Bisexual Orpheus: Pederasty and Parody in Ovid

Author(s): John F. Makowski

Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov., 1996), pp. 25-38
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South
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 BISEXUAL ORPHEUS:
PEDERASTY AND PARODY IN OVID

ergilian in inspiration, Ovid's tale of Orpheus is, on the

surface at least, a story of marriage between husband and
wife and of the triumph of conjugal love over death. Yet, in
what is one of Ovid's most striking divergences from his antecedent
in Georgics 4, bisexuality in the form of pederasty comes in for
considerable highlighting. For not only does the principal undergo
a psychological change of sex, as we are explicitly told at 10.83-85,
but also his narrative within the poet's own develops at some length
the theme of Greek love among the gods. An analysis of Book 10
will show that homosexuality is no mere isolated detail of Orpheus'
characterization but that the motif underlies much of the narra-
tive's diction, imagery, and use of literary reminiscence. For example,
the theme serves to explain in part the framing of Book 10, since
the Iphis story with its elaborate disquisition on homosexuality
(9.726-63) stands in immediate juxtaposition to the tale of Orpheus,
husband and pederast, while the death scene in Book 11 is moti-
vated by a misogynist's contempt for women. In effect, we may
consider the narrative from 9.666 to 11.66 as the Metamorphoses'
homoerotic or bisexual sequence. This is interesting because, in
contrast, Vergil does not breathe a word on the subject of homo-
sexuality, even though he was certainly aware of the Hellenistic
tradition that made Orpheus the father of Greek love. Ovid's
emphasis on homoerotic motifs warrants a closer look, especially
as it may prove useful in determining the tone and purpose of
the narrative and in illuminating salient features of composition.
For the Orpheus story has always elicited a wide range of reactions,
among them the deeply moved (Primmer), the utterly cynical
(Anderson), the frigidly indifferent (Frankel), depending on
whether the reader sees in it pathos, bathos, or simply inferiority
to Vergil.1

1 A. Primmer, "Das Lied

des Orpheus in Ovids Metamorphosen," Sprachkunst.
Beitriige zur Literaturwissenschaft 10 (1979) 123-37; W. S. Anderson presents a con-
sistently skeptical reading in his "The Orpheus of Virgil and Ovid: flebile nescio
quid," in J. Warden, ed., Orpheus. The Metamorphosesof a Myth (Toronto 1982) 25-50,
The Classical Journal 92.1 (1996) 25-38

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26 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

With Ovid laughter is never very far away, and there is every
possibility that, despite the tragic nature of the raw material, Ovid
is exploiting his Vergilian model for the sake of parody and comic
effect. Thus, C. Neumeister, for example, comparing the diction
and imagery of Georgics 4 and Metamorphoses10, sees an ironic Ovid
distancing himself both from Vergil and the values of Augustus.2
This study will further the argument for reading the Orpheus
story as parody by focusing on how Ovid exploits the subject of
bisexuality as well as related issues of gender for the sake of humor
and satire.3 Of relevance here will be recent studies on ancient
homosexuality which have examined both the attitudes of historical
Romans, including Ovid's, as well as the handling of homosexual
themes among the poets.4 This paper will analyze Ovid's literary

