Metamorphoses Commentary Flashcards

Phineus

·      a  blind seer punished by Zeus for the indiscreet use of his prophetic powers

7-11 Dumque…vellera

events which in Apollonius take up several hundre lines of book 2 are ruthlessly telescoped into into a single sentence

Identification of Medea in the first instance by her patrynomic

Identification of Medea in the first instance by her patrynomic foreshadows betrayal of her father

Female monologues

Female monologues in these books look back to the sympathetic depiction of emotional states in Euripidean and Hellenistic tragedy

Frustra, Medea, repugnas

reminds of etymology of Metis and medomai = for all your cunning you resist in vain

Conceptas…flammas

 given the positioning of these words around vitrines and pectore -s suggests she is raped or impregnated by love

Trahit invitam

·      again a suggestion of rape

Video meliora proboque…’

the words of the Euripidean Medea recalled here come from the speech immediately preceding the murder of her children

Hoc ego…fatebor’

evokes and inverts Dido’s denunciation of Aeneid

Ovid drastically simplifies the Apollonian scenario

Ovid drastically simplifies the Apollonian scenario that had been complicated by a subplot involving Medea’s sister and her children. Throwaway allusions to this e.g. germanam and vota sororis

Fratrem

Quid…Charbydis

Per frets longa ferar

·      almost precisely the phrase that will be used by the other Scylla

Ovid again ruthlessly simplifies the plot

·      Ovid again ruthlessly simplifies the plot by not explaining all Apollonius does about why Medea goes to Jason e.g. are the outcome of a crucial intrigue in which her sister Chalciopre and her son Argos play a crucial role

Demisere…Pelasgi

Fert…gradus

‘Di…omnes’

ends with a blanket invocation of all supposedly relevant deities, a sort of black parody of a common prayer formula

Poet makes Medea’s enchantments

·      Poet makes Medea’s enchantments rob dawn of her literary identity as ‘rosy’ or ‘rosy fingered’

‘Perspicit…revellit

·      the insistent alliteration of p and r suggests her concentration of the work in hand

The story of Glaucus’ transformation into a sea god

·      The story of Glaucus’ transformation into a sea god will be told in book 13, but brushed over here

297-306

single and fast moving sentence – ten line sentence with a series of verbs. Broken and varied at three hundred with connecting quas

Deucalioneas…inobrutus

·      words respectively attested here first and nowhere else. Four word line

Phoebeamque Rhodon et Ialysios Telchinas

Planam Seriphon

Marmoream…pennis (Arne)

·      Old acquaintance between Cephalys

·      Old acquaintance between Cephalys is an invention of Ovid

O’s incubation period of four months

·      Old acquaintance between Cephalys is an invention of Ovid

Populis…recentibus…priscis cultoribus

·      chiasmus elegantly contrasts the new and the old inhabitants. Recent as an identifier of metamorphosis

703

·      variation of dawn of epic motif is pointed

An anachronistic characterisation of Prociris

·      as uniuira (a virtuou matron with only one husband)

Hunting on horseback

Hunting on horseback virtually unknown in antiquity

Repetebam frigus et umbras’

·      brevity contrasts with the elaborate ekphrasis if the locus amoenus as the scene of tragedy in O’s earlier telling of the story

A new book, a new day and …

A new book, a new day and a fresh variation of the dawn in epic theme

Auro pretiosior’

glancing at the earliest version of the story in which Minos bribed Scylla with a golden necklace

‘Monstrum’

 a hint perhaps of Ovid’s – or Minos? – awareness of confusion with the other Scylla

‘Sed finge manere’

raising an objection only to demolish it is another stock rhetorical ploy

Patris ad ora?’

·      Another purely rhetorical question

·      Exploits almost to the point of parady

·      Exploits almost to the point of paradox the abandoned heroine clichés, already overused in his elegies

Insilit’

Later does a very different heroine, Alcyone

Spoliis…fixis

a Roman custom anachronistically intruding on Minos’ world

multa querentI

Cf. Verg. G. 4.320 multa querens. One of the best

intertextual jokes in the poem. Her ‘lengthy’ complaints are limited to a

single word because Scylla has stolen her thunder, having appropriated

them to her own use (along with material culled from Euripides,

Apollonius and Virgil) from Catullus’ classic and influential treatment in

the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (104–42n.). She had in any case been

allowed to have her say at length by O. in the Heroides

amplexus et opem … tulit

177 amplexus et opem … tulit: in that order! – one of O.’s best

syllepses (7.133n.), wittily summarising in four words events which in the

Ars amatoria had taken up five couplets (1.555–64).

Real wings which saves his victim…

Real wings which saves his victim contrast the false wings that will kill his son

Note (260-71)

Note high proportion of enjambed lines as transition to next story (260-71)

Nestor

Nestor’s participation is not otherwise attested (included for laughs by Ovid)

Female domination in boar hunt

Female domination in boar hunt story is radical change from treatment of story by Homer and Bacchylides. Shows awareness of two Atalantas Boeotian Atalata who runs races with her suitors and Arcadian Atalanta

‘Rasilis…tenebat’

position and wording of the description are clearly designed to recall Virgil’s Camilla

Manus opus magni certaminis urget

a clear and highly ironic echo of how Virgil opens the second Iliadic half of the Aeneid

 

flammasque patented hausit

Virgil’s Dido drinks long draughty of love. This is one better as fire imagery is included as well

 

At gemini … motu

Castor and Pollux, the ‘Heavenly Twins’

(301–2n.), had a special place in Roman legend as having ridden to the

rescue on their white horses at various battles, most memorably that of

Lake Regillus (Ogilvie (1965) 289). Their intervention in the Hunt is

futile, and their horses an irrelevance; in any case, if pig-sticking is to be

done on horseback, throwing the spear is not the generally approved

technique.

Reclining at the table

Reclining is the usual posture at the table but here especially apt at recalling the classic reclining pose of the river gods in art

Swollen river

Swollen river is telling a story in an un-Callimachean style, but in a Callimachean (huge exaggeration, gruesome climax, epic/tragic burlesque, set piece allegorical description) – he knows what he is doing

Sociam…tori

The suicide of Meleager’s mother

Achelous’ residence

Non dilecta…terra,

In trunco…profundi

Nympha…ego sum

(Haec Neptunus habebat)

O iuvenis