Form Vs. Function in Ovid's "Remedia Amoris" Author(S): Christopher Brunelle Source: the Classical Journal, Vol

Form vs. Function in Ovid's "Remedia Amoris" Author(s): Christopher Brunelle Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 2 (Dec., 2000 - Jan., 2001), pp. 123-140 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3298120 Accessed: 25-06-2015 17:09 UTC

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Ich zweifle aber,ob so ein Gedicht,das die Liebezwar abwehrend,aber doch so reizend behandelt,nicht eher zur Liebelockt, als davon wegschreckt.1

As August Graf von Platen noticed, there is something odd about Ovid's Remedia amoris: the poem claims to teach us how to escape love, but its generally charming tone may well have the opposite effect. The dangerous charm of its tone is at least in part a result of the meter of the poem, since Ovid has already claimed that the elegiac couplet is naturally suited to themes of eros (369, discussed below). Elegy had earlier introduced herself as the lena of Venus, and now she is likened to a levis amica;2can we really trust her to cooperate with the anti-erotic goal of the Remedia? A passage near the end of the poem answers this question in the negative. Ovid slyly admits what von Platen suggests, that the poem's form and function tend in opposite directions. In lines 751- 66 Ovid creates a previously unrecognized paradox between didactic content and elegiac style, and any student reading the Remedia to learn how to fall out of love should not be reading the Remedia. Close analysis of this passage and its Ovidian context illustrates the poem's relevance to any discussion of the workings of didactic poetry and its reliance on the bond between narrator and reader. The paradox of the Remediabecomes all the more clear in comparison with the De rerum natura. Lucretius too addresses the issue of form and content in didactic poetry, but the disjunction between how and what we read is not as great as he claims; form and function actually cooperate in the De rerum natura, and the poetry improves the philosophy. By contrast, Ovid's elegiac poetry impedes his erotic pedagogy; the Remedia amoris not only brings to an end Ovid's experiment in love elegy but also explores the logical limits of didactic poetry.

'August Graf von Platen, in his diary, July 12, 1818. Quoted in Stroh (1969) 102. 2Am. 3.1.43-4: rustica sit sine me lascivi mater Amoris: / huic ego proveni lena comesquedeae. Rem. 379-80: blandapharetratos Elegia cantet Amores / et levis arbitrio ludat amica suo. Kiippers (1981) 2518 n.36 makes the connection.

THE CLASSICALJOURNAL 96.2 (2000-01) 123-140

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Near the end of the Remedia, Ovid warns his student away from two particularly nefarious dangers. Pantomime shows and love poetry, he claims, represent erotic passion so forcefully that they could easily cause anyone whose emotions are not under control to fall back under the power of love (751-66).

at tanti tibi sit non indulgeretheatris, dum bene de vacuo pectore cedat amor. enervantanimos citharaelotosque lyraeque et vox et numerisbracchia mota suis. illic assidue ficti saltanturamantes, quod caveas;actor, qua iuvat, arte docet. eloquarinvitus: teneros ne tange poetas; summoveo dotes impius ipse meas. Callimachumfugito, non est inimicus amori; et cum Callimachotu quoque, Coe, noces. me certe Sappho melioremfecit amicae, nec rigidos mores Teia Musa dedit. carminaquis potuit tuto legisse Tibulli vel tua, cuius opus Cynthiasola fuit? quis poterit lecto durus discedereGallo? et mea nescioquidcarmina tale sonant.3

The first three couplets (751-6) warn of the dangers of attending the theater, specifically the pantomime shows.4 The ear as well as the eye is imperiled: in addition to the visual representation of love (ficti saltanturamantes) the citharae,vox, lotos,and lyraealso threaten the lover's recovery. The amatory content of the staged adulteries combines with the seductive thrill of the music and poetry to damage the lover's attempt to return to health. In describing the power of pantomime as the combination of dance, poetry, and song, Ovid takes a firm stand in the ancient debate over Ethoslehreon the side of those who claim that music does have an ethical influence upon those who hear it. His description of the effect of pantomime is akin to the views of Aristides Quintilianus, who champions the combination of word, melody, and dance as the most effective educational format that the arts have to offer. Ovid agrees that pantomime is effective, and dangerously so: the stories and the music both cast an erotic spell over the audience.5

3 My text follows Kenney's OCT (1994, corrected 1995) except in line 756, discussed below. 4 Lucke (1982) ad 753ff. lists ancient sources for pantomime. The theater is dangerous as well for the erotic attractions of the audience (cf. Ars 1.89-162, 3.394), though this particular danger is not spelled out in this passage of the Remedia. McKeown (1979) shows the influence of mime and pantomime on the elegiac poets; here, Ovid shows the influence of on the elegiac lover. ' pantomime Aristid. Quint. De musica 2.6. Wille (1967) 434-8 catalogs Roman attitudes to

