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BRILL'S COMPANION TO OVID EDITED BY BARBARA WEIDEN BOYD BRILL LEIDEN + BOSTON + KOLN 2002 Preface List of Contributors ..... 1. a 9 . Ovid's Language and Style . The Amores: The Invention vf Ovid .. — Praccepia amoris. Ovid's Didaciic Elegy The Fast Style, Structure, and Time . Ovid's Fasti: Politics, History, and Religion . Sources and Genres in Ovid's Meiamorphoses 1-3 CONTENTS Ovid and the Augustan Milieu .... Peter White EJ. Konney Barbara Weiden Boyd The Heroides Flegiac Voices Petr E. Knox Patricia VVatson John E. Miller Eluine Fentham Alison Keilh .. Narrative Techniques and Narrative Structures in the Metamorphoses Gianpiero Ra The House of Fame: Roman History and Augustan Politics in Metamarphosss 11-15 Gar Tissol 9l 141 GHAPTER NINE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURES IN THl METAMORPHOSES Gianpiero Rosati 1. A Past That Mirrors Iself Among all the narrative works of classical antiquity, there is prob- ably no other that, like Ovid’s Melamaphoss, is 50 clearly concemed with reflecting upon itself, considering its own nature and the con- text which produced it, and exhibiting the mechanisms af its own functioning. The Ovidian poem narrares the story of a world in which many of the characters în their turm participate in offering narratives lo a particular audience: . Indeed, storytelling is one of the most frequent actions in the world of the poem, involving many characters in the most varicd situations.! The action which gives birth to the poem is continually replicated intemally through the mediation of rive @ abyne, a narration within a marration, which, by substituting for the voice of the external nar- rator thai ol a character internal to [he diegetic world, reproduces the situation from which the text has ori; been esti- mated® that about a third of the length of the pocm, including about 60 of the cpisodes (and in inercasing proportion from the beginning to the end of the poem), is narrated not hy che extemal narrator, but by about 40 infernal narrators. Instead of giving us the inpres- sion that we are present ar the happenings in the poem, the text continualiy maintains our awareness that we are hicaring narralizes ef evenis, and insists on the function of mediation, on the Alter val di 1 studi here emphasize above alla few in portani episode [cane in È the poem 5, 6, and 10;, Une techniques under ation cl soue estend te the Gi W Metin natra.ive, and meat recent narcasological study Gf the ses, 49. Nagle (19119) provides a catalogue af embedded 272 GIANPIERO ROSATI se evenis and reconstrurts them, giving them a form and a significano But Ovidian narratives are frequently corstructed with an uncom- mon complexity; the internal narrator, to whom the narrator-author (lets call him “Ovid”) has yielded the floor, gives ir instead to a character-narrator internal to the story who himself narrates and thus periodically reproduces the narrative situation (with a new nar- rator who speaks to his own audience), to the point of multiplying the narrative levels as in a game nf Chinese Boxes. The most com- plicated example (three narrative levels embedded one inside another) occurs in the fifth book, where the story of Minerva’ joumey to Helicon (250-678) contains the narrative delivered by one of the Muses to the goddess concerning the song-contest between the Muses themselves (represented by Calliopc) and the Pierides Within her narrative {the rape of Proserpina and other stories: 5.341-661), Calliope in turn encloses the story of the nymph Arethusa, who narrates to the goddess Ceres her own metamorphosis into a fountain (577-641). Every change of speaker, then, introduces a new voice. which, however, is controlled by each of the vaices that pre- cede it, beginning with the primary narraror, the external narralor; and it is certainly not always easy either to preserve one's aware- ness of the precise narrative situation in which cach story is located, or to perceive the subjective intentions or effects of distortion pro- duced by the play among narrative voices Tn other words, the text reproduces itsclf in miniature, repeatedly mirroring within itself the act of its own enunciation, and Ue inter est that this metanarrative procedure holds for an analysis af the Ovidian text is obvious, The attention given by scholars to narra- tive techniques and the reflexive attitude of the Metamorphoses, pro- gressing from the narratological studies developed in the wake of structuralism betweeu the beginning of the 1970s and the first hall of the 805, has opened up new perspectives on the interpretation of both individual episodes and the entire poem. The poem is no longer read as a collection of mythological stories which can, il nced be, be removed from their contexts and analyzed individually:' rather, attention to the figure of the narrator as well as to his audience and ' CE esp. Genette (1060); Priuce (1982); Bel (1985) | Wherler (2000) vigorously emphasizes the continuity of the Ovidian poem NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRICTURES IN MWZIiORPHOsEs 273 consideration of the rhetorical strategy which governs their relation e situation. ship allow us to reconstruct the cu Besides revealiny a greater semantie complexiiy, dis diverse approach to the text often allows the modifications introduced by some nar- rators into the facts of the mythological Wwadition to be explained as intentianal alterations (rather than as less well-known versions of the story), and invites us to consider the individual myth, the story nar- rated by a narrator, as the truth of a given character. The many narrators (T'odoroys “narrative-mon”) are clearly sur author, and thus the awareness with which they core rogates for tl struet cheir tales and the meaning that they attribute to them give us valuable information about how the primary, cxtradiegetic nar- eaning of the entire rator (“Ovid”) organizes the structure and the poem. In the same way, the repeated creation of a listener (the recip- ient of the narrative, or the narratee) produces interpretiug charac- ters, i.e,, surrogates for the reader, and thus introduces several (possible) models of interpretation. ‘The external. or primary, narrator of the poem, who renounces cpic anonymity and who has an omniscient view, speals freely (much more so than the narrator of the Aenzid) of his own era, identifying il with the Augustan age (1.1-1; 200-206). He hopes for immnortal fame (15.871-79), sets up a dialogue will his Roman contempo raries, and includes among his addressees Augustus himself (1.201). The evident status of the narrator as protagonist (and în general the exrraordinary profile that the narrative function has throughout the poem) leads some scholars to dismiss every distinction between nar- rator and author and to identify the external narrator, ie., the one who speals by himself în the first person in the procemium and in the epilogue of the poem, with the historic author, i.e, Ovid him- sell’ On the other hand, it is difficult to attribute directly ro the poet certain features that the narrator reveals or even intentionally exhibits (a sometimes naîve psychological