Table Of ContentTrue Names
Vergil and the
Alexandrian Tradition
of Etymological Wordplay
James J. O’Hara
New and Expanded Edition
Ann Arbor
The U niversity o f M ichigan Press
First paperback edition 2017
Copyright New and Expanded Edition 2017
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1996
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
© Printed on acid-free paper
2020 2019 2018 2017 4 3 2
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, or otherwise without the written permission of the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O’Hara, James J., 1959-
True names : Vergil and the Alexandrian tradition of etymological
wordplay / James J. O’Hara,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-472-10660-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Virgil—Style. 2. Greek poetry, Hellenistic—Egypt—
Alexandria—History and criticism. 3. Virgil—Knowledge—Language
and languages. 4. Alexandria (Egypt)—Intellectual life. 5. Latin
poetry—Greek influences. 6. Latin language—Etymology. 7. Names
in literature. 8. Rome—In literature. 9. Rhetoric, Ancient.
10. Play on words. I. Title.
PA6932.04 1996
873'.01—dc20 96-4240
CIP
ISBN 978-0-472-0368^-5 (pbk.)
Preface
Scholars ancient and modern have long noted Vergil’s poetic use of ety
mological wordplay: the different ways in which his texts refer to, allude to,
or exploit for poetic reasons the origins or etymological connotations of
Latin words. In recent years, interest in such wordplay in Greek and Roman
poetry has grown rapidly, and lies near the heart of contemporary scholar
ship’s growing concern with the learned aspects of Vergilian poetry and its
relationship to the poetics of third-century B.c. Alexandria. Recognizing and
understanding etymological wordplay has considerable consequences for the
study of Vergil’s style, his place in the literary traditions of ancient Greece
and Rome, and for the interpretation of numerous passages in the Aeneid,
Eclogues, and Georgies. This book offers a richly annotated, reasonably
comprehensive collection of examples of etymological wordplay in Vergil,
prefaced by an extensive introduction on both pre-Vergilian and Vergilian
etymologizing. I’d like to think it will have a place on the bookshelf of
anyone trying to read, teach, or write about Vergil, and that it may be of
some use to anyone interested in Greek and Latin literature, because the
phenomenon of etymological wordplay is so extensive and important in so
many ancient authors.
The goal of the introduction is to familiarize all readers, both specialists
and those who have never considered the topic before, with ancient ety
mological wordplay, and with Vergil’s particular and extensive use of it.
Three sections of the introduction cover etymological thinking and wordplay
before Vergil, typical features of Vergilian etymological wordplay, and the
poetic function of Vergilian etymologizing. The first discusses Homer and
other archaic poets, Greek tragedy and philosophy (including the pre-
Socratics, Plato’s Cratylus, and the Stoics), the influential and sometimes
neglected Alexandrian scholar-poets, and scholars and poets at Rome (in
cluding Ennius, Lucretius, Cicero, and Varro). As my subtitle indicates, Alex
andrian poetry will be a special focus of attention, and I believe my introduc
tion offers the most extensive survey of Alexandrian etymological wordplay
now available, in part because earlier surveys of Greek etymologizing tended
to be scornful of the Alexandrians. The second part of the introduction
analyzes the form and style of Vergilian wordplay, with extensive examples
and convenient “features lists” of such things as “suppression” of one of the
words involved in etymologizing; wordplay that frames lines or that comes
at the start or finish of successive lines; “signposts” that call attention to
wordplay; glosses of names of gods, mortals, or places; and wordplay that
alludes to etymologizing in earlier poets. The third section of the introduc
tion discusses how etymologizing serves Vergil’s poetic goals, in effect ex
plaining the role of origins of words in Vergil’s poems about the origins and
essential characteristics of the Roman people. A fourth brief section of the
introduction describes the catalogue.
