Sophia Papaioannou

THE POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING

AND THE EXCITEMENT OF HAIR LOSS
IN OVID, AMORES 1, 141

Amores 1,14, a poem on the disastrous effects on women's hair due

to excessive application of artificial cosmetics, has been a puzzling
piece for Ovidian critics,2 and, not surprisingly, it has received
minimal attention prior to the publication of McKeown's commentary in
1989.3 In his introduction to the commentary, McKeown elaborates on the
way in which Ovid incorporates motifs and tropes from different
stylistic
types of epigrams, in particular those of the derogatory and the "gloating
over fulfillment" categories. He also remarks on the of thematic
possibility
inspiration ("elaborate attention to one's personal appearance") from wide

ly popular treatments in the traditions

of Hellenistic and Roman philoso
a on a
phy, and the intention of producing mockery moralizing diatribe
in style well honed as to demonstrate superior rhetorical training.4 More
Barbara W has detected an
recently, however, Boyd intriguing and sophis
ticated subtext beyond the poet's reprimand of Corinna for the damage
she caused to her hair.5
focuses on Ovid's of an extended simile, or rather a
Boyd employment
series of particularized to flesh out a
similes, eulogy of Corinna's lost hair.

Immediately after the first couplet, where the disaster is an

emphatically

1
The text of the Amores is taken from J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores
quoted throughout
i. Text and Leeds 1987.
Prolegomena,
2
"Amores 1, 14 is perhaps the most poem in the whole of Roman love elegy" :
peculiar
this comes from a most recent on Sharon
telling phrase study elegiac poetry, James',
Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy, Berkeley 2003,
p. 167.
3
J. C. McKeown, Ovid: Amores 11.A on Book One, Leeds 1989, pp. 364-386. One
Commentary
other early notable study
on the particular poem has been a 1972 brief article by Scivoletto,
certain or verses as motifs, and tracing their origin to the Hellenistic
identifying phrases
N. Scivoletto, 'Motivi in ovidiana (Am. 1.14)', in Studi
epigram: epigrammatici un'elegia
classici in onore di Q. Cataudella in, Catania 1972, pp. 355-361.
4
Cf. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), pp. 364-365, for a summary of his approach.
5
Barbara W. Loves: Influence and Innovation in the Amores, Ann Arbor
Boyd, Ovid's Literary
1997; Amores 1, 14 occupies the focus of discussion on pp. 117-121, which
primarily explore
the narrative and function of the three similes nexus, and the transition from the
literary
one to the next. The paragraph summarizes Boyd's argu
immediately following largely
ments.
46 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

nounced in a pointed I-told-you-so manner, Ovid introduces two visuali

zations, first, of the texture of the hair, whose softness is likened to that
silk but also to a an
of the Chinese spider's web, and, second, of the color,
to amixture of the two seen on
amalgam of black and brown, comparable
the cedar tree of mount Ida when its bark has been stripped off. It is less
the absurdity tied to the graphic representation via a simile of an object
no more the
that longer exists, and display of exquisite erudition behind
the selection of the particular thematic content of these similes that Ovid
means to communicate to his readers. More specifically, the employment
of the Chinesesilk points to the only other literary reference to Chinese
silk in Latin poetry, a passage in G. 2, 120-121. inspiration
Vergil's Vergil's
most likely should be sought in Aristotle, HA 5,19, 551b, the only surviving
account on the perceived origin of silk imports to Rome. In turn, Vergil's
text inspires Ovid's genius of originality. Then, the reference to the thread
next to the Chinese vela evokes awell-known
(filum) literary commonplace,
the likening of the poet to the artist, which, in the Hellenistic era, is rou
evoked in the of the a excellence of the
tinely imagery spider, symbol par
Callimachean devotee in the pursuit of sublime literary artistry. The two
texture similes, as the erudite reader is challenged to uncover, are
brought
in Servius, whose comments on the rare sericum
together already specify
that the Chinese silk is produced worms who spun the thread in the
by
manner of the artistically gifted spiders. Finally, the closing simile that de
scribes the color of Corinna's hair involves yet another exotic, unparalleled
in ancient poetry, literary reference, also set to advertise Ovid's familiarity
with technical writings, very much in the fashion of Pliny and Theophras
tus, and his ability to use the material at his disposal creatively.
Through this display of combined erudition and mastery of the dynam
ics of literary textuality, Ovid, according to Boyd, ambitiously creates a
concatenation of allusive similes that interact not only with the surround
ing narrative, as comparable similes do, for in the text of Ovid's
example,
prime rival, Vergil, but, additionally, advertise our poet's familiarity with
the writings of ethnographers and paradoxographers, and next to this, his
to add a touch of exoticism to his I
ability poetic style.* would presently like
to reinforce this deservedly of the witticism of Ovidian
high appreciation
artistry by discussing the sophisticated poetics in the composition of Amores
1, 14. There, Ovid envisions Corinna's marvelous hair as key metapoetical
marker, and the cornerstone of a complex discussion on
poetology.2

