Ovidian Shakespeare: Wit and the Iconography of the Passions

Abstract

Illinois Classical Studies, XII. 1 than Ovid, it is true, for the Elizabethans, on the whole, tended to embellish Ovid's descriptions when they borrowed from him.But they thereby paid tribute to the Ovid whom they perceived as a painter with words, one who lent himself to the enrichment of their own style.When Shakespeare competed directly with Ovid, as he does in his Venus and Adonis, it was natural then for him to produce a copia on Ovid's story, bringing to light all that is merely implied and ringing the changes on every theme.The epigraph prefixed to this poem, itself derived from Ovid, indicates just that sense of an aristocratic and educated audience that the paintings mentioned in the Induction to The Shrew take for granted: "Vilia miretur vulgus: mihi flavus Apollo/ Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua."^As it happens, these lines from the Amores appear, as T. W. Baldwin notes, at the beginning of the Flores Poetarum collected by Octavianus Mirandula, a standard grammar school introduction to the poets.'*There are no less than four direct allusions to Ovid within Shakespeare's plays, and each one reflects his grammar school training. ne of these again makes a knowledge of Ovid the distinguishing mark of the educated man.Touchstone, in As You Like It, demonstrates his superiority to the country folk of the Forest of Arden by comparing himself to Ovid among the Goths.Addressing Audrey, he remarks, "I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths" (III.ii. 5-6).The two puns, "capricious" from caper (goat) and "Goths" (goats), represent the wit that only the educated would appreciate.Jaques, however, in an aside, caps Touchstone's allusion with the comment "O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!" (III.iii.7-8).Not mentioning the story of Philemon and Baucis by name, he reveals his easy familiarity with the Metamorphoses, turning the myth into a witty comparison.^IfOvid here means knowledge, it is a sign of wit to be able to play with allusions to his works.Ironically, it sometimes takes the efforts of modem scholars to recover what was once part of every educated person's patrimony, ' Ovid, Amores, I. xv. 35-36."Let the cheap dazzle the crowd; for me, may golden ApoUo minister full cups from the Castalian spring" (trans, from The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, p. 1406).