Ovid’s Salmacis, a Literary and Sexual Hybrid

Paula James 한국서양고전학회 2019 西洋古典學硏究 Vol.58 No.3

This article engages with the ambiguities surrounding the identity of the naiad Salmacis in Book Four of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the final story in a set of three told by the daughters of Minyas. Alcithoe is the narrator. The Salmacis myth is possibly one of the most slippery stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses; to adapt the title of Georgia Nugent’s ground breaking article of 1989, Ovid is producing a text which is not one just as Hermaphroditus embodies ‘the sex which is not one.’ The naiad, Salmacis, is by her very nature an adaptable amphibian and an ideal medium to blur boundaries in gender physicality, as well as in behaviour. Like the son of Venus and Mercury she so passionately covets, Salmacis is visualised as a creature with hermaphroditic characteristics in advance of the bizarre coupling that produces a being of indeterminate sex. The ambiguous nature of the water nymph who causes the final transformation of the boy is hardly highlighted although she too is a hybrid both behaviourally and elementally. Salmacis’ identity as girlish nymph and watery being, as a natural victim and a resourceful rapist, as a combination of feminine passivity and aggressive masculinity is realised through vivid direct description and highly associative imagery. Building upon previous scholarly interpretations of the episode of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, I shall argue that although Ovid confines Salmacis to shape shifting in the figurative sense (by his use of multiple metaphors) his similes are carefully chosen to align her with other fluid females in Ovid’s literary landscape who invariably suffer sexual assault and the risk of transformation or disintegration. However, Salmacis’ bodily dissolution follows her pro-active and predatory sexuality. This article draws together previous approaches to Ovid’s Salmacis narrative, but introduces new perspectives upon the characterisation of the lustful naiad. I argue that Salmacis is both behaviourally and physically a fudged gender, a proto-hermaphrodite ultimately punished for her mimicry of masculine traits. This is deliberate as the figurative techniques are primarily designed to transport the reader to other victims in Ovid’s mythical landscape and to familiar erotic encounters in Greek and Roman literature. Drawing upon cinematic terminology, the moving images of the present day, we could say that the over-wrought similes she and the beautiful boy attract ‘scramble the pixels’ in visual terms. Ovid’s version of events subverts the Halicarnassus inscription which was positive about the nature of the Salmacis pool and the relationship between its denizen and the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. My approach does assume that Ovid’s contemporary readership was not only educated but also revisited the text in order for these overall connections to gain their full force. The fleeting images, confusing in their immediate context, function like a cinematic montage as they evoke the fate of females who suffer bodily annihilation in the epic poem before and after the Salmacis episode.

Stasis and Change: Gower`s Gloss on Ovid`s Lycaon

( Robert Newlin ) 한국영어영문학회 2014 영어 영문학 Vol.60 No.4

John Gower’s use of the Lycaon story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses reveals much about the 14th century poet’s way of translation, or, more broadly, translatio: the transference of thought, learning, culture, and literary strategies along with the surface narrative. Lycaon’s is the first metamorphosis in Ovid’s work, and signals a great deal, both immediately and largely, about Ovid’s incipient narrative. In his turn, Gower conveys much about his own and contemporary theories of reception and writing as he melds Ovid’s story to his own use. What Gower removes, retains or changes creates a narrative of its own: the resulting text moves and stands still at the same time, actively poised between Ovid’s time and language and Gower’s.

Orpheus: Ovidian Narrative Strategies and Readership

이동춘 한국고전중세르네상스영문학회 2021 중세근세영문학 Vol.31 No.2

Ovid’s Orpheus in the Metamorphoses is an example of his clever reworking of convention and tradition. Ovid avails himself of the theme, the characters and the situations furnished by the Virgilian tradition. But, by applying narrative ingenuity to the basic story-line of Virgil’s episode, Ovid creates something new and original in terms of narrative effects. Above all, Ovid withholds the traditional sanction of his authority as narrator. He does not want his reader to be naively drawn into his narrative and to take the narrator’s words at face value, and he upholds the importance of the reader as an agent coming to grips with the meaning of a tale in his mind. In particular, Ovid’s juxtaposing of contrasting moods poses uncertainties and questions within the narrative, a device which forces the reader to view the narrative from a critical and detached perspective.

