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Hydra Redundans (Ovid, Heroides 9.95)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Sergio Casali
Sergio Casali
Affiliation:
St John's College, Oxford/Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
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Extract

Deianira complains that Hercules, as a slave of Omphale, did not refrain from telling to the Lydian queen his famous labours; among them, the Hydra:

quaeque redundabat fecundo vulnere serpens

fertilis et damnis dives ab ipsa suis (Ov. Her. 9.95f.)

‘It will be admitted that redundabat, which usually means to “overflow”’ can only be applied to the Hydra by a very strong metaphor; but it is not only a strong one, it is quite unexampled: so A. Palmer in The Academy 49 (1896), 160. But his own emendation rebellabat has not convinced anybody – rightly, as I think. Still, his remark was not otiose: redundabat refers to the ‘growing again’ of Hydra's heads, that seem to ‘spring’ from the wounds like water's spurts; it is not impossible, but nevertheless it is strange. Why does Ovid use this metaphor ‘a fluctibus desumpta’ (Burman) here? I suggest that there is a precise reason: Ovid does not mention the name of the serpens, but of course his reader knows it and also knows why the Hydra is so called: πò τν ὐδτων.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 1993 , pp. 505 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 Palmer, adduced Ov. Met. 9.81Google Scholar ‘tauro mutatus membra rebello’ (not really pertinent), and he attributed great importance to the reading of cod. P, redulabat (according to him: Dörrie, H. [Berlin/New York 1971]Google Scholar does not notice anything in his app.; Heinsius read …elulabat, ‘forte pro resultabat’; H. Keil, ap. R. Ehwald [Leipzig 1888], praef. xix, nudulabat); but cf. Housman, , CR 13 (1899), 175Google Scholar = CP 2.475. In the same number of The Academy, p. 180, Walker, R. J. suggested repullabatGoogle Scholar.

2 OLD s.v. 8 does not provide any relevant parallel for this absolute use of redundo.

3 cf. Roscher 1.2.2770.31ff., RE 9.1.48.34ff.

4 cf. Ov. Met. 14.598, Trist. 3.10.30, Tib. 1.7.14, Luc. 1.215, 9.974, Stat. Silv. 4.3.91; for epncu, cf. Call. fr. 43.42 Pf., Dion. Per. 222, 496, AP 9.362.2, Nonn. Dion. 6.341, 23.165.

5 cf. Ov. Met. 9.70 ‘vulneribusfecundasuis’ Germ. 543 ‘fecundam…hydram’ Sen, . H.F. 529Google Scholar ‘colla feracia’, 781 ‘fecunda…capita’, H.O. 258, 1292, Ag. 835 ‘morte fecundo…dracone’, Mart. 9.101.9.