¹ Bömer, F., P. Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen (Heidelberg, 1969–1986), on 4.274–388, vol. 2, p. 103Google Scholar. Henceforth this work will be referred to just by the author's name, and all page references will be to the second volume, unless otherwise specified. The text from which I quote is the Teubner, ed. W. S. Anderson (Leipzig, 1993).

² E.g. Fränkel, H., Ovid. A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley, 1945), p. 89Google Scholar; Haupt, M., P. Ovidius Metamorphosen (Zurich, 10th edn. 1966), on 4.274–388, vol. 1, p. 212Google Scholar. Due, O. S. in Changing Forms (Copenhagen, 1974)Google Scholar mentions merely ‘an enervating effect’ (p. 129); so too does A. Ajootian in LIMC s.v. Hermaphroditus, 5.1.268–85; in ‘The only happy couple’, in Koloski-Ostrow, A. O. and Lyons, C. L. (edd.), Naked Truths (London, 1997), pp. 220–42Google Scholar, she describes Hermaphroditus praying to the gods that ‘the waters of the spring … emasculate any man who entered them’ (p. 229). Bömer (p. 104) may be suggesting that it in some way involves castration: ‘die homines molles (castrati), die das Wasser nach der Bitte des Hermaphroditus schafft’.

³ Bürchner, RE ² 1.1977: ‘Whoever drank from the spring would be overcome by a diseased and unnatural libido.’

⁴ Delcourt, M., Hermaphrodite. Mythes et rites de la Bisexualité dans l'Antiquité classique (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar (English trans. J. Nicholson [London, 1961]), p. 81 (p. 54 in translation), and cf. Crahay (n. 57 below).

⁵ Anderson, W. S., Ovid's Metamorphoses. Books 1–5 (Norman, 1996), on 4.271–388, p. 442Google Scholar.

⁶ In addition to the passages that follow, Salmacis is mentioned at Ennius, Incerta Tragoedia 347 Ribbeck (quoted at Cic. de Offiiciis 1.61); Philodemus, A.P. 7.222 (= GP 26); Stat. Silv. 1.5.19ff.; Mart. 10.30.10; Festus p. 329 Lindsay. It seems likely that the anonymous epigram A.P. 9.38 is an attempt by the spring to answer its critics.

⁷ For mollis cf. TLL 8.1379.26ff.; for impudicus cf. TLL 7.1.711ff.; and for obscenus cf. esp. Livy 33.28; Juvenal 2.8f., 6.ox. 1ff.; Seneca, De Benef. 2.21.

⁸ For a recent discussion, with bibliography, cf. Williams, C., ‘Greek love in Rome’, CQ 45 (1995), 517–539CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. The terms ‘active’, ‘passive’, ‘male’, and ‘female’ are chosen to represent ancient views on the matter: cf. terms such as pathicus, or phrases used of the effeminate man such as muliercula (cf. Cic. In Ver. 2.2.192), and muliebria pati (cf. Sall. Cat. 13.3.2) or τὰ γυναικῶν πάσχων (cf. Suda s.v. ἀνδρόγυνος).

⁹ Cf. Catullus 33, 80, 112.

¹⁰ cf. Herodotus 1.105, where some Scythians are affected with the ‘female sickness’ (θήλεαννοῦσον), and are referred to as ἀνδρόγυνοι at 4.67. This mysterious disease (some kind of impotence) is described in detail by Hippocrates (see n. 13). Cf. also Mart. 6.58.

¹¹ Cf. Plaut. Truc. 610, Asin. 627; Cic. Pro Rosc. 135, In Pis. 23.

¹² Cf. Apul. Met. 8.26.

¹³ Hippocrates, , De Aer. Aqu. Loc. 22ff.Google Scholar, who mentions that when the Scythians find themselves repeatedly unable to make love, νομίσαντές τι ἡμαρτηκέναι τῷ θεῷ ὃν ἐπαιτιῶται, ἐνδύονται στολὴν γυναικείην, καταγνόντες ἑωυτέων ἀναδρείην γυναικίζουσί τε καὶ ἐργάζονται μετὰ τῶν γυναικῶν ἃ καὶ ἐκεῖναι.

