Reading Ovid Reading Horace.

The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica

Author(s): Ábel Tamás
Source: Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici , 2014, No. 72, New
Approaches to Horace's Ars poetica (2014), pp. 173-192
Published by: Fabrizio Serra Editore

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43933024

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 Ábel Tamás

Reading Ovid Reading Horace.

The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica*

1.

In ofofthis
thethe
ArsArs paper(from
poetica poeticanowI would (from
onwards like Ars).
simply now Itodoonwards
not meanoutline a simply possible Ars). Ovidian I do not reading mean
that Ovid's Metamorphoses form a kind of poetic answer to the lat-
ter work. But there is something in the Ars , especially in its begin-
ning and its end, which can be read with interesting consequences
from an Ovidian or more exactly 'Metamorphosean perspective. If
we juxtapose these crucial works of Augustan literature, a special
reading - in the broader sense of intertextuality - emerges, which
enriches both texts with a new level of meaning. As a result, the
self-reflexive humour of the Ars takes on a proto-Ovidian colour,
while the Metamorphoses , on something like the level of burlesque,
can be interpreted either as a provocative violation, or as a literal
fulfilment of the normative rules outlined by Horace in the Ars. 1
Additionally, the later Ovidian description of the Metamorphoses as
an unfinished (or, more exactly, unrevised) work can be interpreted
in the framework of this intertextual connection. As I will argue,
it is Empedocles - as a literary personality rather than as a serious
philosopher - who emerges as the key figure in this 'poetic inter-
play' between Horace and Ovid.

* This study came into being as part of two Hungarian research projects: otka k
77426 ( Horace and the Ancient Aesthetics) and mta tki 01241. Many thanks to the par-
ticipants of the Budapest conference on the Ars , esp. to Michèle Lowrie, Péter Agócs
and István Bárány, for their enormously helpful questions and comments, as well as
to Péter Agócs and Daniel Kozák for polishing the English of my paper and offering
useful suggestions. Additionally, a great number of cross-references below testify my
deep debt to the lectures held by others at the conference. I'm also grateful to the
guest editors of this issue, Attila Ferenczi and Philip Hardie, as well as to my anony-
mous referee, for their valuable insights.
1 As the anonymous referee of my article suggests to me, the Horatian Letter to
Augustus - as analysed by Barchiesi 1993 - plays the central intertextual role in Ovid's
literary history' in Tr. 2. Based on this, the 'poetic interplay' addressed in this paper
could be placed in a much broader framework of Ovidian intertextual responses to
Horace's Epistles where, one can presume, there is a strong emphasis on 'observing-
violating' the 'expectations' Ovid implicitly and ironically attributes to Horace.

« M D » • 72 • 2014

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 174 Ábel Tamás
To begin with, I must co
chiesi, who in his book The P
poses and answers the quest
and the Metamorphoses. I qu
Horace's theory is based on an
reflects the unity of natural o
rum : his prodigies are exampl
incoherent, paradoxical, and d
enters this argument to demo
mended by the Ars can remain
unruly and magical in itself, an
to the negative examples menti

Furthermore, I would like

notes which contains the cr
the singular, i.e., in itself,
drive toward asymmetry, d
ing on to demonstrate that
discernable, play in the Met
tian norms, or with their li
the Ars (to which I will retur
minations against the ridic
metamorphic creatures, con
many examples which comb
effect: in one word, any poe
vellous' - is evidently some
full artistic fruition.3 Addi
suality of the opening passa
a special 'Horatian poetics o
are reading a poem De arte gr
of illusion is realised in the
points to an author initiated a

1 Barchiesi 1997, p. 2 Ibidem,

250. n. 2
3 Cf. Hardie 2009b, esp. Hardie's i
scene of the Ars as a deterrent exam
as M. Citroni's contribution ( Horace
return to this question.
4 Cf. Laird 2007, p. 138: «The Ars P
cated conceit and surprising transit
verses of the poem lead the first-
poem about painting: later Latin w
poems on that subject». As far th
obviously, to the title of Philip Ha

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 175
In agreement with Barchiesi, I believe that one can read the en-
tire Metamorphoses as a spectacular violation of Horace's norms
which gives concrete artistic form to his negative examples. The
clearest cases might be Oviďs metamorphic creatures, or his Flood
narrative, which is nothing other than a realisation of Ars 29-30:

qui uariare cupit rem prodigialiter unam,

delphinum siluis appingit, fluctibus aprum.
Similarly, the writer who wants to give fantastic variety to his single
theme paints a dolphin in his woods and a wild boar in his sea.' 1

One could imagine Ovid, as he wrote Met. 1.302 ss. (siluasque tenent
delphines etc.), saying «yes, cupio!». However, rem prodigialiter uari-
are could (to over-interpret Horace's lines) represent something
like an ars poetica for the Metamorphoses as a whole. The latter poem
naturally tends, of course, to 'prodigiality' - an idea implied in
the centrality of 'paradox and the marvellous' in the Ovidian epic
scheme -, and Variation' - implied in its central trope of shape-
shifting.2 The example of the Flood in the Metamorphoses , with its
scene of wild paradoxes and adynata mediated through allusion
to Odes 1.2, shows us perfectly how Ovid plays with the difference
between Horace as the normative persona of the Ars and Horace
as the implied author of his own works (which, including the Ars ,
violate those artistic laws at every turn). As far as this difference is
concerned, there is another passage in the first section of the Ars
(more precisely towards the end of that section) which could be
read as an appeal directly addressed to Ovid. The issue here is the
artist's skill in shaping detail combined with a lack of interest or
skill in making the parts into a coherent whole, and the analogy -
putting the art of painting behind us - is sculptural. Horace adds
(Ars 34-37):

infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum

nesciet. hunc ego me, si quid componere curem,

1 In this paper I quote the text of the Ars according to Rudd 1989. As for the transla-
tion, in this case I cite, exceptionally, D. A. Russell's version (in Russell, Winterbottom
1972, pp. 279-291).
2 According to the old, prodigialiter means «in the manner of a prodigy, unnat-
urally», while prodigium covers both «unnatural» and «monstrous» things, as well
as «marvel». Consequently, I would translate prodigialiter here as «monstrously» or
«marvellously». Besides, the example Horace gives us - dolphin in the woods - de-
scribes a paradoxical scene. Russell's «fantastic variety» testifies an understanding
which is very close to mine.

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 176 Ábel Tamás
non magis esse uelim qu
spectandum nigris oculis
But the sum total is unhapp
his entire work. As for me,
no more desire to be that ma
though I might attract glanc

On the one hand, it is inte

because Horace would like
tail and bad at compositi
with one ugly detail on hi
the typical self-illustrating
mistake in order to illust
represents a kind of 'croo
On the other hand, if we i
- who, from the perspect
makes his poetics by turn
who makes a great poem o
thing which would change
which, dont forget, is t
and who is after all called
these lines, we cannot su
«Considering that my nam
to use the opportunity an
persona of the Ars would

2.

Going one step further, we should jump now to the end of the
Ars , where the possibility - and I think not only the possibility -
of an Ovidian reading again emerges, in strong connection to the
ring-composition of the Ars , which has been explored by sever-
al Horatian scholars in recent times.2 Simply stated, this means
nothing else in the case of the Ars than a return to the lesson on
'how to avoid ridiculousness?' at the end of the epistle.3 In two
sections, moreover: first in the lesson on literary revision, which
stars Quintilius Varus, and then in the burlesque ending of the

1 Here and in the rest of my paper I cite R. S. Kilpatrick's translation of the Ars (in
Kilpatrick 1990, pp. 72-83).
2 See, e.g., Oliensis 2009 [1998] (as for the ring-composition, see esp. pp. 470 ss.);
Laird 2007, pp. 137-138.
3 In the beginning, see v. 5 ( spectatum admissi, risum teneatis, amici ř), and at the end,
w. 451 s. (hae nugae seria ducent / in mala derisum semel).

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 177
poem starring Empedocles. These two stages, however associative
the logic may seem, are strongly interconnected: in order to avoid
being ridiculous, you have to correct and revise your poem as thor-
oughly as possible, otherwise you will be a ridiculous poet, and
ridiculousness - according to the (of course) satińcal logic of the
Ars - is nothing other than insanity 1 These last sections of the Ars,
especially if read together, have a very strong Ovidian (or, more
precisely, 'Metamorphosean') reading which can place the 'poetic
interplay' analysed in this paper in a broader context.
Let me first of all juxtapose the lesson on literary revision in the
Ars , with its 'fulfilment' in the Metamorphoses , namely the scene of
letter- writing in the tragic story of Byblis, the incestuous girl who
tries (in fact unsuccessfully) to seduce her brother Caunus:
Quintilio siquid recitares: 'corrige sodés
hoc' aiebat 'et hoď ; melius te posse negares,
bis terque expertům frustra; delere iubebat
et male tornatos incudi reddere uersus.
si defendere delictum quam uertere malles,
nullum ultra uerbum aut operam insumebat inanem,
quin sine riuali teque et tua solus amares.
uir bonus et prudens uersus reprehendet inertes,
culpabit duros, incomptis allinei atrum
transuerso calamo signum, ambitiosa recidet
ornamenta, parum claris lucem dare coget,
arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit;
fiet Aristarchus, nec dicet: 'cur ego amicum
offendam in nugis?' hae nugae seria ducent
in mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
(Hor. Ars 438-452)
Whenever you recited something to Quintilius, he would say: "Correct
this here, please, and that there." If, after two or three vain attempts you
continued to insist that you could do no better, he would just tell you
to delete it and put your ill-turned verses back on the anvil. If you pre-
ferred to defend a mistake rather than change it, he would not burden
himself with any further word or useless effort to stop you being sole
unchallenged lover of yourself and your work! The good and wise man
will rebuke verses lacking craftsmanship, fault harsh ones, put a black
oblique stroke of the pen next to your sloppy ones, cut back ambitious
adornment, force you to illuminate what is unclear, reproach you for an
ambiguous statement, censure what should be altered. He will become

1 On the social aspects of being ridiculous in the Ars see Oliensis 2009 [1998]; on
the satirical nature of the poem see A. Ferenczi's paper in this issue.

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 178 Ábel Tamas
an Aristarchus, and will not sa
"trifles" will get that friend in
at and unfavourably received!
in latus erigitur cubitoque
'uiderit: insanos' inquit Tat
ei mihi, quo labor? quem m
et meditata manu componi
dextra tenet ferrum, uacua
incipit et dubitai, scribit da
et notât et delet, mutat c
inque vicem sumptas ponit
quid velit ignorât; quicquid
displicet. in uultu est audac
scripta 'soror' fuerat; uisum
uerbaque correctis incider
(Ov Met. 9.518-

She half-way rises and, leaning

us confess our mad passion! Ah
does my heart conceive?" And
hand the words she has though
in her left an empty waxen t
writes on and hates what she
condemns, approves; by turns
up again. What she wants sh
decides against it. Shame and
begun with "sister"; but "siste
words on the amended wax: [.

