Statius on the death of a parrot

Publius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet living in the latter half of the first century AD. He was widely popular in the Middle Ages, especially his Thebaid – an epic about Oedipus and his fateful progeny. Nowadays he is not much read, understandably - as he is no Ovid, Horace or Catullus and his poems do not quite fit modern taste. Still he is an interesting poet, as his poems give a glimpse of Roman life under Dominitian (81-96). This is especially true for his Silvae, a collection of poems written for various occasions. The second book of the Silvae is dedicated to Atedius Melior, a man almost unknown outside what Statius tells us. Four of the seven poems in this book are consolations, but there is a wide difference between poem one and four: the first poem is on the death of Glaucias, Melior’s lover, and number four is about the loss of Melior’s parrot. Whereas the poem on Glaucias is a real lamentation, is poem four clearly a parody with Catullus’ famous poem of the on the death of Lesbia’s sparrow in mind and Ovid’s parody on the death of Corinna’s parrot (Amores 2.6). I wondered why Statius would have written a parody on the loss of an animal of a patron for whom he had written a real lamentation on the loss of his toy boy – as we would nowadays call it. Statius is not well served with bulks of commentaries, but fortunately book 2 has seen two commentaries in the recent decades (H.J van Dam, Leiden, 1984 and C.E Newlands, Cambridge, 2011). The question why a parody is only addressed by van Dam. He thinks Statius wanted to say: `this is a poem to console my friend Melior, who is really sad about the death of his parrot, on the other hand, the loss of his small Gaucias was a different thing.’ So is it an attempt to put the two losses in perspective for Melior? Even to make him laugh and admire Statius’ playful allusions to previous poets? Maybe, but some questions can only have tentative answers.

It is not an easy poem, but the first 15 lines are charming and not without humour.

Statius, Silvae, 2.4, 1-15

IV. PSITTACVS EIVSDEM

     Psittace dux volucrum, domini facunda voluptas,

humanae sollers imitator, psittace, linguae,

quis tua tam subito praeclusit murmura fato?

hesternas, miserande, dapes moriturus inisti

nobiscum, et gratae carpentem munera mensae            5

errantemque toris mediae plus tempore noctis

vidimus. adfatus etiam meditataque verba

reddideras. at nunc aeterna silentia Lethes

ille canorus habes. cedat Phaethontia vulgi

fabula: non soli celebrant sua funera cygni.            10

    At tibi quanta domus rutila testudine fulgens,

conexusque ebori virgarum argenteus ordo,

argutumque tuo stridentia limina cornu

et querulae iam sponte fores! vacat ille beatus

carcer, et augusti nusquam convicia tecti.            15

psittacus: parrot

dux volucrum: the real king of birds is of course the eagle

facunda voluptas: easy speaking darling

sollers sollertis: clever, skilful

praecludo –si –sum (-ere): to shut off, close

tam subito fato: by such a sudden fate

murmur murmuris (n.): murmur, murmuring  (Ironically used word for describing the speaking of a parrot.)

hesternus: yesterday’s

daps dapes (f.): meal, banquet

moriturus: the future participle denotes `about to…’

in-eo in i(v)i initum: to enter,  go to

gratae mensae: the table you loved (or the table grateful to receive you)

carpo carpsi carptum (-ere): to pick

munus muneris (n.): gift (here `food’)

erro (-are) to wander up and down

toris:  to the cushions (on de beds around the tables on which people where lying at a dinner.)

mediae plus tempore noctis: after midnight

adfatus (-us, m.) reddo: to give a speech

meditata verba: the words you have practised

Lethe: the river of the underworld (Lethes is a Greek genitive)

ille canorus: you melodious singer (a parrot?)

cedat Phaethontia vulgi fabula: the story of Phaethon of the common people has to give way (to this tragic event) (When the unexperienced Phaethon was driving the sun wagon of his father Helios, Zeus killed him with his thunderbolt to prevent to world being burned. The sisters of Phaethon wept so much that they turned into poplars. The point is that the sorrow of the poet is greater than that of the sisters.)

cygnus: swan (swans were believed to sing before they die.)

domus: here of course a cage, which had a golden red vault (rutila testudine) and a silver row of rods (virgarum argenteus ordo) decorated with ivory. Maybe the rods did indeed resemble twigs (virga, ae), giving the idea of a natural habitat.

Argutum…fores: in a rather dense description, Statius tells how the doors (limina, fores) of the cage used to make a shrill noise, when the parrot opened it with its beak, but are now (iam) complaining of them self (sponte) with that same noise.

argutum stridentia limina: the doors creaking (strido, -ere) shrilly (argutum adverbially)

tuo cornu: cornu (horn) used as metonym for `beak’.

querulus: complaining

beatus carcer: oxymoron `a happy prison’

augustus: magnificent (a variant reading is angusti `narrow’, which is adopted in the translation below.)

convicium: loud noise, reproach, insult (teaching parrots abusive language is apparently an old practice.)

 

Roman mosaic of a parrot from Seville.

Translation by A.S. Kline. (complete)

Parrot, king of birds, your owner’s eloquent delight,

Talented imitator, Parrot, of the human tongue, what

Cut short your lisping with the suddenness of fate?

Yesterday, sad bird, while we dined, you were about

To die, though we watched you sampling the table’s

Gifts with pleasure, wandering from couch to couch

Past midnight. And you talked to us, spoke the words

You’d learned. Now our entertainer possesses Lethe’s

Eternal silence. No more tales of Phaethon and Cycnus:

Swans are not the only birds given to celebrating death.

What a fine cage you owned, with a bright red cupola,

With those sides barred with silver wedded to ivory,

Its gates and perches sounding to your beak’s clatter,

Now, making their own sad creak. Empty that happy

Prison, your narrow dwelling’s clamour is no more.

Let that school of birds crowd round to whom Nature

Grants the noble skill of mimicry; let Apollo’s raven

Beat its breast; the starling who repeats from memory

Words it has heard; those girls changed to magpies

In Aonian contest; the partridge that replies linking

Repeated sounds, and sad Philomela the nightingale

Who moans in her Thracian room. Bring your grief

Here, lament as one, and together carry your dead

Kinsman to the fire, while all rehearse this dirge:

‘Dead is the renowned glory of the airborne race,

Parrot, the green sovereign of the Eastern climes,

Whose looks not even Juno’s peacock with its

Jewelled tail, nor the pheasants of icy Colchis,

Nor the guinea fowl Numidians trap in a humid

Southerly, matched: he, who saluted kings, uttered

Caesar’s name, would act as a sympathetic friend,

Or a light-hearted guest at dinner, was always

Ready to echo the given words. So that when he

Was released from his cage, dear Melior, you

Were never alone. Yet he is not sent to the shades

Ingloriously: his ashes steam with Assyrian spice,

While his fragile feathers smell of Arabian incense,

And Sicilian saffron. Unwearied by slow ageing,

He mounts the perfumed pyre, a brighter Phoenix.