Ch..ch...changes - Ovid and The Metamorphoses

The next meeting is set for October 6th, where we will be looking at the Orpheus and Eurydice section from the latter part of the work. I want to look a bit closer at Orpheus, the influence this figure had in the Classical religious sphere and the cults of Orphism so this will the subject of my next post.

Ovid is an interesting poet to compare and contrast with Virgil and Lucretius, the two poets whose works we have encountered in our previous gatherings. Ovid seems incredibly musical and mellifluous almost to the point of delirium in his vivid and evocative imagery as he tries to encompass no less than the changing universe, its gods and heroes, 'of bodies changed to other forms from the beginnings of nature unto our modern age' depicting in his majestic sweep the constant flux and reflux of the fates and the beings both mortal and divine caught up in its prismatic torrents.

I slipped into the rather large bookshop in Piccadilly on the way home the other evening and treated myself to a newish translation of The Metamorphoses by A.D.Melville. So far it reads very well indeed. I am coming to the work quite fresh since it is not one I have ever really read extensively in the original (only the odd snippet) and consequently all seems to be new and vibrant..I don't know yet whether this is the newness of the work for me or the skill of the translator. I will need to look at the Latin to make a better judgement. I hope you are enjoying his whirlwind skills. Until the next post.

A Visit to the Underworld - Aeneid Book VI - Black Sabbath riffs andother matters

The Aeneid is undoubtedly Virgil’s greatest work even despite its unfinished state at the time of his death in Greece in 19B.C. Furthermore he set in motion a romantic precedent for countless tragic artists to come when he made his deathbed request to have the entire work consigned to the flames. To continue the romantic trope, his unfaithful amanuensis fortunately ignored the request and we are forever in his debt as a result. You can’t really do much better in terms of Latin Epic than the Aeneid – although on second thoughts you could do much better in the shape of Lucan’s Pharsalia, which can certainly give Virgil a run for his money poetically and for its sheer frenzied and startlingly powerful imagery.

I happened to read Lucan in my own time outside of the school syllabus (Virgil’s Aeneid as set text) and to honest it was a much better read IMHO – it provides the flipside to the Imperial propaganda which runs through the Aeneid – where the Lucanian vision of the future Imperium is brutal, bloody and one of great destruction and horror, past present and future giving the lie to the wonderful paradise that is promised after the dust settles on Rome’s enemies within and without. I have to be honest here and say that I found Aeneas a bit  too ‘moral’ for my liking and almost a tad dorkish (perhaps like the Odyssey but with Tom Cruise in it instead of a much better but more ‘flawed’ actor and storyline).It struck my innocent schoolboy mind as all a bit too Roman Hollywood I suppose and the Pharsalia, like Tacitus is a very interesting contrast to the orchestral greatness of ‘eternal Rome the savior of all mankind’ portrayed in the Aeneid. It would be an interesting future project to contrast the two works – the light and dark sides of the Roman principate.

If the two works were rock groups, I would imagine the Aeneid as Queen’s Greatest Hits and the Pharsalia more Black Sabbath. The former quite brilliant, sparkling, flashy, erudite but a little bit shall we say…conservative and safe. Whereas with Lucan’s work we have lines like a Tony Iommi solo at 200Decibels shearing off your synapses and hammering your poetic eardrums into submission – it doesn’t pull any punches and it lowers its sophistication level knowingly for brutal effect – much like the opening riffs of Paranoid or War Pigs.

Even today listening to radio broadcasts and podcast commentaries on the Aeneid one still gets the impression that many modern readers/pundits are dazzled by the sheer magnificence of the work as poetry and as a result have swallowed the propaganda a little too much. It’s often glossed over – and since there was not such a distinction in ancient times between the roles that poetry and prose played in official and public use at the time, this becomes an even more important point, namely, to look at the works purely in aesthetic terms is at the risk of misunderstanding their real impact at the time and thus their deeper historical and political significance. I really feel that if Latin texts were taught in this way even at A Level they would be far more engaging. The fact that Virgil is presented or almost pre-presented as ‘great’ to a beginner classicist as I was at the time – it produced in me a distinct lack of genuine tangibility or engagement with the work, which was/is a great pity.

Until recently scholarship shied away from looking at Virgil’s work in this more penetrating way however it is certainly a valid point to look more closely at why the Aeneid was written and with what audience in mind. The image of Maecenas once again looms Saatchi-like out of the shadows. To be fair, Lucan (60s AD) did sort of pinch a lot of ideas from Virgil and subvert them for his own literary ends (often to great effect) but then again couldn’t it be posited that in its own way, Book VI of the Aeneid is based thematically on Greek philosophical thought relating to the afterlife and in literary terms borrows heavily from the Odyssey?