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The actor also casts a spell, very much like the spell that Ovid himself casts. The text of line 756 is still debated, but there are good reasons to read actor, qua iuvat, arte docet, because the danger of watching pantomime thus resembles even more closely the danger of reading love poetry.6 Now the dancer of the pantomime is dangerous because he has an educative role, and his portrayal of the lover is not only pleasant (iuvat)but instructive(docet). Pinotti rejects this variant reading for a poetic reason: if we read docet instead of nocet,the actorthen takes on a didactic role normally reserved in the poem for Ovid himself.7 But Ovid is the consummate actor of love. He is not so jealous of his role that he would refuse to have a colleague; Cupid (or a vision of the god) has already given him advice (557-74). Like the actor,Ovid uses the numeriof love to keep his students' and readers' minds continually focused on his erotic themes.8 He more than anyone would be ready to notice that the pantomime dancer on stage, though mute, purveys a message very similar to his own. Ovid's warnings about the dangers of pantomime naturally lead us to the next passage, a catalog of hazardous poetry. The shift from stage to page is minimal, because love poetry, like pantomime, endangers the student not only by what it says but by how it says it. Its erotic content is of course a problem for the recovering patient: if one reads of amorous dalliances, one may be tempted to enact them oneself or at the very least to compare those fictive relationships with one's own, and at this point of the curative process, the student has been instructed not to dwell on that relationship. The Remedia

musical Ethoslehre,quoting Remedia751-6 at 438 n.306. Lucian De saltationeoffers a remarkablypositive appraisalof the pantomime'seffects on the audience:the narrator claims that even a lover will be broughtback to a healthy state of mind by seeing the undesirableresults of illicit and improperlove. 6 Except for caveas and arte, every word in the line is textually uncertain, although much of the sense is clear. Kenney obelizes the reading of R, quid caveas auctorqua iuvet arte docet,and hesitantly suggests quod (or id) caveas:actor, qua iuvat arte,nocet. Pinotti (1988)ad 755-6synthesizes the line's textualhistory. 7 Pinotti (1988) ad 755-6. She prefers nocet (in EKZ)to docet (in RYO) for two other reasons:nocere is an unsurprisinglycommon word near the end of the Remedia (579, 725, 730, 760, 810; but docereappears in 684), and Ovid often pairs the ideas of pleasure and harm (Ep. 17.169,Tr. 4.1.35, Pont. 2.3.54). Against this second point one that the entireArs amatoria combines and instruction. mightI object pleasure Compare(754) numerisbracchia mota suis with (372)ad numerosexige quidque suos and (379) blandapharetratos Elegia cantet Amores Dancer and poet alike beguile their audienceswith the appropriatenumeri. 9 Lucke (1982) ad 757ff. notes that the Remediadoes at times urge its student to dwell on and to exaggerate the imperfections of the lover, in contrast to the implications of the present passage (cf. 299-306with 643-8 and 487 with 757-66). As she explains, this contradictioncan be explained by noticing that the curativeprocess

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should instead be encouraging its student to focus on what is not erotic in the world, to break free from elegy's imprisoningly erotic world view. There is more than a slight touch of physical eroticism in teneros ne tange poetas (757). We are of course accustomed to speak of an author in place of his work: we may read the poems of Tibullus (763), but with equal ease we can read Gallus himself (765), and we have already had to read Ovid (71, Naso legendus erat). So we could simply interpret the phrase as "don't touch the (written works of the) tender / sexy poets." But Ovid literally tells us not to touch the poets themselves. The danger of reading their poems is viewed as the danger of coming into physical contact with the poets. The perils of physical proximity are a recurring motif throughout the Remedia's curative course. The patient has been told to avoid the company of his or her lover by leaving Rome (153-248) or, if that cannot be done, to ruin the pleasure of that company: sex should be prolonged to the point of revulsion (415-6, dum piget, ut malles nullam tetigissepuellam / tacturusquetibi non videarediu). Even to be close to those who are in love can be dangerous, because the disease of love is highly communicable (613, facito contagia vites). As shown by the parallels in the OLD (s.v. tango 4b), touch is frequently interpreted in an erotic manner, and when the poets themselves are teneri, there is all the more reason to interpret the simply physical as the purely sexual: Ovid is unhappily warning his readers not to grapple with him, sexy though he may be.'o (No wonder he speaks invitus.) The erotic undertones of this hexameter are supported by two other points of style. First, the phrase eloquar invitus recalls other instances of the narrator's hesitation. Ovid only claims difficulty in broaching a subject when that subject involves sexually explicit advice. His easily overcome sense of pudor has thrice made him unwilling to delineate the techniques of making love (Ars 3.769-70; Rem. 359, 407). It is understandable that Ovid here does not want to restrict his own readership, but the reader's memory of the sort of topic that gives Ovid pause will arouse an expectation that the poet is concerned about something physical. Second, the style of the

has different stages: some remedies are effective at some early points, and other, contrasting remedies are effective later on. Lucke cites Philostr. Ep. 68 as a parallel for the mimetic benefit of love poems: even older people, says Philostratus, are improved by reading love poetry, which causes them to think of making love and thereby rejuvenates them. 0oLucke (1982) ad 757ff. stops short of this interpretation, noting the physicality of ne tange but not of poetas ("Darum soll man besser die Hinde von der erotischen Poesie lassen.")

