Love and war

 Eclogue 10 provides a suitable opportunity to comment on the love and war motif prevalent in classical literature.  Love famously vincit(s) all(69).  Such a term befits the battlefield, yet can also apply to the bedroom.  Earlier in the poem, Gallus is separated from his love because of an amor for Mars(44).  What befits the bedroom can also apply to the battlefield.  Both phenomena are linked by the need of intense passion.

I turn to the mythological connection between the two: Ares and Aphrodite.  Since I am teaching Heroes this semester, I have recently read the Iliad again and what really stuck out to me this time around is that Diomedes is able to wound Ares.  He wounds Aphrodite, but that is not so radical.  She is a god, but she is the love god.  She does not belong there.  But Ares? He is the god of war!  Even with Athena’s assistance, it is impressive.  Especially since Diomedes is rebuffed by Apollo.  I think that I am ranting here, so that I would like to touch upon my point that both deities are subject to passion and are vulnerable as a result.  (As an aside, I assume that everyone here is familiar enough with the myths, so that I do not have to narrate their affair.)  The lover and the fighter fit so well together because they are both willing to let themselves be entirely overcome with emotions.  

For those unfamiliar with the work, I highly recommend Ovid’s take on this motif, in Amores 1.1. and 1.9 (he may play with it more, but my cognitive faculties are limited at the present). There are, of course, other works which play on this motif. I guess that I simply wanted to use this post to air out that thought.

de sideribus Cancri

This week I focused on the line from Eclogue X "Aethiopum versemus ovis sub sidere Cancri" (10.68)-- I wanted to see if I could find more information regarding a connection between ancient Ethiopia and the constellation of Cancer. (I also happen to be a July baby and a cancer).

According to Willams' commentary: "'we were to drive the sheep of the Aethiopians beneath the constellation Cancer.' Gallus at the end is indeed thinking of himself as a shepherd. The Aethiopians exemplify the far south; cf Theocritus. Id.7.113. Horace (Odes 1.22.17f) in less serious mood ends his Lalage poem with the picture of his love continuing to be the same if he were transported to the extreme north or the extreme south." (p. 132)

"...in midwinter may you live turned toward the river Hebrus on the mountain of the Edonians, near the pole, but in summer may you pasture your flocks among the furthest Ethiopians beneath the rock of the Blemyes, where the Nile can no longer be seen." (Idylls 7.111-114)

Theocritus, Moschus, Bion. Theocritus. Moschus. Bion. Edited and translated by Neil Hopkinson. Loeb Classical Library 28. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

"Put me on a lifeless plain where no tree is refreshed by summer breezes, a part of the world oppressed by fog and sullen skies, set me beneath the chariot of the sun where it comes too close to the earth in a land forbidding houses." (Odes 1.22.17-22)

Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited and translated by Niall Rudd. Loeb Classical Library 33. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

The Theocritan "ends of the earth" are closely modeled in Eclogue 10-- where the river Hebrus represents the far north, and Ethiopia the far south. The sentiment of traversing the ends of the earth for love, requited or otherwise, found in both Theocritus and Horace is also reflected in Eclogue 10. This, however, does not answer my question regarding the constellation of Cancer... 

The constellation of Cancer is one of the oldest recorded constellations, although Ptolemy is usually credited with its first recording. It did not always take the form of a crab-- for the ancient Sumerians it was sometimes a turtle, the Egyptians a scarab. In Greece and subsequently Rome, Cancer was associated with Herakles' second labor, the killing of the Lernaean Hyrda. Hera/Juno sent the crab to distract Herakles from defeating the Hydra-- when the crab pinched his toe he stepped on it, killing it. Hera/Juno felt sorry for the crab so she threw it up to the sky. The Greek word Καρκίνος and Latin, Cancer are cognates meaning crab.  

Cancer appears in the Northern Hemisphere in spring and the Southern Hemisphere in the fall. In modern times it is barely (if at all) visible to the naked eye, but usually has the appearance of an upside-down Y. The constellation is made up of stars and exoplanets, but its most noticeable feature in the sky is Messier 44 or the Beehive cluster-- a densely packed cluster of stars. Messier 44 was noted by many ancient astronomers throughout time. Pliny, in The Natural History mentions this cluster as one of the nebulae, noting that if it was not visible in the night sky a violent storm was on its way (some of the sources I read mention this excerpt from Pliny but I for the life of me could not find it in Book II, which I assumed must be where it comes from?).

On the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere the sun passed directly in front of the constellation Cancer-- it no longer does this because of the equinox precession. The equinoctial precession is (very basically) a shift in the intersection between the "ecliptic and celestial equators", most likely first measured by Hipparchus of Nicaea (an astronomer and mathematician writing in the 2nd century BCE-- his works heavily influenced Ptolemy as well as Pliny).  The explanation of a precession is eloquently provided by NASA so I will drop that link here.  Cancer is located between the constellations Leo and Gemini on the ecliptic line. Our summer solstice is now when the sun passes through Taurus which is located next to Gemini on the same line. 

