Lecture 24: Epic, Lament, and Love Song


 Focus Passages 

A) From Propertius 2.1:
But if only fate had so endowed me, Maecenas, that my Muse could lead a hero's hands to arms, I should not sing of Titans or Ossa piled on Olympus that Pelion might become the path to heaven; or of ancient Thebes, or Pergamum [= Troy], Homer's glory, and the union of two seas at Xerxes' command, or the early reign of Remus or the fury of lofty Carthage, the Cimbrian menace and the splendid feats of Marius: I should tell of your Caesar's wars and policies, and after mighty Caesar you would be my second theme. …But neither would the slender utterance of Callimachus suffice to thunder forth the battle waged on Phlegra's plain between Jove and Enceladus, nor are my powers fitted to enshrine in martial strains the name of Caesar among his Phrygian ancestors. The sailor tells of winds, the ploughman of oxen; the soldier counts his wounds, the shephard his sheep; I for my part wage wars within the narrow confines of the bed. (Trans. G. P. Goold, Harvard University Press, 1990)

B) Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1036-1097
What wedding-hymn was that which raised its strains
to the sound of Libyan flutes,
to the music of the dancer's lyre,
and the note of the pipe of reeds?
It was on the day Pieria's fair-tressed choir
came over the slopes of Pelion
to the marriage-feast of Peleus,
beating the ground
with print of golden sandals at the banquet of the gods,
and hymning in dulcet strains the praise of Thetis and the son of Aeacus,
over the Centaurs' hill,
down through the woods of Pelion.

There was the Dardanian boy,
Phrygian Ganymede,
beloved pleasure of Zeus' bed,
drawing off the wine
he mixed in the depths of golden bowls;
while, along the gleaming sand,
the fifty daughters of Nereus
graced the marriage with their dancing [khoros],
circling in a whirling ring.

There came too the revel-rout of Centaurs, mounted on horses,
to the feast of the gods
and the mixing-bowl of Bacchus, leaning on fir-trees,
with wreaths of green foliage round their heads;
and loudly they shouted out. "Daughter of Nereus,
that you shall bear a son, a dazzling light to Thessaly,
Cheiron the prophet,
skilled in arts inspired by Phoebus,
foretold,
a son who shall come with an army of spearmen
to the far-famed land of Priam,
to set it in a blaze,
his body cased
in a suit of golden
armor forged by Hephaestus,
a gift from his goddess-mother,
Thetis, who bore him."
Then the gods shed a blessing
on the marriage of the high-born bride,
who was first of Nereus' daughters,
and on the wedding of Peleus.

But you [Iphigeneia], will the Argives crown,
wreathing the lovely tresses of your hair,
like a dappled mountain hind
brought from some rocky cave
or a heifer undefiled,
and staining with blood your human throat;
though you were never reared like these
amid the piping and whistling of herdsmen,
but at your mother's side,
to be decked one day by her as the bride of a son of Inachus.
Where now does the face of modesty [aidôs] or virtue [aretê]
have any power?
Seeing that unholiness holds sway,
and virtue [aretê] is neglected
by men and thrust behind them,
lawlessness [lack of nomos] over law [nomos] prevailing,
and mortals no longer making common cause [agôn]
to keep the jealousy of gods from reaching them.

C) Catullus 64.31-59
Then on that very same longed for day, all of Thessaly thronged to come together to the house, and the palace was filled with rejoicing crowds: they bore gifts before themselves and made their delights known by their countenance. They left Cieros; they left Phthiotic Tempe, the houses of Crannon and walls of Larisa; they came together at Pharsalus and filled Pharsalian houses. As nobody lived in the hinterland, the necks of young bulls had become soft, the low grapevines hadn’t been cleared out with curved hoes, no bull was tugging at the earth with a sloping plowshare, no foliage tenders’ knives pared down the shadow of a tree, but rust had been accumulating filth on the lonely plows.

Yet Peleus’ home, wherever the opulent palace extended, was shining with gleaming gold and silver. Ivory was shining on the thrones, drinking cups were shining on the table, and the whole house, glittering, rejoiced in the royal treasure. In the middle of the house there had been placed, indeed for a godly bride, a marriage couch gleaming with Indian ivory and covered by porphyry with figures of Archaic folk, showing with delicate handiwork the rugged virtue of the heroes. But gazing out from the shore of Naxos, which resounds with the noise of the sea, Ariadne watched Theseus’ departure by rapid fleet. She has been bearing untamed passions in her breast, but even now she doesn’t yet believe she sees the things she views; this is no wonder, since she, then for the first time roused from deceptive sleep, perceives herself unhappily abandoned on a lonely beach. But the heedless young man beats the waters of the sea as he slips off, leaving the empty promises of a windy gale behind. (Translation by Brendan Rau)

