Communicating Epic Love: a cognitive poetic analysis of erotic discourse in Argonautica 3

di Timothy Kenny

 

 

Apollonius’ Argonautica relates in four books the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece, a journey which takes the readers of the epic poem from Greece to Colchis and (almost) back again. Following two books and 2647 lines the Argonauts reach Colchis, the setting for Medea’s introduction into the narrative.[1] The second book closed with the Argonauts anchored in marshland by the mouth of the Phasis waiting for the dawn (a new beginning) but when the third book opens, the reader pops up a narrative level to hear an appeal from a narrator now displaying less confidence in his ability to operate alone.[2]
 
Εἰ δ᾽ ἄγε νῦν, Ἐρατώ, παρά θ᾽ ἵστασο καί μοι ἔνισπε,
ἔνθεν ὅπως ἐς Ἰωλκὸν ἀνήγαγε κῶας Ἰήσων
Μηδείης ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτι· σὺ γὰρ καὶ Κύπριδος αἶσαν
ἔμμορες, ἀδμῆτας δὲ τεοῖς μελεδήμασι θέλγεις
[5] παρθενικάς· τῶ καί τοι ἐπήρατον οὔνομ᾽ ἀνῆπται.[3]
A.R. 3.1-5

 

The enjambed conclusion to the narrator’s request reveals his causes for concern: the introduction of a prominent player into the storyworld and, alongside her, the emergence of erōs as a dominant theme.[4] Erato is the selected Muse as, sharing Aphrodite’s sphere of influence, she charms unwed girls with love-cares. His appeal comes full circle with an etymology (‘the Lovely One […] the lovely name’). Midway through the poem and preceding the initiation of the Colchian narrative is a suitable place for a break-off. Action in the storyworld is paused and the reader afforded a brief opportunity for reorientation.[5] My approach here is itself reader-orientated, exploring how we as readers engage with the text’s communication of Medea’s dilemma, and how we become immersed in the presentation of a young woman’s emotional upheaval. For this study, I will be borrowing from the methodological toolkit of Cognitive Poetics, an approach to studying literature which «models the process by which intuitive interpretations are formed into expressible meanings, and […] presents the same framework as a means of describing and accounting for those readings».[6] Using selected extracts, I will apply different components of the methodology to illustrate some of the processes in play when readers engage with the poem’s narrative discourse.

One component of cognitive poetics is cognitive deixis which conceptualises how a reader deictically projects into storyworlds and is able to move between deictic fields by shifting their point of view to new deictic centres. A ‘pop’ (movement up) is a term taken from computer science and along with ‘push’ (movement down) employed in deictic shift theory (DST) to label and track these shifts.[7] For example, in the poem’s opening line, temporal deictics (present tense imperatives and temporal adverb) cue us to pop from story-time to narrator-time and position ourselves beside the narrator (cued by the spatial deictic παρά) posing in the act of composition. To these we can add instances of perceptual deixis (the named addressee, the second person imperatives, the personal pronoun μοι).[8] In practice, of course, most readers will have accomplished this projection effortlessly, not for a moment thinking ‘me’ meant ‘them’ or that ‘now’ referred to their time in the act of reading, and have swiftly pushed back down to the storyworld of the heroes.

Before progressing ourselves, however, it is worthwhile acknowledging some instances of relational, textual, and compositional deixis; these are three additional categories with which Stockwell’s literary adaptation of deixis supplements the prototypical deictic categories of person, place, and time. Textually deictic elements are those whereby the work draws attention to itself as a ‘textual language event’ and are evident in the imperatives which foreground the narrator’s request for a collaborator in the narration. Compositional deixis includes «aspects of the text that manifest the generic type or literary conventions available to readers with the appropriate literary competence»; for example, inter alia, the epic poem’s hexameter verse form.[9] Finally, relational deixis includes «expressions that encode the social viewpoint and relative situations of authors, narrators, characters, and readers».[10]

Why does the narrator choose to appeal to Erato? Because she knows about bewitching maidens; Μήδεια ~ παρθενική is a relation we are being invited by the narrator to adopt. That the Apollonian Medea is presented as both young woman in love and powerful sorceress is well-attested.[11] That being said, however, there are only six instances of παρθενική in book 3 following this, and only one another in narrator-text (NT) which does refer to Medea (829).[12] We can compare this with the fourteen times she is referred to by name in the book, twelve times in NT and twice in character-text (CT). Of those two occurrences in CT, one is self-referential (1070, she tells Jason to remember Medea) and the other is in a direct address made by her sister Chalciope (674). Characters do not talk about ‘Medea’. Everybody does, however, talk about the κουρή. Whether we translate as ‘girl’, ‘young woman’, or ‘daughter’, κουρή is how Medea is most often relationally encoded; this is the social status most often allotted her by narrator and characters alike (fifteen and seven times respectively).[13] Obviously, interpreting the encoding is context-dependent and wherever in the text the evaluation occurs the reader must reconcile and then update any ongoing reading of Μήδεια ~ κουρή.[14]

Still, what the frequency suggests is Medea’s prominence in the text. If we separate the episode into its component spatial settings, we find only three scenes, spanning lines 1176-1245 (two involving her father), without any mention of her at all.[15]

 

6-166.        Olympus (M.’s role discussed).

