FOULMOUTHED SHEPHERDS: SEXUAL OVERTONES AS A SIGN OF URBANITAS IN VIRGIL’S BUCOLICA 2 AND 3

Stefan van den Broeck
stefan.van.den.broeck@telenet.be

Abstract:

This article argues that Virgil introduced sexual overtones, an urbane motif par excellence, in Bucolica 2 and 3 – the oldest of his bucolic poems - to forestall criticism from his intended audience: the Poetae Novi and their aficionados, who would have regarded bucolic poetry – however unjustly – as ‘rustic’. It explains that due to his connection to these Poetae Novi (via Pollio), Virgil would have wanted to conform to their concept of urbanitas . A detailed analysis of the two poems shows how they might be read as parodies. Bucolica 2 as a parody of an elegiac paraclausithyron , riddled with obscene innuendo, and Bucolica 3 as some sort of bucolic satirical invective, where the obscene is used as a weapon between two quarreling shepherds. The article lists words and passages with possible sexual overtones and argues why in poems such as these an ambiguity found is likely to be an ambiguity intended. Numerous parallels and analogies are given for the ambiguous use of words found in Bucolica 2 and 3 and evidence for the prevalence of sexual innuendo in Greek epigrams, pastoral poetry and contemporary Latin poets. In addition the article provides a refutation of several possible objections to its thesis including the charge of hineininterpretierung . This new interpretation does not intend to supersede more exalted explanations of these poems but can coexist with them, and throws light on the psyche of a beginning author from the provinces, trying to make his mark in Rome.

1. Introduction: Bucolica, a Literary Risk:

According to Virgil’s biographer Donatus ( Vita Vergiliana 90), Virgil’s Bucolica were hailed as a masterpiece immediately after their publication. Considering the literary scene in Rome at the time, this is not as natural as it might seem to Virgil’s admirers. After all, it was far from certain that a poem, with an idealized depiction of life in the country as its ostensible theme, would be a success in the upper circles of Rome with their preference for sophisticated, erudite poetry.

Although the Bucolica are not really a naïve glorification of rural life (The life of shepherds is very rarely idealized in these poems and the literary motif of ‘Arcadia’ as a paradise is largely a construct of later centuries), it nevertheless seems likely that when Virgil first introduced it in Rome, bucolic poetry as a genre would have been regarded with some disdain by the leading poets of his day, and that he would have to work hard to convince his urbane friends that it was worth their while. This may be the reason why, although bucolic poetry must have been known through Virgil’s Greek predecessors, it does not seem to have been practiced by any Roman poet prior to Virgil, unlike other poetic Greek genres like elegy, lyric poetry and epigram. The point this paper is trying to make is that Virgil was well aware of the risks of his undertaking and that he took specific precautions to shield himself from the criticism that was to be expected.

Virgil explicitly introduces his Bucolica as a novelty in Latin poetry: 'Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu/nostra neque erubuit silvas habitare Thalia . ' ( Our Muse was the first to deem it worthy to sing Syracusian verse, and did not blush while living in woods.)

The choice of words here is significant. ' Dignata est' (deemed it worthy) and ' neque erubuit' ( did not blush) suggest that others had refrained from adopting country life as a literary theme, most likely because of the none too flattering views the urban, intellectual elite held about the country. Jokes by urbani (city folk) at the expense of the crude, uneducated rustici (country folk) were to be found as early as Plautus (e.g. Casina act 1, scene 1 and Mostellaria act 1, scene 1) and still persisted after Virgil’s time (e.g. Ovid Amores 3.4.37.). [1] When country folk appeared in the literature of Virgil’s days, it was often as a target for urban derision. Writing poems about or set in country life, even though at least the genre must have been known through Virgil’s Greek predecessors, was risky.

From what we know about the poetry of the time when Virgil was working on his Bucolica , we can deduce what passed for acceptable poetry in ‘urbane’ circles. Some years earlier the Poetae Novi , of which Catullus is the only representative whose work has come down to us in more than small pieces, had taken love and sexuality from the realm of comedy and satire and had introduced it into lyric and elegiac poetry. Virgil’s friends and protectors Gallus and Pollio (the latter being the person to whom - Donatus claims - the Bucolica were dedicated) were also members of this circle of ‘new poets’.

Also the Greek poets from that era, like the epicurean epigrammatist Philodemos – a teacher to both Virgil and Horace and a friend of Catullus – and his contemporary Krinagoras, wrote about love and especially about the physical aspects of it. A second characteristic of the ‘new poetry’ was its technical perfection (the so-called labor limae) and its erudite nature under the influence of the Alexandrian poets, mainly Kallimakhos.

Probably the best summary of the literary creed of those days is to be found in the fragments of Philodemos’ prose essay on poetry. In it he rejects the theories of Neoptolemos of Parion and his idea that poetry should be utilitarian in character. Philodemos advocates a philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake.’ [2] Generally speaking it seems reasonable to say that the key word in Roman literary circles at the time of Virgil’s debut was ‘ urbanitas ’ (urbane sophistication). [3] This term covers the notions of erudition, frivolity, refinement and a certain degree of arrogance. None of these is spontaneously associated with Virgil’s Bucolica . Virgil had the added problem of his rustic origins, which made him extra vulnerable to the criticism of rusticitas (boorishness) in his poetry. This is not to say that bucolic poetry, as practiced by Virgil’s Greek predecessors was naïve and unsophisticated. The urbane nature of Theokritos’ Idylls has long been established. However, it seems that the Poetae Novi (however wrongly) regarded the genre as ‘rustic’, perhaps because of its subject matter, perhaps as a result of personal tastes. [4]

In the Bucolica there is evidence that Virgil was well aware of these views and that in a very sophisticated way he has taken the literary taste of his intended audience - i.e. the New Poets’ aficionados [5] - into account, mainly in his first eclogues (2 and 3) [6] . First of all by the choice of his themes and secondly by the way he developed them. The aim may have been to forestall the suspicion of rusticitas, which might arise from the general theme of his bucolic poems, by indulging his audience to a certain extent. Most remarkable in that respect are the influences of the Alexandrian poets and of Catullus, and especially the sexual double entendres in the second and third eclogue. [7]

Virgil is seldom associated with sex. And despite the obvious ‘obscenities’ that occur in Theokritos – Virgil’s Greek predecessor -, most scholars treat the Bucolica as a highly serious book, apparently assuming (or is it ‘hoping’) that Virgil wouldn’t bother with ‘such frivolities’. Nevertheless, enough arguments can be presented to support the claim that Virgil actually did introduce sexual innuendo into his second and third eclogue.

Of course, this is not to say that all serious interpretations of these poems no longer apply and that Bucolica 2 and 3 should from now on only be regarded as sexual jokes. The sexual overtones presented in this article are a secondary but striking feature. Bucolica 2 and 3 can be and have been looked at from many different angles; what this article argues is that Virgil at the very least did nothing to prevent a possible sexual interpretation . Arguments for this claim can be gathered from the poet’s subject matter, his choice of words, the characteristics of his examples and similarities with the work of other authors. Furthermore it was the manner in which Virgil introduced this theme into his first bucolic poems that gave him some powerful weapons to stave off any possible criticism from his intended audience.

To make it clear what the effects were of Virgil’s modus operandi , first we will examine the texts in detail.

2. Bucolica 2

As is well known, Virgil’s second eclogue is a long soliloquy by the shepherd Corydon, who has fallen victim to a hopeless love for the young boy Alexis. Hopeless because Alexis apparently is the ‘favorite’ of his master ('delicias domini' - the master’s pet v.2), who has a lot more to offer than Corydon ('Nec si muneribus certes, concedat Iollas.' - If you contended with presents, Iollas would not yield v.57 .)

The poem starts with five verses describing the setting: [8] Corydon has withdrawn into the forest and is talking to himself, as if rehearsing for a possible meeting with Alexis. From the beginning it is clear to the audience that the theme is an erotic one. This, in combination with the use of the hexameter [9] would have created the expectation of some sort of satire, which would alert the audience to the possibility of sexual innuendo.

The first verse that can be regarded as ambiguous and that ‘introduces’ the hidden sexual theme is verse 9: 'nunc virides etiam occultant spineta lacertos' - now the thickets even hide the green lizards . On the first semantic level this statement’s purpose is to indicate, along with verses 8 and 10-11, that the time is high noon and that it is so hot that even green lizards hide in the bushes, a detail mentioned to accentuate Corydon’s devotion in following Alexis’ tracks 'sole sub ardenti' - under the burning sun ( v.13), an allusion to Catullus 64.353, there in a lofty, epic context ( Lipka 81: ‘such a highly poetic expression in the mouth of an uncouth shepherd like Corydon has a comic element’ ).

The claim that this verse can be interpreted in a sexual sense is supported by several arguments. First of all there is the strong resemblance of this verse to a passage in Horace ( Odes 1.23.6-7) ' … seu virides rubum/dimovere lacertae' - be it that green lizards split the bramble-bush - , where we find a sexual overtone acknowledged by modern scholars. In this poem Horace compares Chloë, a young, inexperienced girl who is afraid of sex, with a young deer frightened by ‘lizards’ sticking their heads through a ‘bramble-bush’. Analyzing the metaphor, we can equate the deer with the girl, the lacertae (lizards) with the male sex organ and the rubum (bramble-bush) with the female pubic hair. The aim of the poem is to help Chloë overcome her fear of sex, because the poet’s persona is out to seduce her [10] . So, the erotic connotation makes sense in the context of the poem. It seems highly likely, considering the close friendship between the two poets, that in this verse Horace wanted to allude to Bucolica 2.9, which suggests that he read a sexual innuendo in it, be it intended by Virgil or not. [11]

Another striking and significant similarity between Horace’s and Virgil’s text is the choice of the adjective viridis (green) with lacertus/ta . Not only can the word mean ‘vigorous’, it is also a virtual homonym of virilis ( male) [12] . In Latin the word lacertus usually means ‘upper arm, muscle’ and metonymically ‘strength’. Thus, virid(l)is lacertus can be understood as ‘vigorous/male muscle’ or ‘male strength’ [13] . This interpretation is supported even more by the fact that Virgil is the only poet in antiquity to use the masculine form lacertus to denote a lizard.

In addition, another poem, closely connected with Virgil – the Copa Syrisca from the Appendix Vergiliana - has a similar verse (28: 'nunc varia in gelida sede lacerta latet' - now a spotted/different lizard is hiding in a cool spot ) in a clearly erotic context. A tavern girl is trying to lure a passer-by into her tavern by offering him all sorts of pleasures, including food, wine, music and women. The verse is a clear echo of Bucolica 2.9 or - if we accept the primacy of the Copa - Bucolica 2.9 could be an echo from the Copa . [14]

Finally, the connection between lizard and penis can also be found in Theokritos, Pliny the Elder and the epigrammatists Stratôn and Martial. [15] In other words, beside the observation that the weather is so very hot that lizards hide in the bushes, the poet is also suggesting that some couples are taking advantage of the midday break ‘to cool their passion’ by engaging in love-play; an overtone which serves as a contrast to Corydon’s frustrated desire and is altogether appropriate, considering the ‘erotic’ theme of the poem. Corydon explicitly mentions the presence of other people (harvesters: messoribus v.10 and Thestylis v.10).

This one verse draws the audience’s attention towards sexual innuendo. Someone who spots a sexual overtone in one verse is likely to go looking for another one. So once a poet introduces innuendo, he can reasonably expect that in the rest of his text, anything that consistently can be seen as ambiguous will be thus interpreted.

Take the subsequent verses: ‘Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus aestu/ allia serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes’ - And Thestylis is grinding garlic and wild thyme, odorous herbs, for the harvesters, exhausted by the murderous heat (Buc. 2.10-11 ) . The harvesters ( messoribus ) are exhausted due to the murderous heat ( rapido aestu), but because of the allusion to sexual intercourse in the previous verse we feel inclined to see the girl named Thestylis rather than the sun, as the source of that heat [16] . Virgil suggests she has ‘exhausted’ the harvesters. Notice the name Thestylis itself, not only the same name as Simaitha’s maid in Theokritos’ second Idyll, another poem about lost love, but also a word sounding very much like that other ambiguous word in Latin: testis (witness’, but also ‘testicle’) [17] . This counters the possible objection that the ambiguity in the previous verse is isolated and therefore, purely coincidental.

Furthermore, in antiquity, garlic ( allium) , one of the herbs Thestylis is grinding for the harvesters, was a notorious aphrodisiac [18] . This forms a nice contrast with Theokritos’ second Idyll where Thestylis is assisting with the preparation of a κακὸν ποτὸν, a poisonous drink, used to punish her heartless lover, presumably with impotence (see note 15).