What does this have to do with the Ethiopians? Seemingly nothing. However, if we take "the Ethiopians" in the context of 10.68 to mean the furthest south we perhaps can make sense of the mention of Cancer. As the constellation cancer moves on the ecliptic line in the Northern Hemisphere, it appears to go "southward" in the night sky. Thus, perhaps this movement is another symbol of the ends of the earth. If you follow the constellation cancer in the night sky, you will reach the furthest south in the lands of Ethiopia.

I got the bulk of my information from Nasa and Space.com (here and here) and related but somewhat unrelated, I read a cool article about the origins of the constellations in ancient Mesopotamia if anyone is interested.

All work and no play makes Virgil write Eclogues 10

When we were originally talking about word play and the differences between forests/woods/meadows in class, I also thought about the beginning of the poem. I thought it was funny that Virgil began his poem by addressing Arethusa, and how that reflected calling the Muses. I wondered if Virgil did it differently because he was not Greek, and only honoring the Greek invocation, but I noticed that Virgil is very selective in his writings. So, why is it different? It made me wonder about two things; 1). the proper way of calling a muse or The Muses - the Greek way, and 2). all the poems that do not call the muses in a "traditional" way, and why they are different (is it just because they are not Greek or is it something else?).

For a brief overview on the invocation of the Muses. The poet is the bringer of two worlds, the immortal realm and the mortal realm. They are basically the poet, the prophet, and the philosopher - and the only one who the gods bestow divine knowledge (Murray 1983). If the gods, or the Muses, choose you, or if you call to them, then the story can be told. Pindar, Homer, and Hesiod are well known to invoke the Muses at the very beginning of their poems. "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans" (Perseus translation). 

Virgil writes;

Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem 

"Here, at last Arethusa, yield to me the work."

Which I find kind of strange.

First, Arethusa is a nymph from Arcadia. I do not think she is the type that a poet would write an invocation to. She is a favored nymph of Artemis, however, and Virgil does mention Pan of Arcadia. Is this the reason for her call and connection?

Second, I wonder about his wording. "Laborem" seems to be a harsh word for a pastoral poem. To me, Virgil is saying that Arethusa give him the work of singing about Gallus properly, rather than asking her to give him the ability to sing about Gallus. 

Then, I wondered, if other non-Greek invocations were similar to Virgil? The only one I could think of was John Milton with "Paradise Lost." Although not the first line of the poem, Milton does write:

Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd...(Milton 1674, 1.6-8).

Unless I am wrong, that sounds like a proper invocation. So, why is Virgil asking for the laborem and not otium? (A question that was also proposed, and written about, by Lorina N. Quartarone in her 1996 dissertation entitled "Locus ambiguus: From 'otium' to 'labor' in Vergil's 'Eclogues' and 'Georgics'")

Although I do not have an answer, I can say that Arethusa had a lot on her plate if she had to write so many songs about Gallus while worrying about the river god, Alpheus!

A Grove is a Grove is a Valley

This is a post about words--a few particular (but simultaneously not particular), prevalent words in Vergil (specifically Ecl. 6 & 10) and Latin poetry: nemus, saltus, lucus, and silva. The more I look into them, the more elusive they become. They are difficult to define, but more in the attempt to distinguish them from each other rather than to figure out their essential meanings (saltus aside), partly because they name natural features that are physically close to each other and are interconnected, and partly because different authors seem to use them interchangeably at times, but not at others. All of these words name features of a mountainous, forested landscape (read "Italy" or "Greece") -- in whole or in part, or in some combination thereof. I am in no way offering a solution to this difficulty, but only a few considerations of words that are important to poetry, essential to pastoral, and central for Vergil. 

What can be regarded as certain concerning these words? Etymology seems an appropriate place to start:

saltus: origin still unknown. It might be related to a Sanskrit root meaning 'to go'; in the past, it has been proposed that it is related to Latin salire, 'to leap', though I am unsure how prevalent this belief is today. The Sanskrit connection seems plausible in the sense of "mountain pass" (see below).  

silva: we are familiar with this one. Like Greek ὕλη, 'wood, woods, forest' etc.

lucus: from the 'light' root, as in lux; so the best English equivalent would seem to be a clearing or a glade (in a wood, of course), where the light shines through the treetops onto the forest-floor; Lewis & Short say "the [S]hining" (capitalization mine)...

nemus: one of the more difficult ones to pin down, though the root is clear: related to Greek words like νέμος, 'wooded pasture, pasture...' and νομός, 'pasture'. The verb νέμω means essentially to divide or distribute. It also gives the words related to νόμος, 'usage, custom, law' etc. For our purposes, if you follow the trajectory of νέμος in Liddell & Scott, the link between 'distribute' and 'pasture, graze' etc. isn't far-fetched. For what is distributed to you becomes, in certain situations, your dwelling-place; you eat in your dwelling-place; if you are a shepherd, what you get are places to feed your herds, thus νέμος = pasture, and the etymological equivalent of nemus. 

