Merlinus,1 and by his explanation that Merlin "was also called Ambrosius": 2 Merlinus, qui et Ambrosius dicebatur." Later on, Geoffrey drops the Ambrosius and uses the name Merlin only. Several reasons may be imagined why Geoffrey made this identification. It is possible that the fame of the bard Myrddin may have grown in the same way as that of Ambrosius; that he, too, may have taken on the attributes of a seer and necromancer. In fact such a reputation in the case of a great bard would be almost likely, for the Welsh were inclined to look on their bards as supernaturally gifted. A more cogent reason is the name Myrddin. We have seen that Geoffrey liked to explain place-names by the names of people. Therefore, as he was constructing his Historia, the resemblance between Caermarthen and Myrddin would at once strike him. Now Caermarthen was as important as any town in South Wales west of Caerleon. There is no doubt that Geoffrey was familiar with Nennius's Historia Britonum, so far as is known to-day, the principal literary source of Geoffrey's chronicle. Nennius has Ambrosius (that is, Geoffrey's Merlin) found in the region Gleguissing. As to the extent of this, there is difference of opinion. Some scholars take it to have covered virtually all southern Wales; others take it to have been limited to country between the rivers Usk and Towy. But whatever the extent of the region, whether it included the vale of the Towy or not, it was in the neighborhood of that stream, on whose banks, near the head of tidewater, Caermarthen was pleasantly situated. So there we have a plausible explanation of Merlin. Ambrosius, of legendary fame, fixed by Nennius in a region near the Towy. Myrddin, perhaps also of considerable legendary fame, connected by Geoffrey's imagination with Caermarthen on the banks of the Towy. Nothing would be more natural than for Geoffrey to combine the two men. Geoffrey was not content that his newly created character should figure only in the story of Vortigern's tower. He makes Merlin highly important in the reigns of the kings who followed Vortigern - Aurelius Ambrosius, who seems to have been taken mostly from the historical Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Uther Pendragon, Ambrosius's brother and Arthur's father, who seems to be chiefly a character of Welsh tradition. For the former, Merlin brought Stonehenge, or the Giants' Dance, from Ireland to England; for the latter, he employed his magic so successfully that Uther assumed the shape of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and accompanied by Merlin, who assumed the shape of a follower of Gorlois, had access to Gorlois's wife, Igerna, in her castle, and so begot Arthur. After this service to Uther, Merlin virtually disappears from Geoffrey's story. But a few years later, Geoffrey made him the central character of Vita Merlini, that deals largely with various attacks of insanity, 1 Book vi, chap. 19; vii, chap. 3. 2 Book vi, chap. 19. Cf. also R. H. Fletcher," Arthurian Material in Chronicles," Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, X, p. 92. during which Merlin lived a wild man in the woods, only from time to time showing enough reason to utter prophecies. Here he is made king of South Wales, perhaps a reminiscence both of the promotion of Ambrosius to kingship in Nennius and of his being found as a boy in the region Gleguissing. In time Merlin became too prominent for the romancers to be content to lose sight of him at Arthur's birth. A metrical romance of Merlin of about the year 1200, ascribed to Robert de Boron, and a prose romance, based apparently on Boron's verse, added to the history of Merlin many incidents taken from Celtic folklore and other popular sources. Merlin here became such a devoted guardian of Arthur that ever since his fame has been particularly associated with that of the Great King. And so story-tellers soon felt dissatisfied that Robert de Boron had not traced Merlin's career beyond his seeing Arthur recognized as Uther's son, "rightwise king born of all England," and as such securely crowned. Weaving together other stories taken from the great mass of poetic legend then accessible, they prolonged Merlin's adventures beyond Arthur's incestuous love for his half-sister, whence the birth of Mordred, who was to prove Arthur's ruin, — beyond Arthur's marriage with Guinevere and his acquisition of the Round Table, to his triumphant campaign against the Emperor of Rome, on which Merlin accompanied him, ever ready to help Arthur with his great wisdom. Then, when Arthur had returned to Britain, came at last the seer's own enchantment by false Vivien. Much of which study is not new. Geoffrey made the identity of Merlin and Ambrosius quite plain. But so far as I am aware, no one has tried