1
Boyd, op. cit. pp. 121-122.
2
D.
Kennedy, The Arts of Love, Cambridge 1993, pp. 71-77, offers an interesting reading
on
the semiotics of the hair and its role in the debate over the authorial control
elegiac poet's
over his work and his puella. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), p. 365, points out that Ovid's admira
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 47

Amoresi, 14 introduces in the opening couplet the main theme, the loss of
Corinna's hair, in emphatic manner: the "hair" appears on both lines, and
in corresponding and prominent positions, at the end of the verse (capillos;
coma). The poem overall could be divided into two larger sections, consist
ing of nearly equal number of verses. These relate, respectively, a
descrip
tion of the nature of this hair and the undeserved treatment
they received
treatment
(1-26), and Ovid's scolding of Corinna's disastrous of her hair,
with his suggestions to deal with the hard reality of the loss (27-50).
along
Corinna's emotional outburst, however, forces Ovid to cut his moralizing
dissertation short, and close with an attempt to console his mistress
by
out to her that hair does grow back in no time (51-56). This struc
pointing
tural arrangement as the
has been carefully designed, parallel examination
of the opening of the two sections specified above readily brings forth. The
lines 1 and 27 are
respective opening phrases of symmetrical composition,
in both syntax and meaning. The beginning of both verses features syn
onymous words of address in the imperfect tense (dicebam ~ clamabam).
These introduce
phrases in direct discourse, which are governed likewise
by commanding verbal expressions of comparable formation (desiste medi
care ~ scelus est urere; cf. parce, on the line immediately following). Also,
lengthwise, neither phrase extents to the next line. Finally, the last words
on both lines are ~ to the
again synonymous (capillos crines). Contingent
careful structural design, the poem overall is supportive of the metaliterary
conception of the hair theme, for, in the earlier section, Ovid establishes
the poetological thematics attached to the hair imagery, and introduces an
allusive perception of Corinna as a poetic rival to Ovid. The latter motif is

pursued further in the second section, where Corinna's reaction to the loss
and her potential initiatives to gain control of an emotionally devastating
situation are compared to a poet's continuing effort to redefine the course
of one's own art under unfavorable circumstances.

Hair is prominently defined as marker of poetology, and more specifi

in one of the programmatic in the Amores.
cally, of elegiac literature, poems
Poem 3, 1 relates Ovid's encounter with Elegy and Tragedy, and his liter
ary dilemma to choose between the two. The setting of the encounter, the
a thick forest, is the isolation of a typical
vicinity of a cave in the heart of
locus amoenus, a common topographical host for visitations of this sort in
ancient tradition as as Hesiod's encounter with the Muses
literary early

tion for the lost hair in the earlier section of the poem (1,14, 3-34), and on lines
especially
23-30, should draw attention to the affinities with Callimachus' Coma Berenices (fr.
"stylistic
110)", for it toys with what the critic calls "Hellenistic 'pathetic the attribution,
fallacy'",
that is, of human emotions to the lock of hair. Callimachean poetics and aesthetics
queen's
underlie the texture of the elegy, in support of a metapoetical reading of the text.
48 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

at the opening of the Theogony. Elegy and Tragedy are as two

displayed
women, unmistakably identified through the particular body language and
paraphernalia of the literary genres they respectively embody. The first
distinguishing characteristic to deserve mention is their hairstyle (7-8, venit
~
odoratos Eleg?a nexa capillos, / et puto pes Uli longior alter erat 11-12, venit
et ingenti violentia Tragoedia passu: /fronte coma torva ...). As critics have

