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810-1. "Lucan delivers one of his most telling jibes at the whole war as deciding no more than the place of burial for victor and vanquished." (Mayer 1981: 168). A significant feature of this passage is the foreshadowing of the death of Pompey in Book 8. As Mayer notes (ibid): "Lucan's technique of foreshadowing deserves some notice, for it points to a care in the construction of the poem that is sometimes denied him ... Of all foreshadowings, the most consistent [is] that of Pompey's own death and burial; allusions are made at 1.685, 2.731-6, 5.63, 475, 6.810, 7.704, 8.11, 81, 393, and 463-4." 810. An elegant and carefully constructed dicolon, with ellipsis of unda in the first colon and tumulum in the second. Note the weightier quality of the first three feet, alluding to the demise of Pompey, with two spondees, clash of ictus and accent, and heavy alliteration on m. The final three feet, alluding to the demise of Caesar (and possibly the Mausoleum of Augustus), are in marked contrast. They possess a flowing rhythm, consisting of two dactyls and a trochee, with each word providing a metrical foot, and coincidence of ictus and accent. The "two-speed" line is appropriate to the torpor of Pompey and the "lightening" of Caesar as seen in their respective characterizations at 1.129ff. For the phrase, cf. Aen. 6.873-4: vel quae, Tiberine, videbis / funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem! The fall of the house of Pompey and the sense of its unfulfilled promise seems to carry over from the funeral of Marcellus in Aeneid 6. 812-5. The opening of four successive lines with a pronoun (tu, me, ipse, ille) creates a dramatic effect: the cadaver has finally come to the substance of Sextus' request. The result, from Sextus' point of view, is surely disappointing. 812. tu fatum ne quaere tuum : For ne with the imperative, see 773 n. A monosyllable in the second longum of the second foot is regularly used by many poets as an emphatic device, or to "articulate the syntax" (Mayer 1981: 147). Lucan is in general sparing in his use of this device (for a discussion, see Hellegouarch, p. 197). The phrase clearly recalls Virgil's ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum (Aen. 6.868), a pathetic passage mourning Marcellus, the short-lived but popular nephew and son-in-law of Augustus, whose death in 23 BCE at the age of 19 dashed the emperor's hopes for a dynastic succession. The case of Marcellus stands in pointed contrast to that of Sextus, portrayed by Lucan as a worthless scoundrel (magno proles indigna parente, 6.420) who both survived and succeeded his father. The allusion to the Aeneid is effective: Virgil's mention of Marcellus is the single gloomy note in Anchises' prophecy. As Masters (1991: 194) observes: "Lucan, alluding carefully to Virgil's Marcellus, ends with the doom of the house of Pompey, and makes the [Virgilian] exception into the rule." 813. me reticente : Surprisingly, the dead soldier denies Sextus the precise details that Erictho had insisted upon. See Masters 1992: 196-200; and the article "Lucan's Necromantic Prophecy". 813-4. certior ... arvis : The phraseology provides a clear echo of 716-7: ducis omnia nato / Pompeiana canat nostri modo militis umbra, a point overlooked in the otherwise excellent analysis of Masters (1992: 199-200). In other words, Erictho's promise at 716-7 is not fulfilled by the cadaver - it is merely repeated. For the purpose behind this repetition, see the article "Lucan's Necromantic Prophecy". 814. Siculis genitor Pompeius in arvis : A "pictorial" arrangement, with Siculis ... arvis "containing" genitor Pompeius. Lucan uses this type of ornament often. genitor : This decidedly epic word occurs only five times in Lucan (cf. 58 occurrences in the Aeneid), three times in reference to Pompey. Interestingly, each is in the context of a child witnessing (in the broadest sense) the death of his father or vice versa. Cf. 3.726-7: stabat diversa iam parte carinae / infelix Argi genitor ... qui funere viso ...; 9.127-8 (Sextus recounting the death of Pompey): oculos, germane, nocentis / spectato genitore fero; 9.163-4 (Gnaeus addressing the dead Pompey): solusque tenebis / Aegypton, genitor, populis superisque fugatis; 9.645 (the gaze of Medusa would kill her own father): hoc monstrum timuit genitor. 815. ille quoque incertus : A pointed dismissal of Sextus' (and Erictho's) original motive for the prophetic necromantic quest. Though Pompey will supposedly be able to provide further details (certior, 813) for his son at this improbable later meeting, they will still not enable him to know with certainty of his own end (contrast 592: te precor ut certum liceat mihi noscere finem; 596-7: mens ... parata est / certos ferre metus; 771-2: certus discedat, ab umbris / quisquis vera petit). 