AL 914 / Renaissance Latin Poetry (Perosa / Sparrow)

[falmouth]

I took up Leofranc's suggestion of investing in a copy of Perosa &
Sparrow's anthology of Renaissance Latin Poetry. This has been useful
for me.

What this amply bears out is that Renaissance Latin Poets had a huge
familiarity with their e.g. Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid. The verse
has a regularity and flow which parallels, even exceeds, e.g. Ovid.
Disyllabic pentameter endings are the norm, polysyllablic endings
sparingly admitted (usually where there is an Augustan precedent) and
trisyllabic endings almost entirely absent (not wholly absent, but the
poets who do use them seem to be less disciplined / technically
accomplished generally). I find also find parallels for whole phrases
in AL 914 - e.g. "atque ingrata notat tempora militiae." [Gallus];
"tristia nec longae tempora militiae" (Molza) P&S 171.16 (but already
"horrida quid durae tempora militiae?" Cat. 9.42). I found, as
Leofranc, already indicated I would, at least one example of a short
vowel before "Sc". Most of this I would happily have conceded in any
event.

Concentrating on what I do not find, on a very cursory perusal:

1. In RLP, I do find a marked avoidance of sense-breaks in the middle
of the hexameter: in particular, I do not find many lines like

Acer Amor deus est: foetas domat ille leaenas. ([Gallus].29)

Obruta virgo iacet: servat quoque nomina turris ([Gallus].35)

Where there is a strong sense-break at the third-foot caesura

Lines like

Quid loquar, a, demens? Roseae nec flore iuventae ([Gallus].37)

Quid mihi cum bello? pugnent, quibus inclita regna ([Gallus].81)

(i.e. with a rhetorical question filling the beginning of the line up
to a third-foot caesura) are easier to parallel, although still not
wholly common in RLP. I find that [Gallus] has a much greater emphasis
on marking the caesura. And I hope this is not through my
incompetence...

2. Still harder to parallel are couplets like

Multa quoque affingit, mentitur et omnia. Fluxa
quam vereor ne sit nostra puella fide. [Gallus] 19-20

O niveas luces, o tempora dulcia! vere
aurea Saturni saecla fuere senis. [Gallus] 75-6

Where a new grammatical unit starts right at the end of a hexameter.
(perhaps cf. the 'quom tu' of Gallus Fr. 2)

3. I seem to notice a marked avoidance of 'atque' in favour of 'et'
and 'que' in RLP: there are some but seldom more than isolated
incidences. [Gallus] has 3 (16), (48), (52).

4. I notice some instances of postponed 'et' in RLP, but not as marked
a mannerism as in [Gallus] "portat et" (10); "mentitur et" (19);
"pingit et" (57); "servus et" (97).

5. I'm struggling to find examples in RLP of two verbs right against
each other "affingit mentitur" (19); "iacet servat" (35) or adjective
(participle) / noun with the same ending right against each other like
"bellantum iuvenum".

These points may well be because I haven't looked hard enough. But
those are my first impressions for what they are worth.

[falmouth]

Prompted by observations 1 and 2 above, I had a look at some places
where one might find pastiche of real-Gallus with some interesting
results

Point 1:

Non canimus surdis: respondent omnia siluae.
Ecl. 10.8

Stant et oues circum (nostri nec paenitet illa
nec te paeniteat pecoris, diuine poeta:
Ecl. 10.16-7

uenit et upilio; tardi uenere subulci;
Ecl. 10.19

"Galle, quid insanis?" inquit; "tua cura Lycoris"
Ecl. 10.22

"Ecquis erit modus?" inquit "Amor non talia curat"
Ecl. 10.28

me sine sola uides. A, te ne frigora laedant!
Ecl. 10.48

Omnia uincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori
Ecl. 10.69

Ite domum saturae, uenit Hesperus, ite, capellae
Ecl. 10.77

magna, uiri, merces: parat ultima terra triumphos
Tigris et Euphrates sub tua iura fluent
Prop. 3.4.3-4

omina fausta cano. Crassos clademque piate!
ite et Romanae consulite historiae! 10
Prop. 3.4.9-10