pointed out, Ovid's language in the description of the two, especially Elegy
...
(3,1,11-14, nexa; pes longior; forma decens; tenuissima; decoris), could aptly
apply,
on the one hand, to the description of an elegiac composition, while
enhances, on the other, the vocabulary that delineates the elegiac mistress.1
the so-chosen comes directly from the pool
Additionally, elegiac vocabulary
of Callimacheanism. The intersection of the two metaphorical uses of the
same marked verbal group is present also in the description of
poetically
to a a
Tragedy, only, this time, they apply female that represents literary
polemic to elegiac poetics.2
Maria Wyke, who a and multi-fac
recently has offered comprehensive
eted treatment of Amores 3, 1, adding politics, philosophy and intertextu
ality to the tenets underlying the structure of the personifications of the
two genres,3 has pointed out that the employment of the elegiac mistress'
as model for the creation of poetological discourse
body signifying specific
practice of writing, is transferred, in the second half of the poem, which is
taken up by Elegy's long monologue (3,1,35-60), onto Corinna, the Ovidian
incarnation of the elegiac mistress. More specifically, Corinna enters the

1
On Amores 3, 1, especially in view of the personification of Elegy, as
reading allegori
cal to
elegiac poetics and part of a similar set of
literary debates over
contrasting style
of writings, the works of the Neoterics and especially the Augustans, see in
throughout
P. H. Schrijvers, tu labor aeternus.
'O tragedia ?tudes sur 1 des Amours
particular l'?legie m,
- -
d'Ovide', in J. M. Bremer S. L. Radt C. J. Ruijgh (eds.), Miscellanea tr?gica in honorem J.
C. Kamerbeek, Amsterdam 1976, pp. 405-424. on on the or
Specifically Propertius' emphasis
nate habit of Cynthia, his elegiac mistress, in 1, 2, a well-known, programmatic piece, in
relation to an ornate in the of the poem,
overtly style employed composition particular
see L. C. Curran, 'Nature to Dressed: 1.2', Ramus 4, 1975, pp. 1-16.
Advantage Propertius
2
The portrayal of the two women-incarnations of literary genres in accordance with
Callimachean enforces upon the reader a which
apologetics prescribed approach, inevitably
reduces the process of appreciating the female as actual person to a mechanical for
inquiry
and motifs to cf. G. Lee, 'Tenerorum lusoramorum ,
terminology alluding poetic production;
in J. P. Sullivan (ed.), Critical on Roman Literature: and London 1962, 169:
Essays Elegy Lyric, p.
"The point on the these two personifications
throughout depends simple device of treating
as human and at the same time as On the translation and develop
beings genres".poetic
ment of Callimachean critical tied to the of the
literary terminology body lover (poet) and
the beloved in Augustan see A. M. Keith, 'Slender Verse: Roman and
(poetry) elegy, Elegy
Ancient Rhetorical Mnemosyne 52, 1999, pp. 42-61.
Theory',
3
M. Wyke, The Roman Mistress, Oxford 2001, pp. 115-154, with additional bib
important
in the references.
liography
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 49

poetological debate as substitute of Elegy, and simultaneously, an

example
of elegiac composition in the "requisite Callimachean fashion".1 In Amores
1, 14, however, the poetics of personification involved in the convergence
of Elegy and Corinna in 3,1 adjusts its focus. The elegiac mistress identifies
with the elegiac writer but not with the elegiac text; the latter receives an
novel treatment its projection on the
interesting, through imagery of the
hair. The severance of the puella from her hair reviews the semiotics of el

egiac symbolism, offering alternative

interpretative possibilities, and hence
a fresh impetus. A detailed of the hair imagery in 1,14 will sub
exploration
stantiate the Ovidian methodology of poeticizing. The discussion on the
hair poetics will be bolstered by arguments illustrating how the metaliter
ary 'independence' of the hair motif receives additional reinforcement in
similar appearance of the hair elsewhere in the Amores.
The first thirty lines of Amores 1,14 revolve around the beloved's hair. The
announcement of the disaster is followed by a succession of three similes
that try to capture as closely as possible the exquisite and unique beauty
of the bygone hair (14, 3-12). The next section (13-22) informs us that the
hair was also easy to take care of, offering little trouble to those responsible
for its tending. Nonetheless, instead of proper care, it received undeserved
as it was to the torture of the
suffering, being subjected curling iron and
other 'cosmetic' devices (23-30).
The tie of the puella of elegy to the hair motif in a literary context such
as the one observed in Amores 3, 1manifests itself in several other poems,

