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Eros Through the Looking-Glass? Erotic Ekphrasis and Narrative Structure in Moschus' Europa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

S.J. Harden
S.J. Harden*
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Oxford
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Extract

Moschus' Europa has long been recognised to be a highly visual and pictorial poem. It is also dominated by an erotic theme: the sexual awakening of the maiden Europa and her love affair with Zeus. This article will focus on a connection between erotic theme and highly visual narrative that has received attention in relation to Greek texts from the Roman Empire, but none in relation to Moschus. The sophisticated and self-conscious use of vision and ekphrasis in erotic narrative which has been traced in authors such as Achilles Tatius (in particular by Goldhill) is anticipated, I shall argue, in Moschus' Hellenistic poem. The work done on this theme in Achilles Tatius provides a useful framework for analysing Moschus' treatment of vision and desire and as such, I will refer to the work of Goldhill and Morales where it illuminates my approach to Moschus.

The Europa displays a striking combination of erotic theme and ekphrastic style: Moschus uses the motifs and techniques of ekphrasis to explore the erotic gaze, whereby the process of viewing a desirable object becomes the ‘action’ of the plot and ekphrasis transcends its normally digressive or embedded position within the structure of the text and appropriates the very narrative function of the poem. In terms of its visuality and exploration of visual themes, Moschus' Europa differs from Achilles Tatius and from the poetry of his own contemporaries such as the Argonautica, for although other poets often explore similar themes of vision and desire, the form and structure of Moschus' poem set his treatment apart. The Europa is a short poem of 166 lines and it is dominated by visual description: firstly by the ekphrasis of the basket and then by three extended descriptive scenes which, as I argue below, should also be treated as ekphraseis.

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Research Article
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Ramus , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 87 - 105
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Copyright © Aureal Publications 2011

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References

NOTES

1. The Greek text of Moschus is taken from Gow, A.S.F., Bucolici Graeci (Oxford 1952)Google Scholar. All English translations from Greek authors are my own unless stated otherwise. On Moschus' pictorialism see Zanker, G., Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and its Audience (London 1987), 92–94Google Scholar; Paschalis, M., ‘Etymology and enargeia: Re-reading Moschus' Europa (vis-à-vis Hor. C. 3.27)’, in Nifadopoulos, C. (ed.), Etymologia: Studies in Ancient Etymology (Münster 2003), 153-63, at 153Google Scholar; Hopkinson, N., A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988), 201f.Google Scholar

2. See especially Morales, H., Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius' ‘Leucippe and Clitophon’ (Cambridge 2004)Google Scholar. On the erotic gaze in Second Sophistic literature see Goldhill, S., ‘The Erotic Eye: Visual Stimulation and Cultural Conflict’, in Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire (Cambridge 2001), 154–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on ekphrasis and the culture of viewing in the Hellenistic period see id., ‘The Naïve and Knowing Eye: Ecphrasis and the Culture of Viewing in the Hellenistic World’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 197-223; for the gaze and ekphrasis in Euripides see F. Zeitlin, ‘The Artful Eye: Vision, Ecphrasis and Spectacle in Euripidean Theatre’, in Goldhill and Osborne op. cit., 138-96.

3. I will not argue here for an intertextual relationship between Moschus and Achilles Tatius in terms of their treatment of vision and desire; although such an argument could certainly be upheld, my interest is primarily in the Hellenistic poet's exploration of this theme. On the influence of Moschus on Achilles Tatius see Mignona, E., ‘Europa o Selene? Achille Tazio e Mosco o il ritorno dell’ “inversione”’, Maia 45 (1993), 177–83Google Scholar.

4. In fact, this argument could be made of several of the Hellenistic poets and even of earlier poets; although it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss many other poets in detail, this forms part of a larger project of research into erotic ekphrasis and poetics in Hellenistic poetry in which I am engaged.

5. For ekphrasis as a digressive tactic see Morales (n.2 above), 96-143.

6. On which see Webb, R., Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Burlington 2009), 1–11 and passimGoogle Scholar.

