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Double, Double: Two African Medeas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Martha Malamud
Martha Malamud*
Affiliation:
University at Buffalo(State University of New York)
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When Seneca's Medea flies off in her serpent-drawn chariot, shedding ruin, heartbreak and death and leaving it all behind her on the stage, we are too stunned to wonder where she might be headed. As it turns out, this enterprising exile continued her career with great success in Roman Africa. This essay considers two remarkable Later Roman Medeas: Hosidius Geta's early third (?) century tragedy Medea and Dracontius' late fifth century epyllion Medea. Both were products of the flourishing, experimental, literary culture of Roman Africa that produced such writers as Apuleius, Tertullian, Augustine, Corippus, Martianus and Fulgentius. Although the two poems present radically different heroines, both exhibit the sophisticated allusivity, wordplay and interest in formal structures and rules that characterise Latin literature from Africa. One Medea makes a lethal intervention in Vergilian poetics; the other Medea channels a distinctively Statian Muse.

Hosidius Geta's Medea is a short tragedy consisting of eight scenes and three choral songs that recounts the familiar events of Medea's vengeance in an unfamiliar form—it is the first extant example from antiquity of a cento. Mystery shrouds the origins of this Medea—we are unlikely ever to know for certain where, when or by whom it was written. It is probably a late second or very early third century text from Roman Africa. It is first mentioned by Tertullian, who brings it up as an example of the kind of improper manipulation of scripture perpetrated by heretical readers—that is, as a perverted form of reading. Tertullian's digressive expostulation is the first account we have both of Hosidius' Medea and of the cento form, i.e., the creation of poems made entirely from lines or half lines of a master-text. Tertullian's wording, however, implies that his readers will immediately recognise what a cento is, suggesting that this art form had been around for a long time. More interestingly, in light of the later Christian adoption of the cento form, he disapproves of the reading practices their composition implies, and finds Scripture especially vulnerable to such abuse. It is not hard to see why the fundamentalist preacher Tertullian would be alarmed by the poetics of the cento, for centos expose the multivalent nature of language, forcing the reader constantly to focus on the protean ability of words to change their meanings depending on context. To one whose goal is to establish truth according to the authoritative rule of faith, such linguistic play is threatening.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 41 , Issue 1-2: Roman Medea , 2012 , pp. 161 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2012

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References

NOTES

1. The text of the manuscript has MEDEA written above, which may indicate the title of the play, the personage speaking, or both. The author's name is not given. The Tertullian manuscripts offer Vosidius Geta, Osidius Geta, and Offidius or Ovidius citra [sic]. Hosidius Geta is an emendation by N. Regaltius (Paris 1634). See Rondholz (2011), 114-19, for a thorough discussion of the evidence for the variants of the author's name and the probable date of the cento, whose terminus ante quem must be 203, the date of De praescriptione haereticorum. Dane (1950) proposed that the centonist chose the pen name Ovidius Geta in order to associate himself with Ovid, who wrote his own (now lost) Medea tragedy. Dane argues that by using the cognomen Geta, the poet associates himself with Ovid, who lived among the Getae while exiled in Tomis—and Ovid explains in Tristia 3.9 that Tomis is derived from Greek τὲμνω, to cut, because it was there that Medea cut up her brother Absyrtus. Hardie (2007) finds this an attractive notion especially given the unusual prominence of Absyrtus, whose ghost appears on stage near the end of the play. As will be clear from my arguments, I too find this association of the poet with the exiled Ovid and specifically with Tomis/τὲμνω attractive, though it is by no means certain.

2. The practice of creating cento-poems clearly pre-existed Tertullian and Hosidius. Quintilian (Inst. 6.3.96) says that Ovid composed a parody condemning bad poets taken entirely from the verses of Macer; Lucian (Symp. 17) describes a poem combining lines from Pindar, Hesiod and Anacreon. By Tertullian's day, it seems that Vergil and Homer had become established master-texts. Recently interest in the cento has taken off and the bibliography on the cento form is extensive: see Lamacchia (1958a, 1958b and 1981), Bright (1984), Malamud (1989) Chapter I, Verweyen and Witting (1991), Green (1995), Usher (1998), McGill (2002 and 2005), Moretti (2008), Schottenius (2010). Rondholz (2011) provides an excellent overview of the history of the cento in antiquity. My thinking on the cento has also benefited from a draft of Stephen Hinds's (forthcoming b) ‘The Self-Conscious Cento’.

3. As does Irenaeus of Lyons, writing slightly earlier (175-89) than Tertullian. Although he does not use the Greek word for cento, kentron, he describes Gnostic misuse of the Scriptures as similar to the productions of ‘those who would propose themes which they chance upon and then try to put to verse from Homeric poems’ (Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.9.4.). See Rondholz (2011), 8-10.

4. See Nugent (1990).

5. Netzand Noel (2007).

6. Netz and Noel (2007), Chapter 10: ‘The Stomachion, 2003, or Archimedes at Play.’

7. The puzzle is also described by the fourth century African writer Marius Victorinus (ars grammatica 3.2.1) and the Neronian poet Caesius Bassus, fragmentum de metris.

