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The Elm and the Vine: Notes Toward The History of a Marriage Topos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Peter Demetz*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Extract

Ernst R. Curtius (1886-1956) was the first modern scholar who discussed the traditional rhetorics of the pastoral landscape with both critical insight and an astonishing historical erudition. In Chapter x (pp. 191-209) of his Europäische Liter atur und lateinisches Mittelaller (1st ed. Bern, 1949) Curtius suggests an instructive list of topographical and botanical “stage props” (“inszenierende Staffage”) traditionally employed to describe the happy rural environment of amorous shepherds and pastoral lovers. It is, of course, hardly surprising that in the intricate process of literary transmission, as outlined by Curtius, Vergil fulfills a central task: by his sophisticated use of elements from both Homer and Theocritus, Vergil unfolds, in his Bucolics as well as in the Georgies, the characteristic “pleasant landscape” (“locus amoenus”) which is later reverently systematized in handbooks of medieval rhetoric, eruditely echoed in the Renaissance, and elegantly alluded to in classicist poetry.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1958

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References

Note 1 in page 522 Sappho: Welt und Dichlung (Potsdam, 1950), pp. 47-48: “Doch ist da noch ein Anker, der das Bild Catulls als solches sicher [sic!] im Grand des Sapphischen Hochzeitsliedes ver-festigt: das Zeugnis eines altgriechischen Wôrterbuches, nach dem auch Sappho mit einem besonderen Ausdruck einmal von der ‘dem Pfahl verbundenen Rebe’ gesprochen hat. .. . Ein abgeteilter Halbchor hat schon bei ihr der geknickten Blume die sorgsam am Stock [sic!] emporgezogene Rebe ent-gegengestellt; ja, wir diirfen glauben, dafi Sappho eben es war, der dieses Bild der Vermâhlung einer fruchtbringenden schwachen Pflanze mit der starken Pflanze wesentlich er-schienen ist.”

Schadewaldt bases his rather fanciful reconstruction of the lost Ur-poem upon the word (“a vine trained upon a pole”) as preserved in its plural form in the Etymologkum Magnum (150 Bgk.). Edgar Lobel, in his MEH (Oxford, 1925), p. 61, insists that the Sapphic use of is highly doubtful. But even if this term appeared in Sappho's poetry, it does not suggest the marital union of vine and elm but merely the technique of training the vine on wooden poles. Schadewaldt, furthermore, blurs the issue by speaking of the pole (Pfahl, or Slab) and then, rather surprisingly, identifying it with a tree (“die starke Pflanze”)—this is quite a difference. As far as I can see, the motif of the vine and the supporting pole appears in G. B. Marino's “Venere Pronuba” in Epithalami del cavalier Marino (Venice, 1620), p. 88: “Con quanti al palo amato / La vite s'incatena”; and in one of Christian E. von Kleist's poems on the ravages of the Seven Years War (Berlin, 1756), p. 204: “Der gefrä ßige Krieg reißt Stab und Rebe zu Boden / entzùndet Dörfer und Wâlder zur Lust.” Interestingly enough, it is also reflected—as my discussion will show —in Natalie's speech in Heinrich von Kleist's Prinz Fried-rich von IIamburg (ii.vi): “Und jetzt sinkt mir die letzte ' Stiitze nieder, die meines Gliickes Rebe aufrecht hielt.” Cf. n. 24, below.

Note 2 in page 523 “The vines should be well knotted; and be especially careful not to bend them downward along any of the branches and not to tie them too tightly. See that the trees are well ‘wedded’ and that a sufficient number of vines are planted to them; and wherever it is necessary let these be detached from the trees and buried in the ground, and two years later cut them off from the old stock” (trans. W. D. Hooper and H. B. Ash, Loeb Classical Lib., p. 49).

Note 3 in page 523 “Leave a space of one foot from the base of the tree, then, having made a furrow four feet long and three feet deep, you will allow it to be buffeted by the weather for at least two months. Then about March 1st take from the nursery a vine not less than ten feet long and spread it out flat and prop it up and attach it to the tree [”arborique iungito“]. In the following year do not prune it, but in the third year reduce it to a single rod and leave only a few 'eyes,' so it may not creep up to a great height before it has gained strength. Then when it has attained ample growth, distribute the firm-wood shoots over every 'story' of the tree, in such a way, however, as not to burden the vine, but so as to allow the shoots which are reliable and very strong to grow freely. You must be just as careful in binding up a vine which is supported by a tree as in pruning it; for it is on this that the strength of the fruit chiefly depends, and a vine which has been attached to a tree with firm ties and in suitable places lasts longer” (trans. E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner, Loeb Classical Lib., p. 383).