167-274.    Embassy to Aietes (M.’s entrance as a character, 248).

275-438.    Jason and Aietes converse in the king’s hall (scene begins with Eros shooting M., 275-298).

439-471.    Medea returns to her room (M.’s erotic torment).

472-575.     Assembled at the Argo, the heroes make a plan (M.’s role discussed).

576-608.   Aietes holds an assembly of the Colchians (daughters mentioned).

609-615.    Argus returns to the palace to meet with Chalciope (M. is purpose of visit).

616-824.    Medea’s room (M.’s dream, torment, dialogue with Chalciope, thoughts of suicide).[16]

825-827.     Argus leaves for the ship (M. mentioned).

828-869.    Medea’s room (M. prepares to meet J.).

870-912.    Medea speaks with her handmaidens and journeys to the temple.

913-947.     Jason journeys to the temple (M. referred to by Mopsus).

948-1147.    Medea and Jason meet.

1148-1162.  Medea returns home (M.’s last scene in book, returns to action at 4.11 following mention in that book’s own opening Muse appeal).

1163-1175.  Jason returns to the ship (M.’s instructions noted).

1176-1190.  Aietes gives the serpent’s teeth to Telamon and Aethalides.

1191-1224.  Jason performs the magic ritual.

1225-1245. Aietes arms himself to attend the contest.

1246-1277.  Jason prepares for the contest (M.’s instructions noted).

1278-1407.  J.’s aristeia on the plain of Ares (M.’s drugs and instructions noted).

 

This summary is no substitute for a syntagmatic reading but should serve to indicate her prominence in the text when, depriving my own reader of building narrative tension, I leap to the (relative) end, the ‘love scene’ at Hekate’s temple where Medea finally meets her stranger. Following the short account of Jason’s preparations and approach (913-947), at line 948 the narrative shifts back to Medea and models her state of mind.

 

οὐδ᾽ ἄρα Μηδείης θυμὸς τράπετ᾽ ἄλλα νοῆσαι
μελπομένης περ ὅμως· πᾶσαι δέ οἱ, ἥν τιν᾽ ἀθύροι
[950] μολπήν, οὐκ ἐπὶ δηρὸν ἐφήνδανεν ἑψιάασθαι,
ἀλλὰ μεταλλήγεσκεν ἀμήχανος· οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ὄσσε
ἀμφιπόλων μεθ᾽ ὅμιλον ἔχ᾽ ἀτρέμας, ἐς δὲ κελεύθους
τηλόσε παπταίνεσκε παρακλίνουσα παρειάς.
A.R. 3.948-53

 

When the narrator returns to her, so does the reader. Here, the shift is achieved not by any immediate temporal or spatial deictic but by her naming in line 948 in association with the grammatical agent ‘her heart’. The shift then is initially a perceptual one which is confirmed and maintained by Medea’s subsequent assumption of agency of those actions which follow: she plays, she breaks off from playing, she peers to the paths.[17] The line-initial placement of μολπήν (950) prompts recollection of her earlier suggestion to her handmaidens («εἰ δ᾽ ἄγε μολπῇ θυμὸν ἀφειδείως κορέσωμεν μειλιχίῃ», ‘unburdened let us sate our hearts with pleasant play’, 897-8) and enables us to re-establish the location as the one we left to catch up with Jason. What we discover on our return to the temple is that play has not unburdened Medea. Campbell describes lines 948f. as «neurosis» and points to the series of synonyms (μέλπεσθαι, ἀθύρειν, ἑψιάασθαι): «the effect intended is ‘call it what you like, Medea simply could not concentrate’».[18] The «constant restless movement» of the Apollonian Medea to which Richard Buxton has drawn attention is also evident here in the repetitive nature of the actions and their qualifications – she kept breaking them off, kept looking around, over and over, whenever – Medea cannot be still. Physically she is with her handmaidens but following her eyes, we understand that her mind is elsewhere and on Jason (and the sense of agitation is perhaps also reinforced by the alliteration in line 950 - papta – para – parei - Medea is a potentially explosive enactor).[19]

Further support for this position can be drawn from consideration of how the reader scans cognitive input. Cognitive grammar separates the scanning process into summary and sequential scanning, applying the former to static input (e.g. ‘Medea was at the temple’) and the latter to what happens when a reader has to track participants in the action chain (e.g. ‘Jason walked to the temple’).[20] The finite verbs in the passage above all require sequential scanning, although semantically Medea moves from agent (‘plays games’) to patient receiver (‘games do not please her for long’) to agent and then experiencer (‘break off games’, ‘keep eyes fixed’, and then ‘peer’). Alternatively, labelling according to the process categories which comprise Halliday’s transitivity model for systemic-functional linguistics, ‘play’, ‘break off’ and ‘keep’ (along with ‘apply’) are material processes whereas ‘please’ and ‘peer’ are mental processes, internalised but actions nevertheless.[21]

