Getting Started, HF 1-11

This blog will be an on-going project in inter-class communication as I will be posting observations and commentary on the play that we are reading, Seneca's Hercules Furens. I expect you all to make regular contributions to the blog by posting responses to your reading of the play, to articles and other scholarship we read or discuss, and to any commentary that I provide. Here are some major questions to keep in mind:

1. How does Senecan tragedy compare with other kinds of tragedy that you are familiar with (ancient, medieval, or modern and from any culture)?

2. Why do you think Senecan Tragedy has had so many modern detractors? Why was it so popular in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and so influential on early English tragedy? (Compare 3)

3. What do you think about what we might call the "Senecan Question"? That is, is he a talented playwright, and were his plays ever performed for a significant audience of his contemporaries?

4. Two related points: Despite the sometimes annoying distraction of being overly historical in literary criticism, we cannot deny that an author's life has some relationship to what he writes. So, first, do you see Seneca as a hypocrite who did not practice what he preached (i.e. Stoic philosophy)? Second, how does his lifetime dedication to philosophy relate to the content of his plays (especially the Hercules plays)?

5. How would you compare the experience of reading Seneca in Latin vs. English translation? What can you learn about Seneca and the play from reading the original Latin?

Commentary on Hercules Furens

A device used by many ancient dramatists is the divine prologue.

Soror Tonantis- Juno is describing herself. We might imagine her even pointing at herself as she speaks; often it helps us understand drama to imagine it being performed. Tonans = "The Thunderer", a common associative title for Jove. The poetic use of related words or titles in the place of the proper nouns is called "metonymy".

hoc enim- The enim retains its usual position as second word of its clause (called postpositive); enim, like nam, means "for" or "since" and usually introduces a clause which explains or elaborates on a preceding statement. This interjected comment is not so much for explanation as to display Juno's bitter emotional disRUPTion--thus it interRUPTs the flow of her introduction.

semper alienum- These two words go closely together and describe Jupiter as "perpetually another's"--i.e. not ever belonging to his rightful wife Juno. Alienus is the possessive adjective for alius (other, another), so in addition to "strange" or "alien" it often means "belonging to others".

Iovem- Juppiter, Iovis m. Jupiter (English has only 1 p, Latin 2), Jove. Of course, all oblique (non-nominative) cases come from the Iov- stem.

ac templa...aetheris- Notice the poetic word order, where summi and aetheris go together as their forms show. This is common in poetry because it can be both artful and useful for fitting the meter (which is here iambic trimeter). Probably templa means not "temples" but "regions", an archaic and etymological sense of the word. Aether is a transliterated Greek word and it refers specifically to the "upper air" as opposed to the aer or "lower air". Vidua can mean "single" or "unmarried", not always specifically "widowed", although, despite Fitch, I think it is most forceful (and "Senecan") to go with a strong translation as it most often refers to a woman who has lost her husband by death or divorce, and it clearly has an emotive tone here, "widowed", "bereft", or "jilted". It need not matter that she is not really widowed or divorced. The verb deserui seems to be what we often call a present perfect or true perfect which denotes a present state due to (recent) past action: "I have (just) left".

locumque...dedi- A bit of poetic repetition and variation, this line means much the same as the previous clause, but the change in wording makes it not simply redundant. The phrase "caelo pulsa" indicates that she has been violently forced out of heaven--clear exaggeration. She has supposedly given up her place to Jove's latest loves whom she dubs "call girls" (paelices)--again hyperbole, since Jove has not taken these mortal loves to live with him "in caelo". Seneca is just using hyperbole to set the stage for his coming allusions to various women who have been catasterized (made into a star or constellation).

paelices caelum tenent- The choice of verb suggests that these "ladies" have captured the heavens and now hold it in their power.

hinc...alta parte- In drama, demonstrative particles, like hinc, and adjectives (hic, ille, etc.) should generally be assumed to be accompanied by gesture. In this erudite list, the actor playing Juno (or the reciter if a solo performance) might motion to various spots in the sky as he said hinc "over here" or illinc "over there". One should note that, while hinc and illinc are actually adverbs of place from which, "from here" and "from there", Latin often uses source expressions ("from this side") where English prefers place where ("on/at this side"). The phrase "alta parte" which in Latin prose might be accompanied either by in (place where) or by ex (place from which) is best construed as place where in English.

Arctos- "The Bear". This constellation (Big Dipper or Ursa Major) is supposedly the catasterism of Jove's lover Callisto. Of course, as today, in the ancient world many astronomers and sailors used it to find the north pole--thus Seneca's glacialis polus which hints at the frigid temps of the North.

sublime...sidus- sidus, sideris n. usually means "constellation", as here, rather than "star" which is more likely stella or astrum. Notice the mild personification of sidus here as the subject of agit.

classes- Most commonly, as here, classes refers to "fleets" of ships, though the word can sometimes refer to other groups of people or things.

qua- qua (abl. s. f. from qui, quae, quod) as often understands a noun like parte or regione and thus means "where" or "in which place".

recenti vere- recenti (from recens, -ntis) is a "false friend"; it means "fresh" (i.e. "just starting") as usual, not "recent". Vere (from ver, veris n.) is ablative of time when which even in prose does not have a proposition.

Tyriae...nitet- Allusion to the myth of Zeus/Jupiter turning into a bull to steal Europa who was from Tyre. nitet ("glistens") obviously refers to the twinkle of the stars of the constellation Taurus ("The Bull") but also may allude to the glistening white color of the bull.

Atlantides- i.e. descendants of Atlas. The usual name for these daughters of Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione is the Pleiades, still a modern name for this star cluster which is in Taurus. Three of them, Maia, Electra, & Taygete bore Jupiter sons, respectively Mercury, Dardanus, & Lacedaemon.