The Challenge of Epic: Allusive Engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus 9004117954, 9789004117952

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THE CHALLENGE OF EPIC

MNEMOSYNE BlBLlOTHECA CLASSlCA BATAVA COLLEGERUNT H. PINKSTER • H. W. PLEKET CJ. RUUGH. D.M. SCHENKEVELD· PH. SCHRIJVERS BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT C.]. RUUGH, KLASSIEK SEMINARIUM, OUDE TURFMARKT 129, AMSTERDAM

SUPPLEMENTUM DUCENTESIMUM DEClMUM ROBERT SHORROCK

THE CHALLENGE OF EPlC

THE CHALLENGE OF EPIC ALLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT IN THE DIONYSIACA OFNONNUS

BY

ROBERT SHORROCK

BRILL LEIDEN· BOSTON· KÖLN 2001

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnalune [MneJllosyne I SuppleJllentuIll] Mnemosyne : bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum. - Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill Früher Schriftenreihe Teilw. u.d.T.: Mnemosyne / Supplements Reihe Supplementum zu: Mnemosyne 210. Shorrock, Robert: The challenge of epic: allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus. - 2001

Shorrock, Robert: The challenge of epic : allusive engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus / by Robert Shorrock. - Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2001 (Mnemosyne : Supplementum ; 210) ISBN 90-04-11795-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available.

ISSN 0169-8958 ISBN 90 04 11795 4

© Copyright 2001 by Koninklyke Brill NT; Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part qf this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, eleetronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items flr internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fies are paid direetry to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subjeet to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS

Preface ... ...... .. ... .... .. .. .. .. .. .... ... ... ...... ... .. .... .. .. .. .. .. .. ..... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Introduction ............................................................................... . Chapter One: The Challenge of Epic

VII

7

Chapter Two: The Cyde of Dionysus .................................... Introduction .............................................. ......................... ..... 1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................................................... 2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 4. The Road to Olympus [40-8] ........................................

25 25 33 59 67 95

Chapter Three: The Poet of Dionysus ............ ........................ Introduction ............................................................................ 1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................... ... ................... .......... 2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 4. The Road to 01ympus [40-8] ........................................

113 113 121 137 170 189

Chapter Four: The Dionysiac Experience ..............................

207

Bib1iography ................................................................................ Index Locorum ... ....................................... ....... ................ .... ..... General Index ........ ...... ....... ............ ......................... ..................

215 229 240

PREFACE

This monograph represents a slightly revised version of my 1999 Cambridge Ph.D. thesis: 'Method and Madness in the Dionysaca of Nonnus'. The debts that I have incurred in the writing of this book stretch back to long before my first fateful encounter with Nonnus in the Classical Faculty Library, Cambridge in November 1994. My greatest debt is to my parents, Peter and Elizabeth Shorrock, for their unwavering support, their encouragement and their interest over the last twenty-seven years. It is to them with thanks and love that I dedicate this book. I am grateful to the several institutions and numerous teachers who nurtured my early interest in the Classical world. At Clitheroe Royal Grammar School my interest in Greek mythology was encouraged by Dudley Green; whilst Keith Harwood sacrificed many lunch-hours to te ach me Greek. It was as an undergraduate in the Department of Classics at the University of Durharn that I was first taught to think hard about the Classical world. In this pursuit T ony Woodman, Michael Stokes and John Moles all gave freely of their time. At Cambridge I was fortunate to be supervised by Neil Hopkinson for both my M. Phil. and Ph.D. Over the space of five years he played a wise and infinitely patient Homer to my own upstart Nonnus. I have benefited greatly, and continue to benefit, from his example and from his immense learning in the spheres of both Latin and Greek. My two Ph.D. examiners, Philip Hardie and Byron Harries, were both generous in sharing their insights into matters Nonnian. Their detailed comments and criticisms have given me pause for thought over a number of issues. Thanks must also go to Richard Hunter for reading an early version of Chapter 2 and to J ason König who read the complete manuscript in its two separate 'incarnations', as thesis and book. The task of proof-reading was valiantly undertaken by Theo Pike. Throughout my time as a graduate in Cambridge I was supported by a British Academy Major State Studentship; I benefited additionally from a number of grants and awards from the Faculty of Classics and Christ's College, Cambridge. Reference should also be

