63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

304 kathleen m. coleman
reference to the attack on Delphi by the Gauls in 279 bc, which Apollo conceives
as a personal assault (1.4.76–7): hunc Galatea vigens ausa est incessere
bello | (me quoque!), ‘Lusty Galatia dared assail him in war (me too).’ The
colloquial overtones of the parenthesis nicely capture the frank atmosphere
of a god-to-god conversation.
In addition to the parenthetic exclamation pudet!, discussed in
section 2.1, the speech delivered by the river Volturnus contains a parenthesis
comparing the river’s former silted state with the sluggish river Bagradas
in North Africa, to be capped by the claim that, in its newly enlarged
bed, its sparkle and tranquillity will challenge the river Liris and the sea
(4.3.88–94):
ne me pulvereum gravemque caeno
Tyrrheni sinus obluat profundi
(qualis Cinyphios tacente ripa 90
Poenus Bagrada serpit inter agros),
sed talis ferar ut nitente cursu
tranquillum mare proximumque possim
puro gurgite provocare Lirim.
so that the bay of the Tyrrhenian deep does not wash against me in a dirty state
and laden with mud (like the Punic Bagradas snaking with its silent stream among
the Cinyphian fields), but such shall I flow that with my sparkling current I can
challenge the calm sea and my neighbour the Liris with my pure flood.
This parenthesis, demonstrating geographical knowledge, verges on the
‘learned footnote’ variety, discussed in section 3.3, except that the purpose
of the ‘learned footnote’ is to embellish the narrative with the learning of
the author in propria persona, and the references are usually more allusive
and amount to a definable excursus. Here, the parenthesis, too pointed to
qualify as an excursus, seems above all to fit the persona of the boisterous
young rivergod who, like all teenagers, is obsessed with comparing himself
to his peers. His ‘learning’ is restricted to identifying his rivals: the river
Bagradas flows near Carthage; the river Cinyps flows between the Syrtes,
and the adjective Cinyphius is used as the equivalent of Libycus. 22 It is a
nice touch that Volturnus disposes of the unfavourable comparison in an
aside, whereas his claim to outdo worthy rivals occupies the main clause at
the climax of his speech.
Finally, a corrupt passage has been construed so as to put parenthetical
remarks into the mouth of a mortal, the Scotsman who is envisaged
22 For these details, and the transposition of the case-endings in the manuscript (Cinyphius . . . Poenos),
see K. Coleman 1988: 126.