8. Hays (2004), 114.

9. Assuming that the Porfirius cited by Fulgentius is the same Optatianus Porfirius who produced the acrostic poems. See Hays (2004), 107-20, and George (2004), passim, for good discussions of the late Latin African literary scene, and for Optatian, see Levitan (1985), Malamud (1989), 39-41, Miller (1998), 123-25. For the Greek tradition of playful and restrictive verse, see the authoritative Luz (2010). For a discussion of the remarkable lipogrammatic Iliad of Nestor of Laranda, see Ma (2007).

10. A conference on the Playful Muse, ‘Mousa Paizei’, at the University of Warsaw, 6-7 May 2011, showcased technopaegnia, puns, riddles, acrostics and other forms of restrictive verse. A list of papers is available on line (http://www.ifk.uw.edu.pl/mousapaidzei.html) and proceedings of the conference are forthcoming.

11. McGill (2005), Hardie (2007), Rondholz (2011).

12. Hardie (2007), 174.

13. Hinds (2000). McGill (2005), 41-46, shows how Hosidius uses the Medeas of Ovid and Seneca; Rondholz (2011), 141-45, shows that he alludes systematically as well to the Medeas of Apollonius, Ennius and Euripides.

14. Rondholz (2011), 145-50, discusses the thematic importance of the Nisus and Euryalus episode.

15. Well discussed by Hardie (2007), 175.

16. Rondholz (2011), 157.

17. See Ebbeler (2010), 187: ‘It is curious that Vergil gives Linus, a marginal mythological character, such a prominent role in the intensely metapoetic scene of Gallus' poetic investiture. We might suspect that there is more going on than meets the eye, as is so often the case in Vergil's poetry. Indeed, David Ross (1975), 164, goes so far as to argue that in Vergilian pastoral ‘Linus came to be the divine archetypal poet of the pastoral world’. Certainly, it is significant that Linus' two appearances in the Eclogues come in what many readers consider to be the two most dense and allusive poems in the collection.’

18. Rondholz (2011), 161.

19. Breed (2006), 93 [my emphasis].

20. Feldherr (2004), 79.

21. Feldherr (2004), 83.

22. Ebbeler (2010), 199.

23. Necessarily so, as Vergil does not mention the name of either Marsyas or Icarus in any of his extant texts.

24. The name of Mnestheus' ship, Pristis, means ‘Sea-Monster’. Another boat in the race is named Scylla.

25. Indeed, Ovid too seems intent on casting Icarus as an avian failure, as he frames his story between those of Scylla and Perdix, both of whom escape death by being transformed successfully into birds.

26. See Thomas (1988), ad Geo. 1.406-09, and O'Hara (2001), 393-95, who discusses the complex intertextual etymological play on the various etymologies of Scylla, and the confusion arising from the existence of two different Scyllas—the daughter of Nisus cited here, and the sea monster Scylla (cited by Silenus in Eclogue 6.74-77 and Aen. 3.432; in these instances Vergil puns on the derivation of Scylla from σϰύλαξ, puppy).

27. The repetition of secat signals not one, but two etymological glosses, as it is quite likely that ancient readers would associate Scylla with the verb σϰύλλω, to cut, mangle, maltreat. See O'Hara (2001), 392-94.

28. See Malamud (1998), Casali (2006) on the catalogues; Bleisch (1998) for a similar play, this time geographical, in Aen. 1.

29. The ghost's opening line is a quote from Allecto, Virgil's in Aeneid 7Google Scholar, an allusion that itself recalls the unnamed Fury who bears witness to the murder of Absyrtus in the Argonautica.

30. Hardie (2007), 175.

31. A point made by Rondholz (2011), 188f.

32. The concluding couplet, with its near-rhymes AMORes…aMAROs and its etymological linking of love (amor) with amarus, bitter, is also an anagrammatic play on Vergil's name, P. Vergilius MARO.

33. Schultz (2003), 212-14, discusses the question of how many cups there are, and their symbolic importance.

34. See Schultz (2003), Henderson (1998).

35. Schultz (2003), 220.

36. Hardie (2007), 170f.

37. Evelyn White (1919), xvi-xvii.

38. Quotation from the beginning of Chapter 5. Tim Burton's ‘Edward Scissorhands,’ a 20th century film version of Frankenstein's monster (crossed with Beauty and the Beast), makes an equally apt analogy for the cento. Cf. Maslin (1990): ‘As embodied by Johnny Depp, Edward himself is a stunning creation, with a blackish cupid's-bow mouth and plaintive expression to offset his fright hairdo, abundant scars and potentially lethal hands. Those hands, which quiver uncontrollably when Edward experiences strong emotion, are the one aspect of the young man that his creator (played by Vincent Price…) neglected to complete. The inventor died just before he could equip Edward with human hands, thus leaving him with these scissor-bladed prototypes.’

39. See Merrills (2004b) for a thorough discussion of the addressee of the unknown poem that resulted in Dracontius' imprisonment. Merrills argues against the idea that Dracontius had written in praise of a foreign ruler and proposes that in fact Dracontius had written panegyrical poetry for the Vandal king Huneric, and was later punished for doing so when Gunthamund came to the throne after a bloody succession struggle.