¹⁴ It also makes more sense of Strabo's and Vitruvius' attempt to rationalize the power of the spring: Strabo blames the ‘softness’ of those who drink from it on luxury—associated with effeminacy, not impotence; Vitruvius sees in it the taming of the wild Barbarian spirit.

¹⁵ We need not be surprised by the fact that the ancients ascribed such a power to the waters of a spring: a very similar effect is had on those who touch the waters of the river Gallus (cf. Fast. 4.361–6), described in a similar way to that of (probably) Salmacis at Met. 15.319–21. Such lists of mirabilia fontium are frequent in antiquity: cf. Met. 15.307ff., Vitr. 8.3.20–5, Plin. N.H. 2.224–34, and Myers, K. Sara, Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses (Ann Arbor, 1994), pp. 147–55, esp. 151ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ This genealogy was certainly current by the time of Diodorus (cf. 4.6.4), and the exegetical scholia to the Iliad (cf. on Il. 21.498), but the name ‘Hermaphroditus’ allows few other possibilities for his parentage.

¹⁷ Evidence before Ovid: the earliest attestation is found in Theophr. Char. 16.10, though the text is debated; Posidippus, a middle-comic of the third century B.C., wrote a comedy entitled Hermaphroditus, of which one couplet survives (fr. 11 Kock, cited in Stob. 4.24c.40); Gow-Page argue that the anonymous epigram A.P. 9.317 is Hellenistic; the next attestation is found in Titinius, fr. 115, writing in the third century B.C.; then Diodorus Siculus, 4.6.4f.

¹⁸ For surveys of Hermaphroditus in literature and art, see the two articles by A. Ajootian cited in n. 2; M. Delcourt, Hermaphrodite (n. 4), and also Hermaphroditea. Recherches sur l'être double promoteur de la fertilité dans le monde classique (Brussels, 1966)Google Scholar; and Jessen, RE s.v., 8.714–21.

¹⁹ Found on the base of what was probably a statue: [Φ]ανὼ Ἑρμαϕρω[δί]τωι εὐξαμένη. Cf. Kirchner, J. and Dow, S., AM 62 (1937), p. 7–8, no. 5, pl. 4, 3Google Scholar. This fourth-century attestation makes the name Hermaphroditus much earlier than other names beginning with Herm-, such as Hermathena (Cic. ad Att. 1.1.5) and Hermeraclas (Cic. ad Att. 1.10.3), which seem late: cf. Jessen (n. 18).

²⁰ Found in a list of deities in an Athenian gymnasium, cf. Clay, D., ‘A gymnasium inventory from the Athenian agora’, Hesperia 46 (1977), 259–267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Contra Rusten, who argues in a note in the Loeb, (Theophrastus, Herodas, Cercidas [London, 1993]), p. 110–11Google Scholar, that these Hermaphrodites refer not to statues of Hermaphroditus but to herms with male and female faces.

²² Cf. Jessen (n. 18), pp. 717f. Cf. Proclus from scholia to Hesiod, Opera 798:Ἡ τετάρτη ἱερὰ Ἀϕροδίτης καὶ Ἑρμοῦ, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πρὸς συνουσίαν ἐπιτηδείρ, and Plutarch, Conjugalia Praecepta 138d4: καὶ γὰρ οἱ παλαιοὶ τῇ Ἀϕροδίτῃ τὸν Ἑρμῆν συγκαθίδρυσαν, ὡς τῆς περὶ τὸν γάμον ἡδονῆς μάλιστα λόγου δεομένης, and the scholia to Il. 21.498 ὁ γὰρ Ἑρμῆς αἰτίαν ἔχει ϕιλογυναίας καὶ ἐρωτικὸς νομίζεται διὸ ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ τῆς Ἀϕροδίτης συνέθεσαν τὸν Ἑρμαϕρόδιτον.

