Catullus and Comedy Extra Texts

What story involving an apple is presented in Callimachus’ Aetia?

·      Apple marks the end of Cydippe’s girlhood – the unwitting oath creates a magical constraint forcing her to marry Acontius after falling ill everytime her parents try to marry her to another man (Callimachus’ Aetia)

What poem does Callimachus discuss grief on the wedding night?

The Apotheosis of Arsinoe

What does the Hymn to Artemis focus on?

·      Hymn to Artemis instantly focuses on her sworn virginity, seeks unmarried girls

What about Hymn to Apollo?

·      In Hymn to Apollo ‘do not let young men stand silent when Apollo comes if they wish to make a marriage and live long enough to get their grey hair cut’

What simile about an apple is relevant to Sappho and who recorded it?

·      Simile of apple recorded by the fourth century rhetorician Himerius, who is familiar primarily with Sappho’s Epithalamia

·      ‘Like the reddening apple, at the tip of the topmost twig, which the apple-pickers missed – or no, not missed entirely; the one they could not reach’

What do the Catullus fragments focus on?

·      In two fragments evokes Priapus to punish those villains, or dedicates a poem to Priapus

Give some examples of confusing prologues in Plautus.

The Pot of Gold

‘This old gentleman is an uncle of the young man – uncle, you understand, of the boy who seduced her that night’  (Prologue read by Lars Familiaris)

Prologue: Have you got all that?…What? Oh dear, a man at the back says he can’t hear me…come nearer, then!’

‘Do you want to make a poor actor lose his job? I’m not going to rupture myself to suit you, don’t think it.’

Give some examples of food being mentioned in the prologues of Plautus

Poenulus

‘Fill yourselves with tales’

‘The children won’t die from hunger or disturb us by wailing here like little goats because of their hunger’

‘Let the married woman watched quietly and laugh quietly’

‘Footmen, storm the eating house, attack now while you have the opportunity while the little cheese tarts are hot’

Give some examples of tragic tropes in Poenulus and Prisoners.

Prologue begins with a quotation from Achilles by Aristarchus, Nurse recognises Hanno first Gidennis. Battles will occur offstage – don’t want to pretend it’s a comedy and then give you a tragedy

EUCLIO: Oh misery me, I’m a dead man, I’m ruined, I’m utterly destitute. This is my day of doom, disaster, and damnation

What is the comment in Poenulus about the boat/

A man who wants to create a lot of trouble for himself should get himself a ship and a woman’

Give some examples of using space in Plautus’ plays

Philocrates: [quietly to Tyndarus] I think we had better go farther off, don’t you? We don’t want them overhearing our talk, or the whole scheme will be out (Prisoners)

EUCLIO: (to Staphyla) ‘Go on now shoo!…farther off…farther…That’ll do stop there” – before monologue to the audience, before monologue of Staphyla (much more relatable) (Pot of Gold)

EUNOMIA: (to Megadorus) That’s why I’ve brought you here away from your household to give you a little private talk about your affairs

Give example of some slave humour in Pot of Gold

STROBILUS: Now then – all this stuff that my master’s bought in the market, and you cooks and flute girls he’s hired – he wants me to split the whole lot into two parts

ANTHRAX: No one is going to split me into two parts by Hercules!

What is a metatheatrical line learning line in Amphotruo

 as Sosia rehearses his fic44ous baTle story,

Mercury remarks ‘up 4ll now he has never spoken even a single word amiss’. He goes on to explain 3

his knowledge of events is due to his godly status, but simultaneously the audience is aware of this

line’s arXul meta theatre [meta-theatrical dimension]; the actor playing Mercury would have

rehearsed the play and so for that reason knows the actor has not spoken ‘a single word amiss’.

Again this metatheatrical reference reminds the audience of the dynamism of the iden44es of ‘actor’

and ‘character’. These ephemeral iden44es require, therefore, ac4ve construc4on, or in other words

the asser4on of one’s iden4ty is vital. 

Example of sewing cultures together

 When Sosia meets Mercury dressed as him in Amphitryon, Mercury tells him not to come

here with his ‘patched up tricks’, Sosia replies

‘SOSIA: Immo equidem tunicis consutis huc advenio, non dolis’ 6

Of course, simply, the line is a characteris4c literalisa4on joke of Plautus’ where Mercury’s use of the

figura4ve meaning of the verb ‘consuo’ (I contrive) is translated to its literal meaning by Sosia ‘to

patch up’ (rela4ng to clothes). The line, however, also seems to have metatheatrical significance, for

surely this play can somewhat be seen as a ‘patch up’: an originally Greek plot is on the stage being

‘tailored’ by Plautus; Greek gods replaced with Roman gods, scenes added, innovated, and removed.

For although Sosia concedes he has a patched up garment, he rejects Mercury’s

sugges4on of patched up tricks. ‘Dolus’, such as throughout the Aeneid, is a noun repeatedly

associated with the conniving of the Greeks and certainly their was a pervading racialised stereotype

of untrustworthy Greeks (cf. Graeca fides). Sosia in the face of a Roman god ac4vely rejects such a

stereotype (in fact, this stereotype would far more accurately describe the Roman in this scene)

 

 rather his play aTempts to “sew” these cultures (although

remaining dis4nguishable) into one unified garment

Where else is the word sycophants used and how?

 ‘Sycophanta’ It is used,

however, in Amphitryon to describe Jupiter, a Roman god. Such an associa4on again suggests the

falsity of presump4ons that Greek and Roman culture are opposi4onal; derisive words for foreigners

can just as easily describe Romans. Moreover, Sosia tells his master.

‘SOSIA: eccere, iam tuatim

facis, ut tuis nulla apud te fides sit’

Both Sosia and Amphitryo are, of course, both Greek but the commonality of a foreign slave for a

Roman master, would be familiar enough for audiences to grant this moment racial significance. The

foreign Sosia suggests his master, a temporary “Roman” figure in this racialised narra4ve, is the

untrustworthy one. Given deceiXulness was a common characteris4c associated with foreigners this

word again seems reappropriated, sogening differences between cultures that were perceived to be

incompa4ble.

What are the key traits of the neoterics?

·      Hellenism and learnedness that can be subsumed under broader category of Callimacheanism, an experimental approach to metre and form, an investment in narrative that stops short of full scale epic, and a marked distance from derivative Ennianism

What are Catullus’ iambs like?

·      Mocking/attacking ethical and literary values of others central to neotericism e.g. beyond Callimachus’ Iambs, one need only consider what survives of Euphorion’s Thrax