From a Horatian point of vi

the lesson on revision outlin
changes, condemns, approv
ological operations ascribed
More precisely, she plays th
ogist-corrector, as is sugge
(Ep. 2.2.109 s.)> where he say
writing a poem.4 Of cours

1 As for the English translation of

2 This has been noticed also by Wh
course, be read metapoetically. Ovid
evokes the painstaking process of
enjoined by Horace in the Ars Poeti
3 See the verbal coincidences in bold.
4 On the different aspects and contexts of the Horatian lessons on literary revision,
see most recently Gurd 2012, pp. 77-103. There is much emphasis on being ridiculous

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 179
implied by Ovid in innixa sinistro, which can be read as a proleptic
intertext recalling the «unfavourably received» ( exceptum sinistre)
poet of the Ars who, in contrast to Byblis, did not obey the rules.
Later in the story Byblis, in her great Platonic attack on literacy,
seems to prefer oral communication because it can operate with
rhetorical ambiguities and with a kind of incompleteness that - ac-
cording to the norms of the Ars , which she again fulfils - helps one
to explore the intentions of the addressee. Among other things,
Byblis says in this monologue: ante erat ambiguis animi sententia
dictis / praetemptanda mihi (Met. 9.588 s.); compare this with arguet
ambigue dictum in the Arsì From a Horatian point of view, con-
struable through the obvious allusions, the girl attacks herself pre-
cisely because she has too much obeyed the rules of the Ars. If she
had been more ambiguous, more loquacious, and less clear than
written form permits, she would perhaps have had more luck with
her incestuous plans. In other words, she erred in being a 'gooď
writer, in the Horatian sense, of her letter.
Ovid here plays two games simultaneously: while playing with
the topic 'orality vs literacy' implied in Byblis' name, he engages
also in an intertextual dialogue with the Ars, according to which
the over-formed and over-corrected form of writing has its own
very special dangers. However, the question of orality vs literacy
is connected to the Horatian lesson on literary revision as well:
according to the normative persona of the Ars, you have to cor-
rect and revise your work as long as you can also because of the
dangers implied in written communication: nonumque prematur
in annum / membranis intus positis; delere licebit / quod non edideńs,
nesāt uox missa reverti («And keep it shut up for nine years right
inside its parchment wrapper. What you haven't published may
be destroyed: the uttered word is beyond recall!»: 388-390). Thus
the Ovidian story of Byblis can be read not only as an allegory of
literacy - which is the usual way of interpretation1 -, but also as an

as the consequence of the lack of revision, as well as its social implications. Gurd
investigates the Hellenistic background, including Apollonius Rhodius who, accord-
ing to his first Vita, «retired to Rhodes to correct and polish the Argonautica after it
met a hostile response in Alexandria. [...]. The Vita's point is that Apollonius revised
because he could not bear the mockery of the Alexandrians.» (Gurd 2012, p. 88). As
for the legal and political metaphors used in the poetic language of literary revision
and, in general, of literary criticism, see M. Lowrie's paper in this issue. She addresses
the political aspects of the Quintilius episode as well.
1 See primarily Jenkins 2000, Raval 2001.

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 i8o Á bel Tamás

allegory of literary revis

consequences of the failu
say, insane) here come ho
of hyper-revision. At th
by her brother, Byblis l
in Horace who failed to r
because of her correcta ce
wax tablet.
As it is well known, Ovid in his later poetry recurrently refers to
the Metamorphoses as an unfinished or more precisely uncorrected
or unrevised poetic project which lacks his ultima mantis. This ques-
tion - connected with issues like 'materialities of literary commu-
nication', stages of publishing, the status of the written text, and
in general the nature of textual materiality and reading practices
in ancient Rome - is far more complex to be treated fully in this
paper, so now I will deal with it only in the 'ideological context'
of these Horatian and Ovidian passages, with its special emphasis
on literary revision. Above all, I have to cite the most important
passages from Oviďs Tristia concerning the unfinishedness of his
magnum opus :

sic ego non méritos mecum peritura libellos

imposui rapidis uiscera nostra rogis:
uel quod eram Musas, ut crimina nostra, perosus,
uel quod adhuc crescens et rude carmen erat.
quae quoniam non sunt penitus sublata, sed extant
(pluribus exemplis scripta fuisse reor),
nunc precor ut uiuant et non ignaua legentem
otia delectent admoneantque mei.
nec tamen ilia legi poterunt patienter ab ullo,
nesciet his summam siquis abesse manum.
ablatum mediis opus est incudibus illud,
defuit et coeptis ultima lima meis. [...]
quicquid in his igitur vitii rude carmen habebit,
emenda turus, si licuisset, eram.
(Ov. TV. 1.7.19-30)

...so I placed the innocent books consigned with me to death, my very

vitals, upon the devouring pyre, because I had come to hate the Muses as
my accusers or because the poem itself was as yet half grown and rough.
These verses were not utterly destroyed; they still exist - several copies
were made, I think - and now I pray that they may live, that thus my in-
dustrious leisure may bring pleasure to the reader and remind him of me.
And yet they cannot be read in patience by anybody who does not know

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 181
that they lack the final hand. That work was taken from me while it was
on the anvil and my writing lacked the last touch of the file. [. . .] And so
whatever defect this rough poem may have I would have corrected, had
it been permitted me.

dictaque sunt nobis, quamuis manus ultima coeptis

defuit, in facies corpora uersa nouas.
(Ov. Tr. 2.555-556)

I sang also, thought my attempt lacked the final touch, of bodies changed
into new forms.