²³ 2.8.11 in cornu autem summo dextro Veneris et Mercuriifanum ad ipsum Salmacidis fontem.

²⁴ Cited in the Scholia to Lucian, Dial Deor. 21.6.

²⁵ Cf. Delcourt (n. 18), p. 77f. (= p. 51f. in translation).

²⁶ Though of course, since most artistic representations are unnamed, it is often the case that the identification of representations only serve to support the criteria by which they were identified: thus a statue or painting of Hermaphroditus showing him as depicted by Ovid before his swim would not be recognized as a representation of Hermaphroditus.

²⁷ A good example would be the statue of the sleeping Hermaphroditus in the Louvre. From behind, the sleeping figure appears to be female, and it is when one walks round to the front that one discovers that the sleeping maid is not all that she seems.

²⁸ Cf. Dial. Deor. 3.1 ὁ δὲ θῆλυς καὶ ἡμίανδρος καὶ ἀμϕίβολος τὴν ὂψιν οὐκ ἂν διακρίναις εἴτ᾽ ἒϕηβός ἐστιν καὶ παρθένος.

²⁹ Cf. Plin. N.H. 7.34 gignuntur et utriusque sexus quos hermaphroditos vocamus, olim androgynos vocatos et inprodigiis habitos, nunc vero in deliciis. For androgynos used technically, cf. Cic. De Div. 1.98, Livy 27.11.4f.; for hermpahroditus used thus, cf. Pliny, N.H. 11.262 (of Nero) ostentabat certe hermaphroditas subiunctas carpento suo equas.

³⁰ For androgynos in an insulting sense, cf. Plat. Symp. 189e2ff. ἀνδρόγυνον … νῦν δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλ᾽ ἤ ἐν ὀνείδει ὂνομα κείμενον; Lucilius, Sat. 30 (v. 1058) in<b>erbi androgyni, barbati moechocin<a>edi. For hermaphroditus in such a sense, cf. Suda s.v.: Ἑρμαϕρόδιτος: ἤ τὸν ἀμϕότερα ἔχοντα τὰ μόρια ἀρρένων καὶ θηλειῶν ϕασιν ἤ τὸν αἰσχρῶς καὶ ποιοῦντα καὶ πάσχοντα, and s.v. ἀνδρόγυνος: … ἄνανδρος, καὶ ἑρμαϕρόδιτος.

³¹ A.P. 9.317 = Anon. 54 (3890ff.), in Gow, A. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar.

³² Cf. Ajootian, in LIMC (n. 2), pp. 278fGoogle Scholar. (satyrs) and 280f. (Silenus).

³³ This is Lindsay's conjecture for the MSS's nonsensical feminas.

³⁴ Insults based around one's effeminate hairstyle are also frequent in comedy: cf. n. 11.

³⁵ Ovid has recently told the tale of Aphrodite's adultery with Ares (4.171ff.), in which an anonymous god (aliquis de dis) quips that he would happily change places with Ares (187–8). This is bound to recall the passage in the Odyssey (8.339ff.), in which the same quip is ascribed to Hermes. Having been invited to recall this passage, there is a strong temptation to link it with the appearance of a child of Hermes and Aphrodite, suggesting that Hermes' interest in Aphrodite did not go unnoticed. The fact that the same aliquis appears in the Ars version of the story (2.585) is not relevant.

³⁶ Anderson (n. 5) sees this as referring to ‘that special age of adolescents when, to the poet and lover, it was hard to decide whether they were male or female’. This would be the first suggestion of the complex gender play in this passage.

³⁷ Cf. Ajootian, in LIMC (n. 2), p. 276f.Google Scholar

³⁸ Daphne (1.472ff.), Io (1.588ff.), Syrinx (1.689ff.), Callisto (2.409ff.). Echo is the exception (3.35ff.). and her forwardness is one of the many parallels between our passage and the story of Narcissi (3.341ff.).

³⁹ cf. Met. 2.425ff., and compare also Sol's disguise as Leucothoe's mother (4.218–320).

