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HOMERIC CONCERNS: A METAPOETIC READING OF LUCRETIUS, DE RERUM NATURA 2.1–19*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Sydnor Roy
Sydnor Roy*
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
*
[email protected]
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Extract

      Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
      e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
      non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,
      sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
      suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri 5
      per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.
      sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
      edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
      despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
      errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae, 10
      certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
      noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
      ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.
      o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!
      qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis 15
      degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest! nonne videre
      nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi utqui
      corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mensque fruatur
      iucundo sensu cura semota metuque?
    (Lucr. 2.1–19)
      It is pleasant, when the winds stir up the waters on the great sea,
      to watch the great struggle of another from land;
      not because it is a great pleasure that anyone be troubled,
      but because it is pleasant to observe the troubles you yourself lack.
      It is also pleasant to watch the great contests of war 5
      spread out over the plains without taking any part in the danger.
      But nothing is more pleasing than to hold lofty yet calm temples
      that are well defended by the teachings of wise men,
      from which you can look down and see others everywhere
      go astray and wander while seeking the path of their life, 10
      competing in wits and contending over their nobility;
      throughout nights and days they strive with outstanding labour
      to come out at the peak of riches and have power over everything.
      O wretched minds of men, O blind hearts!
      In what shadows of life and in how many dangers 15
      is this bit of life, whatever it may be, being spent by you! Do you not see
      that nature barks for nothing other than this – that
      grief be separated from the body and far away, and that the mind enjoy
      pleasant feelings cut off from anxiety and fear?
Epicurus' advice to his young friend Pythocles to ‘flee all education, raising up the top sail’ (παιδείαν δὲ πᾶσαν, μακάριε, ϕεῦγε τἀκάτιον ἀράμενος, Diog.Laert. 10.6 = Epicurus fr. 163 Us.) contains an allusion to Circe's advice to Odysseus in Odyssey 12.37–58. For much of the Greek (and Roman) world, education was based on the Homeric epics, and thus Epicurus' statement represents a complicated position towards Homer in particular and poetry in general. Epicurean philosophy rejects poetry because it is misleading about the gods and the nature of the soul, but Epicurus and his followers, most notably Philodemus and Lucretius, engage in poetic allusion and even the composition of poetry. Much work has been done on allusions to poetry in all three writers, but I hope here to bring out a heretofore unnoticed poetic allusion at the start of De rerum natura Book 2, in which Lucretius makes a programmatic statement about not only his philosophy, but also his poetry and its place in the poetic tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 780 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Jim O'Hara for his comments and insights throughout the process of writing this paper, to Bill Tortorelli for his multiple reads, and to the anonymous reviewers at Classical Quarterly for their helpful recommendations; all mistakes are my own.

References

1 I use the text of M.F. Smith's revision of W.H.D. Rouse's Loeb edition (Cambridge, MA, 1992). Translations are my own.

2 Circe warns Odysseus that the Sirens' song is dangerous. She also advises him on how he may listen to their song in relative safety. For a full discussion of this fragment and interpretations of Epicurus' use of poetry, see Asmis, E., ‘Epicurean poetics’, in Obbink, D. (ed.), Philodemus on Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace (Oxford, 1995), 15–34Google Scholar, at 18–26.

3 See e.g. Gale, M., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar, at 6–16, who shows how both followers of Epicurus and scholars have been trying to sort out Epicurus' nuanced position towards poetry; Volk, K., The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Vergil, Ovid, Manilius (Oxford, 2002), 94–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Marković, D., The Rhetoric of Explanation in Lucretius' De rerum natura (Leiden, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that many of Lucretius' rhetorical techniques function as cognitive aids and overlap with what Epicurus found appealing about poetry in the first place.

4 On the issue of the De rerum natura as epic, see Murley, C., ‘Lucretius' De rerum natura viewed as epic’, TAPhA 78 (1947), 336–46Google Scholar; West, D., The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh, 1969)Google Scholar; Hardie, P., Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), 193–219Google Scholar; Mayer, R., ‘The epic of Lucretius’, Leeds International Latin Seminar 6 (1990), 35–43Google Scholar; Gale (n. 3), 99–128, Fowler, D.P., ‘The didactic plot’, in Depew, M. and Obbink, D. (edd.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 205–19Google Scholar; Volk (n. 3), 69–73; and Gale, M., ‘Lucretius and previous poetic traditions’, in Gillespie, S. and Hardie, P. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius (Cambridge, 2007), 59–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Harrison, S.J., ‘Ennius and the prologue to Lucretius DRN 1 (1.1–148)’, Leeds International Classical Studies 1.4 (2002), 1–13Google Scholar argues that Lucretius makes several allusions (both subtle and obvious) to Ennius in the prologue to Book 1. Sedley, D., Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge, 1998), 1–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues for a similar understanding of Lucretius' allusions to Empedocles. Konstan, D., ‘Lucretius on poetry: III.1–13’, Colby Quarterly 24.2 (1988), 65–70Google Scholar argues that the proem to Book 3 also provides insight into Lucretius' poetic programme. Marcović (n. 2), 58–70 discusses the proems and conclusions to each book and argues that all the proems and endings of the books are especially ‘worked up’, as they are in philosophical rhetoric. See also Brown, R.D., Lucretius on Love and Sex: A Commentary on De rerum natura IV, 1030–1287 with Prolegomena, Text and Translation. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition (Leiden, 1987), 51–2Google Scholar.

