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PROVISIONAL ARGUMENTATION AND LUCRETIUS’ HONEYED CUP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2019

Jason S. Nethercut
Jason S. Nethercut*
Affiliation:
University of South Florida
*
nethercut@usf.edu
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Extract

Given that Lucretius offers a systematic and cohesive explanation of the workings of nature, we should not expect inconsistencies in his poem. The explanation presented by Lucretius emphatically rejects any interventionist divine machinery of the cosmos, offering in its place the eminently regular dynamics of atomic configuration and dissolution, which can explain everything that pertains to natural philosophy without necessitating the activity of any divinity. The reader who understands the basics of Lucretius’ philosophy, therefore, should be surprised that the DRN begins with an anthropomorphic description of the goddess Venus, whom the poet petitions to intervene actively in human affairs. Lucretius gradually refines this initial presentation of the goddess’ essence throughout the poem, suggesting that the Venus who inaugurates the poem must be nuanced once one has learned the basic principles of Epicurean philosophy. At the end of DRN 4, Venus is presented not as a divine being but as nothing more than the sexual drive shared by all creatures in nature (haec Venus est nobis, 4.1058). Historically scholars have been keen to ‘correct’ perceived inconsistencies such as this, either by arguing that such imperfections derive from later interpolators or by appealing to the incomplete nature of the text as we possess it. Of course, no one has suggested that Lucretius would have changed or removed the proem, so the Venus problem remains an issue. One major aim of this article is to show that the process we witness with Lucretius’ Venus is not inconsistent but programmatic, a point grasped by many with regard to Venus herself but not in respect to the DRN as a whole. In other words, this article extends this insight about Lucretius’ Venus, whose providential attributes are only provisionally attached to her at the outset of the poem and, in due course, are completely removed. In fact, I will argue that the technique of gradually redefining initial propositions—a process I will refer to as provisional argumentation—fundamentally informs Lucretius’ famous metaphor of the honeyed cup, and I will suggest that we ought to recognize this technique as a major aspect of Lucretius’ discursive method throughout the DRN.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , December 2018 , pp. 523 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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References

1 As if to test his reader in the next book, Lucretius returns to the mythological presentation of Venus at 5.737–47, only later at 5.1017 to insist again that Venus is properly understood by the Epicurean as the sexual drive. These instances in Book 5 thus can be seen to anticipate the ‘final examination’ regarding the fear of death that scholars have seen in the Athenian Plague that ends the poem (see Clay, D., Lucretius and Epicurus [Ithaca, 1983], 262Google Scholar).

2 Deufert, M., Pseudo-Lukrezisches im Lukrez: die unechten Verse in Lukrezens De rerum natura (Berlin and New York, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar has advanced the proposition that all inconsistencies in Lucretius are the result of interpolation. Sedley, D., Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar has based his argument that the DRN is unfinished on inconsistencies in the introduction to DRN 4. O'Hara, J.J., Inconsistency in Roman Epic. Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan (Cambridge, 2007), 69–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar has highlighted how productive potential inconsistencies like Venus in the DRN can enhance our reading of the poem.

3 For the view that Lucretius in some sense uses Venus to mislead his readers whom he will then move from such traditional religious belief to an Epicurean understanding of the universe, see Kleve, K., ‘Lukrez und Venus’, SO 41 (1966), 86–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clay (n. 1), 82–110 and 212–15; Minyard, J.D., Lucretius and the Late Republic (Leiden, 1985), 37Google Scholar; Gale, M., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), 217Google Scholar; Summers, K., ‘Lucretius and the Epicurean tradition of piety’, CPh 90 (1995), 32–57Google Scholar; and Sedley (n. 2), 27.

4 Anderson, W.S., ‘Discontinuity in Lucretian symbolism’, TAPhA 91 (1960), 1–29Google Scholar similarly recognizes ‘discontinuity’ as a productive aspect of Lucretian poetics; in general, see Solomon, D., ‘Lucretius’ progressive revelation of nature in DRN 1.149–502’, Phoenix 58 (2004), 260–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar and O'Hara (n. 2), 55–76. For the term ‘provisional argumentation’, see Nethercut, J.S., , ‘Empedocles’ “roots” in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura’, AJPh 138 (2017), 85–105Google Scholar, at 103.

5 On the use of these techniques, Schiesaro, A., Simulacrum et Imago. Gli Argomenti Analogici nel De Rerum Natura (Pisa, 1990)Google Scholar remains fundamental.