Sunt quoque mutatae, ter quinqué uolumina, formae,

carmina de domini funere rapta sui.
Illud opus potuit, si non prius ipse perissem,
certius a summa nomen habere manu:
nunc incorrectum populi peruenit in ora,
in populi quicquam si tarnen ore mei est.
(Ov. Tr. 3.14.19-24)
There are also thrice five books on changing forms, verses snatched from
the funeral of their master. That work, had I not perished beforehand,
might have gained a more secure name from my finishing hand: but now
unrevised it has come upon men s lips - if anything of mine is on their
lips.

I think it is clear from these passages that Ovid is using a very so-
phisticated strategy here: describing the Metamorphoses (or more
precisely its 'ontological status') with metaphors derived from the
Metamorphoses. It is worth recalling the invocation of that work,
where - in harmony with other epic or didactic invocations in Au-
gustan literature (see, e.g., Verg. Geo. 1.40) - the poetic project is
described as coepta , with Ovid praying di, coeptis . . . adspirate meis , in
Fantham's paraphrase: «Gods, inspire my task (or "work-in-prog-
ress")».1 The cited authorial statements on the status of the great
work repeatedly use this word, which implies a reinterpretation:
coeptum means in this context something which has been started
but which is still incomplete, i.e., a 'work-in-progress'. As far the
adjectives crescens and rude are concerned, they recall the begin-
ning of the work as well, where the world, in the initial period of
Chaos, is a coeptum (one might call it a 'world-in-progress', cf. rudis
indigestaque moles , Met. 1.7). Additionally, the whole poetic project
encapsulates a worldview - most explicitly outlined in the speech

1 Fantham 2004, p. 5. Cf. also S. A. Gurďs book with the title Work in Progress (Gurd
2012).

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 i82 Ábel Tamás

of Pythagoras in book 1
tinuous change and perm
rial, living and non-livin
the Metamorphoses as an
(i.e., as a coeptum in the
quently be read as a tran
short: 'everything is alw
a final form' - to its external or material circumstances: its state of
being.
In this 'ideological' sense, a poetic work remains a coeptum for-
ever, regardless of whether its author has spent more or less time
on correction and revision. Thus the drive in the Metamorphoses 'to-
ward asymmetry, disunity, liberation of imagination 1 is nothing
other than a poetic mirroring of the natural (i.e., changing) face
of the world. I think the metaphors used in these later authorial
interpretations show that this kind of 'unfinishedness' is inherent
in Oviďs own poetic project. According to them, you cannot fin-
ish a work at all. The references to the uncorrected or unrevised
status of the Metamorphoses (cf. incorrectum , Tr. 3.14.23; emendaturus
... eram , Tr. 1.7.30), can on the other hand be interpreted as sug-
gesting that the Horatian requirements of literary revision are not
only dangerous (see the fate of Byblis), but also incompatible with
the metamorphic poetics of the Ovidian work and, furthermore,
even of the Ars as well. I am definitely not trying to answer the
historical question whether Ovid - as biographical author - put
his ultima manus on the poem or not.2 I regard the Ovidian state-
ments discussed here as authorial interpretations of the Metamor-
phoses which operate on an intertextual level and take advantage of
the fact that the Ars itself, in counteracting its own lessons, seems
to have the very 'faults' ( ambitiosa ornamenta and ambigue dicta as
well, see Ars 447-449) that, from the perspective of its normative
persona, should be corrected. There is a particular example which
illustrates this process very well. The association of incus «anvil»
and tornare «turn» in Ars 441, is at least unusual in its effect, because
it seems to mix two different phases of metalworking. 3 Tr. 1.7.29-

1 Barchiesi 1997, p. 250 n. 26.

2 It is of course a matter of philological dispute whether Ovid's statements in the
Tristia on the unfinishedness of the Metamorphoses are to be taken seriously or not:
cf. Luck 1977, pp. 62-63.
3 Cf. Brink 1971, pp. 414 s., ad loc. Bentley thought that tornatos and incudi are in-
compatible (since tornare means 'turn [on the lathe]' while incus is 'anvil') and sug-

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 183
30, with an et separating incus from limae labor , is usually taken as
echoing Ars 441 (and 290-291) i1 this allusion, I think, could be read
as a retroactive and humorous correction of the Ars s apparent ver-
sus iners , which - in this Ovidian 'intertextual correction' - seems
to illustrate the kind of faults the poet ought properly to correct.
According to Bentley, who wrote his longest note on this verse of
the Ars , the text is corrupt. However wrong Bentley might have
been, he has noticed something important: even when addressing
the topic of literary revision, the Ars uses a very condensed im-
age which in a banalising reading can be taken as incorrect, and
therefore as deserving the marginal tick of the Horatian lawgiver.
Consequently, from this intertextual point of view, the Ars itself
is a transitory, metamorphic and (in an ironic sense of the word
which exists only in this Horatio-Ovidian intertextual framework)
'unreviseď work, in which the poet Horace - in contrast with his
normative persona and with Ovid in Tr. 1.7, but at the same time
in harmony with Ovid in the Metamorphoses - seems not to obey
Quintilius* lessons. The effect is thus a kind of self-enactment in
the Ars: a sort of game with what happens if we leave the rules
outlined by the normative persona unfulfilled. This game is re-
vealed by Ovid, who gladly accepts the role of the poet who is not
ready to accept the criticism of his friends, deleting from his work
the «ambitious adornments» or the «ambiguous statements» (Ars
447-449). Instead, he is ready to seem 'ridiculous' and 'maď in the
Horatian sense, or more precisely in the sense suggested by the
normative persona of the Ars.
And this is exactly what Ovid, in his later authorial interpreta-
tions, describes as the 'unfinishedness* of the Metamorphoses. He
seems to follow a twofold strategy. On the one hand, he would like
to place his opus magnum in the literary canon, by playing the role
of the dead Vergil - a perspective to which being (at least symboli-