After this first introduction of the theme, the poem continues with a moral lesson by Corydon (‘don’t be too proud of your looks’: a cliché from erotic epigrams and elegiac verse) and a passage in which Corydon brags about his wealth, musicality and looks . From verse 28 onward Corydon is trying to rouse Alexis’ interest in country life. His idyllic portrayal of the rustic lifestyle is wrought with possible obscene hints. First of all he invites him to ‘ figere cervos’ - to pierce deer (29). Naturally he means hunting, but the words can also be seen as an allusion to sex with animals, familiar from epigrams, other bucolic poems and – with a bit of good will – even Virgil’s own work. [20]

Again Horace echoes Virgil’s ‘figere cervos’ ( Odes 3.12. 11: ' cervos iaculari' - to spear deer ) with a sexual overtone, when Neobule praises her beloved’s skill as a (sexual) hunter. [21]

The reader should notice the reoccurrence in verse 30 of the word viridi , which has been made ambiguous in verse 9. Here it is combined with hibisco . These words can be regarded as a poetic dative of direction or as an ablative of place (driving the kids towards/gathering the herd near the green hibiscus), but also as an instrumental ablative (subduing the herd with a green/vigorous/male ‘hibiscus’). The hibiscus’ rather long pistil does have its shape and color in common with a male sex organ in erection [22] . In addition hibisco sounds a lot like ἡβίσκος [23] , a diminutive form of ἥβος, a Theocritean (!) word for ἡβῶν meaning ‘youth’, (clearly derived from ἔφηβος: young man, youth ). And Ἥβη (youth) is a metaphor for the penis in an obscene epigram by Stratôn ( A.P. 12.225, see p. 47). Youth and the penis are also linked in Latin. Adams (76) points out that although the original meaning of pubes was probably ‘pubic hair’, it is also used for the male genitals in general. He cites Celsus 2.3.1,2.4.3,2.7.12 and 4.1.11 as examples. However, pubes also means ‘youth’, especially sexually mature youth, as is evident from the use of the plural puberes to denote young men of a fighting (and procreating) age.

Furthermore, the haedus (‘kid’) was proverbial for its wantonness. (See Ovid Metamorphoses 13.79 : ‘ tenero lascivior haedo’ - hornier than a tender kid) Minadeo (203-204) mentions a haedus as a phallic symbol in Horace Odes 3.13.3-5: 'haedo, /cui frons turgida cornibus/primis et Venerem et proelia destinat.' - a kid, whose forehead bulging with the first signs of horns destines him to love/sex and fighting. So if the audience didn’t fancy the hint at bestiality, the haedi could be seen as a metaphor for wanton boys being herded together near or subdued with the ‘hibiscus/ penis’. The reference to Pan, a lover of both beasts and boys, in the following verses supports both interpretations (See below and notes 26 and 28).

In verse 31 Corydon says that Alexis will 'imitabere Pana (canendo)' - you will imitate Pan, (by singing) . Pan is known for his sexual escapades with animals: after all he is a fertility god, responsible for the increase of the herd. C anendo appears to strip the verb imitabere from its sexual overtone on the first semantic level. In fact it leaves the reader of the text with an amusing choice. He can choose to play a game with the audience, which is liable to react all too avidly to the sexual connotation of imitabere Pana, only to be embarrassed when the reader adds the word canendo after a short pause and in an austere tone, denying any sexual innuendo, thereby creating a teasing anticlimax . On the other hand, if one accepts that imitabere Pana contains a sexual overtone, due to Pan’s randy reputation, it follows that, if left to its own devices, the audience is likely to read the overtone of ‘having sex’ into whatever verb is used to describe the activity Alexis will imitate [24] . So we only need to establish that Pan is commonly associated with sex to make canere ambiguous in this verse . [25] The link between Pan and sex is common in antiquity. We can even cite a reference with some relevance to Virgil: an epigram by Theokritos ( A.P. 9.338) where Daphnis is warned against Priapus and Pan trying to rape him. [26]

Verse 32 has possible sexual overtones as well. This time the allusion is based on a pun. 'Calamos cera coniungere', which in the first place means ‘connecting reeds with wax’, can - again under the influence of the preceding sexual overtones – be interpreted as a reference to sex with animals. Cera sounds like the Greek κεραΐς: goat, and a calamus: ’reed’ or ‘arrow’, shares the fate of all oblong objects in the rest of the poem: it can be seen as a symbol for the male sex organ [27] .

To end this passage, Corydon ambiguously claims: 'Pan curat oves oviumque magistros' (Pan takes care of the sheep and the masters of the sheep) , where the vague verb curat is subject to erotic connotations, considering the context. [28]

In this interpretation, Virgil (or Corydon) uses innuendo to make Pan into a mythological exemplum for the sexual behavior he wants to elicit from Alexis; a very urbane motif, familiar – in a more explicit form - from elegy and epigram. There also gods are associated with less lofty endeavors to achieve humor. [29]

And the covert sexual seduction goes on in the following verse: ‘Nec te paeniteat calamo trivisse labellum’ - You will not regret having bruised your lip on my flute. For if we accept the equation calamus = penis, Corydon is inviting Alexis to do no less than perform oral sex on him. One might object that this can hardly be considered an attractive proposal to Alexis since throughout antiquity this practice was considered the most shameful form of sexual intercourse. [30] But in this verse Corydon is precisely trying to ‘bribe’ Alexis into doing it, suggesting he would make it ‘worth his while’. Besides, fellatio is only shameful when a grown man stoops to it; a young boy like Alexis is not regarded as a real man, so it would not (yet) be degrading for him to play a passive role (as he most likely does now with his master Iollas).

One might also explain away the apparent anomaly by asking an important question: is Corydon aware of the ambiguity in his words? Or are the overtones merely an extra urbane feature, added by Virgil to play a game with his audience? In other words: is Corydon an urbane shepherd or is Virgil showing his audience that he is an urbane poet? If Corydon is thought to be unaware of the innuendo in his language, the urbane audience is given the opportunity to laugh at this rusticus , because he doesn’t realize that in the city the meaning of what he is saying is different from its meaning in the country. [31]

Verses 35 and 36 also fit very well within the sexual sub-context. Verse 35 goes as follows: ’haec eadem ut sciret, quid non faciebat Amyntas? ’ - What didn’t Amyntas do to know these same (songs)? Under the influence of the sexual connotations in the previous verses the reader may be tempted to surmise that whatever Amyntas has done ( faciebat ) to know ( sciret ) ‘haec eadem’ belongs to the realm of sexuality . [32]

In verse 36 Corydon starts bragging about his panpipe ( fistula ), which, he claims, is ‘comprised of seven unequal hemlock stalks’ ( disparibus septem compacta cicutis). Flutes and pipes are rather obvious metaphors for the penis, not only in Latin but also in English and other languages like Dutch and French. Furthermore the word fistula sounds a lot like and has the same number of syllables as the word mentula: ‘ cock’. Virgil uses the same procedure repeatedly in the third eclogue. There too the link between the three-syllable-words ending in -ula and their obscene rhyming word produces a meaningful sexual interpretation. (See further p. 28 n. 53)

One might object to the equation fistula = mentula by pointing out that a mere rhyme forms a feeble ground to create a semantic link between two words, especially since a panpipe does not even have a phallic shape, but Adams (137) states that phonetic suggestiveness in sexual innuendo often depends on even scantier resemblances (see note 12). Secondly, ‘panpipe’ is not the first meaning of the word fistula : basically it means ‘tube’, or ‘reed’, both of which do have a phallic shape. Thirdly, there is a precedent for the link panpipe - penis in the epigrams of…Theokritos. In AP 6, 177, the shepherd Daphnis dedicates his flute (τοὺς τρητοὺς δόνακας = σύριγγα = fistulam ; τρητοὺς: ‘pierced’ could be taken to refer to the urethral opening; the plural can be seen as a poetic plural), staff (λαγωβόλον), javelin (ὀξύν ἄκοντα), skin (νεβρίδα), and pouch (τάν πήραν) in which he carried fruit (ἐμαλοφόρει) to the god (and his lover) Pan. Seeing that Pan and Daphnis were lovers, the flute, staff and javelin can all be seen as metaphors for Daphnis’ penis and the skin and pouch with fruit, as metaphors for his scrotum (the use of the imperfect ἐμαλοφόρει suggests sexual exhaustion). [33]

The same double entendre can be found in Horace. Minadeo (93) stresses the ‘phallicism’ of the ‘hanging fistula ’ (‘cur pendet tacita fistula cum lyra? - Why is the flute hanging with the silent lyre v.20) in Horace Odes 3.19 , a poem in which the poet, exasperated by a boring discussion, is determined to spice things up with wine, song and women. Minadeo sees the idle lyre, with its ‘hollow sounding chamber’ as representing the female element. The mention of the Berecynthian flute (18-19) (‘a ritualistic instrument of the cult of Cybele’), indicates the poet’s longing for ‘orgiastic music’ i.e. music and sex.

Likewise, in Odes 4.1, a poem full of sexual innuendo and imagery, Horace says Paulus Maximus, whom he presents to Venus as her next champion, will win ‘great triumphs’ in her army and will erect a ‘marble statue’ of her where she will hear songs accompanied (again) by the lyre, Berecynthian flute, ‘non sine fistula’ - not without a flute (v.24). If taken metaphorically the fistula becomes the instrument Paulus will ‘perform’ his art ( carminibus see note 24) with as a lover.

In Odes 4.12 Horace invites Virgil to stop being so serious for a while and ‘enjoy life’: In this poem, the shepherds ‘play’ the fistula for the goats and delight Pan ‘ cui pecus et colles Arcadiae placent’ - who loves cattle and the Arcadian hills - , maybe a covert allusion to sex with animals and a jocular reference to the Bucolica .

So the phonetic similarity between fistula and mentula must be seen as an additional hint to establish the link between them, and is by no means the only basis for it. The same mechanism can be seen at work in spicula (arrows) in Ovid Ars 2.708 and in sicula (small dagger) in Catullus Carmina 67.21 and falcula (small sickle) in CE 1900 – both cited by Adams (21 and 24). [34]

If we accept the equation fistula = mentula in this verse , then Corydon is – covertly – bragging about the length of his penis. Of course in this case we should not imagine seven segments of reed lying side by side but rather one after the other. More accurately, cicuta means ‘the space between two knots of a reed’. The two knots can be seen as the scrotum and the glans penis , and if you put seven – albeit unequal – segments of reed in between you get a very long penis - an image that may have provoked some hilarity in the audience [35] .

At first glance, the link between fistula and mentula is made meaningless by verses 37-39. After all, how could Damoetas have given his penis as a gift to Corydon? But when subjected to a closer reading, this passage can make perfect sexual sense and further supports the ambiguity of fistula . Damoetas passing his flute on to Corydon on his deathbed, can be read as the two making such passionate love [36] that Damoetas ‘dies of pleasure’ [37] claiming Corydon is his second lover. Of course, on this level quam in verse 37 must be seen as exclamatory rather than relative – an easy shift in a language that did not know punctuation: (What a fistula/penis Damoetas “gave” to me - Corydon is referring to Damoetas’ penis, not his own: he is reminiscing about his days as Damoetas’ eromenos , a role he would have Alexis play for him). Amyntas’ jealousy, then, becomes purely sexual.

There is also something odd about the little chamois ( capreoli) Corydon offers to Alexis. First of all the word capreolus is very similar to the Greek κάπρος (’boar’, but also ‘male sex organ’), and - even more fitting here - to the verb καπράω (‘being sexually aroused’) [38] . Furthermore, the word in this meaning is extremely rare in Latin poetry (the only other instance of capreolus meaning ‘chamois’ is in Columella’s De Re Rustica 9.1.1 a century later) and Virgil avoids it in the rest of the Bucolica [39] making it stand out. Their skin is sparsis albo , in the first place to hint at their age but also a possible allusion to sperm stains [40] , which would support the sexual connotation attached to these chamois by the pun on their generic name.

Virgil says about them in verse 42: ‘ bina die siccant ovis ubera’ . On the first semantic level this means ‘they dry up two udders a day’. But as Cicero points out ( Ad Familiares 9.22.3), the word bini, -ae, -a was very ambiguous because of its similarity to the Greek βινέω:’to fuck’. The combination of the Latin and Greek meaning of the word in the form used here, produces something like ‘a pair of neuter objects used for fucking’. In other words: testicula [41] . Furthermore, the word ubera , being the plural accusative of the noun uber, uberis: ‘udder, breast’, can also be the plural neuter accusative of the adjective uber, uberis : ‘fertile, abundant, big, well filled’. If by this interpretation we turn around the relation between adjective ( bina ) and noun ( ubera ) in the direct object of this sentence, and we take into account that the word ovis can also mean ‘ram’ and in Plautus ( Bacch. 5.2.3) it even means rusticus in its connotation of ‘imbecile’, then Corydon is suggesting – again without knowing it – that these (randy) chamois (or toy-boys) daily ‘drain the well filled testicles of a rusticus ’, i.e. have wild sex with him. If we surmise that the chamois were not choosy about the sex of their sexual partners, it is easily understood why the aforementioned Thestylis would like to acquire them from Corydon (43-44).