The final verb «παπταίνεσκε» is also interesting in that, though it does have a direction and visible goal in «ἐς δὲ κελεύθους», the ‘real’ goal is what is absent from the text and who she is trying to realise – Jason.[22] The reader tracks her eye movement towards the paths and is invited to think of who is stopping her thinking of anything else, but there is no relocation as «spatial shift is resistant to the effect of perception verbs on their own: a character just thinking about a different place still allows the current location to be maintained».[23] Once Jason has arrived, our deictic centre (or origo) will switch back and forth in tandem with their speaking roles but spatially we remain at their agreed location.[24]

 

ἦ θαμὰ δὴ στηθέων ἐάγη κέαρ, ὁππότε δοῦπον
[955] ἢ ποδὸς ἢ ἀνέμοιο παραθρέξαντα δοάσσαι.
αὐτὰρ ὅ γ᾽ οὐ μετὰ δηρὸν ἐελδομένῃ ἐφαάνθη,
ὑψόσ᾽ ἀναθρώσκων ἅ τε Σείριος Ὠκεανοῖο,
ὃς δ’ ἤτοι καλὸς μὲν ἀρίζηλός τ᾽ ἐσιδέσθαι
ἀντέλλει, μήλοισι δ᾽ ἐν ἄσπετον ἧκεν ὀιζύν·
[960] ὧς ἄρα τῇ καλὸς μὲν ἐπήλυθεν εἰσοράασθαι
Αἰσονίδης,[25] κάματον δὲ δυσίμερον ὦρσε φαανθείς.
A.R. 3.954-61

 

Momentarily perception switches from the visual to the aural (repeating a transitional pattern seen 453-8), to the transient sounds which cause her heart to break. No summary scanning here, no ‘Medea was anxious’ but a heart with agency bursting from her chest. Jason’s beauty is dazzling but dangerous. The rising Sirius brings ‘countless grief’ to the herds – Jason brings the ‘torment of love’s toil’ to Medea;[26] κάματος affected her φρένες when first she saw him (289). For the Argonautica’s reader, this then might constitute a relapse. Nor is it the first time in the poem that the hero has come like a star and to a woman. The intratextual reader will recall that on Lemnos he came to Hypsipyle «φαεινῷ ἀστέρι ἶσος», 1.774.[27]

To the Lemnian intratext we could add two intertexts. ‘Her heart broke from her chest’ is a striking expression and for an experienced reader the verb carries a lyric echo: «ἀλλ’ ἄκαν μὲν γλῶσσα †ἔαγε» (Sappho, fr. 31.9, Lobel and Page). The same vocal paralysis in the loved one’s presence that overcame Sappho’s lyric ‘I’ will also overpower Medea once her hero has arrived. My experienced reader here is that entity-role for whom all potential intertexts are available. It is the reader that the Argonautica, a densely intertextual work, most often demands: «In the prism of Medea’s eros we see reflected many previous written experiences of desire, and it is against those earlier, written experiences that we must read her suffering».[28] Whilst, perversely perhaps, the present paper neglects layering the analysis with due consideration of intertextual interplay, there is in the simile one that is too big and bright to ignore, at least for members of a discourse community studying Homeric Epic.[29] Medea sees Jason come like Sirius like when Priam saw Achilles coming like Sirius, that Greek glittering in bronze, rushing over the plain to slay his son (Il. 22.25-32).

Intra and intertextual readings combine in contrast for whereas «on Lemnos, an erotic substructure was visible under the Homeric surface; in Colchis, the erotic surface is separated from the Homeric substructure of doom and hatred».[30] In Colchis, Sirius carries the threat of an Achilles, in whose advent Hector ran.[31] Medea, tormented by love, cannot.[32]

 

ἐκ δ᾽ ἄρα οἱ κραδίη στηθέων πέσεν, ὄμματα δ᾽ αὔτως
ἤχλυσαν· θερμὸν δὲ παρηίδας εἷλεν ἔρευθος.
γούνατα δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπάροιθεν ἀεῖραι
[965] ἔσθενεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπένερθε πάγη πόδας.
A.R. 3.962-65

 

The narrator dissects her into a sequence of body parts to be sequentially scanned: «her heart fell from her chest, her eyes of their own accord grew dark, and a hot flush caught her cheeks».[33] Then, presented whole, she assumes agency but not control of her knees and can only plant her feet beneath her. In a martial context, ‘having strength’ and ‘sticking fast’ could be interpreted as examples of strong agency – a warrior standing his ground. Here, what is highlighted instead is Medea’s inability to act, even to so much as lift a leg.[34] His beauty does not send her rushing towards him, rather it snares her: θερμὸν ἔρευθος εἷλεν παρηίδας. In the imagery evoked by the expression is a conceptual metaphor: love is a hunt (e.g. ‘I’m caught in a trap. I can’t walk out …’). Jason’s appearance, enhanced by the goddess Hera (919-25), is the lure. The hot flush which forms part of her physiological response and captures her contains another, love is heat (e.g. ‘He’s got the hots for her’).