gested the emendation ter natos instead of tornatos. Others suggested other (and bet-
ter) emendations, thought we do not have to accept either of them. Brink's solution:
«H. is saying that the metal of the verses is badly "finished". Now the metal mass, as it
were, must be reconstituted, and returned to the anvil, reddere incudi, for a new ham-
mering and, doubtless, at the end, a new turning on the lathe, to render them bene
tornatos - but this is not made explicit.». On Bentley as the detector of the 'bad poet',
i.e., of the self-illustrating effects of the Ars, see A. Ferenczi's paper in this issue.
1 Brink 1971, ibidem; Luck 1977, p. 66, ad 29 ss. According to Luck, there are «two
images» in Tr. 1.7.29 s.: «das Werk wird auf dem Amboss geschmiedet, dann werden
die Unebenheiten ausgefeilt.». On this allusion see also L. Galasso's paper in this is-
sue.

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 iSą Ábel Tamas
cally) dead and leaving the
relevant - and also (though
his Tailed' readiness to obs
cluding the requirement o
he is not ashamed of the M
it has been disseminated or
lar presumably even becaus
ments like emendaturus er
ous desire to become canon
Ars is concerned, it become
made-example of how to
the same time. 1

3-

Let me go one further step, and pose the last question of this pa-
per: what is the consequence, in terms of aesthetics, of omitting
the phase of literary revision? In order to find the answer, we have
only to continue reading the Ars , i.e., to arrive at its end, where the
normative persona uses the figure of Empedocles as an analogy
for the mad poet, hinting at a particular Empedoclean fragment
(fr. 112 [399]) in which the Sicilian poet imagines himself as revered
by his citizen-fellows as a god, and also at a well-known anecdote
about Empedocles' death (453-456): 2
ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget
aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana,

1 L. Galasso's paper in this issue addresses the question of literary revision in

Ovid's exilic works, with a strong emphasis on allusions to Horace in the broader
context of ars/ingenium as well as of literary friendship (« obiurgatio amici»). Ovid, at
several points, is explicit about his lack of revision, being alone - i.e., being without
literary friends who could play the role of the literary censor in the Horatian sense
-, and, in general, living in circumstances that make him unable to write poems ac-
cording to the contemporary Roman model qf composition. According to Galasso's
interpretation, this also means that Ovid chooses ingenium over Horatian ars. I would
add the aspect of the literary public to this set of problems : as Gurd's interpretation
of Horace convincingly shows, the goal of literary revision is to correspond - both in
literary and in social sense - to the tastes of a small elite circle: therefore, without rig-
orous literary revision you can be even more popular (see Gurd 2012, pp. 95 ss.)! From
this perspective, it is telling why Ovid says he does not revise at all: it corresponds
very good to his literary strategy of writing publica carmina. The explicit statements
about lack of polish and revision in the exilic works (independently from their truth-
fulness) fit to this strategy perfectly.
2 Cf. Rudd 1989, pp. 226-227, ad loc.

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 185
uesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam
qui sapiunt; agitant pueri incautique sequuntur.
hie, dum sublimis uersus ructatur et errat,
si ueluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
in puteum foueamue, licet 'succurrite' longum
clamet 'io dues', non sit qui tollere curet.
si curet quis opem ferre et demittere funern,
'qui seis an prudens hue se proiecerit atque
seruari nolit?' dicam, Siculique poetae
narrabo interitum: deus inmortalis haberi
dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam
insiluit. sit ius liceatque perire poetis;
inuitum qui seruat idem facit occidenti,
nec semel hoc fecit, nec si retractus erit iam
fiet homo et ponet famosae mortis amorem.
nec satis apparet cur uersus factitet, utrum
minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental
mouerit, incestus: certe furit, ac uelut ursus,
obiectos caueae ualuit si frangere clatros,
indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus;
quem uero arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo,
non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo.
Like one attacked by a bad case of scabies, or the royal disease, or aber-
rant frenzy and a wrathful Diana, men of discernment are afraid to touch
a "mad" poet and they avoid him. The young and impetuous flush him
out and chase after him. If thus belching and raving sublime verses he
falls down a well or pit like a fowler intent on blackbirds, let him long
shout, "Help, Citizens! Save me!" But no one will be bothered to lift him
out. If someone should be concerned enough to bring help and let down
a rope, I would suggest that he just may have thrown himself down there
on purpose, and not want to be saved! - and recount the demise of the
poet of Sicily. In the throes of passion for immortality, Empedocles leapt
in cold blood into Aetna's flames. Poets should have that right - let them
perish! To save someone against his will is like murder. Not just once has
he done this, nor will he behave normally if he is restrained and lays aside
his passion for a glorious death. Nor is it quite clear why he goes on scrib-
bling verses. He may have pissed on his father's ashes or disturbed some
grim enclosure in an unholy way! He is unquestionably mad, and like a
bear whose might has smashed the confining bars of his cage he routs the
unlearned and learned alike with fierce recitation! Anyone he seizes he
grips and murders with his reading - a leech with no intention of letting
go his skin, until he's full of gore!

