Reflections in a Serpent's Eye: Thebes in Ovid's Metamorphoses

289 Pages·2009·2.01 MB·English

by  Micaela Janan

REFLECTIONS IN A SERPENT’S EYE
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Reflections in a
Serpent’s Eye
Thebes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
MICAELA JANAN
1
3
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Acknowledgements
Given the generosity this book’s gestation encountered, it has in
truthentailedmoredebtsthanIcouldadequatelyacknowledge.ButI
can try. The book originated in an offhand remark from Joseph
Farrell, who visited Duke in February 1998 to lecture on ‘Ovidius
auctor and the Tropes of Classicism’. Chatting informally about the
Metamorphoses afterwards, he noted antiquity’s most famous myth
gone missing from antiquity’s most famous compendium of myth:
‘Whywon’tOvidtalkaboutOedipus?’Pregnantsilenceshavealways
intrigued me. This one inspired me to revisit Ovid’s Theban cycle,
the logical setting for a Metamorphean Oedipus. There I discovered
how many more mysteries Ovid’s hapless city posed. Both Joe’s
canny,timelyquestionandhiswillingnesstosharehisown‘Theban
thoughts’greatly fosteredtheproject’sgermination.
Acohorsoptimorumrichlyblessedthebook’spassagefromgermto
fruit. Paul Allen Miller has been a constant source of erudition,
inspiration,andfriendship;hereadmanyversionsofthemanuscript
and discussed various points with Socratic patience. Sharon James
responded sagaciously to my arguments at assorted North Carolina
coffee shops, helping me slice through scholarly knots of Gordias.
Once, to clarify the book’s potential thematic connections, she dia-
grammed them on a cocktail napkin (I still have that precious
napkin!). David Konstan trained his usual probing questions and
insights uponall mychapters,whichimmeasurably sharpenedtheir
focus.Alison Keith siftedChapter 7judiciously, andalso shared her
ownworkonSilverLatinepicinadvanceofpublication.Atacrucial
stage,JamesO’HarareadChapters1,4,and5,bringingtobearupon
them his Vergilian auctoritas and gift for clarity. Terry Aladjem also
perused Chapters 1 and 2, sprinkling editorial Lourdes-water over
my stylistic defects. The exacting and detailed criticisms of Oxford
University Press’s two anonymous readers greatly strengthened the
entirebook.
My colleagues at Duke’s department of Classical Studies,
presentandformer,allembodythesoigne´ companyforwhichOvid
viii Acknowledgements
languishedonthebordersofRomania.Generouswiththeirexpertise
andtime,theypreventedmefrommanyfoolisherrors.Inparticular,
FrancisNewtonandDiskinClaycommentedmeticulouslyonseveral
chapters of the book—as did Michael Gillespie and Andrew Janiak,
sharing their profound knowledge of Hegel and Kant respectively.
Carla Antonaccio, Mary T. Boatwright, Peter Burian, Kent Rigsby,
Joshua Sosin, and Jennifer Clare Woods lent me their erudition in
areasfarfrommyownspecialty.
Hilary O’Shea has been awonderfully supportive editor; over the
years, her patient and punctual inquiries about this project long-
aborning encouraged my efforts to finish it, just as her advice
and guidance have seen it to press. Also at OUP, Jenny Wagstaffe,
Kathleen Fearn, and Dorothy McCarthy sagely answered my many
questions regarding the arcana of publication. Heather Watson’s
keen-eyed copy-editing made many a crooked way straight. On this
side of the Atlantic, Kevin Smith’s expertise in copyright law and
Holly Ackerman’s in Latin-American poetry helped guide me
through the oscura selva of copyright permissions. Willis Goth Re-
gier, magister sententiarum, patiently and gallantly hunted through
five volumes of Emil Cioran’s Cahiers to find the original form and
source of Cioran’s Delphic maxim. The canny Chris Wilson-Simp-
kins discovered the true author of ‘Go Loudly, Pentheus’ (a poem
misattributedinitsmostwidelycirculatedreprinting).
My thanks are due to audiences at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, University of Toronto, Oxford University, University of
London, Stanford University, University of California-Santa Cruz,
and University of California-Santa Barbara, who kindly listened to
theresultsofmyongoingresearchandrefineditsdirectionwiththeir
questionsandobservations.Asabbaticalleavecombinedwithayear
asFellowattheFranklinHumanitiesInstitutein2005–6allowedme
tocompletemyfirstdraftofthewholemanuscript.Twograntsfrom
theDuke’sArtsandSciencesCommitteeonFacultyResearchenabled
metoenlistresearchassistanceduring1999–2000and2002–3.
Of course, any misuses of such beneficence as remain in the
following pagesareentirely myowncross-grainedresponsibility.
M.J.
Contents
ANoteonCitation xi
1.Introduction:‘HappyBirthday,Romulus’ 1
2.‘InNominePatris’:Ovid’sThebanLaw 53
3.‘Th’UnconquerableWill,andStudyofRevenge’:
JunoinThebes 87
4.NarcissusandEcho:TheArrowsofLove’sErrors 114
5.‘ThroughaGlass,Darkly’:NarcissusasOedipus 156
6.PentheusMonstersThebes 185
7.OvidandtheEpicTradition:thePost-Augustans 224
Bibliography 252
Permissions 266
GeneralIndex 267
IndexofOvidianandVergilianPoetry 273