Brief description of the catalogue, which in my view is the more important
and more useful part of the book, may also be useful here. The catalogue
quotes each Vergilian passage, then explains the wordplay or possible word
play, weighing the factors that should go into the difficult task of distinguish
ing genuine from doubtful instances of etymologizing. For uncertain ex
amples a question mark appears at the start of the entry. (For additional
examples of names that are glossed, the catalogue contains asterisks that
refer you to the appendix.) I then quote passages from ancient grammarians
and poets who mention or allude to the same or similar etymologies; these
are crucial both for understanding whether Vergil is etymologizing, and how
his wordplay fits into what I call the Alexandrian tradition. Bibliographical
references (available in such quantities on this topic nowhere else) are pro
vided for most examples, but many entries in the catalogue describe exam
ples of learned wordplay not noticed before. To make consultation easy,
extensive cross-references direct the reader to other sections of the book
relevant for understanding each example: both other catalogue entries and
the numbered sections of the introduction. At all times, I have given the
information in the form that I myself would have found most useful; I have
tried to make the book “user-friendly.”
One goal of the book is to present in a convenient format a large amount
of information useful for understanding Vergil, but I have also tried to offer
extensive analysis of the data I provide. The goal of both the introduction’s
discussion of ancient and Vergilian theory and practice, and each entry in the
catalogue, is to help modern readers see more of what ancient readers did, or
to increase readers’ “competence” in recognizing and appreciating Vergilian
etymologizing. Some may read the book only in chunks or by consulting
specific entries in the catalogue while reading, teaching, or writing, but those
who read the catalogue straight through should be able to perceive a running
Preface vii
argument about what is and is not characteristic of Vergilian etymologizing.
We can never read exactly as the ancients did and should not be embarrassed
about bringing modern perspectives and tastes to any ancient text, but what
can be recovered about ancient traditions of poetic etymological wordplay
should lead to greater enjoyment, understanding, and appreciation of Ver
gil’s accomplishment and significance. I particularly hope that True Names
will be useful to those trying to write books narrowly focused on questions of
interpretation, like my earlier Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s
Aeneid (Princeton, 1990). I have written this book partly because it would
have been extremely helpful to me if such a book as this had existed when I
was working on that study. In addition to the interpretive material I fre
quently offer here, I hope and expect that others will use True Names to open
up new ways of looking at the passages I treat, many of which will never have
occurred to me.
In putting the final touches on the manuscript I am aware of its inadequa
cies and limitations, and of how an ideal book on the topic “would require
an ideal author, with a range of competence beyond anything to which the
present author may lay claim” (to borrow from the preface of a recent book I
admire). This has turned out to be a larger and longer project than I envi
sioned when I first began working on this topic a little over a decade ago, but
it is easy now to think of ways the project could have been larger and its
gestation period longer: a more compulsively thorough search for Greek
sources, and for more suggestions in Medieval, Renaissance, or early modern
authors; more detailed and elaborate description of the flow of influence
from earlier authors, particularly the Alexandrians, through Vergil, and then
into the authors after Vergil (about whose “commentary” on Vergilian ety
mologizing I have only made brief suggestions); a more exhaustive search for
modern bibliography; and finally more extensive tracing and holistic analysis
of the interpretive consequences of what I have learned about this poet’s
etymological wordplay. But it has seemed best not to have exaggerated ideas
about what one scholar and one study can accomplish, and so to stop here
and make what contribution I can.
Warmest thanks go to those who have read a daunting manuscript and
made invaluable comments: Robert Maltby, Jim McKeown, and Mark Pe
trini, each of whom read two drafts with great care, patience, and insight and
discussed etymologizing with me at great length; Garth Tissol, who made
valuable comments about both Alexandrian poetry and early modern Ver
gilian scholarship; John Miller, who offered exacting and learned comments
about the whole manuscript; my colleague Michael Roberts, for helpful
comments both on my introduction and in response to numerous queries;
and David Ross, who made his usual concise and incisive comments on a
draft of my manuscript, but whose greatest contribution to this project was
in teaching me about Vergil and Vergilian etymological wordplay over a
decade ago.
For helpful comments or criticism, oral or written, on drafts of articles, on
grant applications related to this project, or simply in conversations or corre
spondence about etymological wordplay (which not all of them may remem
ber), I thank Joe Farrell, Jim Zetzel, Ward Briggs, Nicholas Horsfall, Richard
Hunter, David Konstan, Stephen Wheeler, Peter Bing, Stephen Hinds,
Richard Thomas, and Cliff Weber.
For dependable work in checking the numerous quotations, and with the
other duties of a research assistant, I thank Wesleyan students Curtis Nelson
’95, Marissa Damon ’92, and Lisa Taylor ’94.