Admittedly, the sexual interpretation of the chamois-passage is less straightforward and requires more elaborate explanations than the passage about the lizard and Thestylis and the one about ‘imitating Pan’ or even the fistula . However, arguments will be presented to suggest that the Roman literary audience was very keen on this kind of innuendo and was very adept at detecting it, even when hidden very well. And even if we choose to deny the presence of sexual innuendo in the chamois, this does not cancel the possible allusions detected earlier in the text. It is a characteristic of this text that the audience can switch between two layers of meaning at will.

The symbolism of the enumeration of flowers and fruits in verses 45-55 is hard to determine. Floral symbolism varies considerably from one culture to another and it is virtually impossible to determine exactly what every flower stood for in Roman times. But if this potential source of more sexual innuendo remains closed to us, a straightforward close reading of the passage yields enough to support the sexual interpretation of Bucolica 2.

Naturally the allusion to Narcissus (v.48) is a covert criticism of Alexis’ behaviour. The Naiad bringing lilies is potentially ambiguous as well. The baskets containing the flowers are reminiscent of the canephores from Dionysian rituals: women carrying flowers and a phallus in baskets. A Naiad is a water nymph. The Greek word νύμφη also means ‘bride’ and the lily is a symbol of virginity. In other words: if Alexis has a preference for girls, he will surely find what he wants in the country. [42] A fair number of the flowers are ‘joined’ (‘ iungit’ v.48, ‘ intexens’ v.49). White violets with red poppies (virginal with deflowered women?) [43] , the narcissus (Alexis?) with the flos anethi (dill: but ἄνετος means ‘wanton man/woman’), Casia, ‘a cinnamon stick (!)’, with herbis, ‘herbs’, but herbae is also a ‘lawn’ (compare with the image of the lizard and the bush). The (fair) caltha combined with the (dark) vaccinia (v.50) are a symbol of the desired union between the dark Corydon and the fair Alexis, although the verb pingit (to color, to stain) could have a more obscene connotation here: remember the stains on the chamois’ skin. [44] And the ‘ cana tenera lanugine mala’ - grey fruit with tender fur (v.51 ) -have a lot in common with lightly furred testicles [45] , as have the ‘ castaneas nuces, mea quas Amaryllis amabat - chesnuts which my Amaryllis loved ( v.52). The joining of laurel and myrtle (vv.54-55) can be understood as an allusion to (anal) sex. [46]

The rest of the poem (vv.56-73) contains less sexual allusions, since Corydon’s virtual attempts to seduce Alexis have ended. However, there are a few more significant hints. In the verses 58-59 Corydon concludes that he has ‘spoiled it all’. The words he uses are two metaphors: one is the unleashing of a storm wind on a bed of flowers, and the second paints the image of wild boars being set free in a clear pond (‘liquidis immisi fontibus apros’ v.59). The wild boar is, as stated above, a powerful symbol of sexual passion. [47] By using this symbol Virgil may be suggesting that Corydon has ‘spoiled it all’ by his overdeveloped sex-drive, a suggestion which can only refer to the sexual overtones detected above, because there is no sign of anything sexual on the first semantic level of the poem. Of course, Corydon is not aware of this overtone in his metaphor: again, Virgil infuses his character’s words with a covert message to his audience.

Finally there is the mythical example Corydon presents to Alexis: Paris. Again the overtone eludes Corydon; he is only interested in Paris as an important mythical hero who grew up in the country: an example Alexis should follow. But the audience is liable to see Paris primarily as the most notorious adulterer in antiquity and this sets him off against the very chaste Pallas (Athena). In other words, Corydon urges Alexis to choose a rusticus over an urbanus and Virgil urges his audience to listen to its (erotic) instincts (to accept his bucolic poetry), rather than to reason (i.e. its acquired literary taste).

That the verb sequi in Corydon’s comparison between himself and various animals has a sexual connotation is obvious (see also Horace Odes 1.23, 2.5 and 3.11), and in the wolf ( lupus ) pursuing the goat ( capellam ) we might detect a hint of the connotation ‘prostitute’, attached to the female lupa . Significant in this respect is the fact that the goat is called lasciva ; in the context this means ‘avid, greedy’ but of course it also means ‘horny, lustful’. The innuendo here might serve to hint at the audience that the comparison between Corydon and the (horny) animals he mentions is even more fitting than he himself intends it to be.

In short, this analysis suggests that Virgil uses Corydon’s virtual seduction of Alexis to seduce his audience, by infusing Corydon’s innocent words with obscene overtones, made popular by the Poetae Novi , thus presenting himself as an urbanus and distancing himself from his characters. He allows the audience to laugh at his peasant, because the poor fool doesn’t realize that his words are riddled with ambiguity, or because he is the pervert that many urbani see in the typical rusticus . Furthermore, Virgil’s tactic of using innuendo rather than straightforward obscenities, offers the audience the choice to see this poem as an urbane joke or as a new genre, with its own merits.

3. Bucolica 3:

The third eclogue is a good example of an amoebaion: an ‘answering (or alternating) song’: a rigidly regulated song contest between two shepherds. But the 59 verses leading up to the actual amoebaion matter most to the theme we are discussing. They describe a quarrel between Menalcas and Damoetas, which gives rise to the contest. The sexual allusions that are to be found in this poem serve a different purpose. The aim is not so much to seduce as to score off the other and throw doubt on his sexual performance.

Damoetas kicks off the hostilities with the very ‘chaste’ verse 8, in which he – without saying it out loud – suggests something sexual, with Menalcas as the passive party: in other words something homosexual or – considering the presence and the disapproval of the he-goats from the herd – something involving an animal [48] . The use of the aposiopesis hinting at some sexual activity was taken from Theokritos Idyll 1.105 (‘οὐ λέγεται τὰν Κύπριν ὁ Βουκόλος...’ - Isn't it said that the shepherd... Cypris ) where Aphrodite is accused of having had sex with a mere shepherd (Anchises). The sentence contains a hint of reproach against the goddess for degrading herself by consorting with a member of a weaker, lower species, just as Menalcas has dishonored himself by his dalliance with a lower species. Without using one obscene word, Virgil introduces the obscene as one of the weapons used by the two quarrelling men.

In the next verse (9), Damoetas says he knows quo sacello Menalcas has performed his shameful deed. The word is an ablative of place: a sacellum, a sanctuary (in this case, of the nymphs), but it can also refer to the sanctuary between Menalcas’ buttocks, that he has allowed to be defiled. [49]

Menalcas’ reply is full of irony. He says that ‘that must have been when he ransacked Micon’s garden’, meaning Damoetas’ present accusation is as false as an earlier one about Micon’s garden. This also suggests that Damoetas himself was responsible for the ‘ransacking’ (and presumably also for the shameful sex act he hints at). The reply is also subject to sexual interpretation. Plucking grapes is a common metaphor for robbing someone of his/her virginity and the implement used ‘ mala… falce’ (10) features in Adam’s list of phallic metaphors (Adams 24). [50]

A reaction by Damoetas depicting Menalcas as jealous of the boy Damon’s ‘bow’ (= penis: Adams 21-22) prompts the accusation from Damoetas in vv.17-18 that Menalcas has stolen a he-goat. The verb used – excipere – is very vague, and gets its meaning of ‘to steal’ only by association with the word ‘ fures’ in verse 16 (itself an imitation of Catullus Carmen 66.47 – not the last time Virgil will allude to this poem: see note 63 ). But excipere can also be translated as ‘to take, to receive’ in a sexual sense [51] . The fact that Damoetas hides in the bushes, as soon as he has been caught in the act by Menalcas in an attempt to avoid arrest, can just as well be explained as an expression of shame.

In verse 22 we encounter the word fistula , already found in the second eclogue. Damoetas claims his fistula has earned the he-goat with its ‘songs’ ( carminibus) . Considering the earlier equation fistula = mentula , the carmina can be seen as a metaphor for sexual favors [52] . This makes Damon, the owner of the he-goat, an ungrateful ex-lover of Damoetas.

So far there is nothing to suggest that the characters are unaware of the ambiguity of their words. In this case, it would certainly fit the context if they were aware of it, since sexual mockery can be used as a weapon.

Menalcas reacts in verses 25-27, immediately following the reference to Damoetas’ fistula. He contests the claim that Damoetas has a real fistula and ascribes to him a shrill stipula . Both a fistula and a stipula are flutes, but a stipula is a small one, consisting of only one reed. The word also means ‘stubble’. Notice how stipula just like fistula rhymes with mentula (see my discussion of fistula 2 pp.16-19) [53] . So, if we accept the same innuendo here, Menalcas has understood the sexual allusion in Damoetas’ previous rejoinder and is making a derogatory remark about the size of Damoetas’ penis [54] , rather than about his favorite musical instrument.

Damoetas doesn’t take this insult lying down and challenges Menalcas to a song contest, which in the light of the connotations we have attached to musical instruments, can be interpreted as a contest in sexual performance. Significantly his stake is a vitula , a young heifer or calf, but also another word rhyming with mentula. Vitula in its feminine form is rare in Latin poetry, and there are strong indications that it was chosen for its phonetic likeness to mentula , which is, grammatically speaking also a feminine word.

Again, there are several other reasons besides its phonological likeness to mentula to interpret vitula as an allusion to the penis. The vitula is actually described as having two calves ( fetus ), which technically speaking, would make it a iuvenca: ‘ a heifer’. In my view, this stressing of fertility supports the phonological link.

Furthermore, vitula is derived from the Greek ἴταλος: ‘bull’. Another word for ‘bull’, taurus , is a metaphor for (among others) the male sex organ in both Greek and Latin (see Smithers/Burton). This interpretation rests on the observation that synonyms of ambiguous words can be used ambiguously as well. The classic example for this is the word penis . Originally it just meant ‘tail’, but was used as a euphemism for the penis until it lost its original meaning (See Cicero’s letter to Paetus Ad Familiares 9. 22). A synonym of penis, cauda, was subsequently used as a metaphor for the penis (Horace Satires 1.2.45).

More conclusively, in the opening verses of Horace Odes 2.5 taurus , iuvenca and vitulus/a are used with clear sexual connotations. A girl is described as being too young for the yoke ( iugum: 1 ) or to bear the assault of the mature ‘tauri ruentis in Venerem’ - bull rushing into love/intercourse (3-4). She is presented as a heifer in heat ( iuvencae… aestum: 6-7 ) eagerly desiring to play - but not actually playing - with ‘calves’ (vitulis: 8 ) in the moist thickets ( udo…salicto: 7-8). The eroticism in these verses is pointed out by Minadeo (402) and Ancona (33-34). If the taurus stands for the penis of a grown man, the vitulus/a could refer to the penis of young boys. The udo… salicto creates an image of moist pubic hair, indicating arousal. The words gravem … aestum and praegestientis (also found in Catullus Carmina 64.145 denoting desire for sexual satisfaction) counter the objection that the heifer’s frolicking only refers to non-sexual child’s play. Tortorelli calls the heifer at play ‘a graphic sexual metaphor’. I agree with him that the poem’s addressee desires a real marriage with Lalage, rather than a casual tryst (see iugum ). She doesn’t feel ready to marry, fearing the intimidating violence of adult sex ( tauri ), but her heat ( aestum ) and her desire for calves/penises ( vitulis ) suggest that she is on the verge of sexual maturity. [55]

Very conspicuous is the occurrence of the word binos combined with ubere in verse 30, just as in the second eclogue. The sentence binos alit ubere fetus means: ‘she feeds two calves with her udder’, but like in the second eclogue ( Buc .2.42: where bini also occurs in connection with an ‘ambiguous’ animal), there is another possible interpretation. As was mentioned earlier, bini is ‘to fuck’ in Greek, and fetus can be seen as a metonymy for young boys. Ubere can be translated as an ablative [56] of manner (in abundance) of the substantively used adjective uber, or, read in combination with alit, it can sound as tubere. [57] If binos is read as βινοῦσ᾿: ‘fucking’ (feminine because vitula/mentula are feminine), this sentence can mean: ‘my fucking (penis) feeds young boys with its swollen part (or ‘abundantly’)’, which would make the description of Damoetas’ stake also a piece of bragging about his sexual performance.

Menalcas hesitates at first, but then he reacts with a stake of his own: ‘ pocula / ponam fagina’ - I will offer cups of beech wood (Buc .3.36-37) -, another word ending in –ula, meaning he accepts the sexual challenge.

Again there are other arguments than phonology to equate pocula with mentula . The use of the plural in pocula can easily be seen as a poetic plural. The clearest link between the two is – again - to be found in Horace. In Odes 2.11 , a typical carpe diem -poem, the poet eggs the young on with the exhortatory question: ‘Quis puer ocius/ restinguet ardentis Falerni/ pocula praetereunte lympha?’ - Which boy will quickly douse the cups of burning Falernum in the passing stream? (18-20). The mention of the girl Lyde in the subsequent stanza and her epithet scortum leaves little doubt as to the passage’s real meaning. Minadeo (74) sees the burning Falernum as sexual passion. This makes the pocula a symbol for the penis and the lympha one for the vagina.

