Apollo and Daphne
description
Transcript of Apollo and Daphne
Apollo and Daphne
Ovid, Metamorphoses I.452-567
Sarah ElleryFinal Teaching Project
UGA Summer Institute, 2013
Apollo and Daphne, Bernini, 1622-25; Galleria Borghese, RomeCredit: galleriaborghese.it
• 43 BC Born 20 March at Sulmo (modern Sulmona).
• c.31 Ovid and his elder brother (by exactly one year) taken or sent to Rome to continue their education; they are granted by Augustus the rank of equites.
• c.27 Ovid assumes the toga virilis. He marries.
• c.25 Ovid’s patron is now Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (64 BC-AD 8). He gives his first public reading. End of his formal education in rhetoric, and of his first marriage.
• 24 Death of Ovid’s brother.
• c.24-22 Ovid travels in Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily, with the poet Macer as tutor.
Statue of Ovid in Constanza. Romania
(ancient Tomis)*
Source: www.the-romans.co.uk/timelines/ovid.htm * Unless otherwise specified,
all images are from Wikimedia Commons.
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (43 B.C. – A.D. 17/18)
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (43 B.C. – A.D. 17/18)
• c.22 Trains in public administration and law.
• c.21-c.16 Sits on various boards, including the tresviri and the decemviri stlitibus iudicandis. He is close friends with the poet Propertius.
• c.15 Publishes Amores. Marries for the second time, and has a daughter. The marriage is brief, possibly owing to the death of his wife.
• c.14-c.1 Writes Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, Heroides, and Medicamine Faciei Feminae, dividing his time between Rome and his country villa a few miles outside the city.
• 1 Publishes first two books of Ars Amatoria. c.1 Death of Ovid’s father, aged 90.
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (43 B.C. – A.D. 17/18)
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (43 B.C. – A.D. 17/18)
• AD c.1 Ovid’s third marriage. His wife, who is well connected and may have been in her early 20s, already has a daughter by her first husband.
• c.1-8 Writes Metamorphoses. Begins Fasti.
• 8 Banished by Augustus to Tomi.
• 9-17 In exile, completes Fasti, of which only six books survive, and writes Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto.
• 17/18 Dies during the winter, in his 60th year, and is buried on the shore of the Black Sea.
PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (43 B.C. – A.D. 17/18)
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
• Epic in 15 books• Bound by the theme of change:
In nova fert animus mūtātās dīcere formāscorpora: dī, coeptīs (nam vōs mūtāstis et illa)adspīrāte meīs prīmāque ab orīgine mundīad mea perpetuum dēdūcite tempora carmen.
Metamorphoses I.1-4
My mind compels me to tell of forms changed into new bodies. Gods, favor my undertakings—for you have changed them, as well—and spin out a continuous poem, from the first origin of the world to my own day.
Structure of Book I• Prologue• Creation• The Four Ages• The Giants• Lycaon• The Flood• Deucalion and Pyrrha• Python• DAPHNE• Io
– Interlude: Pan and Syrinx• Phaethon
Click here to read Book I in
translation
“Apollo and Daphne”
• First “metAMORphosis” in the first book of the epic
– Apollo as elegiac lover
• Reminiscent of Amores I.1– subject: Cupid and Apollo
– verbal echoes
– playful tone
– see further discussion after section IV, “What Woman Could Resist?”
• Etiological – reward for Pythian Games
A Few Notes on Ovid’s Style• Poetic grammatical forms:
– -ēre for -ērunt– “poetic” plural– preference for -que over et– -īs for -ēs
• Vivacious, free flowing narrative – Vivid present– Metrically swift, few elisions
• Compact sense units– couplets (cf. elegy)– close relationship between the verb / participle and the noun-adjective group– caesura employed to clarify narrative rather than to create an emphatic break
• Vocabulary– Look for the ways Ovid repeats and repurposes vocabulary among and within
his stories. His word choice can provide the reader a thread with which to follow the labyrinth of interconnected themes, motifs, etc. throughout the whole work.
I. Two Archers
455
460
Prīmus amor Phoebī Daphnē Pēnēia: quem nōn
fors ignāra dedit, sed saeva Cupīdinis īra.
