Latin Love Poetry

by McCoskey, Denise Eileen; Martirosova Torlone, Zara;

  Ovid’s overall point in composing these elaborate lists is to show ‘that his oeuvre lies entirely within the boundaries set by seven centuries of tradition’64 and that Augustus chose to read and censure the Ars Amatoria in a way not intended by the author. The crucial discussion of literary genealogy in Tristia 2 – one that casts previous literary classics in a consistently erotic light – culminates when Ovid finally reaches the Aeneid, a work endorsed and admired by the princeps himself. However, Ovid takes a very distinct approach in his characterization of the Roman epic, highlighting the popularity of Aeneas’ sojourn with the Carthaginian queen, Dido:

  Even the lucky author of your Aeneid has brought

  arms and the man onto Carthaginian couches –

  no other part of the whole work is more widely read

  than a story of forbidden love…

  (Tristia 2.533–536)

  Barchiesi observes that the reference to the Aeneid in this passage ‘is an implicit statement that Ovid has prostituted and abused his talent in the useless and wanton erotic lesson of Ars Amatoria – unless the comparison between the two poems shows itself capable of reversal’.65 And the ‘reversal’ of both Augustus’ perception of the Ars Amatoria and, consequently, his own fortune is exactly what Ovid aims for in these lines.

  Despite Ovid’s frequent assertions that his poetry is deteriorating, then, ‘the fact remains that [Ovid’s] writing shows no real signs of deterioration from its pre-exilic standard.’‌66 By making such claims Ovid clearly seeks to elicit sympathy from his readers, especially those in Rome. Yet an interesting claim about the continuing vitality of Ovid’s Muse is made in Epistulae ex Ponto when Ovid announces that he has recited a poem on the apotheosis of Augustus, in the Getic language using Latin metre, to an eager and apparently now-civilized local audience (Ex Ponto 4.13.17 ff.). There is no other evidence for the existence of such a poem and elsewhere Ovid repeatedly expresses contempt for the Getic language, especially as far as his Roman audience was concerned (Tristia 5.2.67, 5.7.17, 5.12.55). What should we make then of these contradictory statements?

  Ovid’s claim about composing poetry in Getic and fully mastering that language along with ‘Sarmatian’ (Tristia 5.7.56, 5.12.58; Ex Ponto 3.2.40), even if only mere fantasy, opens several new avenues in the genre of love poetry: first, elegy becomes radically ‘cross-cultural’ because such a claim reaffirms Ovid’s standing as a poet in any land and in any language; secondly it celebrates something completely different from love, the longevity and sturdiness of poetic talent; and, thirdly, it marks a Latin poet’s discovery of potential audiences other than a Roman one.67 The last factor is perhaps especially important: previously Rome-focused – even Rome-obsessed – Ovid seems to be developing broader horizons over which no single ruler or regime can claim control.

  The closing poem of Epistulae ex Ponto (4.16), an autobiographical epitaph of sorts, presents the summit of Ovid’s claim to literary immortality. ‘No talent is hurt by death’ (2–3), Ovid pronounces at the beginning of the poem; he then delivers a catalogue of contemporary Roman poets, poets with whom Ovid compares himself (5–46). Among them are some, such as Varius Rufus, who were indeed rated highly by their contemporaries. But Ovid concludes triumphantly: ‘If it is seemly to say so, my talent was distinguished, and among all that competition, I was fit to be read’ (45–46). Even in this last stroke of his poetic pen, then, Ovid unintentionally delivers ‘a really lethal literary joke, one that only time could – and did – validate’.68 For none of the literary competition so meticulously and earnestly alluded to by Ovid in this poem survived the ruthless selection of time.