attitude, religious propri ety, or “political correctness’), and it is therefore necessary to pro- vide for the intervention of an “implicit author.” The implicit author permits us to perccive a distancing ol' the real author from the fer sona of his narrator, to whom the author looks with detachment and î Todorov (1977) 66 e, Galinsy 1 '1hc position taken 76 GIANPIERO ROSATI also mention, for example; the tales of the Minyeids, the three sîs- ters devoted to Minerv: . who spin and weave while talking turns telling stories of love, and of Arachne, rhe boastful weaver trans formed iuto a spider by Minerva.!' While this last scems to constitute or to provide the foundation myth for the semantic field in which the Callimachean poetics of Aentéimg is based (as in the metaphor of deduceie, recalled in 1 4, or the image of the poer-spider, known above all from Culax 1-4), the episode of the narrating spinners, with its insistence on the parallelism of the two processes, on the simul- tancous “running” of che thread and of the narration (falibus arse modis lana sua fila sequente, 4.54), represents an aition for storytelling, and the three “Callimachean” narratore of erotic stories appear ro be obvious substitutes for the narrator-author who had declared in the prooemium his intention to spin {deducere) a papeluan carmen. > 2. Chronology and Analogy: An Order Without End The Homeric-Virgilian cpic tradition included a narrative Hashback on the part of the protagonist (cf. Books 8-12 of the Odvsser and 2-3 of the deri), who, Uurough homodiege c analepsis, narrated events anterior to the chronol cal are traced by te poem, but rel- evant to it and to its narrative continuity.! Nonetheless, repeated and widespread recourse lu storytelling in the Metamorphoses recalis instead to Ovid’s reader the narrative technique of the Fasti, which entrusts the explanation of the aiia of the most varied antiquarian subjecrs to a grear number of informants, bot divine and human. Recourse to internal narrators as sonrers of actiological knowledge has been traced back to the model offered by Callimachus,'" who in the first two books of the Aelia questioned the Muses regarding ived their responses." The story- telling proccdure in the larger poem has therefore been associated various antiquarian matters and reci ' Rosati (1999) 1 A fell acalysis of various aspests of the procemiam in Wheeler (1999) 8-50. W% Cf. Barchiesi (1997a) esp. 138-39 and n. 18; Barchinsi also shows (126 36) how Homer and Virgil had already confronted questuns b( poetie metazlieges ilar to those p id. "CI. Myers {1994a) 67-73. # Of course, Callimachus did not limit the use of internal nerrators 10 this work alone NARRATIVE TECHNIQU S AND STRUCTURES IN AIFTIUORPIOSES with this model, rather than with the widespread predilection of Alexandrian poetry for complex narrative structures. This is not only because any internal narratives in the Adelamonphoses originate in agtiological questions put by one character 10 another, who thus becomes a narrator, but also because in both Ovidian poems the introduction of multiple voices has something to do with the prob- lem (as previously articulated in Alexandrian poetry) of “truth,” in particular the pretense of “ruth” claimed hy works of fiction. While this flexible narrative technique seems particularly useful to a poem like the Fasti, much more problemalic is its use in a poem that declares itself ta be epic, and that preserves the continuity of epic; the phrase camer perpetuum of 14 cannot nof recall the famous Callimachean polemic found in the prologue of the Aetia against èv Beropo Sinverte (Aet. 1, fr. 1.3 P£), and so suggests a reconciliation ot Callimachean and anti-Callimachean approaches." In fact, the establishment of a vast chronological horizon, from the origin of the world to the time of the narrator, accentuates the problem. An “impure” epic, scarcely epic in its chronological arrangement (and typical instead of the Ieltgeschichte beloved by Hellenistic historiog- raphy}, it incorporates stories of metamorphosis, a subject typical of catalogue poetry, dating all the way back to Hesiud's Casalugue 0/ Weman and in vogue in Hellenistic poetry {Nicander, Aratus, Herme- sianax, and P'hanocles). The result is a poem which follows a double structural principle, combining chronological order (from chavs to the present) with analogie order (stories linked by connected themes, characters, or places). Storytelline is useful to the catalogue aspe by relying on in wise be dillicult to insert into a rigidly chronological framework? to be brought together (the chronolagical relationship of the embedded story to its framing narrative, meanwhile, can remain rather vague: it is necessary only that il has taken place before the point in me at which the “history of the world” has arrived). Yet the repeated regressions and digressions of the narrators, who pile up stories of indeterminate chronology, tend to nullify our awareness of the framo- tt of the poem, because rnal narrators, it allows material which would other- work established at the beginning of the poem especially in the great " CE Wheeler (1999) 25 30 # Calemar (1971) 471. 278 GIANPIERO ROSATI henomenon is less central section of he “period of heroes”; the noriccable in the final “historical” section of the poem). The per ception of lincar sequence is disturbod by the repcated analepseis (flashbacks) generally entrusted to times introduce bomediegetir stories, i. first person, but who more often introduce heterodiegetic stories, i.c., stories heard from others, and having raken place in an uncertain past: and the various pralhseis (anticipations), 1.e., allusions to ihe he voices of characters who some- , stories experienced in the faure fin the poem's “history of the world"), which ought to recall the poems complex structure and contribute to its colesion (e.9., 6415; 7.293; 10.207-8), do not in fact manage to compensale for a sense of Auctuating chronological indefiniteness. The sense of a vague and indefinite chronology, in which many stories are located, cantributes further still to the complexity of the problem ito which we shall turn below) of the nature of the contents of the poem and of the sources from which they derive: tne problem, in short, of the guarantee of truth which they claim to provide The facr is that a poem of such vast ambitions, that ruprures and overwielms the boundaries of genze, and at the same ume mizes them with each other, contains in itsell the potential to destabilize the order that goveras it. Between chionological order and analog- ical order, there is an intrinsie incomparibiliry, which forces the author-narrator to assume a very flexible attitude towards the arrange mient to be followed ‘Rexibiliry that is made evident by the need always to invent new transilions from one story to another) " Indeed, if the narrator priv ing aside similar stories that took place in a distant past, in the “his- leges the first of these, he runs the risk of leav tory of the world,” because that would entail a departure from chronologi: all the stories related by their contents, he runs the risk of under mining the delicate chronolog