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 ... . .. ... .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... . .. ... . .. ... . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. VII Introduction ............................................................................... . Chapter One: The Challenge of Epic 7 Chapter Two: The Cyde of Dionysus .................................... 25 Introduction .............................................. ......................... ..... 25 1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................................................... 33 2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 59 3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 67 4. The Road to Olympus [40-8] ........................................ 95 Chapter Three: The Poet of Dionysus ............ ........................ 113 Introduction ............................................................................ 113 1. Epic Beginnings [1-12] .................... ... ................... .......... 121 2. The Road to War [13-24] .............................................. 137 3. The Indiad [25-40] ............................................................ 170 4. The Road to 01ympus [40-8] ........................................ 189 Chapter Four: The Dionysiac Experience .............................. 207 Bib1iography ................................................................................ 215 Index Locorum ... ....................................... ....... ................ .... ..... 229 General Index ........ ...... ....... ............ ......................... .................. 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 great est 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 addi tionally 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 Common room; it is to be thanked both for its company and for the cheer ful 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 lan guage 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 proe m 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 con tinuous, and even approving, sequence of readers from its first pub lication 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 cen tury he was championed by the eccentric novelist Thomas Love Thomas Love Peacock quoted by Lind (1978) 164-5; the sentiment is echoed I 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-sixth century 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 (thir teenth century). 2 INTRODUCTION Peaeoek, the friend of Shelley.7 A reeent reworking of Creek myth ology 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 liter ary 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 mytho logieal 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 mean ingful 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 hand book 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).