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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
A text is a device conceived in order to produce its Model Reader. I repeat that this reader is not the one who makes the ‘only right’ conjecture. A text can foresee a Model Reader entitled to try infinite conjectures. The empirical reader is only an actor who makes conjectures about the kind of Model Reader postulated by the text. Since the intention of the text is basically to produce a Model Reader able to make conjectures about it, the initiative of the Model Reader consists in figuring out a Model Author that is not the empirical one and that, at the end, coincides with the intention of the text. (Eco)
1 Eco, Umberto, ‘Intentio Lectoris: The State of the Art’ in The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington and Indianapolis 1990), 58–9Google Scholar.
2 Wilkinson, L.P., Ovid Recalled (Cambridge 1955) 159Google Scholar; von Albrecht, M., ‘Ovids Humor ein Schlüssel zur Interpretation Der Metamorphosen’, Der altsprachliche Unterricht 6 (1963) A1–12Google Scholar. For this tendency see also Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge 1970 2nd ed.) passimGoogle Scholar and Humphries, R., Ovid Metamorphoses, (Bloomington 1955) viiiGoogle Scholar.
3 Tissol, G., The Face of Nature (Princeton 1997) 96Google Scholar. Cf. Due, O.S., Changing Forms: Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Cophenhagen 1974) 144–9Google Scholar; Hopkins, D., ‘Dryden and Ovid's “Wit out of Season’”, in Ovid Renewed ed. Martindale, (Cambridge 1988) 189–90Google Scholar; Solodow, J.B., The World of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Chapel Hill 1988) 118–19Google Scholar. Galinsky, G.K., Ovid's Metamorphoses (Berkeley 1975) 148Google Scholar, though he argues for a mixed tone, denies the Hecuba and Niobe passages any humour.
4 The current tendency is to find his humour deep and humane, but for different reasons: Albrecht, ‘Ovids Humor’ (n.2); Anderson, W.S.Ovid's Metamorphoses. Books 1-5 (Norman, Okla. 1997Google Scholar) and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 6-10 (Norman, Okla. 1972)Google Scholar; Doblhofer, E., ‘Ovidius Urbanus. Eine Studie zum Humor in Ovids Metamorphosen’, Philo-iogus 104 (1960) 63-91, 223–35Google Scholar; Due, Changing Forms (n.3); Hopkins, ‘Dryden and Ovid’ (n.3); Meyers, K..S., Ovid's Causes: Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses (Ann Arbor 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tissol, The Face of Nature (n.3); or to find it cruel and misogynistic: Galinsky, Metamorphoses (n.3); Richlin, A., ‘Reading Ovid's Rapes’, in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, ed. Richlin, Amy, (New York: 1992) 158–79Google Scholar.
5 Ahl, F., Metaformations (Ithaca 1985) 201–2Google Scholar.
6 Curran, L.C., ‘Rape and Rape Victims in the Metamorphoses’, Arethusa 11 (1978) 219 and 237Google Scholar; Jacobsen, G.A., ‘Apollo and Tereus: Parallel Motifs in Ovid's Metamorphoses’, CJ 80 (1984) 52Google Scholar; Pavlock, B., ‘The Tyrant and Boundary Violation in Ovid's Tereus Episode’, Helios 18 (1991) 38Google Scholar.
7 Anderson, , Metamorphoses (n.4) 205–37Google Scholar.
8 Galinksy, , Metamorphoses (n.3) 129Google Scholar.
9 Richlin, , ‘Reading Ovid's Rapes’ (n.4) 164Google Scholar.
10 Humphries, , Metamorphoses (n.2) viiiGoogle Scholar.
11 For a consideration of black humour in the Metamorphoses, see Peek, P., ‘Black Humor in Ovid's Metamorphoses’, Ramus 30.2 (2001) 128–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 O'Neill, P., ‘The Comedy of Entropy: The Contexts of Black Humour’, in Pratt, Alan R. (ed.), Black Humor. Critical Essays (New York 1993) 74Google Scholar.
13 A. Pratt, ‘Introduction: The Nature of Black Humor—Defining Black Humor’, in Pratt, Black Humor (n.12), and O'Neill, ‘The Comedy of Entropy’ (n.12).
14 Numasawa, K., ‘Black Humor: An American Aspect’ in Pratt, , Black Humor (n.12) 44Google Scholar.
15 Eco, U., ‘Intentio Lectoris: The State of the Art’ in The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington and Indianapolis 1990)Google Scholar.