Conceptual metaphors underlie other forms of metaphor such as simile. For example, «the conceptual metaphor the man is a shark can underlie several possible surface expressions of the metaphor: ‘that man is a shark’, ‘shark-man’, ‘he was in a feeding frenzy’».[35] Within that one expression in our text, the target domain love can be mapped with the source domains of hunting and heat. There are, of course, impediments to any straightforward mapping of a modern reader’s figurative imagery to those found in a Hellenistic text as Gloria Ferrari noted in her analysis of metaphors in the Agamemnon: «while the figures of its metaphors reveal the principles that hold a society together, they are no more immediately accessible to the outsider than its language, because, like language, they are cultural constructs».[36] The current consideration is not an attempt to circumvent such difficulties but should rather be viewed as one stage in the interpretative process. We can observe the pervasiveness of certain imagery, the patterns that then emerge, find common ground with our own cultural constructs, and then draw from the knowledge of a Hellenistic discourse community to refine the reading.[37]

When Jason bounds into view like Sirius, the text provides a distinct cue for the reader to begin mapping properties between two domains. In what way is the target domain Jason like the source domain Sirius? Most visibly, Jason is καλὸς just as the star Sirius is καλὸς but like Sirius he also brings pain. We could then supplement that mapping by drawing on some available cultural information: «Sirius, the Dogstar, rises at the end of July, marking the season of heat and pestilence».[38] Inclusion of these source domains invokes a new metaphorical mapping love is a disease and another instance of the conceptual metaphor love is heat. If we add to this an appreciation of ἔρευθος as the colour of desire, occurring «in situations ranging from the loss of innocence at the inception of sexual desire to a state of violence arising from passionate emotions», the erotic imagery begins to coalesce in a potent and oppressive configuration.[39]

Of course, these erotic metaphors have not suddenly appeared in the narrative discourse but have frequented Medea’s presentation from the moment she was struck by Eros’ arrow (love is war). Turning back to that moment now, watching Medea as she watches the stranger at her father’s court, we can see a number of conceptual metaphors in her initial emotional response.

 

ἰθὺς δ᾽ ἀμφοτέρῃσι διασχόμενος παλάμῃσιν
ἧκ᾽ ἐπὶ Μηδείῃ· τὴν δ᾽ ἀμφασίη λάβε θυμόν.
[285] αὐτὸς δ᾽ ὑψορόφοιο παλιμπετὲς ἐκ μεγάροιο
καγχαλόων ἤιξε· βέλος δ᾽ ἐνεδαίετο κούρῃ
νέρθεν ὑπὸ κραδίῃ φλογὶ εἴκελον. ἀντία δ᾽ αἰεὶ
βάλλεν ἐπ᾽ Αἰσονίδην ἀμαρύγματα, καί οἱ ἄηντο
στηθέων ἐκ πυκιναὶ καμάτῳ φρένες· οὐδέ τιν᾽ ἄλλην
[290] μνῆστιν ἔχεν, γλυκερῇ δὲ κατείβετο θυμὸν ἀνίῃ.
A.R. 3.283-290
 

Mission accomplished, the cackling god flies back to Olympus, and the narrative shifts to an extensive presentation of his victim’s condition. The arrow’s impact shakes her θυμός. «In Homer both thoughts and emotions are commonly located in the θυμός, properly the ‘spirit’, but often most conveniently rendered as ‘heart’; it alternates with the more physiological φρένες and κραδίη».[40] In lines 285-90, we find all three. The shaft burns its way down under the girl’s κραδίη. The κούρη, does not yet know what is happening to her. «καί οἱ ἄηντο / στηθέων ἐκ πυκιναὶ καμάτῳ φρένες» – ‘they were blown [and over the line] out of her breast, the crowded (jumbled?) by her pain thoughts’. The construction simulates her upheaval – the explosive run-over and the separation of mind from body. The spatial deictics ‘in’ and ‘underneath’ invite the reader to track the invasive path into her body to witness her reason being pushed ‘out’ of it.

The arrow burned in the girl, underneath her heart, like a flame. Eros is erotic love and his arrow is fire. Love is a burning weapon. Our blended space has to map two sources war and fire (which is clearly related to the heat source) onto an extracted target love (signified by the god’s arrow) before interpreting possible connections, selecting some and discarding others e.g. ‘Passion is hot’, ‘Jason gives Medea a temperature’, ‘Medea is in pain’. A closely-related conceptual metaphor is anger is fire (along with anger is hot fluid in a container) and Stockwell lists some common expressions involving physiological sensations, e.g. «you make my blood boil, she was brimming with anger, he blew his top, I was fuming, I saw red».[41] One can see the same type of expressions in the Argonautica’s erotic discourse, relating emotional impact via physiological effect (and reinforcing the link between our usage of metaphor in everyday parole with our status as embodied beings). The mapping of fire onto love continues when Medea’s sparkling eyes make repeat retaliatory shots at Jason.[42] She fires the fire back at him (love is war). Again we observe the prominence of the eyes, of sight and seeing. Given the physical impact Medea feels when looking at Jason, another conceptual metaphor to consider here is seeing is being hit, as e.g. when describing an image as ‘striking’.[43]

