University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-1923 The irC is and Ovid: A Study of the Language of the Poem Richmond Frederick Thomason University of Tennessee - Knoxville Recommended Citation Thomason, Richmond Frederick, "The irC is and Ovid: A Study of the Language of the Poem. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1923. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/3094 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Richmond Frederick Thomason entitled "The irC is and Ovid: A Study of the Language of the Poem." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in . , Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: ARRAY(0x7f6ffe6969f8) Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) IIIII �Ill�l lllllllfllim1ifl�liHIIIIIII�II� Ill � 3 9029 02119730 0 THmiS THE CIRIS AND OVID: A STUDY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE POEM . SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE R!QUIREMENTS FO.R ... - THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS . .. .. ,., •. • •• eo -. ... .. :: . ··: . .. .... .. .: . .•.. BY RICHMOND FREDERICK THOMASON UNIVERSITY OF TENNBSSEE MAY 1923 CON�ENTS Chapter Jage I. Introduction . 1 II . Additions to Ganz enmUller'a Collection of. Phrases .• . 23 III . Ooourrenoes of words. Ovid and Vergil Con- trasted . 28 rv. Indebtedness to Luoretius.and Catullus•.•• 37 • v. Close Rela t ion to the Tibullan APpendix.• • 40 VI . Extraordinary Use of Color-Terms and Color- Contrasts. 41 VII. Greek Words and Forms. • • • • • • • • • • 44 VIII . 'Conolusio'. Words Common Only to the Ciris and Ovi d Among the Poets of the Golden Age ••46 IX . Character of the Words Not Us ed Later by Ovid . 61 X. The Meaning and Grammati cal Construction of words . Ovid and Vergil Aga�n Contrasted . • • 61 44770 - l - THE CIRIS AND OVID: A STUDY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE POEM. I. Intr oduction . �ote, see belo� Some twenty-five poems, known as the Vergilia.n Appendix, and attributed by the an cien ts to the youth­ ful Vergil, have c ome down to us in inferior manuscripts, . but not in the great Vergilian codices . Among the best known of the se poems are. three short epios, the .Culex, the Aetna and the Ciris. For centuries sc hol­ ars have been agreed that all the poems of the .Appen­ d� are spurious, with the possible excep tion of one or two very short pieces which are contained in the Cat­ alepton and which purp ort to give certain personal detail�. [ote. The presen t s'tudy has heen prepared in cooper- . ation with Professor R. s. Radf ord, o� the Univerai�y of T ennes see, who baa generously place d at�my disposal his own large acquaintance with. Ovid and the Vergil­ and Tibullan .Appendices, and has made many valu ian ­ a'ble·au.ggeations both with respect to the literature of the subject and to the most effective methode of treatment. The conclusions to whi.ah the present study of the Ciris has led me are in full accord with the views which he has maintained respecting. �e Ovidian authorship of the whole Vergilian APPend� 1 -2- .. It is usually held , however, ·that all :or ne a�ly' _all the po ems in question belong to the ·very best per�od: of Roman poetry, the Age of Augus tus . In the present study I wish to examine the lan ­ guag e of the'Ciris, .o r story of Soylla and· Nisus, an ep;yll ion written in the manner of Catullus and of the Greek poets of Al exandr�. More a�tiol ea have probably been writ ten upon. the Ciris than up on most books of the Aeneid , and it. seems quite unnecessary t o enumerate al l thes e sepa ­ rate discussions here. Three studies , however , of remark abl e excellenc e cann ot be lightly passed ov er. The fi rst is the discussion by Sillig in his EPilll§trum., N ot e . �ote � In th e Hayne-Wagner edition of Vergil , Vol . IV,pp.l37-157 , Leipzig, 1832 . Ganze�ull er, Fleoke ia. Jahrb . Suppl• .XX,p.555, well says: "Ueberh&upt bat sei t Silligs. AusflihrllDgen wohl niems.nd. IJ;lehr im Ernst an Vergil ged�oht :3 in wh ich th is crit ic in- vestigates the