Little is known with certainty about the life of Juvenal, despite the existence of part of an ancient biography. He appears to have been born late in the reign of Nero and to have lived until at least 127 ce (during the reign of Hadrian). Fifteen complete poems and one fragment are extant. These are grouped into five books. Book 1 comprises Satires 1–5 on various topics; Book 2 consists of only Satire 6, by far Juvenal’s longest poem, a rant on the evils of marriage and female behavior. The keynote of both books is indignatio, “outrage.” Book 3, in a more measured tone, consists of poems 7–9, again on various topics. It appears to date from the reign of Hadrian. Book 4 contains Satires 10–12; the tone is again more measured and philosophical than in the early books, but the depth of Juvenal’s philosophy is questionable. The final book includes Satires 13–15 in their entirety, and sixty lines of a sixteenth poem. Poems 15 and 16 in particular mark a partial return to the outraged style of the early books. The first poem in each of these books, or, in the case of Book 2, the first section of Satire 6, functions as a programmatic poem, that is, a poem that (sometimes obliquely) introduces themes, issues, and even the stylistic palette of what is to follow.
Virgil not only injects his name at an extremely prominent point in his text, but also links that name explicitly with one poetical topic in particular: pastores. He provided this overt autograph at the end of one phase of his career; he may have composed the lines in Aeneid 12 as a subtler autograph at the end of another. If not, I follow in the footsteps of Nabokov's deluded caricature of a commentator, Dr Charles Kinbote.
which strictly speaking is superfluous to the description of the time of year. As scholars have often noted, the Georgics is strongly marked by recurrent clusters of language and imagery. 13 A reference to Hydra would look back to Virgil's disquisition on snakes in G. 3 (414-39; cf. esp. pestis acerba boum, 419), and his marked interest in serpentine constellations in G. 1 (cf. lucidus Anguis 205, maximus hic flexu sinuoso elabitur Anguis/ circum perque duas in morem fluminis Arctos 244-5). And turning forward to the epyllion in the second half of the fourth Georgic, we discover this crucial scene, where again a nymph fleeing on foot through a riverine landscape plunges into the underworld after an unhappy encounter with a watersnake: illa quidem, dum te fugeret per flumina praeceps, immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella servantem ripas alta non vidit in herba. Compare: bis gravidos cogunt fetus, duo tempora messis: Taygete simul os terris ostendit honestum Pleas et Oceani spretos pede reppulit amnis, aut eadem sidus fugiens ubi Pestis aquosae tristior hibernas caelo descendit in undas. The pestis/Hydra hypothesis must stand or fall on the technical merits outlined above; but if it is correct, then we may assert that the vignette of Taygete and Hydra is a stellar foreshadowing of the tragic incident that sets the events of the epyllion in motion.
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