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Dissonant Sympathy: Song, Orpheus, and the Golden Age in Seneca's Tragedies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Charles Segal
Charles Segal*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

Orpheus has a prominent place in the choral odes of Seneca's Medea, Hercules Furens, and Hercules Oetaeus (the last, even if not by Seneca, may be considered within the context of Senecan drama). Outside of the tragedies, Seneca has only a passing reference to Orpheus as the figure with whom poetry begins (Ep. 88.39). In the tragedies he treats Orpheus as a magical poet-savior and a civilizing hero. In contrast to Virgil and Ovid, to whose versions of the Orpheus myth he clearly alludes, he deliberately de-emphasizes the brutal death at the hands of the Thracian maenads.

Seneca draws on the double focus of the myth in the earlier tradition. On the one hand Orpheus is the consummate poet who knows the mysteries of nature and through his art stands in special sympathy to it. On the other hand as a victim of love and the furor it may bring, he is also a tragic figure who through passion experiences loss, mourning, and death. In this latter aspect the Hercules Oetaeus contrasts his end unfavorably with the future apotheosis of its hero (H.O. 1035); but, as we shall see, Seneca elsewhere takes a more favorable attitude to the poet-hero.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 12 , Issue 1-2 , 1983 , pp. 229 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1983

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References

1. For the question of authenticity of H.O. see the bibliography in Coffey (1957), 140–143; Galinsky (1972), 167, with note 2 on p. 183; Opelt (1972), 125 n. 87. The question remains unresolved, but there seems to be growing support for authenticity and especially for the notion that the play may be an unrevised work of Seneca. The text of the tragedies is generally quoted from Giardina (1966).

2. See Solimano (1980), esp. 161, 165. Solimano’s article has a focus very different from mine: she is concerned largely with Seneca’s specific transmutations of Ovid and Virgil and with the supposed interchangeability of the Hippolytus of the Phaedra with Orpheus and Theocritus’ Daphnis. I am not convinced by the latter part of her thesis, but the detailed observations of Seneca’s use of Virgil and Ovid are useful.

3. For the two sides of Orpheus see Segal (1978), 113f., 126–8. For a recent study of the Virgilian and Ovidian versions of the Orpheus legend, with a bibliography, see Anderson (1982).

4. For the importance of this intellectual and moral ‘recognition’ see Lefèvre (1972b), 350ff.

5. Eliot (1951a), 132, 139f.

6. See Virgil, Ecl. 6.27–30; Putnam (1970), 200–2, 255–57; Segal (1978), 108–10, and (1981), 313–15, 317–21; Desport (1952), 154ff.

7. For the theme of man’s harmony with nature in the Metamorphoses see Otis (1970), 233 and 256.

8. See Seneca, Ep. 115-lff. and De Ben. 1.3.10; in general DeLacy (1948), esp. 266f.

9. Ibid. 241.

10. See Pohlenz (1948), I.227f.

11. See Horace, Ars Poet. 391–96 with Kiessling-Heinze’s commentary on 394; Pausanias 6.20.18 and 9.5.7. For Virgil too Amphion is a mythical fore-runner of pastoral song: see Ecl. 2.23f.; also Horace, C. 3.11.If.

12. On the degeneration of epic heroism in the Troades see Brower (1971), 150–55, especially 152ff.

13. On this symbolic underworld see Shelton (1978), chap. 4, especially 55–57; Henry and Walker (1965), 14f. and 21f.

14. On the danger of physical force see ibid. 61ff., 69ff., 73.

15. See Segal (1972), 479, 491, and (1978), 128f.; also Solimano (1980), 154f.

16. Shelton (1978), 45.

17. With Orpheus’ ‘loss’ (perdidit, H.F. 589) of Eurydice compare Hercules’ loss in 1331, ubique notus perdidi exilio locum (‘known everywhere, I have lost a place by exile’). The verb occurs only in these two places in the play.