before me to trace the steps which led Geoffrey to his identification. Nor are quite different explanations of the identification by any means impossible. Professor Rhys accounts for it entirely on mythological grounds, seeing in Ambrosius and Merlin both, attributes of a Celtic Zeus.1 It seems unnecessary, however, to make this the explanation. It is simpler to conjecture that the actual Ambrosius, something of a national hero, was transformed into a character of romance by the workings of popular story, just as the greater national hero, Arthur, was transformed; and there is no innate improbability in such a conjecture. In the process of transformation, Ambrosius may have, either before or after his association with Myrddin, been endowed with some mythological attributes. But it seems likely that the first origin of the Merlin of romance is the historical Ambrosius, rather than a god of the Celtic Pantheon. Strange distortion of history, which Ambrosius, even had he possessed all the powers of prophecy ever attributed to him, could hardly have foreseen! That warlike Roman-British worthy, with both name and character changed, is known best to-day as a pitiable old man whose great gifts, after years of useful service, came to naught because he allowed himself to be tricked by a designing young woman. 1 Celtic Heathendom (Hibbert Lectures, 1886), pp. 144 ff. THE EPICEDIA OF STATIUS CLIFFORD HERSCHEL MOORE The epicedia of Statius represent to us the final and complete development of a literary type which was first recognized as a distinct form in the Hellenistic age. Originally ἐπικήδειος ᾠδή signified only a song of mourning for the dead.1 The Trojan Women of Euripides call on the Muse in Ilium's day of sorrow,2 *Αμφι μοι Ἴλιον, ὦ Μοῦσα, καινῶν ὕμνων ᾠδὰν ἐπικήδειον· νῦν γὰρ μέλος ἐς Τροίαν As such a song it is simply defined by Hesychius — ἐπικήδειον· ἐπιθανάτιον, and by Suidas likewise — ἐπιτάφιον, ἐπιθανάτιον, although Proclus attempted a more elaborate definition to distinguish it from other literary forms (p. 352 G), τὸ ἐπικήδειον παρ' αὐτὸ τὸ κῆδος ἔτι τοῦ σώματος προκειμένου. The close relation of the epicedion with the Opvos and other songs of mourning is indicated by the remark of Dionysius, Ars Rhetorica, 6, 1, καὶ τὰ ποιήματα μεστὰ τούτων, οἱ ἐπικήδειοι (sc. λόγοι) οὕτως ὀνομαζόμενοι θρηνοί τε, and by the words which Suidas adds to his definition quoted above, καὶ ἐπικήδειος θρῆνος ὁμοίως. The ἐπικήδειον which Euripides wrote over the Athenians who fell at Syracuse, of which Plutarch, Nic. 17, quotes two verses, was probably an ἐπιτάφιος, as Bergk 4 would have it, οἶδε Συρακοσίους ὀκτὼ νίκας ἐκράτησαν ἄνδρες, ὅτ ̓ ἦν τὰ θεῶν ἐξ ἴσου ἀμφοτέροις. Yet the name ἐπικήδειον is appropriate to it, as it is to the other ἐπικήδειον to which Plutarch refers, Pelop. 1, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ καὶ ζῆν ἡδέως καὶ θνήσκειν ἀμφότερα ἀρετῇ παρεῖχον, ὡς δηλοῖ τὸ ἐπικήδειον· οἵδε γάρ φησιν ἔθανον, οὐ τὸ ζῆν θέμενοι καλὸν οὐδὲ τὸ θνήσκειν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ταῦτα καλῶς ἀμφότερ ̓ ἐκτελέσαι.5 1 Plato uses the term apparently in a general sense, Laws, 800 Ε, καὶ δὴ καὶ στολή γέ που ταῖς ἐπικηδείοις ᾠδαῖς οὐ στέφανοι πρέποιεν ἂν οὐδ ̓ ἐπίχρυσοι κόσμοι, πᾶν δὲ τοὐναντίον. 2 Troades, ll. 511 ff. 3 This definition is repeated by Servius, Ecl. 5, 14, nam epicedion est quod dicitur cadavere non sepulto. 4 Poetae Lyrici Graeci, II, 265. 5 This is apparently from a sepulchral inscription. Cf. p. 128, n. 5. But, as was said above, the development of the epicedion as a literary type belongs to the Hellenistic age. Aratus of Soli and Euphorion of Chalcis composed endeia, now unhappily lost to us. It was Parthenius of Nicea, brought to Rome as a captive in the war with Mithradates to become later the teacher of Virgil and the friend of Cornelius Gallus, who introduced this form of composition to the capital. There his epicedia on Bias, Archelais, Auxithemis, and his wife Arete, enjoyed a high reputation and must have influenced the Latin writers. The fact that he had his poem about his wife cut on her tomb1 is significant for the relationship between the sepulchral epigram and one form, at least, of the epicedion at this time. Of a similar epigrammatical character is the pathetic address which Catullus makes to his brother, buried in the Troad (101), Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, etc. Yet we cannot determine the exact character of Parthenius' epicedia, nor can we trace with certainty the full history of this form of composition in Latin. Propertius' elegies on Marcellus (3, 18) and Cornelia (4, 11), Ovid's on Tibullus (Am. 3, 9), as well as the two anonymous elegies on Mæcenas 2 approach the epicedion and the philosophic consolatio, as we find them developed