authorship of the C iria at gr eat length and sh ows b;y many concl usive proofs that the po em ca . More than nnot possibl y be th� w ork of Vergil s�ty years after Sill ig, thedis tinguished Ovidian scholar, Gan�enmull er, published his masterly study of the Ciris , No�e. (!ot e . "Beitr&ge zur Ciris" , Fl eok­ eis . Jahrb . Supplementbd. XX 553-65�7) - an elabor�t e and comprehens ive work, in which he tr eats almost every -3- phase of the subJect with a completeness which often approache s finality. Thus he discusses the ·biograph­ ical details of the poem with great acumen , and in order to exhibit ful ly th e tnnume rable borrowings which the poem conta ins fr om Catullus, Vergil and Luoretiua, he assembles all ---or nearl� all--- the phrases an d wo rd-combinations which are drawn from these poe ts. He does not stop her e, howeve r, but he finds that a four�eat poet is eve rywhere l �i tat ed, namely Ovid, and he oolleo ts very many of th e almost innumerable 'imitations' of Ovid which are c ontained in the Ciris. The full argument of the · eminent Ovidian scholar may be stated in a somewhat abbreviated form as follow s: "Since Teuffel th e view has be en almost univer sally ac cepted that the Measalla to wh om the poem is addressed (v . 36) is Messalinus, th e son of the famous orator, an d that the poem itself was composed 18-16 B.C. The supposition is therefore na tural tbat our poe t has not known and baa not used Ovid. I hope, however, to be able to show that ·this was by no means the case ..· .. Sinoe oe:rtain phrases and verse-closes have become the common property of the Roman poe ts, the power of proof belongs ex clusively to th ose expressions whioh are found only in the Ciria and in Ovid and then pe rhaps in late r write rs also (pp. 557 f.) .•.•. Numerous half-vers es, verse-be gin- -4- nings a�d verse-cl oses as well as other expressions and word combinations give the Ciris an unmistake'le: Ovid ian col oring. The frequency of thes e ooinoiden­ ces and the fact that they occur in all the works of Ovid alike---the earl iest as well as the lates t--- show cl early that Ovid is not hims elf the imit at or ••. •.• Rather is it obvious that the author of the Oiris , this superlat iv e plagiarist, has known the whole of Ovid , and while he has allowed himself an open, un­ conc eal ed borrowing from Vergil , he has resorted to a more hidden and shamefaced imitat ion of Ovid , as though the expressions and phrases which he had read in the latter , bad cl ung to his memory and had repro­ duc ed themselves involuntarily and in spit e of him­ self, since he was unable to resist the magic of the Ovid ian po etry and its pot ent influence ( pp . 622 f. ) ". Note. (!ate. "Nu)1lat er den Ovid im Vergleich zu Vergil mehr verateckt, veracbimt naohgeahmt, oft wahl auoh unbewusst." - It should be added that, in his view of th e close relati on between Ovid and the Ciria, Ganzenmull er had been preceded in large p art by another thoroughly comp et ent Ovidian critic , A. Zingerl e (Kl. philol . Abh. III, Innsbruok 1882, pp . 24-30), who gave many striking examples of the dependence of one poet up on the other. If therefore Draahmann (Her­ mes LXIII 425) expressly deola.rel.J that "all att empts -5- to show the knowledg e of the po em in other poets than Vergil are failures" , this is but anot h e r proof of his wh olly inadequate preparation for this fi eld of res earch (v. below, p • •••}. For where Ovidian study is c oncerned , a Draohmann or even a Sudhaus (of. ·Herme s XLII 476 , n. 1} sh ould not match him self too c o nfid ently aga inst a Zinge rle and a Ganzenm1fll er: au �or B! ultra crepidamt--- On the r emarkable simi­ larity (first noted by Sillig) between the two nurse­ s cenes in the Ciri.s and in Ovid's story of Jlyr rha (Met. X 382 ff .), see Sudhaus, Hermes XLII (1907), p. 49� •• Gan!enmu ller has assembl ed --- so far as one�can judge--- abo ut eighty-five strik ing phr�ees and col­ locations ( incl ud ing a few ex ceptio nal or unusual single words) , wh ich are common only to Ovid and the Cirie.