Silvae 1.2 is an epithalamium addressed by Statius to his friend Arruntius Stella, an elegiac poet, in celebration of his marriage to Violentilla. Several years ago, I proposed reading this text as a sort of allegory, Statius’ metapoetic discourse on the history of the Latin erotic elegy, and the completion of its parabola.1 I will not repeat here the arguments illustrated on that occasion; what interests me is to focus on an important, hitherto unnoticed aspect, suggested by Statius’ metapoetic discourse. In a text that is a discourse on the elegiac genre, its key themes and its typical lifestyle, one expects, from a poet as learned and refined as Statius is, a dialogue with the great models of Latin elegy. This, of course, is also a clear demonstration of the literary quality of the work, and of how an attentive, modern commentary should explore its inter-textual nature and the close connections it establishes with some great literary models.2 In this sense there is much work to be done: considered until recently to be mainly, if not exclusively, a document of social and cultural history, the Silvae still have much to reveal about their literary texture.3 But let us move on to the analysis of Silvae 1.2.
After the lengthy opening proem of the epithalamium (1–46), and a few verses transitioning to the section on the reasons (quae causa, 46) that made Stella’s marriage possible, Statius narrates the aition of the event—an aition which, in the mythicized world of the Silvae where gods and men live side by side, involves the direct intervention of the goddess of love herself. One day, awakening after a night spent in the embrace of Mars, Venus is encircled by the amorini who, as always, await her instructions as to who—mortal or immortal, anywhere in the universe—will become the target of their arrows. As the goddess dithers over her directive, one of the amorini, in eager anticipation (cui plurimus ignis / ore [whose brand had most of fire], 61–62), evidently authoritative due to his merits in the field as an infallible archer (manusque levi numquam frustrata sagitta [and whose light hands no shaft had ever failed], 62) and respected by his cohorts (pharetrati pressere silentia fratres [his quivered brethren kept mum], 64), addresses to her a persuasive plea (65–102):
Silv. 1.2.65–102‘Scis ut, mater’, ait ‘nulla mihi dextera segnismilitia: quemcumque hominum divumque dedisti,uritur. At quondam lacrimis et supplice dextraet votis precibusque virum concede moveri,o genetrix: duro nec enim ex adamante creati,sed tua turba sumus. Clarus de gente Latinaest iuvenis, quem patriciis maioribus ortumnobilitas gavisa tulit praesagaque formaeprotinus e nostro posuit cognomina caelo.Hunc egomet tota quondam (tibi dulce) pharetraimprobus et densa trepidantem cuspide fixi.Quamvis Ausoniis multum gener ille petitusmatribus, edomui victum dominaeque potentisferre iugum et longos iussi sperare per annos.Ast illam summa leviter (sic namque iubebas)lampade parcentes et inerti strinximus arcu.Ex illo quantos iuvenis premat anxius ignes,testis ego attonitus, quantum me nocte diequeurgentem ferat: haud ulli vehementior umquamincubui, genetrix, iterataque vulnera fodi.Vidi ego et immiti cupidum decurrere campoHippomenen, nec sic meta pallebat in ipsa.Vidi et Abydeni iuvenis certantia remisbrachia laudavique manus et saepe natantipraeluxi: minor ille calor quo saeva tepebantaequora: tu veteres, iuvenis, transgressus amores.Ipse ego te tantos stupui durasse per aestusfirmavique animos blandisque madentia plumislumina detersi. Quotiens mihi questus Apollosic vatem maerere suum! iam, mater, amatosindulge thalamos. Noster comes ille piusquesignifer armiferos poterat memorare laboresclaraque facta virum et torrentes sanguine campos;sic tibi plectra dedit, mitisque incedere vatesmaluit et nostra laurum subtexere myrto.Hic iuvenum lapsus suaque aut externa revolvitvulnera; pro! quanta est Paphii reverentia, mater,numinis: hic nostrae deflevit fata columbae’.
