Ausonius, epigrams 57 and 60: creeping into the mind of women.

Writing from the perspective of a famous person – mythical or historical, was common practice in Latin literature. Famous are the Ovid’s Heroides, in which Ovid wrote letters in the name of famous heroines, but other writers too used this literary device. Ausonius (310-395) for instance has written a number of epigrams from the perspective of women. Now I come to think about it: I can’t remember that this device is used for famous men. Probably there are some, but is seems that male poets felt for more comfortable using the perspective of a woman. Maybe – and I say it with some hesitation – it is because the mind of women was seen as more fickle and hence more interesting.

In the first of the following epigrams we hear Niobe speaking. She once boasted that she with her fourteen children had far more offspring than Leto, who had only Apollo and Artemis. True, but Apollo and Artemis killed her children and Niobe herself fled to mount Sipylus, where she turned into a stone constantly weeping.  There was a famous sculpture of Niobe and her children at Rome, brought there by C. Sosios around 66 BC. Contemporary writers were in doubt about the sculptor: Praxiteles or Scopas? The point of this epigram is clear: both as living person and as sculpture I had no sense.

In the second epigram the famous prostitute Lais is talking. There were actually two famous courtesans with that name, but in literature they often merged into a single person. Lais was said to have innumerable lovers during her long life – supposed to be long because of all her lovers of which the number can’t be handled in just a few years. This is perfect example of circular reasoning. After her death she kept the imagination of men, or more precise: male poets. I think Freud had a point about the mind of men.

Ausonius imagines her as an old woman looking in a mirror: too old now for seducing lovers.

Ausonius, Epigrams, 57 and 60. The texts are those given by N.M Kay, Ausonius, Epigrams (2001)

Vivebam: sum facta silex, qua deinde polita

   Praxiteli manibus, vivo iterum Niobe.

Reddidit artificis manus omnia, sed sine sensu;

  hunc ego, cum laesi numina, non habui.

Lais anus Veneri speculum dico: dignum habeat se

  aeterna aeternum forma ministerium.

at mihi nullus in hoc usus, quia cernere talem,

  qualis sum, nolo, qualis eram, nequeo.

silex silicis (m. and sometimes f.): stone

qua deinde polita: abl. abs. `which subsequently being polished’

polio (-ire) polivi politum: to polish, smooth

Praxiteli: Latin genitive of a Greek name

vivo iterum Niobe: I, Niobe, live (now) a second time

reddo (-ere) reddidi redditum: to restore, give back

artifex artificis (m.): artist

hunc (sensum): as for insulting gods (numina) one must be out of his (and her!) senses

laedo laesi laesum: to wound, offend

anus anus (f.): old woman (a derogatory term)

dico (-are): to dedicate (Veneri speculum dico: dear items were dedicated to gods when they were no longer used. Lais dedicates her mirror to Venus, as she realizes she has become unattractive.)

dignum habeat se aeterna aeternum forma ministerium = aeterna forma habeat aeternum ministerium dignum se (habere): let eternal beauty have eternal service (to Venus), worthy it (i.e. forma) having (i.e. only eternal beauty is worthy of the eternal service to Venus.)

in hoc (speculum)

cerno (-ere) crevi certum: to see, distinguish

talem (anum)

nequeo (-ire) nequivi: not be able to

Ausonius on a nouveau riche.

We all know people boasting on their wealth, I mean not knowing personally, but from newspapers and television. Some even want to become president.  An excess of wealth often goes closely with a complete lack of taste, not only now, but also in Antiquity. Hence criticizing the nouveaux riches has a solid basis in Roman literature. Ausonius (c. 310 – c. 395) wrote an epigram on such a person, though he doesn’t mention him by name. This wealthy man invented his ancestry back to Mars, Romulus and Remus and had their names displayed on silk, silver, door-posts (ianuarum limina) and at the halls of his houses (atrium). Ausonius has his own idea about such people. Being himself from well-established ancestry, one could suspect some contempt for those who just got their wealth and tried to be accepted by the upper-class, but I think Ausonius was too much a man of letters not to pass an occasion for writing on this topos. May be he had not some particular man in mind, but was just commenting on what he saw around him.