in his commentary to Ovid. Metamorphoses, Books 6-10 (Norman, OK 1972), and

more recently in "The Artist's Limits in Ovid: Orpheus, Pygmalion, and Daedalus,"
Syllecta Classica 1 (1989) 1-11; H. Frankel, Ovid. A Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley
1945) 219 n. 69. Brooks Otis, Ovid as an Epic Poet (2nd ed. Cambridge 1970) 74 cautions
against reading the story as evidence of "Ovid's woeful inferiority" to Vergil but
rather as a study in differing poetic values. C. Segal, Orpheus. The Myth of the Poet
(Baltimore 1989) in characteristic fashion argues for ambivalence of tone. Insightful
discussion is also to be found in G. K. Galinsky, Ovid's Metamorphoses:An Introduction
to the Basic Aspects (Berkeley 1975) and in J. Solodow, The World of Ovid's Metamor-
phoses (Chapel Hill 1988). M. Janan, "The Book of Good Love? Design Versus Desire
in Metamorphoses 10," Ramus 17 (1988) 110-37 covers much of the same ground as
this paper but from a very different perspective, that of eros in relation to the char-
acter of the narrators. The most exhaustive study, of course, is the commentary of
F. B6mer, P. Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen. Buch X-XI (Heidelberg 1980).
Recent discussion in The Forum of The Classical Journal 90 (1995) indicates
that the question of how to read Ovid's Orpheus is the subject of a lively debate
sparked by the inclusion of the author on the Advanced Placement syllabus. See
especially the contributions of W. S. Anderson, "Aspects of Love in Ovid's Metamor-
phoses," 265-69 and S. Mack, "Teaching Ovid's Orpheus to Beginners," 279-85.
I cite from W. S. Anderson, P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses (Leipzig 1977).
2C. Neumeister, "Orpheus und Eurydike. Eine Vergil-Parodie Ovids (Ov. Met.
X.1-XI.66 und Verg. Georg. IV.457-527)," WIA 12 (1986) 169-81. See also C. M.
Bowra, "Orpheus and Eurydice," CQ (1952) 113-24, who posits a literary source
common to Vergil and Ovid. For two very different analyses of Ovid's debt to
Vergil, see Anderson, Orpheus (above, n. 1) and Segal (above, n. 1).
3 On the importance of the connection between sexual identity and metamor-
phosis, see B. R. Nagle, "Amor, Ira, and Sexual Identity in Ovid's Metamorphoses,"
CSCA 3 (1984) 236-55 and G. Nugent, "This Sex Which is Not One: De-Construct-
ing Ovid's Hermaphrodite," differences:A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 2 (1990)
160-85. For an examination of the religious and psychological significance of the
ambiguity of gender in a number of Ovidian tales, see S. Viarre, "L'Androgyne
dans les Metamorphoses d'Ovide," in Journfes Ovidiennes de Parminie (Brussels 1985)
229-43; and L. Curran, "Rape and Rape Victims," Arethusa 11 (1978) 213-41.
4 The two most important studies are those of S. Lilja, Homosexuality in Republican

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 BISEXUALORPHEUS 27

exploitation of homosexuality in explicit statements, such as at

10.83-85, in his manipulation of literary antecedents, and in his
diction and imagery and, in the process, argue that Ovid's purpose
here is to undermine the Vergilian characterization of Orpheus by
satirizing him as an effeminate, gynophobic pederast.5
Although the literary tradition usually paints a positive picture
of Orpheus as the tragic lover, consummate musician, and epony-
mous founder of the Orphic mysteries, other views were current
among the ancients, not all of them flattering.6 There is also a
consistent and long-standing tradition attributing to Orpheus
either pederasty or misogyny or both. Plato's Symposium (179D),
for example, dismisses Orpheus as a typical citharoedus, that is,
an effeminate musician and a craven unwilling to die for his wife,
while the Republic (620A) tells of his hatred for the female sex.7
Orpheus as homosexual first appears in the third-century elegist
Phanocles,8 who in his KaAof narrates the story of
Orpheus' love for his fellow"Epcore.
Argonaut, the tender Calais. The same
text tells of him as aetiological founder of Greek love and of his
distaste for women, which led to his death:

and Augustan Rome (Helsinki 1983), esp. 79-81 and E. Cantarella, Bisexuality in the
Ancient World (New Haven 1992), esp. 136-39. An earlier study is that of B. C.
Verstraete, "Ovid on Homosexuality," CN & V 19 (1975) 79-83, who has a good
discussion of the evidence for Ovid's views on homosexuality, though his conclusions
about the theme in the Orpheus sequence are at variance with my own.
s Anderson, Orpheus (above, n. 1) has noted Ovid's negative treatment of
Orpheus' pederasty and factors it into his overall analysis of Book 10. This paper
owes much to his reading but differs by seeking a closer focus on the homosexual
theme itself and its larger implications for the structure, tone, and imagery of 9.666-
11.66.
6 J. Heath, "The Failure of Orpheus," TAPA 124 (1994) 163-96, challenges
the notion that the characterization of Orpheus as unsuccessful is of late, that is,
Hellenistic provenance and in the process adduces a great deal of ancient evidence
contradicting the conventional view of Orpheus as idealized lover.
7 Scholars now recognize that the tradition of Orpheus' "unmanliness" predates
Plato, on which see D. Sansone, "Orpheus and Eurydice in the Fifth Century," C&M
36 (1985) 53-64, esp. 60 n. 30. See Heath's discussion (above, n. 6; 180-81) of the
scholiast on Apollonius Arg. 1.23, who remarks on the incongruity of the weakling
Orpheus consorting with the heroes of the Argo. The cliche of lyre-playing as
effeminate occurs also in fragments 184 and 185 (Nauck) of Euripides' Antiope. On
the subject of gender-based puns on Orpheus in Plato, see F. M. Ahl, Metaformations.
Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca 1985) 190-91.
8 The most convenient discussion of the Phanocles fragment is found in N.

Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1988) 177-81. M. Marcovich,

"Phanocles ap. Stob. 4.10.47," AJP 100 (1979) 360-66 argues that Phanocles' version
of the Orpheus story with its pederastic motif is derived from earlier sources, and
also that this version was much more common than previously thought.

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28 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

'OV iEV PtGTOVi6E; KaKORi'XojVOt d•WptX10Ect( Ot

EKzcTvov, ~irjl qoCTyavaC
0OlihlaEv0xt,
spUooE i81tEV 0vtp
oiVEKCCa OptKE•aottV Epoaq;
obir'x6'ou0
&ppevaw, r
0 ijtveoe0X•'pTov
The Phanoclean tradition is consistent with what appears in the
Orphic fragments and in the mythographers, the sources giving
various specifics about what galled the maenads who murdered
Orpheus: he spurned the love of women, or he refused to share his
rites with the female sex, or he had seduced husbands away from
their wives and taught them to follow his example of loving boys.9
Against this background,it is instructive to compare how Vergil
and Ovid handled the issue of Orpheus' pederasty and misogyny.
Vergil's familiarity with the homoerotic element in the Orpheus
legend is clear from the subtle but unmistakable traces at Georgics
4. 516, nulla Venus, non ulli animumflexere hymenaei,and at 520,
spretae... matres.These, however, are merely vestigial hints from
earlier sources, as Vergil chooses, in effect, to suppress the specifics
of homosexuality and misogyny. This suppression may come as a
surprise, given that Vergil himself was no stranger to Greek love
either in his personal life or in his other poetry, but it is completely
understandable in light of his thematic purpose in the Orpheus
narrative, which he casts as tragedy of the highest order.10Thus, at
the end of the tale, when the maenads kill Orpheus because he
disdained them, our distinct impression is that this disdain was
not due to hatred of women in general but that it was merely the
shadow side of Orpheus' love for Eurydice, which after her death
remained exclusive and, needless to say, heterosexual.
What Vergil suppresses Ovid not only spells out in explicit
fashion but treats with such fulsome elaborateness that the reader
must be either amused or embarrassed."Forone thing, Ovid reduces

9B6meron 10.83 and 11.1-66 has a full treatmentof the pre- and post-Ovidian
sources of Orpheus' bisexuality. Evidence of Roman familiarity with this version
shows up in the VaticanMythographers(1.76),where we hear of Orpheus as perosus
omne genus femineum, and in Hyginus (Poet. Astr. 2.7): Nonnulli aiunt, quod Orpheus
primus puerilem amorem induxerit, mulieribus visum contumeliam fecisse; hac re ab his
interfectum ... Cuius caput in mare de monte perlatum,fluctibus in insulam Lesbum est
reiectum; quod ab his sublatum et sepulturae est mandatum. Pro quo beneficio ad musicam
artem ingeniosissimi existimantur esse.
10On Vergil's use of homoeroticthemes, see J. Makowski,"Nisus and Euryalus:
A Platonic Relationship," CJ (1989) 1-15, esp. n. 32 for the evidence on Vergil's
own life.
"
Anderson, Orpheus(above, n. 1) 36-39 presents a convenient list in columnar
fashion of the key elements of the Orpheus story as told by Vergil and Ovid. For an

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 BISEXUALORPHEUS 29

Orpheus' period of mourning for Eurydice to seven days (Vergil's

had mourned seven months), and then adds that within two years
he forsook the love of women entirely (Met. 10.79-85):

omnemque refugerat Orpheus

femineam Venerem, seu quod male cesserat illi,
sive fidem dederat; multas tamen ardor habebat
iungere se vati: multae doluere repulsae.
ille etiam Thracumpopulis fuit auctor amorem
in teneros transferremares citraque iuventam
aetatis breve ver et primos carpere flores.

