The challenge of epic: allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus

256 Pages·2001·9.7 MB·English

by  Shorrock

THE CHALLENGE OF EPIC
MNEMOSYNE
BlBLlOTHECA CLASSlCA BATAVA
COLLEGERUNT
H. PINKSTER • H. W. PLEKET
CJ. RUUGH. D.M. SCHENKEVELD· PH. SCHRIJVERS
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT
C.]. RUUGH, KLASSIEK SEMINARIUM, OUDE TURFMARKT 129, AMSTERDAM
SUPPLEMENTUM DUCENTESIMUM DEClMUM
ROBERT SHORROCK
THE CHALLENGE OF EPlC
THE CHALLENGE OF EPIC
ALLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT IN THE DIONYSIACA
OFNONNUS
BY
ROBERT SHORROCK
BRILL
LEIDEN· BOSTON· KÖLN
2001
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek -CIP-Einheitsaufnalune
[MneJllosyne I SuppleJllentuIll]
Mnemosyne : bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum. - Leiden;
Boston; Köln: Brill
Früher Schriftenreihe
Teilw. u.d.T.: Mnemosyne / Supplements
Reihe Supplementum zu: Mnemosyne
210. Shorrock, Robert: The challenge of epic: allusive engagement in the
Dionysiaca of Nonnus. - 2001
Shorrock, Robert:
The challenge of epic : allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of
Nonnus / by Robert Shorrock. - Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2001
(Mnemosyne : Supplementum ; 210)
ISBN 90-04-11795-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available.
ISSN 0169-8958
ISBN 90 04 11795 4
© Copyright 2001 by Koninklyke Brill NT; Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part qf this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, eleetronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items flr internal or personal
use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fies are paid direetry to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subjeet to change.
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
CONTENTS
Preface ... . .. ... .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... . .. ... . .. ... . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
VII
Introduction ............................................................................... .
Chapter One: The Challenge of Epic 7
Chapter Two: The Cyde of Dionysus .................................... 25
Introduction .............................................. ......................... ..... 25
1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................................................... 33
2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 59
3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 67
4. The Road to Olympus [40-8] ........................................ 95
Chapter Three: The Poet of Dionysus ............ ........................ 113
Introduction ............................................................................ 113
1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................... ... ................... .......... 121
2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 137
3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 170
4. The Road to 01ympus [40-8] ........................................ 189
Chapter Four: The Dionysiac Experience .............................. 207
Bib1iography ................................................................................ 215
Index Locorum ... ....................................... ....... ................ .... ..... 229
General Index ........ ...... ....... ............ ......................... .................. 240