40. George (2004), 143.

41. McGill (2005), 74.

42. Well discussed by Bright (1987), 35-37, especially Cupid's pantomime performance in the Hylas. Hall and Wyles (2008) and Webb (2008) provide an excellent starting point for investigating ancient pantomime and performance. The quotation is from Webb (2008), 113f.

43. Malamud (1993) discusses some of the erotic elements of the Aegritudo Perdicae and Dracontius' Hylas in the context of the poetics of those texts; many of the same elements can be found in the Medea as well.

44. fert animus evokes Lucan as well as Ovid. Lucan announces his immensum opus in Ovidian terms as he girds himself for the task of narrating the collapse of the physical and social fabric of Rome: fert animus causas tantarum expromere rerum,/inmensumque aperitur opus, quid in arma furentem/inpulerit populum, quid pacem excusserit orbi (‘my mind leads me to reveal the causes of such great events, an immense task opens up—what impelled a raging people into war, what drove peace from the world?’, BC 1.67-69).

45. Cf. Call. Epigr. 28.4 (Pfeiffer); it was a hatred shared by Horace (Odes 3.1.1) and Vergil (Geo. 3.4).

46. See Zanobi (2008) for a discussion of pantomime elements in Seneca's tragic Medea.

47. Dracontius is responding here to AL 88, a poem describing the nine Muses in nine verses, in which Melpomene is described thus: Melpomene reboans tragicis feruescit iambis (‘re-echoing Melpomene glows hot with tragic iambs’). See Shanzer (1986), 17f., for a discussion of the relative dates of AL 88, Martianus Capella and Dracontius. Dracontius presents another comical account of theatrical costume in Hylas 80-89, in which Cupid is presented as a pantomime actor playing the role of a naiad, as discussed by Bright (1987), 35. Alas, the alluring notion that Hylas was influenced by ‘Thetis-mimes’ or ‘hydro-mimes’ put forward by Bright (1987), 36, has been undermined by Retzleff (2003), who re-examines the evidence and argues against the existence of the hydromime, contra Traversari (1960) and d'Ippolito (1962).

48. By placing Medea in the role of Iphigenia, Dracontius reprises his own Orestis Tragoedia, which includes a mini-version of the Iphigenia in Tauris, much in the way that Ovid liberally laces his poetry with allusions to his own texts.

49. Dracontius similarly excises both the Argo and the Argonauts in his version of the Hylas tale, and transfers the setting of the rape from Mysia in Asia Minor to Greece.

50. Webb (2008), 108, notes that the heroine of the Charition mime (a slapstick farce that includes a farting fool, drunken barbarians speaking fake Indian dialogue, and pratfalls) has been serving as a priestess in a barbarian temple, like Iphigenia among the Tauri and Medea here.

51. Jason's role as sacrificial victim here recalls Apollonius' account of the murder of Absyrtus in a temple to Artemis, where Jason is compared to a butcher killing a bull.

52. The unwelcome wedding guest is a standard motif; see Kaufmann (2006) ad loc. for classical parallels.

53. With the possible exception of Hosidius' Medea—the setting of the play is not specified.

54. It is perhaps a sign of Dracontius' sense of humour that Jason and Medea sail to Thebes, for Statius' Thebaid is a notoriously land-locked epic—a fact that Statius draws attention to by deploying a series of ship-similes throughout the poem to describe both the doomed ship of state and the epic voyage of his own poem.

55. In the Thebaid, the sinister nature of the scene and the presence of the ghost are reinforced by the phrase uentum erat ad, which conjures up the eerie entrance to the Sibyl's cave in Aen. 6.45.

56. David Bright summarises the significance of the Thebaid as the model for the second half of this Medea: ‘Throughout the second half of the poem Dracontius uses reminiscences of the Statian conception of Thebes to make the reader think of (1) the cruel and impious nature of Statius' Theban ruler (cf. tyrannus nocens in 380-81) as similar to the Creon presented here… (2) the other afflictions which have struck the House of Thebes, thereby linking the tragedy of Jason to a larger chain of calamities; and (3) the association of the Furies with events in Thebes, as depicted by Statius and as explained by Dracontius.’ Bright (1987), 69f.

57. On doubling and twins in the Thebaid, see O'Gorman (2005) and on this phenomenon more generally in epic, Hardie (1993); for a stimulating discussion of this phenomenon in Valerius (and extensive further bibliography), see Krasne (2011), Ch. 3, ‘A Tale of Twos’.

58. Bright (1987), 82, discusses the symmetry of the plot and provides a schematic representation of it.

59. Bright (1987), 82f.

60. Cf. Verg. Aen. 9.525, uos, o Calliope, precor, aspirate canenti (‘all of you, Calliope, I pray, inspire me as I sing’).

61. An argument developed in Malamud (1995).

62. In its context, hausto de fonte foreshadows the supernatural drought Bacchus is shortly to inflict on the Argive troops later in Theb. 4. Cf. the discussion of Malamud (1993), 170f.: Calliope in the Aegritudo Perdicae presides as anorexic Muse over an incestuous text.

63. Henderson (1998), 224f.