7. Webb (n.6 above), 1; cf. also Elsner, J., ‘Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis’, Ramus 31 (2002), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For Moschus' influence on later texts see Raminella, L.M., ‘Mosco attraverso i secoli’, Maia 2 (1949), 14–29Google Scholar.

9. For Europa in Hellenistic art cf. Robertson LIMCIV s.v. Europe I; Hopkinson (n.1 above), 202. Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R., Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge 2004), 223Google Scholar, comment on the myth's popularity in art and suggest that lines 115-30 of Moschus' Europa ‘may be directly indebted to artistic representations’. For the human body and ekphrasis see Whitmarsh, T., ‘Written on the Body: Ekphrasis, Perception and Deception in Heliodorus' Aethiopica’, Ramus 31 (2002), 111–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Elsner (n.7 above), 8.

11. Love at first sight is a common theme in Greek literature, e.g. Apollo/Cyrene at Pindar Pythian 9.26-37), Anchises/Aphrodite at Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 56f.; for love and sight more generally see Plato's, Phaedrus 254eGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Campbell, M. (ed. and comm.), Moschus: Europa (Hildesheim 1991), 79Google Scholar.

12. The Greek text is that of Fraenkel, H., Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica (Oxford 1961)Google Scholar. Cf. Hunter, R.L., Argonautica Book III (Cambridge 1989), 148 ad 453–58Google Scholar, for parallels to these lines.

13. Although she is also said to remember the sound of his voice in her ears: Arg. 3.457f. Hunter (n.12 above), 148 ad 453-58, notes the privileging of sight here: ‘Medea “sees” Jason speaking…’.

14. A.R. Arg. 3.956-61.

15. Medea's reaction to Jason's appearance is highly psychologised, but the connection between the erotic gaze and subjective viewing of the object of desire as an ekphrasis does not figure in Apollonius' love story.

16. I will be discussing Apollonius and other Hellenistic authors at a later date in continuation of the research project of which this article forms a part (cf. n.4 above).

17. Cf. Zanker (n.1 above), 93, who briefly notes the importance of sight to the action of the poem: ‘It is the sight of Europa…that moves Zeus to action (74f.), and it is the sight of the handsome bull that motivates Europa's interest in him.’ [His italics.]

18. On parallelism between basket and main narrative see Perutelli, A., ‘L’inversione speculare: per una retorica dell'ecphrasis’, MD 1 (1978), 87–98, at 91–94Google Scholar; Fowler, D.P., ‘Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis’, JRS 81 (1991), 25–35, at 30Google Scholar; Hopkinson (n.1 above), 202; Campbell (n.11 above), 52-56; Bühler, W., ‘Die Europa des Moschos: Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar’ (Hermes Einzelschrifien 13: Wiesbaden 1960), 85f.Google Scholar and individual notes on lines 37-62.

19. Gutzwiller, K.J., Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion (Königstein 1981), 67Google Scholar, thinks that Europa is utterly unaware of the connotations of the basket.

20. Cf. also for colour in the ekphrasis of the basket: χϱυσοῖο (43), άϱγύϱεος (53), χαλϰείη (54), χϱυσοῦ (54), ϕοινήεντος (58), πολυανθέϊ χϱοιῇ (59). For emphasis on physical details: ἐν τῷ (43), ἐν μὲν (44), ἐφ' ἀλμυϱὰ (46), ἐν (50), ἀμϕι (55), πέλας (56), ἀϕ' (58).

21. Becker, A.S., The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis (Maryland 1995)Google Scholar notes at several points (72, 102, 125, 138, 144) the force of the preposition ἐν in emphasising the physicality of the shield of Achilles by drawing the reader's attention to the surface of the shield on which the images are crafted. Cf. also Becker, A.S., ‘Reading Poetry through a Distant Lens: Ecphrasis, Ancient Greek Rhetoricians, and the Pseudo-Hesiodic ‘Shield of Herakles'’, AJP 113 (1992), 5–24, at 15f.Google Scholar, where he notes the importance of spatial language (including prepositions) in ekphrastic description. The ekphrasis of the basket provides a useful illustration in its use of spatial terminology: ἐν τῶ, (43), ἐν (44), ἐϕ' (46), ἐπ' (48), ἐν (50), παϱὰ (51), ἀμϕί, ὑπό (55). The later scenes in the Europa do not emphasise the physicality of an object (for obvious reasons) but do show a concern to define the locations of each element in the tableau in spatial terms.