I have been reading an article from Classical Philology Vol. 67, No.1 (January 1972) by Friedrich Solmsen-The World of the Dead in Book VI of the Aeneid (JSTOR http://www.jstor.org) who describes the loose and shifting tripartite structure of Book VI, namely into Homeric, Moral and Philosophical parts which in turn are meant to represent the primitive, moral and rational facets of human nature. The underworld as Aeneas discovers is a place of all time, Past, Present and Future where he is guided through the horrors to meet his father and Dido once again.

These two meetings put Virgil into a new category of epic, since they succeed in humanizing and adding great realistic individual detail – this is something that doesn’t happen on quite so a personal and emotional level in the underworld meetings in the Odyssey (upon which they are based).

There are in such individualized encounters highly emotionally charged and extremely moving lines of poetry (e.g. the contrasting encounters with Anchises and Dido) which in turn inspired Dante , who used this Virgilian map of the underworld as well as the concept of the recycling of souls, in his own masterpiece of the Divine Comedy (Hell in particular, Purgatory in general). Virgil’s model of the underworld with its emphasis on generalized Judgment , punishment and justice stands in contrast to earlier Greek depictions where the retribution is meted out upon specific divine renegades. In the Aeneid, the underworld is where all humanity is judged and if good enough may eventually pass to Elysium or remain forever in Tartaros, the darkest deepest pit where dwell the original renegades against divine order and reason. You can easily see where later concepts of heaven and hell came in the later fleshing out of later medieval Christian eschatology.

The great innovation here and the groundbreaking development is that the underworld of generalized judgment we experience with Virgil is also one of individuals; the salvation or damnation of the individual soul is at stake and is brought much closer to home and sharper focus that any previous ancient description. This is just one aspect of his great genius as a poet, a truly revolutionary innovation and an exciting fresh idea appearing for the first time in Latin epic verse. Dante takes this concept much further but the essential original concept is right here in Book VI and is a remarkable new step.

In a further emotional encounter we also meet Marcellus as part of the Imperial Roman future that for him will never be, golden imperial hope and deeply mourned by all levels of society as he apparently was– again a tragic and fascinating use of telescoping time back and forth in this realm of the dead to remind Aeneas of his past and his future trials and tribulations, and ultimately his destiny of founding hero of Rome. And all this in the most exquisite hexameter verse.

Aeneas finally emerges safely from the underworld, refreshed, rebooted even and ready for anything – he is going to have to be with a warrior the likes of Turnus just around the corner and his trials far from over. See you all on Sunday to discuss this work together with book IV of the Georgics. Salve atque vale!

Georgics IV - Bulls, Bees and a whole lot of Bugonia

Virgil (70BC-19BC) had come into the orbit of the very rich and politically well-connected Maecenas and according to the traditions was encouraged to work on a didactic poem – after several years work (37-29BC) Georgics was the result.

As the title suggests (from the Greek: georgein – to farm) it is chiefly concerned with farming and agriculture – a celebration of the joys of tillage, sowing, and harvesting as well as animal husbandry – all in the Mantuan poetasters trademark skillful and highly poetic language. In this work Virgil further solidifies his reputation for posterity as a master of the hexameter verse. In style the poem betrays a distinct Lucretian influence with tons of alliterative devices, frequent recourse to assonance and the expert and sensitive juxtaposition. It even boasts an epillyon (in book IV as it happens), a short epic poem within the work on an epic/mythic theme – the Georgic epillyon concerns itself with Aristaeus and how he found his bees…which brings me to the subject of book IV. Bees.

The first part is in line with the didactic tone of the work as a whole and is all about bees, their lives and habits and how to bring them up – honey being a treasured luxury item in ancient times, akin to a medicinal food possessing great life-giving virtues. You can still sense this when you look at the packaging and prices of some of the higher brands of Royal Jelly in modern pharmacies.  Georgic Bees are upheld as a sort of ideal society minus the arts and recreation – a sort of coalition government paradise – where every member of society works like hell 24/7 for the queen or leader and drops dead when they are no longer useful – no cosy retirement for them! – this book could be very dangerous in the hands of the British DWP!!. Anyway tucked in amongst all this bucolic finery (towards the end of the book) is a most mellifluous taste of the downright bizarre – nectar for the lover of the downright odd and insane as it were – in the form of the ancient art of Bugonia. This rite is described elsewhere but here we have Virgil’s allusion to it in the text:

IV.281 ff

‘Sed si quem proles subito defecerit omnis,

nec genus unde novae stirpis revocetur habebit,

tempus et Arcadii memoranda inventa magistri

pandere, quoque modo caesis iam saepe iuvencis

insincerus apes tulerit cruor’

 ‘But if anyone’s whole swarm has suddenly failed him and he knows not how to restore the race in a new line, then it is time to reveal the renowned trick of the Arcadian master, and the method whereby often in times past, the rotting gore of slain bulls has generated bees’

Virgil goes on to detail the peculiar rite which certainly has Egyptian overtones, Apis being the bull god most revered there since ancient times and the bee being a pharonic symbol of power. It may even have come down to us in the motif of the fleur-de-lis, a heavily stylised bee image.