Vlll

PREFACE

made to the stimulating atmosphere of Classics Graduate Commonroom; it is to be thanked both for its company and for the cheerful forbearance with which it greeted a long line of research papers on Nonnus' Dionysiaca. Three years down the line I can now thank Vedia Izzet for all that she has done to me. My editors at Brill, Marcella Mulder and Gera van Bedaf, also deserve my appreciation for their expertise and considerable patience. Finally, I should like to thank my colleagues and pupils at Eton College for providing a humane and stimulating environment in which to bring 77ze Challenge qf Epic to its conclusion. Quotations from the Dionysiaca are taken from the Bude edition where it is available, and otherwise from the 1959 edition of Keydell. Translations from the Greek have been variously adopted and adapted from the Loeb Classical Library. Any infelicities that remain are, of course, my own. RECS Eton College Windsor November 2000

INTRODUCTION

There is no poet who has been so contradictorily judged as Nonnus. Some have placed hirn on a par with Homer, and have found no language sufficiently warm to express their admiration. Others have treated hirn with the opposite extreme of disparagement. I The appearance of the Dionysiaca in the fifth century AD had an immediate and profound effect on the Graeco-Egyptian literary world. Nonnus' stylistic influence on successive generations of poets, on Colluthus and Musaeus, on Pamprepius, Christodorus and Dioscorus, is readily discernible. 2 His pro em is quoted from memory by Agathias of Myrina, the sixth-century AD poet and historian; whilst from the same century comes a papyrus fragment of several books of Nonnus' epic: a clear demonstration of his early and established popularity.3 In the words of one critic, Nonnus was 'the most influential Greek poet since Callimachus'.4 It would appear in fact that Nonnus' epic has maintained a continuous, and even approving, sequence of readers from its first publication until the present day.5 Read right through the Middle Ages,6 the Dionysiaca was taken up by Poliziano in Renaissance Italy, where in the eighteenth century it came under the enthusiastic 'patronage' of Giovan Batista Marino. At a similar time in Germany, Nonnus was read and admired by Goethe. In England in the nineteenth century he was championed by the eccentric novelist Thomas Love

I Thomas Love Peacock quoted by Lind (1978) 164-5; the sentiment is echoed by Chamberlayne (1916) 40 in his own brief account of the reception of Nonnus. 2 It is a tradition of earlier criticism to talk about a 'school' of Nonnus; see, for example, Bury (1889) 1.317: 'There was one remarkable poet in the fifth century, and only one, who had a sufficiently original manner to found a school of imitators'. 3 P Beral. 10567; cf. Cameron (1993) 46: 'Together with Homer and Nonnus, the Garlands may weil have been the most popular classical poetry books in mid-sixthcentury Constantinople' [my emphasisJ. 4 Cameron (1982) 227. 5 On the later reception of Nonnus see the invaluable article by Lind (1978). 6 Lind (1978) notes allusions to Nonnus in Genesius and the Epitaphium Michaelis !iJncelli (tenth century); Etymologicum Magnum (twelfth century); Maximus Planudes (thirteenth century).

