[lit-ideas] The Final Sacrifice

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:06:03 EST
 
 
The Final Sacrifice. 
One of the most moving poems ever written in La Lingua Latina is  now in the 
Loeb (Minor Poets --) and it's by Emperor Hadrian as he recollects  the final 
sacrifice he once experienced and which it touched his soul  so: 
AnimVla vagVla  blandVLa hospes comesque  
corporis quÆ nVnc  abibis in loca pallidVla  
rigida nVdVla nec  ut soles dabis iocos.

 
Concise  and full of gravitas as only the Romans can accomplish that, it has 
been aptly  translated as:

"Vagrant soul, tender one, 
guest  and fellow of the body, 
now you have to descend into places 
pallid and  rigid and nude, 
Nor will you be playful as you used to be." 
--- The occasion? The death of Antinous. As Scriptores  Historiae Augustii 
(Loeb) have it, 
 
"Antinoum suum, dum per  Nilum navigat, perdidit, quem muliebriter flevit. de 
quo varia fama est, aliis  eum devotum pro Hadriano adserentibus, aliis quod 
et forma eius ostentat et  nimia voluptas Hadriani. et Graeci quidem volente 
Hadriano eum consecraverunt,  oracula per eum dari adserentes, quae Hadrianus 
ipse composuisse iactatur.” 
 
The translation is a bit  misleading: 
"During a journey on the Nile he lost Antinous his favourite, and for this  
youth he wept like a woman. Concerning this incident there are varying  
rumours; for some  claim that he had devoted himself to death for Hadrian, and 
others 
— what both  his beauty and Hadrian's sensuality suggest. But however this 
may be, the Greeks  deified him at Hadrian's request, and declared that oracles 
were given through  his agency, but these, it is commonly asserted, were 
composed by Hadrian  himself." 
------- One sees  representations of Antinous -- there was recently an 
exhibit at the Henry Moore  Center, catalogue published as a book -- dedicated 
just 
to representations of  Antinous -- and one is puzzled. 
OPINIONS:
1. It could be that  Antinous was seen as _too beautiful_ by Hadrian, and he 
_needed_ to give a  memorial to that. This would prove one idea of the Greeks 
regarding the primacy  of kalos over agathos. Antinous was a Greek youth and 
not necessarily too apt in  any science. His only 'virtue' was to be 
'beautiful'. Aristotle would call those  'virtues' only secondary, if a virtue 
at all. 
Still, we have Aristotle having to  _explain_ Antinous, not Antinous having to 
explain Aristotle. Personally, it's  not my type as he is too oriental, and I 
rather have clean-cut hair and none of  those silly curls. 
2. It could be that  Antinous wanted to _reciprocate_ as beloved were 
sometimes felt like doing the  love of Hadrian. He would know of Hadrian's many 
campaigns and so he felt like  sacrificing -- alla final sacrifice of 
Spring-Rice 
-- in the warm waters of the  Nile. He would then become somewhat immortal, or 
one of those "fatal" youths --  Talking of which, there is this book, "The 
fatal Englishman" that covers three  of these -- but none as romantic as 
Antinous. 
3. There may be other  explanations of the phenomenon. Hadrian is said to 
have been trying to imitate  Alexander Magnus when he dedicated cities and 
temples to _his_ beloved. And he  had to over do it to prove the Roman 
'decadence' 
of it all. 
Cheers, 
JL 
Roman Antiquarian, etc.  




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[lit-ideas] The Final Sacrifice

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