Hexameter

Abstract: Introduction 1. Laoi in early Greek hexameter poetry 2. Homer's people 3. Laos epic in performance Appendix A. Epic formulae Appendix B. Ritual formulae.

Abstract: Ovidians continue to be puzzled by the 404-line speech put into the mouth of Pythagoras in book 15 of the Metamorphoses. Questions of literary decorum and quality are insistently raised: how does the philosopher's popular science consort with the predominantly mythological matter of the preceding fourteen books? Do Pythagoras' revelations provide some kind of unifying ground, a ‘key’, for the endless variety of the poem? Can one take the Speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic, or is it all a mighty spoof, as intentionally laughable, perhaps, as the imperial panegyric with which the narrative of book 15 concludes? Or should we beware of imposing modern tastes on Ovid's original audience, and respect the Hellenistic and Roman predilection for scientific poetry? This article seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid's allusive practice within the Greco-Roman tradition of hexameter epos. The figure who provides a foundation for Ovid's construction of his own poetic genealogy turns out to be the Greek philosophical poet Empedocles. The resulting reflections on Ovid's manipulation of generic conventions may be timely in the light of the recent appearance of sophisticated and fresh approaches to the question of whether the Metamorphoses is, or is not, an epic.

Abstract: Parmenides and Melissus were bracketed in antiquity as the two great exponents of the Eleatic world-view which denies change and plurality. In modern times their treatment has been curiously unequal. Too much has been written on Parmenides - albeit the greater thinker of the two - too little on Melissus. Too much has been said about Parmenides' use of the verb “be,” while too little has been said about his detailed arguments for the individual characteristics of what-is. However, neither these nor other anomalies should disguise the immense wealth of scholarship that has furthered the reconstruction of their Eleaticism. PARMENIDES Around 150 lines of Parmenides' hexameter poem, written in the early- to mid-fifth century, have been recovered, most belonging to its first part. His densely metaphorical diction is replete with Homeric echoes, and presents the further difficulty of having to use the very language of change and plurality that it aims ultimately to outlaw. These are among the many aspects to which it will be impossible to do justice in the present chapter.

Abstract: At a prominent point in the middle of the Remedia amoris, Ovid momentarily interrupts his series of therapeutic lessons to make room for a statement of poetics. Such statements are customary in the register of literary polemics; some evil-minded people had criticized Ovid for his daring teachings in the Ars amatoria, and the polemic tradition (of Callimachean origin) requires that the poet, in justifying the literary techniques he has chosen, also attack the envy of his critics (v. 389 livor) and vaunt his own title of author, indeed hope for ever greater successes. Ovid's declaration of principles is inspired by the same general rule that Horace too, in his Ars poetica (v. 86), had thought important: "Descriptas seruare uices operumque colores"-respect for the distinctions among the various literary genres and the appropriate use of expressive and stylistic devices. This is a simplified form of the theory of the prepon: Every genre has its own "competence," each should do its own job. For the wrath of Achilles there is the solemn hexameter of Homer, for the loves of Cydippe the elegiac distich of Callimachus, never has stern Andromache played the part of the courtesan Thais. Thais is the character who symbolizes Ovid's poetry (the Amores, the Ars, and now the Remedia). Ovid has made no mistake; the Musa proterva who sings in distichs the free loves of women like Thais is a perfect image for his elegiac intention. If a text's intention is considered as an active tension between vir-