The impasse of Aeneas

Recently I had the pleasure of listening to Professor Elizabeth Vandiver's lectures on the Aeneid -- a most rewarding six hours -- and it prompted me to consider how such an imposing accomplishment, the epic of Rome given the imprimatur of Augustus himself, might change the game for Ovid.

The closing books of the Metamorphoses have much to do with Aeneas in the new land of Italy, so naturally this is where Ovid's poem most pointedly engages Virgil's epic.

Large accomplishments have a way of taking all the poetic oxygen out of the room. For 800 years or more, the Iliad had stood without a worthy epic successor. When Virgil came along, he was able to draw upon the untapped history and legends of another people, a "humble" tribe that was busy fashioning an empire.

Ovid could have chosen another historic theme, or written love lyrics, but Catullus and Propertius had that pretty well sewn up. Horace's mastery of the urbane poetry of comment, satire, and of the ode was incontestable.

What's a talented and ambitious latecomer to do?

Ovid was ambitious. His Heroides show unabashed delight in taking a range of characters from Homer and the tragedies, and breathing richly complex, recognizably human souls into them. Metamorphoses is a display of intricate art, poetic invention, psychological insight and masterful storytelling, yet it chooses to do without a single overarching epic narrative to give it an obvious thematic and imperial unity.

To appreciate the strangeness of Ovid's choice for his masterwork, it might help to consider it in relation to the Aeneid. For Virgil, to sing the saga of the translation of a people from Troy to Rome was to become the architect of his people's destiny. He poured his consummate study of Homer, Hesiod, the Greek tragedians, and the philosophers into a song that moves from the fires of Troy to Dido's Carthaginian pyre to the gloomy underworld of death and rebirth before immersing itself in a series of Iliadic battles that climax in the slaying of Turnus.

As Vandiver notes, the controversial end of the poem has split readers and scholars into symmetrically opposed interpretive camps: there are those who say Aeneas's killing Turnus was justified -- he is fulfilling a larger destiny, a mandate of Fate. Others believe that Virgil is portraying the pius father of Rome as overwhelmed by tragic, vengeful furor (his feelings for Pallas, whom Turnus had killed). The arguments on either side grow quite complex, as Vandiver explicates in her final lecture.

Aeneas kills Turnus

What does it mean that the song of Rome ends not, as does the Iliad, in a profound moment of tragic understanding, wonderment, and suspended bloodshed, but in a brutal act of violence?

Calibrating his epic to come to rest on a final act that lies open to two symmetrically opposed judgments is no playful ambiguity on Virgil's part. The ending presents the reader with the crucial need to decide whether to approve or condemn the hero whose poem the reader has just now "finished." If that necessary decision proves undecidable, then in a sense the reading of the song of "arms and the man" lingers in the air, never to be completed.

Virgil's epic arrives at an impasse borne of the enigmatic legacy of Greece: we inhabit a world in which our knowledge is partial, our will is hedged round with limits difficult to ascertain, our public and private loyalties are in conflict, and our loves are roiled by unmastered forces beyond both our consciousness and our powers.

At this point, a reader of Virgil might ask, "how did we get here?" What are the roots of this understanding of the world, this vision of the human? A return to origins, to the sources of the legacy of Greece and the history of Rome, might be just the thing. Research into how we became what we are, a quest for what we yet might become, seems called for: an inquiry into the nature of the new that is sufficiently provocative and searching to conceive nature anew.

Mapping Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas

The three great voyages of the ancient Mediterranean, in order of occurrence - click to enlarge:

Jason

Odysseus

Aeneas

Also under construction: a digital atlas of ancient waters, showing multi-layered maps of land, sea, shipwreck sites and more. Found it here via the remarkable rogueclassicism.

Virgil's Achaemenides

For ease of comparison with Ovid's scene with Macareus and Achaemenides, here's the Achaemenides scene from Aeneid, Book 3, also translated by Tony Kline.

First part - Encountering Achaemenides.

Second part - Polyphemus

Gluttons for intertexual relationships might also have a look at the Sinon scene of Aeneid 2, which bears some definite similarities to the Achaemenides scene, and includes interesting references to Palamedes and Ulysses.

Achaemenides

History and Theater in Metamorphoses 11

(Apologies for length - this sort of got away from what was intended to be a relatively brief comment.)

"Of all the cities that men live under the sun and the starry sky, the nearest to my heart was Troy, with Priam and the people of Priam." (Zeus to Hera. Homer, Iliad 4.45).

If one has little tolerance for non-linear stories, narratives that dawdle, derail, drop threads, or make leaps of little seeming consequence, then Metamorphoses might frustrate. "What's the story?" one can hear certain kinds of readers mutter. Or, "What's it all MEAN?"

