There is a simile in Aeneid 8 where the task of spinning is clearly seen to belong to those of low status who are obliged to perform the task. As such this task can be used in a humorous comparison.
Just as water nymphs might be humorously cast as quasillariae in Georgics 4, so the god Vulcan might be likened to a humble spinning woman in a similarly bizarre comparison. This occurs in Aeneid 8, where the labours of Vulcan are belittled by being likened to the demeaning task of spinning, performed as a necessity by a poor woman. Spinning provides the humour in this scene by its very nature as an arduous and undesirable task, one to be carried out by those obliged to do so by force of circumstance.46 At the mid point of Book 8 of the Aeneid, the Goddess Venus, mother of Aeneas, fearing for her son who has reached his destined territory but is threatened with war from hostile local tribes, asks her husband the god Vulcan to make armour which she can give to Aeneas for his safety. Vulcan, unwilling at first, is persuaded by the sexual charms of Venus, after which he makes a very early start on the task, and labours in his forge beneath Mount Aetna to produce the wonderful armour only he can fashion. Venus makes her request:
ergo eadem supplex venio et sanctum mihi numen arma rogo, genetrix nato te filia Nerei,
46 The force of circumstance in Vulcan’s case is hardly flattering: he succumbs instantly to the persuasion of his
adulterous wife.
te potuit lacrimis Tithonia flectere coniunx aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clausis ferrum acuant portis in me excidiumque meorum. dixerat et niveis hinc atque hinc diva lacertis cunctantem amplexu molli fovet. (382-8)
“ ‘Therefore I, who never asked before, come a suppliant, and ask arms of the deity I revere, a mother for her son. Thee the daughter of Nereus, thee the spouse of Tithonus, could sway with tears. Lo! what nations are mustering, what cities with closed gates whet the sword against me and the lives of my people!’ The Goddess ceased, and, as he falters, throws her snowy arms round about him and fondles him in soft embrace.”
When Vulcan leaves his bed very early in the morning to begin his promised work, he is compared to a wife rising before dawn to stir her fire and begin, with her women, the task of woolworking by lamplight:
inde ubi prima quies medio iam noctis abactae curriculo expulerat somnum, cum femina primum cui tolerare colo vitam tenuique Minerva
impositum, cinerem et sopitos suscitat ignis noctem addens operi, famulasque ad lumina longo
exercet penso, castum ut servare cubile coniugis et possit parvos educere natos: haud secus ignipotens nec tempore segnior illo mollibus e stratis opera ad fabrilia surgit. (407-15)
“Then, so soon as repose had banished sleep, in the mid career of now waning night, what time a housewife, whose task it is to eke out life with her distaff and Minerva’s humble toil, awakes the embers and slumbering fire, adding night to her day’s work, and keeps her handmaids toiling by lamplight at the long task, that she may preserve chaste her husband’s bed, and rear her little sons: even so, and not more slothful at that hour, the Lord of Fire rises from his soft couch to the work of his smith.”
Commenting on this simile in an edition of Aeneid 8 in 1975, Eden wrote “spinning as a morally commendable feminine activity had no necessary connection with social status: it is done both by the noble Lucretia (Ovid Fasti 2.741ff) and by the slave girl who says on her epitaph
in my woolworking’ (Bücheler, Carmina Epigraphica 63.4).” Leaving aside Ovid’s Lucretia, whose activities cannot be taken at face value in Fasti 2 (as has been seen earlier in this chapter), the present simile in Aeneid 8 is certainly not a straightforward depiction of a “commendable feminine activity”. Also from an edition of 1975, Gransden’s comment is: “nothing could be more Roman than Virgil’s picture of the chaste Roman matron or widow, an univira and the anti- type of Dido and Cleopatra in her devotion to home and family. The passage comes from the “still centre” of the most Augustan book of the Aeneid … and perhaps reflects the importance attached by Augustus to his moral and matrimonial legislation.” Apart from the doubtful existence of the univira in real life, the position of this simile in Aeneid 8, which may well be at the centre of the book, is in a context that casts some doubt on its being associated with
Augustus’ moral legislation.47 To put it plainly, Venus is asking her husband to make armour for her son, who is not Vulcan’s son, but the product of her adultery with Anchises. In his
commentary (1977, note on 408ff) Fordyce remarks that the simile of the woolworking woman is “curiously inappropriate in the context”. That it is inappropriate is because it is a woolworking image being used once more for ludic effect. The scene has been noted as having deliberately “funny aspects” (Lyne 1987); simply making a comparison between the god Vulcan obeying his wife and rushing to his forge and a poor working woman is humorous in itself, and comparing, by implication, his divine craftsmanship to the lowly task of spinning is equally so. The god Vulcan does not emerge well from this episode in any case, as his readiness to obey his wife is only a result of his being taken in by her artful seduction; he was unwilling, originally, and can hardly have been impressed by her rather tactless words genetrix nato “a mother for her son”. He has succumbed to her physical persuasions. The situation is summed up in an article by J. Smolenaars (2004, 103): “The image of the mighty god Vulcan, seduced and deceived by his 47 For example, the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis, 18BC.