based. Along the path that, broadly speali chaos to the time of the narrator-author, are located three major i order; but if he uses analogical order to draw together ical foundation on which the poem is , rune from cletnental “tnomenis" the age of gods, the age of heroes, and finally. with the arrival of the Trojan War {a frequent threshold delimiting ibi: bound 2° Ag is well kinen, Quintilian had already been struck by chis vie nero frizida el puerilio est în sclolis adfectao. ut ipse transiti efficia! aliguam uti zue senten sl Vuthia dela! prarsligice Piousum potal, ut Ouudius Tnsciuire in dletamorphocesin sole, quem domo avvisare neccistiae polesi, res diuersissiman i apeciem units cmporis calligentem (O 4.1.1 11 Ou diverse transitional tecluiques cf Solodow (1588) 41-46. NARRATIVE TECIINIQUES AND STRIUCTURES IN LEsLuoiziosen 279 ary in ancient chronologies), the age of history. Rut within this broad Iramework, the collocation of individual events is rather fluid, and the sense of chronological succession is frequently entirely lost; thus, stories seem ta follow upon each other in a vague achrony, as il in , bit by bit, another order in the col- location of events is established. The listencr-reader of the poem pro gressively loses the sens of a sequential ordering of events (as ir is assumed that they happened in the history of the world) and begins instead to perceive, as a sort of guiding thread, a narutive order of the same events (as the narrator arranges them in the story of the world that he narrates). It is in respect to this “history of the world” that the chronological links take on meaning, the “before” and the “after” of events When, for example, the chario: of Juno pulled by colorful pea- cocks is described at 2531-33, the narrator recalls the origin of the peacock as he himself, “a litile cartier” (2uper, i.e, in the chronol- rative, at 1.722-28), had narrated in relation to the a world without time, in whic ogy of the na killing of Argus (itadali Saturnia buclis./lam muper piclis cueso pasonibus Argo). The chronologica! relation rm ingreditir liguidum posonibus aethera ship perceived here is not so muclì thal between two moments in the “history of the world” but rather that which falls between “now” and “before” in the narrative, based on the time of the narrative transe on. An ever more evident example of this occurs at 2.748-19, where, in reference to the meeting ol Mercury with Aglauros, the narrator refers back to an cvent narrated just before: adspial fue cculis isden quibus abdita nuperf viderai Aglanros faune secreta Alineriae. This vel rence {even more explicit at 755-57) looks hack to the hothersome curios- r cpisode (auper) had opened the baskei ontrusted to her by Minerva and containing the infunt Erich- 552-681). In reality, this event had been manzied a little carlier (by the crow, the narraror of 2.549-95), but just because ir had been narrated by a character, it has happened in a past cer- tainly far distane fiam ihe “present” of Mercury, ing with Aglauros. Furthermori ity of Aglauros, who in an c « from his mect- the erow locates IU fenpore guoden (2.552), far indeed iu time even in respect to îts present: and w linow tbat the lonscvity of this bird was proverbial.* Thus, the word £ CE Reîth (19 282 GIANPIERO ROSANI opportunistically, to fIl ît: ci 7. 2559-60, quibus prime suagons ab orisine mundi/in tua dedusi tempora, Cacser, 4pus), La a world în which everything is transformed, there is no place for any permanence, ncither inzperium sine fine (Am. 1.279) nor Capitoli immobile samum (Aen 9448)? 3. Narraiive Voices The importance of metadiegesis (i.e., the replicarion of narrative lev- els) in the Metamorbioses cannot be overestimated: in the analysis of a single episode w are nowadays generally attenlive to a recon- struclion of the entire narrative situation, i.e., the identlies of the narrator and his interlocutor, the motivations for the inclusion of a particular story. the manner of the narration and lhe circumstances in which it occurs, and the reactions of the audience and the inter- pretation that they give to the story they have heard, in addition lo resulting interacrions between the framework and the embedded story. The necessity, or even rhc uselulness, of distinguishing (e voice of the primary narrator from those of the internal narrators is nol fully agreed upon: some scholars limit the fimetion of a proliferation of narrative voices to a few practical aims, like enabling interactions between and among characters and varying the techniques of tran- sition from one story to another, but they deny that the procedure can have other significant funclions. Perhaps the most determined proponent of the unified identiry of the narrating voice is Solodow, whose view has heen frequently noted: “I helieve there is basically a single narcator throughout, who is Ovid himself. The introducuon of other speakers is more formal than consequential:; the words are heard as those of the poet.” According to Solodow, it is not pos- sible to isolate an individual characterization af the narraling voice on the level of language and style, nor does the role of the narra- tor play a part in the characterization of characters: “other figures in the poem are characierized by ihcir speech Peucalion is shown by his words to be pious, Niobe arroganti, Ulysses clever- but no narrator is.” In reality, while it is true that it is not always casy fo ® CD Hardic (1992) 60-61. Saiodev: (1988) 58. * Salodow: (1988) 39. NARRATIVE ‘TECHNIQUIS AND STRUCTURES IN VET formionis 283 single out the personal siylistic stamp of the narrator on the narra- tion, which seems in effect to maintain a certain uniformity of tone,” and that of the external narrator who controls the gathering and managing of narrative malerial with a firm grasp, to ignore the poems framework and change of voices obliterates shades of mean- ing important for (he comprehension of the poem. Indeed, as we shall see, the recognition of a character is often precisely the funo- tion of the narrator. The socio-cultural characterization of numerous narrators (incl:d- ing, in addition to humans, gods, and demi-g0ds, even animals, like the crow of Book 2) is very varicd (and often neglected with appar ent indifference: c.g., nesciogui, 6.382: proximus cul idem, 11.7 as [le occasions that provide a context for the narrative situations are extremely diverse: stories scemi Lo occur independent of their context, and often without precise motivationi, as il from some instinet or primary necessity.!” Aside from the situation that provides a basis for the narration, however. the various narrators are gencrally allentive to their role and aware of their authorial responsibility. The signs of (his aware- ness are numerous. Within the story of Proserpina, for cxample, when Arethusa is about to reveal to Ceres wi 51), just ere her stolen daughter can be found, she postpones to a more peacefil moment the story of her own transfer from Greece to Sicily (5.498-501): mota loco cur sim tantique per aequoris undas aduehar Orrygiam, veniet nasratibus hora tempestiva meis, cum tu curaque levata et uultus melioris eris An opportune time will come for my telling why I was moved f my place and am come to Ortygia through the waves of so great a sea, when you have been relieved of care and are of more cheertul countenance. an Arethusa recognizes that the dramatic tension of the situation can- not be interrupted and that the postponement of this story to an > Cf, eg. also Leach (1574) 106; Barchies! (1989) 55-56. !W For an stemp: to diflereatiato the style of (be narrating voiccs {"Ovid” and Orpheus respectively) see Nagle (1983). A fully developed (a'beit also sui generis) voice is that of Pythagoras: cl. Rarchiesi (1989) 7 # On ttis indifference to tie problem: azioni, see Barchiesi (1989) 56 and (19972) 1536-41 (also noting fhe inetfeciivencss of many internal narratives). 