especially in the first book of the Amores, where, with respect to the po
of hairstyle, 1, 7 and the 11+12 are
etology poems diptych 1, prominent.2
In 1, 7 Ovid/the elegiac poet flagellates himself for having enforced physi
cal violence upon his mistress. Pointedly, this violent behavior has mainly
taken the form of an attack against the woman's hair, to which the poet

1
Wyke, op. cit. pp. 126-130.
2
James, op. cit. p. 166 makes an as she observes that Ovid, to
important point contrary
and Tibullus, is interested more in the the physical anatomy, of the el
Propertius body,
egiac mistress, than in her love, and this results in the production of a number of poems
that focus either on the body of the puella as unit (Am. 1, 5, detailing an erotic
closely day
or 1, 7, where the poet attacks her physically) or on individual or
dreaming; body parts
features, on her and beauty (foremost the diatribe on
physical commenting mainly youth
the fallen hair in 1,14; also in 1, 7, the hair is a detail especially noted in the account of the
s abuse; the diptych 2,13+14, which relates Corinna's abortion and focuses on
puella finally
the changes of the pregnant female's body). James' study (pp. 166-173) constitutes the most
recent of the Ovidian obsession with Corinna's hair in 1, 14. In this she argues,
reading
among other that the on some distinct characteristic attaches
things, emphasis physical
Corinna's existence to it. This association about the likening of her status, in the
brings
mind of the reader, to that of the meretrix, an identification that contrasts her as
portrayal
elegiac pu?lla.
50 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

refers at least three times

(11-12, 49, 67-68), while he pays only three addi
tional, brief mentions, respectively to cheek-scratching (40), bruising (41-42)
and the tearing of the woman's clothes (47-48). The first of the three refer
ences to hair-tearing calls for closer examination. Here Ovid introduces in
the Latin literary language the expression laniare capillos, which becomes
a female hair in his amatory poetic corpus.1
typical phrase for disheveling
Considered independently, the term does not necessary denote poetics; the
association becomes clear as soon as one observes that the phrase is grant
ed placement between and nee ... dedecuere (Am. 1, 7, 11-12):
digestos

Ergo ego digestos potui laniare capillos*?

nee dominam motae dedecuere comae.

To arrange carefully or set something in order, which often may be a piece

of writing, even to interpret, or decipher, are all interpretations
possible
of digerere, poetically suggestive and commonly attested in Ovid's poems.2

Notably,
as modifier to the hair, the term occurs once more in the Amores,
in 1,14,19 (digest?s ... nee ... an Ovidian word
capillis). The phrase dedecuere,
does not means of an double negative,
play, merely reproduce, by atypical
an to decuere, but emphasizes the extraordinary decus of Corin
equivalent
status of her hair.3 It is also
na's beauty largely thanks to the disheveled
worth observing that, similarly to the opening couplet of 1,14, the mistress'
hair merits mention on both lines and is set at the end of
conspicuously
each line, while the terminology employed is identical and corresponding

(capillos; comae). The three mythological examples of Atalanta, Ariadne,

and Cassandra, who represent three diverse cases of passion-inspiring fe
males in captions erotically suggestive, are employed to substantiate the
attraction and irresistibility of the disheveled hair. All three exempla chal
lenge the readers' familiarity with alternative versions of the legendary
performances of the heroines.4 In this respect, the overall structure may