The link between cups and genitalia is also to be found in Horace Odes 3.15.16 where Chloris is being criticized for being sexually active at an advanced age and is told that music and roses do not fit her old age, nor do ‘poti …faece tenus cadi’ - cups emptied to the dregs -, hinting at (orally?) bringing a man to orgasm. Also in Odes 3.12 the right to consume wine is equated with the right to be sexually active (See Sutherland for this interpretation). [58]

The cup-penis link is also implicit in the story of the rape of Ganymedes by Jupiter. Jupiter appointed Ganymedes as his ‘cup-bearer’, but of course he is also his toy-boy. The link between the two is also to be found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 10.157-159: ‘Nec mora, percusso mendacibus aere pennis /abripit Iliaden; qui nunc quoque pocula miscet /invitaque Iovi nectar Iunone ministra’ - Quickly, beating the air with his misleading wings, he abducts the Trojan/ who now also mixes the drinks (unites the genitals) and offers nectar to Jupiter against Juno’s will. The key here is the word invita , indicating that Jupiter’s legitimate consort Juno objects to the activities of this newcomer in her home. There would be no point in objecting if all Ganymedes did was ‘mix drinks’ ( pocula miscet ). Miscere is a common metaphor for sexual intercourse, which in this context instills pocula with a ‘genital’ connotation. [59]

Reading on in Bucolica 3, we find the word fagina (literally: ‘made of beech-wood’, but of course a virtual homonym of the word vagina) . The word order pocula and fagina with the verb ponam (I will place/put) in between, suggests sexual intercourse. That this is intended is suggested by the prosody. Pocula and fagina are metrically identical and can be interchanged. Virgil did not do this, which suggests he did not want to avoid the sexual connotation in the text as it stands. [60]

The description of the carvings on the cups which Menalcas is offering, becomes a ridiculous eulogy on his own private parts, if we maintain the equation pocula = mentula. [61] This absurdity is announced, as it were, by Menalcas’ words in verse 36: ‘ insanire libet quoniam tibi’ [62] - since you feel like acting silly, (so will I). Remarkably, the pocula contain duo signa : an image of the astronomer Conon and an unnamed colleague commonly identified as Aratos. Conon can be translated as ‘servant’ [63] and the fact that the second scholar is not named, but only referred to as alter , means that the name also applies to the second signum. If pocula = mentula , the ‘servants’ of the mentula can only be the testicles. The astronomical knowledge Conon and his unnamed colleague have revealed, can be understood as a commentary on the power of sexual impulses over country folk ( messor, arator [64] : harvester, ploughman v. 42). The radius - measuring rod - mentioned in verse 41 is explicitly listed by Adams (15) as a metaphor for the penis. In other words, the passage can be read as a sneer at the merely instinctive sexuality of the rustici. As their only guides they accept their own gonads.

If we want to maintain that Menalcas is aware of these allusions, we must assume that he puts himself above his fellow rustici . Alternatively, we can conclude that – like Corydon in Bucolica 2 - he isn’t aware of them here or in the earlier verses. If we adopt that view, Virgil is again playing a game with his erudite audience at the expense of his characters. The sexual interpretation of this passage can be read as follows: Menalcas says he will copulate ( pocula ponam fagina) (presumably with Damoetas’ girlfriend but it can also be seen as a threat to bugger Damoetas: fagina does not have to refer to the vagina only to a vagina : a sheath), and describes his virile member as if it had figures carved into it (he means that it is heavily veined, meaning sexually vigorous). He eulogizes his two testicles ( duo signa) , the servants of his member, whose ‘rod’ (radio) is the only guide the country folk follow.

He ends the passage with the verse: ‘ necdum illis labra admovi, sed condita servo’ – I have not yet put them to my lips, but keep them safely stored -, meaning Menalcas has never drunk from the offered cups and has kept them well hidden. But it might also mean that he has never had oral sex performed on his penis, but that he prefers to put it in the usual place. [65]

Damoetas’ reply in the verses 44 to 48 again contains some possible obscene allusions. Plausibly, the cups he mentions are just as ambiguous as Menalcas’ (he explicitly mentions two cups, maybe to emphasize that his penis is twice as large as Menalcas’, but it is significant that he describes only one carved image ). The ansas (handles) mentioned here, surrounded by acanthus leaves, can be a poetic circumscription of testicles, surrounded by curly pubic hair. [66] Furthermore, Orphea in verse 46 is a virtual homonym of ὄρχεα [67] , the accusative of the Greek ὄρχις: ‘testicle’, but also a tuberous plant, very similar to a glans penis . In this interpretation, Damoetas’ statement Orpheaque in medio posuit – he put Orpheus/the glans in the middle – is, anatomically speaking, completely accurate. Medius is on Adams’ list as a vague metaphor for the penis (e.g. Catullus 80.6).

Verse 47 is a sarcastic repetition of Menalcas’ words in verse 43, but the climax is to be found in verse 48, where Damoetas compares his vitula with Menalcas’ pocula and calls Menalcas’ stake insignificant in comparison, which can be read as a derogatory remark about the other’s sexual apparatus. Menalcas is paid back in full for his sneer at Damoetas’ private parts in verses 25-27.

This last insult is the signal to look for a referee and start the amoebaion as quickly as possible. Palaemon is prepared to be the referee. Again we find traces of Alexandrian influence. In verses 55-59, Virgil is once more imitating Meleagros ( A.P. 9.363.19-23 [68] ).

In the amoebaion , which consists of unconnected couplets, the sexual allusions are no longer logically linked, as in the aforementioned quarrel: instead, we find small flickers of possible eroticism to please the public, which may be hungry for more of the same. In this respect, verse 67 ‘ notior ut iam sit canibus non Delia nostris’ - so that not even Delia is better known to our dogs - could be another reference to sex with animals. In verse 77 we have a reoccurrence of the word vitula, again with a possible sexual overtone (‘cum faciam vitula pro fruges, ipse venito’ – when I will sacrifice a calf in exchange for fruit, come yourself ) Damoetas invites Iollas for a ceremony during which he will sacrifice his vitula in exchange for fruges. It does not seem too farfetched to interpret this ‘fruit’ as sexual favors. The sexual theme is fitting here, considering the overt eroticism of the previous verse, in which Damoetas asks Iollas to send him his daughter Phyllis for his birthday.

In the rest of the poem, Virgil rouses the interest of his audience with references to his patron Pollio (vv.84-89) and by criticizing his rivals Bavius and Maevius (vv.90-91). Here we find another obscenity: ‘ mulgeat hircos’ - let him milk he-goats . Taken literally, such an act is, of course, impossible and this emphasizes the absurdity of preferring Bavius and Maevius to Pollio, but the innuendo in the image is not hard to detect. [69] Even the words ‘ frigidus… latet anguis in herba’ - a cold/insensitive snake is hiding in the grass - can be understood as a warning to the pueri in verse 93 against an insensitive (or impotent?) seducer of boys (Menalcas?). Adams (31) mentions anguis (snake) as a metaphor for the penis, albeit a flaccid penis. Lucilius (72) uses natrix (a water serpent) for the penis (‘ si natibus natricem impressit crassam et capitatam’ - if he presses his fat and thick headed water serpent between your buttocks).

In verse 101 we find another possible allusion to sex with animals (‘ idem amor exitium est pecori pecorisque magistro’ - the same love means death for the cattle and its master).

The contest ends in a tie, and Palaemon significantly says that both singers deserve a vitula. This could mean that they deserve to be ‘buggered’ with a large penis (remember Damoetas’ disparaging comparison of his vitula with Menalcas’ pocula ). This ending might be an allusion to the ending of Theokritos’ Idyll 6, also with a possible sexual innuendo (see note 33).

It is tempting to draw a link between Damoetas/Menalcas and Bavius/Maevius. As Wills (98) points out, Palaemon links the contestants to ‘quisquis amores aut metuet dulcis aut experietur amaros’ – anyone who will fear sweet love or experience bitter love (109-110: ) . We don’t know what kind of poetry Bavius and Maevius wrote, but the problematic relationship with love might well be an allusion to elegiac poetry. In this interpretation Bucolica 3 can be seen as a satirical attack on Virgil’s critics. Ironically, he uses this ‘rustic’ poem, made urbane by - among other devices - sexual innuendo, to brand his rivals as rustici , without doubt retaliating for similar criticism he received from them.

The last verse is another imitation of Catullus [70] , making it abundantly clear that Virgil wanted to be counted as a Poeta Novus.

4. The poet’s motives: ‘ There was no reason to do it!’

The analysis of Bucolica 2 and 3 outlined above requires some clarification. As said before, it is hardly the intention of this paper to claim that these poems are first and foremost meant as obscene jokes and that from now on fistula and pocula should be translated as ‘penis’ and ‘ binos alit ubere fetus’ as ‘my fucking penis feeds two boys with its swollen part’ . In the first place these bucolic poems are based on imitatio of and aemulatio with their examples - respectively Theokritos’ eleventh and fifth Idyll - and have given rise to various interpretations, some of which I have referred to briefly. For instance, I share the view of Hubbard and Leach that Corydon’s attempted and failed seduction of Alexis is a metaphor for Virgil’s (hitherto failed) attempts to seduce his audience, and reflects his desire to be recognized as an urbane poet. But they seem to conclude that because Corydon’s seduction is meant as a metaphor, its erotic character can be ignored; in fact they hardly mention this aspect of the poem in their analyzes.

What they failed (or chose not) to see is that the erotic theme was a powerful weapon in Virgil’s struggle for recognition. An obscene interpretation of this poem does not cancel the more exalted one; in fact, it reinforces it. It sheds a fascinating light on the psychology and strategy of the young ambitious poet and offers an explanation why his unusual work, to say the least, met with the success it did, in circumstances that make such a success surprising, not least for the author himself.

As mentioned above, Virgil himself claims that the bucolic genre was new in Rome. The question in his mind [71] may well have been if his intended audience would be interested in the ‘adventures’ of a gang of rustici , a breed of people, frequently subject to contempt in the city, especially in intellectual circles. [72] In addition, Virgil looked like a rusticus, as is attested by Donatus. [73] But by adding these sexual overtones, which were familiar and attractive to the audience of the Poetae Novi , Virgil tried to dissuade his audience from identifying him with his characters and looking upon him as a rusticus. Bucolica 2 and 3 are the oldest poems in the volume [74] ; they are the introduction. Virgil makes sure that his first ‘serious’ works also can be read as a parody of the classic paraclausithyron in a rustic setting about a peasant rehearsing a speech full of sexual double entendres – be they intended or accidental - to win his love, and a quarrel between two shepherds, full of obscenities! In fact, if we make abstraction of the pastoral setting, Bucolica 2 has many characteristics of a lengthy erotic epigram or an elegy [75] and Bucolica 3 is some kind of satirical invective (note the use of the hexameter, which would be much more familiar to Romans from satirical poetry than from bucolic poetry: an elegy in hexameter could be easily interpreted as a parody of an elegy!). In my view, it can hardly be a coincidence that he chose the erotic and the satirical - the two main veins of Catullus’ poetry – as his official ‘debut’.

Some might object that the success of Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgica in itself proves that Rome was ripe for ‘rustic’ poetry and that therefore there was no need for Virgil to introduce sexual innuendo in his poems. This would make the overtones this article detects mere coincidence at best, seeing that nothing near the same amount of possible innuendo can be found in the other eclogues. However, the success of Virgil’s own work does not disprove this article’s thesis. In my view, it was Virgil himself who helped create the positive attitude towards matters rustic, which was also promoted by Octavian and his entourage.

And even if we were to accept the objection and concede that this sympathy for the countryside existed before he published the Bucolica, one should ask the question how Virgil could have known this, since apparently there was no Latin bucolic poetry predating his own. It seems much more likely that – as was pointed out before - his view of the literary taste in Rome was determined by the circles he frequented (Pollio and the Poetae Novi ) and by his sympathy and admiration for Catullus. Berg (162) cites Hermann, Klingner and Duckworth to prove the enormous influence of Catullus on Virgil by metrically, thematically and verbally comparing Bucolica 4 and Catullus 64. He claims (and supports this claim with compelling evidence): Catullus (…) was Virgil’s idol – whether he knew him personally or only by report from their mutual friend Pollio ( 107 ). In his first chapter, Petrini (13) claims that the Catullan influence was still at work in the Aeneid, where he sees parallels between Virgil’s mostly dramatic ‘coming of age’-stories (e.g. Nisus and Euryalus, Pallas) and the pessimistic views of Catullus on the same subject in his longer poems, especially Catullus 65.