[‘Mother, you know’ says he ‘that my right hand is never slack in any service; whomsoever you give me, man or god, burns. But for once, mother mine, allow me to be moved by men’s tears and suppliant hands, their vows and prayers; for we are not created from hard adamant, we are your children. There is a distinguished young man of Latian breed. Nobility produced him rejoicing, born of patrician forbears, and forthwith gave him a name from our heaven, presage of beauty. Him I once pierced with all my quiver—it was your pleasure—as he trembled in a hail of darts, no mercy. Much was he sought by Ausonian dames for their daughters, but I conquered the undefeated one, commanded him to bear the yoke of a potent mistress and hope through long years. As for her, I but lightly grazed her with the tip of my brand—for such was your command—and a flaccid bow. Ever since, I am witness in my wonderment to what fires the tormented youth keeps down, how night and day he bears my urging. None, mother, did I ever lean upon harder, thrusting wound on wound. I saw eager Hippomenes running down the cruel field, but even at the post he was never so pale; and I saw the arms of the youth of Abydos rivalling oars, and praised his effort, and often lighted him as he swam; but his ardour that warmed the cruel sea was less. You, O youth, have surpassed the loves of old. I myself was amazed at your endurance through such fevers and strengthened your spirit, wiping your moist eyes with my balmy plumes. How often has Apollo complained to me of his poet’s distress! Mother, grant him now the bridal of his desire. He is our companion, our loyal standard-bearer. He could have told of martial toils, famous deeds of heroes, fields streaming with gore; but he gave his quill to you, preferring to walk softly in his poesy and twine his bay in our myrtle. He tells of young folk’s errors, of his own and others’ wounds. How he reveres Paphos’ deity, mother! He bewailed our dove’s demise’.]4
This ‘soldier’ of Venus (soon revealed to be Amor/Cupid himself) begins by recounting his merits: he has always fought selflessly, carrying out her orders and striking men and gods alike (65–67). But now, in the name of that merit acquired on the ‘battlefield’, and of the compassion of Venus and her family, he asks his mother to make an exception and be merciful to a man who has long suffered (67–68). The target in question is a handsome youth of noble lineage who has already paid a heavy tribute to the goddess of love: in fact, Cupid had already pierced him with scores of arrows (74–75), and he had long devoted his elegiac seruitium to a powerful domina that thwarted his hopes (76–78). His beloved Violentilla, on the other hand, on orders from the same goddess (who evidently wished there to be no corresponding love, but only a mild fondness), had barely been grazed by Cupid’s standard weapons, the torch and the bow (79–80). Stella, the designated victim, suffered unparalleled pangs of love (81–84), more than any of the great mythical lovers like Hippomenes (85–86) and Leander (87–90), to the point that Cupid himself was compelled to console the weeping suitor (91–93) and urge Apollo to implore mercy for his poet-protégé (93–94). For his merits as a lover, an elegiac poet—always a faithful signifer of the poetry of Venus, rather than a singer of the bloody wars of epic—and a devotee of the goddess, Stella’s desire is fulfilled (95–102), and he wins the hand of his beloved.
Cupid’s suasoria—a plea for permission to renounce his duty as a ‘soldier of love’—has an important poetic precedent, which, oddly, has escaped the attention of scholars. The proem of Ovid’s Remedia amoris is a plea which the poet addresses to Cupid, alarmed by the mere title of the new work: he has always been an exemplary devotee of the god, a much-appreciated master of the Ars amandi that he has no intention of repudiating with the new work (1–40):
Rem. 1–40Legerat huius Amor titulum nomenque libelli:‘Bella mihi, video, bella parantur’ ait.‘Parce tuum vatem sceleris damnare, Cupido,tradita qui toties te duce signa tuli.Non ego Tydides, a quo tua saucia materin liquidum rediit aethera Martis equis.Saepe tepent alii iuvenes: ego semper amavi,et si, quid faciam, nunc quoque, quaeris, amo.Quin etiam docui, qua posses arte parari,et quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.Nec te, blande puer, nec nostras prodimus artes,nec nova praeteritum Musa retexit opus.Siquis amat quod amare iuvat, feliciter ardensgaudeat, et vento naviget ille suo.At siquis male fert indignae regna puellae,ne pereat, nostrae sentiat artis opem.Cur aliquis laqueo collum nodatus amatora trabe sublimi triste pependit onus?Cur aliquis rigido fodit sua pectora ferro?invidiam caedis, pacis amator, habes.Qui, nisi desierit, misero periturus amore est,desinat; et nulli funeris auctor eris.Et puer es, nec te quicquam nisi ludere oportet:lude; decent annos mollia regna tuos.Nam poteras uti nudis5 ad bella sagittis:sed tua mortifero sanguine tela carent.Vitricus et gladiis et acuta dimicet hasta,et victor multa caede cruentus eat:tu cole maternas, tuto quibus utimur, artes,et quarum vitio nulla fit orba parens.Effice nocturna frangatur ianua rixa,et tegat ornatas multa corona fores:fac coeant furtim iuvenes timidaeque puellae,verbaque dent cauto qualibet arte viro:et modo blanditias rigido, modo iurgia postidicat et exclusus flebile cantet amans.His lacrimis contentus eris sine crimine mortis;non tua fax avidos digna subire rogos’.Haec ego: movit Amor gemmatas aureus alas,et mihi ‘propositum perfice’ dixit ‘opus’.
