romantic figure. One of these legends is retoldin Rossini\'s opera Semiramide.
Lais was a Corinthian courtesanlegendary for her extraordinary beauty.
Pro forma meanssomething like \"for appearances\' sake.\"
Ovid belongs to the oldschool of thought which does not take women\'s reluctance to engage in sexseriously. Although this pattern of thought has caused a lot of damage over thecenturies, and continues to do so, it is important to remember that in the pastboth men and women accepted the notion that courtship usually involved theovercoming of resistance, the latter necessary to prove that the woman was notutterly debauched. This poem would not have conveyed any notion of rape toancient readers. This is the most explicit poem about lovemaking in all ofClassical Latin literature.
Elegy VI
The door poem (Greek paraklausithyron) was a highly stereotypedform. It is enough for the poet to mention a door, and the entire situation isbrought to mind: the lover shut out, complaining, from the woman locked within.This one, however, is original in that it is addressed to the doorkeeper, chainedto his post. The refrain printed in italics suggests a ritual hymn, for it is notthe sort of thing normally used in secular poems like this.
This poemintroduces another traditional symptom of lovesickness: loss of appetite. Underwhat condition would the poet be willing to be a slave like the doorkeeper?
Boreas, the north wind, fell in love with Oreithiya, daughter of Erectheus, kingof Athens. Since the north wind blew to Greece from the direction of Thrace,Boreas was thought of as a Thracian, a people hated by the Athenians. Rejected byher father, he swooped down on Oreithiya and carried her off to Thrace.
A \"chaplet\" is a decorative garland worn to parties.It was traditional for lovers to hang their garlands on the beloveds\' doors as anoffering, but he flings his on the doorstep as a symbol of his wasted night. Notealthough the poem recounts his utter failure, by retelling the story in a poem heclearly hopes to influence the woman who has instructed her slave to keep thedoor locked.
Elegy VII
For most of its length, this poem seems a sincere attempt at repenting hisviolence against Corinna. He realizes he has brutalized her and is trying to makeup with her by accusing himself. However, the final impish line is ambiguous. Itcould mean that he isn\'t truly repentant: he is more embarrassed than contrite.Or it could be a satire on his own superficiality.
At first, trying to justifyhis use of violence, he cites other wild madmen from the past, including Ajax,the great Trojan War hero, who in a crazed fit of spite at having not beenawarded the dead Achilles\' arms, ran amuck among the herds under the delusionthat the cows were his Greek enemies.
Orestes was famous for avenging themurder of his father Agamemnon by killing his faithless mother Clytemnestra. Hewas punished for this deed by madness.
Note how he quickly rejects his ownargument.
The beautiful princess Atalanta was abandoned as a baby, butsuckled by a bear and raised by hunters. She swore to remain unmarried so shecould continue to pursue her favorite but unfeminine pastime of hunting. Herfather Iasus was king of Maenalus
Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos ofCrete who helped Theseus slay the Minotaur and for her pains was abandoned byhim on the island of Naxos.
Cassandra was a Trojan princess who resistedApollo\'s attempts to seduce her. According to one story, he granted her the giftof true prophecy, but when she continued to resist, he cursed her: no one wouldever believe her prophecies. At the fall of Troy, Ajax raped her at the foot ofthe altar of Athena. In the original all three of these are loosely linked byreferences to their hair.
The Greek Diomedes was said to have wounded Venus(who sided with the Trojans) in battle.
Ovid goes on sarcastically to urgehimself to celebrate his \"triumph\" over Corinna with a procession likethat described above in the notes to Elegy II.
Jove isanother name for Jupiter, the mighty sky god of thunder and lightning.
Whatare the two alternatives he says he wished had happened instead of his brutalassault on her?
Paros was renowned for its white marble.
Whatever you thinkof his behavior, the final lines reveal considerable insight into the nature ofguilt. What two alternatives does he offer to make himself feel better?
Elegy XIII
\"The bright one\" is Aurora, the dawn, who leaves the bed of her agedlover Tithonus each morning, her rosy fingers turning the sky pink. Because shegets no pleasure from him any longer, she is jealous of other lovers. Memnon washer son, an Ethiopian king, the smoke from whose funeral pyre was transformedinto starlings which returned annually to his grave to sprinkle it with water.
This is one of many poems calling upon the dawn to hold back its coming so thatthe delights of nighttime may be prolonged. The line \"Run slowly, slowly,horses of the night\" is frequently quoted. What other kinds of peoplebesides lovers does he say would like the nights to be longer?
Spinning andweaving were enormously time-consuming tasks that almost all women engaged inwhenever they were not doing other work.
The sun was imagined to ride acrossthe sky in a chariot, so Ovid wishes its axle would break.
Aurora asked thegods to give her Tithonus immortal life, but she forgot to ask them to keep himyoung. Tragically, he aged indefinitely and grew ugly and repulsive to her.
When the virginal moon goddess Luna fell in love with the beautiful youthEndymion he was punished by Jupiter by being put permanently, eternally tosleep.
Jupiter, desiring Amphitryon\'s wife Alcmene, disguised himself as herhusband and miraculously prolonged the night in order to prolong his pleasurewith her. As a result, she bore the hero Hercules.
Note the humor in the finallines. Ovid often portrays himself as a loser.
|