22. Although the word ‘peacock’ does not appear in the Greek, I take the bird to be a peacock after Campbell (n.11 above), 66 ad 55-61; Hopkinson (n.1 above), 206f.; Bühler (n.18 above), 104f. R. Schmiel, ‘Moschus’ Europa', CP 76 (1981), 261-72, at 271, thinks it is a phoenix. Cf. Paschalis (n.1 above), 158: ‘The keen gaze of his hundred eyes “frozen” on the plumage that runs round the rim of the basket aptly concludes the ekphrasis and becomes emblematic of its enargeia'.

23. Il. 18. 607f. details the rim of the shield. Cf. Edwards, M., The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. V: Books 17-20 (Cambridge 1991), 232CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the significance of Oceanus surrounding the scenes on the shield ‘as he surrounds the flat disc of the earth on which men and women work out their lives’.

24. This structural diagram is obviously over-simplified, as all such things are; its aim is to show the structure of the poem based around the three central scenes. It is not an attempt to deny the presence or importance of e.g. the conversation between Europa and her maidens which takes place at the end of the section I have labelled ‘scene ii)’.

25. For structure in the poem cf. Bühler (n.18 above), 44f; Schmiel (n.22 above), 261: ‘The Europa exhibits tripartite structure…in that there are three longer and more important sections, each of which can be divided into three subsections, the central subsection in each case being a description…’ Hopkinson (n.1 above), 202, divides the poem into four ‘tableaux’, the last of which is Europa ‘canonized as mother’. However, Europa's motherhood is described in one line at the end of the poem (166) with a brief foreshadowing in the speech of Zeus (a line and a half, 160f.). This hardly constitutes a ‘tableau’ on the same scale as the other three which Hopkinson identifies (the sea procession, meadow-scene and the dream) and it would seem that his structural analysis of the poem is unbalanced.

26. For a technical analysis of the Europa's structure in terms of verbal repetitions and ring composition see Schmiel (n.22 above), 261-72. Note esp. Zanker (n.2 above), 94: ‘Its three main scenes are all eminently picturable.’

27. Petrain, D., ‘Moschus' Europa and the Narratology of Ecphrasis’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R.F. and Wakker, G.C. (eds.), Beyond the Canon (Leuven 2006), 249-69, at 249Google Scholar.

28. Petrain (n.27 above), 249-57.

29. As Longus' narrator says he is trying to do in the prologue of Daphnis and Chloe.

30. Cf. Hopkinson (n.1 above), 202: ‘Unlike a picture, the poem has temporal progression: it relates the metamorphosis of Europa from virgin to mother.’ I would argue that plastic art is certainly capable of narrating such a progression.

31. Cf. Zanker (n.1 above), 93; Bühler (n.18 above), 85f. (with n. on lines 37-62), for the basket's foreshadowing of the outcome of the main narrative.

32. For this function of ekphrasis (enargeia) see Webb (n.6 above), 21-27 and esp. 87-103; Elsner (n.7 above), 1-3; Becker (n.21 above), 25.

33. On the combination of an essential staticness with apparent movement in ekphrasis and in visual art, see pp.98f. below.

34. Campbell (n.11 above), 71 ad 65-71, notes that Moschus' treatment of the flower catalogue is more vivid and pictorial than that of the HDem, terming Moschus' effort as a series of ‘highly ornamented separate pictures’.

35. Cf. Bühler (n.18 above), 108f., on this scene; see esp. 109 n.(b) where the scarcity of extant visual art representing this scene in the Europa myth is discussed.