trans. Kline [2015][Love, having read the name and title on this book,said: ‘It’s war, you declare against me, I see, it’s war’.‘Cupid, don’t condemn your poet for a crime, who has so oftenraised the standard, you trusted him with, under your command.I’m not Diomede, by whom your mother was wounded,she, carried back to the clear heavens on Mars’s steeds.Other young men often grow cool: I’ve always loved,and if you ask me now, too, what I do, I love.Indeed I’ve taught, as well, by what art you can be won,and what was passion before, is now reason.Sweet Boy, I’ve not betrayed you or my art,and this new Muse unravels no prior work.Let him rejoice in happiness, any eager man who lovesand delights in love: let him sail with the wind.But any man who suffers badly from the power of a worthless girl,shouldn’t die, if he understands the help that’s in my art.Why should any lover hang from a high beam,a sad weight, with a knotted rope round his neck?Why should anyone stab himself with cold steel?Lover of Peace, you earn dislike for such hateful death.Let him who’ll die of wretched passion unless he quits it,quit it: and you’ll be the cause of no one’s funeral.And you’re a boy: you’re not fit for anything but play:play then: a sweet dominion suits your years.For you might have used naked arrows with which to war:but your shafts are free of deadly blood.Your stepfather Mars may fight with swords and sharp spears,and as a victor stride through the carnage:you cultivate your mother’s arts, which are safe to use,through whose fault no parent’s ever bereaved.Make doors burst open to nocturnal fights,and the entrance be buried in many fine garlands:have young men and shy girls meet secretly,and cheat watchful husbands by whatever art:and now let the lover who’s shut out, speak flatteringly,and now curse the rigid doorpost, and, weeping, sing.You, be content with these tears, with no guilt for death:it’s not fitting for your torch to plunge beneath greedy pyres’.So I spoke: golden Love moved his jewelled wings,and said to me: ‘Finish the work you planned’.]
This, too, is a suasoria, an appeal for understanding addressed to the god of love, of whom the poet has always been a faithful soldier (4; 7–8; 11–12), and for permission to abandon the battlefield just this once, to aid one who is suffering in despair and risks a tragic end (20–22, 37–38). And all in the name of mercy and mildness, fundamental qualities in the realm of love, ‘family traits’ fitting for a boy like Cupid and his mother (23–24, 29–30). The conclusion of the scene, with Cupid giving his consent by a beat of his little wings (39), is analogous to the scene in Statius where Venus grants her approval of the marriage, then flies away in a chariot driven by her son Cupid (sic fata levavit / sidereos artus thalamique egressa superbum / limen Amyclaeos ad frena citavit olores. / Iungit Amor laetamque vehens per nubila matrem / gemmato temone sedet, ‘Thus speaking, she raised her starry limbs and left the proud threshold of her bower, summoning her Amyclaean swans to the reins. Love yokes them and sits on the jewelled pole, wafting his happy mother through the clouds’, 1.2.140–144).
The importance of the Ovidian model is clear from the entire context, but it is confirmed by a series of details and specific pieces of the inter-textual mosaic that document the intensity of Statius’ dialogue with the Augustan poet. Here I will indicate just a few of the most evident cases. Firstly, the phrase tua turba sumus (Silv. 1.2.70), with which Cupid asserts his direct descent from Venus and his attachment to her value system, occurs in only one other case in Latin poetry, and in a similarly ‘programmatic’ context, in the proemial elegy of Ovid’s Amores (1.1.6), where the young poet tries to free himself from the dominion of Cupid, who is thwarting his ambitions as an epic poet. Pieridum vates, non tua turba sumus (‘poets are the Muses’, we’re not in your crowd’), the callow poet protested in vain, using an expression that now comes—but here with a positive spin—from Cupid’s lips, to acknowledge his faithfulness to his divine mother’s power.