⁴⁰ Cf. Ajootian, in LIMC (n. 2), p. 279Google Scholar.

⁴¹ For these aspects presented without negation, cf. Aen. 1.315ff. [Venus disguised as a virgin huntress] virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma …

⁴² She looks at her reflection, rather like Aphrodite in Call. Hymn to Athena 21f.

⁴³ Cf. 1.477 [of Daphne] positos sine lege capillos, and 1.497 inornatos … capillos; [of Callisto] 2.412 nec positu variare comas, and 2.413 neglectos … capillos. Cf. also Aen. 1.319 venatrix dederatque comam diffundere ventis.

⁴⁴ Cf. Aen. 1.323 maculosae tegmine lyncis.

⁴⁵ Cf. e.g. Proserpina at 5.391ff., Fast. 4.442. For others cf. Richardson, N., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974), pp. 61 fGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Cf. Fast. 3.21 [Mars raping Ilia] Mars videt hanc visarnque cupit potiturque cupita, 4.443 [Pluto and Persephone] hanc videt et visam patruus velociter aufert, and 6.119 [Janus and Cranaë] viderat hanc Ianus, visaeque cupidine captus. In all these passages we see a return to the original motif of ‘lust at first sight’ (cf. Il. 14.293 [Zeus of Hera] ὡς δ᾽ ἴδεν, ὥς μιν ἔρως πυκινὰς ϕρένας ἀμϕεκάλυψεν) from pastoral's use of this motif for ‘love at first sight’ (cf. Ecl. 8.41). Cf. thus far in the Met.: 1.490 (Apollo), 2.409f. (Jupiter), 2.574 (Neptune), 2.726f. (Mercury), and Echo (3.370f.).

⁴⁷ Foreshadowed in the Narcissus story (Met. 3.341ff.): there, at the beginning of the story, Echo is the active pursuer, and Narcissus the virginal figure who likes hunting. By the end of the story, Narcissus becomes both the pursuer and the pursued, ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος.

⁴⁸ Cf. Od. 6.244ff. [to her friends], 275ff. [to Odysseus] καί νύ τις ὧδ' εἴπῃσι κακώτερος ἀντιβολήσα· / ‘‘τίς δ' ὅδε Νανσικάᾳ ἕπεται καλός τε μέγας τε / ξεîνος; ποῦ δέ μιν εὗρε; πόσις νύ οἱ ἔσσεται αὐτῇ …’

⁴⁹ Cf. Plat. Charm. 158c, Theoc. Id. 30.7ff, A.P. 12.8.5, Tib. 1.4.13f., Met. 3.482. Salmacis also compares Hermaphroditus to Cupid: for similar comparisons involving the ἐρώμενος, cf. A. P. 12.76, 78, 56, 57 (Meleager) and 12.75, 77 (Asclepiades).

⁵⁰ The comparison to rosy apples recalls a simile used of Narcissus (3.482–4), a figure who similarly fulfils two gender roles. The comparison to painted ivory recalls the simile describing the blush of the female Lavinia at Aen. 12.63–9, but also its model in the Iliad 4.141ff. describing the wound of the male Menelaus. The comparison to the moon is significant as the moon was thought to be bisexual: cf. Hymn. Orph. 9. 1ff; Plat. Symp. 190b; Plut. De Is. Et Os. 43; Laevius, fr. 26 Morel.

⁵¹ For Teiresias, cf. Call. Hymn. 5.70ff.; for Actaeon, cf. Met. 3.155ff.

⁵² Met. 2.453ff..

⁵³ Cf. Met. 4.347 flagrant … lumina: the virginal Daphne's eyes are also fiery, though presumably for different reasons (Met. 1.498f.).

⁵⁴ Met. 4.350 vixque moram patitur, vix iam sua gaudia differt with 2.863f. [Jove] oscula dat manibus; vix iam, vix cetera differt.