Furthermore, even if Virgil had been aware of some sympathy for matters rustic in other circles, what is to stop him from catering to both tastes? By using sexual innuendo throughout an entire poem, rather than the straightforward ‘bawdy humor’ (to use the words of Leach) of Theokritos – a clear case of aemulatio - he ingratiates himself with his potentially hostile urbane audience both on the level of content by confirming their view that rustics are perverted (or stupid if we assume that they are not aware of what they are alluding to) and on the level of form by proving – through the use of urbane innuendo – that he himself is quite capable of using the devices of urbane poetry. At the same time Virgil smuggles the pastoral theme into the literary salons of Rome. While a part of the urbane audience laughs at these rustici , another part – if it already existed - could enjoy two apparently chaste and naïve bucolic poems, flavored with allusions to the Alexandrian poets and Catullus. The fact that Virgil gradually leaves out the sexual allusions and the parody in his subsequent poems might suggest that he decided he could do without them – having proven his urbanitas – when he found that the audience unexpectedly liked his new genre on its own merits. [76] But – as pointed out before - even if this was the case, Virgil could not have been sure his pastoral theme would be a success before he published his first poems. Let us not forget that in 42 B.C. - the year Bucolica 2 was made public [77] – Virgil could not count on the unconditional support of Maecenas and Octavianus and had to make his way in Rome’s literary circles on his own. The fact that in attempting this he made use of the urbanitas of the Poetae Novi and (albeit covertly and therefore with added piquancy and humor) of the sexual theme they had made popular, seems not implausible.

5. Urbanitas versus rusticitas : ‘Sex isn’t urbane but rustic!’

One might object that obscenity was typical of the rustic lifestyle and rustic religious festivals. Introducing it in a poem would then add to its rusticity rather than to its urbanitas. Sexual symbols were indeed common in rustic ceremonies, but that does not mean that sex could not be mentioned in urbane literature. The real question is which types of sex were considered rustic and which were deemed urbane?

Rusticitas means ‘boorish behaviour’, a rusticus is ‘an unsophisticated, uneducated person’. Many victims of Catullus’ invectives are represented as unsophisticated and boorish by referring to their rustic descent (e.g. Egnatius in 37, 39, Mamurra in 29, 57), and although the term rusticus is never explicitly used to describe their aberrant sexual behaviour, it is often inferred. Ovid, on the other hand, seems to equate rusticitas with an exaggerated prudery [78] . How can we reconcile these two ‘definitions’ of rusticitas ?

The answer lies in the ancient principle of the aurea mediocritas. Although in Catullus’ epigrams immoral or illegal sexuality is vehemently attacked, one could hardly classify the poet as a prude. He only objects to very few kinds of sexual aberration such as fellatio, an excessive number of sexual partners, passive anal intercourse and incest (e.g. 57, 80, 88). What he considers accepted sexual behaviour obviously includes buggery and irrumatio (e.g. 16), two forms of punishment he frequently threatens his enemies with, and adultery, since he himself was carrying on with a married woman, a fact that takes the sting out of his attacks against adulterous men and women. Adultery was in fact a stock accusation both in satire and in rhetoric in order to discredit someone, and tells us more about the morals of the audience than about the accused himself. Furthermore, Catullus did not object to a promiscuous sex life per se, since he portrays himself as having affairs with prostitutes and boys (e.g. 32, 48).

What distinguishes Catullus from more traditional Romans is that he seems to look at sex primarily as a source of pleasure, and not merely as a means of procreation. The elegiac poets would do the same, going so far as considering women who had had babies as unattractive (e.g. Propertius 2.15.22). In this view, the urbanus is the one who has made sexual pleasure into an art, a game, a source of fun, disconnected from its procreative function. On the other hand (as suggested by Ovid), he does not need morality or legal restrictions to remain within the boundaries of what was considered ‘normal’ sexual behaviour. People not able to control their unnatural urges (the Mamurrae and Gellii of the world) or overly relying on (ancient) morals (like the anonymous husband addressed in Ovid Amores 3.4) and equating sexuality with fertility and procreation (as in many ‘obscene’ religious ceremonies and Augustan legislation on adultery and marriage) are considered unsophisticated, i.e. rustici .

So both obscenity and prudery fall under the term rusticitas. And if we confront Catullus 16, which cites the sexual theme as a quality in poems, with Catullus 22, where Suffenus’ poetry is dubbed ‘rustic’ and therefore no good, one can conclude that - at least in literature – the term rusticus apart from ‘unsophisticated’, ’naïve’, ‘not erudite’ also meant ‘overly prude’.

Sex was never a taboo in Latin literature, even before Catullus’ days (Lucilius’ Satires contain obscene language, Plautus’ plays have many sexual allusions), but it was confined to genres dedicated to invective or derision. What makes Catullus’ poetry new and sophisticated is not his use of sexual invective (although he did refine - the famous labor limae - the coarse form in which his predecessor Lucilius had written [79] ), but the fact that he introduced the theme of a naughty, playful, non-reproductive and therefore - in the eyes of more austere, traditional, ‘rustic’ Romans - ‘obscene’ sexuality in Latin poetry, following in that respect the example of the Alexandrian poets like Asklepiades, Dioskorides, Kallimakhos and Meleagros. Catullus created a new way (at least in Latin literature) of writing about love and sex as ‘fun’. [80]

So, sexual double entendres in Virgil’s Bucolica are a sign of urbanitas not because they refer to sex but because they refer to playful, non-reproductive sex ( Bucolica 2), and/or because they are double entendres, a sign of playfulness and sophistication (Bucolica 3), and because these allusions appear in a genre not traditionally associated with sexual invective or derision (satire and comedy).

6. Erotic ambiguity in the poetry of the Roman period. ‘ This kind of innuendo is too farfetched to be credible!’

In this analysis the equation of similarly sounding words with obscene words might be controversial. Although phonetic suggestiveness is explicitly mentioned by Adams and Ahl as a means to achieve innuendo, one might ask the question if the words that this article calls ambiguous on phonological grounds are phonetically suggestive enough to warrant the assertion that they contain sexual overtones. There are other texts to be found in antiquity that corroborate the idea that erotic allusion can be hidden in similarly sounding words. The locus classicus is of course Cicero’s aforementioned letter to Paetus ( Ad Familiares 9.22) in which he jokingly deals with the theme ‘obscenity’. From this letter several mechanisms that may give a word an obscene meaning can be deduced. There is the example of the word bini , where the obscenity lies in the obscene meaning of its Greek homonym. Other mechanisms are homophony ( illam dicam for ill ’ landicam : clitoris; cum nos for cunnos : ‘cunts’) and the inclusion of obscene words in longer words (Cicero mentions the fact that the diminutive of certain words ending in –menta was considered obscene, because that would put the word mentula in those words. He cites pavimenta , which would become pavimentula. Another example is the word divisio , which contains the word vissio = fart. [81] ). But these words and combinations are all phonologically identical rather than similar to the obscene words they are associated with. To find certain examples of innuendo hidden in phonetically suggestive words, other than the ones already mentioned by Adams (see note 12) we must turn to the Anthologia Palatina . For instance, the aforementioned Stratôn calls himself Ἀστυάναξ in one of his epigrams (A.P.12.11) to indicate that at a crucial moment he has failed to sustain his erection. He interprets the word as a combination of the α- privativum and στύω:’to have an erection’. Fronto (A.P.12.174) makes the same pun with the name Ἀστυάγης.

In one of his poems Antipatros of Thessalonica also uses ambiguous names to give an, at first sight, very chaste poem a sexual meaning. One of the characters is called Μηριόνης because of the similarity to μηρός:’thigh’: an allusion to the so-called ‘intercrural’ sexual intercourse. Another character’s name is Ποδαλείριος, a name indicating a problem with the feet, but in these epigrams feet are frequently a euphemism for the penis. [82] Stratôn does something similar in A.P.12.247. Marcus Argentarius (A.P.5.63) uses significant geographical names: an Αἰτωλή is a seducer (as in αιτέω: to ask) and a Μῆδος is someone who does not allow him/herself to be seduced (as in μὴ and δίδωμι) Philodemos ( A.P. 5.115) goes so far as to interpret his own name as ‘he who likes (the girl) Demo’. Rufinus ( A.P. 5.18) claims that he prefers Andromache to Hermione: in other words, he loves a woman ‘who fights with men’, ‘fighting’, meaning ‘making love’, just as the verb luctari often means ‘making love’ in elegiac poetry. Stratôn ( A.P. 12.185) says about some very handsome but arrogant boys that they are not for him but for the ‘raven’. He means ‘flatterers’ (κόραξ being very similar to κόλαξ). In A.P. 5.156 the girl Asklepias with her shining sea-eyes invites everyone to sail on her sea of love. Ἐρωτοπλοεῖν is very similar to Ἐρωτοποεῖν (to make love), and the suffix πλοεῖν (another form for πλέω) reminds us of πλέος: ’full’, ‘saturated’. So it seems that words that sound like obscene words can be made ambiguous if put in the right context. [83] Furthermore, it has been pointed out (See notes 33, 34, 53, 55 and 58) that in Bucolica 2 and 3 homophony is never the only reason why a word is ambiguous .

To further object that some of the double entendres detected in Bucolica 2 and 3 are farfetched and would never have been noticed by the audience, is to underestimate the sophistication of the literary audience in antiquity, as is apparent from some obscure sexual overtones in the Anthologia Palatina . In A.P. 5.105 Marcus Argentarius uses the constellations Dog (κύνα) and Gemini (διδύμους) to indicate the male private parts. The Greek word κύων:‘dog’ can - metonymically - mean ‘penis’, since it is also the word denoting the point where the foreskin is attached to the penis, which is derived from another meaning of the word, namely ‘rivet’. The ‘twins’ (διδύμους) require no explanation. In A.P. 12.187 Stratôn plays a very obscure game. A music lesson becomes a lesson in sexual technique. The poet advises his interlocutor to storm at his detractors by uttering the letters ‘λ’ and ’α’. These are not mere musical notes, but also allusions to oral and anal sex (like Catullus’ pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo) [84] . In A.P. 12.225 Stratôn warns his fellow pederasts not to μίσγεσθαι ταύρῳ...φλογόεντα κύνα in the morning, because if they do, they βρέξῃς τὴν λασίην Ἡρακλέους ἄλοχον: ( One should not mix the shining Dog with the Bull’ because then one risks to ‘soil the hairy consort of Hercules .’) The link between ‘dog’ and penis has been explained earlier. But ταύρος can also mean: ‘the perineum’ and therefore, ‘the anus’. The ’hairy consort of Hercules’ can be explained as follows: Hercules’ consort is the goddess of youth, Hebe. Youth stands for virility and so once more for the male sex organ, which is ‘hairy’, indeed. So, Stratôn warns against anal sex early in the morning because one risks encountering one’s lover’s evening meal in his rectum!

Even more significant is the fact that we find similar (albeit less obscene) ambiguities in Alexandrian poets like Asklepiades, Dioskorides, Poseidippos and Meleagros, who – as we saw earlier – had a fair amount of influence on Bucolica 2. In A.P. 12.36 Asklepiades plays on the words αὐχμηρὰς ‘dry’ in combination with καλάμας (remember calamus in Bucolica 2 ) and ἀσταχύων which allows several sexual interpretations; αὐχμηρὰς echoes the sexually ambiguous word μηρός in verse 2 of the same poem. The word ἄσταχυς ‘wheat’ can also mean ‘child, youth’. So Asklepiades might be asking who would prefer an old, dried up lover to a young one [85] . In A.P. 12.46 the mention of a game of ‘knucklebones’ (᾿αστραγάλοις) might well hide an allusion to the testicles or the penis. The word is reminiscent of στραγγαλία: glands or, alternatively, a kind of swelling provoked by a thickening of one of the ‘humors’. In A.P. 12.42: Dioskorides uses the image of fishing without a hook, for a person who flirts without the intention of having sex. The hook is a metaphor for the erect penis. In A.P.12.45 Poseidippos uses the image of the archer. Bow and arrow are obvious sexual images, especially when combined with the presence of Eros or, as in this case, ‘Erotes’, a possible metonymy for ‘lovers’. In this context the verb νικάω means: ‘to seduce’. And then there is Meleagros. It has been pointed out that the name ‘Alexis’ comes from Meleagros’ poems (A.P.12.127 and 164). It gets even more interesting when in A.P. 12.164 we find a love scene between Meleagros’ beloved Alexis and the latter’s lover Kleoboulos. The parallel with the triangle Corydon-Alexis-Iollas is striking. And again, there is an ambiguity to be found in this poem. To describe the union between Alexis and Kleoboulos, Meleagros uses the metaphor of the sweetening of wine. He calls the result οἰνόμελι: a possible allusion to the sperm that would result from the union between the two boys. [86] Πικροῦ μέλιτος, ‘bitter honey’ in A.P. 12.81 invites the same interpretation. Another significant poem, directly linked to Virgil’s Bucolica is A.P. 12.41, in which Meleagros swears off homosexual love and leaves the embrace of ‘hairy caves’ to the ‘goat-jumping shepherds’ (ποιμέσιν αἰγοβάταις). Here, homosexuality is brought upon a level with sex with animals. In A.P. 12.154 he complains that the boy Muïskos is playing hard to get and that, as a consequence, Desire (Ἔρως) ’mixes the honey with bitterness’. Is Meleagros deploring a lonely masturbation session here? Also in Meleagros’ heterosexual epigrams we sometimes find subtle obscenities. In A.P. 5.197 he enumerates the girls he has seduced and asks Eros for a breather. But if the god wants it, Meleagros is prepared to ‘draw his final breath’. The words he uses are πνεῦμα...ἐκπτύσομαι: ‘I will spit out my breath’. But πνεῦμα can also mean ‘life’s essence’ i.e. sperm [87] . In A.P. 12.47 there is a similar wordplay on ᾿αστράγαλος as in the poem by Asklepiades mentioned above and again the word πνεῦμα is used, suggesting that Eros’ playing with Meleagros’ gonads has caused him to ejaculate. And, tantalizingly, in A.P. 12.94 Meleagros omits an obscene word, just as Virgil did in Bucolica 3.8. If Meleagros and the others expected their audience to discover all these hidden obscenities, then it can hardly be called farfetched to say that Virgil’s audience would note the rather straightforward link between for instance fistula and mentula in Bucolica 2 and 3. [88]

Another possible objection to the interpretation offered here, more precisely to the equation of oblong objects with the male sex organ, long before anyone had ever heard of Freud, can be refuted with countless examples. Let A.P. 5.129, a poem by Automedon in which a pole has a clear phallic meaning, and Corpus Priapeorum 10, where Priapus refers to his columna, suffice. And as Minadeo points out (12): ‘although a study such as this would be unthinkable except for Freud, it is not indebted to his authority. (…) the language of sexual symbolism was familiar to the poets from time immemorial.’