오비디우스의 Heroides Ⅶ 분석 : 편지 쓰는 디도

이선주(Li, Sun-Ju) 韓國西洋古典學會 2012 西洋古典學硏究 Vol.48 No.-

Heroides는 엘레기 형식의 편지 모음집으로, 중세와 르네상스를 거쳐 지금까지 계속해서 관심의 대상이 되어왔으며, 오비디우스 초기 엘레기의 전개 방향뿐만 아니라, 카툴루스에서 갈루스와 프로페르티우스를 거치는 ‘로마엘레기’의 전개 및 수용이라는 문학사 측면에서도 세밀한 분석을 요구하는 작품이다. 그러나 Heroides의 사본 전승에 관한 문제가 여전히 논의 중인 사안이기에, 본 논문은 Doerrie와 Knox의 편집본 및 Kenney의 지적을 기준으로 삼아 Amores 2.18.21∼26행에서 오비디우스가 Heroides의 주인공으로서 직접 언급하는 작품이자, 기존 작품에 대한 오비디우스의 비평이라는 성격을 가장 잘 보여주는 7편을 분석하여 그 특징을 살펴보고자 한다. 오비디우스는 Heroides VII에서 베르길리우스가 각색한 디도 이야기를 틀로 사용한다. 그러나 디도의 입장을 부각시키기 위해, 오비디우스는 역사 문헌에서 강조되는 디도의 전략적인 면을 되살리는 동시에 디도의 분노보다는 분노와 얽혀있는 자기 연민 혹은 위로를 교묘한 수사적 방식을 통해 전달한다. 한편 Heroides Ⅶ은 『아이네이스』를 변용하면서, 서사시 『아이네이스』의 가치관에 의문을 제기한다. 이 과정은, 엘레기적 특성에서 연원한 설득을 중심으로 구성되어 건조하지 않으며, 웃음(조롱)과 한탄으로 이루어진 논증을 수단으로 사용한다. 이러한 논증 구조는 화자의 주관적 감정 표현으로써만 제한적으로 쓰여왔던 로마 엘레기의 내용을 한층 확장하며, 감정 속에 논리를 자연스럽게 수반시켜 전달한다. 또한 Heroides Ⅶ은 이 작품이 편지임을 상기시키는 묘비명에 상응하는 행을 앞뒤로 제시하여 Heroides Ⅶ의 내용을 한 시점, 편지를 쓰고 있는 바로 그 순간으로 고정하고, 이미 알려진 비극적 결말에 유예를 둔다. Heroides Ⅶ의 전개 과정에서, 감정과 논리는 용해되어 분노는 조절되고 주인공은 현실과의 경계에서 자기보존이라는 새로운 국면을 모색한다. A collection of epistles in the elegy form sent by lovelorn women from myths and legends to their respective lovers, the Heroides have continued to garner attention since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However, because the problem of the transmission of the manuscripts of the 21 works that constitute the Heroides continues to be controversial, this thesis will examine the characteristics of the work by analyzing Heroides VII, whose main character Dido Ovid directly mentions in Amores 2.18.21-26 as the main character of the Heroides and which best reveals the nature of the work as the poet’s critique of existing literature, with editions by H. Doerrie and P. E. Knox and E. J. Kenney’s comments as the standards. In Heroides VII, Ovid uses, as the frame, the story of Dido, queen of Carthage as adapted by Virgil. However, to highlight her position as an agent of her destiny, the poet simultaneously revives the queen as a strategist, as stressed in historical documents, and conveys, through ingenious rhetoric, not so much her anger as her self-pity and self-comfort in relation to that anger. In Heroides VII, the queen laments her lot without hating Aeneas and continues her speech and employs logical persuasion in this manner. At the same time, the elegy in Heroides VII modifies the Aeneid and questions the values of the epic. In addition, Heroides VII presents both at the beginning and at the end epigrammatic(epigraphic, legal) lines that remind the reader of the epistolarity of the work, thus fixing its contents to one particular point in time, the very moment at which the letter is being written, and defers the already known tragic conclusion. As the Heroides unfold, emotion and logic dissolve so that anger is controlled and the main character searches for the new state or phase of self-preservation within the bounds of reality.