  Ovid, on the other hand, achieved posthumous fame and an influence on later writers comparable only to that of the great Virgil himself. In peculiar fashion, the posthumous fame of these two great Roman poets seems to alternate. Robert Graves observes that ‘whenever a golden age of stable government, full churches, and expanding wealth dawns among the Western nations, Virgil always returns to supreme favor’.69 Conversely, as Theodore Ziolkowski points out, the popularity of Ovid re-emerges ‘in times of cultural and political upheaval’ because Ovid became largely recognized as the ‘ur-exile’ and his works ‘exemplify change and metamorphosis’.70 Indeed, as we shall now see in turning to our final chapter, Ovid would come to have a special place in the imagination of poets of later eras; his lament would spread and be emulated from England to Italy, from France to Russia, and his presence evoked in modern Romania with a tenderness and sensitivity Ovid refused to grant to the inhabitants of that region when he lived there.

  ‌

  ‌VII

  ‌Death and Afterlife

  Death does not end everything.

  Propertius 4.7.1

  WITH OVID, the brilliant and exuberant genre of Roman amatory elegy came to an end, although elegy would resurface as a major literary form in many national contexts over the centuries,1 often returning to its original roots in mourning, a function preserved in poems like Catullus’ address to his deceased brother (poem 101) and Ovid’s account of Tibullus’ death (Amores 3.9). In this chapter, we would like to survey the ‘afterlife’ of Latin love poetry; more strictly defined, our approach shall consider two related aspects: first, how people in later centuries came to know the Latin love poets and, second, how later authors entered into conversation with these authors in terms shaped by their own literary and historical contexts.

  Examination of the transmission and dissemination of classical culture belonged for many years to the field of scholarship known as ‘the classical tradition’ and scholars employed terms such as ‘legacy’, ‘influence’ and ‘literary canon’ in documenting antiquity’s continuing reach.2 In recent years, though, the notion of a static ‘classical tradition’ has been supplanted by the concept of ‘reception’, which better conveys the dynamics involved in the appropriation of, and often resistance to, this tradition.3 Reception thus denotes not rigid imitation of classical culture, but rather vigorous conversations that entail conflict with, and even transformation of, classical texts and ideas. We shall explore a number of sites of reception in the second part of our chapter, but first we begin with narrower concern: how the work of the Latin love poets survived into modern times.

  Outlasting the Ravages of Time

  Any tracing of the transmission of the love poets begins with a simple question: how did ancient audiences themselves gain access to such poetry? Generally speaking, scholars believe that earlier Greek lyric poetry was performed orally and often in relation to specific occasions or settings.4 With the rise of written culture across the Greek period, scholars and writers of the later Hellenistic era, especially in Alexandria, became much more visibly engaged with written texts.5 Later, the Romans relied on the Greek texts transmitted by the Alexandrians, as well as Alexandrian literature itself, as we saw in Chapter 1. Although Latin literature could be performed orally,6 Roman audiences presumably also involved readers,7 but it is difficult to determine whether certain types of poetry were passed among limited social or literary communities (e.g. Catullus and his friends) or were made more widely available; perhaps both.8 Rates of literacy, of course, help determine potential audience size, and, by one estimate, less than fifteen per cent of the population in Italy was literate around the first century BCE, although there was, as in most historical periods, a distinct bias towards literacy among the upper classes.9

  We can witness the continuing resonance of Latin love poetry in the works of later Roman writers. Martial, active towards the end of the first century CE, as we have seen, credits Cynthia and Corinna with giving their respective authors their poetic abilities (see Chapter 4),10 and he would enter into even more enthusiastic dialogue with Catullus, emulating the style of Catullus’ shorter epigrams and also playfully adapting Catullan obscenity. Already in Martial, we see the treatment of Catullus’ infamous sparrow as a phallic symbol.11 Writers such as Quintilian and Apuleius were also central in transmitting certain ideas abou
t love poetry – providing, for example, the alleged ‘real’ names of the puellae – and we can similarly discern the abiding popularity of certain authors from references to their work in graffiti at Pompeii.12 Later, Propertius’ influence in particular extended to poets of late antiquity such as Ausonius (c.310–c.394 CE) and Claudian (c.370–c.404 CE).13