Pacis Amor deus est, pacem veneramur amantes
sat mihi cum domina proelia dura mea
Prop. 3.5.1-2 (a companion piece to 3.4)

Parthe, dabis poenas: Crassi gaudete sepulti,
Signaque barbaricas non bene passa manus.               180
Ov. AA 1.179-80

Auguror, en, vinces; votivaque carmina reddam,               205
Et magno nobis ore sonandus eris.
Ov. AA 1.205-6

Skimming Propertius 1 and Tibullus 1, I don't find lines with such a
strong sense break as being particularly characteristic of the
elegists generally. But there do seem to be quite a few in e.g.
Catullus epigrams, and I can see that it might be quite an effective
device in epigrams.

Point 2:

Interesting to note are the hexameter endings at lines 1 and 5
(together with a point 1 instance at line 7) at [Verg] Cat. 11
(certainly influenced by real-Gallus)

Quis deus, Octaui, te nobis abstulit? an quae
     dicunt, a, nimio pocula dura mero?
'uobiscum, si est culpa, bibi: sua quemque secuntur
     fata: quid inmeriti crimen habent cyathi?'
scripta quidem tua nos multum mirabimur: et te 5
     raptum et Romanam flebimus historiam.
sed tu nullus eris. peruersi, dicite, Manes,
     hunc superesse patri quae fuit inuidia?

Again, skimming Propertius 1 and Tib. 1, I do not find this to be a
common occurrence in the elegists generally - some examples in Prop.
1.

[falmouth]

I have been looking further at the question of when first the distinct
preference for disyllabic pentameter endings started. Obviously, on
the one hand, Catullus does not make any particular effort to avoid
polysyllabic pentamenter endings; on the other hand, one finds very
few in Tibullus 1. The real question is what to make of Propertius 1.
For the moment, I will ignore Prop. 1.20-22 [1]. I also assume Prop. 1
to be earlier than Tib. 1 - if the converse were true, the below
points would have even more force.

In 318 pentameters in Prop. 1.1-19, there are 26 trisyllabic
pentameter endings (8%) and 78 pentameter endings of >3 syllables
(25%): i.e. a total of 33% of pentameter endings are not disyllables.
This is usually taken to be evidence that not yet had the distinct
preference for avoiding polysyllabic endings arisen. But perhaps the
conclusions should be more nuanced. The point which emerges strongly
from looking closer is that non-disyllabic pentameter endings are
*not* evenly distributed throughout Book 1. In the below, the first
column is the poem number (no. of lines); the second, the number of
non-disyllables; the third, that as a percentage of the number of
pentameters in the particular poem (I make no claims for the absolute
accuracy of my counting).

1 (38) 7 37%
2 (32) 7 44%
3 (46) 13 57%
4 (30) 3 20%
5 (32) 2 13%
6 (36) 7 39%
7 (26) 4 31%
8A (26) 3 23%
8B (20) 2 20%
9 (34) 1 6%
10 (30) 2 13%
11 (30) 6 40%
12 (20) 3 30%
13 (36) 1 6%
14 (24) 5 42%
15 (42) 13 62%
16 (48) 17 71%
17 (28) 3 21%
18 (32) 4 25%
19 (26) 1 8%
104 33%

If Propertius were not yet conscious of the differing effect of
disyllables / polysyllables one would expect some random fluctuation
between poems but hardly such wild fluctuation between e.g. poems 15
and 16 (62% and 71%), and e.g. poems 5, 9, 10, 13, 19 where the
percetage is well below 20%.

This all suggests to me that where Propertius wanted to compose in the
style which later becomes the norm - i.e. almost wholly disyllabic, he
is perfectly capable of doing so. By contrast, where there is a very
heavy proportion of polysyllabic pentameter endings, this is also a
conscious effect (for whatever reason). This is supported by the
observation that polysyllabic pentameter endings also seem to be
clustered within the poems where the feature heavily in Prop. Book 1,
in particular at the beginning and end of poems (a point which Cairns
(2006) makes).