Note 4 in page 523 A. L. Wheeler, Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry, p. 217, n. 19.

Note 5 in page 524 Cf. the sketch in P. Raffaele Garucci, S.J., Storia dell'arte cristiana (Prato, 1873-81), ii, 97, and his interpretation in n, 114. A photograph can be found in Hans Achelis, Die Katakomben von Neapel (Leipzig, 1936), p. 56 (Fig. ii).

Note 6 in page 524 Théophile Roller, Les catacombes de Rome (Paris, 1881), II, 80.

Note 7 in page 525 Die Katakomben, p. 56.

Note 8 in page 525 Reprinted in Patres Apostolici, ed. F. X. Funk (Tübingen, 1901), i, 414-639.

Note 9 in page 525 This in itself is a popular topos. Cf. Curtius, Europdische Literatur, pp. 112-115.

Note 10 in page 525 “This vine,” he said, “brings forth fruit, but the elm is a barren tree. But if the vine does not seek its way up the elm it cannot bear much fruit, for then it must creep on the ground, and the fruit that it then bears is rotten, because it cannot cling to the elm. But if the vine winds its way up to the elm, it brings forth fruit out of itself and also out of the elm… Thus you see that the elm bears much fruit; not, as it might seem, less than the vine, but rather more.”

Note 11 in page 525 “This parable pertains to the servants of God, the poor and the rich… In the eyes of men the elm appears to be barren, since they neither know nor understand that in time of drought, the elm nourishes the vine with its own sap, and that the vine, being constantly supplied with moisture, bears doubly rich fruit for itself and for the elm. Thus the poor, by praying to the Lord for the rich, abet the wealth of the latter; and the rich, who offer what is needed to the poor, bring aid to their souls ”

Note 12 in page 525 Martin Dibelius, Der Hirt des Hermas (Tübingen, 1923), pp. 555-556.

Note 13 in page 526 “Tuae res proficiant ad illius sustentationem in hoc saeculo, ut et illius sanctitas proficiat ad tuam sustentationem in illo: sicut ulmus infructuosa dat humorem viti, et vitis pro se et pro ulmo profert fructum” (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, LVI, 701).

Note 14 in page 526 Migne, Patrologia Lalina, v, 225.

Note 16 in page 526 The social and political interpretation of the elm-and-vine motif reappears, surprisingly enough, in the liberal poetry of Germany before 1848. Cf. Ludwig Uhland: “Des Fûrsten und des Volkes Rechte sind / verwoben, wie sich Ulm und Reb' umschlingen” (Gedichte, Heidelberg, 1818, p. 102).

Note 16 in page 526 Vv. 5995-96: “Contre la vigne estrive l'orme / Et li toit du roisin la forme” (ed. M. Méon).

Note 17 in page 526 Andreae Alciati Emblematum Quatuor (Augsburg, 1531) prints the elm-and-vine image under the title “Amicitia etiam post mortem durans” (Steyner, A 6). Two hundred and seventy years later, the same emblem can be found in Iconologie jilr Dichter, Kiinstler und Kunstliebhaber (Wien, 1801), p. 217, with the following interpretation: “die durre Ulme, die einer traubenreichen Rebe zur Stiitze dient, ist ein Zeichen, dafi im Gliick und Ungluck die wahren Freunde immer die nâmlichen sind.”

Note 18 in page 526 The following paragraphs owe much to the researches of my friend and colleague Thomas McLernon Greene and his as yet unpublished dissertation “The Epithalamion in the Renaissance” (Yale, 1954). See Greene's article “Spenser and the Epithalamic Convention,” CL, ix (1957), 275-288.

Note 19 in page 527 His iuveni succensus amor formamque secutus et facilem cantum, quo capis ipsa deos, tecum inter salices, sub amicta vitibus ulmo, in molli iunxit Candida membra toro, inter et amplexus lassi iacuistis uterque et repetita venus dulce peregit opus, (i.i.41-46) (In Ioannis Jovanni Pontani Carmina, ed. J. Oeschger, Bari, 1948, p. 126.)