16 O'Neill, , ‘The Comedy of Entropy’ (n.12) 71–2Google Scholar.
17 For bibliography on narratological approaches to Ovid, see Wheeler, S., A Discourse of Wonders: Audience and Performance in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Philadelphia 1999)Google Scholar and Narrative dynamics in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Tubingen 2000)Google Scholar.
18 de Jong, Irene J.F., Narrators and Focalizers. The presentation of the story in the Iliad (Amsterdam 1987)Google Scholar.
19 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n. 18) xiGoogle Scholar.
20 Not all parts of the model are applicable to the Procne, Philomela, and Tereus passage, but many are.
21 For signs of the narrator (model author), of the narratee (model reader), and of their interaction, see Bal, M., Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative trans. van Boheemen, C. (Toronto, Buffalo, London 1985) Chapters 2 and 4Google Scholar; and De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n. 18) 41–99Google Scholar.
22 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n. 18) 36Google Scholar.
23 ‘You could forgive Medea for loving Jason’, 7.85Google Scholar.
24 ‘Hymen did not bring hallowed words, a happy face, or favorable omen’, 10.4–5Google Scholar.
25 ‘Who would believe if not for the testimony of tradition?’, 1.400Google Scholar.
26 ‘Andromeda would have covered her blushing face with her hands if she had not been bound’, 4.682–3Google Scholar.
27 Prolepses are references to events that have yet to occur; analepses are references to events that have already occurred. In each case events may be internal—within the time span of the fabula (events of the story proper)—or external—outside the time frame of the fabula. For examples of possible influences on the model reader, see de Jong, Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 91.
28 Explanations for why things occur that answer implicit questions for the reader: ‘He fought with his tongue because his age kept him from battle’, 5.101–2Google Scholar. Explanatory also are similes; permanent facts; general truths. De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n. 18) 41–99Google Scholar.
29 Genette, G., Narrative Discourse trans. Lewin, J. (Ithaca, New York 1980) 189 and 206 coins the termGoogle Scholar. But I follow de Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 31–40Google Scholar in following Bal's model, Narratology (n.21) 100-18.
30 Bal, , Narratology (n.21) 100Google Scholar; De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 226Google Scholar. For this reason no examples in this paper are taken from stories told by a narrator other than Ovid.
31 Bal, , Narratology (n.21) 111–12Google Scholar; De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 38–9Google Scholar.
32 Bal, , Narratology (n.21) 139–42Google Scholar, does not analyze indirect speech as embedded focalisation; De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 114–18Google Scholar, does and, in my opinion, is correct to do so.
33 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 103Google Scholar.
34 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 144Google Scholar.
35 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 142Google Scholar. 36 For double or ambiguous focalisation see Bal, , Narratology (n.21) 113–14 and de JongGoogle Scholar.
36 Narrators and Focalizers (n. 18) 255 n. 11.
37 ‘Satire and irony cross the line dividing self-confident humour from black humour only in extremis’ O'Neill, , ‘The Comedy of Entropy’ (n.12) 79Google Scholar.
38 This is a prevalent strategy of Ovid. Additional characters he opposes include Apollo, Daphne, Phaethon, Jupiter, Europa, Cadmus, Diana, Actaeon, Narcissus, Pentheus, daughters of Minyas, Perseus, Andromeda, Niobe, Medea, Jason, Scylla, Hercules, Orpheus, Cyparissus, Ceyx, Alcyone, Achilles, and Hecuba.
39 He is often also at odds with his reader's. One example of this has been noted by Mack, S., Ovid (New Haven and London 1988) 117Google Scholar: ‘Elsewhere Ovid comically pits reader against narrator, giving us with avuncular condescension the information he seems to think we need. ‘Don't run away from me,’ says Jupiter to Io (1.597), in a speech which Ovid soberly interrupts for our benefit: (‘for she was running away’)’. Additional examples include 2.214; 2.283; 2.330-32; 2.399-400; 3.225; 3.244-8; 3.447; 5.207-8; 6.263; 9.454; 13.561-4.
40 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 61–8Google Scholar. Litotes would be an exception: it is not a non-event but an assertion made stronger through negation.
41 Additional examples of Ovid's presentation through negation so as to create irony: 1.452-3 (Apollo's ignorance of Cupid's power); 2.857 (Europa's ignorance of the bull's threat); 3.701 (Pentheus' ignorance of Dionysus' power); 4.683 (Andromeda's absurd actions in light of the danger she is in); 5.80-83 (Eurytus' black comic death by mixing bowl instead of sword); 7.144-6 (The absurdity of Medea's concern for reputation in a minor affair in contrast with her utter disregard for it when committing dreadful wrongs); 8.196 (Icarus' not knowing that the feathers he gleefully handles will cause his death); 9.116-17 (Hercules does not seek to cross the river as quickly as possible but is intent on another exploit when he should realise the danger Nessus poses to his wife and sense the fear she has of him); 10.4-5 (Hymen's presence at Orpheus' wedding being not of good omen but of bad); 11.15-19 (Orpheus' magical singing would have protected him had not the women of the Cicones drowned it out); 12.115 (Achilles throws the spear at Menoetes as if he does not trust his own prowess); 13.393-5 (no hand drives the spear from the body of Ajax; blood does); 14.657-60 (Vertumnus disguised as an old woman kisses Pomona as no old woman would have); 15.779-802 (Romans' failure to pay numerous ill-omens any regard).
42 Pentheus is an extreme example of this, seeking tenderness from relations who respond by tearing him limb from limb. Additional examples are Inachus, Europa, Phaethon, Callisto, Actaeon, Semele, Narcissus, Niobe's children, Pelias’ daughters, Daedalus, Icarus, Hercules, Alcyone, Achilles, Polymestor, Scylla.
43 On non-narrative comments, see Bal, , Narratology (n.21) 126–9Google Scholar. Additional non-narrative comments that create irony: 1.400 (Ovid ironically asserts belief in rocks becoming men because tradition vouches for it); 2.170 (Phaethon would not be able to control the steeds even if he did know how to handle a chariot); 3.138-42 (Actaeon's death is the result of chance not wrong); 4.543-8 (Theban women decide to commit suicide, not thinking that Ino's death is doubtful); 5.2-4 (sounds in the hall of Cepheus are not wedding songs but an uproar presaging battle); 7.84-5 (Jason chances to be more beautiful than usual and so rekindles in Medea the love that she had nearly suppressed. For this reason we could pardon her for loving him); 8.24 (Scylla comes to know Nisus better than she should); 9.456 (Byblis loves her brother not as a brother or sister should); 10.1-3 (Hymen's coming to Orpheus’ wedding is in vain); 11.579 (Alcyone prays for the return of Ceyx who is already dead); 12.75-7 (Seeking Hector or Cycnus, Achilles fights with Cycnus because Hector's death had been postponed until the tenth year); 13.430-34 (Priam's sending Polydorus to Polymestor would have been wise had he not also sent treasure); 14.25-8 (Circe refuses to help Glaucus, because no one is more susceptible to passion than she); 15.779 (Venus’ complaints about the upcoming murder of Julius Caesar are spoken in vain).
44 569-70, 623-5; other examples: 6.565-6; 580; 647-8.
45 lt should be noted that in examples 7-12 Ovid's irony also serves to create dramatic tension: Ovid never fails to keep the narrative moving.
46 On double or ambiguous focalisation see note 36.
non secus exarsit conspecta virgine Tereus,
quam si quis canis ignem supponat aristis
aut frondem positasque cremet faenilibus herbas.
digna quidem facies; sed et hune innata libido
exstimulat, pronumque genus regionibus illis
in Venerem est: flagrat vitio gentisque suoque.
‘Having spied the maiden Tereus caught flame no differently than if one should put fire to old husks or burn leaves and hay stored in lofts. In fact her face is worth it; but also inborn lust fueled him as well as being of a people from that area inclined to love: he blazes with the sin of clan and self.’ (455-60)
inpetus est illi comitum corrumpere curam
nutricisque fidem nec non ingentibus ipsam
sollicitare datis totumque inpendere regnum,
aut rapere et saevo raptam defendere bello.
et nihil est, quod non effreno captus amore
ausit, nec capiunt inclusas pectora flammas.
