No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
THE CULEX’S METAPOETIC FUNERARY GARDEN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2021
Extract
The Culex is now widely recognized as a piece of post-Ovidian, possibly Tiberian, pseudo-juvenilia written by an author impersonating the young Virgil, although it was attached to Virgil's name already in the first century c.e., being identified as Virgilian by Statius, Suetonius and Martial. Dedicated to the young Octavian (Octaui in line 1), the poem seems to fill a biographical gap in Virgil's career before his composition of the Eclogues. It is introduced as a ludus, which Irene Peirano suggests may openly refer to ‘the act of impersonating Virgil’, and, like many of the poems in the Appendix Vergiliana, it seems to have a parodic intent. The Culex has been interpreted as a parody of neoteric style and the epyllion, as mock-epic, as Virgil parody (John Henderson called it a ‘spoof Aeneid in bucolic drag’), as pointed Augustan satire, as mock Ovidian ‘Weltgedicht’ and as just very bad poetry (Housman's ‘stutterer’). Glenn Most has observed that the poem's three ‘acts’ structurally recapitulate Virgil's three major works in chronological succession. Little attention, however, has been paid to the Culex's final lines, which contain a catalogue of flowers the pastor places on the gnat's tomb. Recent scholarship has reintroduced an older interpretation of the gnat's tomb as a political allegory of Augustus’ Mausoleum; in this paper I suggest instead that the tomb and its flowers serve a closural and metapoetic function at the end of the poem.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.
References
1 Stat. Silv. 1 praef. 7–9, 2.7.73–4; Suet. Vita Lucani 5–7 (where Lucan is said to have cited the Culex); and Mart. 8.55.19–20, 14.185. See Peirano, I., The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context (Cambridge, 2012), 59–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the question of authenticity and the ancient testimonia. On dating, see Güntzschel, D., Beiträge zur Datierung des Culex (Münster, 1972)Google Scholar.
2 Kennedy, D., ‘Gallus and the Culex’, CQ 32 (1982), 371–89, at 371CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Peirano (n. 1), 58.
4 Ross, D.O., ‘The Culex and Moretum as post-Augustan literary parodies’, HSPh 79 (1975), 235–63, at 241–2Google Scholar; Ax, W., ‘Die pseudovergilische “Mucke” – ein Beispiel römischer Literaturparodie’, Philologus 128 (1984), 230–49Google Scholar; Stachon, M., Tractavi monumentum aere perennius: Untersuchungen zu vergilischen und ovidischen Pseudepigraphen (Trier, 2014)Google Scholar.
5 K. Büchner, ‘P. Vergilius Maro’, RE 8.A.1 (1955), 1021–264, at 1104.
6 Henderson, J., ‘The Carmina Einsidlensia and Calpurnius Siculus’ Eclogues’, in Buckley, E. and Dinter, M. (edd.), A Companion to the Neronian Age (Chichester, 2013), 170–87, at 182Google Scholar; Gall, D., Zur Technik von Anspielung und Zitat in der römischen Dichtung: Vergil, Gallus und die Ciris (Munich, 1999)Google Scholar; Mindt, N., ‘Vergil zur Mucke machen. Zum Culex der Appendix Vergiliana’, A&R 5 (2011), 19–36Google Scholar.
7 Most recently by W. Ax, ‘Marcellus, die Mücke: politische Allegorien im Culex?’, Philologus 136 (1992), 89–129.
8 Janka, M., ‘Prolusio oder Posttext? Zum intertextuellen Stammbaum des hypervergilischen Culex’, in Holzberg, N. (ed.), Die Appendix Vergiliana. Pseudepigraphen im literarischen Kontext (Tübingen, 2005), 28–67, at 52–9Google Scholar.
9 Housman, A.E., Classical Papers (Cambridge, 1902), 339Google Scholar. Marinčič, M., ‘The pseudo-Virgilian Culex: what kind of parody?’, CentoPagine 5 (2011), 13–23Google Scholar argues against a parodic interpretation of the poem.
10 Most, G., ‘The “Virgilian” Culex’, in Whitby, M., Hardie, P., Whitby, M. (edd.), Homo Viator: Classical Essays for J. Bramble (Bristol, 1987), 199–209Google Scholar.