PREFACE
This monograph represents a slightly revised version of my 1999
Cambridge Ph.D. thesis: 'Method and Madness in the Dionysaca of
Nonnus'.
The debts that I have incurred in the writing of this book stretch
back to long before my first fateful encounter with Nonnus in the
Classical Faculty Library, Cambridge in November 1994. My great
est debt is to my parents, Peter and Elizabeth Shorrock, for their
unwavering support, their encouragement and their interest over the
last twenty-seven years. It is to them with thanks and love that I
dedicate this book.
I am grateful to the several institutions and numerous teachers who
nurtured my early interest in the Classical world. At Clitheroe Royal
Grammar School my interest in Greek mythology was encouraged
by Dudley Green; whilst Keith Harwood sacrificed many lunch-hours
to te ach me Greek. It was as an undergraduate in the Department
of Classics at the University of Durharn that I was first taught to
think hard about the Classical world. In this pursuit T ony Woodman,
Michael Stokes and John Moles all gave freely of their time.
At Cambridge I was fortunate to be supervised by Neil Hopkinson
for both my M. Phil. and Ph.D. Over the space of five years he
played a wise and infinitely patient Homer to my own upstart Nonnus.
I have benefited greatly, and continue to benefit, from his example
and from his immense learning in the spheres of both Latin and Greek.
My two Ph.D. examiners, Philip Hardie and Byron Harries, were
both generous in sharing their insights into matters Nonnian. Their
detailed comments and criticisms have given me pause for thought
over a number of issues. Thanks must also go to Richard Hunter
for reading an early version of Chapter 2 and to J ason König who
read the complete manuscript in its two separate 'incarnations', as
thesis and book. The task of proof-reading was valiantly undertaken
by Theo Pike.
Throughout my time as a graduate in Cambridge I was supported
by a British Academy Major State Studentship; I benefited addi
tionally from a number of grants and awards from the Faculty of
Classics and Christ's College, Cambridge. Reference should also be
Vlll PREFACE
made to the stimulating atmosphere of Classics Graduate Common
room; it is to be thanked both for its company and for the cheer
ful forbearance with which it greeted a long line of research papers
on Nonnus' Dionysiaca.
Three years down the line I can now thank Vedia Izzet for all
that she has done to me. My editors at Brill, Marcella Mulder and
Gera van Bedaf, also deserve my appreciation for their expertise and
considerable patience. Finally, I should like to thank my colleagues
and pupils at Eton College for providing a humane and stimulating
environment in which to bring 77ze Challenge qf Epic to its conclusion.
Quotations from the Dionysiaca are taken from the Bude edition where
it is available, and otherwise from the 1959 edition of Keydell.
Translations from the Greek have been variously adopted and adapted
from the Loeb Classical Library.
Any infelicities that remain are, of course, my own.
RECS
Eton College
Windsor
November 2000
INTRODUCTION
There is no poet who has been so contradictorily judged as Nonnus.
Some have placed hirn on a par with Homer, and have found no lan
guage sufficiently warm to express their admiration. Others have treated
hirn with the opposite extreme of disparagement.
I
The appearance of the Dionysiaca in the fifth century AD had an
immediate and profound effect on the Graeco-Egyptian literary world.
Nonnus' stylistic influence on successive generations of poets, on
Colluthus and Musaeus, on Pamprepius, Christodorus and Dioscorus,
is readily discernible.2 His proe m is quoted from memory by Agathias
of Myrina, the sixth-century AD poet and historian; whilst from the
same century comes a papyrus fragment of several books of Nonnus'
epic: a clear demonstration of his early and established popularity.3
In the words of one critic, Nonnus was 'the most influential Greek
poet since Callimachus'.4
It would appear in fact that Nonnus' epic has maintained a con
tinuous, and even approving, sequence of readers from its first pub
lication until the present day.5 Read right through the Middle Ages,6
the Dionysiaca was taken up by Poliziano in Renaissance Italy, where
in the eighteenth century it came under the enthusiastic 'patronage'
of Giovan Batista Marino. At a similar time in Germany, Nonnus
was read and admired by Goethe. In England in the nineteenth cen
tury he was championed by the eccentric novelist Thomas Love
Thomas Love Peacock quoted by Lind (1978) 164-5; the sentiment is echoed
I
by Chamberlayne (1916) 40 in his own brief account of the reception of Nonnus.
2 It is a tradition of earlier criticism to talk about a 'school' of Nonnus; see, for
example, Bury (1889) 1.317: 'There was one remarkable poet in the fifth century,
and only one, who had a sufficiently original manner to found a school of imitators'.
3 P Beral. 10567; cf. Cameron (1993) 46: 'Together with Homer and Nonnus, the
Garlands may weil have been the most popular classical poetry books in mid-sixth
century Constantinople' [my emphasisJ.
4 Cameron (1982) 227.
5 On the later reception of Nonnus see the invaluable article by Lind (1978).
6 Lind (1978) notes allusions to Nonnus in Genesius and the Epitaphium Michaelis
!iJncelli (tenth century); Etymologicum Magnum (twelfth century); Maximus Planudes (thir
teenth century).
2 INTRODUCTION
Peaeoek, the friend of Shelley.7 A reeent reworking of Creek myth
ology by Roberto Calasso owes a great debt to the Dionysiaca, and
shows that, in eertain quarters at least, the spirit of Nonnus is still
alive and well. 8
Modern erities form a marked eontrast to this long and positive
line of readers, reaeting to the Dionysiaca with alternating bouts of
indifferenee and disdain. In his 1991 monograph, 7he idea qf epic,
J. B. Hainsworth went so far to declare that 'the loss of. .. Nonnus'
Dionysiaca would be no great eause for lamentation.,g His view is
extreme, but hardly heretieal.lO The majority of erities who do engage
with the Dionysiaca have interests whieh lie outside the field of liter
ary eritieism. The forty-eight-book epie has proved itself a valuable
resouree in the seareh for fragments of lost (and 'better') Hellenistie
writers; 11 it is also mueh treasured for its rieh seam of rare mytho
logieal ore: arepertory of eurious tales, often unattested elsewhere.12
Metrieal se hol ars have politely applauded the teehnieal eompetenee
of the Nonnian hexameter;13 whilst most reeently Nonnus' poem has
been used to exeavate and explore the soeio-politieal topography of
the late-Antique World.14 Attention is, however, seldom given to the
7 Lind (1978) 165 found no evidence that Shelley had himselfread Nonnus, 'but
it would be rash to assume that he did not do so and hc may cven have used
Nonnos as an inspiration somewhere in his poetry'. Lind's eaution may now have
been rewarded: see Mazzeo (1999) 145-54 who argues for the direct inftuence of
the Dionysiaca on Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.
8 Calasso (1993) passim, esp. 330-3.
9 Hainsworth (1991) 9.
10 It was Bentley who, to some extent, set the tone for the modem critical response
to Nonnus, when he described Nonnus as 'an able Grammarian, though a very
ordinary Poet' (Bentley (1699) quoted by Rose apud Rouse (1940) 1. xviii); Rose
(1958) 156 dismissed the Dionysiaca as '[a] long and very dull poem'; West (1992)
19 quotes j. W. B. Barns: 'he's so bad, he's almost good!' Even critics sympathetic
to Nonnus have shied away from declaring that the Dionysiaca coheres into a mean
ingful entity. Thus Jack Lindsay (1965) 393 is forced to confess that '[Nonnus']
whole fable, his narrative of the Indian war, is devoid of meaning. At best it is an
allegory of the wars between east and west from Alexander to early Byzantine days,
with their Persian threat; at worst it is a dull farrago of interminable Bacchic
onslaughts wh ich lack all drama because we know the wretched Indians cannot
defeat the god'.
II See especially Hollis (1976, 1994b).
12 Rose apud Rouse (1940) 1. xix: 'While ... anyone who uses Nonnos as a hand
book to any sort of normal and genuinely classical mythology will be grievously
misled, the searcher into sundry odd corners will be rewarded for his pains, and
even those who are studying the subject more generally cannot afford to neglect
this belated product of the learned faney of Hellenized Egypt.'
13 West (1982) 177.
14 Chuvin (1991).