Against this background I read passages of Vergil's Aeneid and
Ovid's Metamorphoses that illustrate and problematize the continuing
associations of song, manhood, metallurgy and birds. Special
attention will be given to the omens of the swans that bracket the Aeneid
and to Ovid's chattering magpies, who are defeated by the Muses in Metamorphoses
Book 5. Such analysis continues my efforts to expand the range
of texts and contexts considered relevant to the interpretation of classical
poetry. But it is also my contention that the passages in question
exemplify a radical shift in cultural system that may help to explain the
corresponding shift in attention from Vergil to Ovid outlined in the conference
call. It is not just ideologies that shape the choices
of scholars, but the way those ideologies construct and are processed by
the lived, embodied experience of women and men. Arguably the most
radical shift in the experience of manhood among the industrialized nations
(particularly the United States) during the 20th century has been the elimination
or reduction of universal military conscription and the corresponding rise
in war by proxy. As the ancient evidence predicts, we can expect
such a shift to ramify in any of a number of practices and beliefs.
Choice of poets is hardly the most significant of these ramifications;
but reflection on such matters may help us to fulfill our challenging obligation
to clarify, rather than identify with, the past.
Relevant works:
A. Carandini, La nascita di Roma (Turin 1997)
J. Gil, Metamorphoses of the Body (Minneapolis 1998)
F-H Pairault Massa, Iconologia e politica nell' Italia antica
(Milan 1992)
M. Shanks, Art and the Early Greek State (Cambridge
1999)