Then, when Cupid recalls having noted Hippomenes—with his ardor for Atalanta—amid the mythical personages Stella surpassed in the intensity of his passion (Vidi ego et inmiti cupidum decurrere campo / Hippomenen, nec sic meta pallebat in ipsa, 85–86), we must take his reference not in a generic sense, but as a specific allusion to the narration of the episode in the Metamorphosis (10.560–707). In Ovid, the story is told by Venus herself to Adonis, with whom the goddess has fallen hopelessly in love after her son Cupid, affectionately embracing her, involuntarily wounded her with one of his arrows (10.525–526), and this tale is in turn part of the narration handled by Orpheus, which occupies nearly the entire book (10.148–739). Only an immeasurable passion could induce Hippomenes to subject himself to the law laid down by the beautiful and hard-hearted Atalanta (illa quidem inmitis, ‘her heart was pitiless’, 10.573) at the risk of his own life—a risk he manages to avoid thanks to the intervention of Venus herself. While Cupid is not a direct participant in the scene, he can certainly be said to have been aware of a story that was set in motion by his own action.
The other ‘surpassed model’ of passion is Leander, of whom Cupid recalls having admired his ability as a swimmer capable of competing with a boat, and of having lit his way one night as he swam through the cold waves of the sea, warmed by the fire of his love (Vidi et Abydeni iuvenis certantia remis / brachia laudavique manus et saepe natanti / praeluxi: minor ille calor quo saeva tepebant / aequora, 86–90). Now, all of the motifs listed above have a central function in the epistolary couplet of the Heroides (18–19) in which Ovid relates this romantic myth of love and death, from the idea of arms-as-oars (remis ego corporis utar, ‘I will use the oars of my body’, 18.215) to the image of a torch-bearing divinity clearing the path for the young suitor (in Ovid, it is the Moon, recalling her own passion for Endymion: Luna fere tremulum praebebat lumen eunti, / ut comes in nostras officiosa vias, ‘the moon offered only a trembling light, to my going, like an obliging companion on the road’, 18.59–60). Leander’s passion is so fiery as to warm the cold night sea he traverses, as Ovid’s young lover noted (frigora ne possim gelidi sentire profundi, / qui calet in cupido pectore, praestat amor, ‘Love aids me, warming my eager heart, so I will not be chilled by the deep cold’, 18.89–90).6
The ‘ancient loves’ Stella is said to have surpassed with the intensity of his suffering (tu veteres, iuvenis, transgressus amores, 90) are thus not generic ones of myth, but the specific ones described in Ovid’s poetry—that is, their literary forms. The reference to the Ovidian model is explicit, in fact I would say declared, both in ille and in the phrase veteres amores which seems to be a sort of tag, a label/brand of poetic memory (like we know is memini, ‘I remember’),7 and to indicate a specific inter-textual relationship (as, e.g., Catullus 96.3, Tibullus 2.4.47, Ov. Ep. 16.257, etc.).8
But there is at least one other Ovidian hypotext that emerges compellingly from Statius’ epithalamium (and I will obviously limit myself to the section of Cupid’s speech, although others could be cited, beginning with the story of Alpheus and Arethusa at 1.2.203–208, with a meaningful ‘reprise with variations’). When Cupid notes the disparity with which the two components of the nuptial pair were treated—an entire quiver of arrows launched at Stella (74–75) compared with an all but innocuous, loose-bowed flick of an arrow for Violentilla, which protects her from the fires of passion (79–80)—, the reader cannot help but recall the archetypal story of ‘one-sided’ love, that of Apollo and Daphne in the first book of the Metamorphosis. In fact, this is where the idea appears of a different—actually, in that case opposite—effect produced by the god’s intervention on the two components of the couple, the subject and the object of desire. Hence Cupid, irritated, had in fact reacted to Apollo’s arrogant words:
Met. 1.466–474dixit et eliso percussis aere pennisinpiger umbrosa Parnasi constitit arceeque sagittifera prompsit duo tela pharetradiversorum operum: fugat hoc, facit illud amorem;quod facit, auratum est et cuspide fulget acuta,quod fugat, obtusum est et habet sub harundine plumbum.Hoc deus in nympha Peneide fixit, at illolaesit Apollineas traiecta per ossa medullas;protinus alter amat, fugit altera nomen amantis.