1
Overall, the phrase is attested fourteen times across Ovid's poems, seven in the Amores

alone, while Ovid, one may a attestation in Verg. Aen. 12, 605-606;
beyond identify single
cf. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), p 170, ad 1, 7,11-12.
2
LSJs.v, esp. i.A; 1.B.3; 11.B.
3 ... dedecuere'.
McKeown, op. cit. (1989), p. 170, s.v. fnec The verbal parallel introduced
Am. 3, 15, 4, nec me deliciae dedecuere meae, is part of a to the
by McKeown, praise poet's
own
elegies ("my darlings [sc. elegies] have gained me fame"), and is the carrier of a no
less of this unorthodox double structure with a term
intelligent pairing negative poetically
and semantically deliciae, an of Ovid's own
significant ambiguous, endearing appellation
here, as well as a common for one's own favorite and even one's own
elegies metaphor
object of love and erotic passion (cf. LSJ s.v., 1 and 11).Thus, the motif of elegy personified
and erotically addressed, the dominant theme of Amores 3, 1, 1 and 7, and 1, 14, introduces
the poem that stands at the crucial closure of the entire collection.
4
See the detailed in McKeown, op. cit. (1989), pp. 171-175.
analysis
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 51

run
parallel to the triple simile following after the opening of 1,14, where
three likewise well-thought similes are crafted to highlight the uniqueness
of the elegiac hair.
more
lucid and detailed for the Ovidian readers is the pro
Considerably
jection of elegiac poetics through association with
imagerythe hair
in
-
Amores 1, 11 and, less so, in its pair 1, 12. In 1, 11 Ovid/the elegiac lover
appeals to the hairdresser of his beloved, urging her to carry over to her
mistress a written message in which he extends an erotic invitation. The
opening sentence, with which the poet seemingly addresses Nape but ac
tually introduces the multilayered symbolism associated with the status of
the hairdresser, spreads over eight verses - very few other sentences reach
comparable length in the Amores.l The conspicuousness of the construc
tion is deliberate, purporting among others to draw attention to one oth
er
single sentence of comparably unusual length in Ovid's erotic poetry:
Amores 2, 8 likewise opens with a distinguishingly long sentence (11.1-5), its
target audience is the same, Corinna's hairdresser, and the mode of address
is so similar that it has been characterized as 'clear
reworking' of Am. 1,11,
1-6.2 In addition, both passages open poems that are parts of diptych pairs
and dramatize the poet's effort to solicit the assistance of the mistress' hair
dresser to act as The strategy embraced in both cases is nearly
go-between.
identical, an opening address that praises the maid's unique professional
skill but also her loyalty-to Corinna and the poet alike. The two passages
in question are listed below and deserve a closer look:

Colligere incertos et in ordine poner? crines

docta ?eque ancillas inter habenda Nape
inque ministeriis furtivae cognita noctis
utilis et dandis ingeniosa notis,
saepe venire ad me dubitantem hortata Corinnam,
saepe laboranti fida reperta mihi,

Ponendis inmille modos perfecta capillis,

comer? sed solas deas,
digna, Cypassi,
et mihi iucundo non rustica furto,
cognita
apta quidem dominae, sed magis apta mihi,

quis fuit inter nos sociati corporis index?

The stylistic proximity between the two suasorias is especially noticeable

between the respective first and third lines. Even if no hard evidence can
be produced to substantiate that Nape and Cypassis may actually refer to
the same individual merely addressed by a different name, the similar mode

1 as well
p. 310, the period is "impressive" as "rare" in the
For McKeown, op. cit. (1989),
2
Amores. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), p. 310.
52 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

of address, focusing on the praise of their skill, suggests that nomenclature

as means to a
operates emphasize single motif through variation. It is the
hairdresser's skill and the maid as that the remarkable open
professional
ings quoted above highlight, not Nape or Cypassis as persons.
A close stylistic comparison substantiates the metaliterary role of both
slave figures. a
In brief but insightful and stimulating discussion, Fitzgerald
has recently suggested to read the pairs of Amores i, 11+12 and 2, 7+8 as
exploring the 'duplicity' of poetic communication, all the while approach
someone a role.1
ing the slave character as acting out Especially promising
in terms of metapoetics is the exclusive knowledge that is in possession of
the trusted slave, since this knowledge makes her partake of the world of
the master/mistress, often to the extent of directing the latter's behavior
in and interpretation of it. In the poems above, the hairdresser as confidant
of Corinna /the mistress is able to manipulate her mood and her decision
making process towards the poet/lover. In the sphere of poetics, in view of
the identification of the elegiac mistress with the elegiac text, the intimate
insider who fwo-manipulates' the former, and the poet who composes the
latter act out identical roles. This line of reasoning in the light of Ovid's
choice of as the skill the
specific hairdressing occupational distinguishing
confidant, introduces the hair theme, the object susceptible to the servant's

expert treatment, as code for the text.