36. For the term used to mean ‘splendour’, ‘magnificence’, cf. Soph. El. 211; in the sense of ‘pomp’, ‘show’, cf. Hom. Od. 17.310; in the sense of ‘adornment’, cf. A.R. Arg. 4.1191. Note too the proper noun Ἀγλαία as the name of the muse who presided over victories at the games, an activity associated closely with spectacle and display; cf. Hes. Th. 945.

37. Cf. Hopkinson (n.1 above), 208 n.71.

38. Campbell (n.11 above),75 ad 69b-71. See also Bühler (n.18 above), 115 ad 71.

39. Cf. Bühler (n.18 above), 119 ad 74, for the Homeric antecedents of this ‘love at first sight’ scene.

40. Cf. Campbell (n.11 above), 79 ad 75f., on the animalistic imagery of ὑποδμηθεὶς.

41. Morales (n.2 above), 158, notes a similar power-dynamic of visual desire in Achilles Tatius' account of Cleitophon's first sight of Leucippe: the novel represents ‘the viewer as disempowered and the person viewed as wielding awesome and disabling power’. On erotic viewing in the novel see Morales (n.2 above), 152-220. For earlier examples of male as active viewer of female cf. Hom. Il. 16.179, Pi. P. 9.26-37, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 56f.

42. Although Leucippe is described as viewing subject in Achilles Tatius (233), this is mediated through Cleitophon's own perspective and does not have direct implications for her power as viewing subject in the same way that Europa's view of Zeus does in the Europa. Cf. Morales (n.2 above), 165.

43. Cf. Hopkinson (n.1 above), 204 n.23, Campbell (n.11 above), 23-25, and Gutzwiller (n.19 above), 64, for a more detailed account of the erotic aspects of this dream and Europa's reaction to it.

44. For the Homeric parallel to Europa's dream see Schmiel (n.22 above), 266; Raminella, L.M., ‘Mosco imitatore di Omero’, Maia 4 (1951), 262–79, at 262f.Google Scholar; Bühler (n.18 above), 55; Campbell (n.11 above), 21.

45. Hopkinson (n.1 above), 206: ‘Europa inherits not only the basket, but also the experiences depicted on it.’

46. Persephone in the HDem is extremely unwilling (ἀέϰουσαν, HDem 19); cf. Richardson, N., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974), 152Google Scholar, on the contrast between the reluctant Persephone and Moschus' heroine. Cf. also Aphrodite's supposed kidnap by Hermes in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 117-29 with Faulkner, A., The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Oxford 2008), 193Google Scholar, on these lines.

47. Goldhill (n.2 above ‘Erotic Eye’), 179. What is not so prominent in the Europa is the self-conscious use of scientific and philosophical theory of the eye which Goldhill traces in much of the literature of the Second Sophistic.

48. Cf. Cypria fr. 4; Pi. P. 9.25-70; HDem 5-29; Eur. Ion 881-922. See also Bühler (n.18 above), 110ff.; Gutzwiller (n.19 above), 68; Hopkinson (n.1 above), 205 n.32: ‘Young girls who pluck flowers do so at their own risk.’

49. On the opening scenes of the HDem see Richardson (n.46 above), 136-61.

50. The Greek text of the HDem is taken from Allen, T.W., Halliday, W.R. and Sikes, E.E., The Homeric Hymns (Oxford 1936)Google Scholar. Cf. HDem, 1-5 and 9 for the ‘will of Zeus’ in this rape of Persephone.

51. Cf. HDem 68. Although Helios is able to tell Demeter who snatched her daughter (lines 75-87), he is not said to have seen the deed earlier in the poem, but rather to have heard it (26).

52. Cf. Campbell (n.11 above), 86, and Bühler (n.18 above), 133f., for discussion of the term.

53. Cf. Hom. Il. 13.801; Alc. 15.1 (gleaming bronze); Bacchylides fr.16.9 (gleaming gold and ivory).

54. Campbell (n.11 above), 88 ad 88.

55. Greek text and translation from Austin, C. and Bastianini, G., Posidippi Pellaei Quae Supersunt Omnia (Milan 2002), 38Google Scholarf.