7. Sexual innuendo outside ‘Priapus’ garden’? ‘Such innuendo did not occur in “serious” (Latin) literature!’

We have established that sexual innuendo was by no means rare in Roman times, and that it could be very sophisticated. But our examples thus far all stem from (Greek) epigrams. In her impressive study about the obscene in Roman literature, Richlin seems to draw a clear line, claiming that sex in Roman literature was confined to a reservation (The garden of Priapus), comprised of satire, comedy, rhetoric invective and epigram. [89] So one might say that there is no point in looking for sex outside this reservation. But in my view this is reading too much into Richlin’s conclusion. First of all, even if we accept the - in my view too broad - interpretation that most Romans would have considered any reference to sex in literary genres not belonging to the garden of Priapus as some sort of taboo, that doesn’t mean no poet ever defied that taboo. References to sex can be found in lyric, elegiac, even epic poetry. What made this ‘transgression’ acceptable to a degree [90] was the use of euphemism, metaphor, metonymy and innuendo. Secondly, Richlin seems to have a problem defining which genres belong in her garden and which do not. Some of the genres she includes do not fit her own criteria. She talks about ‘explicit sexual language’ and (not ‘or’) ‘explicit descriptions of sexual acts’ but she also includes rhetoric invective, which never uses explicit sexual language. The same can be said about the work of Ovid, which – again - contains many references to sexual matters, but no explicit sexual language or descriptions. Richlin calls Ovid’s work - a blending of elegy, satirical and didactic poetry – ‘hard to triangulate’ and only satirical in the sense that he is flippant. What makes it so hard for Richlin to ‘triangulate’ is the fact that the ‘flippancy’ and a primary interest in sex (as in satire or epigrams), isn’t associated with explicit language or explicit descriptions of sexual acts (unlike satire or epigrams). This, to my mind, is significant. It shows that the fence around the so-called garden of Priapus wasn’t all that high, and that you didn’t have to write satire, comedy or epigrams to be able to write about sex. In fact, if the characteristics of his work earn Ovid a membership to the Priapus club, many other poets (e.g. the elegiac poets and Horace) are equally eligible, since they are also ‘flippant’ about sex at times. It is clear that the ladder allowing sex to get over the fence around Priapus’ garden was… innuendo, i.e. euphemism, metaphor, metonymy and double entendres.

Richlin’s trouble with Ovid also suggests that it is never fruitful to consider a literary genre as a monolith with fixed characteristics. Indeed, Thomas (1999) has pointed out that in the Hellenistic and Roman period, the word ‘genre’ is of little significance. The concept of aemulatio constantly changes the characteristics of what is considered a specific genre. In his own days, Theokritos’ Idylls were considered some form of ‘epic’, although they differ immensely from Homer, as is apparent when comparing the image of the Cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyss ey with that in Theokritos’ Idyll 11 . And Virgil has taken the transformation further by changing Polyphemus into Corydon. So while Theokritos introduced pastoral (and satirical) elements in epic, Virgil introduced elegiac elements in pastoral poetry. [91] Likewise, Horace playfully alludes to sex in many of his Carmina , in a way familiar from epigrams, but that doesn’t make these lyric poems into epigrams. Let us now consider some examples from Virgil’s own time of sexual allusions in genres not associated with epigram, satire or comedy.

Innuendo in lyric poetry: Horace

I have already pointed out some sexual innuendo in Horace’s Odes in order to support the claim that some of the words in the two eclogues under scrutiny here were in fact ambiguous [92] . But to avoid the accusation of ‘begging the question’ in this case I will present a somewhat more extensive analysis of Horace Odes 3.19 - a poem with an obvious ‘erotic’ content. In verses 1-8 the poet evokes a recitation , clearly of some didactic or epic work, and Horace complains that this teaches him nothing about the pleasures of life (wine, warmth, hospitality). In verses 9-12 he orders a puer to pour him three cups of wine for a drinking feast using the ambiguous verb dare, which can also mean ‘consenting to sexual intercourse’, three times. As argued before, it seems appropriate in this context to read a sexual overtone in pocula, as we did in Bucolica 3. Richlin points out that food or drink is often equated with sex, so one can deduce that offering food or drink can be equated with offering sex. [93] The subsequent verses 13-16 focus on the question whether a bona fide poet should take three or nine helpings, one for every Muse, but Horace suggests that this would not be ‘graceful’ ( prohibet…Gratia ) meaning that it would lead to drunkenness and brawling (or that it would be a sign of an exaggerated sexual appetite: rixa: ‘a brawl or fight’ also means ‘sexual intercourse’, e.g. in Propertius 2.15.4). In verse 17 he introduces the notion of nudity ( nudis…sororibus , referring to the three Graces, but – significantly - in a sort of enjambement, loosening the link with Gratia in verse 12). In 19-20 he mentions flutes ( tibiae, fistula ) in a question that can either mean ‘why don’t we play some music?’ and ’ why are we not engaging in sex?’ Also the sprinkling of roses in verse 22 can have sexual connotations. [94] The rest of the couplet is an exhortation to engage in a loud feast. In the last couplet, love ( amor v. 28 ) is finally mentioned in connection with the girls Rhode and Glycera. Although the lyric convention requires that no description of intercourse is given, the sexual overtones in the rest of the poem suggest to the audience that the party also involved sex. So the poem remains chaste on its first semantic level, but gets its sexual dimension from innuendo. Without it this would just be a poem about drink and song. With it, it is about drink, song and sex.

We find the same kind of subtle innuendo in other Odes by Horace. For instance in Odes 1.19, a harsh winter vista inspires Horace to a poem with the famous ‘ carpe diem ’-theme. ‘Enjoy life, Thaliarchus, while you can.’ The things to be enjoyed also include sex; in the last couplet (vv. 21-24) [95] Horace evokes giggling girls and a pignus which is ‘stolen’ ‘…lacertis/aut digito male pertinaci.’ (from/by the arm/penis or the very persistent finger) Lacertis and digito can be taken innocently and then they are the arms or the finger of the girl from which a love token ( pignus: in this case a ring or a bracelet ) is taken. But they can also be taken as ablative of means, in which case they are the lacertis (‘arms’ or ‘lizard/penis’: see Bucolica 2 [96] ) and the probing ( male pertinaci : ‘very persistent’) finger of Thaliarchus, penetrating the girl. [97] In 3.9 Horace makes a survey of all his lovers. He claims he would be prepared to die once for his current female lover Chloë and twice for his male lover Calaïs. But if Lydia came back to him he would gladly live and die with her. [98] If we take to die as ‘to have an orgasm’ (see note 37), Horace is actually saying that Calaïs gives him twice as much pleasure as Chloë, but that if Lydia came back to him, he would see to it that she gets her share of the pleasure as well, which proves she is special to him. For some, this interpretation might sound like a profanation of a sensitive and passionate love poem, but I don’t agree. Horace openly flaunts his promiscuity here, and although he might have genuine feelings for Lydia, they do not preclude having sex with her. Furthermore, these overtones are very subtle: the reader may miss them or even choose to ignore them if he is so inclined. They give the poem a little extra spice without destroying the overall flavor of devotion; Horace doesn’t ram his mentula down the reader’s throat, like Catullus or Martial.

Innuendo in (non parodic) elegy: Tibullus and Propertius

The same kind of subtle innuendo can be found scattered throughout the elegies of both Tibullus and Propertius. At first glance, Tibullus’ elegies have a much more chaste and religious tone to them than Horace’s (or for that matter Propertius’ and Ovid’s) love poems. He never actually describes or even mentions sexual intercourse. A more melancholy figure, he focuses on the pains and problems of love rather than on its physical pleasures. But that doesn’t mean there is no sign of sexual activity in his elegies.

In 1.4 the god Priapus gives advice on how to seduce boys. In verses 51-52 he suggests to let the boy win in military exercises that sound suspiciously sexual (‘saepe dabis nudum, vincat ut ille, latus’ - you will often offer him your naked flank, so he can win ), latus being one of elegy’s stock euphemisms for the sex organs (of both sexes).

1.5 is riddled with sexual innuendo: In verses 21-28 Tibullus paints a picture of sober rural life with his beloved Delia. He describes her as ‘custos frugum’ (guardian of fruits) (v.21). Custos is potentially ambiguous because the Greek κύσθος means ‘vagina’ (or ‘anus’). She ‘servabit uvas’ - will tend to the/her grapes ( v.23 ). Grapes are, as was mentioned earlier, a symbol of virginity about to be ‘plucked’. Here they are trampled underfoot, but as was pointed out before (see note 82) feet can be a metaphor for the penis. Her garrulus verna (talkative slave) ‘will be used to playing in the lap (or bosom) of his loving mistress’ (consuescet amantis/ garrulus in dominae ludere verna sinu ). Also, the food she will offer the ithyphallic god Priapus, the farmer-god ( deo…agricolae , v.26) – again grapes ( uvam v.26) and ears of wheat ( spicas v.27) – has a sexual ring to it. ‘Deseruit Venus’ (Venus abandoned (me)) in verse 40 is a euphemistic way of referring to impotence. And the bawd that has introduced Delia to a rich lover is cursed by wishing on her the humiliating punishment of ‘tristia cum multo pocula felle bibat’ - drinking foul cups/penises with lots of gall’ (v.50). This refers to poison, but it can also be an equivalent to the irrumatio , with which Catullus threatens his friends in Carmen 16. Horace reserves a similar humiliation for an ugly, randy vetula in Epode 8. And when Tibullus sings of the virtues of a poor lover he assures her that he will be ‘primus et in tenero fixus erit latere’ - the first to cling to your tender side (v. 62), possibly a promise of sexual prowess, in light of the sexual connotation in ‘ latus ’ (see above).

In 1.7, Tibullus praises Osiris, whom he equates with Bacchus. Osiris is depicted as the god who introduced agriculture and the cultivation of the vine to man. Plowing ( aratra v.29) as a sexual metaphor has been discussed earlier (note 64). And verses 33-34 can be seen as ambiguous considering the sexual connotations of palus, falx, vitis and coma. ‘hic docuit teneram palis adiungere vitem/hic viridem dura caedere falce comam’ - he taught to join the tender vine/ vagina to stakes/penises and cut/ pound on the green/ vigorous foliage/ pubic hair with a hard sickle/ penis ’. The equation Osiris = Bacchus makes the sexual interpretation appropriate. Furthermore, the overtone does not replace the first semantic layer of the text, but adds to it. Tibullus uses the celebration of Osiris/Bacchus as introducer of agriculture to hint at the sexually explicit rituals associated with Bacchus, making him also a praeceptor amoris of sorts, without having to resort to the use of sexually explicit words.

