OVID BOOK 4 Hermaphroditus
Structure & lines 285-7
Rather than worship Bacchus, the three daughters of Minyas weave,
telling stories to pass the time. Alcithoë, the third daughter,
tells the final love story. The sexually adventurous Salmacis
desires Hermaphroditus...
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Tunske De Vries has divided the story into several parts:
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abstract/aetiology (4.285-287)
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orientation (4.288-315)
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first complication, peak and resolution (4.315-340)
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second complication, peak and resolution (4.340-386)
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coda (4.387-388)
Alcithoë claims dulcique animos novitate tenebo, ‘I shall keep your attention with a delightful novelty, something that is pleasing because new’ (284). This will be, in the Alexandrian/ Callimachean tradition, an exceedingly novel story but one that becomes less and less dulcis as it proceeds.
Aetiology
285 quare = ‘by what means? how?’ (rare but Classical)
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285 male fortibus undis – ‘waters which sap the strength of men’, lit. ‘cowardly waters’.
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286 The name Salmacis (here) refers to the pool, and not yet to the nymph. Georgia Nugent: the nymph is introduced ‘as a feature of the natural landscape’.
enervare (‘to enervate, weaken, render effeminate’) is a rare word; remollire is invented. Cf. also 381, 386.
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Donald Lateiner translates that - eventually - : ‘She unstrung [desexed] him - Hermaphroditus - and by touch tenderized his limbs.’
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The pun in enervare (nervus, a euphemism for penis) can be found in the work of Ovid the elegist, Amores 2.10.24, 3.7.35. Salmacis’ total body immersion of him in her waters demasculates him both sexually and in terms of gender.
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287 ‘The characteristic / power of the spring is very well known, but the reason why is obscure.’
Notice the contrast between latet and notissima. causa latet also indicates that this is going to be an unusual tale; the audience may not in fact know it. Ovid’s task is to explain the hidden cause of the spring’s mysterious powers. vis is probably a neutral word here, but may conceivably hint at the dangers ahead, even at the idea of ‘male rape, rape committed by a man’, something that will be turned on its head.
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‘Pressing her Callimachean credentials perhaps a little too far, she signals… that this will be an aetiological tale, telling how the famous spring of Salmacis originally gained its reputation for emasculating those who swim in its waters (4.285–7).’
Genevieve Lively
Hilary Ilkay suggests that latet foreshadows the moment when the predatory Salmacis lies in wait as the youth prepares to bathe in the spring. 'More generally, it also gestures toward the lack of knowledge regarding the generation and nature of intersex beings, a seemingly inexplicable phenomenon to the Romans.'