[Gallus].93 and Ciris 343

[falmouth]

Another point in [Gallus] = AL914, I'm afraid. But I think this one is
quite striking

1. [Gallus] 93
“Nec dominae pudeat gremio captare soporem”

‘Capio somnum (vel. sim)’ is a common phrase, but ‘capto somnum (vel.
sim)’ is not. But there is a very close parallel at [Verg.] Ciris 343

“uirginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem”

2. Lyne in his commentary on the Ciris picks this line as a salient
example of where the Ciris poet has self-evidently pillaged from a
previous poet: here is what Lyne says in full (Introduction, page
42-3):
“Next, what does placidam tenebris captare quietem in 343 mean? It
greatly troubles the commentators: see Hielkema or Haury. I take it
that the poet must mean us to supply virgini; and quies effectively
means 'sleep'. So the nurse is in fact 'wooing sleep for the girl',
helping the girl to get to sleep. But this is an amazing stretch of
normal Latin usage. capere somnum, sim. is a regular periphrasis
simply for 'to sleep' cf. Pl Mil. 709.; Cic. Att 8.1.4, Lucr. 4.956
etc.; with quietem, cf. Ov. Fast. 1.205 'nec pudor in stipula placidam
cepisse quietem' 6.331, Culex 161 'capiebat corde quietem' (and Bomer
on Fast. 1.205 has two more exx.). And 'captare somnum' naturally
means simply 'to try to sleep'. TLL (capto) quotes it at Sen. Epist.
56.7 'somnum inter aegritudines captans', Colum. 7.10.5 and Calp. Ecl.
5.64 (but adds no examples with alternatives for 'somnus'). It is
quite against the idiom, therefore, for 'captare quietem' to mean, as
it must, to 'try to 'take' sleep for someone else'.
Again therefore we find a phrase that is strained in its context, and
hardly seems to have been composed for it. And there is no surviving
source for 'placidam tenebris captare quietem'. We consider it in
isolation; it suits someone trying simply, on his or her own, to go to
sleep. In the circumstances, especially immediately after one very
probable borrowing from Cinna's Symrna, the phrase will naturally and
I think rightl;y evoke for us the same guiltily love-sick heroine
trying (in vain or with difficulty) to find the relief of sleep. Love-
sick heroines are notorious insomniacs: Scylla herself (174ff, 231ff),
Dido at Verg. Aen. 4.5 nec placidam membris dat cura quietem (and
522ff) - and Murra at Ov. Met. 10.369f 'at virgo Cinyreia pervigil
igni / carpitur. The source in the Zmyrna I think is clear. and in the
posited context of the original tenebris, which in the Ciris is a not
very comfortable instrumental ablative, can naturally mean 'in the
dark', 'come the night'. 'placidam' will also I think be part of the
adaptation: the importance of the peacefulness of sleep is paramount
in the posited context (but placida quies itself becomes a common
phrase: see Pease on Aen. 4.5. So: (placidam) tenebris captare
quietem' is another prhase of Cinna's: and again our poet has worked
in the manner of cento.”.

3. The following seems clear:
• Ciris 343 is near to a nonsense (since the subject is Scylla’s
nurse whereas it is Scylla who has difficulty in sleeping);
• “captare quietem” at Ciris 343, therefore, comes from elsewhere: a
source which is not extant, perhaps Cinna’s Smyrna (Lyne’s suggestion
while attractive is in no way inevitable);
• [Gallus] 93 has this near unique phrase in a line where it makes
perfect sense - the subject [Gallus] is trying to sleep himself.

4. Rather than assuming that [Gallus] took the phrase from the Ciris
(where it is a near nonsense) it is far more economical/plausible
(especially given that there definitely must have been an earlier
model for this phrase) to suppose that either [Gallus] had access to
the source of line 343 Ciris or that [Gallus] is actually the source
of Ciris 343.

5. Why “captare soporem” in [Gallus] rather than the more common
“capere soporem”? I think because [Gallus] has just been emphasising
that he has been ‘campaigning’ ‘Amor’s battles’ from dusk to dawn
(83-6) - sleep is something hard to come by (no chance for sleep until
morning is the implication in 83-6 with 94): it is heavy work
satisfying Lycoris’ demands! Hence, “*tries to* catch some sleep in
Lycoris’ embrace”. The intensifying “capto” rather than “capio” also
to some extent reinforces the military metaphor (83-6 and cf.
especially the opening lines - an *attempt* to capture Seleuce as is
clear from the ‘nunc’ and present tenses at 55-6).

6. Two more points on Ciris 343:
• There is a certain similarity of construction: in particular
“virginis” ~ “dominae” (both genitive, both referring to a female);
“tenebris” / “gremio” (both ablative). While Lyne (naturally) takes
“virginis” with the line before, is it not possible that the
(strained) sense which the Ciris poet intended was “and she [sc. the
nurse] sought sleep [sc. *for herself*] in the dark chamber [i.e.
‘tenebris’ as a substantive referring to the room cf. Lewis and Short
“a dark, gloomy place”] of the girl” (cf. the nurse putting out the
lamps in the next line)? Thus, the Ciris poet’s far from natural
expression could be dictated entirely by [Gallus]’ (or conceivably
[Gallus]’ model’s) construction.
• It is, pace Lyne, very conceivable that “placidam …quietem” in the
Ciris poet is not from the [Ciris] poet’s source for the phrase
“captare [quietem]”, since as Lyne notes “placidam … quietem” is
common elsewhere in Vergil (and others) and could likely be taken by
the Ciris poet from such other lines - this again would be typical of
the Ciris poet’s technique.