6 Segal, C., Lucretius on Death and Anxiety: Poetry and Philosophy in De Rerum Natura (Princeton, 1990), 46–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Clay (n. 1), 238 and, more generally, O'Hara (n. 2), 64–9. See also Solomon (n. 4), who shows how the provisional image of Venus is carried over into the first half of DRN 1, colouring the first physical arguments that Lucretius makes.

7 Patin, M., Études sur la poésie latine (Paris, 1868), 117–37Google Scholar, who formulated this theory with reference to Cardinal de Polignac's poem Anti-Lucretius, written over forty years and published in the eighteenth century, and which aimed to refute the views of Lucretius that conflicted with Christian dogma. On the Anti-Lucretius, see Ament, E.J., ‘The Anti-Lucretius of Cardinal Polignac’, TAPhA 101 (1970), 29–49Google Scholar. See Clay (n. 1), 234–8 and Johnson, W.R., Lucretius and the Modern World (London, 2000), 123–7Google Scholar for discussion of Patin's theory.

8 See Regenbogen, O., ‘Lukrez: seine Gestalt in seinem Gedicht’, in id., Kleine Schriften (Munich, 1961), 363–77Google Scholar for the most forceful analysis of Venus as evidence of Anti-Lucrèce chez Lucrèce.

9 O'Hara (n. 2), 56–76 provides a good overview of the issue and offers a nuanced perspective on how we should read the contradictions inherent in Lucretius’ Venus.

10 This approach had ossified to such an extent already in the early twentieth century that in an influential essay Davies, H.S., ‘Notes on Lucretius’, The Criterion 11 (1931–2), 25–42Google Scholar, at 26 described it as a ‘critical commonplace’.

11 Boyancé, P., Lucrèce et l’épicurisme (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar; Amory, A., ‘Obscura de re lucida carmina: science and poetry in De Rerum Natura’, YClS 21 (1969), 143–68Google Scholar; Cox, A., ‘Didactic poetry’, in Higginbotham, J. (ed.), Greek and Latin Literature: A Comparative Study (London, 1969), 124–61Google Scholar; id., ‘Lucretius and his message: a study in the prologues of the De Rerum Natura’, G&R 18 (1971), 1–16; Schrijvers, P.H., ‘Le Regard sur l'invisible: étude sur l'emploi de l'analogie dans l’œuvre de Lucrèce’, in Gigon, O. (ed.), Lucrèce (Entretiens Hardt 24) (Geneva, 1978), 77–121Google Scholar (= in English: Gale, M. [ed.], Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Lucretius [Oxford, 2007], 255–88Google Scholar); Clay (n. 1), 238; Segal (n. 6), 46–7; Mitsis, P., ‘Committing philosophy on the reader: didactic coercion and reader autonomy in De Rerum Natura’, MD 31 (1993), 111–28Google Scholar; Summers (n. 3); Dalzell, A., The Criticism of Didactic Poetry. Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid (Toronto, 1996), 54–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Campbell, ‘Lucretius and the memes of prehistory’, LICS Discussion Paper 1 (2002); id., Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura Book Five, Lines 772–1104 (Oxford, 2003); Rumpf, L., Natuererkenntnis und Naturerfahrung: Zur Reflexion epikureischer Theorie bei Lukrez (Munich, 2003)Google Scholar; Martindale, C., Latin Poetry and the Judgement of Taste: An Essay in Aesthetics (Oxford, 2005), 194Google Scholar; O'Hara (n. 2), 64–9; Volk, K., The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius (Oxford, 2002), 94–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ead., ‘Manilian self-contradiction’, in S.J. Green and K. Volk (edd.), Forgotten Stars: Rediscovering Manilius (Oxford, 2011), 104–19, esp. 108–9.

12 Thury, E.M., ‘Lucretius’ poem as a simulacrum of Rerum Natura’, AJPh 108 (1987), 270–94Google Scholar; Schiesaro, A., ‘The palingenesis of De Rerum Natura’, PCPhS 40 (1994), 81–107Google Scholar; Fowler, D., ‘From epos to cosmos: Lucretius, Ovid and the poetics of segmentation’, in Innes, D., Hine, H. and Pelling, C. (edd.), Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1995), 1–18Google Scholar; Kennedy, D., ‘Making a text of the universe: perspectives on discursive order in the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius’, in Sharrock, A. and Morales, H. (edd.), Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations (Oxford, 2000), 205–25Google Scholar; and Gale, M., ‘The story of us: a narratological analysis of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura’, in Gale, M. (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and Individuality (Swansea, 2004), 49–71Google Scholar.