The epigram is not without its philological and exegetical problems, but the end is funny: as we all know Romulus and Remus were brought up by a she-wolf, a lupa in Latin. Ausonius tells us that the reason why this man was so found of inventing an ancestry was that probably his father was unknown. Why? Because his mother was a lupa, like the foster mother of Romulus and Remus, but this word is also used for a prostitute…

Ausonius, epigram 26 (Green and Kay editions, number 45 in the Peiper and Evelyn-White editions)

Meter: iambic trimeters and iambic dimeters

Quidam superbus opibus et fastu tumens

tantumque verbis nobilis

spernit vigentis clara saecli nomina,

antiqua captans stemmata,

Martem Remumque et conditorem Romulum

privos parentes nuncupans.

hos ille Serum veste contexi iubet:

hos caelat argento gravi,

ceris inurens ianuarum limina

et atriorum pegmata.

credo, quod illi nec pater certus fuit

et mater est vere lupa.

fastus –us (m.): pride, arrogance

tumeo: be swollen, puffed up

sperno sprevi spretum: to despise

vigentis saecli: of a blooming age, probably Ausonius refers to a his own time and its recent past.

stemma (n.): pedigree

conditor –oris (m.): founder

privus: one’s own, particular

nuncupo: to call by name, proclaim

Serum veste contexi iubet: orders to be woven on a garment (made) of silk (serum gen. pl. m.:  of seres `chinese’ and hence `silk’).

caelo: to engrave

ceris inurens: burning with wax (cera). Coloured wax was put on wood and then burned into it with hot iron.

pegmata: it is not quite clear what is meant, but  N.M. Kay in his 2001 edition of the epigrams points out that it is likely to mean the case or shelves on which the images of ancestors were exhibited, and not ceilings, as Evelyn-White translates.

More information on the display of the heads of ancestors:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/roman-republic/a/head-of-a-roman-patrician

Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1921)

A fellow, purse-proud and swollen-headed, high

born in words alone, scorns the illustrious names of

the current age, hankering after an ancient pedigree

and claiming Mars, Remus, and Romulus our

founder as his own special forebears. Their figures

he bids be woven in his silken robes, theirs he chases

on his massy plate, or paints in encaustic on his

threshold and on the ceiling of his halls. True for

him ! For his father was not known and his mother

surely is a bitch.

Ausonius, epigram 14: last time making love?

Some time ago I published a post with an epigram of Ausonius (c. 310 – c. 395). I noticed I still had the edition with commentary by Nigel Kay I borrowed from the library and more or less at random I picked another epigram. There are echoes in the various lined  from Rufinus, Martial , Tibullus and Horace - as a teacher of rhetoric  Ausonius Greek and Latin literature must have had no secrets for him - but the epigram itself is almost unique in its theme: the man of an elderly couple encourages his wife to have sex. Formerly she had not the will and now she has not the beauty and she regrets (nunc piget) her former abstinence.  As for him, he will enjoy (fruar quod volui), what he once desired, but his desire has now gone (etsi non quod volo).

A good epigram captures in a few sentences a situation. It is like a sketch by a painter, who with a few strokes of charcoal or whatever draws a picture, but leaving many details out. We can only guess and fill in according to our imagination. This epigram too raises questions. For sure, it is not autobiographical, as Ausonius’ first wife died at a young age and his second wife was much younger, but he draws a picture for us the readers, which has a touch of melancholy and sadness the reasons for it we can only guess.

Ausonius, epigram 14.

Dicebam tibi : " Galla, senescimus; effugit aetas,

   utere rene tuo  casta puella anus est."