284 GIANPIERO ROSATI emnotionally more relaxed occasion enables the narrative economy of the entire complex of stories to be effective: Arethusa”s courteous gesture towards Ceres gives the external narrator a way of intro- duciug a comunent on his own choices of narrative strategy. Apart from the arrangement of the narrative, the narrators are concerned as well with other features connected to their role, far example, wiih the relationship between narrated ume and the time of the narrarion, Jupiter himself. the first internal narrator in the poem, shows himself attentive to the narrative economy of his story (ionga mora est, quantum nosae sit ubique repertum/ enunerare? 1214-15); and after him other narrators will do the same thing, conecrned to save their audiences from annoving delays, e.g., Diomedes at 14.473 (‘neue morer vejtrms ivistes ew ordine casus), or Avacus ar 7,520 (ordine nunc repetam, neu longa ambage imorer vas’). More interesting is the case of the herdsman Onetor, who hastens to announce a great calamiry (imagnae tibi nuntins adsum/cladis’ 11.349-50) and to ask for help, but rather than immediately reporting what has occurred, he begins a long rhesis typical ol the inessengers of tragedy (352-78), lingering over otiose descriptive details before getting to the substance of the facts (566). Finally, realizing at last the incongruity of his behavior, he cxpresses selfcriticism of his own verbosity, which clashes with the urgency to act: ‘red mara dammnosa est, nec res dubitare remititt:/ dum 2 (86-78). In addition to making an ironic comment on the typical verbosity of tragic messengers,‘ Onetar also voices an awareness cf another prob- superest aluind, cunchi coamus e! amma,/arna capessamus lem: viz., that narration, an important component in the rheseis of messengers is more appropriate to a narrative work than to a tragedy, where the constraints of dramatic verisimilitude render incongruous the inevitably slow tempo of the narration that habitually charac- terizes these rbesels. Arethusa is also concerned with the time that narration takes. When Cores, by now calm (nate secure recepia, 5.572), asks her for the promised story, Arethusa tells of her pursuît by Alpheus (5.599-641): ® Rosati (1981) 307-8 " GI. also Pyrhegoras, 19.418-20 and 453. The (external) narrator of ile Actieon story maltes fun of this convertion, conc.uding & catalogue of 33 dogs’ nemes, extending for approximately 20 verscs, with 2n analogous comment: quesque refére mora est, 3.225, Due (1974) 144 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRUCTURES IN VETLUMRAOsES 285 2 long and stressful flight, retold from the point of view of the vic- tim, but interrupred when the nymph, about to be overtaken, asks Diana for help and dissolves into water (5.632-36): acenpar obsessos sudor mihi frigidus astus, caetulsaeque cadunt toto de corpore guitae, quaque pedem moni. manat lacus, eque capillis ras cadit, et citius, quam nunc tibi facra renarro, in latices mutor. A cold sweat takes hold of my posscsscd limbs, and sca-bluc drops fall from my whole body; where Î move my foot, a lake pool, and from my hair dew falls: I was tumed to liquid more quickly than I now cam narrate the events to von The narrator sets up a confrontation between the time of the nar- rarion, inevitably slow, and the swift passing of the metamorphosis itself. It is not always possible to find a correspondence or a balanced relationship between these two times. ‘l'his problem is also consid- ered by Venus, the narrator af the racing contest between Atalanta and Ilippomenes, who is aware of the danger that the narration of a race may end up lasting louger tan the race itselfj and thar the time of the narration can overwhelm the extent of the narrated time ‘nente meus sermo cuisu sit tardior 1pso,/ praeterita est ulngo: duxtt sua praemia uictor (10.679-80). This gently selfcritical comment insiss on te necessity of a balanced relationship between the flow of time used by the contestants and the flow of the text that narrates it." Thus, the sudden final accelcration, which in a single verse relates both the factual outcome of the contest and its consequences, also seems intended to bring vut all the conventionality that such a scene entails, and that can be omitted in order to pass dircetly to the conclusion." ‘l'hese narrators’ preoccupation with the relative slowness af nar- rarion also reflects a more general problem tal faces (he primary narrator: the profiferation of embedded stories (especially in narra tologically complex blocks like those in the fifth and the tenth books, vehere narrative levels are multiplicd) slows the progress of ihe main story. Through the mouths of his surrogate characters, “Ovid” shows ! Nagle (19885) 37 Also see 5.395 96, ‘piene simul usa est diectague rabtaque Diti/ usque adeo est prop ‘spoken by Callicpe, narratine che rape of Proserpina]: these words seera like a comment on the extreme contraction of narrative tire, suddenly acceserated after che peaceli] descriptio of the serting in which the rape orcurs (5.385-9)) 288 GIANPIERO RUSATI crows, Ovid upsets the chronological perspective by making Calli- machus’s future become his own present, and the event prophecized in the Mecal is realized noe in the Metamorphoses.® The Ovidian text thus presents itself as the future foretold in the Callimachean text: the Latin poet “forces” the Greek poet to allude to him, constructing a precursor-prophet for himself and presenting himself as the outcome of a prophecy, the fortunate realization of destiny. In other words, he consiructs for himself a past and appropriates for himself a tradition which has its t/os, foreseen and anticipared, in the Ovidian text. The entire complex of stories with Callimachean roots in te cighth book (of which the tale of Philemon and Bancia is a par) invires ns to look at the interference between frame and embedded narrative: it is no coincidence thal these stories develop around Achelous, a swollen and torrential river-god, i.e., the symbol used by Callimachus to define the “grand” epic poetry he rejected. Especially when Achelous begins to narrate the story of Erysichthon, the Callimachean narra tive material is intoned in a swollen, redundant, and markedly epic le. While recalling Callimachus, the rivermarrator “epicizes” him,” adapting Callimachus to the style with which Callimachus himself had branded the symbol of the river in flood. Again in an