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Ovid's Use of the Epistolary Mode in Heroides 31

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Hans-Peder Hanson
Hans-Peder Hanson*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico at Los Alamos
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Extract

In his influential reading of Heroides 1, Duncan Kennedy argues that successful fictional letters can be felt to arise naturally from or be motivated by the depicted events and, ideally, be seen as agents in the forward movement of those events. Building on Kennedy's arguments, Peter Knox asserts that Ovid reconfigures his heroines in the Heroides to develop serious issues raised by his literary models from a new perspective. In this paper, I shall follow Kennedy's and Knox's suggestions to propose a new reading of Heroides 3. I shall first discuss how Briseis' letter can be felt to be both naturally motivated by and seriously engaged with Achilles' arguments in Iliad 9. More importantly, I shall argue that Ovid implicates Patroclus' aid in the composition and delivery of Heroides 3. The result is that one can view the fictional letter as having some influence upon Patroclus' fateful appeal to Achilles, thus providing an Ovidian reinterpretation of Iliad 16. Imagining this fictional role for Heroides 3 ultimately provokes comparison of Briseis, Patroclus and their relationships with Achilles. Such a reading uses Kennedy's and Knox's suggestions as a point of departure for making Heroides 3 a more successful and provocative fictional letter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 130 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2011

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Footnotes

1.

I wish to thank Ruby Blondell, Stephen Hinds, and my anonymous reviewer at Ramus for their helpful criticisms of earlier versions of this article. I also wish to acknowledge Richard Norton and the rest of the staff at the UNM-LA library for their assistance in acquiring research materials.

References

NOTES

2. Kennedy, D., ‘The Epistolary Mode and the First of Ovid's Heroides’, CQ 34 (1984), 413CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Knox, P., Ovid's Heroides: Select Epistles (Cambridge 1995), 19f.Google Scholar; id., ‘The Heroides: Elegiac Voices’, in B. Boyd (ed ), Brill's Companion to Ovid (Boston 2002), 133.

4. E.g. Barchiesi, A., Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets, ed. and tr. Fox, M. and Marchesi, S. (London 2001), 30Google Scholar; Jacobson, H., Ovid's Heroides (Princeton 1974), 40Google Scholar.

5. See Achilles' remarks about Briseis to Agamemnon and his mother Thetis (1.162, 348-56, 391f.). However, Homer does suggest that Briseis feels some attachment to Achilles (άέϰουσα ϰίεν, ‘she went unwillingly’, 1.348), as a number of scholars have noticed: see L. Wilkinson, ‘Greek Influence on the Poetry of Ovid’, in L'influence grecque sur la poésie latine de Catulle à Ovide (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 2: Vandoeuvres-Genève 1953), 227; id., Ovid Recalled (Cambridge 1955), 89; Dué, C., Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis (New York 2002), 64 n.60Google Scholar; Verducci, F., Ovid's Toyshop of the Heart: Epistulae Heroidum (Princeton 1985), 99Google Scholar; Kirk, G., The Iliad: A Commentary, Vols. 1-2 (Books 1-8) (Cambridge 1985), 87f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Hainsworth, B., Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. 3 (Books 9-12) (Cambridge 1993), 106f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Whitman, C., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (New York 1958), 186CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffin, J. (ed.), Homer: Iliad Book Nine (Oxford 1995), 114Google Scholar; Lindheim, S., Mail and Female: Epistolary Narrative and Desire in Ovid's Heroides (Madison WI 2003), 52, 205 n.137Google Scholar.

7. Dué (n.5 above) argues that ‘in the Iliad, Briseis can be a captive, a prize, a girl, a daughter, or a wife’ (4 with n.13; cf. 22, 97f.). I am primarily interested in Briseis' newfound status as a loved one in Iliad 9. However, the paradigmatic aspects of Briseis that Dué identifies may well be at work behind Heroides 3 and illustrate the rich potential of Ovid's choice of heroine. See, for example, the note below on a possible connection between Briseis and Phoenix.

8. Griffin (n.6 above, 114f.) suggests that the past tense of Φίλεον is ‘chilling’ and notes Achilles' later wish that Briseis had died before causing the quarrel (19.59f.).