We are now at a point where we could easily get lost in Roman lit-
erature's garden of forking paths since, as Philip Hardie has shown,

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 1 86 Ábel Tamás

Empedocles is (thanks pr
cant element of an intert
grew up around the conc
ing intertextual collision
conclude that at every
allusions appear (like oth
lime') in an Augustan po
configuration which con
see the world from the o
of the word): to be, at le
time to manage the fant
conceits (cf. 'madness') im
be 'sublime', with all its
quences.2 To make thing
in this configuration a pe
the body of the poet and
books themselves that can be both identified with and differentiat-
ed from each other in various poetic contexts. The concept corpus
provides, in other words, a chance to solve poetically the conflicts
implied in the desire to become 'sublime'. As a corpus ('body') you
must be a mortal who dies; while as a corpus ('collection of books')
you can survive.3 This 'Roman Empedocles', born on the inter-
textual territory surrounding the 'sublime', is of course in some
part independent of Empedocles the Presocratic philosopher and
sage: he has become a sort of mixture of some Empedoclean texts
exploited poetically with certain famous anecdotes about the life

1 On this whole context, see primarily Hardie 2009a, passim. The focus is here,
of course, on Lucretius, but as David Sedley has shown, Empedocles plays a no less
important role in the drn than Epicurus, especially as a poetic model (cf. Sedley
20042). Taking the 'Empedoclean opening of the Lucretian work into consideration
(cf. Sedley 's first chapter), we may say that there is a drive in Latin hexameter tradi-
tion - especially, but not only in didactic epic - to open (and perhaps also to close?) with
Empedocles. This drive has its consequences for the Ars as well.
2 Most recently, see Hardie's paper Horace and the Empedoclean Sublime (forthcom-
ing in a conference volume) which develops the idea of 'Empedocleanism' of Roman
poets in a direction very close to mine. Among other things, he connects the motif
of «literary revision» to that of «sublimity» in a literary context where Empedocles,
Vergil and Horace (with a focus on Etna!) are highly present. This argument is very
important to my reasoning in what follows (special thanks to Philip Hardie for having
shared with me the manuscript of his yet unpublished article. Cf. also his paper on
the Ars in this issue).
3 On the Horatian semantics of the body, including the body of the poet and the
body of his works, see Farrell 2007.

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 187
of the Sicilian philosopher. All the mentioned sublime aspects do,
however, have their Empedoclean connections.
As far as the Ars and the Metamorphoses are concerned, they do
themselves form part of this broader context of the 'sublime';
both, also, participate in the Roman poetic traditon's dialogue with
Empedocles. My primary interest here is, of course, the connection
between the two poetic works. It seems to me fair to assume that
Empedocles, in this Horatio-Ovidian framework, serves eminent-
ly as a trope for that very intertextual relationship which clearly
brings with itself the whole context of the 'sublime'. In Horace we
see a satirical interpretation of Empedoclean philosophy already
in Ep. 1.12, where the philosopher's theory of concordia discors (19)
- i.e., of Love and Strife governing a world that consists of con-
tinuously changing forms - is associated with madness. It is exactly
this Horatian phrase, in reversed order as discors concordia , that will
return in the Metamorphoses (1.433) Î1 where the emergence of the
universe in the first book, as well as the structure of the universe
in the last book, are both described in Empedoclean terms. This al-
lusion can be read as a small but spectacular signal of Empedocles'
presence in the Horatio-Ovidian intertextual framework which we
are exploring.
As for the Ars , the only explicit allusion to Empedocles is to be
found at the very end of the poem. Obviously, we see here a bur-
lesque version of 'being sublime',2 in which the poet, who lacks lit-
erary self-criticism, becomes similar to a satirical Empedocles who,

1 Cf. Mayer 1994, p. 199, ad loc. Beyond the satirical Empedocles, sublimity is also a
link between Ep. 1.12 (v. 15 sublimia cures ) and the Ars (v. 457 sublimis uersus ructatur).
Cf. Hardie 2009a, pp. 189-190.
2 See Hardie 2009a, pp. 197-202 with a hint at a possible identification of the Empe-
docles figure in the Ars with Lucretius himself. Horace Odes 1.1.29-36 is also in play
here with its ironic sublimity ( quodsi me lyńcis uatibus inseres, sublimi feriam sidera ver-
tice). I would add to that J. Farrell's insight (Farrell 2009, p. 182; cf. also Farrell 2007,
pp. 189-190) that there is a pun based on the medium of the book in this Horatian
picture : it is rather the corpus of the Horatian book itself, instead of his physical body,
which will be 'inserted' into Maecenas' bookshelves: 'but if you will insert me among
the lyric poets, I will strike the stars with my towering head' (Farrell's translation and
emphasis). In this case, the 'sublime (mad /disintegrated) poet' in the ending of the
Ars and the 'sublime (mad /disintegrated) book' in its opening have their parallel in
the Horatian lyrical oeuvre as well, with a special emphasis on a sublimity read ironi-
cally. Poetic immortality seems to have a strong connection to textual materiality (cf.
the 'durability' of the poet /poem), with all its social aspects, since it also pertains to
the question how the poetic voice /text will be conserved ( Odes 3.30 and, along with
it, the epilogue of the Metamorphoses are also emphatically involved in this context
of course).