Whether it's left brain tilt, or a resistance to certain sorts of complexity, the reader who expects a text to go on a quest of some sort, and via its protagonist to discover some single answer or masterfully unifying solution, thereby satisfying all cravings raised by the peculiarities of the (intentionally mystifying) plot is bound to be frustrated by narratives that abound in multiple elements that do not seem consequential.

Apparently one of the elements found in nonlinear systems is chaos, which might explain why some readers, craving order in an upset world, might offer some resistance to a text like Ovid's. Some turn to books to escape from disorder, rather than to experience it textually.

Aeneas, Sibyl at the Gates

If we're looking for a quest or question in Ovid, we'll find them there, though not under the auspices of some watchful author. Yet somehow questions occur. This needs some explaining.

Book 11 offers a specific case to look at. As we've seen, the narrative scatters characters, antecedents, initial moments in the epic tale of Troy. That story in itself is a highly significant one for Ovid's audience, who were living in the wake of Virgil's Aeneid. Virgil's epic placed Augustus's nascent empire within a coherent, linear account of a difficult, but god-sanctioned quest from Troy to Rome.

Troy was a sacred city (not unlike Thebes) -- founded and even constructed by blessed men and the gods that blessed them, a family with children so favored that one of them, Ganymede, was rapt by Zeus himself. Yet for all its strength and divine backing, Troy did fall, thanks to a complex series of events that fulfilled a highly unlikely set of fatal conditions, noted in prior posts here.

Now Book 11 seems virtually unconscious of all this, meandering as it does from Orpheus getting dismembered (speaking of chaos) to Midas, then a bit of Laomedon before stumbling off to Proteus and Peleus, Ceyx and Alcyone, to shipwreck and the sleepy thespians Morpheus, Icelos and Phantasos.

Yet within this seemingly random, loopily dissociative path, bits and pieces of the fate of Troy can be found. We learn of heroes who sired several key destroyers of Troy: Telamon, father of Telamonian Ajax (wall of the Acheans) and of Teucros; Peleus and Thetis, parents of Achilles, who had the most glorious wedding ever; Phocus, grandfather of Epeius, (builder of the Trojan Horse) -- each of these fathers happens to be a son of Aeacus, son of Zeus, strong ally of Athens, and opponent of Minos, as we saw in Book 7.

Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Peleus's visit to Ceyx allows Ovid to speak of Chione, the beautiful but proud daughter of Daedalion, who bears Autolycus to Hermes (as well as Philammon, father of Eumolpus, to Apollo).

In brief, seedlings of forebears of some of the key contrivers of the fall of Troy -- Ajax, Teucros, Achilles, Epeius, and Odysseus -- are disseminated among the disparate tales of Book 11.

Ovid, then, is not offering a linear genealogy of the architects of the fall of Troy. But he is offering a series of stories about other people and their fates, seemingly unrelated to Troy, within which these seeds are sown. For the casual reader of Metamorphoses, the might seem random events. From the "later" vantage point of the Iliad and the Aeneid, these apparently happenstance intersections of parental units take on an ominous dimension. (If anyone is in doubt that Troy is looming, see the opening scene of Book 12 -- Aulis.)

One one level, this gives the Metamorphoses a temporal, figural dimension (not unlike how the Old Testament was read -- later -- as the prefiguration of the New Testament). On another, it suggests a kind of sideways unfolding of history -- events in the foreground often are the least significant, while little noticed births or decisions take on great importance seen from a retrospective light. History in the act of becoming is not visible, tellable, or understandable. But from the (future) point at which it can be seen as a great tapestry that is past, those things that actually "made history" begin to emerge from the welter of foreground events.

A couple of sidelong speculations on Ovid's technique:

Emergence: Telling a series of tales that don't seem to interrelate, but nonetheless offer unaccented lineaments of a story that is not utterable now, but will come to be told, is not unlike what is described by the concept of emergence -- a non-linear process by which a multiplicity of simple interactions give rise to complex wholes, or systems. In our case, a series of seemingly random interactions gives rise to just the right agents in the next generation, who are required by Fate to destroy the city beloved of the gods.

Anamorphic perspective: The light, or position, from which something is seen is a recurrent element of Ovid's narrative. Recall the wolf that bursts with inexplicable violence upon Peleus's cattle:

. . . there is a swamp, choked with dense willows, which the salt flood has turned into marshland. From it, a wolf, a huge beast, terrifies the places round about with its heavy crashing noises. It came out of the marsh reeds, its deadly jaws smeared with foam and clots of blood, and its eyes filled with red flame. It was savage with rage and hunger, more with rage; since though hungry it did not bother with the dead cattle, or with satisfying its deadly appetite, but wounded the whole herd, slaughtering them all in its hostility.

