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Introduction Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-00793-1 - Ovid Metamorphoses: Book XIV Edited by K. Sara Myers Excerpt More information INTRODUCTION 1. BOOK 14 AND THE METAMORPHOSES At Metamorphoses 1.1–4 Ovid announces that his poem will begin from the origins of the world (primaque ab origine mundi) and continue to his own times (ad mea . tempora). In book 14 the poem enters for the first time the legendary period of proto-Roman Italian myth and history. The book occupies an important position in the Metamorphoses, continuing and concluding Ovid’s reworking of Virgil’s Aeneid begun in book 13 (13.623–14.573) and introducing Italian and Roman themes. The final erotic tale of the poem appears in this book (Pomona and Vertumnus), as do the first of the many Roman apotheoses (Aeneas, Romulus, and Hersilie), which will close the poem. The tales of book 14 recapitulate many of the central themes of the poem (erotic passion, sex and violence, speech and punishment, the relationship of the human and divine) and chart a pattern of cultural transition from Greece to Rome.1 Chronology and cosmogony The chronological and cosmological framework of the Metamorphoses is initiated by the opening account of the creation of the world from chaos (1.1–75) and concludes with the imperial apotheoses of books 14 and 15,whichbringusupto(andindeed past) Ovid’s own times in the prediction of Augustus’ and Ovid’s future apotheoses (15.807–49, 871–9). These temporal references are supported by prolepses in books one and two looking forward to Rome and Augustus,2 which are not activated again until book 14. Ring composition is further created by the cosmogonic opening of the poem and the cosmogony of Pythagoras’ speech in book 15. Developing the Hellenistic catalogue tradition of metamorphosis,3 and following the mythological trajectory of the pattern of Hesiod’s Theogony and its ‘sequel’ the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Ovid claims to present a unified and universalizing version of the metamor- phosis theme in Greek and Roman mythology in an aetiological perpetuum carmen (Met. 1.4). The complex proem aligns Ovid’s unorthodox epic with two poetic traditions often seen as opposed: perpetuum (1.4) suggests the tradition of grand heroic (Home- ric) epic, while noua (1.1)anddeducite (1.4) evoke Alexandrian poetics of refinement, brevity, and discontinuity.4 The Metamorphoses’ cosmological themes embrace both 1 Barchiesi 1997b: 185. 2 1.175–6, 199–205, 560–3, 2.254–9, 538–9, 642–54. See Feeney 1999: 27. 3 On the earlier literary traditions of metamorphosis poetry,see Myers 1994a: 22–5, Hutchin- son 2006. 4 See Kenney 1976, Hinds 1987a: 18–20, 121,Heyworth1994: 72–6,Myers1994a, Wheeler 1999: 8–33, Feeney 1999,Rosati1999: 247, van Tress 2004: 24–71, Barchiesi 2005: 133–45. 1 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-00793-1 - Ovid Metamorphoses: Book XIV Edited by K. Sara Myers Excerpt More information 2INTRODUCTION traditions, while with a light touch the epic incorporates most ancient genres.5 The poem frequently changes style and tone. Unity and continuity are achieved mainly through Ovid’s narrative control and his technique of self-consciously drawing atten- tion to the mechanisms of his narrative.6 Through his ingenious transitions between episodes and books,7 Ovid defers closure, generating a multiplicity of beginnings and endings, and creating continuity, while destabilizing any scheme of structured sequentiality.8 There are strikingly few temporal markers in the Metamorphoses. By book 14 the poem has reached the ‘historical period’, signalled traditionally by the Trojan war (11.194 Troy built, cf. 13.623 Troy falls), a date (traditionally 1184/3bce), which tended to mark the dividing line between myth and history.9 After the mention of Troy the narrative becomes to some extent more linear, following loosely the plot lines of Homer’s and Virgil’s epics, and the fates of the survivors of the Trojan war, Aeneas, Odysseus, and Diomedes. The canonical temporal demarcation of the Olympiads10 (Eratosthenes dated the first Olympiad to 776 bce) is mentioned in the anachronistic context of the Homeric narrator Macareus’ story-telling at 14.324–5, i.e. about four hundred years too early.11 At 14.609 the Alban king list initiates a genealogy of Roman rulers, which will continue until Numa in book 15 and segue eventually into Rome’s new leaders Caesar and Augustus. Near the end of book 14 at lines 774–5 we arrive at the foundation of Rome (traditionally dated to 754/3bce). The establishment of the cult of Aesculapius on the Tiber island (15.622–744) is a piece of Roman history traditionally dated to the year 291 bce. This and the tale of Cipus (also in Book 