2

INTRODUCTION

Peaeoek, the friend of Shelley. 7 A reeent reworking of Creek mythology by Roberto Calasso owes a great debt to the Dionysiaca, and shows that, in eertain quarters at least, the spirit of Nonnus is still alive and well. 8 Modern erities form a marked eontrast to this long and positive line of readers, reaeting to the Dionysiaca with alternating bouts of indifferenee and disdain. In his 1991 monograph, 7he idea qf epic, J. B. Hainsworth went so far to declare that 'the loss of. .. Nonnus' Dionysiaca would be no great eause for lamentation.,g His view is extreme, but hardly heretieal. lO The majority of erities who do engage with the Dionysiaca have interests whieh lie outside the field of literary eritieism. The forty-eight-book epie has proved itself a valuable resouree in the seareh for fragments of lost (and 'better') Hellenistie writers; 11 it is also mueh treasured for its rieh seam of rare mythologieal ore: arepertory of eurious tales, often unattested elsewhere. 12 Metrieal se hol ars have politely applauded the teehnieal eompetenee of the Nonnian hexameter;13 whilst most reeently Nonnus' poem has been used to exeavate and explore the soeio-politieal topography of the late-Antique World. 14 Attention is, however, seldom given to the 7 Lind (1978) 165 found no evidence that Shelley had himselfread Nonnus, 'but it would be rash to assume that he did not do so and hc may cven have used Nonnos as an inspiration somewhere in his poetry'. Lind's eaution may now have been rewarded: see Mazzeo (1999) 145-54 who argues for the direct inftuence of the Dionysiaca on Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. 8 Calasso (1993) passim, esp. 330-3. 9 Hainsworth (1991) 9. 10 It was Bentley who, to some extent, set the tone for the modem critical response to Nonnus, when he described Nonnus as 'an able Grammarian, though a very ordinary Poet' (Bentley (1699) quoted by Rose apud Rouse (1940) 1. xviii); Rose (1958) 156 dismissed the Dionysiaca as '[a] long and very dull poem'; West (1992) 19 quotes j. W. B. Barns: 'he's so bad, he's almost good!' Even critics sympathetic to Nonnus have shied away from declaring that the Dionysiaca coheres into a meaningful entity. Thus Jack Lindsay (1965) 393 is forced to confess that '[Nonnus'] whole fable, his narrative of the Indian war, is devoid of meaning. At best it is an allegory of the wars between east and west from Alexander to early Byzantine days, with their Persian threat; at worst it is a dull farrago of interminable Bacchic onslaughts wh ich lack all drama because we know the wretched Indians cannot defeat the god'. II See especially Hollis (1976, 1994b). 12 Rose apud Rouse (1940) 1. xix: 'While ... anyone who uses Nonnos as a handbook to any sort of normal and genuinely classical mythology will be grievously misled, the searcher into sundry odd corners will be rewarded for his pains, and even those who are studying the subject more generally cannot afford to neglect this belated product of the learned faney of Hellenized Egypt.' 13 West (1982) 177. 14 Chuvin (1991).

INTRODUCTION

3

Dionysiaca as a poem in its own right; to a consideration of Nonnian poetics and narratological concerns. Critical opinion at the beginning of the twenty-first century still remains firmly set against Nonnus the poet; but perhaps the worst hostility has now passed. Over the last few years scholars have been gradually reclaiming the literature of the Second Sophistic from precisely the sort of value-Iaden prejudice which is still directed towards late-Antique literature in general, and Nonnus in particular. There are signs that the critical ice-age which has for generations covered the whole of the later Roman literary world is at last beginning to thaw; and slowly that thaw is beginning to reach even the coldest of regions. This climate change is due in no small part to the groundbreaking work of Vian and the Bude editors,15 and arecent landmark collection of essays.16 It is, however, depressing to relate that a 1999 'guide to the Postclassical world' contains not a single reference to its most important poet. 17 This book undertakes a fresh investigation of the phenomenon of the Dionysiaca. It challenges the widespread and largely uncritical assumption that Nonnus' epic is a literary failure; and argues that Nonnus' 'failure' is to be understood rather as the failure of modern critics to come to terms with late-Antique allusive poetry and to engage with the particular, unique, demands of the Dionysiaca. It is divided into four chapters. The first chapter considers the attempts of earlier critics to co me to terms with the narrative form and composition of Nonnus' vast epic. Some critics have suggested that the poem is underpinned by coherent principles of organisation; others suggest that Nonnus' epic lacks any grand narrative framework and is loosely composed out of aseries of juxtaposed episodes. It will be argued that the Dionysiaca is neither clearly structured nor clearly unstructured: we should consider not one but a number of dijferent Lj Vian (1976) et al.; commentary due for completion in the early years of this new millennium. 16 Hopkinson, ed. (1994b); an extract from Book 5 of Nonnus' Dionysiaca was included in his recent anthology of imperial poetry (1994c). Some interesting and important thematic studies include an unpublished dissertation on Nonnian voyeurism by J. J. Winkler (1974); structuralist readings of the Dionysiaca by Abel-Wilmanns (1977) and Fauth (1981); Gigli-Piccardi's Metrifora e Poetica (1985) and aseries of psychoanalytical studies by Newbold (1984, 1993 etc.). 17 Bowersock, Brown, Grabar (1999). It is hoped that any later edition of this work (which claims on its inside front cover to provide a 'comprehensive guide to the world of late Antiquity' [my emphasis]) will remedy this oversight.