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ensuing catalog increases this sense of an erotic attachment to the love poets themselves. The list of Greek poets (759-62) emphasizes the danger not of their poetry but of their own persons: Callimachus is to be avoided, Philetas is harmful, and Sappho made Ovid "better" for his amica. The "Muse of Teos" (Teia Musa, 762) personifies Anacreon's poetry and provides a sexual balance for the Greek quartet, two women and two men. This emphasis of poets over poetry reinforces the sense of physical contact in ne tange poetas (757). Again, it is not a stylistic innovation to speak of poets in place of their works, but the metonymy is noticeable here, especially when we realize that the passage of the Ars that Ovid is now overturning has an entirely different style. In the Ars," Ovid advises his female audience to become familiar with the Muses (i.e. the poetry) of Callimachus, Philetas, and Anacreon; in the Remedia, Ovid advises his audience to stay away from the poets themselves. Erotic poetry introduces themes that could obstruct the patient's recovery. But erotic poetry is also dangerous simply for its sound. Just as the aural qualities of the pantomime were injurious to the theatergoer, so the sound of Sappho or Propertius enervates the soul.'2 The pleasure of grasping the meaning of a poem is inextricably linked to the pleasure of experiencing its rhythmic flow and energy. And although the list suggests several different poetic meters, the last half of the list is wholly devoted to elegiac couplets. Ovid, here as elsewhere, defines himself in relation to his elegiac predecessors at Rome: Tibullus, Gallus, and Propertius. This tradition of elegiacs adds weight to the idea that the meter is itself injurious because of its association with love over the last few decades in Rome. Moreover, it is in the passage where he lists the Roman elegists that Ovid stresses the effect of love poetry on the ear. Although he claims that the Greek erotic poets (759-62) are dangerous to read, he does not explicitly mention the sound of their poetry. In contrast, the erotic attraction of the poetry of the four Augustan poets is directly linked to the sound of elegy. Ovid describes the poems of

"Ars 3.329-32: sit tibi Callimachi, sit Coi nota poetae, sit quoque vinosi Teia Musa senis; nota sit et Sappho - quid enim lascivius illa? - cuive pater vafri luditur arte Getae. 12 Ovid does not say here whether erotic prose (such as Sisenna's translation of Aristides' Milesian tales [Tr. 2.443, vertit Aristiden Sisenna]) held similar dangers for the recuperating lover. In the world of the Remedia, only poetry matters: the elegiac lover's view of life is confined both to love and to poetry.

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Tibullus, Propertius, and himself as carmina,'3and there are aural implications in his elliptical reference to Gallus' poetry (765, lecto ... Gallo): his elegies, Ovid suggests, had been read out loud.'4 Ovid hints at the insidious nature of Greek erotic poetry-it warps the patient's mind, no matter what meter it was written in-but he more forthrightly claims that the Roman love poets, all of whom wrote their carmina amatoria only in elegiac couplets, injure the reader with the sound of that rhythm. The last line of this passage (766, et mea nescioquid carmina tale sonant) implies more than a link between Ovid and his elegiac predecessors. It also emphasizes that the elegiac tradition is essentially an aural one, that part of the power (and hence the danger) of the elegiac couplet lies in its sound. By closing the line with sonant Ovid shows that love poetry works on its reader not merely by conjuring up images of love but also by providing the sounds that in the Roman tradition are affiliated most closely with love. This insistence on poetry's effect on the ear would not seem so strange to a Roman reader, since ancient literature was often, though by no means always, read aloud.'" Whether we imagine Ovid's audience as a group of sophisticates enjoying the voice of a skilled reader, as an individual listening to a slave read from the libellus,16or as young lovers mouthing the text to one another (Am. 2.1.5-6), we cannot forget that all of these audiences considered poetry to be primarily a delight to the ear, not the eye." The correct use of poetic rhythm has already been a subject of debate in the Remedia.In the middle of the poem, Ovid interrupts the flow of his therapeutic advice with a spirited defense of his poetic

13The probable etymological root of carmen in cano would likely be felt by any educated Roman, as it was felt by Varro (L. 7.27). Neymeyr (1988) 270 offers a full list of etymological theories for carmen. "4This line is erotically suggestive in other ways. Before we get to the end of it, we may have the impression that we are trapped in bed: quis poterit lecto durus discedere? (Cf. Ep. 1.81, viduo discederelecto.) '~ Burnyeat (1997) makes a strong case for the normalcy of silent reading while admitting as well the necessity and ubiquity of reading out loud. See also McKeown (1988) 3.38. Valette-Cagnac (1997) 26-71 argues that the polarity that best describes Roman reading is not audible-vs.-silent but public-vs.-private, or shared-vs.-solitary. 16Ovid blames his exile on Augustus' personal reader, who maliciously chose to read only those poems that would most offend the emperor (Tr. 2.77-80). One imagines that he also spoke them in an unflattering tone of voice. Ovid also emphasizes the vocal element of his poetry at Ars 3.344-5. 17Ovid of course plays with the visual appearance of his poems: the elegiac pentameter is an inferior versus (Am. 1.1.3; see McKeown ad loc.), and his first book of poetry from exile laments its own woeful physical state (Tr. 1.1.3-14).