11 Ax (n. 7), 99; building on Dornseiff/Thielscher in Dornseiff, F., Verschmähtes zu Vergil, Horaz und Properz (Berlin, 1951), 35–50Google Scholar; cf. Fabre-Serris, J., ‘Le Culex et la construction du mythe augustéen, pratiques et enjeux d'un poème faussement adressé à Octave’, in Labate, M. and Rosati, G. (edd.), La costruzione del mito augusteo (Heidelberg, 2013), 285–302Google Scholar; Seelentag, S., Der Pseudovergilische Culex (Stuttgart, 2012), 23–4Google Scholar; Janka (n. 8), 42. Stachon (n. 4), 130 also rejects this political interpretation.
12 See Ross (n. 4), 244 on the parodic brevity of the scene.
13 Hom. Il. 23.62–112, Od. 11.51–83; Verg. Aen. 6.337–83 (380 et statuent tumulum et tumulo sollemnia mittent).
14 It is important to acknowledge that the textual difficulties in line 399 make it uncertain whether in the Culex these flowers are to grow on the tomb as a garden, as I suggest, or whether they have been simply heaped upon it as an offering to the dead gnat. Seelentag (n. 11), ad loc. has followed Gärtner, T., ‘Untersuchungen zum pseudo-Vergilischen Culex’, AAntHung 46 (2010), 203–47, at 228–9Google Scholar and others, who question the reading of crescent as transmitted in the manuscripts, observing the difficulty of its tense (cf. est in line 400) and plural form (crescet is a recentior reading), and of understanding the accusative purpureum … ruborem as dependent on pudibunda (Gärtner proposes testans).
15 Cf. line 183 paruulus … umoris … alumnus. The literary tradition of epigrams for dead animals and insects (mostly cicadas), as found in Anth. Pal. 7.189–216, often underlines the small size of the deceased (e.g. Anth. Pal. 7.198). See G. Herrlinger, Totenklage um Tiere in der antiken Dichtung (Stuttgart, 1930). Ov. Am. 2.6 similarly ends with the two-line epitaph for a dead parrot, although it is specified as buried in a tomb of appropriately small size: ossa tegit tumulus, tumulus pro corpore magnus, | quo lapis exiguus par sibi carmen habet (2.6.59–60). All quotations of the Culex are from Clausen's text in W.V. Clausen et al., Appendix Vergiliana (Oxford, 1966).
16 For closural poetic epitaphs, cf. Prop. 2.1.72; Ov. Am. 2.6.61–2, Her. 2.145–8. See Thomas, R.F., ‘“Melodious tears”: sepulchral epigram and generic mobility’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R.F., Wakker, G.C. (edd.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen, 1998), 205–23Google Scholar; Ramsby, T., Textual Permanence: Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition (London, 2007)Google Scholar.
17 Ax (n. 7), 106; Stachon (n. 4), 123. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 7.31 leui de marmore. For a different interpretation of the Virgilian passage, see Harrison, S.J., ‘Vergil and the Mausoleum Augusti: Georgics 3.12–18’, AClass 48 (2005), 185–8Google Scholar.
18 Fabre-Serris (n. 11), 299.
19 Ross (n. 4), 244; cf. Seelentag (n. 11), 33: ‘retardieren’.
20 Kenney, E.J., The Ploughman's Lunch. Moretum: A Poem Ascribed to Virgil (Bristol, 1983), 34Google Scholar.
21 Kenney (n. 20), 34.
22 Seelentag (n. 11), 32: ‘Er ist reduziert auf ein blosses Verzeichnis der Grabbepflanzung.’ We might also compare the flower catalogue of the Culex with Ovid's catalogue of flowers in Flora's garden in Fast. 5.223–8, where each flower is named allusively by the boy from which it sprang.
23 Ross (n. 4), 251; Seelentag (n. 11), 34.
24 Ax (n. 7), 122–4 argues that the etymology of bocchus may have been derived from the writings of Juba II on African botany; cf. Seelentag (n. 11), 13–14, who cites Plin. HN 5.16, 25.77 on Juba's naming of the plant Euphorbeam from his doctor.
25 See A. Marzano, ‘Roman gardens and elite self-representation’, in K. Coleman and P. Derron (edd.), Le jardin dans l'antiquité (Entretiens sur l'Antiquité 60) (Vandoeuvres, 2014), 195–244.
26 Nicander's botanical lists also contain numerous geographical references, e.g. fr. 74.5, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19; cf. Columella, Rust. 10.130–9, 171–3, 182–93, 259–70.
27 Seelentag (n. 11), ad loc. cites a later mention in a gloss by Hesychius.
28 Geoponica 11.6 Myrsine gives a different version.
29 For the metamorphosis of Narcissus, cf. Ov. Met. 3.351–5. Although Janka (n. 8), 40 lists Ovid's Metamorphoses as a major intertext for the flower catalogue, it is notable that there is no gesture towards the Ovidian metamorphosis myths associated with the hyacinth (Met. 10.162–219, 13.394–8) or the crocus (Met. 4.283).