For grants to aid in my research, I thank both Wesleyan University and the
Department of Classical Studies.
For allowing me to be a visiting fellow and to have access to computing
and library facilities during the spring 1990 sabbatical most crucial to my
work on this project, I thank Elaine Fantham and the Department of Classics
at Princeton University. Thanks also go to the members of Professor Fan-
tham’s Georgies seminar for helpful comments on a paper 1 delivered to
them.
For an invitation to give my first paper on etymologizing and for letting
me call it “Carl Yastrzemski and the Study of Etymological Wordplay in
Vergil,” I thank Joe Farrell.
For the kind of prompt and professional service that made it possible to
carry out a project like this at a “little university,” I thank the late Steve
Lebergott and the staff of Interlibrary Loan at Wesleyan. For access to the
one book no one would send me, I thank Harvard University’s Houghton
Rare Book Room.
For deft handling of a difficult manuscript and for helpful comments
drawing on her skills as both editor and classicist, I thank Ellen Bauerle of
the University of Michigan Press. Thanks too to Nancy Vlahakis for oversee
ing the copyediting and final revisions of the manuscript.
For unflagging support during all the phases and moods of this long
project, I thank Diane Juffras.
Contents
Key to Abbreviations, and Dates of Sources xi
Introduction to the New and Expanded Edition xvii
List of New Examples xxv
New Bibliography xxxiii
Introduction 1
1. Etymological Thinking and Wordplay before Vergil 7
1.1. Homes, Hesiod, and the Hymns 7
1.2. Tragedy, Pre-Socrates and Sophists, and the Cratylus 13
1.3. The Stoics (and Epicurus) 19
1.4. The Alexandrian Poets 21
1.5. Etymological Thought and Rome 42
1.6. Poets at Rome 51
2. Typical Features of Vergilian Etymological Wordplay 57
2.1. Paronomasia 60
2.1a. Translation with Paronomasia 63
2.2. The Single-Adjective Gloss 64
2.2a. The Reverse Gloss 65
2.3. Etymologizing κατ’ άυτίφρασιυ 66
2.4. Etymologizing of Proper Names 66
2.4a. Names of Gods 67
2.4b. Names of Places 69
2.4c. Names of Mortals 71
2.5. The Explicit Gloss or Derivation 73
2.6. Naming Constructions as Etymological Signposts 75
2.7. Suppression 79
2.8. Framing 82
2.8a. Passage Frame 83
2.9. Vertical Juxtapositions in Consecutive Lines 86
2.10. Changes of Names or Alternate Names 88
2.10a. Changes Marked by the Word Nunc 90
2.11. Etymologizing with Languages Other Than
Latin and Greek 91
2.12. Clustering 92
2.13. Playing with the Tradition, or
Allusion to Earlier Etymologizing 92
2.14. Later Comment 95
3. The Poetic Function of Vergilian Etymologizing 102
4. About the Catalogue 111
Catalogue of Etymological Wordplay 115
The Aeneid 115
The Eclogues 243
The Georgies 253
Appendix: Additional Examples at Asterisks in Catalogue 291
Bibliography 293
General Index 309
Index of Words Glossed 313
General Index for New Introduction and Examples 321
Index of Words Glossed in New Introduction and Examples 323
Key to Abbreviations,
and Dates of Sources
The following list should make clear all abbreviations, including those that
specify editions. I also give the date of the author by century. Citations by
author’s name alone refer to the first work listed; e.g. Isid. = Isidore
Etymologiae.
A.: see Vergil Pol.: Politica
Accius (ii-i B.C.) Rhet.: Rhetorica
Aelius Stilo (ii-i b.c.) Top.: Topica
Aeschylus (vi-v b.c.) [Aristotle]
Ag.: Agamemnon Mund.: De Mundo
PV: Prometheus Vinctus Athenaeus (ii-iii a.d.)
Sept.: Septem contra Thebas Deipnosophistae
Suppi: Supplices Augustine (iv-v a.d.)
Ammianus Marcellinus (iv a.d.) Civ.: de Civitate Dei
Res Gestae Dialect.: de Dialectica
Anth. Pai: Anthologia Palatina Aulus Gellius (ii a.d.)
Apollodorus of Athens (ii b.c.) Noctes Atticae
Apollodorus mythographus (i a.d.?) [Aurelius Victor, Sextus] (v-vi a.d.?)