elegiac
Poetics occupies the core
phrases, in both
and this evidences itself in
the employment of particular vocabulary. The literary dimensions of the
role of Nape and Cypassis have received exhaustive treatment in two stud
ies by Henderson,2 who has found Ovid's provocative betrayal of Cypassis

1
W Fitzgerald, Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination. Roman Literature and Its Con
texts, Cambridge 2000, p. 67, further observing that the literary character of a slave is large

ly determined by the generic context within which he or she operates. The two
diptychs
look back to "Horace Odes 1.38, where issues of textuality and work are realized
through
the quarrel with an attendant slave and Plautus' Pseudolus, where the drama of being en
tertained a theatrical is explored the fictional machinations of a
by performance through
clever slave". to Horace's Davus "the listening satirist" in Hor. Sat.
Comparing Cypassis
2, 7, and Lucius, in Apuleius' who after being transformed into "a beast of
Metamorphoses,
burden... has access to all manners of secretes", the critic points out that "enslaved
figures
... have a that is comparable to some member of the literary dramatis
presence personae
(satirist, reader, omniscient narrator)" in accordance with the character constraints of the

respective genres (pp. 67-68).

2
J. Henderson, 'Wrapping up the Case: Reading Ovid Amores 2.7 (+8), Part 1',Materiali
e Discussioni 'Part 11', ibid. 28,1992, of the poet
27,1991, pp. 38-88; pp. 27-83. My discussion
ics underlining the presentation of the interaction between the poet and the hairdresser
or she may and the latter's character are
(Cypassis Nape be), fashioning, inspired by the
elaborate introduced in these two studies. The
arguments gist of Henderson's argumenta
tion is summarized in op. cit. pp. 59-68. Also, J. C. Yardley
Fitzgerald, 'Propertius' Lycinna',
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 53

intriguing: in 2, 7 the poet, addressing Corinna and notwithstanding the

maid's nearby presence, firmly denies that he ever made advances towards
her maid; yet in 2, 8, when he and Cypassis are the two of them alone, he
is all praises for the hairdresser's beauty as if Cypassis were his lover, too.
The detail
of the poet's denial of his affair with the ornatrix in 2, 7 has led
Henderson to a new reading of the diptych, and to the assertion that be
hind the character of Cypassis we should discern both the reader of the
Amores, whose loyalty is tempted from poem to poem, and a duplicate for
the poet himself. The elegiac poet's work inspires and instructs the lovers/
readers as it does Cypassis, the facilitator of love affairs. This metaphorical
go-between role of
the poet advances hand-in-hand with his other role as
his mistress' 'beautician', for it is a locus communis in for a
elegiac poetry
to a verses. This mutual
poet/lover promise puella immortality through his
exchange of double roles between the poet and the hairdresser translates
what a first-time reader would interpret as Ovid's double-faced, if not ma
behavior towards the maid, as a game, testing the in
nipulative, evidently
and of the audience as well.
telligence loyalty' poet's
The verbal choices phrasing the poet's laudation of Cypassis' profession
al skill are unmistakably as well as are amphisemous,
poetological, they
suitable modifiers both to the hair and to poetry The maid has expertise
a thousand
(perfecta) in fixing the hair in different ways (ponendis in mille
modos perfecta capillis); interestingly, modus is also the vox propria for the
meter in a poetic text, and Ovid is no less a master in this alternative ars
an same
modi ponendi, assumption phrased clearly later in the poem (2, 8,
27-28, quoque loco tecumfuerim quotiensque, Cypassi, / narr abo dominae quotque
in this couplet-threat to the critically
quibusque modis). The sexual innuendo
minded reader conveys an ambitious claim of treating an erotic relation

ship in elegiac verse in multiple and various ways. The correlation of the
hair to the elegiac verse, which does not seem logical, thus becomes, from
a certain point of view, an extension to the hairdresser's toying with the
persona of the poet.
The introduction of Nape in Amores 1,11 substantiates the allegoric cor
between hair tending and elegiac composition. In this poem,
respondence
Nape's metatextual role receives the additional support of etymology.
are
N?^Y), in Greek is the "grove" but also the "foliage".1 Both meanings