Three poems in 1.1-19 are addressed to Gallus, whom, it should now be
agreed, is Cornelius Gallus the poet. These are 1.5, 1.10 and 1.13.
Returning back to the table above, one sees that these three poems
*are among those which have the very lowest proportion of non-
disyllabic pentameter endings* (13%, 13% and 6%), far below the
average (33%) (hardly incommensurate with that of AL 914 (4 in 48
pentameters: 8%)). This is sufficiently striking, that it can hardly
be accidental. Cairns (2006) notices this too, but his agenda is to
show that polysyllabic pentameter endings in Prop. 1 are evidence of
the influence of Gallus and attributes this phenomenon to a polemic
decision to *show Gallus how to write 'modern' elegy*. But the more
natural expectation would be that 1.5, 1.10, 1.13 reflect something of
Gallus' own technique [2]. That is: I suggest that this is persuasive
evidence that Gallus, himself, had already anticipated Propertius,
Tibullus and Ovid in the elegiac style of almost wholly eschewing
polysyllabic pentameter endings or, more probably, appreciating and
making conscious use of the effect (Graecizing, archaizing,
solemnifying...?) of using polysyllabic pentameter endings.

It may seem tendentious of me to have excluded Prop. 1.20 addressed to
Gallus, where there is a very high proportion of non-disyllables
(50%). But Prop. 1.20 is a very different sort of poem to Prop.
1.1-19, and I would suggest that the high proportion is a deliberate
Graecizing effect. Cf. Cairns' suggestion that Parthenius is the root
influence for this poem (it is a geographically polemic - Bithynian -
retelling of the Hylas myth). So insofar as this poem could be taken
to illustrate Gallus' technique, it would support the suggestion that
Gallus too appreciated the differing effect of a heavy proportion of
polysyllabic pentameter endings - i.e. just like Propertius he wrote
poems with both a very high proportion and a very low proportion.
Those in Gallus Fr. 2 are attributable to the elevated/archaizing
register because of the subject matter (or, if one had to, that this
is early Gallus) - (NB here that the hexameters too are more hirsute
than what Gallus' contemporaries and predecessors were capable of).
Certainly real Gallus too knew how to compose pentameters of the type
which later become universally favoured, with a real degree of
sophistication in balancing the hemistich-endings.

 uno tellures dividit amne duas.

 tristia nequit[ia     . . .]a, Lycori, tua.

  fixa legam spolieis deivitiora tueis.      

 quae possem domina deicere digna mea.

[1] I think I mentioned in a different context my suspicion that Prop.
1.20-22 have been tacked onto the end of Propertius Book 1, which
would have originally have been a 20-poem book (1.8A and 1.8B being
two poems - that suspicion has been fortified by the structural
pattern that Otto Skutsch demonstrated "The Structure of the
Propertian Monobiblos" (1963) - Skutsch considered but rejected the
possibility suggested by his findings that 1.20-22 were not part of
the Monobiblos. Otis "Propertius' Single Book" (1965) builds on
Skutsch in demonstrating, in particular, echoes between Prop. 1.1 and
Prop.1.19 and the closural aspect of 1.19. I add that Prop. Book 1
*should* start and finish with *Cynthia* cf. Prop. 1.12.20 "Cynthia
prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit" with Prop. 1.1.1 "Cynthia prima", and
it would be distinctly odd for that thematic unity to be disturbed by
Prop. 1.20-22.

[2] NB that this does not preclude the thrust of Cairns' point which I
would endorse. One would hypothesise that (early?) Gallus did indeed
use a lot of polysyllabic pentameter endings (cf. e.g. Catullus and
Gallus Fr. 2), but that by the time Prop. is engaging with Gallus,
Gallus had already 'invented' the pentameter style which later became
universal - i.e. almost wholly eschewing polysyllables (especially
trisyllables).

> > those are my first impressions for what they are worth.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -