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Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9427784 Hesiod’s ’Ept? and Vergil’s labor in the “Georgies* Schott, C. Joseph, Jr., Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1994 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Hesiod’s vEpis and Vergil’s Labor in the Georgies DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By C. Joseph Schott, Jr., B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1994 Dissertation Committee: Approved by C. L. Babcock W. W. Batstone J. T. Davis A dvisor Department of Classics Copyright by C. Joseph Schott 1994 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Charles Babcock, whose patience and encouragement guided me through a lengthy project undertaken just as he was to embark upon studia ignobilis oti. Thanks go as well to Professor William Batstone, the felix qui without whose expertise this would have been a far inferior document indeed, and to Professor John Davis who was gracious enough to accept the inglorious task of final reader. I would also like to thank my parents and grandparents for showing me how to strive for an understanding of complexity without losing an appreciation of simple satisfaction. VITA 18 January, 1963 Bom, Council Bluffs, Iowa May, 1985 B. A. in Classical Languages, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas May, 1987 M. A. in Classics, University of Wisconsin-Madison 1990 The American School for Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, Summer Session 1987-1993 Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PAPERS CAMWS 1990 The Once and Future King: N02T02 and Odysseus’ Scar CAMWS 1992 Thersites and Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon: Symbolic Substitutions and Rehabilitating the Kingship in Iliad 1 and 2 FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Classics TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................... ii VITA ........................................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER PAGE I. Hesiod’s vEpis And Vergil’s Labor ........................ 7 II. Liquid Imagery ................................................................ 90 III. Boundaries ......................................................................... 138 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................ 216 INTRODUCnON Some years ago, in a seminar on the Georgies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I realized that Vergil used the word labor to refer to more than just work, that the meaning of labor w as bifurcate, and since this realization I have found no paucity of support from scholars. I have discovered, however, that the duality I found in labor differs from that of others on at least two basic points. First, labor means more than just work and (or) suffering; it represents the natural, yearly cycle of growth and decline as well as the variegated human response to that cycle. The second point is that in forming this duality for labor Vergil has adapted the two k'piSes from the mythological complex of Hesiod’s Works and Days. Recognizing this we can not only uncover a Vergilian understanding of the interconnections of the Hesiodic myths but also discern some of the natural mechanisms that drive the Georgies’ world and the human reactions to them. 1 2 My argument begins by scrutinizing the two erides and their characteristics. We will find that one of them, the “good” eris, is ultimately recognizable as an expression of the need to work, which defines the state of existence in Zeus’ new Iron Age. Likewise the other, “bad” eris ultimately expresses the violent human response to the first eris. From there I proceed to a discussion of Vergil’s creation of the similarly twofold labores, examination of which focuses on Book l’s theodicy. Vergil brackets this theodicy with allusions to telling passages from Works and Days in addition to marking it internally with the more conspicuous and famous references to such staple Hesiodic topics as the ease of life in days gone by and the hiding of fire. Once labor's basic duality—action and reaction—has been sketched out, I turn to a survey of labor in the poem, which explores the two facets of the word’s use on a detailed or particularizing level so as to establish the presence of this duality throughout the four books. The chapter concludes with an argument for reading the development of eris and labor as similarly structured, for both progress from need to excess. In the Golden Age there was no need for competition or strife, because everything desired was abundant and easily obtained. Upon the introduction of difficulty by Zeus or 3 Jove, that is to say of eris or labor, the farmer must struggle for survival and compete for limited resources. Goods become symbols of success, and the competition escalates to greed and violence and seizing the products of others’ work, that is to say it escalates to the other eris o r labor. Thus we see how the one facet of eris o r labor leads to the other and furthermore how work is not far from war; in fact they are both reflexes of the primary need to work, which truth Vergil highlights with the seeming duality of Mars. As god of war and of agriculture, he shows how the seeds of violence are available in the everyday struggle for a livelihood. The next chapter treats Vergil’s use of liquid imagery to describe the natural cycle, the first labor. The cycle encompasses both growth and decay, construction and destruction, and we find not only that liquidity can represent both fertility and destruction, but that there is not always a clear distinction between the two in the Georgies. Indeed, values are not fixed but contextual in this world, and Vergil’s depiction of natural processes conforms to his assessment of them: words’ meanings change and evaluations of phenomena are seldom constant. Cyrene’s underwater realm shows us mythologically that liquids lie at the heart of nature, and while spring rain can embody mythical fecundity in the showers of pater Aether, it also brings 4 devastation in the storms of Jupiter. Farmers can be as gods eradicating pests or lowly earth-spawn under attack from the sky god. In the final chapter I turn to the farmer’s efforts to direct his and nature’s energies to goals of his choosing. This entails a treatment of all sorts of boundaries, from animal pens to the cohesiveness of dirt clods. The farmer’s control of these boundaries determines his success or failure in securing a livelihood. As Deucalion introduced new (renewed) shape and variety to a shapeless, post-diluvian world, so the farmer must work with both form and formlessness— expressions of the natural cycle as discussed in Chapter 2. He must delimit his endeavor to manageable proportions and then manipulate the natural cycle within the bounds he set. He must evoke in a bounded place the boundless fertility of non-structure in a way that enhances the natural transition of that non-structure to structure. If he manages successfully to set boundaries on the natural cycle’s liquid potential, he will accomplish his goal and feed his family; we will find that the bugonia of Book 4 provides a paradigm for this method of containing liquids and extracting structure from them. Here we will see how the farmer must manipulate chaos as well as order—polar phases of the natural cycle—in order to gain his chosen 5 end. Success is not guaranteed, however, and when the boundaries he maintains are penetrated unwantedly, he meets with failure— often in liquid form, again as we have seen previously. Perhaps a storm will cross the termini of his field and devastate his crop, or, as in the grim finale of Book 3, a plague will find its way into his flock and even into individual bodies and destroy them with virulent liquid rot.