56. Hopkinson (n.1 above), 209 ad 80-83, simply comments ‘This was no ordinary bull’.

57. Goldhill (n.2 above ‘Erotic Eye’), 186. Cf. also Morales (n.2 above), 154 (on Achilles Tatius).

58. Although see Gutzwiller (n.19 above), 66: ‘Her attraction to the bull can be seen as the enchantment of an immature girl for a desirable pet.’ This statement would seem to be at odds with Gutzwiller's later argument (69) that these lines are ‘filled with sexual innuendos’.

59. See West, M.L., Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford 1966), 409 ad 910Google Scholar, for discussion of this phenomenon. The Greek text of Hesiod quoted above is taken from this same edition.

60. For Europa on the bull with marine markers, cf. e.g. the archaic metope from Temple Y at Selinous (c.560 BCE) and the late archaic ‘Beazley Gem’, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1966:596 (Carpenter, T.H., Art and Myth in Ancient Greece [London 1991], figs. 57 and 56)Google Scholar; cf. also the fourth-century fish plate in St. Petersburg (Barringer, J., ‘Europa and the Nereids: Wedding or Funeral?’, AJA 95 [1991], 657-67, at 661)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The motif persists through to late Roman examples in England and Syria: Dunbabin, K., Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge 1999), 97, 184Google Scholar. See too the commentary of Bühler (n.18 above), 14f.

61. Campbell (n.11 above), 103 ad 115.

62. Although the maidens' reaction to the scene is not described in the text, Europa stretches out her hands to them as she is carried off, implying that they are watching. Furthermore, her conversation with Zeus only begins once she has lost sight of her native land, again implying that up until this point she has been gazing backwards at the shore where her companions have been left behind.

63. γαληνιάαοϰε (115), ἄταλλε (116), ϰυβίστεε (117), ἐστιχόωντο (119), ἡγεῖτο (120), ἠγεϱέθοντο (122), ἔχεν (126), εἴϱυε (128), ἐλαϕϱίζεσϰε (130).

64. It is also worth noting the dominance of the imperfect tense in the flower-picking scene: ἵϰανον (63), ἔτεϱπον (64), ἀπαίνυτο (66), θαλεθεσκε (67), δϱέπτον (69).

65. The Greek text of the Iliad is taken from Allen, T.W., Homeri Ilias (Oxford 1931)Google Scholar.

66. Cf. Europa 79 (quoted p.97 above), ϰϱύψε θεὸν ϰαὶ τϱέψε δέμας γείνετο ταῦϱος, followed by the 5-line ekphrasis from 84-88 with the dominating imperfect tense: ἔσϰε (84), μάϱ-μαιϱε (85), ύπογλαύσσεσϰε, ἀστϱάπτεσϰεν (86), ἀνέτελλε (87).

67. Aphthonius 38.1-41.

68. LIMC IV s.v. Europe I; Webster, T.B.L., Hellenistic Poetry and Art (New York 1964), 154f.Google Scholar

69. Campbell (n.11 above), 108 ad 123.

70. Cf. Campbell (n.11 above), 105 ad 117: ‘so in art a single (representative) dolphin is sometimes pictured’.

71. Cf. Campbell (n.11 above), 128-31, for a summary of the discussion on the end of the Europa.

72. Goldhill (n.2 above ‘Erotic Eye’), 169.

73. Goldhill (n.2 above ‘Naïve and Knowing Eye’), 211: he applies this to epigram, which quite literally ‘narrativises the gaze’ by describing a painting seen by the speaker.

74. I have given oral versions of this paper in Oxford and Venice and am much indebted to the comments and questions of both audiences. I am also grateful to Bill Allan, Adrian Kelly, Jaś Elsner, Chris Pelling, Richard Hunter, David Sider and the anonymous readers for their generous and helpful comments on the written version. Enrico Prodi is also owed thanks for his help in translating the passage quoted from the Iliad. Any remaining errors are of course the responsibility of the author.