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 i88 Ábel Tamas

in order to be revered
dum cupit ), «leapt into
view, it will be more th
failure to revise are her
ity which changes the
ing to the norms of t
'sublime' in an overtly n
fmaď Empedocles, this
in order to attain poetic
mous death»). This, how
tion which transforms
being, and in the end int
satirical version of Horace's own marvellous and sublime transfor-
mation into a swan in Odes 2.20. 2 From the point of view of the
Metamorphoses , sublimity, even if attained in a highly ironic and
self-deprecating way, is not dangerous. In order to actualise this
possibility implied in the Ars , Ovid, it seems, takes the risk of 'omit-
ting' the literary revision which would consist in freeing the work
from the characteristic that constitutes its essential nature. This
Ovid (the implied author of the Metamorphoses) is highly similar to
the anecdotal Ovid who refused to delete his favourite lines from
his works. As is well known, one of the favourite lines he saved
from the obiurgatio amicorum is an eminently Empedoclean one both
in the literal and the figurative sense of the word. On the one hand,
it is an allusion to Empedocles; on the other, it condenses in itself
everything which can be characterised, on the thematic as well as
the stylistic level, as grotesque, marvellous, metamorphic or exag-
gerated.3
Considering the ring-composition structure of the Ars (i.e., that
its caput meets its pes in the end)4 and the fact that a sort of '(coun-

1 For the disintegration of the body as well as for a general interpretation of the
ending of the Ars, see, above all, J. Krupp's yet unpublished paper entitled How to
Write an Ending (of an ars poetica). J. Farrell's conclusion («The satiric body is domi-
nated by the bowels, the reproductive organs, and the excretory system»: Farrell 2007,
p. 192) affirms that in the end of the Ars we can observe an apparent transition (or
return?) to satire also in that regard.
2 Cf. Hardie 2009a, pp. 199 ss. He mentions Ep. 1.12 as a parody of Odes 2.20.
3 Seefr. 61 [379] of Empedocles and my note 3 at pp. 189-190 below.
4 For the ring-composition of the Ars, see the paper of J. P. Schwindt in this issue.
Cf. also Oliensis 2009 [1998], p. 471: «Horace's Ars as a whole thus repeats the trajec-
tory of the monstrous painting, moving from top to bottom, from head to tail-end,
from human to animal, from humano to hirudo, its mocking echo.».

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 189
ter-)Ovidianisnť is palpable even at the 'heaď and the Toot', we
can assume that, beyond Empedocles* explicit presence at the end
of the A. P., there must be an at least implicit Empedoclean pres-
ence also in its opening. This assumption, as it turns out, is quite
justified. 1 Similarly to the end, the opening also focuses on a disin-
tegrated corpus , but instead of the 'ridiculous-mad poeť, this time
it is his 'ridiculous-mad book' which we observe.2 Here, above all,
three Empedoclean texts are important: namely fr. 23 (DK31B23
[356]), the first half of the testimonium DK 31A72 [375], and addi-
tionally fr. 61 (DK31B61 [379]), the latter two of which come from
Empedocles* zoogony:
Moreover he added a clear model of the way different things come from
the same: "As when painters are decorating offerings [i.e. votive tab-
lets], men through cunning well skilled in their craft-when they actu-
ally seize pigments of many colours in their hands, mixing in harmo-
ny more of some and less of others, they produce from them forms
resembling all things, creating trees and men and women, beasts and
birds and water-bred fish, and long-lived gods, too, highest in honour: so
let not deception overcome your mind and make you think there is any
other source of all the countless mortal things that are plain to see, but
know this clearly, for the tale you hear comes from a god."
(fi. 23)

Empedocles held that the first generations of animals and plants were
not complete but consisted of separate limbs not joined together; the
second, arising from the joining of these limbs, were like creatures
in dreams: the third was the generation of whole-natured forms; and
the forth...
(31A72)

Many creatures were born with faces and breasts on both sides, man-
faced ox-progeny, while others again sprang forth as ox-headed offspńng
of man , creatures compounded partly of male, partly of the nature of
female, and fitted with shadowy parts.
(fi. 61) 3

1 As it has been also noticed by Philip Hardie (see my note 2 at p. 186 above]) ; addi-
tionally, see his paper in this issue where the Lucretian context of the Ars is developed
further as well.
2 As far as the connection between the caput and the pes - i.e., the opening and the
ending - of the Ars is concerned, cf. Laird 2007, but also the paper of J. P. Schwindt
in this issue.
3 Translation from Kirk, Raven, Schofield 19832, pp. 280-321. Those in italics in the
last cited passage are alluded to by Ovid in A. A. 2, 24 semibovemque virum, semi-
virumque bovem, which is one of Ovid's favourit Ovidian lines, cf. Hardie 2009a, p. 152.