15)are the only events from the early Republic. Three centuries pass between that event and the imperial apotheoses, which close the poem (Julius Caesar 44/43 bce (15.745–870) and that projected for Augustus at 15.807–39). Ovid’s complex handling of chronology in the Metamorphoses has been explored in a number of recent studies,12 and becomes particularly interesting as the poem enters for the first time the legendary period of proto-Roman Italian myth and history in the final two books. Some scholars have pointed out Ovid’s indebtedness in the structure of his poem to the dominant systems of mythological chronology found in earlier works, especially Varro’s De gente populi romani.13 Varro’s triadic periodization 5 See Hardie 1986: 66–9 on the cosmic tradition of Hesiod and Homer; also Feeney 1991, Hardie 1993,Myers1994a. See Lafaye 1904, Kenney 1986: xviii on the poem as an ‘anthology of genres’, Barchiesi 2005: cxliv. 6 Wheeler 1999, Barchiesi 2001: 49, Kenney 2002: 58,Rosati2002: 304. 7 See Solodow 1988: 41–6 on Ovid’s transitional techniques. 8 Hardie 2004: 165. 9 Coleman 1971: 472n.1, Kenney 1986: 439; Feeney 1999: 15, 19, 2007: 81–3.Onthewhole, however, no authoritative temporal demarcations between fabula and historia were established in the Roman tradition; see Feeney 1991: 257, 2007: 68–137. 10 See Feeney 2007: 81–5. 11 See Feeney 1999: 21. 12 See Feeney 1999, Hinds 1999, Zissos and Gildenhard 1999,Rosati2002. 13 Feeney 1999,Cole2004, who stresses Varro’s dependence on Castor of Rhodes; cf. Cameron 2004: 261–303, who finds parallels in the mythographers. On the Metamorphoses and universal history, see Ludwig 1965: 74–86, Wheeler 2000,Graf2002: 119. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-00793-1 - Ovid Metamorphoses: Book XIV Edited by K. Sara Myers Excerpt More information 1. BOOK 14 AND THE METAMORPHOSES 3 of history14 corresponds to a widely accepted structural pattern in the Metamor- phoses of three divisions: gods (1.452–6.420), heroes (6.421–11.193, introduced by the city of Athens), and historical figures (11.194–15.870, introduced by the city of Troy).15 Thomas Cole has argued that Ovid follows Varro in presenting ‘a continu- ous record of the series of post-diluvian generations that begins with Deucalion and Inachus . and ends [in Varro’s case] with Romulus’ (in Ovid’s case with Augustus).16 Ovid can be seen as loosely structuring his narrative according to the royal dynasties of Greek and Roman myth and the generations of great mythological houses (Met. 1–5 Argive, 6–9 Athenian, 12–15 Latino-Trojan), using them as coherent frameworks for metamorphosis stories, many of which are thematically and dramatically related, but which cannot be linked to any ‘datable’ figure or event.17 Yet, despite these elaborate chronological underpinnings, throughout most of the poem ‘linearity takes second place to patterns of thematic association and contrast’.18 The vast chronological horizon created by the cosmic framework encompasses stories linked by connected themes, characters, places, which tend to nullify an awareness of temporal sequence.19 Individual episodes and thematic cycles (e.g. the contests in books 5 (Muses and Pierides) and 6 (Athena and Arachne), the song of Orpheus in book 10), most of indeterminate chronology, are more prominent than over- arching diachronic structures. The seemingly totalizing frame of the poem (from chaos to Rome) is belied by the majority of tales in which there is no mention of Rome,20 and the repeated regressions, digressions, and anachronisms challenge any attempts to impose a teleological interpretation on the poem.21 Even in the opening books, the cosmogonies have a tendency to collapse again into chaos. To a great extent the chronological and narratological structural order of the Metamorphoses allows for the constant disordering and transformation of Ovid’s narrative.22 ‘The secret was to keep the narrative moving and the reader guessing’.23 The temporal world the Metamorphoses creates is ultimately one internal to the poem, a history of 14 First ‘unclear’ from the beginning of humankind to the flood, second ‘mythical’ from the flood to first Olympiad, third ‘historical’ from the first Olympiad to the present, see Censorinus DN 20.12–21.2. 15 Crump 1931: 204–14, 274–8.Cf.Ludwig1965 on the tripartite division of the Met. into three ‘epochs’: early (1.5–451), mythological (1.452–11.193) and historical (11.194–15.870). Others emphasize the division of the poem into pentads; see Galinsky 1975: 85,Rieks1980: 95,Holzberg 1998.Otis1970: 77–8, 83–6 saw instead four thematic sections (Divine Comedy 1–2, Avenging Gods (3–6.400), Pathos of Love (6.401–11), Rome and the Deified Ruler (12–15). 16 Cole 2004: 562, 2008: 63–79.
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