trans. Melville [2008][Then winging through the air his eager wayHe stood upon Parnassus’ shady peak,And from his quiver’s laden armouryHe drew two arrows of opposing power,One shaft that rouses love and one that routs it.The first gleams bright with piercing point of gold;The other, dull and blunt, is tipped with lead.This one he lodged in Daphne’s heart; the firstHe shot to pierce Apollo to the marrow.At once he loves; she flies the name of love.]
As observed in the commentaries, the image of the double-headed arrow with opposite effects seems to exist nowhere but in Ovid9 (although the idea of the co-presence of love and anti-love as abstract principles, the Catullan odi et amo, is of course frequent in Greek literary culture), and in any case, regardless of its possible presence in earlier authors’ works, it is evident that Statius drew inspiration from that specific scene. With one meaningful, and understandable, variation: while Cupid strikes Stella many times, provoking an ardent passion, he merely grazes Violentilla with his weapon (a softened blow, which recalls another Ovidian invention, namely the tela secunda, a delicate sort of lightning bolt that Jupiter uses to lessen the impact of his erotic assault on Semele, at Met. 3.305–307).10 With this variation, Statius preserves the idea of asymmetry—a basic element in elegy, which causes the lack and activates the dynamics of desire—, and thus of passion fueled by the very impossibility of fulfillment, but without equating Violentilla with the Diana-model (the one used by Ovid), which would suggest a rejection of eros and of a civilized lifestyle. This latter solution would not have suited a figure like Violentilla, for whom a virginal role was out of the question (she had already been married before wedding Stella), as was an attitude of radical aversion to the sphere of eros; and this element of Statius’ ‘new elegy’ contributes to demonstrating the conciliatory tendency that sets it apart from any sort of fundamentalism.
There is in any case a further confirmation of the centrality of the Ovidian model in a Callimachean motif (from Acontius and Cydippe, a source-text for so many elegiac topics: Aet. 3, fr. 67.9–10 Pf.),11 adopted first in the Catullan epithalamium (62.42–44 multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae: / idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui, / nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae, ‘many there are have desired it, boys and girls equally, yet when its bloom fades, nicked off by a sharp thumbnail, none there are to desire it, neither boys nor girls’, trans. Green [2005]) and later in the epic tradition by Virgil (A. 7.54–55 multi illam magno e Latio totaque petebant / Ausonia, ‘many wooed her from wide Latium and all Ausonia’ and 11.581–582 multae illam frustra Tyrrhena per oppida matres / optavere nurum, ‘many a mother in Etruscan fortresses wished for her as a daughter-in-law in vain’) and Ovid (Met. 3.353–355 multi illum iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae; / sed fuit in tenera tam dura superbia forma, / nulli illum iuvenes, nullae tetigere puellae, ‘many youths, and many young girls desired him. But there was such intense pride in that delicate form that none of the youths or young girls affected him’, which is a reworking/variation of Catullus). It is the topos of the ‘many suitors’, which Statius develops here in a version that focuses on the elegiac poet-lover Stella’s monomaniacal passion for Violentilla after he is struck by Cupid’s arrows (quamvis Ausoniis multum gener ille petitus / matribus, 76–77), but on the structural level recalls the rejection-of-eros produced in Daphne by the anti-erotic arrow: multi illam petiere, illa aversata petentes / inpatiens expersque viri nemora avia lustrat …, ‘many would woo her; she, rejecting all, manless, aloof, ranged through the untrodden woods …’, Met. 1.478–479. And finally, according to a technique typical of Statius, there is an explicit—but delayed, and somehow dissimulated—citation of the model mentioned above: to celebrate Violentilla’s beauty, the poet turns to an encomiastic motif already employed in elegy (the one in which Propertius declares Cynthia worthy of Jove’s attentions: Romana accumbes prima puella Iovi, ‘you will be the first Roman maiden to lie with Jove’, 2.3.30), and asserts that Apollo would have preferred her to Daphne: hanc si Thessalicos vidisses, Phoebe, per agros, / erraret secura Daphne (‘if Phoebus had seen her in Thessaly’s fields, Daphne had safely strayed’, 1.2.130–131), which is an obvious reference to Ovid’s text.