Bibliotheca Orig.: Origo Gentis Romanae
Apollonius of Rhodes (iii b.c.) Beda (vii-viii a.d.) (cited from Gramm.
Arg.: Argonautica Lat.)
Apuleius (ii a.d.) de Orthographia
Met.: Metamorphoses Brev. Exp.: Brevis Expositio Vergilii
Mund.: de Mundo Georgicorum
Aratus (iv-iii b.c.) CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
Phaen.: Phaenomena Caesai; C. Iulius (i B.c.)
Progn.: Prognostica Civ.: Bellum Civile
Aristaenetus (v a.d.) Callimachus (iii B.c.) (Pfeiffer except
Ep.: Epistulae where Hollis or SH specified)
Aristophanes (v-iv b.c.) Aet.: Aetia
Ach.: Achamenses Epig.: Epigrammata
Aristotle (iv b.c.) Hec.: Hecale
Gen. An.: de Generatione Animalium Hymn 1 = Hymnus in Jovem
Poet.: Poetica
Hymn 2 = Hymnus in Apollinem
Hymn 3 = Hymnus in Dianam Diodorus Siculus (i b.c.)
Hymn 4 = Hymnus in Delum Bibliotheca Historica
Hymn 5 = Lavacrum Palladis Diogenes Laertius (iii a.d.)
lam.: Iambi Vitae Philosophorum
Cassiodorus (vi a.d.) Diomedes (iv a.d.) (cited from Gramm.
in Psalm.: Expositio in Psalmos Lat.)
Cato (iii-ii B.c.) Ars Grammatica
Agr.: de Agri Cultura Donatus, Aelius (iv a.d.)
Orig.: Origines on Ter. Andr.: Commentum Terenti
Catullus (i b.c.} Andriae
Charisius (iv a.d.} E.: see Vergil
Gram.: Ars Grammatica Empedocles (Diels-Kranz) (v b.c.)
Chrysippus (iii b.c.) Ennius (iii-ii b.c.)
Cicero (i b.c.) Alex.: Alexander
Acad.: Academicae Quaestiones Ann.: Annales (Skutsch)
ad Att.: Epistulae ad Atticum Trag.: Tragedies (Jocelyn; cf. too
ad Eam.: Epistulae ad Familiares SRP)
Amie.: de Amicitia Var.: Varia (Vahlen)
Arat.: Aratea (Soubiran) Epicurus (iv-iii B.c.)
Balb.: Pro Balbo Eratosthenes (Powell) (iii B.c.)
Cat.: In Catilinam Etym. Gen.: Etymologicum Genuinum
Cluent.: Pro Cluentio (ix A.D.?)
de Orat.: de Oratore Etym. Gud.: Etymologicum Gudianum
Div.: de Divinatione (xi-xii A.D.?)
Fin.: de Finibus Etym. Mag.: Etymologicum Magnum
Hort.: Hortensius (xii A.D.?)
Leg.: de Legibus Euphorion (iii B.c.) (Powell)
ND: de Natura Deorum Euripides (v b.c.)
Off.: de Officiis Ale.: Alcestis
Progn.: Prognostica (Soubiran) And.: Andromache
Rep.: de Republica Bacch.: Bacchae
Sen.: de Senectute Hel.: Helena
Tuse.: Tusculanae Disputationes IT: Iphigenia Taurica
Cinna (i b.c.) Phoen.: Phoenissae
Claudian (iv-v a.d.) Tro.: Troades
de Rapt. Pros.: de Raptu Proserpinae Eustathius (xii a.d.)
Columella (i a.d.) Commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem
de Re Rustica EV: Enciclopedia Virgiliana (Della
Comment. Luc.: Lucani Commenta Corte)
Bemensia Festus, Sextus Pompeius (ii a.d.)
Cornutus (i a.d.) (Lindsay)
de Natura Deorum de Verborum Significatione
Curtius Rufus, Quintus (i a.d.) Epitoma Verri Flacci
Historiae Alexandri Magni FGrH: Fragmente der griechischen His
D.H.: Dionysius of Halicarnassus (i toriker (Jacoby)
B.C.) fr.: fragment
Antiquitates Romanae Fulgentius (v-vi a.d.)
