Ecl. 10 and a neat Gallan reference in Tibullus?

[falmouth]

It has been relatively safely inferred (e.g. Ross (1975); Rosen &
Farrell (1987)) from Ecl. 10.53-4 (incising poems on trees - cf. Prop.
1.18; Ov. Her. 5) and Ecl. 10.59 ("Cydonian" (cf. Cydonian apples) and
Ecl. 10.60 "spicula" (~Gr. Akontius), that Gallus treated the Acontius
and Cydippe myth.

Tibullus 1.7.32, talking of Osiris' agricultual gifts to man, is
"Pomaque non notis legit ab arboribus.": that is "he picked fruit from
(previously) unknown trees".

But this line seems to me to conceal two punning references to the
Acontius and Cydippe myth: "non notis... arboribus" - that is, trees
without "nota" (NB, though, short 'o') ("letters") (or "uninscribed
trees"); second "pomaque... legit" - "*reads* apples" - i.e. that
which Cydippe did. Note too there is a further pun - "po[e]ma...
legit" - "read a poem".

I can see no particular reason why Tibullus should be alluding to
Acontius / Cydippe here, so it may well be that the puns were already
there in Gallus. (NB the polysyllabic pentameter ending "arboribus" is
probably straight from Gallus).

[Leofranc Holford-Strevens]

Word-play on poma and poema sounds like Pome Ayres...

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]

Pome Ayres? The reference escapes me...

I actually wonder whether Tib.'s pentameter has been lifted wholesale
from G. since Tib. 1.5.31-2 seems to be an adaptation from the same
line, but with the suggested Acontius & Cydippe puns largely lost

Huc veniet Messalla meus, cui dulcia poma
     Delia selectis detrahat arboribus;

"detrahat ~ legit"; "selectis" ~ "non notis" (NB a trace of "lego"
here). Presumably the "poma" ~ "poema" pun is meant to be felt here as
well?

On 23 Jan, 13:14, "Leofranc Holford-Strevens"

> probably straight from Gallus).- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[au...@gellius.demon.co.uk]

Pam Ayres reading 'some of me pomes'.

adria...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> Pome Ayres? The reference escapes me...
>
> I actually wonder whether Tib.'s pentameter has been lifted wholesale
> from G. since Tib. 1.5.31-2 seems to be an adaptation from the same
> line, but with the suggested Acontius & Cydippe puns largely lost
>
> Huc veniet Messalla meus, cui dulcia poma
> Delia selectis detrahat arboribus;
>
> "detrahat ~ legit"; "selectis" ~ "non notis" (NB a trace of "lego"
> here). Presumably the "poma" ~ "poema" pun is meant to be felt here as
> well?
>
> On 23 Jan, 13:14, "Leofranc Holford-Strevens"
> <au...@gellius.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > Word-play on poma and poema sounds like Pome Ayres...
> >
> > Leofranc Holford-Strevens
> > 67 St Bernard's Road
> > Oxford
> > usque adeone

> > OX2 6EJ scire MEVM nihil est,=

[falmouth]

Of course, the "poma" ~ "poema" pun is extremely thematic in relation
to the Acontius and Cydippe myth (Ovid has a field day with the
suggestion that what Acontius wrote on the apple is a poem e.g.

Pertimui scriptumque tuum sine murmure legi,
...
mittitur ante pedes *malum cum carmine* tali—
     ei mihi! iuravi nunc quoque paene tibi!
sustulit hoc nutrix mirataque 'perlege' dixit.
     insidias legi, *magne poeta*, tuas.
(Her. 21)

Maybe a similar pun was already there in Callimachus "melon" = apple;
"melos" = song?

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

[Neven Jovanovic]

falmouth, hi,

a very free allusion / word-play (would not "not marked" have to be
expressed in Latin as "non notatis"? is not this more a
sound-allusion, a verbal echo, than a quotation?) seems to me somehow
contrary to a very strict interpretation of its intention / origin.
What do we gain by establishing a connection with Gallus? How is our
reading enhanced?