This mythic rite segues neatly into the epyllion and Aristaeus’s quest for the golden hive as it were, completing the change from didactic into epic (or mini-epic) and an echoing of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Virgil himself or perhaps with the Svengali like influence of Maecenas wished not only to emulate these greats that he loved and admired so much but also hoped to become the Roman equivalent. He was well on his way to achieving this – tradition has it that he and Maecenas took turns reading sections of the Georgics to Octavian back from the victory at Actium and presumably gaining his imperial approval and imprimatur. With his later and final epic work, The Aeneid, it could be said that he made that wish reality for all time

A visit to the underworld and how to get your bees back

We have our next meeting on the 25th August as far as I recall and we will be looking at selections from Virgil's Georgics and Aeneid. Book IV and Book VI respectively. The blog has been a bit quiet of late due to upload issues, which I seem to have resolved. This post will be brief but I will be posting about these two books very soon. The blog will be about the purpose and a general analysis of the journey to the underworld section in the Latin epic Aeneid and a look at the bizarre semi-mythical accounts of bugonia mentioned in Georgics. Stay tuned and stay Classical!Salve!

Seneca - The End - Stoic or Roman Suicide?

Somewhere between the 19th and 30th of April, C.E. 65, Seneca took the decision to end his life. By the accounts we have (Tacitus, positive, Dio Cassius less so) it was a drawn out affair apparently modelled on the last hours of Socrates. I think it best to hold judgement on whether this was a truly Stoic act or the act of a Roman, not always the same in my book, since it seemed to be a popular way of saving face or taking responsibility or removing oneself from an impossible situation, a huis clos. Had he gotten in too deep as an 'amici pottissimi?'

Seneca's last day could certainly fit any of the available scenarios and rationalisations. But like so much about him, there is more than meets the eye and the accounts that remain cannot be taken at face value. From the philosophical point of view, Stoicism has a range of attitudes and pronouncements on the philosopher taking his own life - a supreme and noble act arising from assenting to the will of divine reason. They range from, to our modern eyes at least, reasonably justifiable,  such as a debilitating illness which impairs the body and mind so much that one cannot properly function in a meaningful and dignified way..to the frankly bizarre and seemingly highly capricious...

 Let us recall for example Zeno's end, taking his life after a fall in which he fractured his toe..exclaiming (presumably addressing the gods)..'Why do you call me?, I am coming'.

Seneca's case is further complicated by the fact that his own brand of stoicism is a mix of early and mid stoa and possibly even a few borrowings from Epicurus, although it must be said that the followers of the garden rarely advocated such a drastic act of self destruction, and there are strict requirements in early Stoa texts that only accept such an act where there is an imperative in tune with the divine reason and the actor is one who is fully enlightened and not an 'imperfectus'.

Through reading into the letters and some of the political world in which he was increasingly embroiled and as the reign of Nero spun out of control and the emperor increasingly gave in to his bizarre and cruel impulses, a more nuanced picture of Seneca emerges and I must admit an altogether more sympathetic one than I at first credited him with. A complex man - but above all things human and a man who wore the mantle of philosopher in good faith albeit lightly at times and replete with the compromises that high office must have brought.

A.D X Kal. Sextilis

The next meeting is set for 21st of July..or a.d. X Kalends Sextilis...hope to see you all there to discuss Seneca and his Letters.

Epictetus - Stoic Walk vs Stoic Talk

I have been looking at more Stoic stuff, this time the life and work of   Epictetus (55-135 CE) and can't help thinking that he seems such a contrast to Seneca and not just in terms of ideas although they are broadly upon the same Stoic page (Epictetus was a student of Musonius Rufus and went on to form his own school of sorts). Epictetus was a slave for much of his early life although he seems to be been fortunate in his choice of masters who were quite liberal in allowing him to pursue philosophical studies. He also lived quite simply  away from the limelight with few possessions as a freedman, this in contast to Senecas not inconsiderable assets and apparent thirst for high office. From the introduction in one of his works The Enchiridion or Handbook comes the following concept:

Epictetus opens both this work and the Discourses with making a clear distinction between the Prohairetic things, those things over which we have control, such as our opinions, emotions, fears, desires dislikes etc and the Aprohairetic, those things over which we have no control and therefore should not be deluded by ; such things as , our bodies, possessions, the physical world and its vagaries, glory, fame etc. To be distracted by such things is the way to disaster. I note in particular those two last items, Fame and Glory, again two things which Seneca from his letters to Lucilius at least appears to imply were the destiny of great men..almost their duty. This is why for me Epictetus seems to have the Stoa walk nailed right down and Seneca..well..he writes damn fine letters..but.

Its July now and the sun seems to be shining..long may it continue to do so..for the followers of  Seneca and Epictetus alike!

Vale