This content downloaded from 151.100.47.155 on Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:09:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FORM VS. FUNCTION 129 practice (361-96). Anonymous critics have rebuked him for literary wantonness (Musa proterva, 362), and at first he simply replies that great fame, whether good or bad, is his only concern (363-70). But Ovid's self-defense is primarily founded on the claim that there is an inherent relation between rhythm and content and that literary tradition is the history of correctly matching the one with the other. Just as warfare is suited to hexameters and invective to iambs, so love is the proper subject of elegy: blanda pharetratos Elegia cantet Amores (379). The vainglorious tone with which Ovid concludes the defense of his poetic practice (389-97) assures us that he will continue to write elegiac poetry in accordance with this law of decorum. His couplets should be and will be erotic. The logical conclusion to be drawn from this passage is troubling. If Ovid warns his student that all love poetry, and all elegiac poetry in particular, is dangerous to read, then the Remedia itself, as an example of elegiac poetry, will damage the patient's ability to regain full health. The elegiac form of the poem has erotic connotations, and simply reading and hearing these alluring rhythms can prevent the patient from achieving a full recovery from the disease of love. Ovid thus creates a poem whose elegiac form is diametrically opposed to its didactic goal. Augustus should have been pleased by the Remedia. If the Ars had been unpatriotic in its promotion of the selfish and excessive pursuit of love to the detriment of social duty and harmony, the Remedia now offered an antidote to that way of life by teaching people how to escape the world of love, often through such socially responsible, otium-shunning behavior as joining the army (153-4) or practicing law (151-2). The Remedia, at least on the surface, was socially useful. The A rs had only paid lip service to the idea of benefit (utile) because the educational purpose that it fulfilled was socially unjustifiable,'8 but the definition of utile in the Remedia (53, utile propositumest saevas extinguereflammas) could be seen as a benefit to society at large. Though the humor and innuendo throughout the poem may render its goal unreachable, the Remediaat least starts out with the goal of providing a measure of socially responsible utile. The poem's utile, however, is undermined by its dulce. Horace had applauded the poet who could successfully combine pleasure with profit (Arspoetica 343): omne tulit punctumqui miscuitutile dulci. In the Remedia, the dulce that comes from reading elegiac couplets

'8Myerowitz (1985) 146.

This content downloaded from 151.100.47.155 on Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:09:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 130 CHRISTOPHERBRUNELLE works directly against the utile of the didactic instruction. As Ovid repeatedly reminds his reader, it is in fact amarum, not dulce, that promotes emotional health. Sweet words are an important part of falling into love,19but the sucus amarus is essential to the patient who is recovering from this, or any, disease.a Lucretius successfully combines dulce and utile in the DRN, but Ovid in the Remedia manages to show that the two are diametrically opposed and cannot coexist. Horace, says Ovid, was wrong. One could claim that this is a wilful misinterpretation of what Ovid wrote. Should we not instead interpret Ovid's reference to his own poetry (766, mea ... carmina)in the context of the three lines that precede it? For if Tibullus, Gallus, and Propertius are dangerous authors because they wrote of their loves for women and boys, Ovid must be referring only to his Amores, because those poems belong most comfortably in the genre of subjective love elegy established by his predecessors. Hence there is no reason to impute a clever reference here to the Ars and the Remedia. This claim, however, is open to several criticisms. First, in terms of content the Ars and the Remedia have just as much to do with love as did the Amores, and hence they are equally dangerous to the lover's recovery. The fact that they are didactic poems is immaterial, because Ovid lays stress here upon the topic of love rather than upon the different poetic strategies capable of expressing that topic. Second, we must remember Ovid's statement at the beginning of the Remedia(7-8):

saepe tepent alii iuvenes; ego semper amavi, et si, quid faciam,nunc quoque, quaeris,amo.

The prologue in general recalls Ovid's speech to Cupid in Amores 1.1, and these lines in particular ask us to believe that Ovid is just as much of a love poet now as when he wrote the Amores. Ovid himself sees the Remedia as part of the same amatory tradition as his earlier, non-didactic work.

9Ars 2.152,284, 724;3.328, 798. a Am. 3.11.8: saepe tulit lassis sucus amarus opem. Ars 2.335-6: neve cibo prohibenec amari pocula suci / porrige; rivalis misceat illa tuus. Ep. 19.184: fert aliis tristem sucus amarus opem. Rem. 227-8: saepe bibi sucos quamvis invitus amaros / aeger, et oranti mensa negatamihi. Ovid's admission of the pleasure that men take in receiving emotional pain (Ars 3.583, dulcia non ferimus; suco renovamuramaro) is true only to an extent; Ovid simply means that a portion of bitterness merely makes the dulcia all the sweeter. Thereis no instanceof dulcein the Remedia.