  We can also examine the legacy of ancient writers through their extant manuscripts, that is, through the copies of their work that have survived over the centuries. Ancient ‘books’ were initially made of rolls of papyrus, although, by the fourth century, scrolls had given way to the ‘codex’, which consisted of sheets of parchment bound together at the left side like a modern book. Like scrolls, codices relied on the skill of their copyists and at times contained only rudimentary punctuation or barely legible handwriting, serious limitations that lasted up until the invention of the printing press in 1440. A countless number of scrolls and codices has been lost over time. The texts that do survive are thus in many ways exceptional and have depended for their survival on both luck and human selection – in the latter case, choices circumscribed by the interests and needs of various communities, not least, in early periods, those of monasteries.14 Modern scholars have aimed at a more detailed study of the manuscript tradition than was possible in earlier periods, seeking to ascertain, for example, the relationship between the surviving manuscripts of an individual author, including which manuscripts derive from which, while also ideally establishing the oldest possible version of an author’s text (a version that may itself no longer exist) called an ‘archetype’.15

  There is evidence that many classical authors were still in circulation in the early sixth century CE. During the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ (c.550–c.750 CE), however, the copying of classical texts was severely limited and ‘the continuity of pagan culture came close to being severed’.16 It would take the Renaissance, lasting approximately from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, to initiate a major renewal of interest in classical antiquity.17 Renaissance engagement with classical texts involved not only the enthusiastic promotion of classical learning, but also greater circulation and study of the surviving manuscripts themselves, as scholars sought to correct the significant errors that had already crept into the manuscript tradition. While some corruptions were fairly easy to rectify (e.g. spelling mistakes), other problems are, and continue to be, more difficult to identify and resolve (such as the omission of a word or line), requiring conjecture about the original text. Notably, some ancient authors suffer from a more corrupt manuscript tradition than others, leading to varying disputes over the best way to restore an author’s original text.18

  In the following pages, we want to trace in brief the manuscript tradition of each of our poets: that is, how each survived into the modern era.

  Catullus

  Perhaps the most dramatic part of Catullus’ transmission is how close it came to not happening: his work survives through the Middle Ages by only a single manuscript. Julia Haig Gaisser suggests that Catullus’ popularity had already declined precipitously by the start of the third century CE due in part to the image of his work promoted by writers like Martial, a style that soon fell out of fashion.19 Even at Catullus’ re-emergence in the Renaissance, Martial, whose work was then more widely known, continued to serve as an important aide in interpreting Catullus.20 For over a thousand years, Catullus’ poetry was seemingly lost with the exception of one poem (62), which was included in a ninth-century anthology from Tours, France. The dramatic rediscovery of Catullus’ entire work (such as survives) is attested in an epigram written in the early fourteenth century, an epigram whose precise meaning is difficult to interpret, although it apparently celebrates the return of a manuscript of Catullus to his home city of Verona.21 Although it has itself since been lost, this manuscript, called ‘V’ for Verona, was subsequently copied, and it provides the foundation for all extant copies of Catullus’ work.

  As we mentioned in Chapter 1, it is unlikely that Catullus’ manuscript tradition preserves the collection as he intended or even organized it. Already in the second century CE, Aulus Gellius was weighing variant versions of Catullus’ text,22 and the descendants of V suggest that Catullus’ work continued to acquire serious corruptions across the centuries.23 The first print edition of Catullus was produced in Verona in 1472, an edition that also featured Tibullus, Propertius and Statius’ Silvae.24 While this edition would help increase Catullus’ popularity, it did not resolve the myriad textual problems now associated with his work. In the modern era, textual critics have generally disparaged earlier attempts beginning with the Italians to ‘correct’ Catullus’ text. Still, despite their own attempts to remedy the situation, ‘the text of Catullus remains a work in progress, 700 years after its resurrection and repatriation.’25