6 Gale (n. 3), 128.

7 Scholars have long noted that the lines following the proem, 2.20–36, allude to the Odyssey's Phaeacians, who are traditionally associated with Epicureans. See Gordon, P., ‘Phaeacian Dido: lost pleasures of an Epicurean intertext’, ClAnt 17.2 (1998), 188–211Google Scholar, D.P. Fowler, Lucretius on Atomic Motion (Oxford, 2002), 82.

8 The priamel structure has long been identified and discussed. See Holtsmark, E.B., ‘On Lucretius 2.1–19’, TAPhA 98 (1967), 193–204Google Scholar, at 194; Race, W.H., The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Leiden, 1982)Google Scholar, 118.

9 Fowler (n. 7), 48 notes that this phrase echoes 1.47, which describes the gods. The similarity may have more importance in aiding understanding of the philosophical implications of the passage. Poetically, however, I believe it serves to enhance the distance and non-involvement of the viewer.

10 Suavis is used seventeen times outside this proem: nine uses are sensual, seven poetic in context and one describes his friendship with Memmius. Dulcis is used almost twice as often and much more generally. For detailed discussions of these words, see Mamoojee, A.H., ‘“Suavis” and “dulcis”: a study of Ciceronian usage’, Phoenix 35.3 (1981), 220–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Fowler (n. 7), 33–5. Note also that both suavis and dulcis are used in the ‘honey on the cup’ programmatic passage (1.921–50).

11 See Holtsmark (n. 8), 193–204 and Fowler (n. 7), 205–19.

12 As further evidence of this point, Lucretius explains (using suave again) at 2.3–4: non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas, | sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est (‘not because it is a great pleasure that anyone be troubled, but it is pleasant to observe the troubles you yourself lack’). This is still how a non-Epicurean would experience the observation of the troubles of others, he would appreciate his distance from them but not understand the psychological implications of the acts of seafaring and war.

13 In Book 5 of the De rerum natura, Lucretius presents an ‘anthropology’ of the human race. He names seafaring as one of the accomplishments of mankind forced upon him by the growth and decay of nature (5.999–1006). He presents warfare as the unfortunate consequence of men striving for more power and goods (5.1120–32). For an in-depth discussion of the Epicurean focus on human psychology, see Konstan, D., A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus (Las Vegas, 2008), 27–77Google Scholar.

14 Hardie (n. 3), 201–2 points out that this passage revisits epic themes already presented in the De rerum natura such as wandering and battle.

15 Cf. Conte, G.B., Ὕψος e diatribe nello stile di Lucrezio (De rer. Nat. ii, 1–61)’, Maia 18 (1966), 338–68Google Scholar, at 340 and Fowler (n. 7), 35.

16 A common interpretation of the image of the sea in Callim. Hymn 2.106–10. Also, Pucci, J., ‘Horace and Virgilian mimesis: a re-reading of Odes 1.3’, CW 85.6 (1992), 659–73Google Scholar, at 671–2 convincingly argues that Horace equates seafaring with epic poetry in Carm. 1.3, his propempticon to Virgil.

17 As Fowler (n. 7), 47 points out, the phrase also occurs at 5.393 to describe the war of the elements and at 5.1296 as part of his description of the effect of iron upon warfare. This may undercut a specifically poetic interpretation of the phrase, but I argue that it should be read that way, surrounded as it is by other epic signals. Catullus uses this phrase at 64.394 in his description of Mars' involvement in the acts of men after the marriage of Peleus and Thetis.

18 Fowler (n. 7), 47 suggests a connection to Ennius. Harrison (n. 5) argues eloquently for Lucretius' engagement (and rivalry) with Ennius as a symbol of Latin epic.

19 Fowler (n. 4), 216.

20 Gale (n. 3), 64 similarly suggests that the contrasting scenes of military manoeuvres and grazing sheep at 2.317–32 can be seen as emblems of heroic and georgic poetry.

21 Cf. Ov. Met. 13.137, where Odysseus speaks of his ingenium.

22 Cf. also Od. 8.72–82, where Achilles and Odysseus are described by Demodocus as the ‘best of the Achaeans’ (8.78) as they quarrel.

23 Lucretius uses the phrase nonne videre (2.16) fifteen times throughout his poem when he demands attention to important philosophical precepts.