Ovid unsettles our belief in Orpheus' devotion by arousing our cyni-

cism with the disjunctive alternatives in the seu ... sive clauses,
which leave us to question the operative motivation here: Orpheus'
fidelity to Eurydice or his failure as lover of women?12 Before we
can wonder too long, in an intertextual corrective to the Georgics,
Ovid, as it were, "outs" his own character and informs us in dead-pan
fashion of Orpheus' misogyny and pederasty. All of this is done in
the delicate diction and preciosity of Alexandrian pederastic poetry:
the phrase teneros mares is suggestive of Greek paidika and Roman
deliciae, some even seeing it as a periphrasis for mascula scorta.'3
The mention of youth, springtime, and the flower of youth are all
standard homoerotic stuff.14 Within the space of a few short lines
Orpheus has gone from tragic lover of Eurydice to trivial pederast
worthy of inclusion in Strato's Musa Puerilis. The sudden transfer
of sexual energy to the male, the revulsion toward the female, the
total obliviousness towards Eurydice, who will not be mentioned
again for some seven hundred lines as Orpheus concertizes on
pederastic and misogynist themes, is telling and invites a closer
look at Ovid's estimation of Greek love.
Although Ovid, the most heterosexual of the Augustan poets,
has less to say on the subject of homosexuality than his counterparts,

examination of Ovid's parody of Vergilian diction and narrative technique, see

Neumeister (above, n. 2). P. Knox, Ovid's Metamorphosesand the Traditionsof Augustan
Poetry (Cambridge 1986) 48-64 analyzes Orpheus' story from the perspective of Ovid's
art of allusion in the Callimachean mode.
12Anderson, Orpheus (above, n. 1) 44 cites this passage as Ovid's "insidious
'improvement"' on Vergil and says that it raises "the spectre of an egoistic husband
who literally blames his wife for dying, even though he has been the cause, and
then decides that marriage isn't worth the trouble."
13So
Bomer ad loc.
14 See S. Taran, "EIlI TPIXEE: An Erotic Motif in the Greek
Anthology," JHS
(1985) 90-107.

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30 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

there is enough in his works to form a clear picture of his views.

On the basis of the evidence, recent studies, most notably those of
Lilja and Cantarella, concur that Ovid's attitude toward homosexual
love was less than positive.15 The poet's most explicit statement on
his aversion to pederasty is in the Ars Amatoria (2. 683-84):

odi concubitus, qui non utrumque resolvunt:

hoc est cur pueri tangar amore minus.

Ovid objects to man/boy love on the grounds that it does not give
equal satisfaction to both partners, since, according to the classical
and idealized ethos of pederasty, the boy was thought to experience
no pleasure.16 The statement is clearly derogatory, even though the
objection rests on grounds of personal preference rather than on
philosophical grounds of morality or naturalness. Further cor-
roboration of Ovid's bias against men who lust after males appears
elsewhere in the Ars: si quis male vir quaerit haberevirum (1.524) and
forsitan et plures possit habere viros (3.438).17 Consonant with Ovid's
attitude toward homosexuality is his view of effeminate males,
whom he subjects to a good dose of censure and ridicule (A.A.
1.505ff). Female homosexuality gets no more positive treatment, as
indicated by Heroides 15, where we can infer a negative view of
lesbianism from Sappho's letter to Phaon: quas non sine crimine amavi
(19) and Lesbides, infamem quae mefecistis amatae (201).18 Thus, both
from the "personal" poetry and the fictional we see a consistent
view which may be summed up by the statement of Peter Green:
"Ovid's general attitude toward adult homosexuality is casual,
pragmatic, and dismissive."19
However, it is the Metamorphoses which contains Ovid's most
damning denunciation of homosexuality. This occurs in the story of
Iphis, in its denouement a happy story of marriage, but at heart a

15Lilja (above, n. 4) 79-81; Cantarella (above, n. 4) 136-39.

16 Lilja (above, n. 4) 79-80 also points out that these lines may contain an
ambiguity as to whether Ovid rejects pederasty absolutely or merely as less pref-
erable to the love of women, depending on whether one takes minus to mean "not" or
"less." P. Green, trans., Ovid. The Erotic Poems (Harmondsworth 1982) 211 captures
the line very well: "I hate it unless both lovers reach climax: / That's why I don't
much go for boys."
See also Tr. 2.409-412, where Ovid speaks of the shamefulness of a poet
(probably Sophocles) portraying a mollem Achillem in tragedy.
For Ovid's views on lesbianism, see H. Isbell, trans., Ovid. Heroides (London-
Harmondsworth 1990) 132.
19P. Green (above, n. 16) 355.

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 BISEXUALORPHEUS 31

tale of lesbian passion, confusion of gender, and trans-sexualism. It

is no accident that the episode with this complex of motifs stands
in immediate juxtaposition to the Orpheus story. The centerpiece
of the Iphis story is the monologue on the pathology of homoerotic
love (9. 726-63), a speech remarkable both for its rhetorical display
and for its insistence on the unnaturalness of homosexual passion.
The maiden Iphis, having fallen in love with Ianthe, soliloquizes
on her obsession (9.726-30):

"quis me manet exitus" inquit,

"cognita quam nulli, quam prodigiosa novaeque
cura tenet Veneris? si di mihi parcere vellent,
parcere debuerant;si non, et perdere vellent,
naturale malum saltem et de more dedissent!