9. Cf. Anderson, W., ‘The Heroides’, in Binns, J. (ed.), Ovid (London 1973), 63f.Google Scholar Anderson also suggests that Briseis engages substantively with Iliad 9. Although focused on Heroides 7 (Dido's letter to Aeneas), he suggests that Ovid transforms Briseis, like Dido, into a ‘modern woman with a gift for artful argument instead of an antique heroine’. In this regard, he sees Heroides 3 as a ‘special tour de force’ (64).

10. Barchiesi, A., ‘Problemi d'interpretazione in Ovidio: continuità delle storie, continuazione dei testi’, MD 16 (1986), 80Google Scholar; id. (n.4 above), 11, 38, 170 n.14; Lindheim (n.6 above), 56, 206 n.151.

11. Cf. Phoenix' status as an adopted member of Achilles' family (Iliad 9.477-95). Future analysis of Heroides 3 might explore how Ovid's Briseis parallels, echoes, or borrows from Phoenix' speech in Iliad 9. Ovid may be building on Homer's assimilation of Phoenix and Briseis. Griffin (n.6 above) notes that Phoenix echoes Achilles' language about Briseis (‘loved from my heart’: έϰ θυμοῦ Φίλεον 9.343~έκ θυμοΰ φιλέων 9.486) and that the phrase does not occur elsewhere in Homer. He suggests that ‘Phoenix’ claim on Achilles is founded, as Achilles says that his own grievance is, on love' (132, my emphasis). There may also be a lost tradition featuring some sort of relationship or connection between Briseis and Phoenix. Dué (n.5 above) notes that the Brygos painter depicted two scenes featuring Briseis and Phoenix alone. In Dué's view, this likely refers to a lost narrative (34f., 35 n.65).

12. Ovid's Briseis may allude to Achilles' fate and choice between the heroic and nonheroic life at 43f.: an miseros tristis fortuna tenaciter urget/nec uenit inceptis mollior hora malis? (‘or does a grim fate press constantly upon the wretched,/and a gentler time not come once evils have already commenced?’).

13. All translations are my own unless otherwise specified. For Heroides 3, I follow Barchiesi's text and commentary: P. Ovidii Nasonis Epistulae Heroidum 1-3 (Florence 1992)Google Scholar. For the Iliad, I follow Munro and Allen's 1920 OCT edition.

14. Note that this would be a deviation from Homer, since Briseis had already been led away before Achilles expressed such wishes. Cf. Kennedy (n.2 above), 419f., and discussion of such deviations below.

15. Note the repetition of propter me and the emphatic placement of sim ego, the chiastic construction of tristitiae causa modusque tuae, and the parallelism between mota est…desinat and causa modusque.

16. Kennedy (n.2 above),413.

17. Achilles' upcoming actions in the Iliad will be almost exclusively motivated by Patroclus. Achilles will discount Briseis, in contrast, completely and even wish that she had died when he stormed Lyrnessus (19.59f.). Cf. Fränkel, H., Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley 1969), 37Google Scholar. Fränkel emphasises the ‘futility’ of the Heroides, stating that Briseis' letter is ‘unnecessary’ because upcoming events are moving independently.

18. Kennedy (n.2 above), 420.

19. Kennedy (n.2 above), 420.

20. Cf. Barchiesi (n.13 above), 208f. Barchiesi suggests that the reference to Patroclus at line 23 signals allusion to or engagement with Iliad 19. I fully agree (see below), although I also take the reference to signal Patroclus' involvement with the composition and delivery of Heroides 3, as I argue here.

21. Cf. Knox (n3 above ‘Elegiac Voices’), 128. Knox also notes that Briseis could not have learned this from Phoenix, since he remained with Achilles.

22. See Griffin (n.6 above), 142: ‘Only now [at 9.620f.] is it made clear that Patroclus has been present throughout, listening to the discussion that will decide his fate as well as that of Achilles. The unobtrusive touch opens a profound vista.’ If my proposed reading of Heroides 3 is plausible, one must admire Ovid's clever use of this subtle detail.

23. Note, however, that Patroclus is ultimately not able to wield Achilles' Pelian ash spear (16.140-44). See note on Achilles' sword, below.