The onset of desire can be mapped then as combining properties from related source domains of fire, heat, and light but in the verb-constructions of lines 289-90 it becomes more expansively elemental. Peter Crisp in his analysis of the Event Structure Metaphor connects that conceptual system with the conceptual metaphor emotions are natural forces of which lack of emotional control is a «standard entailment».[44] Such a loss of emotional control is also evident in our text, rendered in that passive construction whereby thoughts are blown out of her chest. This is emotional change conceptualised as blowing wind (e.g. ‘a whirlwind romance’): Medea looks at Jason and the sight takes her breath away (thus blended with seeing is being hit).[45] Then another mapping involving elements is activated by the verb κατείβετο ‘flooded’. Here we map her emotional state with the source domain liquid. The elemental range has flowed from fire through air to water, from a burning heart to a helpless spirit drowning in the oxymoron ‘sweet pain’.

The narrative of her internal emotional state followed from one verse relating the arrow’s instant effect («τὴν δ᾽ ἀμφασίη λάβε θυμόν», 284), and fastforwarding/returning to the temple, we find Medea (and Jason) similarly mute when from her planted feet, a simile grows (965-72). With the handmaidens’ tactful withdrawal, the stage is set for two players, sketched for a moment still and silent but about to be blown into action. Emotions are natural forces is evident again; Love’s figurative winds mapped with the actual wind. And to continue my growth metaphor, this simile has roots in lyric: «Ἔρος δ’ ἐτίναξέ μοι / φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος κὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων» (Sappho, fr. 47, Lobel and Page). Unlike the trees, however, the dialogue participants do not erupt into rustling babble but take turns (though the Argonautica’s reader has to wait until line 1026 before Medea utters her first words to Jason). What the simile better reflects is internal decision making, what words to say, how to say them – something Medea has struggled with since the arrow hit and, as the Sappho fragment demonstrates, something with which Eros has prior associations.[46] It is also a recurrence of the internal conflict between shame and desire presented in her struggle to conceal the true cause of her emotional state from her sister, a presentation in which words fly in not out: «πολλάκι δ᾽ ἱμερόεν μὲν ἀνὰ στόμα θυῖεν ἐνισπεῖν, / φθογγῇ δ᾽ οὐ προύβαινε παροιτέρω» (685-6).[47]

Jason is alert to her condition and to the manipulation required.[48] His appeal contains a bribe (992) to which he adds an exemplum – Ariadne (997-1004). The reader familiar with that myth, unlike the barbarian princess, knows what happened on Naxos. Jason flatters her and it works: «ἡ δ᾽ ἐγκλιδὸν ὄσσε βαλοῦσα / νεκτάρεον μείδησε· χύθη δέ οἱ ἔνδοθι θυμὸς / αἴνῳ ἀειρομένης, καὶ ἀνέδρακεν ὄμμασιν ἄντην», 1008-10. She hides her nectar smile, her heart melts, (love is sweet, love is liquid), she looks back up and, still struggling for words (1011-2), hands over the potion.

 

[1015] καί νύ κέ οἱ καὶ πᾶσαν ἀπὸ στηθέων ἀρύσασα
ψυχὴν ἐγγυάλιξεν ἀγαιομένη χατέοντι·
τοῖος ἀπὸ ξανθοῖο καρήατος Αἰσονίδαο
στράπτεν Ἔρως[49] ἡδεῖαν ἀπὸ φλόγα, τῆς δ᾽ ἀμαρυγὰς
ὀφθαλμῶν ἥρπαζεν· ἰαίνετο δὲ φρένας εἴσω
[1020] τηκομένη, οἷόν τε περὶ ῥοδέῃσιν ἐέρση
τήκεται ἠῴοισιν ἰαινομένη φαέεσσιν.
A.R. 3.1015-21
 

Again we read a separation of body and soul but now she is the agent and would draw it gladly from containment. The fire imagery turns sparklingly sweet and fills the mind with dawn’s roses (a fresh start for lovers entertaining a ‘happily ever after’).[50] Medea has still to speak and when she does, she reels off thirty-four lines of ritual instruction beginning with an imperative ‘pay attention’ (1026-60) before wishing him well wherever he goes with the fleece. The articulation of his departure, however, triggers another emotional response and hot tears flow down her cheeks (1064). The projection of the loved one’s absence (whilst in his presence) then prompts an extraordinary physical action when Medea, looking him in the face, takes his right hand.[51] ‘For, you see,’ explains the narrator, ‘the shame left her eyes’ («δὴ γάρ οἱ ἀπ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς λίπεν αἰδώς», 1068). The emotional presentation continues in the encounter, on her return home, and resumes when we meet her again in book 4 (4.11). However, with shame’s departure to an unstated goal offering a (false) closure of sorts, I should conclude this study for now with some brief considerations on my utilisation of the toolkit.

