Groves in Ovid 'S Metamorphoses: Domesticity, Wildness and Transformation
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GROVES IN OVID‘S METAMORPHOSES: DOMESTICITY, WILDNESS AND TRANSFORMATION By ROBERT B. PATRICK, JR. A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Robert B. Patrick, Jr. 2 To Lydia, who has been my constant support and encouragement 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to acknowledge the help, support and guidance that I have received in the journey that has led to this thesis, most immediately, to the members of my committee: Drs. Jennifer Rea, Timothy Johnson, Robert Wagman, and Mary Watt. From each of the members of the committee I received very specific guidance that shaped the direction of my research. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Rea who has provided me regular and detailed feedback at each stage of my work that has been invaluable. I also want to thank those who first helped me love Latin and gave specific encouragement to me in my studies as a student and as a teacher of Latin. I owe deepest gratitude to my first Latin teacher, Winona Robuck. I honor the Latin teacher and friend who opened the door to Latin as a living language to me, Dr. Nancy Llewellyn. My career as a Latin teacher began with the principal, Lee Fisher, who asked me to teach my first Latin class in 1989 by asking: ―you know some Latin, don‘t you?‖. I owe deep gratitude to all of the students with whom I have had and continue to have the pleasure of studying and speaking Latin. They encourage me to consider both this old language and new direction. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my family: Lydia, Miriam, Hannah and Christopher who have allowed me time and space to complete this thesis, always carved out of time and space that belonged to them. They have given me a most important gift. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 9 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 10 Methodology of this Study and Orpheus‘ Grove ..................................................... 12 2 ANCIENT GROVES AND OVID‘S GROVES .......................................................... 16 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 16 Groves in the Ancient World ............................................................................. 16 Nonlinearity as Hermeneutic ............................................................................ 30 Ovid‘s Groves ................................................................................................... 33 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 50 3 THE BOOK OF GODS AND HUMANS ................................................................... 52 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 52 First Groves—Metamorphoses I.189; I.301 ...................................................... 55 Groves of Thessaly—Metamorphoses I.479, 568, 591-594 ............................. 63 Heavenly Groves—Earthly Groves—Metamorphoses Book II. 76, 417, 438, 455 ................................................................................................................ 76 The Groves of Boetia and Illyria—Metamorphoses III. 35, 44, 55; 157, 175, 180; IV.601 .................................................................................................... 85 The Groves of Mt. Helicon—Metamorphoses V. 265, 336; 391; 676 ............... 94 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 99 4 THE BOOK OF HUMANITY .................................................................................. 102 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 102 Medea in the Grove of Hecate—Metamorphoses VII. 75, 95; 198, 359 ......... 105 Cephalus and Procris—Metamorphoses VII. 675 ........................................... 119 The Calydonian Boar in the Lycaean Groves—Metamorphoses VIII. 317, 340 .............................................................................................................. 129 Erysichthon in the Grove of Ceres—Metamorphoses VIII. 741, 742, 744, 777 .............................................................................................................. 144 The Remaining Groves of the Second Pentad—Metamorphoses IX.165, 188; X.143; X.687; XI.190; and XI.360 ........................................................ 157 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 169 5 5 THE BOOK OF ROMAN HISTORY ...................................................................... 171 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 171 Groves in the Ovidian Aeneid: Metamorphoses XIII.844; XIV.360; 447; and 541 .............................................................................................................. 173 Circe and Picus--Metamorphoses XIV.360 ..................................................... 181 Tiber‘s Groves where Aeneas engages war and finds love--Metamorphoses XIV.447 ....................................................................................................... 186 Groves of Rome – Metamorphoses XIV. 822, 836; XV.490, 545 ................... 192 Grove of Hippolytus and Egeria – Metamorphoses XV.490, 545 ................... 201 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 206 6 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 208 APPENDIX A ARCHEOLOGICAL AND LITERARY REFERENCES TO GROVES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD ................................................................................................ 214 Archeological ........................................................................................................ 214 Literary .................................................................................................................. 214 B CATALOGUE OF TREES IN ORPHEUS‘ GROVE ............................................... 222 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 235 Works Cited .......................................................................................................... 235 Works Consulted .................................................................................................. 241 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 247 6 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy GROVES IN OVID‘S METAMORPHOSES: DOMESTICITY, WILDNESS AND TRANSFORMATION By Robert B. Patrick, Jr. May 2010 Chair: Jennifer Rea Major: Classical Studies This thesis argues that Ovid creates a repeating dynamic in his great work, the Metamorphoses, which I call the ―grove-dynamic.‖ Ovid tells stories that function in the same manner as sacred groves in the ancient landscape. The grove-dynamic is Ovid‘s nonlinear way of telling a story which brings some aspect of human domesticity into direct contact with wildness: wild divinities, the wild struggles of the human heart, and the wildness of love, loss and grief. Through contact with the wild, a transgression of the domestic occurs. As a result, something new emerges which is unexpected and unexplainable by the simple sum of the story‘s linear parts. This study documents and analyzes the ways in which Ovid holds this creative tension through the literary and landscape image of the sacred grove, an image which appears forty-eight times in the Metamorphoses. Because Ovid locates all of his groves, except those at the close of the poem, in Greek settings, the investigation begins with what we know about the existence and function of groves in ancient Greece. Thereafter, I introduce the principle of nonlinearity and how it informs this understanding of the grove-dynamic in Ovid‘s work. Chapter 2 begins the actual study of Ovidian groves by examining how Ovid introduces this 7 tension, which manifests itself through stories about and between divine beings caught in situations so transgressive that they evoke change. Chapter 3 analyzes the ways in which Ovid constructs this tension into the human interior. He explores the struggles men and women face when forced to ponder an allegiance to things domestic or to pursue some wild element beckoning to them. Chapter 4 focuses on the final third of Ovid‘s work. It demonstrates how Ovid brings this polarity between domesticity and wildness to bear not only on heroes and founders like Aeneas and Romulus, but also on their recent counterparts: Caesar and Augustus. There is, finally,