For Iphis the passion of a female for another female is both a cura
prodigiosa as well as a cura novae Veneris.20Love as a care is a conven-
tion of Roman poetry from Lucretius on down, but this cura goes
beyond anything felt by even the most tortured of heterosexual
lovers. The word prodigiosa is significant as it connotes a type of
love not wondrous but rather monstrous in the same sense that
freaks of nature are monstrous. Iphis even draws analogues from
the animal kingdom that underscore the unnatural character of this
passion lower than that of beasts (731-34):
nec vaccam vaccae, neque equas amor urit equarum;
urit oves aries, sequitur sua femina cervum;
sic et aves coeunt, interque animalia cuncta
femina femineo correpta cupidine nulla est.

The lines with their juxtaposition of male/female polarities, ela-

borate use of assonance, alliteration, and play with polyptoton and
grammatical gender (vaccam vaccae . . . femina femineo) effectively
express mock abhorrence of same-sex unions.21 The monologue
reaches an outrageous rhetorical climax when a reductio ad absurdum
extols even bestiality as preferable to homosexuality, as Iphis cites

20 B6mer ad loc. well analyzes the complex of "angst" and unnatural love in
the Iphis episode.
21 Of
course, the speech of Iphis will receive shocking reinforcement later at
10.320ff., where Myrrha looks to the animal kingdom as precedent for her passion.
For an analysis of similar diction and themes in the Salmacis story, see J. Lepick,
"The Castrated Text: The Hermaphrodite as Model of Parody in Ovid and Beau-
mont," Helios 8 (1981) 71-85.

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32 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

the exemplum of Pasiphae's passion for the bull as more natural

than her own, since at least it had the virtue of being within the
heterosexual norm (735-38):

"ne non tamen omnia Crete

monstra ferat, taurum dilexit filia Solis,
femina nempe marem:meus est furiosior illo,
si verum profitemur, amor."

The speech ends with a rhetorical question underscoring the irony

of the situation in which the gods of heterosexual marriage Juno
and Hymenaeus are to bless a wedding that has no groom but rather
features two brides (762-63):

pronuba quid Iuno, quid ad haec, Hymenaee, venitis

sacra, quibus qui ducat abest, ubi nubimus ambae?

The story, of course, has a happy ending engineered by the divinely

ordained sex-change, itself a comment on the superiority of hetero-
sexuality over homosexuality and of marriage over tribadism.
The story of Iphis, thus, stands as frame and proleptic comment
on the forthcoming tale of Orpheus.22 Ovid's technique in the narra-
tive of toying with gender and sexuality sets the tone for the Orpheus
story that opens Book 10. For, the story of Iphis begins as a tale
of impossible lesbian passion resolved by heterosexual marriage,
while the Orpheus tale begins with a marriage but one that will leave
the husband a pederast. Also, Iphis' denunciation of same-sex love
in Book 9 stands as a preemptive comment on the type of love Orpheus
will turn to after the death of Eurydice and prepares us for the
gender play that will permeate much of Book 10.23
Ovid injects no overt negative comments on homosexuality into
the Orpheus sequence, as further remarks on unnatural passion

22Many commentators have noted parallels between the two stories, for example,
Galinsky (above, n. 1) 86-92, who discusses the affinities of the Orpheus story to
both the Iphis tale as well as to those in his own song. See also Otis (above, n. 1)
passim 166-230, and J-M Frecaut, "Les Transitions dans les Metamorphoses d'Ovide,"
REL 46 (1968) 247-63, who comments on the humorous function of the Hymenaeus
transition between Iphis and Orpheus.
23 It may be objected that Iphis denounces only lesbian passion rather than
homosexuality in general, and certainly in the historical realm, a man like Martial
was capable of embracing pederasty while satirizing female homoeroticism. But
given what we know of Ovid's own attitude toward pederasty, coupled with the
parodic treatment of Orpheus' homosexuality, there is every reason to think that
Ovid was equally disdainful of both male and female homosexuality.

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 ORPHEUS
BISEXUAL 33

would be redundant with Iphis' monologue still fresh in our ears.