My previous work on the Argonautica proceeded along narratological and Sternbergian lines, and (coupled with a Hindsian approach to intertextuality) explored how the epic narrator’s selective and subjective presentation of the story conditioned the reader in the act of reading. Here, looking through a cognitive poetic lens, I have reviewed some other features of the text – cognitive deixis, action chains, conceptual metaphors – and hope to have demonstrated how these also condition our reading and contribute to our construction of ‘Medea in Love’. All, along with exploration of scripts, mind-modelling and enactors (of which the dreaming Medea is a notable example), need further and rigorous mapping across the entirety of the presentation, but all, I believe, could be usefully employed to both support and augment those existing and very fine readings of the text.[52]

 

[1] Line 3.3 (cited below) is her first mention by name in the poem. However, any reader familiar with the broad strokes of the myth should be expecting her.
[2] Cfr. e.g. the narratorial statements «μνήσομαι» (1.2) and «νῦν δ᾽ ἂν ἐγὼ [...] μυθησαίμην» (1.20). Cfr. A. D. Morrison, The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 299: «the imperative ‘tell me’, the first acknowledged request for information from the Muses, confirms what the end of book 2 had led us to suspect – the autonomous narrator of the first two books is no more», and ivi, pp. 286-306.
[3] The text follows Race’s 2008 edition, W. Race, Apollonius Rhodius: Argonautica, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2008: «which does not differ substantially from Vian’s edition [Paris, 1974-81]», ivi, p. vii. Translations are my own.
[4] On the classification of characters as players, see N. J. Lowe, The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 46: «The characters in a story world divide into stars and walk-ons: full players, and comparatively faceless and incidental extras» and ivi, pp. 36-60.
[5] Cfr. J. J. Clauss, Conquest of the Mephistophelian Nausicaa: Medea’s Role in Apollonius’ Redefinition of the Epic Hero, in J. J. Clauss, S. I. Johnston (eds.), Medea, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 152: «By calling upon Erato, Apollonius, following the Hellenistic penchant for programmatic introductions, alerts the reader to his literary gambit».
[6] P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, London, Routledge, 2002, p. 8.
[7] See ivi, pp. 41-57.
[8] Ivi, p. 45: «expressions concerning the perceptive participants in the text, including personal pronouns ‘I/me/you/they/it’; demonstratives ‘these/those’; definite articles, definite reference ‘the man’, ‘Bilbo Baggins’».
[9] Ivi, p. 46.
[10] Ivi, p. 46.
[11] Cfr. e.g. R. Buxton, Myths and Tragedies in their Ancient Greek Contexts, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 99: «Apollonios’ Medea is a juxtaposition of opposites: on the one hand, the woman tormented by personal anguish, torn between her Kolchian family and her Greek lover; on the other hand, the manipulator with uncanny powers».
[12] Cfr. J. J. Clauss, Conquest of the Mephistophelian Nausicaa: Medea’s Role in Apollonius’ Redefinition of the Epic Hero, cit., p. 152: «Homer uses the phrase in a slightly different form (παρθένος ἀδμής, Od. 6.109, 228) only of Nausicaa».
[13] Of course, sometimes the ‘girl’ will be juxtaposed with the ‘witch’, as e.g. the very first instance, where emphasis is placed on her importance to the plan: «αἴ κε πίθηται / κούρην Αἰήτεω πολυφάρμακον οἷσι βέλεσσιν / θέλξαι ὀιστεύσας ἐπ᾽ Ἰήσονι», 26-8 (Hera to Athena, repeating the narrator’s verb-choice).
[14]  word can satisfy more than one deictic category. For example in «κούρην δ᾽ ἐξ ἀχέων ἀδινὸς κατελώφεεν ὕπνος / λέκτρῳ ἀνακλινθεῖσαν» (616-7), κούρην is both relational and perceptual, shifting her into focus as we relocate to her room (via λέκτρῳ) to witness the patient acted upon by sleep and dreams.
[15] Italicised line-numbers indicate where Medea is an active participant. I include the mention of daughters in Aietes’ reported speech as a reference to Medea though her absence is notable in Aietes’ scenes. He has no suspicion of his daughters («θυγατρῶν», 3.602) until he does («θυγατέρων», 4.10).
[16] Cfr. N. J. Lowe, The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative, cit., p. 135, on Penelope’s quarters as a satellite stage in the Odyssey’s narrative staging: «Its landmark is her bed, symbol of the suspended marriage that defines her own threatened identity, and site of the weeping and dreams to which she retreats most deeply and alone». Medea’s θάλαμος is the setting for the narrative’s central scenes (situated midway through the book and covering 18% of the text).
[17] P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 53: «Perceptual deixis is maintained when the noun phrase is definite and in subject position, and, of course, when the perceptual ‘voice’ is frequently mentioned. So characters who are constantly named and pronominalised stay current».
[18] M. Campbell, Studies in the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1983, p. 60 and p. 66.
[19] R. Buxton, Myths and Tragedies in their Ancient Greek Contexts, cit., p. 99. Cfr. Ivi, p. 102: «the turmoil generated by the conflicting claims of erōs and family removes all fixity, and condemns her to oscillate».