퓌그말리온, 오비디우스, 그리고 윌리엄 해즐릿의 『사랑의 서(書)』

육은정 ( Eun-jung Yook ) 한국영미문화학회 2016 영미문화 Vol.16 No.4

William Hazlitt`s Liber Amoris, the record of his disastrous infatuation with Sarah Walker, the teenage daughter of his landlord, remains a difficult as well as uncomfortable read ever since its publication in 1823, In engaging with this anomaly―some say, an embarrassment―in Hazlitt`s oeuvre, this paper finds inspiration from its subtitle, `The New Pygmalion.` By calling itself―or its protagonist H, the persona of Hazlitt―a `new` Pygmalion, Liber Amoris inevitably invites comparison with the `old,` or the original Pygmalion in Ovid`s Metamorphosis Book X. In Ovid the story of Pygmalion is preceded by the episode of Propoetides, the first ever prostitutes in history, and followed by the tragedy of Myrrha, a girl in incestuous love with her father. These three segments in Book X makes a closely knit whole: disgusted by the shameless Propoetides Pygmalion becomes a misogynist, and the story of Myrrha is an inversion of that of Pygmalion, the latter being on the love of one`s own creation/child/daughter. By reading Liber Amoris side by side with this `extended` version of Pygmalion, I hope to open up Hazlitt`s narrative of love, jealousy, and obsession to a further play of meanings prematurely closed by previous critics. This is not exactly a source study; rather, it is an attempt to tease out the rich contradictions and complexities from this strange little “book of love.”

무사(Musa), 카메나(Camena), 세이렌(Seiren) : 오비디우스의 『변신이야기』읽기

안재원(Jaewon Ahn) 인제대학교 인간환경미래연구원 2011 인간 · 환경 · 미래 Vol.- No.6

이 논문은 로마의 문학이 그리스 문학에 대해 경쟁력을 가지게 되는 과정에서 적지 않은 기여를 했던 군소 문법가들을 소개하는 글이다. 로마 문학이 경쟁력을 확보함에 있어서 문법학자들이 기여한 분야는 크게 세 영역이다. 첫째는 그리스 문학의 번역 분야이다. 둘째는 교육 분야이다. 셋째는 교육과 학문의 제도화를 위한 노력이다. 이 글에서는 주로 번역과 교육 분야에 논의를 집중했는데, 오비디우스의 『변신이야기』를 사례 삼아 예증하였다. 로마의 문인들은 그리스의 시인들과는 대조적으로 그 대부분이 학교에서 문법 교육과 문학 훈련을 받았던 학자-시인(poeta doctus)들이었는데, 그 대표적인 경우가 오비디우스였기 때문이다. The relationship between Greece and Rome is usually described by the terms imitatio et aemulatio. Rome was really keen to imitate Greece. However, Romans could not satisfy with the imitation of Greece. The conquered began to emulate the conqueror. In the end of the Ist century AD, there existed some Romans claim that Rome has overcome Greece completely. One of them may be Quintilian, because he declares that "Homer in Greece, but Vergil in Rome" (Inst. Orat., 10.1. 85). Of course, his claim is disputable. However, it is evident that Quintilian's claim is tolerable in the sense that the Latin is no more a poor language (egestas linguae!, Lucretius De Rerum Natura, 1. 52) in his time. For this, the most important contributors are authors like Cicero, Vergil and Horace. With this, it is worthy also to see various endeavors of so called small contributors, named Grammarians who seem to have exercised some large influences over Roman authors. In this regard, there is no doubt about the fact that Ovid is a poeta doctus. In this paper, thus, I have concentrated on arguing of some grammarians who have exercised some influence over Ovid's poetry, as a case study for answering to the question of how the conquered defeated the victor.