Note 20 in page 527 “Che come ben confan le viti e gli olmi / confarino i dui consorti,” “Eghloga” (vv. 289-290) in Lirica, ed. G. Fatini (Bari, 1924), p. 138; “E circondan le viti / gl' infecondi mariti,” Le rime, ed. A. Solerti (Bologna, 1898), iii.90; “Et avinto al suo ben / quai vite dell'olmo / E baciando il bel viso / Le possedute gioie ancor sospira,” “TJrana” in Epi-thalami del cavalier Marino (Venice, 1620), p. 127.

Note 21 in page 527 The Works of Ben Jonson, ed. W. Gifford (London, 1816), vii, 80.

Note 22 in page 528 Basia, ed. M. Rat (Paris, n.d.), p. 2. On the influence of Secundus on the vernacular literatures cf. J. N. Secundus Basia, ed. G. Ellinger (Berlin, 1899), pp. x-xlv; and Basia, ed. Rat, pp. 210-211.

Note 23 in page 528 Ronsard, Œuvres complètes, ed. P. Laumonier (Paris, 1914), I, 16. Cf. the intensely erotic variation of this parallel in Remy Belleau's “Epithalame au Seigneur Scevole de Sainte-Marthe,” Œuvres poétiques de Remy Belleau, ed. C. Marty-Laveaux (Paris, 1888), II, 127-128:

Comme la vigne tendre et molle, Grimpant, se tortille et se colle A l'entour des ormes branchus: Ou comme l'importun lierre Embrasse le chesne et le serre Avec ses petis doigts crochus. Ainsi faut mollement s'estendre Tout à plat, sur sa bouche tendre, En pressant ces frères bessons, Puis s'entrelacer et se ioindre En mille gentilles façons.

Note 24 in page 528 This identification has been kindly suggested to me by Professor Curt von Faber du Faur of Yale Univ.

Note 25 in page 529 Herm von Hoffmannswaldau und anderer Deutscher auser-lesene und Usher ungedruckte Gedichte, ed. B. Neukirch (Leipzig, 1697), iii, 167. In Germany the parallel of ivy and vine reappears with new vigor in the later 18th century; cf. G. A. Burger, “Die Umarmung,” Gedichte, ed. G. Reinhard (Göt-tingen, 1796), i, 199:

Wie um ihren Stab die Rebe Briinstig ihre Ranke strickt, Wie der Efeu sein Gewebe An der Ulme Busen driickt. . . Durft' ich so Dich rund umfangen! Dûrftest Du, Geliebte, mich!— Durften so zusammen hangen Unsre Lippen ewiglich.

Note 26 in page 529 Reprinted in Werke (Hamburg, 1948), I, 196-197.

Note 27 in page 530 The notes of the Hamburg edition (i, 504) relate Goethe's “Amyntas” to Herder's “Der erstorbene Ulmbaum” (Werke, ed. B. Suphan, Berlin, 1877-1913, xxvii, 41). Actually, Goethe's and Herder's poems are part of two different strains of the topological development. Goethe's poem reflects the popular Renaissance antithesis of ivy and vine; Herder merely translates the well-known epigram from the Greek Anthology (ix, 231) which had become the source of Alciati's emblematical representation of the motif (see n. 17, above) as early as in the 16th century. In Herder's poem both the ivy and the antithetical tension are entirely absent.

Note 28 in page 530 Lustspiele (Leipzig, 1783), I, 385.

Note 29 in page 530 F. G. Köpstock used the motif before Kleist in his Der Toi Adams: Ein Trauerspiel (1757), i.vi.

Adam [speaking to his grandchild, alluding to a planned marriage]. Du hast den Weinstock noch nicht so hoch an den TJlm hinaufgebunden, als Du mir sagtest, da 15 du tun wolltest. Du bist meine geliebte Selima. Geh hin, und sei ruhig. Du weifit, ich liebe diesen Ulmbaum (Heman) vor alien unseren nachbarlichen Bäumen (Sdmmlliche Werke, Leipzig, 1839, vi, 8).

Note 30 in page 532 Cf. A. G. Barrili, L'olmo et l'edera (1877). In spite of the title it is the “vine” which prevails in the (happy) end.