[20] On action chains, see P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., pp. 64-66.
[21] See P. Simpson, P. Canning, Action and event, in P. Stockwell, S. Whiteley (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 281-299, and for a caveat on mental passivity, see L. Nuttall, Transitivity, agency, mind style: What’s the lowest common denominator?, «Language and Literature», XXVIII, 2, 2019, pp. 159-79: 164-5, «One danger of labelling and counting mental versus material processes for individuals in a text, for example, is an over-simplified interpretation which equates the dominance of mental processes with passivity or inaction, and a dominance of material processes with activity».
[22] She has her material. She studied him in her father’s hall: «ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ δ᾽ ὄμματα κούρη / λοξὰ παρὰ λιπαρὴν σχομένη θηεῖτο καλύπτρην», 444-5. Hers was a detailed mental impression and the audio-visual input acquired played on repeat as she returned to her room (453-8). The overload prompted the receptor’s first monologue and wish for his safety: «ἦ μὲν ὄφελλεν ἀκήριος ἐξαλέασθαι», 466. Wish, sensory input, and emotional response are all elements subsequently reprocessed by the dreaming girl enactor (616-32).
[23] P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 54. References to vision whether to the eyes, the act of viewing or the object perceived are frequent throughout the temple scene.
[24] An alternative term for the deictic centre. See J. Gavins, Text World Theory: An Introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p. 50: «Each time an enactor speaks, a world-switch transports readers of the text directly to that enactor’s origo for as long as the speech is ongoing». It is also worth noting the compression of story-time in the third book following two books of episodic voyaging. Book 3 closes with the sun setting on its fourth day. Medea is an active participant only for its first two (6-823, 824-1172) but due to the amount of text-time presenting scenic treatments of her emotional state they ‘feel’ the longest days.
[25] There are 26 instances of Αἰσονίδη in book 3 (compared with 15 in book 1 and 5 in book 2) and a staggering 39 instances of Αἰήτης. Events in Colchis revolve around stranger and father (or helper and adversary, or thief and daughter, depending on one’s origo).
[26] When Sirius the Dogstar rises, «women are most desirous of love» (Hes. Op. 587).
[27] A star, moreover, whose red gleam charmed: «θέλγει / καλὸν ἐρευθόμενος», 1.777-8.
[28] R. L. Hunter, The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 46.
[29] On the Argonautica’s interaction with and adaptation of Homeric language, scenes, and themes, cfr. e.g. M. Fantuzzi, R. Hunter, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 95: «meaning is regularly created by the interplay of similarity to and difference from the Homeric text. What Apollonius does not do is ‘scrivere come Omero’ […] but to create a mimesis of ‘stili, convenzioni, norme, generi’, which requires the Homeric text to act as a ‘matrice generativa’ from which something quite new may be derived». On ‘discourse communities’, see P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 34. A cognitive poetic reading might also recast the reader’s assimilation of the ‘new’ in the Argonautica as an epic script update. On schema theory, ivi, pp. 75-90.
[30] M. M. DeForest, Apollonius’ Argonautica: A Callimachean Epic, Leiden, Brill, 1994, p. 121.
[31] R. L. Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 204: «the deadly combat […] has become what Hector said it could not be (Il. 22.126-8), an exchange of words of love». The narrative of Jason’s cosmetic preparations for his audience with Hypsipyle similarly played with Iliadic models (1.721-773). Still, any uttered words of love are a long time coming. Medea herself never mentions love in this scene; two of her three speeches begin with imperatives and her final speech ends in a threat! It is Jason who surprises with the marriage proposal (1128-30).
[32] Cfr. M. Campbell, Studies in the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, cit., p. 62: «it denotes the desperate effect her sexual cravings have on her bodily parts – heart, eyes, face and significantly, knees […] In plain language, Jason’s attractiveness does not drive Medea into his arms, but, as often before, triggers a series of uncontrollable, ‘unhealthy’ symptoms culminating in complete immobility».
[33] Cfr. L. Nuttall, Transitivity, agency, mind style: What’s the lowest common denominator?, cit., p. 161: «Across a range of narrative contexts, the representation of inanimate objects or body parts as actors, or ‘metonymic’ and ‘meronymic’ agency [...], together with features such as goal-less intransitive clauses, passives, nominalisations and perfective aspect, are identified as contributing to a reduced sense of the awareness, intentionality or control in the human agent responsible».
[34] Buxton made a similar observation on lines 766-9 where M. contemplates suicide: «Eyes, complexion, feet, speech, perceptions: all oscillate – they move, but they do not progress» (R. Buxton, Myths and Tragedies in their Ancient Greek Contexts, cit., p. 102).
[35] P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 105.