The significance as hypotext of the Ovidian story of Apollo and Daphne is thus particularly evident: the primus amor Phoebi (‘the first love of Phoebus’, 1.452), which marks eros’ initial appearance in the Ovidian poem, and in the history of the world it narrates, originated with the saeva Cupidinis ira (‘the cruel ire of Cupid’, 453). In the ‘asymmetry’ of an unrequited passion, the story is the matrix of every ill-fated love—which elegiac love must always be—, and thus of Stella’s love for Violentilla as well.
But there is another specific link that connects Statius’ Silvae 1.2 to Ovid’s Remedia. Cupid’s suasoria-speech in favor of Stella, in which he entreats Venus to spare him the torments of love, is the same one made by Ovid, the ‘improper’ elegiac poet (and apparently likewise an apostate: even a title like Remedia amoris contradicts the elegiac axiom that omnis humanos sanat medicina dolores: / solus amor morbi non amat artificem, ‘medicine can cure all human pains: only love loves not a doctor of its disease’, trans. Goold, Prop. 2.1.57–58) who justifies himself before Cupid for writing a work that teaches readers how to avoid the tragic effects of an unhappy love. What Statius proposes, as interpreter of a post-elegiac ‘new elegy’, is an eros understood as a mature phase, in contrast with his youthful elegiac eros (Silv. 1.2.182 ergo age, iunge toros atque otia deme iuventae, ‘up then, join beds and away with youth’s idleness!’), which was a source of suffering. Further confirmation of this may be seen in the reference to the tragic love stories of myth (Hippomenes and Leander) that Statius evokes, and that Stella’s love for Violentilla ‘surpassed’. That model of passion—indubitably intense but destined for a fatal outcome—is also surpassed in that it becomes a model to avoid,12 superseded by a type of love that is not rebellious or clandestine, but rather is adapted to the social context in which it occurs.
It is a now-legitimized eros, integrated into social life; a modern eros, suited to the new age of Domitian.13 But in this Statius merely acknowledges his fellowship with Ovid, the last of the elegists but also a champion of both literary and ethical modernity, who had imparted a way of living in accordance with the lifestyle of the new Augustan Rome, abandoning the traditionalist nostalgia of conventional elegy. So Statius, too, like many modern scholars, sees in Ovid the pivotal role of a ‘poet between two worlds’.
Cf. Rosati (1999) 158–163 and Rosati (2005) 140–143.
On Statius’ engagement with great literary models in the Silvae see in this volume Newlands and Bessone on Virgil and Lóio on Propertius; see also Bessone (pp. 212–216) and Pittà (pp. 115–118) on Statius’ engagement with Callimachus.
The particular contribution of commentaries toward this end is of course essential: the renewed esteem of Statius’ work in recent decades has stemmed, not coincidentally, from van Dam (1984), Coleman (1988), and subsequent commentaries by other scholars (especially Laguna Mariscal [1992], Gibson [2006], and Newlands [2011]).
Translations of Statius are from Shackleton Bailey (2003) (sometimes slightly modified).
Here the text has been disputed: see full discussion in Rosati (1985). I give the text by Kenney (1994) (who notes in the apparatus my proposal of emending nudis to crudis). In any case, the authenticity of lines 25–26, sometimes doubted, seems to me guaranteed by Statius’ passage.
On the three motifs cf. Rosati (1996), respectively 147–148, 80–81, and 93–94.
Cf. Miller (1993).
I have discussed this usage in Rosati (2009) 228.
Cf., e.g., Barchiesi (2005) ad loc.
Cf. Barchiesi (2007) ad loc. More in Pontiggia (2018) 170 n. 2.
As Tissol (1992) has shown.
I owe this suggestion to Richard Tarrant.
On the ‘post-Ovidian elegy as the voice of modernity’ cf. Rosati (2005) 135–140.
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