Ovid’s Salmacis, a Literary and Sexual Hybrid
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This article engages with the ambiguities surrounding the identity of the naiad Salmacis in Book Four of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the final story in a set of three told by the daughters of Minyas. Alcithoe is the narrator. The Salmacis myth is possibly one of the most slippery stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses; to adapt the title of Georgia Nugent’s ground breaking article of 1989, Ovid is producing a text which is not one just as Hermaphroditus embodies ‘the sex which is not one.’ The naiad, Salmacis, is by her very nature an adaptable amphibian and an ideal medium to blur boundaries in gender physicality, as well as in behaviour. Like the son of Venus and Mercury she so passionately covets, Salmacis is visualised as a creature with hermaphroditic characteristics in advance of the bizarre coupling that produces a being of indeterminate sex. The ambiguous nature of the water nymph who causes the final transformation of the boy is hardly highlighted although she too is a hybrid both behaviourally and elementally. Salmacis’ identity as girlish nymph and watery being, as a natural victim and a resourceful rapist, as a combination of feminine passivity and aggressive masculinity is realised through vivid direct description and highly associative imagery. Building upon previous scholarly interpretations of the episode of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, I shall argue that although Ovid confines Salmacis to shape shifting in the figurative sense (by his use of multiple metaphors) his similes are carefully chosen to align her with other fluid females in Ovid’s literary landscape who invariably suffer sexual assault and the risk of transformation or disintegration. However, Salmacis’ bodily dissolution follows her pro-active and predatory sexuality. This article draws together previous approaches to Ovid’s Salmacis narrative, but introduces new perspectives upon the characterisation of the lustful naiad. I argue that Salmacis is both behaviourally and physically a fudged gender, a proto-hermaphrodite ultimately punished for her mimicry of masculine traits. This is deliberate as the figurative techniques are primarily designed to transport the reader to other victims in Ovid’s mythical landscape and to familiar erotic encounters in Greek and Roman literature. Drawing upon cinematic terminology, the moving images of the present day, we could say that the over-wrought similes she and the beautiful boy attract ‘scramble the pixels’ in visual terms. Ovid’s version of events subverts the Halicarnassus inscription which was positive about the nature of the Salmacis pool and the relationship between its denizen and the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. My approach does assume that Ovid’s contemporary readership was not only educated but also revisited the text in order for these overall connections to gain their full force. The fleeting images, confusing in their immediate context, function like a cinematic montage as they evoke the fate of females who suffer bodily annihilation in the epic poem before and after the Salmacis episode.
Abstract
This article engages with the ambiguities surrounding the identity of the naiad Salmacis in Book Four of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the final story in a set of three told by the daughters of Minyas. Alcithoe is the narrator. The Salmacis myth is possibly one of the most slippery stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses; to adapt the title of Georgia Nugent’s ground breaking article of 1989, Ovid is producing a text which is not one just as Hermaphroditus embodies ‘the sex which is not one.’ The naiad, Salmacis, is by her very nature an adaptable amphibian and an ideal medium to blur boundaries in gender physicality, as well as in behaviour. Like the son of Venus and Mercury she so passionately covets, Salmacis is visualised as a creature with hermaphroditic characteristics in advance of the bizarre coupling that produces a being of indeterminate sex. The ambiguous nature of the water nymph who causes the final transformation of the boy is hardly highlighted although she too is a hybrid both behaviourally and elementally. Salmacis’ identity as girlish nymph and watery being, as a natural victim and a resourceful rapist, as a combination of feminine passivity and aggressive masculinity is realised through vivid direct description and highly associative imagery. Building upon previous scholarly interpretations of the episode of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, I shall argue that although Ovid confines Salmacis to shape shifting in the figurative sense (by his use of multiple metaphors) his similes are carefully chosen to align her with other fluid females in Ovid’s literary landscape who invariably suffer sexual assault and the risk of transformation or disintegration. However, Salmacis’ bodily dissolution follows her pro-active and predatory sexuality. This article draws together previous approaches to Ovid’s Salmacis narrative, but introduces new perspectives upon the characterisation of the lustful naiad. I argue that Salmacis is both behaviourally and physically a fudged gender, a proto-hermaphrodite ultimately punished for her mimicry of masculine traits. This is deliberate as the figurative techniques are primarily designed to transport the reader to other victims in Ovid’s mythical landscape and to familiar erotic encounters in Greek and Roman literature. Drawing upon cinematic terminology, the moving images of the present day, we could say that the over-wrought similes she and the beautiful boy attract ‘scramble the pixels’ in visual terms. Ovid’s version of events subverts the Halicarnassus inscription which was positive about the nature of the Salmacis pool and the relationship between its denizen and the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. My approach does assume that Ovid’s contemporary readership was not only educated but also revisited the text in order for these overall connections to gain their full force. The fleeting images, confusing in their immediate context, function like a cinematic montage as they evoke the fate of females who suffer bodily annihilation in the epic poem before and after the Salmacis episode.