during the first century of the Empire. But the Tóπоι are not yet established, although Ovid's work shows greater obedience to rhetorical rules than any of the other elegies which I have named. It is, however, in the anonymous Consolatio ad Liviam that we find the epicedion in its new and final form: the verse is the prevailing hexameter in place of the elegiac distich, and practically all the TÓTTо which presently appear almost fixed are here employed. Now it is natural that any song of mourning, any μéλos èπiкýdeιov, should aim not only to express the sorrow of the living but also to rehearse the vir tues of the dead and to console those left behind; we should expect the epicedion therefore to have much in common with the λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι, παραμvoηTIKоí, the μpovodíat of the rhetoricians, the Latin laudationes funebres, 4 and, since epitaphs are frequently either laudatory or consolatory, or both, with sepulchral epigrams.5 A superficial reading of the Consolatio ad Liviam 1 Kaibel, Epig. Gr. 1089. It is worth remembering in this connection that Ausonius tells us that he had his Epicedion in Patrem (ed. Peiper, pp. 21 ff.) placed beneath his father's portrait. 2 Riese, Anth. Lat., 779, 780; PLM., I, pp. 125 ff. 3 According to the common view this consolatio was composed not long after Drusus' death in 9 B.C. 4 Cf. Fr. Vollmer, Laudationum Funebrium Romanorum Historia et Reliquiarum Editio, Jahrbb. für class. Philologie, Supplb. XVIII, 447-527, especially 475-477 5 Cf. Bruno Lier, Topica Carminum Sepulcralium Latinorum, Philologus, LXII (1903), 445-477, 563-603; LXIII (1904), 54-65. I here make general acknowledgment of my indebtedness to this excellent work. 3 is sufficient to show the unknown writer's dependence on the rhetoricians. The same thing is true of the epicedia of Statius (Silvae 2, 1.6; 3, 3; 5, 1. 3. 5),1 some features of which I now propose to set forth so far as I can within the allotted space. The main divisions are well stated by Vollmer in his edition of the Silvae (1) introduction, (2) laudatio of the dead, (3) last sickness and death, (4) funeral, (5) reception of the dead in Hades, (6) consolations offered the living. Statius employs all these in an order which is almost fixed, as we might expect of one who wrote as rapidly as he, yet within the divisions he often shows great skill and variety of expression, although certain motifs constantly reappear. Statius varies his introductions according to the subject or the person addressed, employing many themes. These are such as require little invention on the poet's part, and it must be confessed that they are at times. handled in a conventional way. On the other hand, they touch emotions which are genuinely human, and if we will accept, as we must, the standards of the poet's day, they often have the merit of sincerity. One epicedion only, that on the loss of the poet's young favorite (5, 5), opens with a moan, But when Statius celebrates his own father's death (5, 3), he begins with a prayer for strength and inspiration for his sad song, Ipse malas uires et lamentabile carmen 1 I speak of all these poems as epicedia, but it should be observed that this specific name was not attached to all by their author or by the manuscript tradition. In his prefatory epistle Statius speaks of 2, 1 - recens uulnus epicedio prosecutus sum; but in the same place he refers to 2, 6, identical with the first in theme, as consolatio, with which the traditional title agrees. Of 3, 3 he says in his letter to Pollius Felix - merebatur et Claudi Etrusci mei pietas aliquod ex studiis nostris solacium. The manuscript tradition calls 5, 1. 3 and 5 "epicedia,” a name which may well come from the author. (Cf. Ausonius' borrowing, pp. 21 ff. P., from Statius 5, 3: Epicedion in Patrem, and the poet's certain use of the word noted above.) It appears therefore that four of the six poems are designated "epicedia," the other two are called by the poet "consolatio" and "solacium." Perhaps we should speak of the "epicedia and consolationes" of Statius. Yet, apparently, Statius uses the names without any intention of making a sharp distinction. I intentionally omit 2, 4 from consideration. 2 I was unable to examine Lohrisch, De Papinii Statii Silvarum Poetae Studiis Rhetoricis, Diss., Halle, 1895, until after this paper was in the printer's hands. 3 Teubner, Leipzig, 1898, pp. 316 f. I take this opportunity to acknowledge my debt to Vollmer's elaborate commentary. * Praefatio, l. 1, hos libellos, qui mihi subito calore et quadam festinandi uoluptate fluxerunt, - nullum enim ex illis biduo longius tractum, quaedam et in singulis diebus effusa. 5 A method recognized and recommended by the rhetoricians. Cf. Nicolaus Sophistes, Sp. III, 479, 28 f. |