Читать книгу The Latin Dual and Poetic Diction: Studies in Numbers and Figures - Andrew J. Bell - Страница 5

Table of Contents

We read in Horace:

Tunc me biremis praesidio scaphae

Tutum per Aegaeos tumultus

Aura feret geminusque Pollux. (Od. 3. 29. 62-4.)

Lonsdale and Lee translate geminusque Pollux, ‘and Pollux with his twin brother’. Acron’s note is: 64. Geminusque P. Pollux cum Castore intellegendus est; amborum enim stellae simul nascuntur; and Porphyrio’s: geminusque Pollux, quia horum sidera cum se ostendunt laborantibus nautis praebent spem salutis. It is the constellation that is in question here, and the two stars rise together; so we feel sure that Pollux here is used for Castor and Pollux. But it is one thing to feel sure of this, quite another to see how this use is possible and what it involves.

Kiessling explains: ‘The one of the Dioscuri is named, the other merely signified by geminus’, and this explanation seems that commonly accepted. But if the Twins were commonly termed: gemini Castores, and we found geminus Castor used to designate both, the use of geminus would not explain the difficulty, but merely double it. In naming the Twins, besides: Castor et Pollux (Cic. N.D. 2. 6.2), cum Castore Pollux (Hor. Ep. 2. 1.5), gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris (Catull. 4. 27), we find in use Castores (Tac. Hist. 2. 24 et saepius), Polluces (Serv. ad Geo. 3. 89), Gemini (Varro, R.R. 2. 1.7), Castoras geminos (Pacat. Pan. 39). To take a parallel use, we read in Juvenal: geminos sub rupe Quirinos (11. 105), of Romulus and Remus; if we followed Horace’s idiom, we should write: geminum sub rupe Remum. But the presence of geminum in this phrase would hardly account for the use of Remum for Romulum et Remum. Horace’s idiom does not stand alone, though Kiessling cites no parallels. But we read: potaque Pollucis lympha salubris equo (Prop. 3 (4). 22. 26). In Statius we read: donec ab Elysiis prospexit sedibus alter Castor (Silv. 4. 6. 15-16), where alter Castor is also of the constellation, and must stand for Castor and Pollux; and for Virgil’s Haedi pluviales (Aen. 9. 668) we find Horace using the singular in: orientis Haedi (Od. 3. 1. 28), and Propertius in: purus et Haedus erit (2.26. 56).

The use of Quirini for Romulus and Remus, or of Castores for Castor and Pollux, is evidently connected with the usual likeness of twins: proles indiscreta suis gratusque parentibus error (Aen. 10. 392). Virgil seems to have extended this use to brothers in: Assaracique duo et senior cum Castore Thymbris (Aen. 10. 124), where the mention of Castor immediately after Assaraci suggests the analogy of Castores, Assaraci being probably for Assaracus and Ganymedes, descendants of an older pair of brothers of like names. The likeness that is not always found in twins is very common in brothers that are not twins. Lucan extends the use further in: Heroas lacrimoso litore turres (9.955), where Heroas evidently means ‘of Hero and Leander’.

Cicero uses Castor for Castor and Pollux in: in aede Castoris (Verr. 2. 1. 129. 49), and: ad Castoris (Milo, 91. 33); with which we may compare: ad vigilem ponendi Castora nummi (Juv. 14. 260) or: vicinum Castora canae transibis Vestae (Mart. 1. 70. 3-4). This may primarily have been merely a short and convenient way of designating the shrine, and the longer form of the name of the second twin Pollūces (=Πολυδεύκης), still in use in Plautus’s day, adds probability to this view. If so, Horace’s use of the name Pollux for the two may be merely a poetic variation of the ordinary colloquial use. But the tendency to use the name of one of a pair to express both is so common in Latin both for proper and common names, as we shall see, that I hesitate to accept this account of its origin. We may believe, however, that the Romans in their adjurations: Ecastor, Mecastor, Pol, Edepol, were using the name of one of the twins for both; and Horace seems to have both in mind in: hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules enisus arces attigit igneas (Od. 3. 3. 9-10), when we compare: dicam et Alciden puerosque Ledae (Od. 1. 12. 25).

The use of the plural we noticed in Castores, usually called the Elliptical Plural, in Assaraci Virgil has extended from twins to a pair of brothers, and Lucan in Heroas to a pair of lovers; we might expect a similar extension of the use of geminus Pollux for Castor and Pollux. I read in Keller-Holder’s Horace:

Videre †Raetis bella sub Alpibus

Drusum gerentem Vindelici. (Od. 4. 4. 17-18.)

