Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

The Inner World of the Pastoral 129
(“qua te tandem regione requiram. . .,” Sannazaro 1.69). The literary interpretation
of this phrase implies that Phyllis represents the pastoral poetry of antiquity;
Sannazaro is unsure of how to go about discovering the fullness of Virgil’s
ancient verses. In every way, just like Virgil’s Eclogues, Sannazaro’s first
Piscatoriae is a poem about poetry—the “inner” world gains prominence.
Allusion in the Piscatoriae supports this self-reflection. In Virgil’s fifth
Eclogue, the primary model for Sannazaro’s first, Menalcus honors the deceased
Daphnis: “Sis bonus o felixque tuis. En quattor aras / Ecce duas tibi, Daphni,
duas altaria Phoebo” (Virgil 5.65-66). For Virgil, Daphnis was the archetypal
pastoral character, present in Theocritus. To honor him is to place his own
poetry in the pastoral tradition. In some loose sense, Phyllis represents Virgilian
pastoralism, and so it is appropriate that Sannazaro honor her in a similar way:
“Nos tibi, no liquidis septem pro fluctibus aras / Ponemus septemque tibi de
more quotannis / Monstra maris magni vitulos mactabimus hirtos” (Sannazaro
1.79-81). To set up seven altars in the new marine pastoral setting is both to
respect Virgil’s masterpiece and to set Sannazaro’s own work in Virgilian
tradition.
There is one important difference, however, between Sannazaro’s first Piscatoria
and its Virgilian counterpart. Virgil’s Eclogue V ends on an optimistic
note—Mopsus praises Menalcus’s song as worthy of Daphnis and offers him a
gilded shepherd’s crook (Virgil 5.81-84, 88-90). Sannazaro’s first Piscatoria,
however, ends on an imperfect note. Mycon praises Lycidas’s songs as pleasant,
but Lycidas is skeptical: “Exhaustae maduere genae; dolor aspice siccas /
obduxit fauces quatit et singultibus imum / pectus anhelantemque animam vox
aegra relinquit” (Sannazaro 1.116-118). As a poem about pastoral poetry,
Lycidas’ weakness represents Sannazaro’s own skepticism about the caliber of
his re-creation of Virgilian bucolic verse. This doubt is, in part, symptomatic of
the age. The beginning of the Renaissance was full of optimism—all scholars
placed their hopes in the renewal of classical literature. However, by the peak of
the Southern Italian Renaissance, competing commentaries, faulty transmission
of manuscripts, and the inability of many authors to understand classical text
fully through compositional imitation rendered most scholars cynical. Sannazaro’s
accomplishments in his Piscatoriae are significant, but the doubtful end
of his first poem recognizes that he has still not equaled or fully understood the
poetry of Virgil, the great pastoralist.
References
Heninger, S. K., Jr. 1961. “The Renaissance Perversion of Pastoral,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, 22:2.
Kennedy, William J. 1983. Jacopo Sannazaro and the Uses of Pastoral. England: University
Press of New England: Hanover and London.