episode involving Achilles, a particular eflect {in this case not of genre but of sender) can be associated with the narra- è. When Nestor mentions the unusual story of Ciaeneus and his sex change, Achilles shows great interest in the change, and asks the old man to narrate it (12.175-79) Inonsiri noutate Inousatur narretgue rogant: quos inter Achilles: nam cunetis cadem est audire uoluntas, 6 facunde sencx, acui prudentia nostri, quis fucri: Cacncus, cur in contraria uersus Those present are moved by the novelty of the creature, and ask that he tell them he story; among them is Achilles: “Well, then, speak! For it pleases all of us to hear the same story, 0 clequent old man, wis- dom's embodiment for our age. Who was Cacncus? why did he tum into the opposite? .. ® Rosati (1994) 15-17 #! For Ovid's atrinude (seen in connection with Virgil) cf Hinds (1994) 104-22. ® Hinds (1987b) 19 (“he is de-Callimachising Callimachus”); Barchisi (1989) 58-61, NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRUOTURES IN Nieriozirosen 289 His comcern with this particular story, together with the fact that, as il to divert malignant suspicion fram himself, Achille curiosity to all present, authorizes us to suspect that this has some- thing to do with the hero's youthful sojouri on Scyrus, and his embarrassing concealment in women's clothes while there.® This sus ?) reference to the “fami enim populi attributes picion is reinforced by Nestor*s (malicious? iarity” of Achilles with Caenis/Gaencus ( 191; cf. also 193-95). At the same rime (and as we might expect), once Ovid has accus is, Achalle, tomed his reader to paying attention to these interactions between framework and embedded narrative, he also enjoys frustrating our expectation of them.” There is, furthermore, a frequent tendency in the poem to frustrate expectations previously aroused, as for cxam- ple in the case of Acrisius, unwilling to recognize the divine descent of Bacchus and of his grandson Perscus and therefore condemned to a punishing defeat (£.607-14), modelled on mat already suffered by Pentheus—bul this punishrnent is then omitted. This movement helps to sustaîn the sense of arbitrarinoss that the principal narrato: claiuris for himself in the performance of his camer perpelzan. References to narrative conventions are frequent, ofien indeed in order to con- tradict them: as when Perseus, at his wedding banquet with Audro- meda, rather than narrating his own story (and so replicating the epic model of Odysscus and Aeneas, ie. of the marrating hero as banquet-guest), is the one to ask for information r people (4.767-68). Then, when asked to tell of his victory over Medusa, he limits himsclf ro a few verses (772-86; furthermore, his rding the local words are reported not in direct discourse, hut summarized indi- rectly by the narrator), breaking of his narrative before his audi- ence expects him to (ante ausperialum iacuit, 4.790}—an audience accustomed to the familiar conventions which are now ignored.” There are many means through which the arbitrariness of the narrative can be made evident: but a revelation of this sort obvi- ously also lius as a consequence the abandonment of any pretense attributed iv the narrative. Sometimes we have only the admission that the narrator®s report is not full, as to truth that might otherwise bi # The transvestism cf Caeneus is one of the precedents mentioned by Thetis in the Actille! of Statius to convince Achilles to den feminine garb (1.264). % C£ Barehiesi (1 139-40, 3 CÉ Nagle (1988b) 45-46; Nagle (199% 24-25; Wheeler (1999) 125. 290 GIANPIERO ROSATI in the introduction of Hernba's words ar 13.493, flura quidera, sed ei haec laniato pectore dixit, or in the recurrent concluding formula, with- out parallel in classical epic, telibus algue ultis (7.661; 13.228; 13.675; 15.4 In cases like these, we are made aware that the narrative is the product of a selection, and we are therefore invited to con. sider the hypothesis hat this process may not be vbjective, but is the result of personal chaices an the part of the narrator. But some- times our suspicions are aroused even further when there is an explicit confession that the report is a recunstruclion by the narrator, as at 6.702, haec Boreas aut his non inferiara lacubis, where we are allowed to understand that the narrator is not concerned so much with ren dering the precise words pronounced by Bortas, but only with repro- ducing the general tone of his speech. The same nonchalance is exhibited elsewhere in the generic identification of the narrator to whom a specch is entrusted, for example, the narrator who tells the story of Latona and the Lycian farmers, introduced as unus (6.317) and at the end of the narrative referred to as nescio guis (382), and thereby confirmed in his anonynity.* The discourse of an unidentified character is not unusnal in epic (o-called rispecchi,’ but Ovid uses this device in combination with an Alexandrian/Callimachean serupulousness aboul indicaliug one’ source. The result is not a guarantee of veracity but a marked show of uncertaînty, a contradie- tory combination of imprecision and specificity. At 11.751, likewise, the narrator*s responsibility to identify characters is directly entrusted to chance (praximus, aut idem, si fors tulit, ‘hic quogue? dii in “identifving” his accuracy an anonymous character is surely humorous,® but it effect of turning inside out the Alexandrian veracity for mula, by insisting on the arbirrary character of the narration (inde- pendent of the narrating voice), and on its fundamental unreliability. This arbitrariness is also revealed through comunents on conven- tionality {and on a limited pretense to truthfulness) in certain parts of the story: an example is the description of the manifestations of grief on the part of Iphis's mother at 14.744-45 (membra sui postguan miserarum. verba parentum/edidi et matrum miseraram facta peregit). hero the alnosi formular repetition of the adjective miser emphasizes the also has the er similar instances in Nagle (19885) 49 n. 20 9 Ci. de Jong (1987) ' SOvid gendy mocks ie leumed poets obsession with svurces”: Kenney (1988) ad Loc; Myers (19942) 82. inarzioses 291 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRICTIIRES IN MI ©manneredness” of the situation and of the words and gestures that accompany it. These words and gesiures are so conventiona] that the narrator supresses their description, inviting his audience to fill the gap by recourse to their own literary competence. The demandi of the “typical” lead the narrator to imagine events and situations that can have happened (as, e.g., when Cephalus tells ol his ambigu sim solitus,) cus summoning of aura/Aura: iforsitan addiderim/ . . / diver 7,816-18), even when he is not in faci sure that they Rase happened Conversely, il they are depicted as having in fact happened, they contribute ta the pathos or to the paradoxical nature af the situa- tion, as when Meleager, seized by ihe torments of death, calls upon his wife and “perhaps” his mother Althea, too (Sursilan e matre 8.522), who, without his knowledge, has brought abont his th. The same effects are operating in the case of Cinyras, during his