own wife, is even further tarnished when we witness him rushing down to his forge early in the morning, after an apparently satisfactory night”.
No one in fact emerges very well from this episode (370-415). This includes Venus herself, supposed ancestress of the Roman race and also of Augustus. Her former adultery is brought to the fore as she pleads for her son, and her methods of seduction are transparently calculated. And when Vergil moves on to the simile of the woman lighting her fire to start the woolworking, the situation is not improved. The points of comparison between Vulcan and this woman are rather incongruous: she rises early as does he, she stirs up a fire: cinerem sopitos
suscitat ignis “awakes the embers and slumbering fire” as he also takes fire: ille repente accepit solitam flammam “at once he caught the wonted flame”; then she sets her servant girls to work: famulas ad lumina longo exercet penso “keeps her handmaids toiling by lamplight at the long
task”, as Vulcan also urges his workers: arma acri facienda viro … praecipitate moras “arms for a brave warrior must ye make … fling off delay!” The work being undertaken by both parties, Vulcan and the woman, could be seen as noble enterprises in each case, were it not for the inherent humour in the whole episode; even the reasons for the respective tasks that are being undertaken are at odds: Vulcan will provide armour to ensure that Aeneas is safe, which of course is necessary for Aeneas to go on to fulfil his destiny, whereas the poor woman labours to remain faithful to her husband – castum ut servare cubile coniugis – while Vulcan’s marriage can scarcely be seen as similarly respectable. The humour in this episode has been noted by Lyne: “the scene has and is meant to have its funny aspects” (1987) as well as by Smolenaars (2004). Apart from the humour here, what clearly emerges is the fact that spinning in particular is hard work and unpleasant; it is the task of low status workers – slaves and the poor – and as
such can be used as a demeaning comparison. The likening of the poor woman and her task to Vulcan has its humorous impact because of her low status. Lucretia is not disparaged here.
Vergil’s woolworker here is not a woman of high status, but one who is obliged to be working as she does; she is no noble Lucretia, and Vergil is not suggesting a role model for high status women as Livy is doing. The woolworking in this episode seems to be used as an
incongruous image, as in the underwater scene in Georgics 4, to increase the ludic effect.48 And there is another aspect to Vergil’s use of this simile, which adds another negative note. There are two similes from the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius that Vergil appears to have in mind at this point. The first, from Book 3, 291-98, compares Medea’s passion for Jason, after she has been pierced by the arrow of Eros, to the fire springing up from a small burning brand when new kindling is placed on it; the fire is being kindled by a poor woman who must work wool in order to live, and she must work at night, needing the light of the fire.
ὡς δὲ γυνὴ μαλερῷ περὶ κάρφεα χεύατο δαλῷ χερνῆτις, τῇπερ ταλασήια ἔργα μέμηλεν, ὥς κεν ὑπωρόφιον νύκτωρ σέλας ἐντύναιτο, ἄγχι μάλ᾽ ἐγρομένη: τὸ δ᾽ ἀθέσφατον ἐξ ὀλίγοιο δαλοῦ ἀνεγρόμενον σὺν κάρφεα πάντ᾽ ἀμαθύνει: 295 τοῖος ὑπὸ κραδίῃ εἰλυμένος αἴθετο λάθρῃ οὖλος Ἔρως: ἁπαλὰς δὲ μετετρωπᾶτο παρειὰς ἐς χλόον, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἔρευθος, ἀκηδείῃσι νόοιο.
(Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 3.291-98) 48
In contrast to this scene are those at Georgics 1 (293-4; 390-3) where in the farmer’s household woolworking is depicted as simply a necessary labour; here in the Vulcan-Venus episode the term “Minerva” for the task at hand (409) elevates it and adds even further to the general incongruity, as does the conjunction of the terms tenui and
Minerva, if one understands tenui as “humble”.
“And as a poor woman heaps dry twigs round a blazing brand – a daughter of toil, whose task is the spinning of wool, that she may kindle a blaze at night beneath her roof, when she has awoken very early – and the flame waxing wondrously great from the small brand consumes all the twigs together; so coiling round her heart, burnt secretly love the destroyer; and the hue of her soft cheeks went and came, now pale, now red, in her soul’s distraction.”
The other simile is from Book 4, 1062-67; here Medea’s sleepless and anxious thoughts when she fears that she may be returned to her cruel father are compared to the whirling spindle and sleepless worries of a woman labouring at working wool at night to support her children.
οἷον ὅτε κλωστῆρα γυνὴ ταλαεργὸς ἑλίσσει ἐννυχίη: τῇ δ᾽ ἀμφὶ κινύρεται ὀρφανὰ τέκνα χηροσύνῃ πόσιος: σταλάει δ᾽ ὑπὸ δάκρυ παρειὰς μνωομένης, οἵη μιν ἐπὶ σμυγερὴ λάβεν αἶσα: 1065 ὧς τῆς ἰκμαίνοντο παρηίδες: ἐν δέ οἱ ἦτορ ὀξείῃς εἰλεῖτο πεπαρμένον ἀμφ᾽ ὀδύνῃσιν.
(Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 4.1062-67) “Even as when a toiling woman turns her spindle
through the night, and round her whimper her orphan children, for she is a widow, and down her cheeks fall the tears, as she thinks on how dreary a lot has caught her; so Medea’s cheeks were wet; and her heart within her was in agony, pierced with sharp pain.”
This simile in Argonautica 4 just precedes Medea’s wedding to Jason, and the fact that the woolworking woman to whom she is compared is a widow weeping in her loss and weariness looks forward grimly to the outcome of Medea’s own marriage. Both similes emphasise the unhappy lot of a woman who has no choice but to labour beyond daylight hours at woolworking, and both depict a woman very different from a high status Roman matrona. Both thus resemble
Vergil’s simile and in all three similes the situation is a miserable one. It cannot be seen as a situation being recommended; the principal feature is necessity rather than virtue. To see this picture in terms of Gransden’s comment: “nothing could be more Roman than Virgil’s picture of the chaste Roman matron or widow, an univira … in her devotion to home and family” is not to take account of its context – (the humour of the Vulcan-Venus scene) – and the fact that Vergil’s picture is basically an image from Hellenistic epic (and even from as far back as Iliad 12 433-5 where a woolworking woman weighs out her wool, again to support her children). This has virtually become a standard image in the literature of the time, certainly lacking the impact of Livy’s innovative picture of Lucretia, where a noble woman devotes herself to woolworking when she could – as her noble relatives do – spend her time quite otherwise, since she is not bound by necessity as a low status woman would be. Thus from the Vulcan simile in Aeneid 8, and from the Georgics references discussed earlier, two aspects of woolworking emerge, and two kinds of woolworkers.