30 Ax (n. 7), 125; at (n. 7), 111–12 Ax argues that the plant catalogue exhibits parallels with Augustan vegetative decoration (especially herba Sabina, laurus); cf. Fabre-Serris (n. 11), 299.
31 See Laird, A., ‘Echoing Virgil and Narcissus: structure and interpretation of the Culex’, in Franklinos, T.E. and Fulkerson, L. (edd.), Constructing Authors and Readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana (Oxford, 2020), 96–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the metapoetic function of the Narcissus myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses, see Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge, 1998), 8Google Scholar and Rosati, G., Narciso e Pigmalione (Florence, 1983), 28Google Scholar. See also, on the prominence of the motif of mirroring in water in bucolic poetry, Paraskeviotis, G., ‘The watery image in Greek and Latin pastoral poetry’, Sileno 42 (2016), 111–22Google Scholar.
32 See É. Prioux, ‘Parler de jardins pour parler de créations littéraires’, in K. Coleman and P. Derron (ed.), Le jardin dans l'antiquité (Entretiens sur l'Antiquité 60) (Vandoeuvres, 2014), 87–143 and Roberts, M., The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca, 1989), 47–55Google Scholar on metapoetic flower imagery. On horticultural metapoetics, see Fitzgerald, W., ‘Labor and laborer in Latin poetry: the case of the Moretum’, Arethusa 29 (1996), 389–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Columella, Rust. 9.2.1 on Virgil's contribution to apicultural writing: Vergilius poeticis floribus inluminauit ‘Virgil brightened the subject with the flowers of poetry’.
33 Plin. HN 21.14 lists roses, violets and lilies as the most popular for garlands. For other plant catalogues in Virgil's poetry, see H. Peraki-Kyriakidou, ‘Trees and plants in poetic emulation: from the Homeric epic to Virgil's Eclogues’, in A. Efstathiou and I. Karamanou (edd.), Homeric Reception across Generic and Cultural Contexts (Berlin and Boston, 2016), 227–47.
34 E.g. Fitzgerald (n. 32), 411; Clay, J., ‘The old man in the garden: Geo. 4.116–48’, Arethusa 14 (1981), 57–65Google Scholar. Fabre-Serris (n. 11), 298–9 has suggested an allusion to the garden of Georgics 4 in the Culex catalogue; cf. Drew, D.L., ‘Culex’: Sources and their Bearing on the Problem of Authorship (Oxford, 1925), 89Google Scholar. Although it is tempting to see in Culex 401 Cilici crocus editus aruo a reference to the old Corycian of Verg. G. 4.127, it is a common epithet of crocus (cf. Lucr. 2.416 croco Cilici; Hor. Sat. 2.4.68 Corycioque croco; Stat. Silv. 2.1.160 Cilicium flores; Columella, Rust. 3.8.4, 9.94.4 Corycius … bulbus croci; Plin. HN 13.5).
35 Clausen, W., Virgil Eclogues (Oxford, 1994), 79Google Scholar; cf. Coleman, R., Vergil Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977), 101Google Scholar and Paraskeviotis, G., ‘Verg. Ecl. 2.45–55. Corydon's catalogue of flowers, plants and fruits’, Latomus 77 (2018), 763–72, at 766Google Scholar. For metapoetic readings of Ecl. 2.45–55, see Deremetz, A., Le miroir des Muses: Poétiques de la réflexivité à Rome (Lille, 1995), 312–14Google Scholar and Heerink, M., Echoing Hylas: A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics (Madison, 2015), 94, 96–7Google Scholar. Kronenberg, L., Allegories of Farming from Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 2009), 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar has suggested that the garden in Georgics 4 also recalls Meleager, Anth. Pal. 4.1 as a model. Considering Kennedy's (n. 2) strong arguments for the importance of Gallus’ poetry for the Culex-poet, it is tempting to view the flower-garland as figuring also in Gallus: cf. Ecl. 6.68 floribus atque apio crinis ornatus amaro, 10.41 serta mihi Phyllis legeret. Culex 405 recalls the ivy border in Verg. Ecl. 3.38–9 uitis | diffusos hedera uestit pallente corymbos.
36 Nisbet, R. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace Odes Book 1I (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.
37 See Gutzwiller, K., Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley, 1998), 279–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leigh, M., ‘A garland for Maecenas (Horace, Odes 1.1.35)’, CQ 69 (2010), 268–71, at 270Google Scholar; Coleman (n. 35), 101.