Trans. Am. Philol. Ass. 104, 1974, pp. 429-434, discerns similar poetological in
background
of his mistress' servant-confidant.
Propertius' portrayal
1
the correlation to a suggestion G.
McKeown, op. cit. (1989), pp. 311-312, attributes by J.
Randall. The same occurs also in Longus, for Nape is the mother of Chloe and
wordplay
wife of Dryas, all three members of a family of forest residents with their names tellingly
to their
attesting lifestyle.
 54 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

tied to the art of manipulating the written word. For Henderson, who
notes the former, the emphasis on the wooden texture of the diptych
only
tablets points forward to the emotionally charged apostrophe against the
accursed wood that bore the lover's rejection back to the poet. At the same
time, the maid's appearance as incarnation of the tablets may anticipate
the ill fortune foretold for the grove whose wood produces the tablets in

question (p. 26). Interestingly, elsewhere in the Amores, in 1, 7, 53, the "fo

liage", the possible alternative for Nape's name, is an outright metaphor

for comae, the hair (ut cum populeas ventil?t aura comas). The introductory
address to Nape is also suggestive of poetological polysemy. This maid is
not merely or apta, to serve her mistress, a - a
perfecta, but docta substitute
for her mistress as both bedfellow and inspirational muse, and a sugges
tive incarnation of the poeta doctus himself. A figure of litotes underscores
the sophistication of both skilled professionals, Cypassis and Nape (2, 8,
non rustica ~ nee maior to
3, 1, 11, 10, tibi simplicitas ordine adest). Referring
skills as ntc...maior ordine, a far from lucid,
Nape's phrase semantically
calls to mind the opening of the poem ten lines earlier, where the same
term in the same case
is part of the phrase that praises Nape's dexterity
in handling Corinna's coiffure and is likewise open to more than one in
terpretative possibilities; colligere incertos et in ordine poner? crines. The hair
that Nape arranges is incertos. In the light of crines being an allegory for
eleg?a, incertos aptly describes the duplicitous love messages, and by exten
sion the very genre of love elegy, which is precisely the collection (colligere
may denote the process of as well as the compilation of a
hair-ordering
literary collectio) and the sophisticated arrangement of the written word
on the thematics of love.1
The testimony of the two diptychs endorses the suggestion to consider
the reference to the elegiac puella s hair as a codified description of the el
egiac verse, while the maid who skillfully manages its arrangement and the
poet who counts on the maid's intimacy to express his true self (or what
he sincerely wishes to present as his true self) are seen in roles
interchange
able. Still, nowhere are the of poetic
dynamics artistry and competition
on the hairdresser's character and skill more than
projected fully fledged,
in Amores 1, 14. Only, this time the poet's literary competitor is Corinna
herself, who is put in charge of hair manipulation and is severely chastised

1
Fitzgerald, op. cit. p. 62: "To interpret all these orders, and to unravel all their ambigui
a is not herself in her ordo (rank). She is the
ties, requires Nape who neatly placed supple
ment needed to control that might
meaning otherwise slip, for the written message will
not bear its intended sense unless delivered at the moment. The slave's
right ambiguous
status as medium of communication between the free makes her the perfect to carry
figure
anxieties about the adequacy of the written word".
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 55

initiatives - an to the poet's

for her (unexpected?) challenge literary aspi
rations?
Foremost, the description of the hair finesse throughout the elegy is cap
tured in vocabulary clearly poetological. The powerful effect of the triple
simile aiming at transfixing the readers' mental vision before the (ekphrasis
like) 'spectacle' of the unique, exquisite nature of Corinna's hair (poetry),
is highlighted by the vocabulary that is in use, especially in the prior half
of the poem, to assist the readers actually visualize this hair. The locks are
tenues (5), afilum, requiring the work of the gracilis pes of a spider (7), a
leve opus (8), dociles, and apti (13). A little further down (23) they are called
as wool'
graciles, and 'soft (instar lanuginis). Callimachean poetics go hand
in-hand with similes of artistic illustration. Additionally,
paradigmatic the
reference of a spider's web enhances
to the delicateness the collection of
tropes alluding to The is a de
linguistic poetology1 web-weaving project
ductum (deducit araneafilum, 7), a creation worthy of a doctus poeta - such
as the -
poet/lover of the Amores collection whose creativity has given
flesh to the exotic appearance of Corinna's hair, let alone the literary life
of Corinna herself! On the other hand, it is the puella who is presently (i.e.