In 1.9.7 he uses the image of connecting the bull to the plough when talking about a rusticus : this could be a reference to anal intercourse (see the discussion about A.P. 12.225 above for the bull as the anus and note 64 for the plough as penis). For all his love of the country, Tibullus remained an urbane poet, so covert satire against rustici is not surprising. Moreover, in this passage Tibullus is listing things men do ‘for profit’ in a poem where Marathus has ‘sold’ himself to a rich suitor. Hinting at male prostitution is appropriate in such a context. In verses 59-64 Tibullus insults his rich rival by wishing/hinting that his wife is sexually hyperactive. He does this by comparing her with her husband’s sister, criticizing her in the process. ‘Nec lasciva soror dicatur plura bibisse/pocula vel plures emeruisse viros .’ - Let no one say that her horny sister drank more cups/penises (than your wife), nor that she ‘serviced’ more men (vv. 59-60). Having sex with men is associated here with drinking from a cup ( pocula ). If we equate pocula with mentula , as we did before ( vel can be taken as explicative , so that emeruisse viros becomes an epexegesis of bibisse pocula), the insult is even worse, hinting at fellatio . The rest of the passage refers to the expert knowledge of both women about sexual positions in a manner unusually explicit for Tibullus.

In 1.10 Tibullus is praising the blessings of Pax. He explicitly hints at (rather violent) sex in the verses 51-59. At the end of the poem Pax is depicted as a benevolent goddess whose fruits ( pomis) ‘pour’ from her clothes or bosom ( candidus sinus ), which suggests the image of a woman presenting her full breasts to her lover, which may be exactly the fruit Tibullus is craving. (The bull-plough-connection reoccurs and the hint at homosexual intercourse would be appropriate in a poem praising the advantages of Pax, but a sexual interpretation of the passage here is less straightforward and it is doubtful if any is intended.)

Finally, in 2.2.13-16 Tibullus is praising Cornutus’ wife and claims: ‘Nec tibi malueris, totum quaecumque per orbem/fortis arat valido rusticus arva bove/nec tibi, gemmarum quidquid felicibus Indis/nascitur, Eoi qua maris unda rubet,’ - You would not prefer whatever field in the whole world is ploughed by a strong peasant with an enormous bull, nor would you prefer whatever gems originate in fertile India, where the waves of the Eastern sea are red -, which might mean that Cornutus wouldn’t prefer sex with ( arat : to plough, see note 64) any boy ( arva ) or woman ( gemma: clitoris) to sex with his wife.

Propertius is a more playful poet than Tibullus. He is very much interested in the love act itself and describes it frequently, but through euphemism, or euphemistic metaphor (e.g. 2.2.4: furta , 2.15.4-5: rixa, luctata est and 11: Venerem corrumpere). He also uses sexual innuendo for invective (2.16.14: ‘rumpat membra libidinibus’ - may his members be broken by lust and 27: ‘barbarus excussis… lumbis – a barbarian with exhausted loins ), or to give added piquancy to an at first glance innocent passage (e.g. 1.3.23-26: where fondling Cynthia’s sleeping body is disguised as an offering of fruit, using the like endings of dative and ablative and the absence of possessive pronouns in Latin to make the passage ambiguous: ‘cavis poma dabam manibus’ (24 ) can mean: ‘I gave her fruits with my hollow hands’ or ‘I presented my hollow hands with her fruits/breasts’. And ‘munera de…voluta sinu’ can mean ‘gifts poured from my bosom’ or ‘gifts poured from her bosom’). Sometimes it is used to emphasize the inferred sexual content of a poem. For instance, in 1.10.1, testis means ‘witness’, but also hints at what it was Propertius witnessed by its other meaning ‘testicle’, an allusion that is confirmed by the rest of the poem [99] (the same pun is used in 1.13.14).

In 1.14.11-12: the effects of Cynthia being in bed with Propertius are described in a simile about river Pactolus overflowing and the poet finding gems from the Red Sea. The first is a hint at a male orgasm and the second a play on the double meaning of gemma (gem/clitoris).

The use of flowers to hint at sex in 1.20.37-38 was discussed earlier (see note 43).

In 2.6.10: Propertius says he is so jealous, he even mistrusts babies in their cribs ( in cunis ) when they are around Cynthia. The pun with cunnus ‘cunt’, actually makes the image of Propertius’ sick jealousy that much more powerful. When it comes to Cynthia he can even imagine her having sex with babies! In the same poem he blames Romulus for introducing promiscuity in Rome, hinting at an explanation for Romulus’ wanton behaviour with the Sabine maids by calling him ‘nutritus duro lacte lupae’ - nourished with harsh milk of a she-wolf , where the second meaning of lupa , ‘whore’, shines through.

In 2.14.25-26 a votive offering to Venus is sexually ambiguous; Propertius writes that when Cynthia comes to him, he will fix great presents to Venus’ columna (meaning the pillars of her shrine). But Venus’ column is an obvious euphemism for the penis. So what he is also saying is that when Cynthia comes, he will have great sex with her.

In 2.17.9 Propertius is criticizing Cynthia for having betrayed him and bemoans his fate saying ‘durius in terris nihil est quod vivat amante.’ - There is nothing on earth with a harder life than a lover. This observation of the harsh fate of a lover is explained by the innuendo, which suggests that Propertius is suffering from an excruciating hard-on he cannot get rid of because of his girl’s betrayal.

In 2.19.19-24 Propertius says he will be chaste in Cynthia’s absence and will turn to Diana. But he makes a clear distinction between two kinds of hunting. He says he will avoid hunting lions, a metaphor also used by Horace in Odes 1.23 to denote a sexually aggressive man, and sues: ‘pigs’, the Greek equivalent of which (χοῖρος) carries the connotation of ‘vagina’ (see note 15). So at first sight Propertius uses double entendres here to emphasize his promise of chastity. He claims he will not hunt for a new lover but only for ‘lepores’ and ‘avem’ ‘hares’ and ‘a bird’. But for the really attentive reader the message of the double entendres is quite different. First of all, Diana is an ambiguous goddess, not only known for her virginity but also as a divinity associated with fertility through her role as protector of pregnant women. Avem might refer to the winged Amor and lepus is used by Plautus as a term of endearment for a girl ( Casina 1.50). Petronius ( Satyricon 131.7 ) even uses it as a metaphor for a penis, and lepores is also the plural of lepor/lepos : ‘charm, charmer’. Furthermore Propertius calls the lepores ‘ mollis’, another sexually ambiguous word. Note also the bucolic setting and the use in this erotic context of the words excipere, figere and calamo, all of which occur in Bucolica 2 and 3 and are susceptible to obscene interpretation . If taken like this, and I think there is strong reason to do so, the sexual overtones in this passage suggest to the reader that Propertius really wants to stay chaste (abstaining from ‘lions and ‘pigs’), while Cynthia is away, but that deep down, he knows he will not be able to keep his own promise (the hares and the ‘bird’). [100]

In two poems, the word lacertus in its normal sense of ‘upper arm’ is used in an amorous context, making the equation with ‘ mentula ’ meaningful. In 2.8.5 Propertius asks himself ‘possum ego in alterius positam spectare lacerto?’ - can I bare the sight of her hanging on another’s ‘arm’ - in a poem about losing his love. The innuendo based on lacertus = mentula makes sense because it suggests what Propertius imagines when he sees his girl hanging on someone else’s arm, a vision which would hurt him much more than what he actually sees. The same allusion occurs in 1.16.33.

So not only Ovid, that somewhat peculiar satirist among elegiac poets, used sexual imagery and innuendo [101] ; it can also be found in other elegiac and lyric poets of the era. The obscene can indeed be found outside the garden of Priapus, not as a major topic or primary concern, but as an overtone, an added dimension, which the reader (or listener) can take or leave as he fancies and which sometimes gives added depth to a poem.

8. Molle et facetum:Virgil and sex ‘Bucolic poetry is not about sex, only about love! Virgil was not the frivolous type!’

We have established that sexual overtones were not uncommon in the non-satirical poetry of Virgil’s days, and that Bucolica 2 and 3 contain words that are sometimes used for sexual innuendo and that therefore these poems can be interpreted in a sexual sense. But should we do so? There remains the danger of hineininterpretieren . It is true that, if one searches long and hard enough, an ambiguity can be found in many texts. In his collection of stories called Het laatste boek (The Last Book), the Flemish scholar and writer Paul Claes has given a hilarious example of such hyper-interpretation. In his book a poet interprets the opening verses of Virgil’s Aeneid , and ultimately the entire epic, in sexual terms. One could say that this paper makes the same error. Or as one critic put it: sometimes a lizard is just a lizard. Maybe pastoral poetry was one of the havens for the chaste? Or maybe Virgil – considering his nickname Parthenias, which is usually interpreted as ‘virginal’ – just wasn’t that kind of a poet?

In my view, there are several arguments to refute these assumptions.

First of all, the possible sexual ambiguities in Bucolica 2 and 3 are so numerous and constitute such a coherent subplot, that the chances that they are all coincidental and merely the fruit of hineininterpretieren are very slim indeed. Some of the ambiguities mentioned here might seem farfetched, but so do many of the acknowledged allusions in Greek epigrams. And even if some allusions require too elaborate explanations for some to believe in them, many more obvious ambiguities remain, once one is alerted to their presence. Furthermore, there is a huge difference between Bucolica 2 and 3 and the Aeneid . The Aeneid is not about love, much less about sex (there is some love and even sex in it, but they are by no means the main theme of the poem). Bucolica 2, on the other hand, can be read as a parody of a paraclausithyron disguised as a pastoral poem, and in Bucolica 3 Virgil is making a pastoral variation on the theme of satirical (sexual) invective as practiced by Lucilius and Catullus. Erotic ambiguities do make sense in a poem about the (problematic) love between two shepherds or in a quarrel in which the obscene is used as a ‘weapon’. Nobody in their right mind would give a sexual interpretation to the word testis in a juridical text. But in a scathing speech by Cicero, one of Martial’s epigrams or the Corpus Priapeorum or even in a love elegy or in one of the more erotic stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (like in the story about Sol, Leucothoë and Clytië (4.225) where sine teste means that Sol, disguised as a woman, is talking to Leucothoë without witnesses, but since he shows himself in the likeness of Leucothoë’s mother he is also ‘without testicles’, a typical Ovidian joke), such an interpretation is not out of place. Just as lacerta just means ‘lizard’ in Pliny, but can be an allusion to a penis in a love poem by Horace or an epigram by Martial. Or in a bucolic poem by Virgil.

Secondly, pastoral poetry, as a genre, was not ‘chaste’ at all. Coleman (10) points at the prominence of the sexual theme in Theokritos’ Idylls , for instance: the easy promiscuity of Idylls 5 and 27. Idyll 3 he characterizes as a ‘parody of a paraclausithyron ’! And he calls Idyll 11 comic and pathetic, linking it to satire. [102] In Idyll 7, which has received a lot of attention because of its programmatic character and because it is considered a very urbane poem, in which existing poets are masquerading as shepherds, there is also some sexual innuendo, which can be considered as a joke between poets. In Lycidas’ song, there is mention of his beloved Ageanax taking a trip to Lesbos. Lycidas says that on the day of Ageanax’ arrival (in Lesbos or back home – this is not specified) he will celebrate, laid back on a bed of κνύζα τ´ ἀσφοδέλῳ τε πολυγνάμπτῳ τε σελίνῳ (v.68 ) κνύζα is commonly seen as a syncopated form of κόνυζα, but the term itself means ‘an itch’. As for ἀσφόδελος, this is a synonym for a plant called πόθος, which also means ‘desire, love’. And σέλινον is a metaphor for the female genitalia, as is mentioned in a scholion to Theocritus 11,10, (see note 18); πολύγναμπτον can mean ‘curly’, or, ‘with many curves’. So Lycidas covert message here is that he will lie on a bed of ‘longing’, ‘desire’ and ‘female genitalia’ (maybe to comfort him for Ageanax’ absence). Note that in this erotic context both cups (pocula) and flutes (fistula) are mentioned (κυλίκεσσι v.70 and αὐλησεῦντι v.71 ), each allowing for a sexual interpretation consistent with an orgy. And then of course there is Idyll 27 where Daphnis, out to seduce a young girl invites her to come and sit under the elm trees, to ‘listen to his flute’. And when she refuses, Daphnis tells her she will incur the wrath of Aphrodite, inferring that what she has declined belongs to the realm of physical love. In verse 46-49 Daphnis brags about his flexible ‘cypress trees’. The girl reacts by telling her goats she will go and see his ‘work’ as he instructs his bulls (!) to graze peacefully because he wants to show the girl his ‘bushes’ [103] , only to go and fondle the girl’s breasts, claiming he wants to instruct her. Verse 54 is equally ambiguous ‘ἀλλ` ὑπο σοὺς πέπλους ἁπαλὸν νάκος ὴνίδε βάλλω’ Daphnis says he will ‘throw a rug under the girl’s ‘peplos’, to make her comfortable and to protect her clothing. But βάλλω can also be translated as ‘to hit or strike’, and the νάκος may be a thinly disguised reference to pubic hair, which indeed lies ‘under’ the girl’s peplos. [104] And in Idyll 29 a sexually promiscuous boy who plays hard to get with the poet is described as someone who ‘sits on a different branch every day’ ( vv.14-15 ).

