Liber esto – Wordplay and Ambiguity in Petronius’ Satyrica

Phoenix – Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, 1998

Faced with, among other things, a flurry of intra- and intertextual elements, narrative unreliability, and complex structural features, the studious reader of Petronius’ Satyricon will quickly find that the so-called Roman novel is surpassed in its multifacetedness only by the staggering number of conceits and readings devised to explain it. Indeed, to name only a few, it has been variously described as a katabasis to the underworld, a labyrinth of Daedalan proportions, a self-contained universe, a Socratic practice for death, and a symposium of vulgar speech. Other scholars, fixating on this last element, have sought explanations primarily through linguistic and socioeconomic subversion. In short, the reader cannot—in fact, should not—isolate any one of these interpretations in exclusion to another. As such, still other scholars have found this complex work’s lack of singular meaning to be its most meaningful trait of all. Following roughly the tradition of this final conclusion, this paper will explore how certain elements and events of the Cena Trimalchionis, the largest and most significant surviving fragment of the Satyricon, are reflected and deflected throughout the narrative as it unfolds and, so to speak, refolds. It will, in a word, strive not to undermine, but rather to complicate and supplement such models as—for example—John Bodel’s illustration of the Cena’s ring composition. In fact, this intricate diagram, excellent as it is, lures the reader into a false sense of security; the echoing components of Trimalchio’s dinner party are not mirrored along just two axes (see below), but are rather confusingly diffracted by processes such as magnification and distortion across many. The freedman’s ballgame, for example, represents a microcosm of his playful (and equally polyvalent) dinner, while the mime he produces at 55 hints at the division and course of his doomed banquet. Mirroring of the first half of the Cena into the second intimates an environment of rising surrealism and intensity as Trimalchio himself loses control, promptly sinking into his worst fears of powerlessness, tomb desecration, and loss of legacy. The reader, it turns out, can even observe a similar course and outcome in Eumolpus’ tale of the Widow of Ephesus, whose dead husband emerges as an apt likeness to the morbid freedman. Amid these reflections, it is perhaps no coincidence that one catches a glimpse not only of internal narrative reflections, but also a metapoetic image of the Neronian literary world of which they are a part. In short, we readers realize that we have been led not merely into Trimalchio’s labyrinth or underworld, strictly speaking; we have been led into a surreal and chaotic house of narratological mirrors, whose distorted reflections convey meaning about the world inside and outside of Petronius’ Daedalan masterpiece.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001

In this contribution, Lucian’s Nigrinus is examined for intended ambiguity, which calls for a satirical and ironic reading of the text. Nigrinus shows numerous ambiguous, linguistic-stylistic, generic and compositional features that cause a reader to react with disconcertment and which are to be evaluated as intended ambiguity markers. These markers are analyzed and interpreted as subversive strategies and planned disruptive tactics that allow educated recipients to arrive at a satirical reading and a thoroughly sober, critical view of an inappropriate, seemingly insane enthusiasm for philosophy.

This paper investigates the status that the genre of fable acquires when it is employed in literature. In particular, it surveys Horace's treatment of fables in the Satires and Epistles and the carefully controlled circumstances in which zoomorphic language is allowed to emerge during the banquet at Trimalchio's in Petronius' Satyrica. The analysis of the distribution of fables in Horace shows that for the Roman literary public the act of speaking through fables bore in itself a negative connotation, so much that the moral discourse of the satirist needed at first to provide additional justification in order to incorporate them: from vindication of ingenuitas and shifts in narrative voice, to use of rhetorical misnomers and eventually of philosophical frankness. Petronius' text, in turn, suggests that what is wrong with fable is precisely its being reminiscent of a servile past. During the dinner at Trimalchio's allusions to recognizable fable plots and zoomorphic language are allowed to surface only during a momentary absence of the host. This circumstance suggests that fable is not just another literary genre among the many abused in Trimalchio's house: for both the host and his freedmen guests fables are an uncomfortable reminder of an enduring past inscribed in their language.