Chapter Two
Elegiac Girls Working Wool, and the Motif of the Returning Husband Introduction
This chapter looks at the poets Propertius and Tibullus, both of whom depict their elegiac puellae (Cynthia and Delia respectively) as woolworkers. There is a dual purpose in looking at these depictions. One aim here – as in Chapter One – is to see what attitude to woolworking is apparent in these elegiac scenes: in other words, did Livy’s Lucretia represent an ideal for which value and respect was reflected in contemporary writers? Since both Cynthia and Delia are to be found as woolworkers, not only Lucretia but especially Penelope is relevant here, since the situation of both these puellae involves the motif of the “returning husband.”1 Both Cynthia and Delia fail to represent a positive image of woolworking in keeping with Livy’s Lucretia. As courtesans, both are incongruous in such a setting; Delia’s situation is especially so, while Cynthia’s claims about wool are humorously unlikely. Nevertheless, Cynthia and Delia with their wool each in some way call to mind Lucretia as matrona. The Augustan matrona was traditionally distinguished by her dress, 2 but neither of these puellae is dressed in the ideal costume of the matrona. A similarly negative picture appears at the end of this chapter with Ovid’s Penelope (Heroides 1). She complains of her man and her wool more like a puella than a virtuous wife. As for woolworking itself, Tibullus’ detailed knowledge of the processes
involved is also looked at here; his romanticised picture of Delia thus seems the more
incongruous. In fact what is seen here is that both Cynthia and Delia, as courtesans at best, are each placed in a paradoxical situation: the meretrix cannot be a virtuous matrona. The
1
The motif of the “returning husband” necessitates Penelope’s mention in the present chapter. In Chapter Three on woolworking in the Heroides Penelope, with a different focus, is discussed in terms of her woolworking rather than as a puella.
2 The ideal costume was described in the Introduction to this thesis.
exemplary devotion to wool as displayed by Livy’s Lucretia is not treated with due respect by the poets featured in this chapter.
* * * * *
Cynthia and Delia, elegiac mistresses of the poets Propertius and Tibullus respectively, are unlikely virtuous woolworkers. Nevertheless, in the first book of elegies published by each of these poets – and in the third elegy in each case – Cynthia and Delia are to be found, each one supposedly engaged in some sort of woolworking. Cynthia appears to have been doing
something with purple wool (so she claims), to fill in time at night while she waited for the poet’s arrival:
Nam modo purpureo fallebam stamine somnum (1.3.41) “for now I was beguiling sleep with purple thread”
What could she have been doing? Similarly Delia, while awaiting her lover’s return, is pictured sitting late at night amongst woolworkers, her companion spinning the thread:
deducat plena stamina longa colu (12.3.86)
“let her draw out the long threads from the full distaff”
Part of the purpose here is to look at what it was that Cynthia might have done with purple thread, and how such a claim as she was making came to appear in this poem, since
woolworking of some sort is implied. And since there is no doubt that genuine woolworking is intended in Tibullus 1.3, the question might be asked: how well does a courtesan/mistress like Delia fit into this scene? Both poems (Propertius 1.3 and Tibullus 1.3) will be looked at from the point of view of the woolworking references, in order to establish a possible purpose for these references. Since Propertius’ first book dates from 29 or early 28BC (Baker 2000, Richardson
1977, Hubbard 1974), and Tibullus’ first book from 27-26BC (Maltby 2002), Propertius and Cynthia will be treated first.
Cynthia and woolworking in Propertius 1.3: could the poet marry her?
The identification of woolworking with the preservation of female virtue is exemplified above all by Penelope who, while waiting for Ulysses’ return, wove a cloth as a means of
remaining faithful to him. In Propertius’ elegy 1.3 Cynthia claims to have done something with thread while she waited for her lover, and this has led scholars to note a connection between her situation and that of Penelope.3 Propertius was to praise Penelope for her falsa Minerva (crafty weaving)
Penelope poterat bis denos salva per annos vivere, tam multis femina digna procis; coniugium falsa poterat differre Minerva,
nocturno solvens texta diurna dolo (2.9 3-6).
“Penelope was able to keep her honour intact for twice ten years, a woman well meriting that multitude of suitors; her crafty loom enabled her to put off the hour of marriage, undoing the day’s weaving in nightly deceit.”
While Cynthia’s supposed woolworking is on a much smaller scale, her activity is, like
Penelope’s, an example of falsa Minerva; she makes a claim – hardly likely to be true – that she has been reduced to working wool at night (nocturno dolo?) in her unhappiness at her lover’s absence, but her claim looks very like a ploy to make her lover feel remorse. She is not convincing as a virtuous woolworker.
In elegy 1.3 the poet describes how he arrives late at night, and drunk, to find Cynthia