And the sexual theme is not limited to Theokritos. Biôn’s fragment 9 is an epigram rather than a pastoral. And Virgil’s successor Calpurnius Siculus, who is indebted to Virgil in more than one respect, describes a scene in his third Bucolica where the hotheaded Lycidas beats the bare breasts of Phyllis, out of jealous rage. Herôndas 6 ^th mime, a genre also practiced by Theokritos, depicts two women discussing the merits of a cobbler who seems to specialize in leather dildos. It is clear that anyone in Virgil’s audience who was remotely acquainted with Greek pastoral poetry would at least expect the possibility of references to sex.

Furthermore, in antiquity Virgil did have a reputation as a ‘naughty’ poet. Horace writes about him in Satires 1.10.44-45 ‘molle atque facetum/Vergilio adnuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae’ - the Muses who love the countryside granted wantonness and wit to Virgil -, referring explicitly to the Bucolica . Mollis is exactly the adjective Catullus uses to describe his own erotic poetry in Carmen 16 and in Carmen 22 he calls the rustic poetry of Suffenus ‘ infacetus ’ (see note 3). Or as Clausen puts it in his introduction to his edition of Virgil’s Eclogues: ‘ Horace discerned in the Eclogues the wit that Catullus denied to country things .’ Minadeo (133-135) goes so far as to deduce from Horace’s Odes 4.12 that Horace and Virgil were one time homosexual lovers, based on – among others - Horace’s phrase ‘animae dimidium meae’ (half of my soul), which is a term of homosexual endearment also found in Meleagros and Kallimakhos. He also mentions a recently discovered Vita Vergiliana of the ninth century, which characterizes Virgil’s life as not to be imitated, nor worthy of remembrance . [105] Pliny, in Epistulae 5.6, talks about serious writers who have indulged in ‘obscene poetry’, inter quos vel praecipue numerandus est P. Vergilius . Likewise Propertius and Ovid cite Virgil as a kindred spirit, again with reference to the Bucolica . Propertius treats Virgil as an author of interest to amatory readers in 2.34.67-84, a passage full of allusions to the Bucolica . [106] In this passage ‘the erotic potential of the Eclogues has become the sole preoccupation.’ ( Thomas ). Ovid cites Virgil in Tristia 2.537-8, his self-defense against the charge of obscenity, inferring that his great predecessor was equally obscene in his writings, and ‘ he was never punished by Augustus’ . Fantuzzi cites several passages in Propertius and Ovid (Propertius 1.18, 2.13, 2.19, 2.30,2.34, 3.13; Ovid Heroides 5 and Metamorphoses 10.533-552 ) where these poets ‘adapt’ and idealize bucolic motifs (from Virgil, Theokritos, Biôn and also Leonidas and Meleagros) and concludes that (10) ‘the bucolic environment quite often becomes, for Propertius and Ovid, the wishful setting of the ‘road not taken’ by elegiac love, namely the idealized happy prehistory or alternative to the urban environment where the unhappiness of elegiac poetry was enacted.’ In their work the bucolic is the setting, however idealized and unreal, where love is safe and happy. In a sense it is more erotic than the urban/elegiac setting with its connotations of lament and unhappy love. So, Propertius and Ovid must have found something in - among others - the Bucolica that suggested to them that Arcadia was a place of love without tears. [107] In 2.19 Propertius seems to attribute the safety of the countryside to a lack of temptations for his promiscuous Cynthia, only to ‘contradict’ this with an ambiguous hunting-metaphor (see above p.57). In 2.34 he emphasizes the easy access to lovers, suggesting that sex in the country was frivolous, without all consuming passions. This might seem strange, since on the surface Virgil’s lovers seem distinctly elegiac in the sense that their loves are generally unhappy and all consuming (e.g. Gallus and Corydon himself). Also in Theokritos we find elegiac motifs like the shepherd Daphnis, prepared to die for his love. But the central thought of Idyll 11 that love can be cured by poetry is completely the opposite of the elegiac sentiment. Also in Bucolica 10, Gallus receives advice from Menalcas, Apollo, Pan and Silvanus to forget about his Lycoris. His love is dubbed insane ( insanis v.22) and Gallus himself depicts the countryside as a possible place where he might be happy with other lovers, if only he could forget his Lycoris (vv.35-41). Similarly, in the last five verses of Bucolica 2, Corydon is urged to renounce Alexis and to go back to work, with the promise that he will find another lover. Again, like with the obscene overtones in Bucolica 2 and 3, there is some ambiguity as to who is talking here: Corydon or Virgil? To me, the passage does not ring true from Corydon’s mouth after his very elegiac rhetorical question ‘quis modus adsit amori?’ - w hat limit can there be to love? (v. 68) -, and the observations that Corydon has talked to himself before in the poem and that in Virgil’s model, Theokritos’ Idyll 11, the Cyclops also gives himself a similar advice is not conclusive. It can be countered by the observation that giving the last five verses to Virgil makes a neat parallel with the five introductory verses of the poem and would make the poet a praeceptor amoris of some sort, recommending promiscuity as an antidote to an unrequited love (an advice also found in Lucretius and taken up by Ovid in his Remedia Amoris ). This attitude might explain why Propertius and Ovid detected hints that in the Bucolica love isn’t as seriously romantic as it appears. [108]

These references to frivolousness and obscenity in Virgil’s work are sometimes explained as references to some of the more ‘obscene’ parts of the Appendix Vergiliana and then dismissed because nowadays the Appendix Vergiliana is, unlike in Roman times, considered to be spurious. But Horace and Propertius explicitly refer to the Bucolica , not to the appendix, and a poem like Catalepton 7, which refers to pederasty, is usually regarded as ‘probably authentic’. The Appendix Vergiliana also contains Priapic poems [109] and an erotic gem like the Copa Syrisca , which is of particular interest because it contains echoes from Bucolica 2. The main argument for regarding most of the pieces in the Appendix as spurious is one of style, (most pieces are too badly written to be by Virgil). But style on its own is a rather shaky basis for establishing someone’s authorship, especially when the text under scrutiny is supposed to be early work. Style changes over time, and the works in the Appendix are considered early work. More secure arguments to condemn a piece would be references from contemporary writers and/or chronological inconsistencies in language and content (‘Virgil could not have used this or that expression, or the event alluded to only happened after Virgil’s lifetime’). As Coleman (19) points out, Bucolica 2, while published around 42, must have been written quite some time before that. That puts the Appendix , if considered genuine, in Virgil’s teens [110] or early twenties, which could account for imperfections in style. Of course there can be no certainty either way: the authenticity of any piece from the Appendix cannot be proven beyond doubt. But for some pieces one could ask the question if it wasn’t their embarrassingly ‘obscene’ content rather than their stylistic inferiority that prompted some scholars to question the authority of the ancient vitae in this instance, while they accepted the same authority in other aspects (such as the question of which eclogues were written first). Moral outrage seems an even less conclusive argument than style to challenge the evidence from the ancient sources.

Let us consider the Copa , because most scholars seem to agree that there is nothing wrong with its style. In the Loeb edition it is called ‘a rare gem’ in the Appendix . As was mentioned before, the Copa contains several echoes from Bucolica 2, or vice versa. [111] If we maintain a neutral position in the question about the authenticity of the Copa there are three possibilities. Either the ‘author’ of the Copa has imitated Bucolica 2 , or Virgil has imitated the ‘author’ of the Copa or Virgil has ‘quoted’ from his own earlier poem, as he sometimes did in later years (see note 91). In all three cases the obvious sexual overtones of the Copa make the same overtones probable in Bucolica 2 .

And the ultimate suggestion that Virgil wasn’t above sexual innuendo comes from his own work, namely… the Aeneid . Aulus Gellius claims ( Noctes Atticae 9.10) that Annaeus Cornutus criticized Virgil for using the word ‘ membra ’ – which he obviously regarded as containing an obscene overtone – in Aeneid 8. 406 [112] , where Venus rewards her husband Vulcanus for providing her son Aeneas with new armor by offering him ‘an embrace’ ( amplexus , v.405). Cornutus clearly objected to the pun on membra (‘limbs’ or ‘sex organs’) because in his view this overstated the obvious conclusion (evident from the references to Vulcan’s excitement and Venus’ loveliness in the preceding verses) that what Vulcan really got was some satisfying marital sex.

In his introduction Minadeo (4) justifies his looking for sexual symbolism in Horace’s Odes by claiming that Horace’s predecessors Homer, Euripides, Aristophanes, Catullus and Virgil (my emphasis) employed it ‘with as much calculation as they might any other figurative effect (…) with conscious purpose.’ As an example he cites Bucolica 10.54 , where Gallus uses the word crescit ambiguously for the growth of trees and of his sexual desire.

And then there is of course the dalliance between Aeneas and Dido. When they are surprised by a storm, the queen of Carthage and her Trojan guest hide in a speluncam , a cave ( Aeneid 4.165) [113] . Virgil leaves no doubt that they do more there than just hide ( Aeneid 4.168 connubiis ). The ambiguous nature of their hiding place hints at what takes place there to seal this ‘marriage’. (If he had wanted to avoid the innuendo he could have had them hide under an overhanging cliff or a little hut.)

But to me the ultimate argument is Virgil’s own, rhetorical education. In his Institutio Oratoria , when discussing the elocutio stage of writing an oratio, (book 8) Quintilian discusses the use of appropriate words, and he explicitly warns (with an example from Virgil! [114] ) that the audience will jump at any occasion to give a sexual interpretation to an ambiguous word. That Virgil is likely to have known this in his own rhetorical training is clear from the fact that the same warning already occurs in Cicero’s Orator 154-55. The assumption that the audience was very well trained in finding even the remotest ambiguity is corroborated by the very sophisticated and farfetched nature of the innuendoes found in Greek epigrams. This makes it clear that a poet would have to be extra careful in avoiding any ambiguities if he did not want to be misunderstood, or he would risk public ridicule, especially if an ambiguity were to be found where it was clearly out of place . So, if an innuendo can be found and is appropriate in the context, it stands to reason that it is deliberate, otherwise, the poet would have rephrased his verse or used other words to prevent misinterpretation. (See above my discussion of Tibullus 1.10, where Tibullus uses the ambiguous concepts ‘bull’ and ‘plough’ in such a way that a sexual interpretation becomes difficult [115] ). In none of the occasions where this article assumes a sexual overtone is such innuendo out of place. [116] I therefore think it is not a case of hineininterpretieren when I claim that in Bucolica 2 a lacertus is more than a lizard and in Bucolica 3 a fistula is more than a panpipe. Maybe it is time to recognize that Virgil was not the ‘virgin’ he was made out to be and that - as Harris has pointed out - the ‘virginal’ nickname Parthenias can equally well mean ‘citizen of Naples’ or even ‘Bastard child’.

9. Conclusions:

All things considered, a case can be made to support the idea that Virgil, in addition to other neoteric figures of style and motives, used the ‘lubricant’ of sexual allusions to introduce his new bucolic genre to a critical city audience. In doing so, he was influenced by the literary taste of his day, which was determined by the works of, among others, Catullus and Gallus and the epigrammatists (Meleagros, Asklepiades, Poseidippos, Dioskorides and Philodemos predate Virgil, Marcus Argentarius and Antipatros of Thessalonica are probably a bit younger), and which can also be detected in the work of (broadly speaking) contemporary authors like Horace, Tibullus and Propertius. Apart from the fashionable sexual theme, Virgil also proves himself to be a poeta doctus . Not only by alluding to the astronomers in Bucolica 3, but also by displaying a very detailed knowledge of the Greek language, the work of Greek and Latin predecessors and magical practices. [117] If one accepts the interpretation of Bucolica 2 and 3 outlined above, it offers a fascinating insight in the psychology of a beginning author, [118] who fears his work will not be accepted by the literary circles of his day because of its content and his own ‘rustic’ descent, and therefore spices it up with elements that are in accord with the prevalent taste. As mentioned above Hubbard and Leach (see note 4) regard Bucolica 2 as a reflection of Virgil’s insecurity towards his audience. Corydon’s urge to seduce Alexis is a metaphor for Virgil’s urge to seduce his audience. To my mind, sexual overtones fit very well into this context. They are a form of showing off (‘See what I have to offer!’) to a potentially critical, urbane audience. The fact that he did this in a covert and therefore all the more tasteful manner, and not without a certain amount of humor, merely advocates Virgil’s writing skills. Furthermore, he never compromises his own literary aims: he does succeed in introducing an apparently new genre in Rome and in having it accepted by the literary intelligentsia. It can be said that, once he had made a name for himself, he did not conform to the prevalent literary taste as much as contributed to modifying it. At least to the extent that next to the sophisticated, ironic and erudite poetry of his day, which would live on in the work of the lyric and elegiac poets, his style of bucolic poetry, with country life as its unfashionable subject, was accepted and even praised.