38 Cf. Harrison, S., ‘Virgil's Corycius senex and Nicander's Georgica’, in Gale, M. (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry (Swansea, 2004), 109–24Google Scholar on the influence of Nicander on Verg. Georgics 4.
39 Nicander, fr. 74 lists the usual flowers such as acanthus (55), roses (9–16), violets (1–8, 60), hyacinth (60), crocus (56), lilies (27, 70), ivy (17–24), but also the rare χρυσανθές (69), mentioned at Culex 405. See Drew (n. 34), 90–2 on parallels; also Seelentag (n. 11), ad locc. See F. Overduin, Nicander of Colophon's Theriaca: A Literary Commentary (Leiden and Boston, 2015), 53–116 on Nicander's plant catalogues.
40 Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, 1942), 135–6Google Scholar. The reading of crescent in line 399 may be supported by sepulchral epigram parallels: cf. CE 1184.12–18 (13) ut tuo de tumulo flos ego cerna nouum | crescere. On tomb gardens, see J. Bodel, ‘Roman tomb gardens’, in W. Jashemski, K. Gleason, K. Hartswick, A. Malek (edd.), Gardens of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2018), 199–242; at 209 Bodel states that the ‘garden with a tomb’ came into use in the second half of the first century c.e.
41 E.g. Tib. 2.4.48 annua constructo serta dabit tumulo; Prop. 3.16.23.
42 I thank John Dillery and Glenn Most for encouraging me in this direction. Other words in the flower catalogue that resonate with the technical language of rhetorical style and gesture towards metapoetics include the three-fold repetition of memor (394, 398, 406), opus (395), cura, laborem (394), assiduae curae (398), editus (401), decus (402; cf. 18 Pierii laticis decus), imitata (404), uirens, florida (407).
43 Although conserit in line 398 refers to the placing of the marble, I agree with Seelentag's suggestion (n. 11), on lines 397–8, that the verb also looks ahead to the planting of the flowers. The verb is usually applied to more pliant materials (TLL 4.416.64–78); Heinsius proposed congerit.
44 Cf. (of planting) Verg. Ecl. 1.72, G. 2.37; Manilius 5.261; Columella, Rust. 2.17.4.
45 TLL 4.416.68 s.v. consero 2; TLL 7.1.1876.32 s.v. insero 1.
46 Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 36) on Hor. Carm. 2.5.21. See also Leigh (n. 37). A.J. Woodman brilliantly suggests that emending tumulus to tumulo in line 411 and repunctuating after inseritur would facilitate this interpretation: his tumulo super inseritur, tum fronte locatur ‘and, whatever flowers springtime renews, <a tribute> is woven with these above the mound and then on its front …’. The echo of Verg. Ecl. 5.42 (which introduces Daphnis’ epitaph) supports the emendation: et tumulo superaddite carmen.
47 See Bing, P., The Well-Read Muse (Göttingen, 1988), 33–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fowler, D., ‘First thoughts on closure: problems and prospects’, MD 22 (1989), 75–122, at 105–7Google Scholar (id., Roman Constructions [Oxford, 2000], 239–83, at 267–9); A. Barchiesi, ‘Endgames: Ovid's Metamorphoses 15 and Fasti 6’, in D. Roberts, F. Dunn and D. Fowler (edd.), Classical Closure (Princeton, 1997), 181–208, at 190–1; Leigh (n. 37), 271.
48 Gardens elsewhere suggest metapoetic closure, cf. Verg. G. 4.116 (iam sub fine laborum); Varro, Rust. 3.5; Ov. Met. 14.622–771; Columella, Rust. 10. On garlands and closure, see Hor. Carm. 1.1.35–6 (with Leigh [n. 37]), Carm. 3.30.14–16; Ov. Met. 6.127–8 (with H. Bernsdorff, ‘Arachnes Efeusaum [Ovid, Metamorphosen 6.127–8]’, Hermes 125 [1997], 347–56); [Tib.] 3.6.64; Mart. 8.82.4 (serta); A. Barchiesi, ‘The search for the perfect book: a PS to the New Posidippus’, in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford, 2005), 320–42, at 325 on Mart. 13.127 (coronas) remarks that ‘a poem about garlands at the end of an epigram collection cannot be a coincidence’.
49 For suggestions and improvements, I would like to offer my thanks to Tony Woodman, Hans Bernsdorff and the participants of the Oxford University conference on ‘Constructing Authors and Readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana’ (organized by T. Franklinos and L. Fulkerson).