embrace with the young woman who, unbeknownst to him, is his daughter Myrrha: forsi ‘pater? sceleri ne nomina de i, contains an admission on the part of mo gelatis quoque nomine Sfilia” disie/ dixit el illa 1 (10.467-68). The final remark, ne nomi e narrator that th narrative of the events is a construct, and that he is concemed not ina so much to claim for ir the character of obiective truth as to give it all the details necessary for full dramatic cffectiveness. This insistence on the arbitrariness of the narrative leads us to the decisive role of storytelling in the interpretation of the Afetamarphoses The multiplication of narrative voices sheds light, at the level of nar- rative struemre, on a problem central to Ovid's poem (as it had been central to Alexandrian poctry): hai of tracing the contents (af a poem that, as we know, does not invoke the inspiralion of the Musesì back to precise sources of knowledge, and of anchoring it to cure foundations that can act as a guarantee of truth. Through the technique of storytelling, Ovid teaches us to recognize that doubt regarding the pretense of ihe truth of every story is legitimare, and that the truth is not an absolute fact but is negotiable, the creation of a particular narrator under particular circumstanocs. Positive statements like that expressed by the narrator Lelex to affirm the reliability of his souree (‘acc miki zon uuni (negue eval, cur 8.721-22) provoke the suspicion Ual a Fallere uellent / narravere senes, narrative may not always be true, and lat sometimes there may he a reason fur a person telling a story to lie. And the way in which the external narrator will sometimes guarantee the veracity of the internal narrator {e.g., of Perscus, describing his overpowering of 294 GIANPIERO ROSATI nomina summorum sibi qui tribuere deorue: altera Pygmaeae fatum miserabile matris 90 pars habet: hanc Tuno uictam certamine iussi esse gruem populisque suis indicere bellum pinxit et Anugonen, ausam contendere quordam cum mmagni consorte Touis, quam regia Tuno in volucrem uertit, nec profuit Ilion illi Laomedonue paler, sumplis quin candida pennis ipsa sibi plaudat erepitante civonia rostro; qui superest solus, Cinyran habet angulus orbum; isque gradus templi, natarum membra suarum, amplectens saxoque iaccns lacrimare videtur. 100 circuit extremas olcis pacalibus oras fis modus csì) operisque sua facit arbore finem. Pallas depicts the rock o Mars on the Cecropian citadel and the ancient contest about the name of the land. Twice six divinities with Jupiter in the middle sit in august solemnity on their lofty seats. Each 0° the gods is distinguished by his particular features: (he image of Jupiter is kinely; she makes the god of the sca stand and strike the rough rock with his long trident; 2 sca-wave has leaped forth fron the middle of the broker rock, with which token Neptune would claim the city. But she gives herself a shield, and a sharp-bladed spear, she puts a helmer on her head, her breast is protected by the acgis: and she depicts the carth shaken by her blade giving forth the grey-grecn olive’ offspring, with bernes: and she shows the gods marvelline: Vicrory is the ené of her work. So chat her competitor may noncthe- less lea from example what reward she may expect for her insane daring. the goddess addi four contests in four places, each notewor- thy because of its color and distinguished by small symbols: one cor ner has ‘l'hracian Rhodape and Haemon, now cold mauntains but once mortal bodies, who assigned the names of the greatest gods to themselves. A second comer has the sad fate of the Pygmy mother: Juno ordered her, when deîeated in competition, to he a crane and to declare war on her people. And she depicted Antigone, who ance dared to compete will he wife of great Jupiter, and was tumed into ‘a bird by queen Juno; Iliutm did not profit her, nur her father Laomedon, now a stork, white witli assumed Îeathers, she applauds herself with clapping beak. The one corner which remains bas Cinyras, berelì; embracing the steps of a temple, the limbs of his former daughters, and lying on thc stone, he seems to cry. She binds the outer edges with peaceful olive (this is her way) and makes an end of the work with her tree. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRUGTURES IN METIIOREOns 295 Iers is an example of authoritarian art," celebrating divine power, atid a self'representation drawing attention io the (hrearening power of her military altributes (78-79). The truth of Minerva is opposed to that of Arachne, who depiets a gallery of gods in shocking forms full of crotic menace, wlio assume the most varied animal shapes to deceive and rape innocent mortal women (10328): Maconis elusam designat imagine tavri Europam: uerum taurum, freza uera putares; ipsa videbatur terras spectare velictas et comites clamare suas luctumque uereri adsilientis aquac timidusque reducere plantas fecit et Astericn aquila luctante teneri, fecit olorinis Ledam recubare sub alis, addidit, ut saryri colatus imagine pulchram 110 luppiter inplerit gemino Nycteida fe, Amphiryon fuent, cum te, Tirynthia, cepit, aureus ut Danaen. Asopida luscrit ignis, Munemasynen pastor, warius Deoida serpens. te quaque mutatum torno, Neptune, iuuenco ulrgine in Aeolia posuit; tu wsus Enipcus gignis Aloidas, aries Bisalrida fallis, et te fava comas frugum mitissima mater sensit equum, sensit uolucrem crinita colubris mater equi uolucris, sensit delphina Melantho: 120 omnibus his faciemque suam faciemque locorum reddidit, est illic agrestis imagine Phochus, utque modo accipitris pennas, mado terga leonis gesserit, ut pastor Macareida luserit Issen, Liber ut Erigonen falsa deceperit uua, ut Saturnus equo geminum Chirona crearit. ultima pars telac, tenui circuradata limbo, nexilibus flores hederis habet intertextos. The Maconias girl depicts Furpa, descived by the appearance of a bull; you would have thought the bull and the waves were real, She herself scemed to be lookixg at the land teft behind and shouting for her companions, fearing the touch of the warer as it jumped up and pulling back her timid feet. And she showed Asterie, bring held by a strugeling cagle, and Leda reclining beneath a swanis wings; and she added how Jupiter, disquised by the appearance of a saryr, Minerva asserts her truth: a world governed by the justice of the gods, who are represented in their augusia grauilas as vouching for % On the problem of the relationship between artistic creativity and power in order and hierarchy in the face of the insubordination of mortals. tie Aetamarttose, cî esp. Leach (1974). 