Sprevisti, obrepsit non intellecta senectus

   nec revocare potes, qui periere, dies, .

Nunc piget, et quereris, quod non aut ista voluntas .

   tunc fuit aut non est nunc ea forma tibi.

Da tamen amplexus oblitaque gaudia iunge:

   da: fruar - etsi non quod volo, quod volui.

dicebam:  I used to say

senescimus: present stems in  –sc-  denote a process `we are getting older’

aetas: (here) youth

utere rene tuo: This is the reading of the manuscripts and N.M. Kay has defended this reading against the conjecture vere. The renes are the kidneys and occur mostly in the plural. In later Latin it can also mean `loins’.  Kay advocates a shift of meaning of the singular to a euphemism for cunno (but in his translation he decently opts for `loins’)

sperno sprevi spretum: to despise

obrepo obrepsi obreptum: to approach stealthily (enforced by non intellecta `unperceived’)

periere  = perierunt

piget (te): you regret

queror questus sum: to complain, bewail

forma: beauty

amplexus –us (m.): embracing

Translation: HUGH G. EVELYN WHITE, M.A. (1921). (Note: even for that time his translations are old-fashioned, but they have the benefit of having no copyright)  

I used to say to thee : '' Galla, we grow old, Time flies away, enjoy thy life : a chaste girl is an old

woman." Thou didst scorn my warning. Age has crept upon thee unperceived, nor canst thou call

back the days that are gone. Now thou art sorry and dost lament, either because then thou wert dis-

inclined, or because now thou hast not that former beauty. Yet give me thine embrace and share for-

gotten joys with me. Give : I will take, albeit not what I would, yet what I once would.

Ausonius to his wife.

Decimus Magnus Ausonius (310 Bordeaux – 393/4) was the most famous poet and teacher of rhetoric of his time. He was summoned to Rome to become the teacher Gratian, son of Valentian 1 and spent the years between 365 and 388 mostly at Rome or at campaign with Gratian. His final years he spent at his home town Bordeaux, writing poems and enjoying his estate.

He is best known from his poem Mosella, which he wrote around 370, in which gives an idyllic picture of the river Moselle.  Apart from this poem he wrote lots of other poems amongst them this epigram for his wife in which he imagines that at old age they will still be youthful. Alas, she died when she was 28, leaving him three children of which one died in infancy.  Though in later life he married a girl captured from the Alamanni,  the loss of his first wife would cast a shadow over the rest of his life.

This epigram was probably written a year before her death:

AUSONIUS

Ad Uxorem

Uxor, vivamus quod viximus et teneamus

nomina quae primo sumpsimus in thalamo ;

nec ferat ulla dies, ut commutemur in aevo,

quin tibi sim iuvenis tuque puella mihi.

Nestore sim quamvis provectior aemulaque annis

vincas Cumanam tu quoque Deiphoben,

nos ignoremus quid sit matura senectus,

scire aevi meritum, non numerare decet.

quod: most manuscripts read quod and one family ut. quod has been suspected and the emendation ceu by Heyne is accepted by most editors. However N. M. Kay has defended quod, pointing out that quod in Late Latin is used for sicut.

nomina: names showing affection, cuddling names

thalamus: bedroom  and by extension: marriage

in aevo: in old age

quin = ut non

Nestore provectior: more advanced (in age) than Nestor

aemulus: rivalling

Cumana Deiphobe: The Cumaean Sybille, proverbial for old age of women

matura senectus: old age

scire aevi meritum, non numerate decet: It is proper to know the merits of the years, not to count them

Translation by Helen Waddell:

To his Wife

LOVE, let us live as we have lived, nor lose

The little names that were the first night's grace,

And never come the day that sees us old,

I still your lad, and you my little lass.

Let me be older than old Nestor's years,

And you the Sibyl, if we heed it not.

What should we know, we two, of ripe old age?

We'll have its richness, and the years forgot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausonius