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Medea's response to Catullus: Ovid, Heroides 12.23–4 and Catullus 76.1–6

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Federica Bessone
Federica Bessone
Affiliation:
Università Di Pisa
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Extract

After an opening of the elegiac epistle which recalls the Euripidean-Ennian Medea-prologue, Ovid's heroine thus states her purpose (Her. 12.23–4):

est aliqua ingrato meritum exprobrare voluptas;

hac fruar, haec de te gaudia sola feram.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 575 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 The text and line-numbering of the Heroides used here are those of H. Dörrie's edition (Berlin, New York, 1971).

2 Note the presence of two key-terms, ingratus and meritum. The former is echoed in the conclusion, in line 208; marking the first verse after the ‘prologue’ and the last verse before the (monologic) epilogue of the letter, it frames the proper speech addressed to Jason (see also Hinds, S., ‘Medea in Ovid: Scenes from the Life of an Intertextual Heroine’, MD 30 [1993], 9–47, pp. 32–3Google Scholar). There is an analogous correspondence, in Seneca, between Medea's words in the first dialogue with Jason, (Med. 465)Google Scholar and the last lines addressed to him after the vengeance (1020–21). The two terms occur close together in the monologue of the ‘Apollonian’ Medea of Met. 7, which enters into an ironic dialogue with Her. 12: cf. 7.42–5 (an ironical prefiguration of the future). More on this and on other aspects in my forthcoming commentary on Her. 12.

3 The following line, 475 κ τν δ πρώτων πρτον ἄρξομαι λγειν is also consistent with the aim at thoroughness of the Ovidian epistle, expressed via negativa in line 116 deficit hoc uno littera nostra loco. As for meritum exprobrare, compare Jason's reproach to Medea—in answer to the speech by her referred to in this section—for overextolling her services: 526 …λαν πυργοτῖ χριν.

4 For the traditional character of the enumeration cf. also the lines, perhaps by Ennius, , and perhaps from his Medea, 274–5 VGoogle Scholar. (sceptical, however, is Jocelyn, H. D., The Tragedies of Ennius [Cambridge, 1967], p. 350)Google Scholar. See also Ap. Rh. 4.364–7 (Medea to Jason); 4.1032–5 (Medea to the Argonauts); Val. Fl. 8.106–8 (Medea to Jason).

5 Conte's, G. B. definition, in Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario (Torino, 1985 2), p. 47Google Scholar; cf. id., The Rhetoric of Imitation, translated from the Italian, edited and with a foreword by Ch. Segal (Ithaca and London, 1986), p. 70, 84 (‘the memory of past openings)’.

6 The review of the past, so differently intended, is central to both poems; Catullus' initial recordanti may be linked with Medea's initial memini (v. 3): the epistle is centred on memory as reproach.

7 Traina, A., ‘Catullo e gli dei. II carme LXXVI nella critica più recente’, Convivium N.S. I (1954), 358–68Google Scholar, reprinted in: Id., Poeti latini (e neolatini). Note e saggi filologici, I (Bologna 1975, 19862), pp. 93–117Google Scholar, see p. 101 f.; Id., ‘Catullo e i misteri’, Convivium N.S. VI, 1959, 335–9Google Scholar, repr. in Poeti…cit., 119–29, see p. 123; Powell, J. G. F., ‘Two Notes on Catullus’, CQ 40 (1990), 199–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar (part i, pp. 199–202).

8 See also the commentary of J. G. F. Powell (Cambridge, 1988) ad loc., and the Greek examples in his article from Aristotle, Xenophon, Epicurus, Favorinus.

9 Cf. for instance, with exprobrare, Plaut, . Amph. 47Google Scholar; Trin. 318 (see also Ter. Andr. 1.1.16); Cic, . Lael. 71Google Scholar; Tac. Ann. 13.21.5; Claud. 22.158; cf. also Demosth, . De coron. 269Google Scholar.

10 It may be noted that voluptas almost becomes a key-word in this debate, particularly in Seneca, in a polemical confrontation with Epicurean ethics (pleasure is not distinct from virtue, but coincides with it): Ben. 4.13.1–2; 4.11.5–6.

11 The correspondence with Catullus' wording is observed by Traina, , ‘Catullo e i misteri’ cit. [n. 7], p. 124 n. 1Google Scholar.

12 See Sen, . Med. 465Google Scholar (cit. above in the text), where the ambivalence of the word is explicitly s stressed; for meritum = ‘crime’ in relation to Medea cf. Ov. Tr. 3.9.15–16; an ironical ambiguity in the use of the term may be also felt at Met. 7.166. Cf., later in this epistle, lines 133–4 ut culpent alii, tibi me laudare necesse est, / pro quo sum totiens esse coacta nocens: by the end of the long narrative section opened by our couplet 23–4, the ‘merits’ have proved themselves what they really are, a series of crimes (totiens…nocens). The point is made explicit by Hypsipyles: Her. 6.137–8 quid refert, scelerata piam si vincit et ipso / crimine dotata est emeruitque virum?

13 Cf. Her. 18.55.

14 See Quinn, K., Catullus. An Interpretation (London, 1972), p. 121Google Scholar.

15 Medea's expression may assume, finally, a twofold ironical implication. Just as Dido states that she wants to ‘waste words’ in a vain prayer (Her. 7.5–8), but then engages in a strenuous suasoria, so Medea, in spite of her purpose of relishing the sole pleasure of the reminder, will not exclude from her letter a prayer—however short-lived—for the restoration of her status as a wife (cf. 195 redde torum); the supplication will be soon overcome, in turn, by the announcement of the revenge (209ff.; cf. spoth, F., Ovids Heroides als Elegien [München, 1992], p. 87 n. 9)Google Scholar. A sinister implication might also he in the ironical prefiguration of a different voluptas and of other gaudia which Medea will get from Jason: the joy of vengeance. In Seneca, after killing her children, Medea says that she feels a great pleasure, increased by Jason's presence: Sen, . Med. 991–4Google Scholar; cf. 896 (cf. also Eur, . Med. 1131Google Scholar; 1362). Gaudere is a stock-term for the joy of victory and revenge (cf., in this epistle, line 161); gaudia denotes the joy of vengeance in Ovid's Procne-story in the Metamorphoses, which has many contacts with that of Medea: Met. 6.653–4; cf. 658–60.

16 Benedetto, V. Di, Euripide: teatro e società (Torino, 1971), pp. 38–9, n. 42Google Scholar.

17 Note, on the formal level, the harsh recurrence of r in the sequence ingrato meritum exprobrare; the impact of the prose-word exprobrare; the emphasis of the polyptoton hoc…haec; the hammered style of the dicolon, hac (sc. voluptate) fruar, haec…gaudia feram.