D) Catullus 64.116-157
They often say that she, raving from a blazing heart, had uttered shrill oaths from the bottom of her breast, and then that the unhappy woman climbed steep mountains from which to extend her gaze into the desolate swell of the sea, and then that she rolled forth into the waves of the splashing sea that faced her as she raised the voluptuous coverings from her denuded calf, and that she had said these unhappy words, her final lamentation:

“Treacherous, treacherous Theseus! Is this the way you abandon me, who was carried off from my father’s altars, onto the lonely shore? Feckless man, have you run away because you thought the gods’ heavenly powers inconsequential? Are you coming home to bear unholy perjuries? Could nothing divert the deliberations of a cruel mind? Did you have no mercy available for your implacable heart to wish me tenderness? Yet you did not formerly give me these assurances with a sweet voice, and you were not bidding me, who was unhappy, to anticipate these things, but the airy winds tear to pieces a desired marriage and a happy wedding, the whole of which is null and void. Even now, may no woman put faith in a man who swears by oath, and may no woman trust that a man’s discourses are worthy of trust; while the mind of men, when it desires, is especially eager to obtain something, the men are by no means loath to swear by oath and by no means refrain from promises: but as soon as the desirous mind’s lust has been satisfied, by no means do men fear what has been said, and by no means do they care about their breaches of oath! Certainly I snatched you away as you were tossing and turning in the middle of death’s maelstrom, and I decided to lose a brother rather than fail you at a critical and treacherous time. For the which I shall be given as prey to be torn piecemeal by birds and beasts, and when I have died, I shall not be covered with a burial mound! What lioness gave birth to you from her lonely crag? What sea, conceived by foaming waves, has spit you out? What Syrtis, what predatory Scylla, what endless Charybdis gave you birth, you who return such rewards for living sweet?” (Translation by Brendan Rau)

E) Catullus 64.192-201
My eyes will not grow feeble with death, and my senses will not withdraw from my exhausted body, until I, who’ve been abandoned, demand a stiff penalty from the gods and invoke the trust of the gods in my final hour. Wherefore, you Eumenides, who penalize the deeds of men with avenging punishment, and whose foreheads, wreathed in serpentine hair, display the breathing ire of your hearts, approach, approach to this place, and hear my complaints, which - alas! - I, miserable and powerless, must speak from deep inside myself as I burn, blind with demented rage! Since these complaints are truly borne from the bottom of my heart, do not let my lamentation be ineffectual, but pollute Theseus and his kinsmen with the state of mind wherein he left me when he abandoned me, ye Goddesses! (Translation adapted from that of Brendan Rau)

F) Virgil, Aeneid 4.607-612
You, Sun, who with your flames see all that is done on earth; and Juno, you, interpreter and witness of my sorrows; Hecate, invoked with shrieks, by night, at every city's crossways; and you, the Furies; and the gods that guard the dying Dido - hear these words and turn your power toward my pain; as I deserve, take up my prayers. (trans. A. Mandelbaum, Bantam Books, 1971)

G) Catullus 64.334-375
No house ever yet enclosed such loves, no love bound lovers with such pact, as abides with Thetis, as is the concord of Peleus. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! To you will Achilles be born, a stranger to fear, to his foes known not by his back, but by his strong breast, who, often the victor in the uncertain struggle of the foot-race, will outrun the fire-fleet footsteps of the speedy doe. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! None in war with him may compare as a hero, when the Phrygian streams trickle with Trojan blood, and when besieging the walls of Troy with a long, drawn-out warfare perjured Pelops' third heir lays that city waste. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Often will mothers attest over funeral-rites of their sons his glorious acts and illustrious deeds, when the white locks from their heads are unloosed amid ashes, and they bruise their discoloured breasts with feeble fists. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For as the reaper, plucking off the dense wheat-ears before their time, mows the harvest yellowed beneath ardent sun, so will he cast prostrate the corpses of Troy's sons with grim swords. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! His great valour will be attested by Scamander's wave, which ever pours itself into the swift Hellespont, narrowing its course with slaughtered heaps of corpses he shall make tepid its deep stream by mingling warm blood with the water. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! And finally she will be a witness: the captive-maid handed to death, when the heaped-up tomb of earth built in lofty mound receives the snowy limbs of the stricken virgin. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For instantly fortune will give the means to the war-worn Greeks to break Neptune's stone bonds of the Dardanian city, the tall tomb shall be made dank with Polyxena's blood, who as the victim succumbing beneath two-edged sword, with yielding knees shall fall forward a headless corpse. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Come then! Conjoin in the longed-for delights of your love. Let the bridegroom receive his goddess in felicitous compact; let the bride be given to her eager husband. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles!