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Finally, there is the matter of Ovid's style. When Ovid chooses to refer elsewhere in the Ars and Remedia to his previous works, he explicitly identifies them by name or with a clear description. In Book 3 of the Ars, he refers at lines 47-8 to Ars 1 and 2; at 205-6, he mentions the Medicamina by name; at 341-6, he refers to the three books of the Ars, the three-volume second edition of the Amores, and the Heroides; and Corinna's name at line 538 is a further reference to the Amores.21 Likewise, he recommends his Ars amatoria to the student of the Remedia (487, quaeris ubi invenias? artes tu perlege nostras). Ovid, then, can and usually does make clear references to individual poems. But Ovid in the Remedia twice chooses to talk of his poetry in general without any particular reference. Here (757-66) and in the defense (361-98), Ovid does not name any one poem in his corpus. On the contrary, he emphasizes his mastery of the elegiac meter (395-6) and reminds his reader that the sound of his poetry, which depends upon the elegiac rhythm, is essential to its effect (372, 766). Since Ovid can be as exact in his references as he chooses to be, and since he did not choose to be exact here," mea carmina (766) can justi- fiably be taken to refer to all of Ovid's elegiac poetry, including the Remediaitself. The idea that elegiac rhythm vitiates the anti-erotic didactic goal of the Remedia has a parallel in the Amores. In the first poem of Book 3, Ovid listens to the goddesses Tragedy and Elegy as they struggle for control of his poetic soul. After Tragedy's ponderous speech, Elegy begins her reply by noticing that Tragedy had to phrase her argument in Ovidian elegiac couplets (Am. 3.1.35-8):

21 Ars 3.47-8: illos artifices geminifecere libelli; / haec quoque pars monitis erudienda tuis. Ars 3.205-6: est mihi, quo dixi vestrae medicaminaformae, / parvus, sed cura grande, libellus, opus. Ars 3.341-6: atque aliquis dicet 'nostrilege culta magistri carmina,quis partesinstruit ille duas, deve tener libristitulo quos signat AMORUM elige quod docili molliterore legas, vel tibi compositacantetur EPISTULA voce; ignotum hoc aliis ille novavit opus.' (Since this catalog, like that in Amores1.15, refers to itself, so may the catalog in the Remedia.) Ars 3.538: et multi, sit nostra Corinna, I quae rogant. Green (1982) 483 simply notes the tonal difference: "The casual, almost throwaway, referenceto his own work (766) is in strikingcontrast to Ovid's sedulous self-promotionat AA 3.339-48... and elsewhere."

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'quid gravibusverbis, animosaTragoedia,' dixit 'me premis?an numquamnon gravis esse potes? imparibustamen es numerisdignata moveri; in me pugnastiversibus usa meis.'

Ovid of course compelled Tragedy to use these couplets, which suit her less well than would an iambic trimeter or some dochmiacs, but Elegy also implies that the force of Tragedy's argument was weakened by this mismatch of content and style. By claiming in me pugnasti versibus usa meis Elegy hints that she is not going to be dethroned from her privileged position in Ovid's poetic world by an argument phrased in elegiac couplets. The figure of Tragedy, then, has the same conflict of purpose and method as does the narrator of the Remedia:Tragedy is trying in Am. 3.1 to free Ovid from the snares of love poetry, and Ovid is trying in the Remedia to free his student from the snares of love poetry, by using elegiac couplets, the very poetic form that is most likely to keep both Ovid and his student addicted to love. Finally, we may note that it is very late in the poem to be learning that this poem is not what we should be reading. It is not until the students have almost completed the course that Ovid tells them that everything they have read so far has been dangerous to their emotional health. We will see that Lucretius at least had the good sense to discuss close to the start of his poem such matters as the relation of form and content, but Ovid has wittily saved the best for last: when the work is nearly over, he implies that it has all been for nought. Like a minor computer virus, Ovid's conundrum does not display itself prominently or immediately on the surface of the text; instead, it bides its time and eventually causes subtle and amusing disruptions. Ovid is not alone among poets in alluding to the relation of form and content. But the nature of what he implies will become clearer when we set the Remedia into the context of his didactic predecessor Lucretius. Didactic poetry acknowledges a rapport between teacher and student, and although Lucretius' De rerum natura offers a very different explanation of the power of poetry in teaching, an analysis of his explanation will allow us to draw further conclusions about the role of the elegiac meter in the Remedia. The didactic De rerum natura raises the same questions of form and function as does the Remedia, though it arrives at different answers. In short, Lucretius praises poetry because it sweetens and enlivens Epicurean doctrine, but elegiac poetry is 'good' or 'bad' for Ovid because it eroticizes teaching. Ovid's doctrine itself is already