‘His impulse is to corrupt her attendants’ charge and nurse's trust and with no small gifts to tempt her and to expend his entire realm, or to capture her and to protect his capture in savage war. Indeed there is nothing that overcome by unbridled love, he would not dare, and his chest could not contain the fires within.’ (461-6)
49 See discussion below on Dryden and ‘unnatural thought.’
50 Additional instances include: Phaethon: et iam mallet equos numquam tetigisse paternos, / iam cognosse genus pigel el valuisse rogando, / iam Meropis dici cupiens ita fertur, 2.182–4Google Scholar; Marsyas: quid me mihi detrahis?, 6.385Google Scholar; Byblis: quam bene. Canne, tuo poteram nuns esse parenti! / quam bene, Caune, meo pateras gener esse parenti! / omnia, di facerent, essent communia nobis, / praeter avos: tu me vellem generosior esses, 9. 488–91Google Scholar (Wilkinson, Ovid Recalled [n.2] 207Google Scholar views these as conceits). Alcyone: nunc absens perii, iactor quoque fluclibus absens./Et sine me, me pontus habet, 11.700–701Google Scholar (For a discussion of this wordplay, see Murphy, G.M.H., Ovid's Metamorphoses XI [Bristol 1979] 77Google Scholar.) The debate between Ajax and Ulysses (13.6-390), good discussions of which can be found in Due, , Changing Forms (n.3) 153–4Google Scholar and Coleman, R., ‘Structure and Intention in the Metamorphoses’, CQ 21 (1971) 474fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (Coleman and Wilkinson Ovid Recalled [n.2] 230Google Scholar, think Ovid's sympathies lie with Ulysses. I would argue they lie with neither or both.) Hecuba’ speech, which Seneca, Contr. 9.5.17Google Scholar, marked as distasteful: 13.494-532. Polyxena's speech, 13.460-73, concerning which, Due, , Changing Forms (n.3) 155Google Scholar, in partial agreement with Otis, , Ovid as an Epic Poet (n.2) 285Google Scholar, writes the following: ‘apparently the taste for such exaggerated heroism displayed in macabre contexts was a fact upon which Ovid could count—and did count’.
51 Dryden, J., ‘Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern, translated into verse’, in John Dryden: Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays ed. Watson, G. (London 1962) 279Google Scholar.
52 Frankel, H., Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1945) 216Google Scholar n. 42 rightly notes that the double entendre is an instance of grim humor.
53 On evaluative and affective words, see de Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 136–48Google Scholar. Additional instances of evaluative and affective words include 1.125-131 (various words condemn iniquity of iron age); 2.111 (magnanimus evaluates Phaethon); 3.354 (dura superbia evaluates Narcissus); 4.2 (temeraria evaluates Alcithoe); 5.8 (belli temerarius auctor evaluates Phineus); 7.300 (callida evaluates Medea); 8.85 (heu facinus evaluates Scylla; 9.120 (callere evaluates Nessus); 10.56 (avidus evaluates Orpheus); 11.14 (insana Erinys evaluates the women of the Cicones); 12.128 (fremebundus evaluates Achilles); 13.434 (avari evaluates Polmestor); 14.25-27 evaluates Circe; 15.785 (nefas evaluates the conspirators who kill Caesar).
54 De Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 43Google Scholar.
55 Evaluative and affective words may also establish the tenor of direct or indirect speech: cum blandita viro Procne ‘si gratia’ dixit (440) Procne ‘winsomely’ speaks. At 476 Philomela will be described as blanda when she asks her father, in indirect speech, to let her visit her sister. At 495 the tone of the upcoming speech is indicated by lacrimis obortis (tears rising). Cf. 513 exclamai (shouts).
56 Tereus: he compares him to destructive fire (455-7); calls him barbarus and tyranniferi (515 and 549); emphasises Philomela's virginity and helplessness (virginem et unam, 524); expresses disbelief that he assaulted her repeatedly after having cut out her tongue (vix ausim credere, 561), referring to her body as lacerum (562); describes his return to Procne thus: ‘he manages to return to Procne after such deeds’ (sustinet ad Procnen post talia facta revertí, 563).
Procne: He refers to her eyes as hard oculisque inmitibus (621) and calls her joy cruel: crudeltà gaudia (653).
Philomela: there is perhaps a hint of condemnation of Philomela when he describes her appearance as she is about to throw Tereus his son's head: sparsis furiali caede capillis (657)—’her hair spattered with mad slaughter’; furiali caede may imply criticism. Prior to the slaughter of Itys, Ovid describes Philomela compassionately: as a helpless hare (516-518); a frightened lamb (527); a dove (529); infelix (602). Itys is not criticised.
57 The use of similar words to condemn Tereus and Procne is paralleled by Ovid's connecting them in another way. He uses similar words to describe their mental states: (Tereus) nec capiunt inclusas pectora flammas (‘his heart cannot accommodate the enclosed flame’, 466); (Procne) iram non capit ipsa suam Procne: (‘Procne herself cannot accommodate her own anger’, 653).