But all the manuscripts give Raeti, not Raetis, which is Bentley’s emendation. This reading is confirmed by the Scholia of Acron and Porphyrio, more valuable than the manuscripts, as their readings are fortified by the explanations they add. Acron’s scholium runs: 17.Videre Rh. b. s.A. Per hyperbaton longum sensui superiori respondit. Qualem aquilam et leonem imbellis praeda, talem Drusum videre Rhaeti Vindelici barbarorum gentes; and Porphyrio in the introduction to his Scholia on this ode writes: (Haec ode) scripta est ergo in Neronem Drusum, privignum et successorem Augusti, qui Rhaetos Vindelicos bello vicit. It seems certain that both Acron and Porphyrio had before them the text:

Videre Rhaeti bella sub Alpibus

Drusum gerentem Vindelici;

and at present editors seem inclined to accept it. Very curious is Porphyrio’s: Drusum, privignum et successorem Augusti; it looks as though he were following Horace in making Drusum stand here for Tiberium, for surely Porphyrio knew that Tiberius, not Drusus, was the successor of Augustus.

While most of the older scholars accepted the text of Acron and Porphyrio, and followed their explanation, which seemed to make of the Rhaeti and Vindelici a single people, subdued by a single victor, Bentley saw that Horace in the fourteenth ode of his fourth book stated plainly that, while Drusus subdued the Vindelici, it was Tiberius, the maior Neronum, who defeated the Rhaeti. This is confirmed by other historians of the period; and Bentley rightly stresses the words of Velleius: divisis partibus Rhaetos Vindelicosque adgressi (2.95). The Rhaeti and the Vindelici are separate peoples, and Tiberius and Drusus were leading separate armies, when they defeated them at different places and different times. So Bentley accepts an emendation already suggested by Heinsius, Raetis for Raeti. He afterwards heard of a manuscript in the library of Peter Francius which had here the reading Retis; and this he thought, wrongly, was confirmed by the readings Retii and Reti in some of his own manuscripts. We have no further knowledge of this manuscript of Francius; and our business is, not to change the text handed down to us, but to explain as we best can the only evidence we have of what Horace wrote.

When we meet the ellipse we know in: good men and true, it does not puzzle us long. More puzzling to some readers was Horace’s: fortes creantur fortibus et bonis (Od. 4. 4. 29); some scholars wrote a comma after fortibus, and joined et bonis with the following: est in iuvencis. But Bentley saw that fortes et boni was a usual pair, and supplied: fortes (et boni) creantur fortibus et bonis, where we have a union of two pairs, one of which is represented by a single term, as we saw Castor and Pollux represented by Pollux. Now in the verses in question we have a union of two pairs, the Rhaeti and Vindelici and Tiberius and Drusus, the latter of which is represented by Drusus. In the examples cited above the abbreviated pairs are designated by the same word, ‘men’ and ‘men’, boni and boni, and in v.28 the pair thus shortened is named by the one word Nerones. And, as we shall see, this shortening of four to three is very usual in Latin and lies at the base of such usual figures as hypallage and zeugma.

Horace’s motive in this use of the figure seems plain enough. The courtiers of Augustus thought and spoke of him as the Jove on earth; we find Horace drawing this parallel in:

Caelo tonantem credidimus lovem

Regnare; praesens divus habebitur

Augustus. (Od. 3. 5. 1-3.)

If he is Jove on earth, are not his boys, Tiberius and Drusus, the Dioscuri on earth? Horace nine years before had, in speaking of the Dioscuri, named them by the name of the second, Pollux; is he not paying the boys of Augustus a subtle compliment by naming them in like fashion by the name of the younger, Drusus? On this view our difficulties disappear; from Drusum gerentem in v.18 we infer Tiberium gerentem for v.17, and understand: Videre Rhaeti Tiberium gerentem bella sub Alpibus, Drusum bella gerentem videre Vindelici.

We have a further extension of this use in:

Non celeres fugae

Reiectaeque retrorsum Hannibalis minae,

Non incendia Karthaginis impiae,

Eius qui domita nomen ab Africa

Lucratus rediit, clarius indicant

Laudes quam Calabrae Pierides. (Od. 4. 8. 15-20.)