296 GIANFIBRO ROSATI impregnared the fair daughter of Nyeteus with twin children; how he was Amphitryon when he captured you, ‘l'irymehiaa woman, how as gold he deceved Danae and as fire the daughter of Asopus, how as shepherd he tricked Mnemosyne and as snake, mother Deo girl. You, too, Neptune, she depieted, changed to a tawny bull on account of the Aeolian girl; looking like Enipeus you produce the Aloidee, as a ram yon deceive danohier of Bisaltes, and the blond-tresscd, gen- tle mother of you as 2 Lorse; the mother of the winged horse, her hair snalky, kuew you as a ; and Melantho knew you as a dolphin. To all of ihese the weaver gave the appropriate appear- ance and setting. Phoebus is there, too, rustic in appearance, and how sometimes he wore the feathers of a hawk, sometimes, the hide of a lio, how as a shepherd hc deceived Macarens's daughter lsse; how Liber deccived Erigone wirh false grapes. and how Saturn created the two-natured Chiron from a hor: l'he outer edge of the web, sur rounded by a narrow barder, has flowers interwoven with twisting ivy Both of the two “tales” are directed “against” their audience, assert- ing two oppusing visions of the world and of divine power {as well as opposing aesthetic ideals),® and they aim to appear threatening and unpleasant to the eyes of their opponent. The external narra- toi makes explicit the obvious intentions of the goddess in depicting bla thar prefigure the destiny of Arachne (83, ut... tnfellegaò), but an analogous malignant intention in the tapestry of Arachne docs nol escape the attentive reader. ronsirieted as it is around a theme unpleasant to a goddess (like Minerva) allergico to sex, and specilicaliy recalling an episode (Neptune’s assault on Medusa: 11 to her because it occurred in her temple (4.798-801) In showing how a story is constructed vis 20) hateful -vis its marratee, and how this person negotiates its interpretation, Ovid invites us to con- sider the complexity of the construction of meaning. The two artistic contests, both that under consideralion here and that berwcen the Pierides and Muscs, thematize this crucial problem. The earlier story is narrated from the point of view of the winners, the Muses, who justify their victory (attibuting the verdict to the nymphs of Helican) with predominantly artistic reasons (even though it cannot escape cur notice that their reasons result from sheer authority) The later story is narrated by the external narrator, and the defeat of Arachne is attributed not ta artistic inferiority but, uniquely here, to reasons of power: Minerva punishes her for her pride and the insubordination "2 Arderson (1968) 103; Lausberg {198%}; Harries (1590). # GI Johnson and Malamud (1988) 30 33. n S NARRATIVI TECHNIQUES AND STRUCTURES IN .\4E/1MKM! shown to a divine power.” motivations for the ourcames of the two contests, nor coincidentally juxtaposed, raise questions aboui justice, and the criteria used to evaluate a work of art thetic criteria, but also cihical ones (the Muses are the ones to con- demn the arrogance of the Pierides, but “Ovid” t00 Dblames the behavior of Arachne), and about basic power relations. The cxter- nal narrator does not assume a position openly in favor of a just interpretation or against a mistaken interpretation: he limits himself to taking account of the multiplicity and inevitable partiality of every interpretation It is almost superfluous to add that, by an analogy that is repeated among the various narrative levels, readers are also invited ta assume the role of judges and interpreters. The first interpreters of the Ovidian poem are inside it, where we see that the reccption of a text, like its production, can be biased, tendentious, partial; the audi- ence itself can even be divided (e. pars omnia ueros! posse deos memorant). Ir other words, throngh metad + 4.272-73, pars fieri potuisse nega, gesis the Ovidian text depicis within itself possible models of recep- tion and of the creaton/construction of a text. Indeed, the multiplication of narrative voices serves to give a narra- tion of events that is varied, direct, aud personalized on the part of the very characters who have experienced them (as sen in Homer and “truer® whether on the emotional level or on that of “historic” reliabilitybecause it has been traced back to the sources of evidence that guarantee its provenance. This form of natration is also more “mimetic,” in in Virgil. too). This narration is, in other wor accordance with Aristotle’s estimation of Homer, who speaks as little as possible in the first person and “dramatizes” the dialogues of his characters! At the same Une, the disintegraton of the authorial voice also entails the loss of the narration’s unity, and of the author- itative control that assures the truth of the epic text. The resulr is a shartered truth, a multiplicity of autoniorrious, relative, and conflicting voices: the poet evokes this multiplicity in his description of the house crowded with voices sly. ‘L'hese voices and words are in eternal movement, as if they too were subject to metamorphosis, changeable mixtures of true and false (12.39 of Fama, a place al the center of the worl that are drawn together, intertwined, and confused ceasel * Wheeler (1999) 186. 300 GIANPIERO ROSATI caelitibus fecisse metum cunctoscue dedisse terga fugae, donec fessos Acgypia tellus ceperil et septem diseretus în ostia Nîlus. liuc quoque terrigenam venisse Typhoea narrat ei se mentitis supcros celasse figuris; She sings of the wars of the gods, setting the Giants in false honor and diminishing te decds of the great gods: that Typhocus, sent fordi from the deepest place in carth, brought tear to the gods and put all of them to flight, until the land of Egypt and the Nile, split into seven invuths, reccived them in their exhanstion. She tells how earth-borm Typhoeus came here, too, and how the gods concealed themselves with false shapes The following verses delivered in dircet speech-as if the narrating Muse wished to distinguish her own voice, not contaminating it with that of her impious enemy—contain the most blasphemous slander- ing of the gods, with a description of their less-thar-honorable meta morphoses (5.327-41;: ‘duvque gregis” dixit ‘i Iuppiter: und recuruis nunc quogue forinatus Libys cat cum cornibus Aramon; Delius în coruo, proles Semelcia capro, fele soror Phocbi, niuca Saturnia uacca, pisce Venus latuit, Cylcnius ibidis alis” “And Jupiter becomes the leader of the herd,” she said; “and so even today Libyan Ammor is modelled with his curved bomns. ‘The Deliam bid in a crow, Semele's son in a goat, the sister of l'hoehus in a cat, the Saturnian goddess in a white cow, Venus in a fish, the Cyllenian in che wings of an ibis” With the gods in flight the story as told by the Pieride:—who make it appear a victory for the Ciants—closes (at least according to the hurried report af the Muse); meanwhile, che “official” tuti, the cosmology asserted by the victorivus gods, foresces the defeat and punishment of the rebel Giants. It is this very truth that, as soon as she begins her song, Calliope strives to reassert {Vasta Cisanisis ingesta est insula membris/ Trinacris e magnis subiechum molibus urget/ aethe- rias ausum sperare Typhoea sedes,’ 346-48), and in so doing she expuses the tendentious distortion of the truth on the part of her rival. The "The absenze of Minerva from this may be the resulî ol benevolene r (1994) 39). Ou te importance of th ef Zissos (1999) talogue of principal Olympian divinities ‘ence 01 the part of the narrating Muse (Rosati audience (the presicing nymphs) in the episode, NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRUOTURES IN METIMORPOSES 301 characterization of the Pierides is thus produced not only directly through their speech, which