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Did Gallus Write ‘Pastoral’ Elegies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Richard Whitaker
Richard Whitaker
Affiliation:
University of Natal, Durban
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Extract

It has long been noticed that Virgil's Eclogue 10, in which Gal I us plays so prominent a rôle, contains a combination of pastoral and elegiac elements. But this prompts the question: who was responsible for this combination? Was the fusion of pastoral and erotic-elegiac detail Virgil's own, or did Gallus himself write love-elegies with a strong pastoral colouring, a type of poetry which Virgil then echoed in Eclogue 10?

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , December 1988 , pp. 454 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 By ‘pastoral elements’ I mean such things as the invocation of Sicilian Arethusa (1), the decor of goats (7, 30, 77), sheep (16, 18, 68), Pan (26), herdsmen (19, 36, 51); I do not mean merely rustic details such as the country setting or the theme of hunting (see below). Elegiac are themes such as the lover's death, the suffering caused to lovers by war, the mistress' following a rival, and the several abrupt shifts in mood in Gallus' speech (at lines 44, 50, 60); see Skutsch, F., Aus Vergils Frühzeit (Leipzig, 1901), ch. 1Google Scholar; Bréguet, E., REL 26 (1948), 207Google Scholar; Coleman, R., AJP 83 (1962), 62Google Scholar; Klingner, F., Virgil (Zürich, 1967), pp. 168 and 172Google Scholar.

2 Skutsch, , op. cit. p. 17Google Scholar.

3 ibid. p. 18.

4 ‘Vergil und die Ciris’, Hermes 37 (1902), 14–55Google Scholar ( = Ausgewählte kleine Schriften [Rome, 1980], pp. 29–70Google Scholar).

5 ibid. p. 19.

6 Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry (Cambridge, 1975), p. 82Google Scholar; pp. 85ff.; the strengths and weaknesses of Ross's arguments are excellently assessed by Zetzel, J., CPh 72 (1977), 249–60Google Scholar.

7 CQ 34 (1984), 167–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 ibid. 171ff.

9 Besides the works of Ross and Fairweather cited above, see also Bréguet (art. cit. n.l), 212; Bardon, H., Latomus 8 (1949), 225ff.Google Scholar; Coleman (art. cit. n. 1), 62: ‘the use of pastoral settings for personal love elegy…may have begun with Gallus. The only pastorals he could write were pastoral love elegies’ (in his commentary on Ecl. 10, however, Coleman expresses a different view); more cautiously, Kennedy, D. F., CQ 32 (1982), 374CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Chalcidico versu here almost certainly refers to the poetry of Euphorion (see Coleman ad loc.), but whether to his hexameter poems or to elegies possibly written by him is a matter of considerable controversy; for detailed comment on 50f, citing much relevant literature, see Ross, , op. cit. pp. 40ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Skutsch, p. 17; Ross, p. 86; similarly Kennedy, (art. cit. n. 9), 374Google Scholar.

12 The comment of Zetzel, (art. cit. n. 6), 258Google Scholar, seems to me exactly right: ‘Given the context of these lines [Eel. 10.50f.], it is nonsense to conclude that Gallus was concerned with pastoral… Virgil's Gallus is here first acknowledging the supremacy of Virgilian pastoral, and later denying its relevance for himself.’

13 Hunter, : cp. Ecl. 10.55–60Google Scholar with Prop. 2. 19. 17–24; see Conte, G. B., in Lecturae Vergilianae, ed. Gigante, M. (Naples, 1981), pp. 361–3Google Scholar; Acontius: cp. Ecl. 10.52–4 with Prop. 1.18, against the background of Callimachus, Aetia, frr. 67–75 Pf., esp. frr. 72 and 73 (cp. Aristaenetus, Ep. 1. 10); see Cairns, F., CR 19 (1969), 131–4Google Scholar; Rosen, R. and Farrell, J., TAPhA 116 (1986), 241–54Google Scholar. The theme of a love-lament in a rural setting appears in Hellenistic elegy also in Phanocles, fr. 1.3–4 (Powell), where it is said of Orpheus, πολλάκι δὲ σκιεροȋσιν ἐν ἃλσεσιν ἕζετ' ἀείδων|ὂν πόθον …

14 Neither of the Propertian elegies, 1.18 and 2.19, used to reconstruct Gallan themes, could be described as pastoral; for the non-pastoral character of the theme of hunting, see Coleman on Ecl 10.57.

15 The many different answers are conveniently reviewed by Coleiro, E., An Introduction to Vergil's Bucolics (Amsterdam, 1979), pp. 269ff.Google Scholar Add Pasoli, E., RCCM 19 (1977), 587Google Scholar: Ecl. 10 is a polemic against poetry, esp. love-elegy; d'Anna, G., Athenaeum 59 (1981), 298Google Scholar: the tenth eclogue is simply an expression of Virgil's affection for Gallus.

16 See Klingner, , Virgil, pp. 168f.Google Scholar

17 Solodow, J. B., Latomus 36 (1977), 767Google Scholar.

18 Coleman, R., Vergil: Eclogues (1977), pp. 294 and 297Google Scholar.

19 See Coleman on Ecl. 4.2; 8.13; 10.13–14.

20 Thus Snell, Bruno, ‘Arcadia: the Discovery of a Spiritual Landscape’, in The Discovery of the Mind (= Die Entdeckung des Geistes, Engl. transl., 1953), pp. 281–309Google Scholar; some reservations as to Snell's view are expressed by Leach, E. W., JHI 39 (1978), 539–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Coleman, p. 281: ‘the description of Menalcas suggests an inclement season and so intensifies the grimness of the landscape details in 14–15’.

22 Klingner rightly comments: ‘di e Worte upilio und subulcus (19), offenbar unfein und “unpoetisch” und von leicht komischen Klang, sind im Scherz geflissentlich gewählt’ (p. 167).

23 Kidd, D. A., ‘Imitation in the Tenth Eclogue’, BICS 11 (1964), 54–64Google Scholar, assesses well the tone of these lines; he refers us to the light-hearted painting of Silenus' face with mulberries by the rustics in Ecl. 6. 22 (p. 58).

24 See Leo, (op. cit. n. 4), p. 30Google Scholar; Stégen, G., Latomus 12 (1953), 75 n. 3Google Scholar; Hardie, C., PVS 6 (1966–1967), 9Google Scholar.

25 A version of this paper was read to the biennial conference of the Classical Association of South Africa, held at Stellenbosch in January, 1987.1 am most grateful to Mr Jasper Griffin and to the Editors of the CQ for helpful comments and criticism.