Yours,

Neven Jovanovic

Zagreb, Hrvatska / Croatia

[falmouth]

Neven, thanks,

1. My suggestion is, of course, subjective and very fragile - that's
really the nature of the beast: speculating about the influence of
poems which are almost wholly lost. Most will be unproveable (or,
perhaps worse, undisproveable...).

2. On the other hand the critical tendency to effectively ignore (I
exaggerate, here) the possible influence of Gallus in the elegists
because we do not have G. inevitably leads to major distortions. Had
we got the full text of Gallus, a commentary to e.g. Ovid's Amores
would likely contain as many, if not more, references to Gallus as
Tibullus / Propertius (for Ovid himself tells us he considers himself
the fourth of a canon of four starting with G.). A headline example of
this sort of distortion: Antolin in the introduction to his commentary
on 'Lygdamus' "Of prime importance for the history of Latin
literature, however, is the question of whether we consider L. to be
earlier or later than Ovid or, even more drastic, earlier than
Tibullus, or even identify him with the young Tibullus himself, which
would convert Lygdamus, as if by magic, into the 'first elegist' and
founder of the most typically Roman literary genre (for all the claims
of Satire and the poet Gallus of whom so little is known" (!!!) - i.e.
we do not know much about Gallus => he was not the 'first elegist'!

3. At Tibullus 1.7.32 "Pomaque non notis legit ab arboribus." the
polysyllabic pentameter ending "arboribus" (rare in Tibullus) would be
enough to point towards G. by itself. Then, there is the relationship
between this line and 1.5.31-2, which suggests a common model. I'd
also highlight that "notus"="well-known" is Gallan vocabulary, at
least, according to Cairns (who argues for the importance of what he
calls the 'nomen-complex' in G. - e.g. "nomen"; "notus"; "noscere";
"nobilis").

4. For the pun on "notis", I had in mind primarily the noun "notum"
rather than the verb "notare". (NB Tib. has chosen "non notis" not
e.g. "ignotis" (although the latter would require some recasting of
the line)). I note in passing that, T. uses "notis" of inscribed
letters at Tib. 1.3.54.

5. I think that "notis legit" together would be sufficient to suggest
the possible pun. Since my original post, I have also noted (no pun
intended...!) that at Ov. Her. 5.23-6 a passage again clearly indebted
to the Acontius / Cydippe Gallan poem which one sees through Eclogue
10, Ovid uses, precisely, "notata" of the letters which Paris (in the
role of Acontius) inscribes on trees (note too "nomina" in the line
above and again in the line below - i.e. Ov. connects "notata" with
the "nomen"-complex of words (as, the argument goes, G. had done -
e.g. "your name (nomen) will be well known (notus) when I have
inscribed it ("notare") on trees"))).

6. But it is the fact that there are *two* (three?) possible wordplays
referring to the Acontius / Cydippe myth which I find most persuasive:
(i) Cydippe reads/picks up apples/poems; (ii) Acontius puts letters on
trees (and apples).

7. I do not attempt to make a case for this enriching our reading of
Tibullus (at least so far as Tibullus' meaning is concerned). The
adaptation might be entirely inert, although without Gallus' poem one
cannot exclude the possibility that there is some point to the echo
[1]. My impression is rather that T. has simply closely adapted G.'s
line to a new context in a way which allows us to see the vestiges of
the (extensive) verbal play which Gallus' poem had.

Adrian.

[1] "Illi iucundos primum matura sapores / Expressa incultis uva dedit
pedibus." Tib. 1.7.35-6 (the next but one couplet) has another
polysyllabic pentameter ending and "matura...uva" puts me in mind of
Ecl. 10.36 "Would that I [Gallus] had been 'maturae vinitor uvae'". So
I do not discount the possibility that there is wider reference to G.
in this area of Tib. 1.7.