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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
What is the cure for unrequited love? According to the Hellenistic poet Theocritus the cure is song. To illustrate this thesis Theocritus wrote two poems about the lovesick cyclops Polyphemus. Alexandrian poets were very interested in the subject of love, especially when it went wrong, and they were also keen to show off their literary knowledge and skills by borrowing and adapting ideas from their predecessors. The lovesick cyclops of Idylls 6 and 11 combined both concerns. Theocritus was able to demonstrate his literary debt to Homer by borrowing many grotesque details from the cyclops in Homer's Odyssey. He was also able to devote the bulk of his poems to making his point that the only successful cure for lovesickness is to be found in poetry and singing.
1. Theocritus (c. 300–c. 260 B.C.) was born in Sicily and later found a literary patron in Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria in Egypt.
2. Idylls 6 and 11 are set in Sicily, though probably not written there.
3. Homer, Odyssey 9.105–542Google Scholar.
4. Homer, Od. 9.287–95Google Scholar.
5. The Elephant Man, directed by Lynch, David (1980)Google Scholar with Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, and John Gielgud.
6. ‘ad pelagi nymphas, pelagi gratissima nymphus,| ibat et elusos iuvenum narrabat amores.’ (Met. 13, 736–7): ‘Scylla used to visit the sea–nymphs (for the sea–nymphs were very fond of her) and she would tell them of the disappointed wooing of her young admirers'. The patternmaking in verse 736 (pelagi nymphas, pelagi…nymphis) is neat and succinct. It makes the point that she chose the sea-nymphs as her confidantes because she was beloved by them.
7. Galatea's speech (740–45) consists largely of short phrases, suggesting that her tearful sobbing only allows her to get a word or two out at a time. The contrived dactyls of verses 739, 741, and 745 reinforce the impression of sobbing/weeping.
8. Met. 13.749.
9. Met. 13.753–4.
10. Idyll 11.9.
11. ‘et, si quaesieris, odium Cyclopis amorne| Acidis in nobis fuerit praestantior, edam: | par utrumque fuit.’ (Met. 13.756–8). Most editors read nee (for et) in verse 756. But this does not yield the required sense, en is found in one good manuscript. Read et. ‘And, should you ask me, I could tell you which was stronger in me, my hate of Cyclops or my love of Acis: both were equal.’
12. Met. 13.768–9.
13. Idyll 6.23–4.
14. Met. 13.773–4.
15. Met. 13.775.
16. Met. 13.788. Most editors read ‘talia dicta meis auditaque verba notiva'. verba however merely repf ats the sense of dicta earlier in the verse. I prefer mente notavi (‘I fixed them in my mind’): mente was found by N. Heinsius in some manuscripts.
17. Idyll 11.19–21.
18. Eclogue 7.37–40.
19. Met. 13.789–809.
20. ‘candidior folio nivei Galatea ligustri’ (Met. 13.789).
21. ‘⃜ cygni plumis et lacte coacto’ (Met. 13.796).
22. ‘et si nonfugias, riguo formosior horto’. (Met. 13.797).
23. Met. 13.798–809.
24. Met. 13.797 and 805–9.
25. Virgil's second Eclogue is closely modelled on Theocritus’ eleventh Idyll, except that it replaces hopeless heterosexual passion (Cyclops for Galatea) with hopeless homosexual passion (Corydon for Alexis). The Victorian commentator Conington regarded this change as ‘degrading to Virgil’.
The structure and patterns of Met. 13.810–14 are strongly reminiscent of the style of the Eclogues. In addition to the anaphora of sunt, pendentia in line 810 looks forward to antra in 811 and there is a chiastic structure in 811–12 (sol .... sentiturj/ .... sentitur hiems). The impression is very much that of a Virgilian period.
26. Ecl. 2.53.
27. Met. 13.817–18.
28. Met. 13.813–14.
29. Met. 13.823–4.
30. Quoted by Seneca, (Letters 33.4)Google Scholar.
31. Watership Down (Harmondsworth), p. 16Google Scholar footnote.
32. Polyphemus has eleven fawns and four bear–cubs as a present for Galatea in Theocritus (Id. 11.40–41). Corydon has two roes for Alexis (Virgil Eel. 2.40ff.).
33. Idyll 7.34–8 and Ecl. 2.25–7.
34. Idyll 11.50.
35. Homer, Od. 9.73–8Google Scholar.
36. Passion overwhelms reason in the case of Althaea in Met. Book 8, of Byblis in Book 9, and Myrrha in Book 10. There are many other examples of the same phenomenon elsewhere in the poem.
37. ‘fastus inest pulchris, sequiturque superbia formam’ (Fasti 1.419).
38. Aeneid 3.612–4.
39. ‘tantaque vox, quantam Cyclops iratus habere| debuit, ilia fuit’ (Met. 13.876–7). The cyclops’ roar goes back to Hom. Od. 9.395.
40. ‘terga fugae dederat conversa Symaethius heros’ (Met. 13.879). heros is amusingly postponed to last place.
41. The cyclops twice threw rocks at Ulysses (Hom. Od. 9.481 and 537).
42. Note the chiasmus at Met. 13.896 (Ads erat....; erat....; Acis).