[36] G.  Ferrari, Figures in the Text: Metaphors and Riddles in the Agamemnon, «Classical Philology», XCII, 1, 1997, pp. 1-45: 5. Thus, for example, the metaphor of aidos as a cover which conceals or obstructs, whether clothing or a lowered eyelid, is not an available concept to be mapped as it «is not present in our cultural apparatus» and, importantly for Medea’s encoding «From textual references we garner not what aidos is, but what it does as an indispensable mechanism of social order: it keeps under control those who are incapable of exercising agency – by nature, females, children, and slaves […] Aidos works as a constraint or inhibition» (ivi, p. 6). See e.g. M. glancing from behind the veil (444-5) and cfr. instances of her lowered eyes. For a definition of the general character of common ground (CG) see P. Werth, Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse, Essex, Pearson, p. 119: «the totality of information which the speaker(s) and hearer(s) have agreed to accept as relevant for their discourse».
[37] Cfr. B. H. Fowler, The Hellenistic Aesthetic, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, p. 81: «These are, of course, commonplaces now, but in extant Greek literature there is no description of romantic love before Apollonius that compares in its physical detail to this».
[38] W. Race, Apollonius Rhodius: Argonautica, cit., p. 293, n. 80.
[39] B. Pavlock, Eros, Imitation, and the Epic Tradition, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 30. Cfr. «ἁπαλὰς δὲ μετετρωπᾶτο παρειὰς / ἐς χλόον, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἔρευθος, ἀκηδείῃσι νόοιο» (297-8) where in χλόος Hunter detects a medical flavour and given that ἀκήδεια is a medical term for torpor, suggests «the verse gives a ‘clinical’ description» (R. L. Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III, cit., p. 131). love is a disease.
[40] M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Cambridge, Clarendon Press, 1997, p. 232. The heart is also the organ which the epic hero addresses to unburden themselves. Cfr. N. J. Lowe, The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative, cit., p. 106 on frequency which «indexes a character’s importance in plot» and length which «is more a measure of their reactive and psychological interest». We first hear Medea at line 462 but only after observing more fire and suffering: «τοῖος ὑπὸ κραδίῃ εἰλυμένος αἴθετο λάθρῃ / οὖλος ἔρως», 296-7. In this book, Jason and Medea have ten speeches each, his totalling 126 lines and hers 156. For statistics of speakers and speeches in epic, cfr. (most recently) B. Verhelst, Direct Speech in Greek Epic Poetry, «Ghent University», [last accessed 2nd February 2021].
[41] P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 110.
[42] Once kindled, the conceptual metaphor continues through the presentation: the simile of a working woman burning twigs (291-7); the heart smouldering in pain (446); and the pain smouldering through her body (762).
[43] See P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction, cit., p. 113.
[44] P. Crisp, Conceptual Metaphor and its expressions, in J. Gavins, G. Steen (eds.), Cognitive Poetics in Practice, London, Routledge, 2003, pp. 99-113.
[45] Imagery she employs herself when trying to process the actions of her dreaming enactor: «περί μοι ξείνῳ φρένες ἠερέθονται» (638).
[46] Cfr. e.g. Hom. Il. 14.294, 315-6; Hes. Th. 120-22; Archilochus fr. 191 West. The mapping of conceptual metaphors in the intertexts is a step to be incorporated into a future reading, but for e.g. love is liquid, see Alcman fr. 59a Davies, and E. Hipp. 525-29.
[47] Cfr. R. L Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III, cit., p. 172: «In the battle between αἰδώς and ἵμερος, speech is a function of the latter, silence of the former». The inner struggle reiterates a conflict externalised in her oscillating between bedrooms following her dream, where the polarising nature of the forces working upon her is underscored by the textual deixis evident in the chiastic arrangement: «ἤτοι ὅτ᾽ ἰθύσειεν, ἔρυκέ μιν ἔνδοθεν αἰδώς· / αἰδοῖ δ᾽ ἐργομένην θρασὺς ἵμερος ὀτρύνεσκεν», 652-3.
[48] Cfr. S. Goldhill, The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 301-2.
[49] ἔρως Race.
[50] Campbell notes ἰαίνεσθαι is a «genial» heat (M. Campbell, Studies in the Third Book of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, cit., p. 122). A reader aware of what comes in Corinth might find the imagery cruel. Indeed, Campbell interprets τηκομένη as an ‘evaporating’ process: «However ‘sweet’ the flame that penetrated her being is, however gentle (cf. ἠῴοισιν) the warming-process, ‘love’ (1018) is a destructive power» (ivi, p. 77).
[51] Cfr. R. L Hunter, Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III, cit., pp. 215-6: «This open gesture of affection […] suggests an intimacy which no young girl should have with a man who is not her husband».
[52] One could analyse Jason’s action chains vs. Medea’s; conceptual metaphors involving e.g. shame, deception, Anger; other treatments of erōs  in the extant literature. And one could (should) shift the analysis to the poem’s intertexts and examine e.g. instances of interplay with the ‘matrice generativa’ (see above n. 29) through the cognitive poetic lens.
 


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