The Shadow of Virgil and Augustus on Chaucer’s House of Fame

Ivan Canadas 한국중세근세영문학회 2010 중세르네상스 영문학 Vol.18 No.1

In Chaucer’s House of Fame, the narrator describes statues of Virgil and of Ovid (1481-87), the lines long-interpreted as implying the predominance of Mars over Jupiter in the Aeneid. It is apparent, however, that Chaucer—ironic in his use of “auctorite,” and familiar with a range of contrasts between Virgil and Ovid—particularly with the latter’s irreverent, subversive and carnivalesque approach to imperial myths in the Heroides and Fasti—in fact, described those statues to comment incisively on Virgil’s role in bolstering the political prestige of Augustus, first Roman emperor. Furthermore, Virgil’s exaltation of Augustus’s authority by implicit analogy with “pius Aeneas” was consistent and complementary with Augustus’s own self-construction in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which appealed to the Latin concept of auctoritas and to the ideals of filial piety and symbolic fatherhood to mystify the princeps’ authoritarian usurpation of political power. Thus, also, Chaucer’s equivalent use of Middle-English term, auctorite, and his symbolic descriptions of the statues of Virgil and Ovid, highlight new evidence of Chaucer’s ironic perspective of political and literary authority.

오비디우스의 추방시: 오비디우스의 시적 현실 대(對) 아우구스투스의 공적 이미지

고경주 ( Kyung Joo Ko ) 한국서양고대역사문화학회 2009 서양고대사연구 Vol.24 No.-

『십이야』에서 에코의 목소리를 듣기: 주종관계에서의 바이올라의 창조적인 모방

전자영 한국고전중세르네상스영문학회 2023 중세근세영문학 Vol.33 No.3

This essay traces Shakespeare’s evocation of Echo in Twelfth Night (c.1600-1). Echo features in Viola’s lines where she imagines a lover’s song resounded by "the babbling gossip of the air" (1.5.227). This phrase, closely imitating Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation of Ovid’s Echo and Narcissus from Metamorphoses, comes to identify Viola with Echo, suggesting imitation and repetition as key factors in depicting the relationship between the master and his page boy. In his later comedy, Shakespeare revises and expands on the motif of the transvestite page boy’s mediating role and explores more fully Viola’s enactment of the multiple roles that she must play for Orsino: the reader, mediator, and actor of his courtship text. Recognizing the literary value of Shakespeare’s classical debts, I argue that Echo, derived especially from Ovid’s version and placed in the contemporary context of female-voiced complaint, offers an implicit but crucial model for Viola’s service as a messenger. Although Echo is only obliquely invoked in the play, the figure’s characteristic imitation suggests a version of collaborative authorship which is not attributable to a single individual speaker or writer and calls for an extensively femininized space for the articulation of desire.

오디비우스로 배우는 라티움어 — Fabula docet

김진식 서울대학교 인문학연구원 2020 人文論叢 Vol.77 No.1

This paper begins by presenting the importance and weight of Latin grammar in the classical studies, in conjunction with a brief sketch of the history of Latin grammar, which began in the 1st century BC under the influence of Greek grammar. The key point here consists of the concepts and terms that have been adopted in our newly published Latin grammar textbook Fabula docet. This paper then examines the Latin textbooks published in South Korea since liberation from Japanese occupation, and the trend of Latin textbooks that have recently become popular in Europe and America. Finally, we introduce and explain the structure and content of our newly published Latin grammar textbook Fabula docet, dealing with issues such teaching methods and extent of basic Latin grammar for students, and selection of Ovid’s stories concerning Greek and Roman myth. 이 논문은 우선 기원전 1세기 이래 로마가 희랍의 문법학을 수용하면서 발전하기 시작한 라티움어 문법의 역사를 검토하면서 문법의 중요성 등을 살펴본다. 여기서 요점은 우리가 우리의 새로운 문법책 fabula docet에서 사용하게 될 문법용어들과 개념들이다. 한편 우리나라에서 해방 이후 출간된 라티움어 문법책들을 살펴보고, 최근 서양에서 유행하는 문법책들의 흐름도 검토한다. 이어 새로 출간된 문법서 fabula docet의 구성과 내용 등을 소개한다. 라티움어 기초 문법에 어떤 방식과 순서로 접근할 것인가, 기초 문법에서 다룰 문법 범위는 어디까지인가 등의 문제를 다룬다. 특히 고전기 산문을 토대로 구성된 라티움어문법을 전달하는데 오비디우스의 운문이 어려움을 주겠지만, 그럼에도오비디우스의 신화이야기가 학습적 매력을 가졌음을 주장한다.