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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
Definition of the class of poem which modern scholarship has agreed to describe by the convenient, if unauthorized, title of epyllion has never proved altogether successful. The claim has commonly been made that Catullus' sixty-fourth poem may be accepted as the type and that all or most of the features revealed in it may be assumed to exist more or less completely realized in earlier examples from the Alexandrian period: in particular, that the epyllion always possesses a secondary story enclosed within the primary one.
1. E.g. by Crump, M. M., The Epyllion from Theocritus to Ovid (Oxford, 1931), pp. 23ffGoogle Scholar.
2. REL 34 (1956), 191–3. Allen, W., TAPA 68 (1937), 18Google Scholar, comments simply on the lack of uniformity in the use of ‘digression’ and ecphrasis.
3. It resembles rather the speech by the deus ex machina in various Greek tragedies, consisting largely of prophecy concerning the future of the characters. Some parallel may be found in the ecphrasis of Aeneas' shield in Aeneid 8. Crump, pp. 64–66, insists rather that Tiresias' speech is not merely a digression but actually sets the pattern for what was to become an essential element in the genre.
4. So Pfeiffer, R., Callimachus (Oxford, 1949) on fr. 260, 18–38Google Scholar, citing Antigonus of Carystus, Hist. Mir. 12, with Ovid, Met. 2.547–66, where the crow relates its punishment by Athena for revealing the discovery of Erichthonius, and tries in vain to save the raven from similar punishment for telling Apollo of Coronis' infidelity.
5. As claimed by Crump, p. 175, and by Coleman, R., Virgil's Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977), p. 190Google Scholar.
6. See especially Taplin, O., G & R 21 (1980), 1–21Google Scholar.
7. The words in line 251, at pane ex alia, make it clear that this is actually the side of the picture balancing that portraying Ariadne. Titian, though undoubtedly making use of other versions of the story, particularly Ovid, A. A.1.527–64 (see Thompson, G. H., CJ 51 (1956), 259–64Google Scholar, who exaggerates the need for a single source), has taken the hint properly for his Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the National Gallery in London.
8. It does not necessarily follow, however, from the way in which Catullus in 68 links his two Greek myths with his own experience in connection with Lesbia and with his brother, that 64, lacking as it does any explicit reference to the poet himself, is primarily, or even largely, concerned to tell his own story under cover of that of Peleus and Thetis (so, e. g., Kinsey, T., Latomus 24 (1965), 911–12Google Scholar, correcting Harkins, P. W., TAPA 90 (1959), 102–16Google Scholar, and Putnam, M. J. C., HSCP 65 (1961), 170, 187)Google Scholar. The safer inference of Williams, G. W., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), p. 229Google Scholar, is that ‘the intensely personal form of narrative and thought-connection’ guarantees the whole poem as an original creation of Catullus, rather than as a translation or adaptation. For further discussion of the point, see Duban, J. M., Latomus 39 (1980), 77Google Scholar n. 1, with full bibliography 801–2.
9. According to Lucian, Dial. Mar. 5, this comes well on in the celebration, after the withdrawal of the bridal pair.
10. Prol. ad Lycophr. p. 4.13 (Scheer) = Hesiod fr. 211 (Merkelbach-West).
11. R-E 1 (1894), 729Google Scholar.
12. N. B. also the emphasis in Pind. Pyth. 3.89 on όλβοϋ ύπέπτατον. in contrast to subsequent disappointments (cf. n. 20 inf.).
13. Catullan Questions (Leicester, 1969), pp. 20–25Google Scholar.
14. So, e. g., Ramain, G., RPh 46 (1922), 135–63Google Scholar; Curran, L. C., YCS 21 (1969), 174Google Scholar; Most, G. W., Philologus 125 (1981), 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The last of these (p. 113) also points out that ‘Peleus and Thetis’ is a most inadequate title for the poem and has no ancient authority.
15. PCPS196 (1970), 22–41; also L. C. Curran, op. cit., 185–92. Despite these demonstrations, Berg, W., Early Virgil (London, 1974), p. 164Google Scholar, is still able to describe Catullus' picture of the heroic age as ‘beatific’ and to claim that ‘even wars and sorrows become infused with and resolved in a divine glory’.