58 Contrasting this episode with the similar one in Euripides' Medea may help one to see more clearly the difference between the suggested black comic tone here and the tragic tone there. For a good part of the play Medea wavers in her decision. Her anguish is fully developed and emotionally compelling. Despite her love for the children she says she kills to hurt Jason and to insure that no one from the royal family kills them in retaliation. Her justification, however perverse, is naturally presented. The act of murder is not narrated beyond the screams of the children. Philomela in contrast barely wavers. Her justification is perverse but also unnatural—propriety and epic expect no such reasoning. Finally, the murder itself is not only narrated but overly elaborate: Philomela watches the act; strikes more than the fatal first blow; cuts up and cooks the body—still alive his cut up body parts hiss, moan, and leap—much like the killed oxen in Book 12 of the Odyssey.
59 Familial words often indicate that a passage is secondarily focalised, de Jong, Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 103. Instances of familial words marking secondary focalisation include 1.483-5; 2.49; 3.3-5; 4.603-6; 5.212; 7.96; 8.145; 9.107; 10.60; 11.384-8; 12.580-83; 13.415-17; 14.61-2; 15.761-4.
60 ignarum may be focalised by Procne, Tereus' ignorance being her mind's foremost delight.
61 A later passage, I think, suggests that alta and obscura are focalised by Philomela: ‘venit ad stabula avia tandem’ (596): ‘finally she [Procne] comes to the far-off hut.’ tandem certainly reflects Procne's anxiousness to find her sister; stabula is here modified by avia rather than alia and obscura—the change in modifiers may be due to the change in influence of focalisers.
62 For double or ambiguous focalisation, see note 36. For implicit focalisation see de Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 118–22Google Scholar.
63 See footnote 37.
64 Exaggerated grotesquery can also be found in these stories: Phaethon; Heliades; Actaeon; Pentheus; Perseus; Niobe; Hercules; Orpheus; Achilles; Peek, Hecuba. See, ‘Black Humor’ (nil) 141–5Google Scholar.
65 Pavlock, , ‘The Tyrant’ (n.6) 39Google Scholar interprets the act of stretching out the neck as the language of sacrifice: ‘a proper victim must not struggle’. Rather it is the language of the amphitheatre: Ovid presents us with a character who, like a gladiator, willingly embraces death and so triumphs. See Barton, C.A., The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans (Princeton 1993) 11–46Google Scholar.
66 The technique is similar to the one Tarantino uses in Pulp Fiction when he focuses on the brains hanging from Jules' (Samuel Jackson) beard.
67 Börner, , Metamorphosen (Heidelberg 1976) 153Google Scholar defends the grotesquery by comparando, including examples from Homer, Ennius, and Vergil. The examples he adduces do not come close to Ovid's hyper-exaggeration.
68 For a feminist interpretation of the silencing of Philomela, see de Luce, J., ‘“O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”: A Footnote on Metamorphoses, Silence, and Power,’ in Woman's Power, Man's Game: Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy King, (Wauconda, 11 1993) 305–21Google Scholar and Marder, E., ‘Disarticulated Voices: Feminism and Philomela’, Hypatia 7 (1992) 148–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
69 On assimilated similes, see de Jong, , Narrators and Focalizers (n.18) 126-36Google Scholar. Additional examples of assimilated similes and metaphors include 1.555 (assimilated by Apollo); 3.41-5 (by Cadmus'men); 5.158-59 (Perseus); 8.31 (Scylla); 9.641-3 (women of Bubassus); 11.516-18 (Ceyx and his shipmates); 14.778 (Romans).
70 Solondz, Todd ‘That Lovin' Feeling’, Film Maker Magazine (New York 1998)Google Scholar.
71 Hopkins, , ‘Dryden and Ovid’ (n.3) 189–90Google Scholar.
72 For various ways he introduces humor into the stories of Apollo and Daphne; Jupiter and Europa; and Alpheus and Arethusa, see Stirrup, B. E., ‘Techniques of Rape: Variety and Wit in Ovid's Metamorphoses’, GR 24 (1977) 170–84Google Scholar.
73 It seems as though a mark of Ovid is the ability to make his work be two (seemingly) mutually exclusive things at the same time. For many examples of this, see Due, Changing Forms (n.3) passim.
74 For their suggestions for improvement, I thank the reader, James Keenan, and James Pfundstein.