Seen from one angle, a wolf is a wolf (as the Calydonian boar in Book 8 is "just a boar"). But in Ovid, there is always another perspective:

There was a high tower; a beacon (focus) on top of the citadel; a welcome sight for labouring vessels. They climbed up, and looked out, with murmuring sighs, at the cattle lying on the shore, seeing their rampaging killer with bloody jaws, its shaggy pelt dripping gore. There, stretching his hands out towards the shores of the open sea, Peleus prayed to sea-born Psamathe to forget her anger, and to aid him. (Kline)

Seen from the high tower upon which a fire (focus) is blazing, the same wolf comes to signify the wrath of Psamathe, the mother of Phocus. Ovid is using his lively acoustic imagination to turn the crux of the story into a good pun (two things in one sound). By the light of the tower, the unfolding events make a different kind of sense. We can call this an anamorphic narrative.

Given that the eventually discernible history of Troy is emerging from Ovid's tales about other matters, one is then tempted to ferret out underlying reasons. Why for example did the gods give Thetis to Peleus, when they so favored the family of Dardanus and Tros? The question doesn't come up in the narrative, nor does Ovid address it thematically. The fact that Ovid neither asks nor answers the question, however, doesn't mean it's not posed by the text.

If one is to follow the story of the fall of Troy, one needs to ask whether there is a discernible design behind apparent accidents of history. Peleus was instructed in how to "win" Thetis, and his brother Telemon won Hesione, at least in part because they were (relatively) blameless sons of an honorable son of Zeus. Let's not forget that Aeacus built the third side of Troy. In seeking to scam Apollo and Poseidon (dressed as mortals), Laomedon unwittingly set a trap that would spring -- later. Neither he nor anyone else saw it coming. By promising to purchase the labor of the gods and the heroism of Heracles, and  by reneging on both debts, and by calling the gods liars in the bargain, the king in fact was devising his people's doom. His speaking triggered his and his people's fate. As we've noted previously, Ovid includes speech acts among the forces that shape history.

Heracles saves Hesione

The contractual language of commerce in Laomedon's bargains gathers even more significance when we learn how his sole surviving son, Podarces, gained the name by which history knows him. It seems Heracles was willing to save Hesione, who was being sacrificed to save the city from enraged Poseidon's flood, if Laomedon would give him the horses which Zeus had given him as compensation for the rape of Ganymede. But, after a terrific struggle with a sea monster in which Heracles was swallowed for three days, lost all his hair yet saved the girl, Laomedon reneged on the deal.

That provoked Heracles to sack Troy and to kill Laomedon and his whole family, except for one son:

. . . when he had taken the city and shot down Laomedon and his sons, except Podarces, he assigned Laomedon's daughter Hesione as a prize to Telamon and allowed her to take with her whomsoever of the captives she would. When she chose her brother Podarces, Hercules said that he must first be a slave and then be ransomed by her. So when he was being sold she took the veil from her head and gave it as a ransom; hence Podarces was called Priam - from priamai, "to buy." 183  (Apollodorus, Library).

For Ovid, a pun is not only wittily telling, it's a pregnant naming.

To make an end:

Book 11 lurches from the death of Apollo's poet to an avaricious king who repents only to gain asses' ears. From the vivid pathos of Ceyx's perishing amid the sublime and terrible forces of  nature, it veers into a vast storehouse of sleeping dreams. If this is history, why is it stumbling about like a drunken satyr? If it's mere fable (i.e., "literary"), why is it inwoven with important characters, sacred gods, and events of Roman history?

I think a question that Ovid's text does not directly ask, but always is posing, is, "What does history look like?" To this question, which is asked at every moment of this text, Ovid brings all his art of storytelling: the tricks of temporality, the shadings of emotion, the echoic sounds and mirroring images, the machinations of language articulating the world. Even as the story of Troy emerges from the welter, it's seen from other angles, lit by other lights. If history is institched to the tapestry of the Metamorphoses, it emerges bi-focally, via horn and ivory gates. Theatricality is its impresario at every turn.

A quiz on the Fall of Troy

Note: I've added several new elements here to fill out the essentials of the Fall of Troy story.
Update 11.19.12: I've added a few more details at bottom.

Here's a nice quiz, a number of whose questions have to do with the fall of Troy. Have fun, and after choosing your answers, hit "submit answers for grading" to get your "grade."