  Tibullus

  We touched on the manuscript tradition of Tibullus in earlier chapters, especially with regard to the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Sulpicia poems. Since Tibullus’ surviving manuscripts are so limited in number, scholars have sought other sources in which poetry attributed to Tibullus appears. One of these sources is the so-called medieval florilegia (literally ‘collection of flowers’), or poetic anthologies, which provide some aid in establishing the original texts of many ancient authors. In the case of Tibullus, these anthologies are especially helpful since they antedate both of our existing manuscripts by one to three centuries. The first of the two extant anthologies belongs to an early eleventh-century manuscript from Freising and ‘gives the impression of being a school reader’.26 In his comprehensive analysis of both florilegia, Francis Newton concludes that the selections contained in the first collection ‘so far as we can determine, represent faithfully the text and orthography of the complete Tibullus from which they are ultimately derived’.27 The second anthology containing excerpts of Tibullus is found in Venice also in a manuscript of the eleventh century. These fragmentary excerpts offer some help in reconstructing Tibullus’ text, but they are never longer than a single line.

  Propertius

  The manuscripts of Propertius are notoriously problematic; like Catullus, Propertius survived the Middle Ages by only a single copy. Although he disappears from view for centuries, Propertius was clearly known to intellectuals in the Loire Valley in the twelfth century.28 His oldest surviving manuscript, N, was produced sometime around 1200 CE in northern France, and around fifty years later another (seemingly less accurate) copy, A, was made for the library of Richard de Fournival.29 Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), known to English readers as Petrarch, later encountered A in the Sorbonne and brought his own copy of it back to Italy, providing the basis for the flourishing study of Propertius’ work in Italy during the fifteenth century.30 The text of Propertius was given even wider circulation following its publication in 1472, producing a ‘vulgate’ (or most commonly accepted) version that derived primarily from Petrarch’s copy.31

  As we inherit his text, Propertius seems a unique and provocative poet, one whose word choice, for example, is often jarring and whose transitions between ideas are often unexpected. Such an aesthetic makes Propertius seem appealingly ‘modern’ to many readers,32 but is this style actually ‘Propertian’ or is it rather the consequence of a haphazard and clumsy history of copying? ‌33 Given the challenging nature of his manuscript tradition, Propertius’ editors thus remain at the forefront of his reception and interpretation.34 Furthermore, editors over the centuries have differed widely in their assessment of exactly how corrupt Propertius’ manuscripts are and have adopted techniques that range from the ‘conservative’ (adhering as much as possible to the actual manuscripts) to the ‘sceptical’ (intervening more aggressively in the received text).

  Seeking a control for their conjectures, some editors have tried to derive a sense of Propertius’ style from the comments of other ancient writers, yet such characterizations of his work are sparse and generally inconclusive.35 Arguments for emending (or not) Propertius’ te
xt thus invariably derive from an editor’s cumulative sense of Propertius’ style based on the surviving text, making textual arguments at times both circular and subjective.36 In the preface to his 1901 edition, J.S. Phillimore remarked dryly: ‘quot editores, tot Propertii,’ roughly translated as, ‘there are as many Propertiuses as there are editors’ – a useful warning to anyone working closely with Propertius’ poetry. For our purposes, it is perhaps enough to acknowledge that although Propertian editing in the twentieth century began in a more conservative fashion, recent editors have adopted a more sceptical approach.37

  One recent editor, Stephen Heyworth, pointedly returns on a number of occasions to emendations suggested by one of Propertius’ most famous critics: the English poet A.E. Housman (1859–1936).38 Housman’s engagement with Propertius was complex and lifelong; the fact that he failed his final exams at Oxford is credited by some to his all-encompassing dedication to the poet. Although he worked in the Patent Office in London between 1882 and 1892, Housman re-entered the academy when he was appointed Chair of Latin at University College London in 1892 and, in 1911, he was named Professor of Latin at Cambridge. During his career, Housman produced texts of Latin authors such as Juvenal (1905) and Manilius (1903 and 1912), but his edition of Propertius was never published and was evidently destroyed after his death.39