However, if this reading of the Iphis story is correct, and if we
keep in mind Ovid's statements on homosexuality from his other
poetry, we may see a far more devastating critique of Orpheus'
homoeroticism. 4 This undermining is evident in the catalog of trees,
in Ovid's parody of Vergil's stag from Aeneid 7, in the tales told by
Orpheus, and finally in the closing frame for Book 10, the death of
Orpheus at the hands of the maenads.
The humor of the catalog of trees, with its exaggeration and
parody of earlier literature, has long been noted.25 We should
underscore, however, that this catalog itself contains a number of
mythological undercurrents which alert us to Ovid's concerns with
issues of gender and sexuality.26 It has been noted, for example,
that innuba laurus alludes to the Daphne story; so also the aquatica
lotos recalls the grotesque metamorphoses of Dryope in 9, another
love object of Apollo, the father of Orpheus and himself the sub-
ject of two pederastic tales soon to come. At line 99 we hear of the
ivy and elm-an echo of the same imagery found in Catullus'
epithalamion (61.106-109). Following these allusions to tales
centering on virginity and marriage comes at last the reference to
the pine tree (103-105):

et succincta comas hirsutaque vertice pinus,

grata deum matri, siquidem Cybeleius Attis
exuit hac hominem truncoque induruit illo.

The placement of the pine tree at the very end of this dendrological
catalogue dense with mythological subtext and right before the
cypress with its homoerotic associations is not without humorous
intent. The diction of line 103 is ludicrous, as the phrases succincta
comas and hirsutaque vertice suggest an elaborate and very fussy

24 I cannot agree with Verstraete (above, n. 4) 80, who sees Ovid's handling
of Orpheus' homosexuality in terms of "pathos and delicacy" with no trace of
perversion, nor with C. Segal, "Ovid's Orpheus and Augustan Ideology," TAPA
103 (1972) 473-94, when he says 477-78 that Orpheus' homosexuality is a "realistic
note and a humanizing correction of Vergil."
25See, for example, Anderson, Commentary ad loc. (above, n. 1) and Galinsky
(above, n. 1) 182-83. For another view, see Segal, Landscapein Ovid's Metamorphoses:
of a LiterarySymbol(Wiesbaden 1969) 80. On umbraas
A Study in the Transformation
a possible joke, see W. Stephens, "Descent to the Underworld in Ovid's Metamor-
phoses," CJ 53 (1953) 180.
26Viktor Poschl, "Der Katalog der Biume in Ovids Metamorphosen,"in Medium
Aevum Vivum. Festschriftfiir Walter Bulst, ed. H. R. Jauss and D. Schaller (Heidelberg
1960) 13-21.

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34 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

hair-do which would look eccentric even on a woman.27 But then

in line 104 we find out that the pine tree, even though feminine by
grammatical gender, is no mythological heroine as we might expect
but rather a male of sorts, the self-emasculated, metamorphosed
Attis. So the pine tree is really a foppishly coiffed eunuch.28 The
notion is preposterous and occurs at a very significant juncture
in the text as a prelude to the tale of Cyparissus, the first extended
homoerotic narrative of Book 10, the overture, as it were, to Orpheus'
own song.
The parodic nature of the Cyparissus tale has not escaped
critics, who, for example, have seen the boy's excessive grief for
the deer as a humorous comment on Orpheus' supposed grief for
Eurydice.29 Here more needs to be said on the deer from the per-
spective of Ovidian manipulation of gender. Even though the
passage's parody of Vergil has long been noted, some critics, for
example Fordyce, have either lost their patience with Ovid for not
leaving well enough alone or have been puzzled by the overly
detailed description of the beast.30 The passage is worth looking at
closely (10.110-16):

ingens cervus erat late patentibus altas

ipse suo capiti praebebat cornibus umbras;
cornua fulgebant auro, demissaque in armos
pendebant tereti gemmata monilia collo;
bulla super frontem parvis argentea loris
vincta movebatur parilique aetate, nitebant
auribus e geminis circum cava tempora bacae.

The contrast with Vergil's creation could not be greater. The deer
in Aeneid 7.483-92 is described with economy and a rustic charm
that borders on the humorous. Seeing the potential for comedy,
Ovid presents his own "improvement" on the deer with a congeries
of details that overwhelms: first come the preposterous horns, large
enough to provide their owner's head with a private source of
shade, and no ordinary antlers, these are gilded, while hanging from

27Anderson, Commentary (above, n. 1) ad loc. appropriately translates succincta

as "girdled."
What Ovid thought of Cybele's transvestite eunuchs is readily apparent from
his satire of male effeminacy in A.A. 1.507-508.
29So Anderson, Metamorphoses (above, n. 1) ad 10.86-147.
30 See Fordyce in his commentary on Aen. 7.477. C. Connors,
"Seeing Cypresses
in Vergil" CJ 88 (1992) appreciates the comic effect of Ovid's deer but does not
consider its thematic implications.