The Classical Quarterly , 2019

Among the one-word fragments from unknown plays of Sophocles, fr. inc. 1111 R. (φίλανδρον) has been treated as one of the more straightforward. It derives from a passage in Hermogenes of Tarsos' treatise Περὶ Ἰδεῶν (late second century C.E.), 1 which includes the Sophoclean adjective, its referent and a brief gloss: … ὁ Σοφοκλῆς … φίλανδρόν που τὴν Ἀταλάντην εἶπε διὰ τὸ ἀσπάζεσθαι σὺν ἀνδράσιν εἶναι ('… Sophocles called Atalante philandros somewhere because she enjoyed being with men'). 2 Brunck assigned the fragment to Sophocles' tragic Meleagros; 3 most subsequent editors have edited the fragment as sedis incertae while commenting favourably on Brunck's ascription. 4 This suggestion has also found support beyond Sophoclean scholarship, 5 and, to my knowledge, no alternative has been brought forward. While the ascription of the fragment to the Meleagros is prima facie not implausible, I shall argue that a thorough analysis of the difficult passage in Hermogenes calls for a revision of the current lexicographical accounts of the word φίλανδρος-as well as φιλανδρία-and suggests that fr. 1111 may in fact originate in a satyr-play. 1 On the dates of Hermogenes and Περὶ Ἰδεῶν, see M. Patillon, Corpus Rhetoricum Tome IV: Prolégomènes au De ideis. Hermogène, Les catégories stylistiques du discours (De ideis). Synopses des exposés sur les Ideai (Paris, 2012), VIII-IX. 2 Id. 2.5.5 [341]. Text of Hermogenes and page numbers follow Patillon's edition (n. 1) with the page numbers of Rabe's edition added in brackets. Translations of Hermogenes are adapted from C.W. Wooten, Hermogenes' On Types of Style (Chapel Hill, NC / London, 1997), here 82; all other translations are my own. 3 R.F.Ph. Brunck, Lexicon Sophocleum, in id., Sophoclis tragoediae septem cum scholiis veteribus … accedunt deperditorum dramatum fragmenta, vol. 4 (Strassburg, 1789), s.v. φίλανδρος. 4 Only W. Dindorf, Sophoclis tragoediae superstites et deperditarum fragmenta (Oxford, 1832), 370 confidently edits it among the fragments of 'the Meleagros' (sc. fr. 356); it is also referred to as such in the various Lexica Sophoclea s.v. (Ellendt [Königsberg, 1835], Ellendt/Genthe [Berlin, 1872], Dindorf [Leipzig, 1870]). Subsequent editors list it among the incerta: Nauck in TrGF 1 (1856) has it as inc. fr. 1003, but notes 'ad Meleagrum rettulerim cum Brunckio', and this is repeated in TrGF 2 (1889) where the fragment features as inc. fr. 1006. Similarly, A.C. Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917), 3.165 edits it as inc. fr. 1111, but notes that 'Brunck was probably right in ascribing this fr. to the Meleager'. Radt (TrGF), who also edits it as inc. fr. 1111, refrains from explicit judgement, but see below, p. 855. H. Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles Fragments (Cambridge, MA / London, 2003 2), 213 briefly mentions it in his introduction to the Meleager without engaging with previous scholarship ('Did Atalanta figure in Sophocles' play? Fr. 1111, from which we learn that Sophocles called Atalanta φίλανδρος, might suggest it.'). The fragment is mentioned neither in the edition of G. Paduano, Tragedie e frammenti di Sofocle (Turin, 1982) nor in the detailed survey of Sophocles' fragmentary plays in

Th is paper examines the role and importance of Amphitrite in Catullus c. 64, the epyllion on the wedding of Peleus and Th etis. Catullus intends to conjure up Amphitrite's rich mythological background for the needs of his poem. Amphitrite's story contains thematic elements that recur in both narratives of c. 64, namely the main story of Peleus and Th etis, and the embedded story of Th eseus and Ariadne. At the same time Amphitrite's meaningful presence in the prologue of c. 64 is a pointer to Bacchylides' Dithyramb 17, which treats Th eseus' outbound journey to Crete and the test of his divine paternity, imposed by Minos. Th e several points of contact between B. Dith. 17 and Catul. c. 64 show that this Greek poem is an important subtext for c. 64, which has gone unnoticed so far.

Titus Andronicus: The State of Play, 2019

This paper reexamines certain difficulties of interpretation in poem 56, which takes the form of a forceful exhortation to an audience of one, an unspecified Cato, to laugh as Catullus relates a sexual encounter through vague innuendo. I argue that understanding the grammarian Publius Valerius Cato as addressee unifies the poem and its various difficulties, and that Catullus selected this Cato in order to poke fun at established stereotypes of the grammarians and to test Cato’s grammatical acumen with a series of lexical conundrums (abstruse diction, recondite allusion, and ambiguous syntax).

in Cláudia Teixeira, Paulo Ferreira & Delfim Leão, The Satyricon of Petronius. Genre, Wandering and Style (Coimbra)., 2008

The paper focuses primarily on the characters of Giton and Eumolpos, who are two of the most curious Petronian inventions. The analysis of their behaviour and style provides us with a clarifying example of the care taken by Petronius in the construction of the main characters of the Satyricon and of the different levels of reading that he intentionally created, through the confluence in a single character of multiple lines deriving from literary and cultural tradition.