The ancients were also interested in these words. In fact, Varro had already made the connection between νέμος and nemus in the 1st cent. BC (De Lingua Latina 5.36)...but he also equated nemora with saltus! A brief 2012 article by Vincent Rosivach on Catullus 63 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41547143?seq=1) discusses three ancient explanations of these words as found in Varro, Festus, and our very own Servius (commentary on Aen., 1.310). For brevity's sake, I will not discuss all of that here, but I will propose a few loose definitions of these words, based on these grammarians, Rosivach's comments, and my own readings. First, here are the brief comments of Varro, Servius, and Festus, with paraphrases/translations (note that Festus and Servius lived centuries after Varro and Vergil, and Servius lived some two centuries after Festus):

Varro: ...quos agros non colebant propter silvas aut id genus, ubi pecus possit pasci, et possidebant, ab usu s<al>vo saltus nominarunt. Haec etiam Graeci νέμη, nostri nemora.

"The fields that they did not cultivate because of silvas or that kind of land where a flock can be put to pasture, they still took possession of and named them saltus from their 'safe/saved use.' (Varro's etymology for saltus.) These the Greeks named νέμη, our nemora."

Servius: ...interest autem inter nemus et silvam et lucum; lucus enim est arborum multitudo cum religione, nemus vero composita multitudo arborum, silva diffusa et inculta.

paraphrase: There is a difference between a 'nemus' and a 'silva' and a 'lucus'; a 'lucus' is a great number of trees with a religious significance, a 'nemus' is a collected (whatever he means exactly by 'composita') multitude of trees, a 'silva' is spread out and uncultivated.

Festus: nemora significant silvas amoenas... (this entry is highly fragmented, and this seems to be the only certain part of the entry; see Rosivach for more information).

"Nemora mean/signify pleasant silvas..."

Some thoughts: 

A silva is a larger, more generic word. The requirement for a silva is, naturally, a forest. It seems to be perceived as wilder than a nemus or lucus, but can (always?) contain nemora, luci, and/or saltus. In the Eclogues the silva is what the pastoral poet sings to, and is often associated with shadows and the haunts of beasts. 

lucus and nemus, in my experience, seem to be the two that are most synonymous, though perhaps only in the sense of (sacred) grove. Often they are translated as 'groves' in relation to the sacred sort, but Servius implies that a lucus is really the sacred kind. But it is clear that nemus is also used for sacred groves. Strictly, a 'grove' in English is a small(er) collection of trees, not a whole mountain-side of open and forested areas, though the poets seem to mean either of these or other meanings--depending on the occasion--when they use nemora.

nemus it seems is, strictly speaking, a pasture (in a wooded, hilly area), but can also refer to a grove, a sacred grove, or whole area of groves and open spaces. A nemus need not be natural. One could also be planted (cf. the nemus Caesarum).  

saltus...Do I even dare? It seems on the one hand to refer vaguely to any given area in a mountainous, wooded land. On the other hand, it can also refer to many specific features within that same land: a small valley, a ravine, defile, mountain pass, woodlands, pastures...which brings me to Vergil. 

Eclogue 6 & 10

The topic is too vast for this. I will briefly conclude with a few thoughts on two specific words (nemus and saltus) in two specific places in Vergil's Eclogues:

6.55-6: ...claudite, Nymphae, / Dictaeae Nymphae, nemorum iam claudite saltus...

10.9: Quae nemora aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellae...

These words are of course used elsewhere, but I've chosen these lines because he uses them both in the same sentence on each occasion. The first conclusion it seems one could make is that Vergil, at least, differentiates the two, in that he uses them as separate names in the same thought. 6.55-6: "close, Nymphs, Nymphs of Dicte, close already the saltus of the nemorum..." Here at least, the saltus must be smaller features of the nemorum since they are 'of the nemora'. Because of this, I am tempted to translate it "the passes of the wooded pastures," i.e., almost like "entrances to the nemora, whatever in the world the nemora are here. The narrow passes of the woodland pastures? Passes that lead into the groves? Remember that this line is in reference to keeping out the "roaming footsteps of the bull."

In 10.9, Vergil asks the Naiads what nemora or what saltus kept them from coming to Gallus while he was love-sick. So again, there seems to be a distinction in Vergil's mind between the two. But here the words are equally elusive, if not more. They are distinct, but that is all I can tell. What is clear is that they are both features of the rugged terrain of Greece, the mountain-homes of the Muses. Perhaps the words have more sacred connotations here, considering the reference. But it is pastoral poetry, and in a sense, all nature is sacred, no matter what it is.