H) Ovid, Heroides 3
Where is your careless love gone to now?
Perhaps a dismal lot still crushes the sad
and I will not find a sweeter time.
Your brave men levelled the walls of Lyrnessus.
I who was part of my father's land
have seen my dearest relative lying dead:
the sons of my mother, three brothers,
comrades in life, are today comrades in death;
my husband writhed in the bloody dirt,
his body heaving as he lay on the ground.
Though I lost so many dear to me
my loss was eased by loving you as brother,
as my husband, and as my master.

I) Iliad 19.282-302: Then Briseis like golden Aphrodite, when she saw Patroklos torn by the sharp bronze, falling around him she wailed with piercing cries. And with her hands she struck her breast and tender neck and beautiful face. And then lamenting she spoke, a woman like the goddesses: "Patroklos, most pleasing to my wretched heart, I left you alive when I went from the hut. But now returning home I find you dead, O leader of the people, So evil begets evil for me forever. The husband to whom my father and mistress mother gave me I saw torn by the sharp bronze before the city, and my three brothers, whom one mother bore together with me, beloved ones, all of whom met their day of destruction. Nor did you allow me, when swift Achilles killed my husband, and sacked the city of god-like Mynes, to weep, but you claimed that you would make me the wedded wife of god-like Achilles and that you would bring me in the ships to Phthia, and give me a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. Therefore I weep for you now that you are dead ceaselessly, you who were kind always." So she spoke lamenting, and the women wailed in response, with Patroklos as their pretext, but each woman for her own cares.

J) Iliad 6.392-432: "Dear husband," said she, "your valor will bring you to destruction; think on your infant son, and on my hapless self who ere long shall be your widow - for the Achaeans will set upon you in a body and kill you. It would be better for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and buried, for I shall have nothing left to comfort me when you are gone, save only sorrow [akhos]. I have neither father nor mother now. Achilles slew my father when he sacked Thebe the goodly city of the Cilicians. He slew him, but did not for very shame despoil him; when he had burned him in his wondrous armor, he raised a barrow over his ashes and the mountain nymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted a grove of elms about his tomb [sêma]. I had seven brothers in my father's house, but on the same day they all went within the house of Hades. Achilles killed them as they were with their sheep and cattle. My mother - her who had been queen of all the land under Mount Plakos - he brought hither with the spoil, and freed her for a great sum, but the archer - queen Artemis took her in the house of your father. Nay - Hektor - you who to me are father, mother, brother, and dear husband - have mercy upon me; stay here upon this wall; make not your child fatherless, and your wife a widow.

K) Sophocles, Ajax 485-524: I have nothing left to which I can look, save you, and you are the reason. Your spear ravaged my country to nothingness, and another fate has brought down my mother and father, giving them a home in Hades in their death. What homeland, then, could I have without you? What wealth? My welfare is entirely in your hands [sôzô]. So remember me, too. A true man should cherish remembrance, if anywhere he takes some pleasure. It is kindness that always begets kindness. But whoever lets the memory of benefits seep from him, he can no longer be a noble man.

L) Ovid, Heroides 3
I swear this oath. By the bones of my husband
which, though scarcely buried, are sacred;
by the souls of my three brothers, now my gods,
who bravely died when their country died;
by your head and mine which we laid side by side
and by your sword which my family knew:
I swear that the Mycenaean king has shared
no bed with me.

M) Iliad 19.255-263: The other Achaeans sat where they were all silent and orderly to hear the king, and Agamemnon looked into the vault of heaven and prayed saying, "I call Zeus the first and mightiest of all gods to witness, I call also Earth and Sun and the Erinyes who dwell below and take vengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that I have laid no hand upon the girl Briseis, neither to take her to my bed nor otherwise, but that she has remained in my tents inviolate."

N) Ovid, Heroides 3
Not only that, they tell me that when dawn breaks
you will unfurl your sails and leave me.
I fainted when I heard the awful story.
To whom will I be left when you go?
Who will comfort me when I am left alone?
May lightning strike or the earth swallow
me before the sea foams with your oars leaving
me farther and farther behind you.
If you must go, I will not burden your ships.
I follow as captive, not as wife.
My fingers know the art of working with wool.
You will take a beautiful bride, one
like Thetis, worthy of Peleus, and so
should you marry; I will be a slave
spinning out my day's work until the distaff
once full of new wool grows thin as threads
are drawn out from it.

O) Catullus 64.158-163
If it was not your heart's wish to marry me, through holding in horror the dread decrees of my stern father, yet you could have led me to your home, where as your handmaid I might have served you with labor of love, washing your shining feet with clear water, or spreading the purple coverlet over your bed.