16. The very reference to the hero's death is strikingly inappropriate before he has even been born.
17. So Boucher (n. 2), 197; Williams (n. 8), pp. 225–26.
18. Apollo is already in Il. 22.359–60 made responsible for Achilles' death; and in 24.62–63 is rebuked by Hera for having attended the marriage-feast with his lyre-a rebuke which occurs more intensely in Aeschylus (fr. 284a, Mette) as quoted by Plato (Rep. 2.383 a-b). As a prophet, Apollo would presumably be aware of the way in which his attendance might come to be regarded; but there is no trace of this idea in any version of the story. Nor would this explain why Diana appears to take the lead in shunning the wedding: Pelea nam tecum pariter soror aspernata est, nee Thetidis taedas voluit celebrare iugales (301–2), with the implication of personal hostility and scorn.
19. Thompson (n. 7), 260, quotes Wind, E., Bellini's Feast of the Gods (1948), pp. 56–58Google Scholar, for a version in which Ariadne dies in the god's embrace, evidently as a necessary preliminary to apotheosis. This can hardly be in Catullus' mind.
20. 265.8 and 15. A more ominous link is found in Pind. Pyth.3.86–103, where the parallel marriage of Cadmus to the goddess Harmonia (cf. Apollod. 3.4.2), while likewise blessed with the Muses to sing the hymn, leads to ill-fated children to be set beside Achilles.
21. Cf. the reversal in Moschus (cited above) of girl and god-beast in the Europa story and girl-beast and god in the ecphrasis on the basket.
22. Dr E. M. Jenkinson points out to me that the simile in 269–75, where the arrival of the gods is likened to the rising of waves under the morning breeze, with little obvious point of contact (see Quinn, K. F. in Sullivan, J. P. (ed.), Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric (Harvard, 1962), pp. 53–54Google Scholar, for a determined attempt to establish its relevance), is taken directly from Iliad 4.422ff. (and 7.63ff.), where it applies, and with much greater aptness, to the advance of warriors in the Trojan War.
23. See Proclus, , Chrest. 102. 14Google Scholar, and Schol. on Il. 1.5 (Ep. Gr. Frag, ed. Kinkel, pp. 16ff.).
24. Walcot, P., G & R 26 (1977), 31–39Google Scholar; Griffin, J., JHS 97 (1977), 39–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25. See Wilson, J. R., G & R 26 (1979), 7–20Google Scholar, for Eris (not only in this connection) as a dominant theme in Euripides, especially in the later plays.
26. Griechische Mythologie (Berlin, 1861) II. p. 412Google Scholar; and also the note in Wilson (n. 25), 19.
27. Clairmont, C., Das, Parisurteil in der antiken Kunst (Zurich, 1951), pp. 102–4Google Scholar, is properly cautious about the details portrayed on the sixth-century Spartan comb, on which Dawkins (JHS 49 (1929), 223Google Scholar, with fig. CXXVII) was confident that he could detect the apple. See Tucker, I., Mus. Helv. 39 (1982), 7–8Google Scholar for a recent survey of the theme.
28. Except when a presumptuous mortal challenges a god and is punished for it, as happened to Marsyas, Arachne, and Misenus, often without any need for an actual competition.
29. The presence of all the gods at the wedding is emphasized by Homer (Il. 24.62–63) and Apollonius (4.805–6), and evidently led to the popularity of the scene in vase-painting.
30. Boucher (n. 2), 194.
31. Williams (n. 8), pp. 227–28.
32. Mirmont, H. de la Ville de, Rev. Universitaire 4 (1893), 169Google Scholar, recognized that Catullus ‘ne termine pas son poeme’, but saw nothing missing except ‘le depart des dieux’. Forehand, W. E., in Class. Bull. 50 (1974), 88–91Google Scholar, at least observes that the marriage ‘starts in motion events which will be quite unhappy… leading to the Trojan War and to the deadly feats of Achilles’; but he misses the symbolical start of the strife.
