A new edition and commentary on the pseudo-Virgilian Dirae

Project Information

DIRAE

Grant agreement ID: 840190

DOI

10.3030/840190

Project closed

EC signature date 12 April 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 212 933,76

EU contribution

€ 212 933,76

Coordinated by

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DIRAE (A new edition and commentary on the pseudo-Virgilian Dirae)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Dirae and the Lydia are two Latin poems transmitted in the manuscripts under the single title of Dirae as part of the so-called Appendix Vergiliana; they are entangled in numerous problems and uncertainties. First of all, the poems are among the most corrupt Latin poetic texts surviving from antiquity, which in itself poses a serious obstacle to any interpretation. Because of their joint transmission, the Dirae and the Lydia had been considered a single poem until late eighteenth century (and sometimes still are); yet even when one recognises them as separate texts, their mutual relationship remains elusive (are they by the same poet? what is their relative chronology?). Since the traditional ascription to Virgil is untenable, the poems are technically anonymous, and their period of composition has likewise proved controversial, with the effect that they lack secure links to any specific context of production. As a result, scholars have been wary to engage closely with the Dirae and the Lydia: there has been no full-scale modern commentary on the poems, and they are all but ignored in most synoptic accounts of Latin poetry. The objective of DIRAE has been two-fold: (1) to create a tool, in the form of a comprehensive line-by-line commentary, that would enable readers to navigate the extremely difficult text of the Dirae and the Lydia; (2) to produce an overarching scholarly narrative that would situate the poems in a specific literary and historical context. By doing so, DIRAE aims to bring the Dirae and the Lydia within the orbit of current classical scholarship, as well as making the poems accessible to wider audiences.

The project’s outputs include radically improved critical editions of the Dirae and the Lydia, detailed textual, philological and literary commentaries on both poems, and in-depth introductory essays analysing their literary and historical background. Among the most important research conclusions are the following. (1) The Dirae and the Lydia are indeed two separate poems, in all probability by the same author, possibly Valerius Cato. (2) Their most likely period of composition can be established as circa 45–35 B.C. (3) Both poems systematically engage with Greek bucolic, both Theocritean and post-Theocritean. (4) The Dirae closely reflects the circumstances and aftermath of the dramatic land reallocation of 41 B.C. These findings mean that the Dirae and the Lydia belong to a crucial period in the socio-political and literary history of Rome. The Dirae and the Lydia thus become important pieces of evidence that can shed light on the early development stages of Augustan poetry, and especially on the literary and historical context of Virgil’s Eclogues.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The thrust of the project was directed at the all-round exegesis of the text of the Dirae and the Lydia. The central task was to reconstruct, as far as possible, the original Latin text of the poems, severely damaged in the course of manuscript transmission. To this end, I have collated afresh twelve primary manuscripts transmitting the poems. For the first time, I have taken systematic account of previous textual work on the poems, from Giovanni Boccaccio’s manuscript annotations in the fourteenth century to the present day. In a series of reading sessions, Professor Stephen Heyworth, the project’s research supervisor, Dr Tristan Franklinos and I have thoroughly scrutinised and discussed the text of the poems, leading to the formulation of close to a hundred original textual proposals. As a result, the new critical text produced within the framework of this project makes radical advances in comparison with previous editions of the Dirae and the Lydia. In particular, in place of irregular and often incomprehensible refrains, the new text of the Dirae reconstructs a regular alternation of two main kinds of refrain, articulating an orderly organisation in pairs of stanzas. To justify decisions implemented in the critical edition, I have compiled a detailed textual commentary. The textual annotations are, in turn, complemented by a comprehensive philological and literary commentary, scrutinising every word and passage so as to elucidate the poems’ language, style and intertextuality. In addition to the line-by-line commentary, I have produced in-depth introductory essays, discussing the poem’s authorship and period of composition, their structure and mutual relationship, as well as their literary and historical context. To make the Dirae and the Lydia accessible beyond the community of professional classicists, I have made new English translations of the poems. The most significant research findings obtained in the course of the project will be published, in addition to a journal article with original textual proposals (‘Emendations in the Dirae and Lydia’), in comprehensive book-format commentaries on the Dirae and the Lydia.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has effected substantial progress in almost every area of scholarship on the Dirae and the Lydia. First of all, the new critical edition produced in the course of the project is the first to challenge systematically the unreliable text of the medieval manuscripts and to attempt a reconstruction of the original. The comprehensive textual, philological and literary commentary is the first commentary on the Dirae and the Lydia of a comparable scope, in any language. The project has also succeeded in shedding light on a number of specific research questions, correcting established misconceptions. Contrary both to the extreme unitarian (the Dirae and the Lydia are in fact a single poem, as transmitted in the manuscripts) and to the extreme analytical position (the two poems are by different authors), structural and stylistic analysis has shown that the Dirae and the Lydia are indeed two separate poems, but probably by the same author. Contrary to the entrenched scepticism of the twentieth-century scholarship, the project has revealed that there exist good reasons to ascribe the poems to Valerius Cato. Contrary to the dominant assumption that their intertextuality is all but limited to Virgil’s Eclogues, it has been demonstrated that both the Dirae and the Lydia closely engage with Greek poetry, especially post-Theocritean bucolic. Finally, it has transpired that 45–35 B.C. is a plausible chronological range for the composition of both poems, which in current scholarship tend to be dated to a significantly later period. At the same time, rather than settling down the scholarly debate over the Dirae and the Lydia once and for all, DIRAE will establish a solid foundation for further research on the poems and encourage alternative interpretations, both in dialogue and dissent with the conclusions reached in the course of this project. Once published, the commentaries on the Dirae and the Lydia can be expected to become the first point of reference for anyone interested in the poems, both among classical scholars and beyond. The commentaries will also contribute to the study of the Latin poetry of the pre-Augustan and Augustan periods, and inspire further exploration of the poems’ place in the history of Latin poetry.

Dr Boris Kayachev in Oxford