Quiz or no quiz, you'll find here the conditions that had to be met before Troy would fall. It's a nice summary based strictly upon classical sources.

[Updates]: I've added a link on the right to Quintus Smyrnaeus's late classical epic, the Posthomerica, or The Fall of Troy, which purports to tell what happened after the Iliad ends.

Yet another condition that had to be met before Troy could fall is reason for the fame of the fisherman Damarmenus. He it was who, after the Trojan War, recovered from the sea the bone of Pelops 1. During the war it was prophesied to the Achaeans that Troy could not be taken unless, among other things, they could bring the bone of Pelops 1. From Pisa in Elis was brought the bone of Pelops 1, the ivory shoulder blade that replaced the part that Demeter had absent mindedly eaten at the time of Tantalus's grisly feast. As they were returning home from Troy, the ship carrying the bone was wrecked off Euboea in a storm. Many years later, Damarmenus, a fisherman from Eretria, drew up the bone. Amazed at its size he kept it hidden in the sand. Later the bone was given to the Eleans following an oracle from Delphi [Pau.5.13.4ff.].

The key source for knowing the conditions of vulnerability for Troy was Helenus, son of Priam and twin brother of Cassandra. He was said to be the wisest of the Trojans, and a seer. Parada:

only he knew the oracles that protected the city, which he revealed to the enemy so that the Achaeans could finally take Troy. For when Paris died, Helenus and his brother Deiphobus quarrelled for the hand of Helen; and when Deiphobus was preferred, Helenus left the city and established his residence on Mount Ida, where Odysseus captured him. And after having displayed the excellent seer in the Achaean camp, they forced this glorious prey to tell how Troy could be taken. That is why Helenus 1 prophesied whatever matter they asked, instructing them to bring the Bone of Pelops 1, to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros, to persuade Philoctetes (in whose power were the Bow and Arrows of Heracles) to come from Lemnos, and also to steal the Palladium, a wooden statue that once had fallen from Heaven, since if it were carried off Troy could not survive.

There's a bit more to the story of Philoctetes and Heracles' arrows - here taken from notes found on the Perseus site:

When Hercules, through the imprudence of his wife Deianira, was seized with that cruel disease from which he had no release to hope for but death, he was carried to mount Oeta, and having ascended the funeral pile he obtained a promise from Philoctetes, the son of Poeas, that he would set fire to the pile, on condition of receiving his divine arrows as a reward for this last office. When the Greeks were on their voyage to Troy, it was foretold to them that they would never be able to overthrow llium, unless they discovered the altar of Chryse, erected on an island of the same name, and offered sacrifice thereon. While Philoctetes was showing where the altar was, he was wounded in the foot by a serpent which guarded it, and from that cause left at Lemnos. In the tenth year of the war Helenus, the Trojan prophet, being captured by Ulysses, predicted that Troy could never be taken but by the arrows of Hercules; upon this, messengers were sent to Lemnos in order to bring back Philoctetes with his arrows to Troy.

Helenus will appear in Metamorphoses 15 to provide Aeneas with crucial information for accomplishing the task of founding Rome. He also appears in Aeneid 3:

In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector. She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who had the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl in Cumae.

Another condition:

. . . when Achilles was nine years old, the seer Calchas, whom Agamemnon has called "prophet of evil," declared that Troy could not be taken without him. This is one of the reasons why Achilles came to Troy; for he, who had not been among the SUITORS OF HELEN, was not bound by the Oath of Tyndareus.

[Added 11.19.12] It turns out there were six famous conditions for the fall of Troy - Plautus cites three of them in a humorous scene of his Bacchides:

“I have heard there were three destinies attending Troy, which were fatal to it; if the statue should be lost from the citadel -- [it was carried off by Odysseus and Diomedes] -  whereas the second was the death of Troilus; the third was when the upper lintel of the Phrygian (aka Scaean gate) gate should be demolished.”

According to the commentary in Perseus by Charles Simmons: 

This last involved the disturbance of the tomb of Laomedon, and was brought about when the [Scaean] gate was widened to bring in the horse. A fourth condition was the presence of an Aeacid. This was satisfied by bringing to the war the young son of Achilles, Pyrrhus (cf. 155 n.), who thence got the name Neoptolemus. For fatis = ‘destruction,’ see 180 n.

A note on p. 196-197 of this edition of Plautus mentions three more conditions: 

If the horses of Rhesus should be captured before they had tasted of the pastures of Troy and the waters of Xanthus; if the bow and arrow of Hercules should be employed in the siege; and if one of the posterity of Achilles should be present (the Aeacid, Neoptolemos). 

The Horses of Rhesus