참고문헌 (48)
- Ajootian, A., "Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology", pp.220~242 (1997), Psychology Press
- Anderson, W. S., "Ovid’s Metamorphoses (two volumes, 1-5, 6-10)" (1972), University of Oklahoma Press
- Bartsch, S., "The Mirror and the Self: Self Knowledge and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire" (2006), University of Chicago Press
- Brown, S. A., "Ovid in English, 1480-1625 Part 1, Metamorphoses" (2013), Modern Humanities Research Association
- Bushnell, R., "Winged Words, Homeric Bird Signs, Similes and Epiphanies", Helios, 9(1), pp.1~14 (1982)
- Cox, F., "Classics in the Modern World: a Democratic Turn (Classical Presences series)", pp.287~298 (2013), Oxford University Press
- Curran, L. C., "Rape and Rape Victims in the Metamorphoses", Arethusa, 11, pp.213~242 (1979)
- Delcourt, M., "Hermaphrodite, Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity" (1956), Studio Press
- Due, O. S., "Changing Forms, studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid" (1974), Museum Tusculanum Press
- Elsner, J., "Roman Eyes, Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text" (2007), Princeton University Press
- Feldherr, A., "Playing Gods, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction" (2010), Princeton University Press
- Feldherr, A., "Making the Most of Marsyas", Arethusa, 37, pp.75~103 (2004)
- Fratantuono, L., "Madness Transformed: A Reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (2009), Lexington Books
- Galinsky, G. K., "Ovid’s Metamorphoses: an introduction to the basic aspects" (1975), Blackwell
- Hardie, P., "Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion" (2002), Cambridge University Press
- Hinds, S., "The Cambridge Companion to Ovid", pp.122~149 (2002), Cambridge University Press
- Jacobsen, G. A., "Apollo and Tereus: Parallel Motifs in Ovid’s Metamorphoses", Classical Journal, 80, pp.45~52 (1984)
- James, P., "Metamorphic Reflections", pp.1~20 (2004), Leuven-Dudley
- James, P., "Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen: In Pursuit of the Perfect Woman" (2011), Continuum
- Janan, M., "There Beneath the Roman Ruin Where Purple Flowers Grow: Ovid’s Minyades and the Feminine Imagination", American Journal of Philology, 115, pp.427~448 (1994)
- Joplin, P. K., "Rape and Representation", pp.35~64 (1984), Columbia University Press
- Keith, A., "Ovidian Transformations", pp.214~239 (1999), Cambridge Philological Society
- Krabbe, J., "Lusus Iste, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses" (2003), University Press of America
- Lawrence, A., "Echo and Narcissus: Women’s Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema" (1991), California University Press
- Leach, E. W., "Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid’s Metamorphoses", Ramus, 3, pp.102~142 (1974)
- Lepick, J. A., "The Castrated Text: The Hermaphrodite as Model of Parody in Ovid and Beaumont", Helios, 8(1), pp.71~85 (1981)
- Lively, G., "Ovidian Transformations", pp.197~213 (1999), Cambridge Philological Society
- Nagel, B. R., "Erotic Pursuit and Narrative Seduction in Ovid’s Metamorphoses", Arethusa, 21, pp.75~98 (1988)
- Norton, E., "Aspects of Ecphrastic Technique in Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (2013), Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Nugent, G., "The Sex which is not One: Deconstructing Ovid’s Hermaphrodite", Differences, 2(1), pp.160~185 (1989)
- Pavlock, B., "The Tyrant and Boundary Violation in Ovid’s Tereus Episode", Helios, 18, pp.34~48 (1991)
- Pavlock, B., "The Image of the Poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (2009), University of Wisconsin Press
- Richlin, A., "Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome", pp.158~179 (1992), Oxford University Press
- Robinson, M., "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, When Two Became One", Classical Quarterly, 49, pp.212~223 (1999)
- Romano, A. J., "The Invention of Marriage, Hermaphroditus and Salmacis at Halicarnassus and in Ovid", Classical Quarterly, 59(2), pp.543~561 (2009)
- Salzmann-Mitchell, P. B., "A Web of Fantasies: Gaze, Image and Gender in Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (2005), Ohio State University Press
- Segal, C. P., "Ovid’s Metamorphic Bodies: Art, Gender and Violence in the Metamorphoses", Arion, 5, pp.9~41 (1988)
- Segal, C. P., "Modern Critical Theory and Classical Culture", pp.257~280 (1994), Brill
- Sharrock, A., "The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body", pp.265~295 (2002), Johns Hopkins University Press
- Sharrock, A., "Cultivating the Muse: Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical literature", pp.207~227 (2002), Oxford University Press
- Sharrock, A., "Ovidian Plumbing in Metamorphoses 4", Classical Quarterly, 53, pp.624~627 (2003)
- Silverberg, R. A., "Just One Look, an exhibition of Contemporary Book Arts, exploring the theme of Women and Vision", pp.34~35 (2016), University of Washington Libraries Special Collections
- Sourvinou-Inwood, C., "The Salmakis Inscription and Hellenistic Halikarnassos", pp.59~84 (2004), University Press of Southern Denmark
- von Glinski, M. L., "Simile and Identity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses" (2012), Cambridge University Press
- von Stackelberg, K. T., "Garden Hybrids", Classical Antiquity, 33(2), pp.395~426 (2014)
- Webb, R., "Ekphrasis, Imagination And Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory And Practice" (2009), Ashgate Publishing
- Zajko, V., "Listening with Ovid: Intertextuality, Queer Theory and the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus", Helios, 36(2), pp.175~202 (2009)
- Zeitlin, F., "FIGURE, EKPHRASIS", Greece and Rome, 60(1), pp.17~31 (2013)