qualifies as blasphemous, but also indi- rectly throuzh their use of narrators, which exposes them as falsifiers of the truth responsible for a partial and tendentious selection of contente. Just as evident as the tendentiousness vÎ the Pierides” narration is the partiality of the summary that the Muse offers to Minerva, The demonization of the enemy-rival eflected by the Muse is the same as that of Jupiter with regard to Lycaon, and ol other narrators who through the “power of the word” are able to direct and affect the interpretarion of their narralion. (IL is no coincidence that the judge- ment expressed by the external narrator regarding Arachne in her confrontation with Minerva is somewhat more roned down.) Through metadiegesis and the reproduction of the entire narrative process, Ovid raises the issues of the reliability of various narrators, the author iry that the narrative function confers, and the truth that it asserts. Thanks to the mise en abyme of the entire narrative situation, a few examples will show even more clearly this fundamental aspect of the finction of storytelling in the poem. During his stay at the home of Achelous, Theseus notices that the river-god has been disfigured by ine breaking of one of his hors, and asks him how this liap- pened. Achelous balks at the suggestion that he recall his defeat hy telling of the cause of this mutilation (brought about by an encounter with Hercules), and opènly acknowledges his reluctance to do so (4 In his reluctant granting of the request. Achelous declares himself a reticent narrator, implicitly admitung that every narration is the prod. uct of a selection, and that besides the story which is told, there is also that which is omitted, or even consciously suppressed: thal every ‘Triste petis munus. quis enim sua proelia uictus/ commemorare uelit?” story, în short, entails censoring.” (1986), seeing an opposition between the camia: perpettum of dhe Picrid and the camme daducium of Calliope, attempis to explain she result of the contest in seglistio terms. Meanwhilo, Hinds (19872) 166-67 o. 40 fim tive connota. timo, in Callimachean terme, in he Fierid's use of the word ewemuat (820). CP Rosati (1994) 31 n. 5R 7" 1 use che term in a sense different from that uscd by Nagle (19880), who includes among “retice:n” narrators ‘ose expectations ot “heroic” nerratives irougli ti ke manncr of Ulysscs and Acni tions chet Ovid to chat of (1988) 1 302 GIANPICRO ROSATI We hear an analogous assertion from Nestor,” bi the antonomasia ic narrator, when Tlepolemus notes an odd censoring in the narrative of the old man, in particular, a silence regarding the deeds of his father Hercules. Tlepolemus asks Nestor the reason {12.542 40) rrisris ad haec Pylius: ‘cuid me meminisse maloram cogis et obrducetos annis rescindere luetus inque tum genitarem odium. offensasque fateri? ille quidem maiora fide, di! gessit ct orbem inpleuit meritis, quod mallem posse negare: sed neque Deiphobum nec Pulydamanta nec ipsam Hectora laudamus: quis enim laudaverit hostem?” Sadly the Pelian replica: “Why do you compel me to remember trou- bles and to call back gricf overlaid with age, and to confess my batred toward your father and his ofenses? To be sure, he did things greaer than can he helieved 0 godstand flled the world with his fune, which I wonld prefer ro deny: but we praise neither Deiphobus nor Polydamas nor Herter hinseli who has ever praised the enemy?” A lite later, Nestor confinns his intention not to include the accom- plistiments of his enemies in his story (573-760): sunc uideor debere tui praeconia rebus Herculis, 0 Rbodiae ductor pulch nec Gunen ulterius, quam fortia fi clciscor frau classi? ta silendo ; solida est mihi gratia tecum. De I now ssem to ome to the deeds of your Hercules an announce ment, 0 miost cxcellent capraîn of the Rhosian Ace? No further do I take vengeance for my brothers than hy being silent about brave docds: my pleasure with you is firm The narrators desire for revenge is cspr and through the power that specch confers: a story is never neutral, but is an instrument oî power, always disposed to assert a certain truth. Through the usc of se en abyre, te external narrator, “Ovic,” demonstrates the unreliability of his audience on guard against le sed here through silence, internal narrators and puts his rking literally their assertions and the stories that they tell, recomimending instead that attenilon be paid to whar they do ref say, to their silences. In other words, Ovid puts us vu guard against overlooking the dynamics of narrative levels and of voices internal to the pocm, while advising us that every narrator è Laumwali (1977) 5-17; Mack (1988) 81; Negle (1989) 11617 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND STRI ITURES IN MELLogetosts 3038 construcis a personal, pariicular truth, containing silences, omissione, the story told—Nestor himself says that he has forgotten mucli (‘quamiis obs È tarda vetustas/ multague me fagiani speciata sub anni," 12.182-83). The narrating voice confers on every “narrative-man” the authority to orient the story to please and evasions, as well a CIEL primis himself. it is a useful instrument for manipulating the meaning of a story that in some way involves him or in which his selfinterest is evident. "l’hrough meradicgesis Ovid emphasizes the often tendentiaus biases and the evasions of his narrators: making them speak tendentiovsly and to provoke donbt about narrative authority (obviously, including ihat of the author 0î the Meumorphosi stories is, in turn, an indication oÎ the manipulation of the Story, of also serves to show the subjcctivity of the story, of cvery stor: The manipulation of personal the past fand of cpic as a genre), which is also the produer of things forgortea, omined, cvaded, and wilfully falsificd. Ovid problematizes the appeal lo traditon hy altering, or rather by overturning, the meaning of an attribution to the so-called “Alexandrian footnote,” ic the “bibliographical” references with which Alesandnan pocts documented the source of their knowledge and so authenticated its teuths. In Ovid è ansotatione assume furms of the type Jana 64 fertur, dicitu, and so forth, and also occur rather frequently in the mouths of tl however, they lead to the opposite conclus » internal varrators." Rather than cortifying the truth, jon: to declare “ir îs said” r “rumor reporee” is equivalent to saying “I have not scen it myself” and so cquivalent to insis ing on the dlistance that scparates the nar- rator from the events and to rejecring te cye-wimess guarantee ol the truth of that which is narrated The mulliplication of narrative voices works in powerful cooper ation with this destabilization of the text, and with the truth that the distortion of rhis marker of reliability communicates, The pri- mary narrator not only docs not, according to convention, call on the wisdom of the Muses, but also renounces control of narration in the first person and {he opportunity to impose a point of view of evasion pecurs sitti Cephalas jel. Otis 119701 179 82 AL 1065) 208 11, and perbaps “Ovid” himsef Ughi 7.587 68 are susperted » lf interporaiedì «se Tarrant (199 31 Wheeler (1999; 114 end