817-8. Pompey's triumphs were awarded for victories over Spain, Numidia, and Asia. Pompey will die in Egypt (i.e. Africa, called Libya here), Sextus in Miletus (Asia), and Gnaeus in Spain. This terminal sententia is very much in the tradition of epigrams on the grave of Pompey, which goes back at least to Propertius (See Williams, pp. 208-9). Lucan's immediate model was probably a rather wordy epigram attributed to Seneca (Anth. Lat. 402): Pompeius totum victor lustraverat orbem, / at rursus toto victus in orbe iacet. / membra pater Libyco posuit male tecta sepulchro; / filius Hispana est vix adopertus humo; / Sexte, Asiam sortite tenes. divisa ruina est: / uno non potuit tanta iacere solo. Compared to its model, the compression and vigorous expression of Lucan's brief sententia is striking. The inclusion of all three continents in the same line is a nice feat of metrical virtuosity. The mention of Europe, Asia, and Africa - which creates a sense of grandeur - also echoes Aen. 1.384-5: Libyae deserta peragro, / Europa atque Asia pulsus. The three continents were to the ancient mind tantamount to the entire world; Europe and Asia to the civilized world. Lucan's fine sententia will be imitated by Martial (5.74). 818-20. A bleak reversal of Pompey's proud boast to his troops at 2.583-4: pars mundi mihi nulla vacat, sed tota tenetur / terra meis, quocumque iacet sub sole, tropaeis. 819. o miseranda domus : Another echo of Anchises' apostrophe to Marcellus at Aen. 6.882-3. (see 812 n.). Lucan uses the verb miserari only in the gerundive form (cf. 1.104, 2.334, 2.544, 8.638), and generally with the intent of evoking pity (though cf. 2.544 and Fantham's note ad loc.). The pity is here heightened by the emotional vocative address o. 819-20. nil ... tutius Emathia : A striking irony: though it may have been the scene of their downfall, Pharsalia (Lucan uses Pharsalia and Emathia interchangeably) saw no physical harm done to any member of Pompey's family. 820-30. Lucan's brief conclusion is clearly meant to evoke the abrupt close to Aeneid 6: Erictho accompanies Sextus back to his father's camp, just as the Sibyl accompanies Aeneas back to the upper realms, after which the Trojan leader returns to his ships. But Lucan includes an additional motif, the funeral rites of the corpse, which allows him to develop further the opposition between Lucan's ghost on the one hand and Aeneas and the Sibyl on the other. If initially the Virgilian pair descended willingly, the ghost ascended under compulsion; now, whereas Aeneas and the Sibyl escape back to the world of the living, the corpse escapes back to the world of the dead ( Masters 1991: 195). 820-27. The theme of death and burial is a regular book-ending element in Lucan, found at the conclusion of Books 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Mayer has identified it as one of the major unifying devices in the Bellum Civile. It is perhaps the crowning irony of a very ironic passage that Erictho ends up performing the "pious" act of burial of an abandoned corpse. As Cumont notes (p. 64), "the denial of interment was thought to be a source of infinite torment for the dead as for the living, and to throw earth upon abandoned corpses was a sacred duty." In traditional epic to die unburied was the worst possible fate that could befall a mortal. Hence Dido, in her moment of greatest bitterness wishes precisely this fate upon Aeneas: cadat ante diem mediaque inhumatus harena (Aen. 4.620). In this scene the hasty burial of Pompey at the end of Book 8 is foreshadowed; conversely there are significant echoes of the burial of Palinurus in Aeneid 6. At all events, it remains a curious fact that the morally derelict Erictho should perform one of the relatively small number of "pious" acts found in the Bellum Civile. 821. stat ... reposcit : A self-contained line, with the two verbs framing the verse in a typically "Virgilian" arrangement. There is a slight oxymoron in voltu ... tacito ... reposcit; the cadaver, of course, cannot verbally ask for death since vox illi linguaque tantum responsura datur (761-2). There is a reminiscence here of murmure nullo at 760; indeed, the consultation sequence, including Erictho's address to the cadaver and the ensuing prophecy, is nicely framed by the two mentions of the inability of the cadaver to speak freely. 821. mortemque reposcit : "Demands back his death" rather than "asks for death once more" (Braund). Lucan here reverswa the standard trope which depicts human life as a treasured loan that must be repaid according to Fate's decree. For this typical image cf. Ov. Met. 10.37: pro munere [sc. vitae] poscimus usum; Prop. 2.1.71: quandocumque igitur vitam mea fata reposcent. But here it is not Fate or the gods that demand an end to the soldier's (second) life, but the soldier himself. The verb reposcit has the strong sense of "demands back;" in essence, his death was stolen from him by Erictho. The anima, as at 720-25, exhibits a Stoic preference for (corporeal) death, heightened by the grotesque experience of enforced resuscitation. The perversity of the soldier's