[Bill Walderman]

'Why “captare soporem” in [Gallus] rather than the more common
“capere soporem”?'

Could the meter be the culprit here?

[falmouth]

Bill, yes I see what you mean with 'capere' but one could have
'cepisse' without changing the sense too much? But the interesting
fact is only here and in the Ciris is there "captare soporem/quietem"
at the end of a hexameter in the entirety of extant Latin poetry (i.e.
despite 'captare quietem' being metrically convenient, it was not a
phrase commonly used).

How Ovid Fast. 1.205-6

nec pudor in stipula placidam cepisse quietem               205
     et fenum capiti subposuisse fuit.

might fit in is also a curious question - it is similar to the Ciris
with its 'placidam [infinitive] quietem' but shares the 'nec pudor' /
'pudeat' with [Gallus], but in terms of context is very distant from
either the Ciris or [Gallus].

One very wild thought that I had was whether Cinna might have written
something like "it did not shame him [sc. Cinyras] to 'captare
quietem' in the lap of his daughter [Myrrha] (... in the dark
"tenebris" [Ciris] and cf. Met 10.476, contrast [Gallus]' 'media ...
die'!)" - i.e. a direct model for both [Gallus] and the Ciris in terms
of construction. If so, could Ovid's "stipula" be a very arch
imitation - in the context, "hay", but suggesting "a little stirpes/
stipes!" (Myrrha both daughter then tree)? Again, if so, could Ovid
have taken "captare" as having an iterative rather than conative
nuance when he wrote "postera nox facinus geminat, nec finis in illa
est" of Cinyras at Met. 10.471.

On 5 June, 18:29, Bill Walderman <william.walder...@sutherland.com>
wrote:

> > the Ciris poet’s technique.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Leofranc Holford-Strevens]

cepisse is just what one would expect; it is not a perfect infinitive but a
perfective, an authentic usage but encouraged by the Greek aorist infinitive
and used freely in elegiac poetry when metre requires. Ovid does not mean
that people who had slept on the stubble with hay for a pillow felt ashamed,
but that they were not precluded by shame from doing so.

Next problem: why should the lover in [Gallus] be ashamed of trying to sleep
on his mistress's lap, instead of actually sleeping? On the other hand why
can't the nurse in the Ciris be trying to sleep rather than lull Scylla to
sleep (assuming her interminable speech hadn't done the trick)?

Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road
Oxford
usque adeone
OX2 6EJ scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat
alter?

tel. +44 (0) 1865 552808 (home)/353865 (work) fax +44 (0) 1865 512237

[falmouth]

Leofranc,

Para. 1 agreed: nec pudeat or similar means "it did not shame X
(implied, it would shame us)" in both Ovid and [Gallus] (lover's
proelia rather than real battles would shame us) but also in what I
hypothesised for Cinna - it does not (it should) shame Cinyras *as he
does not know that it is Myrrha in the dark* until after many such
nights she is revealed in the light - cf. Ov. Met. 10.471ff

postera nox facinus geminat, nec finis in illa est,
cum tandem Cinyras, avidus cognoscere amantem
post tot concubitus, inlato lumine vidit

Para. 2, you suggest (i) "captare quietem" should not be felt to be
awkward in the Ciris - it *is* the nurse rather than Scylla trying to
sleep; and (ii) "captare" - trying to sleep, rather than e.g. cepisse
- actually sleeping *is* awkward in [Gallus].

As to (i), I don't think I can improve on Lyne's analysis (which I
reproduced in my first post) - it seems to him to be so awkward that
this is one of his headline examples of self-evident pillaging by the
Ciris-poet. It is not just the context but the fact that the nurse
*does* try to soothe Scylla to sleep in the succeeding lines (thus,
Scylla certainly hasn't been bored to sleep by the nurse's long speech
a la Mercury and Argus)

uirginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem,
inuerso bibulum restinguens lumen oliuo,
incipit ad crebrosque insani pectoris ictus
ferre manum, assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis.
noctem illam sic maesta super marcentis alumnae
frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos.

And given that the Ciris poet is so demonstrably consistent in these
sort of awkwardnesses derived from borrowing from earlier poetry,
there's no reason to try to rescue him here.

As to (ii), once (...if...) one rejects the possibility of [Gallus]
borrowing from the Ciris, the possibilities are twofold: (a) Ciris
borrowed from [Gallus]; (b) both Ciris and [Gallus] borrowed from the
earlier source (e.g. Cinna - we know there *is* such an earlier
source, according to Lyne). Any awkwardness in "tries to sleep" rather
than "sleep" might tend to point to (b) rather than (a), although I
made a suggestion in my original post as to why "tries to sleep" in
[Gallus]. Another reason why maybe (b) rather than (a) is that it is
more likely that Ciris poet went to something like Cinna's Smyrna than
an elegiac poem. One can equally well imagine real Gallus playing off
Cinna.

On 5 June, 23:01, "Leofranc Holford-Strevens"

> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[falmouth]

Incidentally, I am sure that Lyne is right when he suggests that Ciris
344 is taken from Cinna's Smyrna, probably wholesale. In addition to
it being, as Lyne says, a somewhat awkward insertion, putting out the
lamps was obviously of some importance in Cinna's poem (preventing
recognition of Myrrha). Ovid recasts the line in a cheeky way at Ov.
Met. 6.9 (not noted by Lyne)

Phocaico _bibulas_ _tinguebat_ murice lanas (Ov. Met. 6.9)

with

inuerso _bibulum_ res_tinguens_ lumen oliuo (Ciris 344)

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