Dēlius hunc nūper victō serpente superbus,
vīderat adductō flectentem cornua nervō
“Quid” que ‘tibi, lascīve puer, cum fortibus armīs?”
Dīxerat, “Ista decent umerōs gestāmina nostrōs,
quī dare certa ferae, dare vulnera possumus hostī,
quī modo pestiferō tot iūgera ventre prementem
strāvimus innumerīs tumidum Pȳthōna sagittīs.
Tū face nesciō quōs estō contentus amōrēs
inrītāre tuā, nec laudēs adsere nostrās.”
alliteration
juxtaposition
nostrōs: “royal” we
synchesis
estō: future imperative
epithet
Pȳthōna: Greek acc.
I. Two Archers
465
470
Fīlius huic Veneris “Fīgat tuus omnia, Phoebe,
tē meus arcus” ait, “quantōque animālia cēdunt
cūncta deō, tantō minor est tua glōria nostrā.”
Dīxit et ēlīsō percussīs āēre pennīs
inpiger umbrōsā Parnāsī cōnstitit arce
ēque sagittiferā prōmpsit duo tēla pharetrā
dīversōrum operum: fugat hoc, facit illud amōrem;
quod facit, aurātum est et cuspide fulget acūtā,
quod fugat, obtūsum est et habet sub harundine plumbum.
epithet
synchesisalliteration
word picture
prodelision
KNOW THYSELF
According to the ancient travel writer Pausanias, this ancient Greek aphorism was inscribed on the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Pictured left is Apollo’s temple at Delphi, which is situated on Mt. Parnassus in central Greece. At the right is the Omphalos, or navel of the world, from the sanctuary at Delphi.
Credits: Livius.org (left); Wikimedia Commons (right)
* Does Apollo heed this
advice in this story?
Silver Drachm of Seleukos IV
OBVERSE: Seleukos IV REVERSE: Apollo, seated on the omphalos with bow and arrow
Antioch mint, ca. 187 - 175 BCE
Credit: Wesleyan.edu (Dahl Coin Collection)
Apollo as Archer(Apollo Saettante) Roman, 100 B.C.–before A.D. 79.Discovered in Pompeii in A.D. 1817-18.
Credit: blogs.getty.edu
Apollo, Attic Red Figure kraterca. 475-425 B.C.Musée du Louvre, Paris
Apollo is pictured drawing his bow, about to kill the Niobides. Note the laurel crown and the pharetra hanging at his side.
Credit: theoi.com
II. The Arrows Fly
475
480
Hoc deus in nymphā Pēnēide fīxit, at illō
laesit Apollineās trāiecta per ossa medullās:
prōtinus alter amat, fugit altera nōmen amantis
silvārum latebrīs captīvārumque ferārum
exuviīs gaudēns innūptaeque aemula Phoebēs;
vitta coercēbat positōs sine lēge capillōs.
Multī illam petiēre, illa āversāta petentēs
inpatiēns expersque virī nemora āvia lustrat
nec, quid Hymēn, quid Amor, quid sint cōnūbia cūrat.
patronymic
anaphora, tricolon
Girl wearing the vitta, or headband. From William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.Credit: LacusCurtius.org
synchesis
Apollineās: neologism
synchesis
485
Saepe pater dīxit “Generum mihi, fīlia, dēbēs”,
saepe pater dīxit “dēbēs mihi, nāta, nepōtēs”:
illa velut crīmen taedās exōsa iugālēs
pulchra verēcundō suffūderat ōra rubōre
inque patris blandīs haerēns cervīce lacertīs,
“Dā mihi perpetuā, genitor cārissime,” dīxit
“virginitāte fruī: dedit hoc pater ante Diānae.”
Ille quidem obsequitur; sed tē decor iste, quod optās,
esse vetat, vōtōque tuō tua forma repugnat.
II. The Arrows Fly
“golden line”
word picture
anaphora, synchesis, 2x chiasmus
alliteration
polyptoton: the repetition of a word or root in different grammatical forms within the same sentence.
If the Verse does consist of two Adjectives, two Substantives and a Verb only, the first Adjective agreeing with the first Substantive, the second with the second, and the Verb placed in the midst, it is called a Golden Verse: as, a b V A BLurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.147) “murderous stepmothers mixed deadly aconite”
a b V A B
“Golden Line”
aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem "a golden clasp bound her purple cloak”
(Virgil, Aeneid 4.139)
The golden line is variously defined, but most uses of the term conform to the oldest known definition from Burles' Latin grammar of 1652:
Here the adjectives (a, b) are placed at the beginning of the line, and the nouns (A, B) at the end. Note that in each case the synchesis is purposeful, emphasizing the meaning of the line (mixing poison and binding a cloak).
• The term "golden line" did not exist in antiquity.
• Winbolt, the most thorough commentator on the golden line, described the golden line as a combination of poetic tendencies in Latin hexameter– the preference for placing adjectives near the beginning of the line and nouns emphatically near the end.
• The golden line is a form of hyperbaton, or the deviation from normal or logical word order for poetic effect.
• Some scholars also consider lines with a chiastic pattern to be “golden” (a-b-V-B-A), but others instead call this a “silver line”.
“Golden Line”
“Golden Line”
K. Mayer, "The Golden Line: Ancient and Medieval Lists of Special Hexameters and Modern Scholarship," in C. Lanham, ed., Latin Grammar and Rhetoric: Classical Theory and Modern Practice, Continuum Press, 2002, pp. 139-179.
490 Phoebus amat vīsaeque cupit cōnūbia Daphnēs,
quodque cupit, spērat, suaque illum ōrācula fallunt;
utque levēs stipulae dēmptīs adolentur aristīs,
ut facibus saepēs ardent, quās forte viātor
vel nimis admōvit vel iam sub lūce relīquit,
sīc deus in flammās abiit, sīc pectore tōtō
ūritur et sterilem spērandō nūtrit amōrem.
Spectat inōrnātōs collō pendēre capillōs
et “Quid, sī cōmantur?” ait;
III. Apollo in Love
495
irony
epic simile
Daphnēs: Gk. gen.
500
videt igne micantēs
sīderibus similēs oculōs, videt ōscula, quae nōn
est vīdisse satis; laudat digitōsque manūsque
bracchiaque et nūdōs mediā plūs parte lacertōs:
sīqua latent, meliōra putat. Fugit ōcior aurā
illa levī neque ad haec revocantis verba resistit:
“Nympha, precor, Pēnēi, manē! Nōn īnsequor hostis;
nympha, manē! Sīc agna lupum, sīc cerva leōnem,
sīc aquilam pennā fugiunt trepidante columbae,
hostēs quaeque suōs; amor est mihi causa sequendī.
III. Apollo in Love
505
simile, anaphora, alliteration
litotes, polysyndeton
Note the placement of videt, laudat, and fugit at the beginning of their clauses. What is the effect?
synchesis
anaphora, synchesis, simile, tricolon
Pēnēi: Gk. voc. (not a dipthong)
metaphor
chiasmus
EKPHRASIS: description in literary works, often used in epic
• Often uses highly visual language
– What visual cues does Ovid give in this story?
• Gives the reader a “gaze”, often through an internal viewer
– cf. Temple of Juno in Bk. I of the Aeneid
– Through whose gaze do we “see” Daphne?
510
“Mē miserum! Nē prōna cadās, indignave laedī
crūra notent sentēs, et sim tibi causa dolōris.
Aspera, quā properās, loca sunt: moderātius, orō,
curre fugamque inhibē: moderātius īnsequar ipse.
Cui placeās, inquīre tamen; nōn incola montis,
nōn ego sum pāstor, nōn hīc armenta gregēsque
horridus observō. Nescīs, temerāria, nescīs,
quem fugiās, ideōque fugis. Mihi Delphica tellūs
et Claros et Tenedos Patarēaque rēgia servit;
IV. What Woman Could Resist?
515
Nē: take with cadās (2nd person jussive = imperative), notent, sim
tricolon
tricolon, anaphora
anaphora
polysyndeton
polyptoton
epizeuxis
epizeuxis- repetition of words or phrases with few or no words betweene.g. “Please Please Me” –The Beatles
520
Iūppiter est genitor. Per mē, quod eritque fuitque
estque, patet; per mē concordant carmina nervīs.
Certa quidem nostra est, nostrā tamen ūna sagitta
certior, in vacuō quae vulnera pectore fēcit.
Inventum medicīna meum est, opiferque per orbem
dīcor, et herbārum subiecta potentia nōbīs:
ei mihi, quod nūllīs amor est sānābilis herbīs,
nec prōsunt dominō, quae prōsunt omnibus, artēs!”
IV. What Woman Could Resist?
Review: Look again at Apollo’s speech, and find examples of caesura and diaeresis. Why might there be so many breaks in these lines compared to the narration?
anaphoraalliteration
prodelisionenjambment, polyptoton
prodelision
irony
nōbīs: dat. w/ subiecta
How did Apollo come to have the lyre?
• Hermes, the herald of the Olympian gods, is the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia, daughter of Atlas and one of the Pleiades. Hermes is the god of shepherds, land travel, merchants, weights and measures, oratory, literature, athletics and thieves, and known for his cunning and shrewdness. Most importantly, he is the messenger of the gods. Besides that he was also a minor patron of poetry. He was worshiped throughout Greece -- especially in Arcadia -- and festivals in his honor were called Hermoea.
• According to legend, Hermes was born in a cave on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. Zeus had impregnated Maia at the dead of night while all other gods slept. When dawn broke amazingly he was born. Maia wrapped him in swaddling bands, then, resting herself, fell fast asleep. Hermes, however, squirmed free and ran off to Thessaly. This is where Apollo, his brother, grazed his cattle. Hermes stole a number of the herd and drove them back to Greece. He hid them in a small grotto near to the city of Pylos and covered their tracks.
• Before returning to the cave he caught a tortoise, killed it and removed its entrails. Using the intestines from a cow stolen from Apollo and the hollow tortoise shell, he made the first lyre. When he reached the cave he wrapped himself back into the swaddling bands.
• When Apollo realized he had been robbed he protested to Maia that it had been Hermes who had taken his cattle. Maia looked to Hermes and said it could not be, as he is still wrapped in swaddling bands. Zeus the all-powerful intervened saying he had been watching and Hermes should return the cattle to Apollo. As the argument went on, Hermes began to play his lyre. The sweet music enchanted Apollo, and he offered Hermes to keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre.
• Apollo later became the grand master of the instrument, and it also became one of his symbols. Later while Hermes watched over his herd he invented the pipes known as a syrinx (pan-pipes), which he made from reeds. Hermes was also credited with inventing the flute. Apollo also desired this instrument, so Hermes bartered with Apollo and received his golden wand, which Hermes later used as his heralds staff. (In other versions Zeus gave Hermes his heralds staff).
Source: Ron Leadbetter, pantheon.org
HERMES APOLLO HERAKLES
Attic Red Figure Kylix, ca. 500 B.C.; Antikenmuseen, Berlin, Germany
Elegiac Poetry
• elegiac couplet (hexameter / pentameter)- u u | - u u | - u u | - u u | - u u | - - - u u | - u u | - || - u u | - u u | -
• Greek origins• most popular type of poetry in Ovid’s Rome
– Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus• love is common theme
– paraclausithyron, exclusus amator
Read Amores I.1(click for link)
525 Plūra locūtūrum timidō Pēnēia cursū
fūgit cumque ipsō verba inperfecta relīquit,
tum quoque vīsa decēns; nūdābant corpora ventī,
obviaque adversās vibrābant flāmina vestēs,
et levis inpulsōs retrō dabat aura capillōs,
auctaque forma fugā est. Sed enim nōn sustinet ultrā
perdere blanditiās iuvenis deus, utque monēbat
ipse amor, admissō sequitur vestīgia passū.
V. The Pace Quickens
530
golden line!
locūtūrum (eum)
prodelision
amor (or Amor!)
alliteration
535
Ut canis in vacuō leporem cum Gallicus arvō
vīdit, et hic praedam pedibus petit, ille salūtem
(alter inhaesūrō similis iam iamque tenēre
spērat et extentō stringit vestīgia rostrō,
alter in ambiguō est, an sit conprēnsus, et ipsīs
morsibus ēripitur tangentiaque ōra relinquit):
sīc deus et virgō; est hic spē celer, illa timōre.
V. The Pace Quickens
word picture
enjambment, synchesis
epizeuxis
an: introduces a deliberative subjunctive
ēripitur: middle voice
epic simile
subject performs AND receives the reflexive pronounaction of the verb
What is the Greek middle voice? What does Latin use instead?
synchesis 2x
540 Quī tamen īnsequitur, pennīs adiūtus amōris,
ōcior est requiemque negat tergōque fugācis
inminet et crīnem sparsum cervīcibus adflat.
Vīribus absūmptīs expalluit illa citaeque
victa labōre fugae “Tellūs,” ait, “hīsce vel istam,
[victa labōre fugae spectāns Pēnēidās undās]
quae facit ut laedar, mutandō perde figūram!
VI. Daphne’s Last Request
544a
545
polysyndetonenjambment
istam (figuram)
547a
Fer, pater,” inquit “opem, sī flūmina nūmen habētis!
quā nimium placuī, mutandō perde figūram!”
[quā nimium placuī, Tellūs, ait, hīsce vel istam]
Vix prece fīnītā torpor gravis occupat artūs:
mollia cinguntur tenuī praecordia librō,
in frondem crīnēs, in rāmōs bracchia crēscunt;
pēs modo tam vēlōx pigrīs rādīcibus haeret,
ōra cacūmen habet: remanet nitor ūnus in illā.
VI. Daphne’s Last Request
550
quā (figuram)
scan
synchesis
antithesis
* Note that Daphne’s prayer, like Apollo’s to her, has many caesurae and diaereses. Why?
internal rhyme
Credit:nga.gov
• Antonio del Pollaiuolo, late 15th century; oil on wood; The National Gallery, London
• Renaissance: classicizing, allegory
• What aspects of this portrayal are similar to or different from the Ovidian version?
• What are the limitations in portraying this myth visually?
Pollaiuolo: Apollo and Daphne
Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1622-25; Rome, Galleria Borghese
• Baroque: reaction against the pure, straight lines of the Classical period
Click to view the sculpture in the
round (narration in Italian)
Credit: Cavetocanvas.com
Credit: www.mcah.columbia.e
du
Credits: www.mcah.columbia.edu
Apollo Belvedere
• Roman copy of a Greek original by Leochares, ca. 120-140 (Hadrianic); Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Compare this Apollo’s staid posture and classical lines with his portrayal by Bernini.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(1598-1680)
Self portrait, ca. 1623Rome: Galleria Borghese
Baroque Architecture: Baldacino, St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome
Baroque Architecture: Bernini, Fontana dei Quattro Fiume,
Piazza Navona, Rome
Baroque Architecture: Trevi Fountain, Rome
1685-1750
Baroque Music:
555
Hanc quoque Phoebus amat positāque in stīpite dextrā
sentit adhūc trepidāre novō sub cortice pectus
conplexusque suīs ramos, ut membra, lacertīs
ōscula dat lignō: refugit tamen ōscula lignum.
Cui deus “At quoniam coniūnx mea nōn potes esse,
arbor eris certē” dīxit “mea. Semper habēbunt
tē coma, tē citharae, tē nostrae, laure, pharetrae;
VII. Apollo’s Eternal Love
word pictures…
note the placement of the anatomical words
chiasmus, synchesis, polypton, epizeuxisalliteration
anaphora
www.theoi.com
560 tū ducibus Latiīs aderis, cum laeta triumphum
vōx canet et vīsent longās Capitōlia pompās.
Postibus Augustīs eadem fīdissima custōs
ante forēs stābis mediamque tuēbere quercum,
utque meum intōnsīs caput est iuvenāle capillīs,
tū quoque perpetuōs semper gere frondis honōrēs.”
Fīnierat Paeān: factīs modo laurea rāmīs
adnuit utque caput vīsa est agitāsse cacūmen.
VII. Apollo’s Eternal Love
565
transferred epithet
personification
mediam: word picture
simile, chiasmus
epithet
enjambment
The Laurel• Laurus nobilis
– evergreen, aromatic• Uses
– cooking and ornamental herb– medicinal (salve for wounds, folk
remedy for ear/headaches, high blood pressure, cough, poison ivy/oak and stinging nettle, arthritis)
• Ancient symbolism– healing– prophecy
• Pythia– victory
• Pythian Games• cf. Baccalaureate, “rest on laurels”
– poet’s calling• cf. poet laureate
– Bible: resurrection and eternal life
Credit: Theoi.com
Attic Red-figure. Themis (Pythia) - Aegeus Consults the Pythia Seated on a Tripod. By the Kodros Painter, c. 440-430 B.C. Antiken-sammlung, Berlin, Germany. Credit: Ancienthistory.about.com.
The Pythia, Apollo’s priestess at Delphi, was preeminent among ancient oracles. Celibate for life, she gave prophecies on a single day for nine months of the year. She sat on the tripod where hallucinogenic vapors may have put her in an altered state. Her utterances came forth in hexameters (the “Pythian meter”).
In this image, the Pythia holds the laurel (symbol of Apollo) in her right hand and stares intently into the phiale dish as she prophecies to Aegeus.
The Laurel: Mythic Sources
The Laurel: Mythic SourcesFrom Theoi.com:
• Ovid places the aetion in the Valley of Tempe in Thessaly, which is where the river Peneios flows into the Aegean sea. In the valley was a sacred laurel tree, the fronds of which were used to crown the victors of the Pythian games. The contests were originally musical, but athletic events were added in 585 B.C.
• In a festival at Delphi, a branch of a sacred laurel tree was fetched from the Thessalian vale of Tempe. This rite would suggest that the Thessalian version of the Daphne myth was the older than the one told by Ovid as an aetion.
• There was also a Delphic myth about Daphnis, an oreiad nymph who was Gaia's prophetic priestess at Delphoi before Apollo took control of the oracle.
Valley of Tempe and the Peneus River
The Laurel: Mythic Sources
Mosaic from Antioch, House of Menander; ca. 2nd - 3rd century A.D.
Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey
The Laurel: Mythic Sources
From Theoi.com:• Pausanias, Description of Greece 10. 7. 8 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue
C2nd A.D.) : "The reason why a crown of laurel is the prize for a Pythian victory is in my opinion simply and solely because the prevailing tradition has it that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon [Daphne].”
• Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1. 16 (trans. Conybeare) (Greek biography C1st to 2nd A.D.) : "[In Antiokhos (Antioch) in Asia Minor is] the temple of Apollo Daphnaios, to which the Assyrians attach the legend of Arkadia. For they say that Daphne, the daughter of Ladon, there underwent her metamorphosis, and they have a riving flowing there, the Ladon, and a laurel tree is worshipped by them which they say was substituted for the maiden.”
• Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 203 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "When Apollo was pursuing the virgin Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, she begged for protection from Terra [Gaia the Earth], who received her, and changed her into a laurel tree. Apollo broke a branch from it and placed it on his head."
The Laurel: Mythic Sources
From Theoi.com:• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 33. 210 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"She told how the knees of that unwedded Nymphe [Daphne] fled swift on the breeze, how she ran once from Phoibos quick as the north wind, how she planted her maiden foot by the flood of a long-winding river, by the quick stream of Orontes, when the Earth (Gaia) opened beside the wide mouth of a marsh and received the hunted girl into her compassionate bosom . . . the god never caught Daphne when she was pursued, Apollo never ravished her . . . and [he] always blamed Gaia (earth) for swallowing the girl before she knew marriage.”
• Nonnus, Dionysiaca 42. 386 ff :"How the daughter of Ladon [Daphne], that celebrated river, hated the works of marriage and the Nymphe became a tree with inspired whispers, she escaped the bed of Phoibos but she crowned his hair with prophetic clusters."
The Laurel: Mythic Interpretations
The myth of Daphne is one that has inspired many interpretations, and Joseph Campbell offers his take in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. His approach is to view the phenomenon of the hero in various cultures as the “monomyth,” the basis of all great deeds and stories of societies.
On the “call to adventure” of the hero:
“(The) first stage of the mythological journey– which we have designated the “call to adventure”– signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.”
On the refusal of the call:
“Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interest. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or “culture,” the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved.”