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 190 Á bel Tamás

Taking these fragments into

with Hardie, detect here a ve
(i-9):

Humano capiti ceruicem pictor equinam

iungere si uelit et uarias inducere plumas
undique collatis membris ut turpiter atrum
desinai in piscem mulier formosa superne,
spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?
credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum
persimilem cuius, uelut aegri somnia. uanae
fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni
reddatur formae. [. . .]
Imagine a painter wanting to attach a horse's neck to a human head, as-
semble limbs from everywhere, and add feathers of various colours, so
that a woman beautiful above the waist tailed into a revolting black fish!
Could you hold back your laughter, my friends, if admitted to view it?
Believe me, Pisos, a book could be very like such a canvas, its images just
empty inventions like a sick man's dreams: neither foot nor head would
be rendered in a single form.

The Horatian Mischwesen , painted by the 'ridiculous' (and, in the

sense I have outlined above, also maď or 'sublime') painter who
paints 'paradoxical and marvellous' things, appears as an Empedo-
clean mixture of «limbs, assembled from everywhere». It is exactly
if the painter of fir. 23 would have painted the 'second stage' of
Empedocles' zoogony, characterised by Empedocles himself with
metamorphic creatures, as we can see in fr. 61. According to Hor-
ace, a book without a clear structure will be similar to this paint-
ing because «neither foot nor head would be rendered in a single
form». This Empedoclean or proto-Ovidian book will be very sim-
ilar to the second stage of the Empedoclean zoogony, where these
metamorphic animals are associated with 'creatures in dreams',
just like Horace's book, which is like a tabula (cf. the anathemata
in fr. 23) that represents something like a 'sick man's dream'. This
Empedoclean presence at the end and at the beginning of the Ars is
something which, I think, opens the way for Ovid to accept 'Hora-
tian madness' as a 'sweet punishment' for not having corrected
and revised his poem according to Horatian normative rules, but

It is highly interesting that the anecdote in Sen. Contr. 2.2.12 testifies even Ovid's lack
of willingness to revise his poems: 'not to revise' seems to mean something like 'to be
an Empedocles' in Ovid's eyes.

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 The Empedoclean Drive in the Ars poetica 191
which - in the Horatian logic - results in his being 'Empedocles',
or with other words, sublime. Ovid gladly fulfils this rather pro-
vocative possibility encoded in the Ars, in order to be something
like an «Empedocles redivivus»1 as he writes, or more precisely be-
gins, his «Empedoclean epos»2 - a text which, in a certain Horatio-
centric sense, does nothing other than to yield to the Empedoclean
drive implied in the Ars.
The Metamorphoses, on the one hand, repeats the 'Empedoclean
opening and 'Empedoclean ending of the Ars, insofar as it starts
with a cosmogony based strongly on Empedocles (a cosmogony
which is going to be a metaphor for Ovid's poetic project as well: cf.
coeptum as work/ world-in-progress) and concludes with the highly
Empedoclean book 15, which repeats this structure in itself starting
with the speech of Pythagoras, a didactic mini-epic based on the
philosophy of change represented by Empedocles, and ends with
the famous epilogue which, in terms recalling Horace's Odes 3.30,
uses this philosophy to talk about the afterlife of the poem and/ or
the poet.3 On the other hand, the Metamorphoses, considering both
its poetic principle and its subject matter, is nothing other than the
realisation of the Empedoclean philosophy of change in the terms
of poetics: it speaks in an eminently metamorphic way about a
world based on continuous metamorphosis. Nothing can ever be
finished, Ovid tells us : this is why he is taking the risk - as a poeta, pic-
tor, or liber -of being ridiculous /unrevised/ingenium-based/ mad/
sublime / paradoxical / marvellous / grotesque / metamorphic / Em-
pedoclean. At the same time, he gives us a non-normative reading
of the Ars through which the Horatian book, from its caput to its
pes, will turn out to be a coeptum with the same characteristics.4

1 I owe this term to M. Garani, but I have exploited it for my uses. The title of her
book refers, of course, to Lucretius, and not to Ovid: cf. Garani 2007. This book very
usefully detects Empedoclean elements in the drn, following D. Sedley.
2 I owe this term to Hardie 2009a, pp. 136 ss., but I have exploited it in my own
way. He calls only the speech of Pythagoras in the book 15 of the Metamorphoses an
«Empedoclean epos».
3 On Empedocles in the Metamorphoses see Hardie 2009a, pp. 136-152.
4 On this see J. P. Schwindt's paper in this issue, where the primary focus is on the
opening of the Ars. According to Schwindt, we can assume that the painting which
becomes the object of ridicule is in statu creandi and therefore can for the present be
observed only by VIPs (cf. admissi). This view fits my interpretation of coeptum very
well. Ovid, accordingly, takes advantage of this status creandi which is something very
positive in his eyes, and not to be eliminated through literary revision. Schwindt's
insights on the question of the grotesque in the Ars are also highly relevant to my
reading of the Ovidian reading of the Ars.

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 192 Ábel Tamas
The 'metamorphosis' of the
last lines of the Ars permits
calised and exaggerated ve
Ovid realises poetically the
game with Empedocles. If w
turns out to be something
exactly a 'hesitant precurso
of this intertextual process
returning to its 'id' (in the
sented by the Empedoclea
as well as by the similarly
end. From the perspective o
of the Ars can be interpret
which is trying permanentl
O vidian) 'id'. In intertextua
Horatian 'id' to gain the vic

Eötvös Loránd University, Bu

1 As Daniel Kozák suggests to me

the Ars and the Metamorphoses seem
existing between the Aeneid and th
99-122. According to him, from the
epic turns out to be a kind of proto
tant precursor» of Ovid himself (p.

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