24. Note the alliterative and perhaps onomatopoetic multaque mandatis oscula mixta.

25. In fact, she is asking to play Patroclus' role as a beloved messenger of Achilles. As I shall argue below, such an idea provokes comparison between Briseis and Patroclus.

26. Barchiesi (n.13 above), 239.

27. Barchiesi (n.13 above), 202f.; Kennedy, D., ‘Epistolarity: The Heroides’ in Hardie, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge 2002), 229Google Scholar; Spentzou, E., Readers and Writers in Ovid's Heroides: Transgressions of Genre and Gender (Oxford 2003), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Farrell, J., ‘Reading and Writing the Heroides’, HSCP 98 (1998), 334f.Google Scholar

28. Cf. Knox (n3 above Select Epistles), 142. Knox notes that Greek writing and the Greek alphabet may themselves be anachronistic within the context of the Homeric epics. As John Penwill has pointed out to me, what Ovid seems to be playing with here (apart from the fact that Briseis isn't writing in Greek at all —she's writing in Latin) is the Homeric convention that both Trojans and Achaeans speak perfectly good Greek both among themselves and to each other. Perhaps Ovid is humorously involving his reader in the same convention.

29. Barchiesi (n.13 above), 204; Hinds, S., ‘Booking the Return Trip: Ovid and Tristia 1’, PCPS 31 (1985), 30 n.12Google Scholar = Knox, P. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Ovid (Oxford 2006), 420 n.10Google Scholar.

30. Farrell (n.27 above, 334f., 334 n.54) notes that translation receives special emphasis in Heroides 3. Farrell goes on to note Briseis' comment about her tears making erasures and suggests that ‘behind the writer and reader stands, along with the translator, another figure’ (335, my emphasis).

31. Kennedy (n.2 above), 422.

32. Verducci (n.5 above), 118, notes that Briseis' final plea is ‘unwittingly ironic,’ recalling Achilles' love not for Briseis, but for Patroclus.

33. Kennedy (n.2 above), 419.

34. Palmer, A. (ed.), P. Ovidi Nasonis Heroides (Oxford 1898), 304Google Scholar; Wilkinson (n.5 above), 92.

35. One might compare Dido's dark reference to Aeneas' sword at Heroides 7.185f. (Anderson [n.9 above], 54) and Canace's allusion at 11.125 (Knox [n.3 above Select Epistles], 276).

36. Barchiesi (n.10 above), 80; id. (n.10 above), 11,38, 170 n. 14; Lindheim (n.6 above), 56,206 n.151.

37. Cf. apparatus criticus in Dörrie, H. (ed.), Ovidii Nasonis Epistulae Heroidum (Berlin and New York 1971)Google Scholar. Dörrie lists four manuscripts which show quam (Ea, Ep, R and T) and one which shows que (Go'). To my knowledge, Dörrie and all other editors have decided upon quod.

38. If quod refers to munera, it will support the interpretation that I am suggesting.

39. Phyllis, Dido, Ariadne and Canace all discuss or at least refer to their imminent deaths at the end of their letters (Heroides 2.139-48, 7.185f., 10.144-50, 11.115-28). Heroides 18 and 19 like-wise foreshadow or suggest Leander's imminent death. See Anderson (n.9 above), 70-74; Kennedy (n.2 above), 415.

40. Cf. Canace's final request at the end of Heroides 11, where she has just finished discussing her funeral rites: tu, rogo, dilectae nimium mandata sororis/perfice (‘you, I beg, carry out the directives of your sister, loved too much’, 127f.). One could make a similar argument for a pun on rogo here too, since it is grammatically superfluous. See Knox, Select Epistles (n.3 above), 276.

41. Achilles' attitude towards Lycaon, his former captive whom he sold as a slave (Iliad 21.34-42), might resonate or be fruitfully compared with his attitude toward Briseis.

42. Allen, A., ‘Briseis in Homer, Ovid, and Troy’, in Winkler, M. (ed.), Troy: From Homer's Il-iad to Hollywood Epic (Maiden MA 2007), 151Google Scholar.

43. Cf. the description of Achilles at Iliad 24.40-49; Griffin (n.6 above), 143.

44. Palmer (n.34 above), 300f.