The Tenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses As Orpheus

The Tenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as Orpheus’ Epyllion*

Ulrich Eigler

By picking up the topic of the Orpheus story in his tenth Book, Ovid seeks the competition with Virgil, who treated the Orpheus myth (Verg. Georg. 4.453–527) within the Aristaeus narrative in the fourth Book of the Geor gics (315–588). In both cases the story constitutes an insertion of its own quality within the greater narrative frame, which in the former case rep- resents Virgil’s didactic poem on agriculture and in the latter case the collective poems on transformations.1 In Virgil’s version, the Orpheus story is part of the frame of the Aristaeus narrative as a second narrative string, whereas in Ovid’s version the Orpheus story constitutes a complex on its own, which again has a number of insertions. Therefore, one was speaking of an Aristaeus and congruously of an Orpheus epyllion.2 This term was chosen because, contrary to the greater poem, the connexion was not given and for the Aristaeus and for the Orpheus episode applies what Koster termed as stimulus for the postulation of the epyllion as a Kleingattung: “Das auffallendste . . . ist die sogenannte Einlage und dass sie in einem so deutlichen Missverhältnis zur Haupterzählung steht, dass sie gewissermassen zur Hauptsache wird.”3 Analogical observations can be made regarding the Orpheus narrative. Into the frame narrative, which is dedicated to Orpheus (Met. 10.1–85; 11.37–66), the staging of an overlong song by Orpheus is inserted; it appears like a foreign body. It seems that Ovid, inspired by Virgil, tried to

* I am very thankful to Dominique Stehli for his help with the translation of this article. 1 Quinn (1970) 297 mentions the Aristaeus story and a number of episodes in the Geor gics as examples of “epyllia incorporated in larger works.” 2 On the designation of the Aristaeus narrative as an epyllion see Bartels (2004) 167 n. 5. The Cephalus narrative (Met. 7.490–8.5) is compiled in Bartels (2004) 220–222, in which she emphasizes that epyllia are the points of origin for these insertions; they themselves, however, are no real epyllia. 3 Koster (2002) 36. A cue for the later insertion of this passage has been seen in Servius’ comment (ad Georg. 4.1) that Virgil has placed the Aristaeus narrative to the position which was once dedicated to Gallus: cf. Lefèvre (1986). This discussion has ceased. Nonetheless, the Proteus speech is still considered to be a later insertion, see Bartels (2004) 166–168. 356 ulrich eigler create a similarly self-contained narrative with a special Orpheus insertion—on the one hand the song of Orpheus itself, on the other hand Pro- teus’ speech. He even tried to give it its own title, which makes it more of an insertion exclusively dedicated to Orpheus than the Aristaeus narrative, which again can be extracted from the overall context and can be regarded as a composition in itself.4 The “Schnittstellen”5 concerning the frame narrative as well as the song itself are clearly discernable in the narrative context. In what follows, the structure and the extraordinary position of the Orpheus narrative within the Metamorphoses shall be considered (1), and in comparison with Virgil, the exceptional position of the Orpheus narrative within the context of the Orpheus narrative in Ovid shall be exempli- fied (2). In the next step, we will treat the greater context of the Orpheus narrative and we will try to discuss the importance of this episode in the context of the entire Metamorphoses (3). Concluding thoughts will lead us back to the question inherent in all contributions of this volume that the epyllion is a genre without genre history.

The tenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is entirely dedicated to the Orpheus’ narrative, and the first 66 lines of the following book tell us about the end of the poet and, at the same time, link the tenth book with the eleventh. In what follows, we will be concerned with this narrative that exceeds the book limits. It takes quite a while until the most famous poet of the mythic antiq- uity—the founder of oral poetry par excellence6 and Apollo’s son—gets to raise his voice. That is to say, the narrator dominates the account and grants Orpheus only a brief speech, when Orpheus with his singing attempts to move the gods in the Underworld to release Eurydice (Met. 10.17–39). When this fails through Orpheus’ own fault, the poet does not get the opportunity to articulate his complaints. Ovid only implies them in a reported speech: esse deos Erebi crudeles questus (Met. 10.76). The report

4 On the thought of the extraction of the Aristaeus narrative see Trimble in this volume, pp. 71sqq. 5 On the extraordinary importance of the “Schnittstellen” see Koster (2002) 37. Koster particularly emphasizes that “der Haupttext von Schnittstelle zu Schnittstelle anstossfrei lesbar sein [muss].” 6 Segal (1989) 14–15.