Reflections in a Serpent's Eye: Thebes in Ovid's Metamorphoses PDF
Preview Reflections in a Serpent's Eye: Thebes in Ovid's Metamorphoses
REFLECTIONS IN A SERPENT’S EYE This page intentionally left blank Reflections in a Serpent’s Eye Thebes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses MICAELA JANAN 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #MicaelaJanan2009 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2009 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby theMPGBookGroup ISBN 978–0–19–955692–2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 For Timothy Dominic Dalton and Terence Damien Dalton the best band of brothers This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements Given the generosity this book’s gestation encountered, it has in truthentailedmoredebtsthanIcouldadequatelyacknowledge.ButI can try. The book originated in an offhand remark from Joseph Farrell, who visited Duke in February 1998 to lecture on ‘Ovidius auctor and the Tropes of Classicism’. Chatting informally about the Metamorphoses afterwards, he noted antiquity’s most famous myth gone missing from antiquity’s most famous compendium of myth: ‘Whywon’tOvidtalkaboutOedipus?’Pregnantsilenceshavealways intrigued me. This one inspired me to revisit Ovid’s Theban cycle, the logical setting for a Metamorphean Oedipus. There I discovered how many more mysteries Ovid’s hapless city posed. Both Joe’s canny,timelyquestionandhiswillingnesstosharehisown‘Theban thoughts’greatly fosteredtheproject’sgermination. Acohorsoptimorumrichlyblessedthebook’spassagefromgermto fruit. Paul Allen Miller has been a constant source of erudition, inspiration,andfriendship;hereadmanyversionsofthemanuscript and discussed various points with Socratic patience. Sharon James responded sagaciously to my arguments at assorted North Carolina coffee shops, helping me slice through scholarly knots of Gordias. Once, to clarify the book’s potential thematic connections, she dia- grammed them on a cocktail napkin (I still have that precious napkin!). David Konstan trained his usual probing questions and insights uponall mychapters,whichimmeasurably sharpenedtheir focus.Alison Keith siftedChapter 7judiciously, andalso shared her ownworkonSilverLatinepicinadvanceofpublication.Atacrucial stage,JamesO’HarareadChapters1,4,and5,bringingtobearupon them his Vergilian auctoritas and gift for clarity. Terry Aladjem also perused Chapters 1 and 2, sprinkling editorial Lourdes-water over my stylistic defects. The exacting and detailed criticisms of Oxford University Press’s two anonymous readers greatly strengthened the entirebook. My colleagues at Duke’s department of Classical Studies, presentandformer,allembodythesoigne´ companyforwhichOvid viii Acknowledgements languishedonthebordersofRomania.Generouswiththeirexpertise andtime,theypreventedmefrommanyfoolisherrors.Inparticular, FrancisNewtonandDiskinClaycommentedmeticulouslyonseveral chapters of the book—as did Michael Gillespie and Andrew Janiak, sharing their profound knowledge of Hegel and Kant respectively. Carla Antonaccio, Mary T. Boatwright, Peter Burian, Kent Rigsby, Joshua Sosin, and Jennifer Clare Woods lent me their erudition in areasfarfrommyownspecialty. Hilary O’Shea has been awonderfully supportive editor; over the years, her patient and punctual inquiries about this project long- aborning encouraged my efforts to finish it, just as her advice and guidance have seen it to press. Also at OUP, Jenny Wagstaffe, Kathleen Fearn, and Dorothy McCarthy sagely answered my many questions regarding the arcana of publication. Heather Watson’s keen-eyed copy-editing made many a crooked way straight. On this side of the Atlantic, Kevin Smith’s expertise in copyright law and Holly Ackerman’s in Latin-American poetry helped guide me through the oscura selva of copyright permissions. Willis Goth Re- gier, magister sententiarum, patiently and gallantly hunted through five volumes of Emil Cioran’s Cahiers to find the original form and source of Cioran’s Delphic maxim. The canny Chris Wilson-Simp- kins discovered the true author of ‘Go Loudly, Pentheus’ (a poem misattributedinitsmostwidelycirculatedreprinting). My thanks are due to audiences at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, University of Toronto, Oxford University, University of London, Stanford University, University of California-Santa Cruz, and University of California-Santa Barbara, who kindly listened to theresultsofmyongoingresearchandrefineditsdirectionwiththeir questionsandobservations.Asabbaticalleavecombinedwithayear asFellowattheFranklinHumanitiesInstitutein2005–6allowedme tocompletemyfirstdraftofthewholemanuscript.Twograntsfrom theDuke’sArtsandSciencesCommitteeonFacultyResearchenabled metoenlistresearchassistanceduring1999–2000and2002–3. Of course, any misuses of such beneficence as remain in the following pagesareentirely myowncross-grainedresponsibility. M.J. Contents ANoteonCitation xi 1.Introduction:‘HappyBirthday,Romulus’ 1 2.‘InNominePatris’:Ovid’sThebanLaw 53 3.‘Th’UnconquerableWill,andStudyofRevenge’: JunoinThebes 87 4.NarcissusandEcho:TheArrowsofLove’sErrors 114 5.‘ThroughaGlass,Darkly’:NarcissusasOedipus 156 6.PentheusMonstersThebes 185 7.OvidandtheEpicTradition:thePost-Augustans 224 Bibliography 252 Permissions 266 GeneralIndex 267 IndexofOvidianandVergilianPoetry 273
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