|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 22, 2023 7:41:03 GMT
If Virgil didn't delight in this use of 'synizesis', I don't think he would have insisted upon it (that is, used it multiple times & in multiple morphs: aureā and aureō). He would've found some way around it. appears twice in the Aeneid, both times in the last foot, where it is clear how it is supposed to be scanned. I also take it be a clear echo to chryseo, which you mentioned. aurea, in all of Vergil, only ever appears in positions where it either can or must be scanned as a dactyle. To be more precise, it only ever occurs in the 1st or the 5th foot. As an addition to the Venus aurea above, he also has aurea Phoebe in georg. 1,431. Yet another divine lady. |
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 22, 2023 7:57:53 GMT
My main point is that the nominative is the more likely reading ... normally, you would go by the reading that is the most obvious and doesn't require a bunch of sub-hypotheses to back it up. If Vergil wants you to understand that it is a synizesis, he puts a word like aureo in the last foot and shoves it right into your face. I mean, think of it from a writer's perspective. You don't want to leave your readers puzzled as to what you mean ... or if you do, it would have to be a very conscious effort, which I don't see reflected here.
A regular reader would perceive these examples as nominatives, and given that there are no metrical, syntactical or semantic obstacles to reading it as a nominative, it's reasonable to assume that that was what Vergil had in mind. It could still be an enallage of sorts, but that would make the argument for a nominative even stronger.
Reading it as an ablative requires a lot more speculative assumptions, and I'm actually shocked to see that that has become the academic consensus. At the very least, it tells me everything about "acamedic consensus" that I need to know.
|
|
|
|
Post by LonginusNaso on Apr 22, 2023 10:11:36 GMT
I'm still not convinced, despite one or two cogent points (I really didn't know Circe was the daughter of Helios: I actually think flagging a divine character with aureus because of some relation to the sun-god is what great poets would do, because they keep a mythic background in their head while writing).
Your contention that: "why would you sacrifice the metre (or use a rather ugly trick at least) to do so?" is indicative of a calculating, mechanistic (and, if you don't mind my saying, German) nature. The Aeneid isn't the product of an algorithm, it wasn't generated by ChatGPT, & the purpose of meter is not to be as rigid as possible but rather to allow the perceived 'rigidity' to make any kind of laxness unique and special and, who'da thunk?, poetic. Thinking that the reading of aureā spondaically is somehow lesser/worse than dactylic aurea is just your mathematician's opinion. But while mathematicians may make efficient lovers (cutting coitus down to 30 passionless seconds), they generally make poor poets.
The same obtains for your contention that it's "extremely weird [= bad]" to have an adjective with virga but not with venenis. "Weird" you say? How about "interesting" or "inspired" or "good"? It is, to me, more interesting than merely pointing out that Circe is aurea i.e. 'good-looking'. I also don't personally put a demi-goddess/sorceress/whatever the hell she is on equal footing with a bona fide goddess like Venus, but I'm not a pagan, so what do I know?
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 22, 2023 12:40:13 GMT
I'm still not convinced, despite one or two cogent points (I really didn't know Circe was the daughter of Helios: I actually think flagging a divine character with aureus because of some relation to the sun-god is what great poets would do, because they keep a mythic background in their head while writing) Well, yes. If we agreed that aurea is nominative, like in the case of Venus, where it unquestionably is, we could discuss why the word aurea is there, and their divine nature would be a major argument. It's entirely possible that he had that in the back of his head. I just don't think you can make the argument the other way round (i.e. by saying that he evidently thought she was divine and therefore chose that adjective for her). -- for context, I'm trying to make the argument against Clifford's argument here. Jawohl. In my experience, that's how poetry generally works, though, and if poets go out of their way, they usually give you some indication that they're about to do so. That's not to be found here. I did weigh in a lot of stylistic considerations. As I said, it didn't only make sense to me in numerical terms, but also in stylistic terms. 30 seconds can be very passionate. Poetically speaking, it makes more sense to say that Circe is golden (and to wonder in what way that was meant) than to say that her wand is... I mean, why would it have to be golden? She could turn him into a bird with a wooden rod or with none at all ... unless I have missed some integral part of ancient mythology. |
|
|
|
Post by LonginusNaso on Apr 23, 2023 5:35:16 GMT
What would be the point of doing something unexpected if you're going to warn your audience beforehand? Do you care to give an example?
The rod doesn't "have to be golden" any more than Circe does? She's divine; of course she's going to glow. And what do you make of the (very important to the story) golden bough mentioned by the Cumean Sibyl? Do you also say, in regard to it, that it "doesn't have to be golden & that its being golden is arbitrary & unpoetic"?
You might as well say that Proserpina would have been as happy with any old bough off a tree as with a "golden" one. The gold is what makes it fantastic, not the other way around.
Again, that argument works as much against your stance as for it. If it's all the same, why shouldn't the rod be golden?
What would I have to wonder about if I, as a learned Roman, had also read about such things as Venus aurea? Do you wonder what is meant when you hear ein Stein fällt auf den Kopf, a phrase you've no doubt heard before?