18. On Hercules’ scelus see Shelton (1978), 67–69.

19. Note the ambiguity of inferna here: it can refer to mens as well as to simulacra. Hercules’ ‘mind’ still retains a quality of ‘underworld’ violence.

20. On the contrast of spiritual and physical endurance in the Stoic tradition see Galinsky (1972), 130f. and 174, citing Const, sap. 2.2. On the anti-heroic elements in H.F. see also Henry and Walker (1965), 15–19, who, however, seem to me to exaggerate the element of the ludicrous and mock-heroic in their interpretation.

21. Hercules’ descent to the underworld: H.O. 1141ff., 1161ff., 1197ff., 1208ff., 1293ff., 1369ff., 1525ff., 1550ff.; his ascent to the stars: 1705ff., 1765ff., 1916ff., 1940ff., 1947ff., 1963ff., 1978, 1983ff.

22. There is perhaps an allusion to the shady beech tree of Virgilian pastoral, Ecl. 1.1–5.

23. Aside from the motif of the descent to Hades, there are perhaps other points of comparison with Orpheus in Hercules’ giving laws to the Getae (H.O. 1684; cf. 1092) and his wish that Athos might topple on him (1382f.: cf. 1048–51).

24. Traina (1979), pointing out the alliteration in 362f., calls Medea ‘il simbolo della femminilitả selvaggia e passionale’ (273). He suggests (273–75) that Seneca uses an alliterative pattern of m-sounds to associate Medea with ‘evil’ and ‘monstrosity’ (malum, monstrum). But the alliteration also conveys the tension with Medea’s other side, Medea/mater (‘Medea-mother’): see 171, 288f., 933f., 947f., 950f. See also Segal (1982).

25. See Regenbogen (1927/28), 197f. As frequently in Seneca, geographical hyperbole expresses the movement beyond the safe limits of action and feeling. In addition to the passages cited see also Med. 21 Iff., 438f., 720ff.

26. For Medea and the sea cf. 121–25 and 131f. In 452f., however, she speaks of her brother’s blood as ‘poured forth over fields’ (quaeque fraternus cruor / perfidit arva). For Phaedra’s passion and the sea cf. Phd. 88, 181–83, 241, 273, 661, etc.

27. Costa (1973), ad loc, quotes T. S. Eliot’s remark on this scene, ‘I can think of no other play which reserves such a shock for the last word.’ Note too the parallel between the serpents that draw Medea’s chariot in 1023 and the serpents she calls up by her spells in 684f.: around her there crystallizes gradually a world of monsters and in the last lines a monstrous world.

28. With the ‘narrow waves’ of Pelias’ caldron in Med. 667 cf. also Medea’s complaint about the ‘too narrow number’ of victims in 1011 (nimium … numerus angustus). The fact that the latter passage is followed by Medea’s wish to probe her womb to tear out any further traces of her bond with Jason (1012f.) supports the association of the caldron with the powers of female creation, and destruction, in 667.

29. For a somewhat different view of the themes of the exploration and conquest of nature see Lawall (1979), 421–23.

30. See Ferrucci (1980), 30–33, 34–36, 63f., 78–84.

31. The repossession of the scepter, symbol of male political power and male phallic power, parallels Medea’s refusal of sexual domination by the male. Compare the scepter’s association with the rights of the old patriarchal king, Laius, in Oed. 241, 513, 634f., 642f. and cf. 670. Note too Phaedra’s entreaty to Theseus ‘by the scepter of your power’ (Phd. 868) when she is about to accuse Hippolytus. At this point in the play, Medea takes on not only the power of the monstra that she calls forth, but also some of the power of the androgyne.

32. See Lawall (1979), 426: ‘The Chorus’s dream of unlimited progress and harmony between man and nature (364–79) — one of the most profound visions in pagan Latin literature — vanishes before the raw, untamed fury of Medea and the sea.’

