Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

LUCRETIUS
to this question must take into account the poet's attitude to myth and allegory.
The term 'allegory' is often loosely applied in Lucretian criticism in contexts
where it does not properly apply. There is certainly allegory in the Magna
Mater passage (2.600—60), but it should be noted that half of Lucretius' allegorical
interpretations of the myth are inconsistent with his own beliefs and are
clearly not intended to be taken seriously. The description of the tortures of
the damned in 3.978—1023 comes close to allegory, but even here one should
hesitate. What Lucretius says could be paraphrased like this: 'Nowhere is
there a Tantalus numb with fear because a huge rock hangs over him; but in
this life men fear the blow of fate. ..' This is not allegory in the strict sense.
No attempt is made to reinterpret the myth or find a deeper meaning in it.
Rather the purpose is to deny the validity of myth and to contrast the punishments
of the underworld with realities of a more pressing and credible kind.
Other mythological passages are even clearer: their function is almost always
polemical and they lack that quality of reverence which genuine allegory requires.
If this is correct, then we should not expect to find Lucretius saying important
things about his own philosophy in mythical terms. In particular the equation
of Venus with the Epicurean concept of ' static pleasure' is not likely to be
right. Nor does so sophisticated a notion emerge readily from what Lucretius
actually says. A complex symbol of this sort, if it is to be understood, needs
a context and the opening of a poem has no context.
A good poem always means more than it says. It would be wrong therefore
to limit in too arbitrary a fashion one's response to so complex a piece of
writing as the prelude to Lucretius' poem. One should, however, be clear
where the main emphasis is to be placed, and for this the poet has given us the
help we need. The first two words of the poem, Aeneadum genetrix, echo the
Annals of Ennius and the phrase which follows, hominum diuumque uoluptas, is
used again in Book 6 in an address to Calliope. Lucretius could hardly have made
it plainer that we are here in the realm of the imagination rather than of truth
and that Venus is being invoked as the poet's Muse. In this context the reader
is likely to think of a different range of symbols from those we have been
considering before. As Classen has pointed out, Venus and Aphrodite and
f|8ovr|, the Greek equivalent of the Latin uoluptas, are all associated in the literary
tradition with grace and ease of style.' Lucretius' prayer to Venus is for lepos,
for beauty of words and persuasiveness of speech; and Venus is invoked as the
embodiment of that beauty which manifests itself throughout the whole
Nature of Things. In the opening prayer Lucretius is careful not to reveal the
scope and purpose of his poem. We are still in the world of poetry and have
not yet been told what the real subject of the poem will be. To seek in such
a passage for a complex network of philosophical symbols is to approach
1 Classen (1968) 103-5.
228
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008