13 See especially the series of close readings found in Schiesaro (n. 5).

14 On the connection between the image of the honeyed cup and the relationship between Form and Content in the DRN, see Boyancé, P., ‘Lucrèce et la poésie’, REA 49 (1947), 88–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id. (n. 11), 57–68; Waszink, J.H., ‘Lucretius and poetry’, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie von Wetenshappen, adf. Letterkunde Nieuwe Reeks 17 (1954), 243–57Google Scholar; and Gale (n. 3), 46–8.

15 This is seen most clearly in Gale (n. 3), who time and again documents the way in which Lucretius uses the poetic form of his poem to reinforce the philosophical content, always presupposing that the philosophical content is the end, poetic form the means, for Lucretius. Variations of this idea, however, are found in Boyancé (n. 14); Waszink (n. 14); Giancotti, F., Il preludio di Lucrezio (Messina and Florence, 1959)Google Scholar; Classen, C.J., ‘Poetry and rhetoric in Lucretius’, TAPhA 99 (1968), 77–118Google Scholar; Schrijvers, P.H., Horror ac Divina Voluptas. Études sur la Poétique et la Poésie de Lucrèce (Amsterdam, 1970)Google Scholar; Glei, R., ‘Erkenntnis als Aphrodisiakum: Poetische und philosophische voluptas bei Lukrez’, A&A 38 (1992), 82–94Google Scholar; and Volk (n. 11 [2002]), 96–100. In this regard, there is a potential problem between Epicurus’ own rejection of poetry as a vehicle for philosophy and Lucretius’ versification of philosophy in the DRN. If we assume that both Epicurus and Lucretius have the same protreptic ambition, one wonders why Lucretius needed ‘honey’ when his master did not. On the one hand, one could point to the metaphrastic poems of Aratus and Nicander in an attempt to explain this discrepancy. On the other hand, it seems clear that Lucretius is playing a more serious game than these other poets.

16 Venus also stands in for the mythological worldview tout court and, as Gale (n. 3), 208–22 has argued, the form of the Venus-hymn serves both to draw the reader into the Epicurean content of the poem and, by thus juxtaposing Form and Content, myth and uera res, to reveal the truth that gives rise to the myth. In this way, not only is the honeyed cup analogous to the Venus proem when it comes to provisional argumentation, but also both of them put Lucretius’ ideas about the relationship between Form and Content into practice.

17 All translations are my own.

18 See Gale (n. 3), 138–55 and Asmis, E., ‘Epicurean poetics’, in Obbink, D. (ed.), Philodemus and Poetry. Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace (Oxford, 1995), 15–34Google Scholar, at 33–4, both of whom imply that Form is subservient to Content, the poetic trappings of the DRN serving Lucretius as a tool for the primary purpose of his work: to present his philosophy.

19 On this point, see S. Furiya, Lucretius on Poetry: Poetics and Epistemology in the De Rerum Natura (Diss., Harvard, 2003), 2–8.

20 There is a further irony here in that wormwood was also poisonous, so that the honey also covers for a substance what may inalterably affect the patient's life after drinking.

21 The anonymous reader reminds me that, since Lucretius is engaging the Sceptics’ arguments about sense-perception, it is relevant that Sextus Empiricus also uses honey to emphasize the fact that different people have different sense-impressions (PH 1.92; see Annas, J. and Barnes, J., The Modes of Scepticism. Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations [Cambridge, 1985]), 66–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Lucretius’ point in DRN 4 is that different people see and taste the same thing with different results and that such different results prove that the illusions are atomic phenomena. Honey perfectly represents this reality: whether or not it is perceived as sweet or bitter results only from the atoms inside the honey interacting with atoms inside the mouth and nothing else (cf. Sen. Ep. 109.7).

22 OLD s.v. ex 18.

23 The anonymous reader suggests to me that one could connect this last point with my earlier observations about the honeyed cup and the sick man at 4.658–72. The difference between the child who takes the honeyed cup and the reader is that the child thinks that he drinks honey, even though it is actually wormwood. On the other hand, the reader can see exactly what he is drinking, so, by the terminology of the honeyed-cup analogy, he would not be deceived (cf. decepta, 1.941 = 4.16). The sick man in DRN 4 is aware of the link between his illness and his distorted taste, even though he is confused by the bitterness of honey. By combining all of these considerations, one could argue that Lucretius delineates a regimen, whereby the knowing reader develops the skills he needs to interpret the world while he drinks what he knows to be the Epicurean medicine.

24 Volk (n. 11 [2002]), 96.

25 Volk (n. 11 [2002]), 98.

26 I would like to thank Joseph Farrell, Sarah Scullin, Barnaby Taylor and my anonymous reader for reading through full drafts of earlier versions of this article. Their collective feedback was both generous and insightful and has immeasurably improved the final version you have read. Any errors or mistakes that remain are my responsibility.