33. For this theme of the ‘distorted heavens’ see Owen (1968), 310.

34. E.g. Tacitus, Ann. 13.57–58; see Segal (1973). On corruption by power in the Thyestessee Pöschl (1977).

35. Cf. Horace, Epodes 2.61–64: has inter epulas ut iuvat pastas oves / videre properantis domum, / videre fessos vomerem inversum boves / collo trahentis languido (‘what joy it is amid such meals to see the well fed sheep hastening homeward, to see the weary oxen “with tired neck” dragging the upturned plow’). Cf. also Virgil, Ecl. 2.66f.

36. Cf. Thyestes’ me dulcis saturet quies (‘let sweet tranquillity satisfy me,’ 393). Contrast Atreus’ gloating satur est, ‘he is full,’ 913, and his expressions of malcontent satiety in 889–91: bene est, abunde est, iam sat est etiam mihi. / sed cur satis sit? pergam et implebo patrem / funere suorum (‘It is well, it is abundant, it is enough even for me. But why should it be enough? I shall go on and fill the father with the death of his own sons’).

37. For the sinister past of Phaedra and of Crete see Lefèvre (1972b), 365; Runchina (1966), 32 with note 68; Boyle (198-), part 1, with note 29 (I thank the author for allowing me to see this in advance of publication). For the motif of sea and land in Euripides’ Hippolytus see Segal (1965).

38. With Phd. 1093 cf. Virgil, G. 4.522, discerptum latos iuvenem sparsere, ‘they scattered the youth, torn apart, over the broad fields.’ Hippolytus’ death, however, does not have the sacral associations of the Virgilian Orpheus’ (cf. G.4.521, inter sacra deum, ‘among the holy rites of the gods’). I cannot agree with Solimano (1980), 170–74, that Seneca has separated out the positive elements of the bucolic ideal and attached them to Orpheus, while the negative side of Orpheus remains associated with Hippolytus. Hermann (1924), 441, takes a misguidedly positive view of Hippolytus, ‘un héros sans tache, dont la misogynie même semble approuvée par l’auteur’; see Lefèvre (1972b), 349–53 and Boyle (198-), part 2, passim.

39. Analyzing Hippolytus’ opening song Boyle (198-) concludes: ‘Diana, the goddess to whom Hippolytus prays, seems a divinity not of life but of death.’

40. On the hunter’s ambiguous relation to civilization see Detienne (1979), 20–52; Vernant and Vidal-Naquet (1972), 135–84; Vidal-Naquet (1968), 49–64; Segal (1981a), 31 and 300–03.

41. Cf. the image of the Amazon as an uncivilized and monstrous creature in Tro. 243 and H.F.. 242ff. Hercules’ victory over them, like Theseus’, has a suggestion of sexual violation (H.F. 542ff.). On the Amazon’s marginal relation to civilization see Segal (1981a), 30; Dubois (1982), 34ff., 53ff., 67ff.

42. For this psychological dimension of Hippolytus, which Seneca adapted in part from Euripides, see Rankin (1974); Smoot (1976), 47–51.

43. Solimano (1980), 169f., goes too far in assimilating Hippolytus to bucolic figures like Daphnis.

44. Burck (1971), 13ff., 36–38, 45ff. See also Shelton (1978), 30 with note 15; Leeman (1976), 212.

45. See Henry and Walker (1966), 223–39.

46. Images of fulness: Thy. 899f., 912, 974; heaviness: 909f., 1000, 1006, 1020; spatial interiority and enclosure: 902, 1007, 1021; interior of body: 999–1001, 1041–51.

47. See, e.g., Newbold (1979), with bibliography; Curran (1972), esp. 78–82; Segal (198-).

48. The prophecy of Seneca’s Apollo is characterized by the related imagery of sinuosity and concealment (Oed. 214f.): ambage flexa Delphico mos est deo / arcana tegere (‘In twisting curves the Delphic god is wont to hide his secret things’). Cf. also 92f.

49. I would like to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a Fellowship in 1981–82, during which this essay was written, and the American Academy in Rome for hospitality and library privileges during that time.