4

INTRODUCTION

narrative strands, aseries of overlying, overlapping and intersecting matrices. No one matrix can be said to represent a unifying structure; rather, it is the combination and interaction of the different frames which gives the epic its ultimate coherence. Chapters 2 and 3 together form the main argument of this book. They consist of a detailed literary-critical inquiry into two separate, yet interlinked, narrative threads, which give substance and texture to the Dionysiaca. 18 Chapter 2 focuses on Nonnus' use of mythological allusion and suggests that, to a certain extent, the narrative of Dionysus consciously parallels the narrative of the entire cyde of Greek mythology, moving from cosmic upheaval and gigantomachy through the wanderings of the Argonauts and the story of the Trojan War down to the end of the age of heroes. Nonnus' use of mythological allusion helps to add a cosmic dimension to his enterprise, and suggests a dear desire to construct an epic poem with a co mprehensive / universal aspect. Chapter 3 focuses on allusive engagement of a different kind, namely self-referential or 'metapoetic' allusion. It considers the way that Nonnus exploits and explores parallelism between hirnself and his subject, Dionysus: the journey of Dionysus from birth to apotheosis encourages analogy with the journey of Nonnus hirnself, from 'birth' and development as an epic poet to his entry into the literary pantheon. Both actor and auctor have a revolutionary mission ahead of them, to bring the gift of Dionysus to the world: where Dionysus attempts to conquer the forces of the Indians and carry his gift to all nations of the world, so Nonnus attempts to conquer the forces of martial epic and carry his Dionysiac poetic to all genres of the literary world. An important aspect of the journeys of both poet and subject is their ongoing and frequently anxious relationship with their respective fathers: Homer and Zeus. Furthermore, a sequence of characters throughout the text function on a symbolic level as potential doublets, models for Dionysus and Nonnus to emulate or to avoid: Typhon represents the figure of a doomed challenger; Brongus represents a positive model of filial success.

18 I am conscious that the attempt to unravel any one thread runs counter to the spirit of the text (in which aseries of such narratives is inextricably entwined); nevertheless, I hope that the detailed unpicking of individual threads will ultimately help our understanding of the larger fabric.

INTRODUCTION

5

The brief final chapter will develop ideas from Chapter I concerning the challenging experience of reading the Dionysiaca. Nonnus' revolutionary Dionysiac poetic does not only have an effect on the established genres of the literary world, it can also be seen to have a profound effect on its readers. The Dionysiaca should not merely be seen as a poem about wine, but as an equivalent of that same substance; as such, it provides readers with an analogous experience. For modern critics this experience has generally been negative, reminiscent of the madness of Dionysus, where the text swirls chaotically in front of them in a blur of images and narratives. There is, however, another version of the Dionysiac experience which leads not to madness but to revelation: a chance to see the world (of the text) without rigid divisions and boundaries, where Nonnus and Dionysus, Achilles and Hector, Alexander and Christ all form part of one vast syncretistic whole.