This content downloaded from 151.100.47.155 on Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:09:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FORM VS. FUNCTION 133 erotic in that it has to do with human eros; it becomes even more erotic in the Remedia because the elegiac form is traditionally linked to eros.A Lucretius' clearest statement of the value of poetry as a tool for explaining Epicurean philosophy is the famous digression at DRN 1.925-50, repeated almost verbatim at 4.1-25.24 In this passage he acknowledges the pull of praise and his love of the Muses, who have caused him to start down heretofore unknown poetic paths. His pleasure as author comes from the greatness of his subject (Epicurean philosophy) and his goal (to free humanity from the bonds of superstition) as well as from the sweetness of poetry itself. His poetry, he says, works like the honey with which doctors line the rim of the cup, thereby encouraging sick children to drink the medicine within. Likewise, Epicurean philosophy generally meets with public disfavor, but by serving it up in the sweetened form of poetry, Lucretius plans to charm his reader into accepting a doctrine that would otherwise be too unpleasantly difficult. The pleasure of poetry will draw the reader into accepting Epicurean philosophy, which claims that pleasure is essential to the process of human decisions.? Some pleasures are not to be chosen, especially if they lead to suffering rather than to a greater good, but the pleasure of poetry is to be chosen in reading the DRN because it leads to the greater pleasure of the knowledge of Epicurean philosophy." Moreover, though this digression advises the reader to perceive and enjoy the sweetness of the poetry, the narrator also claims his share of that enjoyment. With the repetition of iuvat in two adjoining lines Lucretius emphasizes that he too delights in the pleasure of poetry, partly because of the novelty of his undertaking (as many other Latin poets claim, there is a pleasure not just in writing poetry but in writing a new kind of poem) and partly in the hope of bringing the reader into contact with Epicurus' views.2 ' I will not discuss the many correspondences and divergences between the poetry and didacticism of Lucretiusand Ovid. For a textual comparison of the Ars and the DRN, see Sommariva(1980) as well as Steudel (1992)40-76. Miller (1997)387 n.6 gives a good overview of the literature on the relation between Ovid's early amatory elegies and Lucretius' DRN. I compare Ovid with Lucretiusand not with Vergil, because the narratorof the Georgicsneither offers a focused explanationof his teaching methods nor leads his student along an orderly progression of topics towards a specific educationalgoal. 2 For the likelihood that Lucretiusmeant to include this passage in both places and that neither is an interpolationof the other, see Gale (1994) 116-7, 138 n.37, and 141 n.45. ' The will is controlled by pleasure (DRN 2.172): ipsaque deducit dux vitae dia voluptas.Compare the juxtapositionof voluntasand voluptasat 2.257-8. SGale(1994) 149-50. 2 DRN 1.927-8: iuvat integros accederefontis / atque haurire, iuvatque novos decerpere

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So Lucretius claims that the honeyed cup of the DRN is pleasant and good both for himself and his reader. And yet by phrasing it in this way he allows his theory to contradict his practice. For to say that his poetry is honey that merely masks the distastefulness of Epicurean philosophy is to undervalue the way in which Lucretius actually presents that philosophy. Rather, the De rerum natura is more than a simple versification of Epicurean thought. Lucretius justifies the use of poetry's mythical and figurative language in part by incorporating such language into the digression itself; he likewise validates the central simile with eight lines (943-50) that tabulate and clarify the correspondences between image and reality. If the figure of the honeyed cup leads us to think that poetry is superficial and deceptive, then its rhetorical context causes us instead to think of poetry as beneficial and enlightening, as part of the medicine itself.2- Moreover, Lucretius misleadingly confesses that the Latin language is incapable of expressing Epicurean philosophy and that one must invent new words to deal with the intricacies of Greek thought." But Lucretius in fact coins very few philosophical terms; his neologisms mainly serve to enrich the poetic texture, not to clarify the philosophy. His adaptations of Epicurean terminology are not due to the lack of such terms in Latin but to the demands of style: even if such terms had existed, they could hardly have contributed to a good and effective poem." Lucretius' honeyed cup thus refers to more than rhythm's enticing effect, and the sweet honey of poetry has not simply merged with the bitter potion of Epicureanism. Instead, Lucretius has sweetened the medicine itself by exchanging unpleasant Greek abstractions for compelling, energetic Latin phrases and images. Not flores. Gale (1994) 149. 2 Gale (1994) 141-3. 9 DRN 1.136-9: Nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse, multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem. 30Dalzell (1996) 72-103, and 93: "No doubt the egestas linguae and the constraints of metre played their part. But ... Lucretius could never have created a poem out of the dry, abstract language of Epicurus. What may have presented itself to Lucretius as a problem of language was in reality a problem of style." Schuler and Fitch (1983) 16 note the stylistic clarity of Lucretius vis-A-vis Epicurus: the Latin poet attains readability through his concrete illustrations, alliteration, metaphors, emotional commitment to his topic, and concern for his audience's reaction. Sedley (1998) 35-61 suggests that Lucretius' attitude towards Greek vocabulary combines a sense of cultural distance and an acceptance of philosophical universality: "although Epicurus' world is alien, his philosophy is not" (59).