The Laurel: Mythic Interpretations
On Daphne’s flight from Apollo:
“This is indeed a dull and unrewarding finish. Apollo, the sun, the lord of time and ripeness, no longer pressed his frightening suit, but instead simply named the laurel his favorite tree and ironically recommended its leaves to the fashioners of victory leaves. The girl had retreated to the image of her parent and there found protection…”
Jungian psychoanalysis:
“The literature of psychoanalysis abounds in examples of such desperate fixations. What they represent is an impotence to put off the infantile ego, with its sphere of emotional relationships and ideals. One is bound in by the walls of childhood; the father and mother stand as threshold guardians, and the timorous soul, fearful of some punishment, fails to make the passage through the door and come to birth in the world without.”
Discussion
• Reactions?
• What metamorphoses occur in this tale?– What is the impetus of these changes?
– How has Ovid prepared us for these metamorphoses before they occur?
– Are they in any way contrary to our expectations?
• How do Apollo and Daphne react to these transformations?– Who is sympathetic? With whom do we identify?
• How does Ovid “paint” this story? What visual cues does he give?
• How does Ovid directly reference Augustus in this story? How does he indirectly reference him? – Are they favorable comparisons? Why or why not?
The decoration of coins was a practical method of conveying propaganda throughout the empire, and Augustus made frequent use of the laurel as a symbol of victory in his coinage. Coin a shows the House of Augustus, flanked by two laurel trees with the oak wreath above the doors (aureus from Rome, 12 B.C.). Coins b and c (both aurei from Spain and Gaul, both 19/18 B.C.) again depict the two laurels , and on coin c, laurels grow on either side of the clipeus virtutis.
What do the laurels on the front of Augustus’s house symbolize?Why was this such an important symbol for him?
Credit: Paul Zanker
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
In consulatu sexto et septimo, postquam bella civilia exstinxeram, per consensum universorum potitus rerum omnium, rem publicam ex meā potestate in senatūs populique Romani arbitrium transtuli. Quo pro merito meo senatūs consulto Augustus appellatus sum et laureis postes aedium mearum vestiti publice coronaque civica super ianuam meam fixa est et clupeus aureus in curia Iulia positus, quem mihi senatum populumque Romanum dare virtutis clementiaeque et iustitiae et pietatis causa testatum est per eius clupei inscriptionem. Post id tempus auctoritate omnibus praestiti, potestatis autem nihilo amplius habui quam ceteri qui mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae fuerunt.
--Augustus, Res Gestae 34
In my sixth and seventh consulships, when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, after receiving by universal consent the absolute control of affairs, I transferred the republic from my own control to the will of the senate and the Roman people. For this service I was named Augustus by decree of the Senate. The doorposts of my house were officially decked out with young laurel trees, the corona civica was placed over the door, and in the Curia Iulia was displayed the golden shield (clipeus virtutis), which the Senate and the people granted me on account of my bravery, clemency, justice, and piety (virtus, clementia, iustitia, pietas), as is inscribed on the shield itself. After that time I took precedence of all in rank, but of power I possessed no more than those who were my colleagues in any magistracy.
Clipeus Virtutis
Replica of the honorary shield of Augustus, awarded to him by the Senate in 27 B.C. and displayed in the Curia; Museum of Arles.
Credit: Livius.org
Mausoleum of Augustus
Credit: The Online Database of Ancient Art
Click here for more information about the reconstruction of the mausoleum.
Another reconstruction:
Upper right: The Mausoleum of Augustus today. Lower right: Google Earth view of the mausoleum. Below: The Ara Pacis, located in the mausoleum complex with the Horologium.
Credit: LacusCurtius.org
Ovid’s Nachleben(“Survival” or “afterlife”)
And now the work is done, that Jupiter’s anger, fire or sword cannot erase, nor the gnawing tooth of time. Let that day, that only has power over my body, end, when it will, my uncertain span of years: yet the best part of me will be borne, immortal, beyond the distant stars. Wherever Rome’s influence extends, over the lands it has civilised, I will be spoken, on people’s lips: and, famous through all the ages, if there is truth in poet’s prophecies, –vivam - I shall live. (Trans. A.S. Kline)
Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignisnec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas.cum volet, illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis huiusius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi:parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis 875astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum,quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris,ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama,siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam.