⁵⁵ The inversion of the eagle and snake simile is often commented on, but there may be some importance in the fact that Salmacis is compared to an octopus: the octopus was not only reputed to be ferocious in its attacks upon humans in the water (Plin. N.H. 9.91), but was also thought to change its appearance according to that to which it was clinging (Plin. N.H. 9.87; [Ovid], Hal. 33 semper ei similis quem contegit); furthermore, the male was thought to weary himself so much in the act of copulation that he would roll over and die at the end (cf. Opp. Hal. 1.537 ξυνὸν δέ τέλος θανάτοιο καὶ εὐνῆς). For more information see Thompson, D., A Glossary of Greek Fishes (London, 1947)Google Scholar, s.v.

⁵⁶ Perhaps one of the nicest points of comparison with the Narcissus passage, for Narcissus prays that he might be split in two (3.467 o utinam a nostro secedere corpore possem).

⁵⁷ Crahay, R., ‘La vision poétique d'Ovide, et l'esthétique baroque’, Atti del Convegno Internazionale Ovidiano 1 (Sulmona, 1958), pp. 91–110Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Bömer points out that semimas never means ‘androgynous’ in Ovid (p. 131), though it does have that meaning elsewhere in Latin: cf. Livy 31.12.8. However, its primary connotations are of efFeminacy.

⁵⁹ Cf. Fränkel (n. 2), p. 217, n. 49.

⁶⁰ Cf. Anderson (n. 5), pp. 441–2. For more on the unity of nymph and spring, cf. Frankel (n. 2), pp. 88–9.

⁶¹ The position of the word is particularly effective: it comes at the beginning of the line, and after a series of words and phrases all suggesting effeminacy (semimarem, mollita, voce non virili).

⁶² We might also be reminded of Aristotle's discussion of Aristophanes' Symposium speech at Pol. 1262b11, in which he remarks that were such a union of two lovers to come about, either both or one of the lovers would be destroyed.

⁶³ Anderson (n. 5), on pp. 387–8 says of the reading incesto: ‘[this] normally has the meaning of sexually criminal and perverse in behaviour, which is not the definition of a hermaphrodite’. However, I hope to have shown that in fact this is certainly a connotation of hermaphroditus, in one sense of the word.

⁶⁴ For instance, Daphne prays to her father (1.544ff.), and Syrinx prays to the water nymphs (1.704ff.).

⁶⁵ Ovid. Metamorphoses (Oxford, 1986), trans. Melville, A., with intr. and notes by Kenney, E. J., n. 383, p. 398Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Cf. Propertius 2.6.41f./7.1ff. nos uxor numquam, numquam seducet arnica: / semper arnica mihi, semper et uxor eris / … quamvis diducere amantes / non queat invitos Iuppiter ipse duos, echoed by Met. 4.370ff. ‘pugnes licet, inprobe,’ dixit, / ‘non tamen effugies. ita, di, iubeatis, et istum / nulla dies a me nec me deducat ab isto’.

⁶⁷ Cf. Lucr. 4.1110ff. ne quiquam, quoniam nihil inde abradere possunt / nec penetrare et abire in corpus corpore toto; / nam facere inter dum velle et certare videntur; cf. also Genesis 2.24 ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh’, Matthew 19.5ff.

⁶⁸ The importance of the Symposium as a background text was suggested by Frécault, (L'esprit et l'humour chez Ovide [Paris, 1972], p. 264)Google Scholar, but only as an explanation for Salmacis' extreme passion (and given Hermaphroditus' lack of it, this theory does not hold water). Anderson (n. 5), pp. 452–3, also mentions this passage of the Symposium as the focus of a possible allusion, and sees Salmacis' prayer as a terrible travesty of the idea of union of male and female through love and marriage.

⁶⁹ Cf. esp. 8.274f. κόπτε δὲ δεσμοὺς /ἀρρήκτους ἀλύτους, ὄϕρ᾽ ἔμπεδον αὖθι μένοιεν.

⁷⁰ There remains the slight problem that more than one god answers Salmacis' prayer (vota suos habuere deos 373), much as both Hermes and Venus answer that of Hermaphroditus at 387f.: perhaps Hephaestus is assisted by an equally jealous Ares.