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only is there honey on the edge of the cup, but Lucretius' medicine itself tastes better than Epicurus' original recipe." By contrast, Ovid acknowledges no difference in the effect of his poetic tone and that of his literary sources, because he is his own literary source: Naso legenduserat tum cumdidicistis amare; / idemnunc vobisNaso legendus erit (Rem. 71-2). To borrow Lucretius' simile, we may say that the elegiac honey on the lip of Ovid's cup may indeed mask the taste of the bitter anti-erotic medicine, but it also works as an antidote, negating the medicine's effects even as it is drunk.32 Lucretius' programmatic simile is more than a brief poetic manifesto; it also questions the role of the didactic reader. Just when Lucretius undervalues his own poetry he also appears to denigrate and alienate the reader, for the same image that likens his poetry to honey on the cup also describes his reader as a small, sick child who does not know enough to drink the bitter but beneficial medicine. The most strongly worded statement of his poetic beliefs is a strange place to disparage his readership, but it is not the only instance of disparagement. Children throughout the DRN are held in contempt; Lucretius repeatedly refers to them as terrified, helpless, and weak in mind and body.33 More generally, Lucretius assumes that the addressee is in constant danger of forgetting, giving up, misunderstanding, or preferring superstition to reason." Perhaps this denigration is intentional. One can argue that the pupil's lowly status leads the reader to avoid adopting the role of the pupil and instead to be more inclined to side with the narrator, to take his learned and mature point of view. To reject the foolish pupil is to accept the wise narrator and thus the terms of his argument; we may not be led to embrace Epicureanism, but we will acknowledge that the DRN shows the way in which the issue should be formulated.3" Nonetheless, this argument is not entirely persuasive, because it omits the obvious tertium quid: the reader may not agree either with the foolish pupil or with the confident master. In fact, Lucretius'

31Furthermore, Lucretius appropriates the methods and the prestige of Homeric to elevate his didactic Gale 99-128, 36-7 and 40-2. epic 1 message: (1994) Mayer(1990) The anonymous author of the fourteenth-centuryAntiovidianus used the same Lucretianimage of honey and poison to refer to the workings of the Remedia:vix umquamscribens posuisti mel sinefelle, / mixtaquemortiferis hec medicinafuit (lines 65-6, quoted in Stroh [1969]28). 33Mitsis (1993)116-7, referring to DRN 2.55-8,2.577, 3.447-8, 5.222-6. 3 Mitsis (1993)123, referring to DRN 1.80-3,1.102-3, 1.267, 1.370-1. 35To the extent that we join the narratorin looking down upon the student, "We ourselves may be swallowing more of the poet's medicine than we suspect." Mitsis (1993) 128. Lucretiusexpresses the idea of the excluded middle at 1.974:alterutrum fatearisenim sumasque necessest.

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often overbearing narrative manner may be enough to make the reader prefer to side with neither party. Simply rejecting the unwilling and pusillanimous addressee does not mean that we must ally ourselves with the aggressive narrator. This third option is obvious to anyone who has considered how to react to Ovid's didactic poems. In the Ars and the Remedia, both the teacher and the pupil have clear flaws that let us imagine ourselves as better than either. The stupidity of anyone who would listen wholeheartedly to all of Ovid's advice makes us resist identifying ourselves with such a pupil, and Ovid's own self- deprecation and artfully contrived failures lead us to see ourselves as better than the narrator as well. By contrast, the serious Lucretian narrator seems entirely committed to his educational program and his own mastery of it, and one might thus assume that we must identify ourselves with him if not with the pupil. But this is not the case. Mitsis' argument moreover takes an unnecessarily negative view of Lucretius' reader. As Bruns was the first to point out, Lucretius also assumes that his reader has a certain amount of mental aptitude: the image of the incompetent and querulous child is balanced by the image of the capable and self-reliant student.9 Even the direct addresses to Memmius are not always imbued with concern about his limited mental capacity: when Lucretius expresses very early on in the poem that it is the hoped-for pleasure of Memmius' friendship that impels him to write (DRN 1.140-1 sperata voluptas / suavis amicitiae), the reader sees evidence of Lucretius' positive didactic attitude towards his audience. Because this passage comes early in the poem, it prepares the reader for a more genial relation between teacher and student than the numerous negative passages alone might suggest. Mitsis' general point is nonetheless valid and pertains to Ovid as well as Lucretius: the stronger the portrayal of a character (either pupil or teacher), the more likely we are to react to that character, either by accepting or rejecting his or her values. Nor is this a clear dichotomy: we may be simultaneously drawn to and repelled by different elements of the same character. The force with which Lucretius portrays his student and his narrator and the strong bond that he creates between the two make it all the more difficult to entertain other ways than theirs of reading the poem.37

Bruns(1884) 15-6, noted by Dalzell (1996)50-1. 37Lucretius addresses the reader once every 18 lines on average:Keen (1985) 1 (with corrections). Even if the reader rejectsthe role of Lucretius'or Ovid's student,