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 BISEXUALORPHEUS 35

the deer's neck are jeweled necklaces, and a bulla, that is, a locket
or amulet conventionally presented to a child on his birthday.31
Then, as if this frippery were not enough, Cyparissus himself leads
the deer to exotic foods and garlands it with multi-colored flowers
and reins it in with a purple halter-this last detail being one that
inspired a satiric epigram of Martial.32 Consistent with the precious
imagery surrounding the deer is the overwrought diction of line 125
mollia purpureis frenabas ora capistris-noteworthy in that a golden
line is expended on the most trivial of details. The conclusion is
inescapable: this outlandishly caparisoned beast is a fop, if not a
cross-dresser. With its suggestion of transvestism the passage is
one of high literary humor, as Ovid here makes comic allusion to
the Aeneid within a larger passage playing on the Georgics.
With the arrival of the cypress tree, Orpheus is ready to begin
his musical recital, but not before sounding the strings: sensit varios,
quamvis diversasonarent,/concordaremodos(146-47). We may certainly
take these lines as reflective of Orpheus' pomposity as a musician,
but there also may be a subtle but significant allusion. Ovid's words
are almost an exact translation of Heraclitus' ri6 ov y&p q(not
1tacXe(p6JEvEv a quotation cited by Eryximachus, the
most pedanticou•gFpeF-oat,
of the speakers in Plato's Symposium (187A5), who
himself expatiates on musical theory in a most boring and garbled
fashion. This allusion to esoteric theories of music at the point where
Orpheus is about to open his mouth in song is a brilliant touch
of pedantry on Ovid's part and underscores the character of
Orpheus, who, satisfied with the fine tuning of his lyre, now begins.
Philosophical allusion gives way to literary allusion, this time to
Apollonius, whose Orpheus had sung a spell-binding song on
cosmogonic and theogonic themes (1.494-525). Any notion that
Ovid's Orpheus will follow suit or perhaps even sing of Eurydice
is rudely shattered when Orpheus, after making brief reference
to Homeric and Hesiodic themes, only to reject them, abruptly
announces his subject-pederasty and female immorality (152-54):
puerosque canamus / dilectos superis, inconcessisque puellas / ignibus
attonitas. Hence the abrupt change from high epic style to the lighter
lyre (leviore lyra) in the mode of Alexandrian poetry, as Orpheus
rhapsodizes on the boy-love of Jupiter and, in what is surely meant

31 Cf. Plaut. Rud. 1171 bulla aurea est pater quam dedit mi natali die; Pliny HN
33.10 unde mos bullae duravit, ut eorum, qui equo meruissent, filii insigne id haberent;
also Paulus-Fest. 36M.
32 Martial 13.96 Hic erat ille tuo domitus, Cyparisse, capistro / An magis iste tuus,
Silvia, cervus erat?

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36 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

by Ovid as a lapse in good taste, on his own father's catamite,

Hyacinth (te meusante omnesgenitordilexit, 167).
The tone and function of Orpheus' tales of pederasty and miso-
gyny have been well analyzed by W. S. Anderson, who says that
"as the stories unfold, Ovid's inescapable conclusion forces itself
on us, if not on silly Orpheus, that boy-love ranks far below hetero-
sexual love in terms of affection, mutual concern, and chances for
extensive happiness."33 To be sure, the tale of Hyacinth, like that of
Cyparissus, closes with the death of the beloved and the frustration
of the lover, while the upshot of the Ganymede story is the trouble
that pederasty brings to the domestic life of Jupiter and Juno. The
balancing stories of misogyny also undermine Orpheus' announced
intention of exposing women punished for their illicit lusts, since
the stories of Pygmalion, Myrrha, Venus and Adonis, and Atalanta
all in the end fail to prove his point and show, again in the words of
Anderson, that "girl-love refuses to be reduced to a simple formula
of libido and punishment."34
The closing frame of Book 10 narrates the death and decollation
of Orpheus. The scene is violent and gruesome, and, understandably
for that reason, few in number are the critics who have seen the
black comedy of the situation. Solodow, however, is on the right
track when he writes: "The terrible scene of Orpheus' death at the
hands of the bacchants is not without its lighter touches."35 Indeed,
the scene is funny as the misogynist slanderer of women receives
his comeuppance. Irony underlies the situation in which the voice
once capable of moving all of nature is overwhelmed by the ca-
cophonous racket of the maenads, and where Orpheus, once the
focus of an audience of trees, birds, and animals, now becomes the
focus of a very different type of theater, namely, the gladiatorial
arena, as the owl/stag simile makes clear.36 Operative here also is
the humor of gender, as the effete rhapsode becomes the victim
of what is usually the gentler sex. In keeping with the Euripidean