In the final lines of the Metamorphoses, Ovid points to the future of his work:
Ovid’s NachlebenMetamorphosing the Metamorphoses
• Manuscript tradition • Ancient admirers and imitators• Middle Ages
– new cultural preeminence in 12th – 13th centuries (“Aetas Ovidiana”)– courtly love; Chretien de Troyes– moralizing trend (Ovide Moralise)– Chaucer, Boccaccio, Dante
• Renaissance– Arthur Golding translation– Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare– Opera (Dafne, 1598); painting and sculpture
• Modern period• 17th - 18th centuries: Dryden, Pope, Goethe, Keats • Romanticism: low point in Ovidian studies• 20th century: James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Franz Kafka; psychology
• Contemporary revival
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Landscape with the Fall of IcarusBreugel, ca. 1558
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium
“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” --William Carlos Williams
According to Brueghelwhen Icarus fellit was spring
a farmer was ploughinghis fieldthe whole pageantry
of the year wasawake tinglingwith itself
sweating in the sunthat meltedthe wings' wax
unsignificantlyoff the coastthere was
a splash quite unnoticedthis wasIcarus drowning
“Musee des Beaux Arts” --W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,The old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position: how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waitingFor the miraculous birth, there always must beChildren who did not specially want it to happen, skatingOn a pond at the edge of the wood:They never forgotThat even the dreadful martyrdom must run its courseAnyhow in a corner, some untidy spotWhere the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horseScratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns awayQuite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman mayHave heard the splash, the forsaken cry,But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shoneAs it had to on the white legs disappearing into the greenWater, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seenSomething amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
“The Tree” – Ezra Pound, 1921-24
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,Knowing the truth of things unseen before;Of Daphne and the laurel bowAnd that god-feasting couple oldthat grew elm-oak amid the wold.'Twas not until the gods had beenKindly entreated, and been brought withinUnto the hearth of their heart's homeThat they might do this wonder thing;Nathless I have been a tree amid the woodAnd many a new thing understoodThat was rank folly to my head before.
“Where I Live in the Honorable House of the Laurel Tree” – Anne Sexton, 1960I live in my wooden legs and O
my green green hands.Too lateto wish that I had not run from you, Apollo,blood moves still in my bark bound veins,I, who ran nymph foot to root in flight,have only this late desire to arm thetrees I lie within. The measure that I have lostsilks my pulse. Each century, the trickeriesof need pain me everywhere.Frost taps my skin and I stay glossedin honor, for you are gone in time. The airrings for you, for that astonishing riteof my breathing tent undone with your light.I only know how this untimely lust has tossedflesh at the wind forever and moved my fearstoward the intimate Rome of the myth we crossed.I am a fist of my uneaseas I spill toward the stars in the empty years.I build the air with the crown of honor; it keysmy out of time and luckless appetite.You gave me honor too soon, Apollo.There is no one left who understandshow I waithere in my wooden legs and Omy green green hands.
“Ovid in the Third Reich” -- Geoffrey Hill, 1968
non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare, solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
-- Amores, III, xiv
I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.
I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.
“Daphne” – Alicia E. Stallings, 1999 Poet, Singer, Necromancer—I cease to run. I halt you here,Pursuer, with an answer: Do what you will.What blood you've set to music ICan change to chlorophyll, And root myself, and with my toesWind to subterranean streams.Through solid rock my strength now grows. Such now am I, I cease to eat,But feed on flashes from your eyes;Light, to my new cells, is meat. Find then, when you seize my armThat xylem thickens in my skinAnd there are splinters in my charm. I may give in; I do not lose.Your hot stare cannot stop my shivering,With delight, if I so choose.
Unless otherwise specified, all images are from Wikimedia Commons.
• A.S. Kline, “Ovid’s Metamorphoses”: http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Ovhome.htm#askline
• Mythology and images: www.theoi.com
•Res Gestae text and translation: www.LacusCurtius.org
• Zanker, Paul. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988.
• Poems by William Carlos Williams and W.H. Auden:http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html
• Poem by Geoffrey Rich: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178125
• Poems by Ezra Pound and Anne Sexton: www.poemhunter.com
• Poem by A.E. Stallings: www.poemtree.com
Sources