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This is not the only way in which Lucretius shapes the response of his reader to the poem. The image of an unimpressive pupil may cause us to take the teacher'sside and to adopt his ways of thinking, but in addition the image of difficult poetry may dissuade unenergetic readers from continuing onwards. By emphasizing the labor involved in reading his poem, Lucretiusis drawing in the sort of audience that responds to such challenges and that is willing to rise to them. This declaration of the poetic and philosophical dangers that lie ahead will deter the complaisant reader or change that reader into a willing participant in the struggle. As Dalzell notes, those dangers are not in fact as great as Lucretiusintimates; so if the initial warnings have done their job in obtaining a hardworking readership, their experience of and pleasure in responding to the rest of the poem will be even greater. Lucretius' text, in other words, tries to obtain a reader who is ready and eager for the challenge ahead. We may compare Umberto Eco's less explicitly stated attempt to attain a devoted reader: the difficulty of the first hundred pages of TheName of the Roseprevents those who are unwilling or unable to finish the book from reading further. As Eco says, "Those first hundred pages are like a penance or an initiation, and if someone does not like them, so much the worse for him. He can stay at the foot of the hill."" Likewise, only those readers who have agreed to the challenge posed by Lucretius will read and perhaps enjoy the De rerumnatura. The same idea of drawing in a certain kind of reader can be applied to the Remediaamoris. Ovid is known and wants to be known throughout the world for his elegiac couplets, but the simple fact of writing elegiac couplets has a direct effect on his readership. By selecting those amatory topics and inserting himself into the tradition of Roman love elegy Ovid solicits not just any reader but the kind of reader that likes love poetry. Those who want to read elegiac poetry will read Ovid. This idea leads to a crucial point. The act of reading the self- defense (Remedia 357-98) does not simply inform the reader that Ovid very much likes to write love poetry; it also compels the reader to acknowledge that this is the sort of poetry that he or she likes to read, because he or she is reading it now and will probably continue

the reader must first at least for a brief moment accept that role: "The very act of reading - the act of being 'temporarilymanipulated into accepting what cannot be defended in the light of day' - has taken place and is henceforthan event that must be reckonedwith." Gerhart(1992) 176-7. 1 Eco (1984)41.

This content downloaded from 151.100.47.155 on Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:09:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 138 CHRISTOPHERBRUNELLE to do so. Of course no one is compelled to finish the Remedia," but anyone who does must admit to deriving a certain amount of pleasure from it. We may not agree with Ovid's logic in the defense when he equates elegiac meter with lascivious content or tone, and we may imagine if we like that Ovid himself did not agree with this logic either," but we must assume that the narrator of the Remedia will fulfill his promise to continue to write such openly provocative material. And if we read on beyond the defense, we agree that we are willing to read such material ourselves. By accepting the terms of the defense, then, we admit that we like a certain type of literature. We are in a sense the opposite of Cicero, who claimed that even if he were to live twice he would not have time to read the lyric poets.4' Cicero's rejection of the lyrici is the rejection of a genre that in his eyes was worthless. The readers of the Remedia,on the other hand, do have time for such poetry. We are in another sense the opposite of Horace, who excluded the topic of love from his very brief history of the elegiac genre." The reader of the Remediain turn is ready to read of nothing but love in this meter. This offers us another way to understand the paradox of lines 757-66. As readers, we have admitted that we enjoy reading this kind of poetry; now Ovid tells us that if we want to fall out of love, we should not be reading this kind of poetry. So to the extent that we see ourselves as the student of the Remedia, whose only goal was to learn how to fall out of love, we will be trapped by our willingness, or even our desire, to read poetry of this sort. In other words, Ovid thus makes us choose between being a reader (who likes to read love poetry) and a student (who mustn't read love poetry) - when we read Remedia 757-66, we can no longer be both reader and student. Ovid is famous for sabotaging his own instructions, for worrying out loud about the utility of his poetry. If the prologues to the third book of the Ars and the fourth book of the Fasti most prominently

39 Mitsis (1993) 120 (referring to the DRN): "No reader is forced to persist in a reading of the poem, regardless of its poetic enticements." 4 Critics are divided on the question of Ovid's sincerity here. Kennedy (1988) 76 supposes that the self-defense represents Ovid's actual beliefs; Kiippers (1981) 2519 is noncommittal; Green (1982) 412 says, "All this is specious eyewash." 41 Sen. Ep.49.5: negat Cicero, si duplicetursibi aetas,habiturum se tempusquo legat lyricos. 42Arspoetica 75-8: versibus impariter iunctis querimonia primum, post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos; quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor, grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est.

This content downloaded from 151.100.47.155 on Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:09:45 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FORM VS. FUNCTION 139 display his love of public self-justification, our passage near the end of the Remedia offers a subtle parallel. Conte has written that the Remedia is an antidote to the elegiac genre, we can now also say that it is a didactic conundrum as well. In this poem Ovid examines the limits of didacticism by showing that what one teaches and how one teaches it may be mutually contradictory, and the different readers that such poetry demands may have opposite reactions to the same text.

CHRISTOPHERBRUNELLE VanderbiltUniversity

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