plight from the Stoic viewpoint is extreme: he has lost the power to take his own life. 822-3. The scene is in many respects parallel to the burial of Misenus in Aeneid 6, though, as always with Lucan, there are some pointed differences. To begin with, both funerals take place before battles - clearly an anti-heroic motif. But while Misenus' cremation (Aen. 6.212ff.) is a necessary prelude to katabasis and revelation, the cadaver's is a mere postscript. Moreover, whereas Aeneas fulfills pietas (on the order of the Sibyl, Aen. 6.149ff.), Erictho merely honours her pledge to restore the situation that she has herself perverted. cadaver ut cadat : Cf. 2.134: cecidere cadavera. An example of paradox based on the figura etymologica, playing on the derivation of cadaver from the verb cado. The phrase is based on Sen. Thy. 723-4: educto stetit / ferro cadaver, cumque dubitasset diu / hac parte an ille caderet, in patruum cadit. But Lucan has enhanced the force of Seneca's basic figure. The poet uses the very etymology of cadaver to bring out the eerie, paradoxical, and unnatural redundancy of the scene. A cadaver is a cadaver by definition because it has already dropped dead; to speak of it dropping dead again evokes the very metaphysical unravelling that Erictho has brought about. 824. consumpto iam iure semel : "As their power had been used up once for all" (Haskins). Again, the emphasis is on inversion or breakdown of natural law. Cf. Adnot.: "nunc enim in eam non habent potestatem, quia arte magae renata est, non lege naturae." 824-5. robore multo extruit ... rogum : For the phrase, cf. 2.158 robora busti extruit. More importantly, there is a clear reminiscence of the erection of the pyre of Misenus at Aen. 6.214-5: robore secto / ingentem struxere pyram. Cf. 822-3 n. 825. rogum : Lucan broadly rejects Virgil's use of pyra, the Greek word for Latin rogus, using pyra only once (3.241), comparted to 18 occurrences of rogus. venit defunctus ad ignes : Another oxymoron, emphasizing again the perversion of natural law: as noted in Adnot., the corpse "consuevit afferi." 826-30 : The last five lines of Book 6 abandon the simple paratactic narrative style of 820-25 in favour of a more complex period. The arrangement of past participle with infinitive is used twice (passa mori, 827; iussa tenere diem, 830) to achieve subordination, along with a dum clause (829), and an ablative absolute (accensa ... strue, 826). 826. iuvenem : This is the only reference to the dead soldier in genuinely human terms in our passage. Previously, he has been termed either cadaver, corpus, umbra, or anima. Lucan may bereinvesting his treatment of the dead soldier with a measure of pathos (cf. 719-25) - and indeed the word does have a pathetic force here (cf. Aen. 11.51). But the use of iuvenem may also hint at the fact that, after suffering a period of grotesque metaphysical indeterminacy, the cadaver finally becomes genuinely human when its right to die has been reinstated. strue : I.e., rogo (Comm. Bern.). The word is not commonly used of pyres; here the point here may be etymological word play - strue echoes ex(s)truit in the previous line. 827-30 : This account of Erictho escorting Sextus safely back to his father's camp is termed by Johnson (1987: 29) a "pleasant parody of epic convention." Like Aeneid 6, this book concludes with the protagonist returning to camp after his encounter with the nether realm. In both cases, the protagonist's underworld guide provides an escort - to the upper realm for Aeneas, to Pompey's camp for Sextus. Both conclusions are described in rather abrupt narratives. 827. Sextoque : It is notable that Lucan does not bother to narrate Sextus' reaction to the prophecy. Quite possibly it is omitted because it is now irrelevant to the story-line. Moreover, the silence may serve to underline the worthlessness of the character of Pompey's son; the poet's failure to mention Sextus' companions (cf. 572 fidi scelerum suetique ministri; 657: pavidos iuvenis comites) is probably likewise a matter of emphasis rather than oversight. 828. comes : A striking word to use of Erictho, whose perverse isolation from humanity makes comes an incongruous epithet. Here Lucan employs this term in imitation of Virgil's Sibyl, who is twice referred to as Aeneas' comes (Aen. 6.292, 538). caelo ... ducente colorem : Effectively conveying the gradual lightening of the sky at dawn. Cf. Virg. Ecl. 9.49: duceret ... uva colorem, used of the gradual ripening of grapes. 829. ferrent ... gressus : A standard poetic periphrasis in the high style. Cf. Lucr. 4.681; Virg. Aen. 11.99; G. 4.360; Ov. Her. 16.335, Fast. 3.174; Sen. Tro. 616, Med. 847-8, Herc. Oet. 579, 741, Oct. 435. 830. iussa tenere diem : The night is "ordered to hold back the day." One of the typical powers of the witch is the ability to delay the coming of dawn. Cf. 6.461-2: cessavere vices rerum, dilataque longa / haesit nocte dies. Commentary Sections: 719-749 | 750-774 | 775-809 | 810-830 |