Here in describing the exploits of the Scipios, Horace seems to attribute them to the younger Scipio, making him defeat Hannibal at Zama as well as burn Carthage. And yet it is only of the elder Scipio that we can understand the praises of the Calabrae Pierides; for Ennius had been dead nearly a quarter of a century when the younger Scipio destroyed Carthage with fire. It seemed to older scholars that Horace was confusing the elder with the younger Scipio, but Bentley rejected this as incredible. He threw out v.17, which seemed to him to cause all the trouble, as it did not show the usual caesura. Just compare:

Lucratus rediit ‖ clarius indicant,

which does show this caesural pause with:

Non incendia Kar‖thaginis impiae.

True, this caesura is at times obscured by synaloepha, as in:

Reiectaeque retrors’ ‖ Hannibalis minae,

and is even found after the prefix of the verb, as in:

Dum flagrantia de‖torquet ad oscula (Od. 2. 12. 25);

and in the Greek use of this caesura there is no such regularity as Bentley assumed for the Latin. Still he concludes: Agnosco enim monachalis plane genii et coloris. But Acron had this verse before him in his text of Horace; here is his note explaining impiae: 17.impiae. Quae ter gessit bellum contra Romanos. Kiessling brackets it as spurious, and thinks it is inserted later to prevent any reader from referring: eius qui ... rediit to Hannibal, a risk which seems remote. As we read on in the ode, we meet: clarum Tyndaridae sidus (v.31), by which Horace probably hoped to suggest to his reader his previous use of Pollux for Castor and Pollux. (Cf. geminos Scipiadas, Aen. 6. 842.) So here again, when after reiectae ... minae we imply eius qui ... rediit, the difficulty disappears, and we have associated with the pair Zama and Karthago incensa the common designation eius qui ... rediit. In the use of Pollux for the Twins (Od. 3. 29) the fourfold structure is not so evident, being obscured by the transference of scapha from the subject (scapha et) aura to the predicate feret.

In these three passages, to designate a pair connected by nature, name, qualities, or exploits, we have the name or designation of one of the pair, and that the second in each case. The first passage is of the Dioscuri, a pair usually expressed by the dual even in Doric, where the dual is rare. We have here, then, a case of the dual not passing into the plural, as has been assumed to be always the case, but into the singular. The dual has left few traces in Latin, where there was no such endeavour to restore it as is evident in post-Homeric Greek. Its earlier and speedier disappearance in Latin may well account for its passing to the singular there oftener than in Greek; for the dual that the Greeks tried to restore was a dual that was encroaching more and more on the domain of the plural. If the dual primarily indicates two objects paired in nature, such as the two eyes or the two hands, as is usually believed, it may be asked whether it is nearer the plural than the singular. I read in Gauthiot, Du nombre duel: En Indo-Européen Skr. akṣī, Gr. ὄσσε, lit. akì, ne signifient pas proprement ‘les deux yeux’, ni ‘la paire d’yeux’, ni même ‘l’œil et l’autre œil’, mais ‘l’œil autant que double’ (Festschrift für Vilhelm Thomsen, p. 131). We know how in Homer ὄσσε is repeatedly joined with a singular verb, though not so often as with one in the dual or plural. It is a neuter dual; and this use has been held to be parallel with that of the neuter plural with a singular verb; but it is no true parallel. If it were, the use of ὄσσε with the singular verb would be far more usual than its use with the dual or plural.

The dual certainly passes into the plural far oftener than into the singular; and the syntax of ὄσσε supports this. Our English use of ‘to bow the knee’ points to the same syntax, as does Marlowe’s verse: Than has the white breasts of the Queen of Love (Faust, 1. 1. 132); and when Horace writes:

Gaude quod spectant oculi te mille loquentem (Ep. 1. 6. 19),

does he mean that only five hundred constitute the audience? If he means a thousand, then oculus must mean to him a pair of eyes. So too in: in laxa nixa pedem solea (Prop. 2. 29. 40) we have both pedem and solea singular, but with dual force. We have a picture of this syntax of the pair in: clarum Tyndaridae sidus (Od. 4. 8. 31), representing it as a plural enclosed in a singular; and a similar one in: geminique sub ubere nati (Aen. 5. 285), where the dual has passed to the plural in nati, but to the singular in ubere; and when to: includunt caeco lateri (Aen. 2. 19) Servius notes: caeco lateri pro caecis lateribus, he is noting this use of a singular for a plural which is for an old dual. We have the opposite use of a plural, which is an old dual, for a singular in: Atridas Priamumque et saevum ambobus Achillem (Aen. i. 458), where ambobus can hardly be for three, and the union of Atridas with Priamum points to its use for Agamemnonem. When did Achilles condescend to reproach Menelaus?