You seem to think the academes whose consensus is 'golden rod' hadn't thought precisely the things you think. Perhaps they simply know more than you do?
|
|
|
|
Post by LonginusNaso on Apr 23, 2023 5:39:53 GMT
Frankly, at this point I find it possible that the ambiguity of value of aurea could have been, & is, intentional. Neither reading to me seems to make significantly better "poetic sense" (whatever that means) than the other.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 23, 2023 6:43:12 GMT
What would be the point of doing something unexpected if you're going to warn your audience beforehand? Do you care to give an example? I gave you multiple examples above. The synezisis of ea can come as a surprise, but poets usually make it clear that it is one by leaving you with no other way to scan the line. Well, yes. Arguing in terms of semantics and context is always a bit weak; that's also what I disliked about some of Clifford's arguments. My main point is that none of these arguments, be they for or against my position, are truly satisfying. If that's the situation you're left with, I don't see why you wouldn't just go for the most obvious choice, which is to read a dactyle as a dactyle. I haven't heard that phrase before and I would truly wonder what it means because it says "a stone drops on its head" implying that stones have heads  I don't think so. I'm also not a big fan of credentialism, but if that's the standard you want to go by, the paper I referred to was written by an academic as well. Clifford also mentions that Servius' assertion was that this could either be a nominative or an ablative, but that Servius refused to commit himself to either alternative. I'm unfortunate enough not to have the Servius text, though, so I have to take Clifford's word for it. Frankly, at this point I find it possible that the ambiguity of value of aurea could have been, & is, intentional. Neither reading to me seems to make significantly better "poetic sense" (whatever that means) than the other. I agree. Neither reading makes a lot more sense than the other. That's why I think you should just go with the most obvious choice, which is to read a dactylic word in the first foot of an hexameter as a dactyle rather than assuming it is an outlandish metrical anomaly which, at least in 1.698, even creates massive syntactical problems. You can go from there and read different things into the text. I took it to be some kind of enallage in both cases. I don't see how you can't read that as a dactyle though. aurea being nominative is the null hypothesis you'd have to disprove, and trying to disprove it creates a lot of problems. |
|
|
|
Post by LonginusNaso on Apr 23, 2023 7:23:18 GMT
That must be a great comfort.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 23, 2023 7:38:22 GMT
That must be a great comfort. It is. NB that approach also means that I find more interest in your opinion than in the scribblings of a tenured professor. |
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Apr 23, 2023 16:20:49 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by LonginusNaso on Apr 23, 2023 21:15:55 GMT
That must be a great comfort. It is. NB that approach also means that I find more interest in your opinion than in the scribblings of a tenured professor. I opine that thou art a great, brainy bastard, and I wouldn't have you any other way. |
|
|
|
Post by Bitmap on Apr 25, 2023 11:58:59 GMT
That's funny because that's not a comment on the actual passage in question, but on a previous one where aurea could either be a feminine nominative singular or a neuter plural accusative ... Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis
Penthesilea furens, mediisque in milibus ardet,
aurea subnectens exsertae cingula mammae,
bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo.
... funnily enough, you could ask the same question here ... is it just her belt that is golden or is Penthesilea herself golden?! It's weird that he mentions in passing that you can dissolve the ambiguity by looking at the metre because in his comment on the actual passage, he leaves it completely open: I take septimus to mean septimus casus = ablative, even though I don't have any idea what the 6th case would be if the ablative is the 7th ... In his comment on Circe in book 7, he argues on the basis of metre again and sees a nominative: Weirdly enough, he makes a reference to this in passing in a comment on book 4 where he seems to take it as an ablative (although he doesn't mention specifically that he is referring to book 7 here): |
|
|
|
Post by Pacifica on Apr 25, 2023 12:27:32 GMT
What a mess.
|
|
|
|
Post by LCF on Apr 28, 2023 5:21:20 GMT
There is a research paper that I've found by Googling but it's behind a pay wall  . I wander if it's related to this question. Do you know where Varro or Quintilian talk about? this? Septimus casus: the history of a misunderstanding from Varro to the late Latin grammarians
Abstract This paper reviews approaches to what is known as the septimus casus from Varro and Quintilian to the late grammarians. It emphasizes the different points of view adopted to describe the seventh case in the history of Latin grammar, and suggests that some descriptions have arisen from simple misinterpretations of earlier sources. The paper confirms that Varro may have had a concept of a seventh case. Interestingly, an unnoticed connection has been detected between the earliest approaches and those in Servius’s commentaries on Vergil, where the opinion differs greatly from those in the artes grammaticae
www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/joll-2017-0011/html |
|
|
|
Post by LCF on Apr 28, 2023 5:53:35 GMT
ipse Quirinali lituo parvaque sedebat
succinctus trabea laevaque ancile gerebat
Picus, equum domitor, quem capta cupidine coniunx
aurea percussum virga versumque venenis
fecit avem Circe sparsitque coloribus alas. I was watching Bart Ehrman on YouTube talk about the scribal errors in the bible arising from making copies of the copies of the copies etc... Same with the latin text, I'm sure. Can we consider that it's a scribal error? What is interesting is this entry for aurĕa. (Given Picus, equum domitur)
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=aurea
the bridle of a horse: aureas dicebant frenos, quibus equorum aures religantur, Paul. ex Fest. p. 27 Müll.; cf. id. ib. s. v. aureax, p. 8.
aureax , v. auriga
I. init.
aurīga , ae (aureax , Paul. ex Fest p. 8 Müll.), comm. (cf. Prisc. p. 677 P.) [aureaago], pr.,
I. he that handles the reins.I don't have any theory as of yet on what scribal error this could be or what word to use to replace it. Maybe you guys can come up with one. In my option arguing for ablative makes no sense. There must be dactyl there. |
|
. I wander if it's related to this question. Do you know where Varro or Quintilian talk about? this?