CHAPTER ONE

THE CHALLENGE OF EPIC

Introduction Unreadable as narrative .... 1 The story of the Dionysiaca, as first described in the proem to Book 1 [1.1-44], is disarming in its simplicity: Nonnus will sing of Dionysus[1.12]: (h:tOO/-LEVOU ßtoVucrou-starting with his birth and moving on to his mature achievements. Nor does the poet fai1 to live up to the promise of the introduction: a basic sequence of episodes, what one might call the 'narrative' of Dionysus, can be followed through the forty-eight books of the epic: from the abduction of Europa, via the wanderings of Cadmus, the founding of Thebes, the birth of Dionysus, his strugg1e with Lycurgus, the Indian War, the tragedy of Pentheus and the madness of the Argive women through to the apotheosis of Dionysus. This arrangement of episodes follows very closely the 'orthodox' mytho1ogica1 narrative as supp1ied by Apollodorus' Bibliotheca for the house of Agenor; and wou1d, no doubt, have been fami1iar to Nonnus' contemporary readers: 2 Wiseman (1995) 47. Whilst Nonnus no doubt had access to one or more handbook of mythology, it is not necessary to assurne that he had access to Apollodorus' Bibliotheca. Nonnus' narrative manipulates (the story of Actaion is placed before rather than after the birth of Dionysus) and expands (he is at his most expansive during his narrative of the Indian War: an episode which is described by Apollodorus in two brief sentences ranges over twenty-eight books of the Dionysiaca), but never goes far from this mythological sequence. Doubts have in fact been cast on Apollodorus' two brief references to the Indian War. In the first, at Bibi. 3.5.1, we read [Eltt 'Ivoouav'toov' Ei ÖEf.,laoißov Ef.lOV (so that I do not offend my Apollo). Nonnus he re makes a deliberate, almost over-emphatic attempt to align himself with Apollo, nervously reassuring himself that the god is on his side. There is, however, a further level of playful sophistication. Nonnus has just mentioned Maronian wine [1.36], and Maron is soon to become a character in his own right, as wine steward and charioteer of Dionysus. This character has impeccable Odyssean credentials. He provided the wine which Odysseus used to make the Cyclops drunk. Most interestingly,

120

CHAPTER THREE

avaiVE'ta,t €!J,7tVOOV lJXm / E~6'!E Mapcruao 9Ell!J,axov au'AOv E'AEy~ar, / OEp!J,a 1tapnmpllcrE !pu'! KOA1tOU!J,EVOV aÜpatr" / YU!J,vmcrar, ÖAa YUta At1toppivow vO!J,llor, (for [Apollo] rejects the sound of breathing reeds, ever since he put to shame Marsyas and his god-defiant pipes, and bared every limb of the skin-stript shepherd, and hung his skin on a tree to belly in the breezes). These lines form an extraordinary and perplexing climax to the proem. If we had expected Nonnus to end on an up-beat note confidence, confident and eager in his anticipation of forthcoming victory for both himself and his hero, we are proved wrong. Marsyas' flapping hide is the last thing we see before the poet cuts forward to the beginning of his narrative [1.44-5]. I believe that the figure of Marsyas has been deliberately, even provocatively, positioned at this prominent point in the epic. 31 The story of Proteus first made us aware of Nonnus' own attempt to challenge, riyal and surpass Homer; it placed in the foreground, and opened up for debate, the whole idea of poetic challenge. The story of Marsyas can be seen to represent a symbolic climax to this same debate: the skin-stripped figure who hangs between proem and main narrative offers a disquieting warning to all those who would challenge figures of authority. It reminds us, in no uncertain terms, of the difficulties (and dangers) that face both Dionysus and Nannus in their own attempts to challenge paternal authority, and the existing structures of power which govern the world. 32 Marsyas represents the first brief exampIe of the doomed challenger: the figure who tries in vain to usurp the role of another. 33 In the following books we will see a catalogue of such figures: none more spectacular, both in terms of the threat-

he is named by Homer as the priest of Apollo [Od. 9.196-8]: (hup alYEov ue!1(ov EXOV llD..avo~ OlVOto, / Meo~, öv IlOt 800KE MapOlv EuaVeEO~ uio~, / iPEUC; 'AltOAAOlVOC; (With me I had a goatskin of the dark, sweet wine, which Maron, son of Euanthes, had given me, the priest of Apollo), Nonnus has wittily metamorphosed the august priest of Apollo into the drunken priest of Dionysus. 31 Strangely, this story has attracted little critical attention, Harries (1994) 63 draws attention to the proem's 'problematic last lines', though for different reasons. 32 Will Nonnus fare any better with divine Homer than Marsyas did against Apollo? The skin-tom fate of Marsyas-[1.43]: Mplla ltapumpllO'E