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Procne's Absence Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. J. Boneschanscher
E. J. Boneschanscher
Affiliation:
Amersfoort
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Extract

In CQ n.s. 30 (1980), 127 ff. Mr A. Hudson-Williams clearly and illuminatingly exposes the difficulties contained in these lines. It seems possible, however, to carry the analysis further; and in the following I offer, with Mr Hudson-Williams's findings as a starting-point, some suggestions towards a solution of the problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , May 1982 , pp. 148 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 p. 129 (all page references are to Mr Hudson-Williams's article).

2 Ov. Met. 6. 656 ff.

3 Ov. Met. 6. 641 ff.

4 cf. Ov. Met. 6. 542 ff.

5 Ov. Met. 6. 574 ff.

6 p. 128.

7 p. 129.

8 On supposed divergent versions of the myth in which Philomela was the wife of Tereus see pp. 127–8 with note 19.

9 pp. 129–30 with note 24.

10 p. 130.

11 Ante has been suspected before: O. Ribbeck conjectured alte; but this is a mere stopgap, and does not solve the problems concerning Procne's absence.

12 p. 128. The argument takes only Philomela and Tereus into account as possible subjects. When one tries Procne, the result is a similar absurdity: why should Vergil want to point out expressly that the last-mentioned transformation actually was prior to the other? Incidentally, the false impression of a temporal priority of volitaverit in relation to petiverit, created by ante, is probably one reason why it has not generally been seen that the two clauses in 80–1 are parallel and simultaneous and allude to the two transformations of the two sisters.

13 pp. 128, 130.

14 The interpretation of ante as qualifying sua is usually supported with Ov. Met. 2. 490, ‘quondamque suis erravit in agris’; here the nostalgic sentiment is perfectly in place, but the situation of poor Callisto is very different indeed from Procne's!

15 This important parallel is quoted by Mr Hudson-Williams, p. 128 n. 21.

16 The line confirms the interpretation of infelix given above.

17 In TLL s. Atthis I do not understand the sentence introducing the reference to the three passages: ‘sic appellantur Philomela et hirundines (a Procne)’.

18 There seems to be traceable some influence of Horace, op. cit., as well: see natum sonat ~ Ityn gemens and flebilis ~ flebililer.

19 This passage can be added to Mr Hudson-Williams's list of references to woods in connection with nightingales, p. 129 n. 24(a).