33Anderson, Orpheus (above, n. 1) 45. For a more "sincere" reading of Orpheus'

situation and its relation to the other tales, see S. Viarre, "Pygmalion et Orphde
chez Ovide," REL (1968) 235-47.
34Anderson, Orpheus (above, n. 1) 46. For a very different interpretation of the
purpose of Orpheus' puellae tales, see Galinsky (above, n. 1) 90.
35J. B. Solodow (above, n. 1) 103; see also J-M. Frecaut, L'esprit et l'humour chez
Ovid (Grenoble 1972) 169-70 as well as the commentary ad loc. of G. M. H. Murphy,
Ovid. Metamorphoses Book XI (Oxford 1972).
36J. Miller, "Orpheus as Owl and Stag: Ovid Met. 11.24-27," Phoenix 44 (1990)
140-70 remarks that "the bird/owl simile ironically reconfigures the scene that the
Thracian women are in the process of destroying."

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 BISEXUALORPHEUS 37

tradition that depicted the maenads' violence against men, Ovid

has the women scare off the sweaty, muscle-bound farmers (lines
32-36), seize their hoes and mattocks, and in an orgy of violence
dismember first the cattle and then the delicate rhapsode. The black
humor of the epilogue is appropriate, as the maenads, in one of
Ovid's more grotesque metamorphoses, receive their punishment
by being transformed into trees and so serve to remind us of the
trees at the beginning of Orpheus' song.
Sustaining to the end his intertextual play on Vergil, Ovid saves
his most delicious parody for the very moment of Orpheus' death,
which elicits from him a very Vergilian and very fulsome apostrophe
(11.44-47):
te maestae volucres, Orpheu, te turba ferarum,
te rigidi silices, tua carmina saepe secutae
fleverunt silvae; positis te frondibus arbor
tonsa comas luxit.

Vergil, it will be remembered, had used very similar vocabulary

with a quadruple anaphora of te to describe Orpheus' cosmic hymn
of grief for Eurydice at Georgics 4.465-66: te, dulcis coniunx, te solo
in litore secum, / te veniente die, te decedentecanebat.This reminiscence
of Eurydice in a cosmic lament for Orpheus who has forgotten his
wife is a splendid piece of irony, especially coming, as it does, after
the description of Orpheus' last breath in a parody of heroic epic
diction: in ventos anima exhalata recessit (43).37 This irony is further
heightened in the description of Orpheus' singing head. For where
Vergil made Orpheus' head call out the name of Eurydice to the echo
of the river banks, Ovid's Orpheus is capable of no more than an
inarticulate weepy something or other: flebile nescio quid queritur
lyra,flebile lingua Imurmurat exanimis, respondentflebile ripae (52-53).
Appropriately, the last we see of Orpheus' head is as the quarry of
a petrified snake, while his soul goes to Hades. There, after acting
like a tourist revisiting familiar haunts (quae loca viderat ante, /cuncta
recognoscit, 61-62), Orpheus is reunited with Eurydice in a scene
reduced to utter triviality: the couple is now free to stroll at their
leisure (for that is the connotation of spatiantur at 64), and Orpheus
may with impunity look at his wife whether she walks behind, in

37 By Ovid's time the expression was formulaic if not hackneyed. Cf. Aen. 2.791
tenuesque recessit in auras; 4.705 in ventos vita recessit; 5.526-27 tenuesque recessit /
consumpta in ventos; 10.819-20 vita per auras / concessit; 12.952 vitaque cum gemitu
fugit indignata sub umbras. For further examples, see B6mer ad loc.

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38 JOHNF. MAKOWSKI

front, or along side. In the end, like the audience of Euripides'

Alcestis, which is left wondering what the wife might say to the
husband who broke his every promise to her, the reader of Ovid is
left to imagine the reunion of Eurydice with her bisexual husband,
who consigned her to oblivion in favor of man-boy love.

JOHNF. MAKOWSKI
Loyola University Chicago

38
This paper was originally presented at the 1993 meeting of CAMWS in Iowa
City. I am grateful to both the editor and the referees of this journal for most insight-
ful suggestions and for corrections. Also, a special note of thanks to Ed Menes.

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