Asclepiades v.169

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ἑκηβόλος
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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

mwh wrote:As to αινηται (subjunctive, not αινεεται), cf. my first post. Lovemaking is a tribute to the goddess of love (erotic love, of course—Eros). That’s what she wants.
mwh (extract from first post) wrote:... the final clause ... Kypris probatur (is commended/approved/validated) by both lovers by the very act of their lovemaking (their κρυπταδιη φιλοτης, as Mimnermus had it).
What is the necessity of the subjunctive there in my quotation?

My reason for quoting it in the indicative is that, as far as I read it, the subjunctive is a formal requirement of the syntax with ὁπόταν and not inherent in the phrase. Following from that, since the whole clause is not under discussion at this point, but only the phrase, extracting these 4 words is rightly done by leaving the change to subjunctive out of the phrase and in the clause. Diagramatically, it would be:

Image

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[Clause ὁπόταν αἰνῆται κύπρις ὑπ’ ἀμφοτέρων] [Clause [Particle ὁπόταν] [VerbPhrase [Modality Subjunctive] [VerbPhrase αἰνέεται κύπρις]] [AdverbialPhrase ὑπ’ ἀμφοτέρων]]
I don't have an example to hand, but there is a degree of "smoothing" examples into lexica and grammars. What I'm doing here is following that practice.

Is there another reason for the subjunctive besides ὁπόταν ?
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by Hylander »

The future of Poppaea:
Incidentally, a recently published poem written after the death of Nero’s wife Poppaea (as in L’incoronazione di Poppea) gives a wondrous account of her apotheosis, swept up by Aphrodite to the gods and through the zodiacal constellations and beyond, going the apotheosis of the Ptolemaic queens one better.
The apotheosis must have happened after Nero kicked her to death in a fit of rage when she was pregnant, not all that long after the conclusion of the opera, which is quite faithful to the ancient sources (including Tacitus and Suetonius, both writing much later and heavily biased against Nero).

Here is the final duet, Pur ti miro, between Nero and Poppea in a fantastically creepy version (exquisitely dissonant minor seconds at about 3:08):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_isL0E-4TsQ

Current thinking is that the opera is a collaborative effort composed under Monteverdi's supervision, and that Monteverdi may not have written Pur ti miro.
Bill Walderman

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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by mwh »

We’re in danger of going round in circles here, much like the constellations themselves ha ha. Aratus’ mention of the φατνη (Lat. praesepe, modern beehive) comes in the Diosemeia, which is about day-to-day weather forecasting (cf. e.g. "Red sky at night, ..."). It’s not a marker of the season of the year, here or anywhere. Stellar markers of the end of winter and beginning of spring in the literature are various; I fastened on Hesiod’s Works and Days because he’s the big daddy of them all, and Aratus amusingly plays off of him (just compare their sections on the Pleiades). Asclepiades’ choice of Ariadne’s Crown as a marker of the beginning of the sailing season looks a bit recherché, which is only what one would expect, but it will have literary precedent. Ovid’s reference in the Fasti (3.8, earlier adduced by Joel) matches it and could depend on the same lost source. Hesiod himself fixes the best time to start sailing but gives no star-sign for it; he admits he’s no sailor.

Incidentally, POxy.4648 is a disquisition on the ancient Greek poets’ knowledge of the constellations, calling Aratus a ζωλωτης of Hesiod (and quoting Callimachus' epigram on him). If anyone’s interested, PM me and I’ll send a revised edition of it.

PS. Poppaea. In the poem’s version he did not kick her to death!
That youtube video is the very recording I had in mind, though I admit to liking an outrageously sexy version by I forget who.* Isn’t Jaroussky amazing?
* Max Cencic and Sonya Yoncheva, tearing their clothes off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuzLj2aoys. Beautifully sung by both, as a bonus. Sì sì sì.

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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

jeidsath wrote:
ἑκηβόλος wrote:
φιλεόντας
or φιλέοντας ? Is there an allowable variability in accent for this form of the verb?
It's just a typo.
Why is it uncontracted, while διψῶντι is?
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by Hylander »

Why is it uncontracted, while διψῶντι is?
The language of elegy and epigram is the language of epic, which allows contracted and uncontracted forms to coexist, giving the poet the freedom to select whichever form fits the meter.

Here is another madrigal by Monteverdi, that begins with the words Zefiro torna, "Zephyr returns":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiQeWxSG_WY

It turns on the same idea as the previous one I posted: Zephyr returns, spring is in the air, but I am unhappy, but this one is much more intensely anguished. In the first one, the speaker simply says that he is tormented by two beautiful eyes--presumably the eyes don't requite his affection, but he's torn between his unrequited love and his joy at the return of spring: he's still ready to sing and dance. In this madrigal, the speaker's unhappiness arises from the fact that the object of his affections is dead, and it ends on a happy note. Even the depiction of the return of spring in the octet of the sonnet (by Petrarch) is tinged with anguish, and the sestet, where the speaker airs his unhappiness, is more exquisitely dissonant, sustained longer by suspensions, where one dissonance resolves into another in a chain.

And, as long as we're off-topic, here is the lament of the Cnosis on Naxos before she's found by Dionysus and her crown is catasterized for sailors to see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkDyNzPUQbo

Read about it here:

https://www.allmusic.com/composition/la ... 0002379620
Isn’t Jaroussky amazing?
Yes!
Bill Walderman

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Re: Asclepiades v.169

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

ἑκηβόλος wrote:I don't have an example to hand, but there is a degree of "smoothing" examples into lexica and grammars.
An example turned up yesterday.
LSJ wrote:ὀλίγος
...
2. sts. in a sense between that of Size and Quantity,
...
ὀ. καὶ οὐδέν little or nothing, Pl.Ap.23a ;
Pl.Ap.23a wrote:ὅτι ἡ ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία ὀλίγου τινὸς ἀξία ἐστὶν καὶ οὐδενός.
The dictionary cites the "dictionary form" of the word in the citation.
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

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