during the poem's narrative time) experimenting with ways of hair treat
ment, that is, specialized skill.
Corinna is a combination of an amateur and a professional. Herself the
construction of a professional, the elegist Ovid, she appears to turn the
tables to her creator and challenge him in his own territory. By setting a
claim on the art of hairstyling, an
professional allegory for the writing of
verse (hair being understood now as code for love the
elegiac by poetry),
as inspira
puella seeks to enhance her adjuvatory peripheral contribution
tion source to artistic creation, and to take control of the 'composition' of
her own self. True, her credentials, her status as the elegiac muse, endow
her with ars. This ars, however, is not an inherent,
matter-of-factly merely
abstract connoisseurship but a specific skill. Ovid, the indignant artistic de
miourge opens his verbal assault with the directive, 'medicare tuos desiste cap
illos , and he purportedly uses a term, medicare, which would evoke associa
tions with a specialized profession (medicine).2 Indeed, as the employment
of tingere on the next line suggests, Ovid did not come up with medicare
due to lack of alternative synonym. Contingent to this, the art of hair-dye
area
ing at work, being part of the broader of hair tending performed by
handmaids, is a familiar theme in Love Elegy. The likening of altering one's

1
On the spider as allusion to Hellenistic
literary artistry, and Ovid's evocation of it, see

op. cit. pp. 119-120 with nn. 67 and 68.

Boyd,
2
The definition of Medicine as Art, is actually the subject of the Hippocratic
T^vtj,
treatise fkpi Tiyyr\?,.
56 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

hair color to a medical procedure certainly strikes as odd and more likely
than not calls for closer attention. What ismore, the likening of hairstyl
ing to art does not stop with the employment of the medicine simile. The
conclusion of this first part of 1, 14, lines 25-27, in a sense reinforces, if not
the idea of meticulous care introduced with the opening
simultaneously
verse the poem at least the description
of of a 'treatment' like medicine,
which in the particular occasion, due to the excessive zeal (and
regrettably,
implicitly, the inexperience) of its practitioner, brought about irreversible

damage graphically captured in the imagery and language of torture.

The comparison of hairstyling not merely to art but to an ekphrasis that
is an exemplary product of art, justifies the use of the second person sin
on 1, 14, 5, quid, quod erant tenues et quos ornare timeres. By means of
gular
the potential subjunctive timeres Ovid calls for the readers' personal involve
ment, in tone no
less engaging than Vergil's adspiceres (Aen. 8, 650, cf. 676,
691), which introduces the ekphrasis of Aeneas' shield. The same rhetorical
device, the apostrophe that seeks to attract attention, is a favorite Ovidian
trope in the Metamorphoses, likewise used to introduce an the
ekphrasis,
description of Arachne's tapestry, the most prominent artistic representa
tion in Ovid's
epic (putares, 6, 104).*
Ever since Homer's Penelope, the art of weaving ismetaphor for intel
lectual expression. is a weaver, a weaver of stories.
Penelope Every night,
as we read in the Homeric Odyssey, hidden behind Laertes' shroud, she
unweaves one story to weave anew, the next a new and different
only day,
story. Still, next to being a metaphor for storytelling, Penelope's weaving
is also an exemplar of skilled work, storytelling that can fool a band of
107 suitors.2 To develop this thought further, Penelope's visual storytelling
is a metaphor for the epic poet himself, who performs by recalling
a set

1
On Aradme as of the artistic creator, and on its association to the other
leading symbol
prominent artist in Ovid's the place to start is E. W Leach, and
figures epic, 'Ekphrasis
the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid's Metamorphoses', Ramus 3,1974, pp. 102-142. Notable
recent studies on the behind the spider include B. Rieken, 'Die Spinne als
poetics imagery
in und Literatur', Fabula 36/3-4, 1995, pp. 187-204; also, G. Rosati,
Symbol Volksdichtung
in Motion: text in the - -
'Form weaving the Metamorphoses', in P. Hardie A. Barchiesi S.
Hinds (eds.), Ovidian on the and Its Reception, Cam
Transformations: Essays Metamorphoses
bridge 1999, pp. 241-253.
2
On as alternative form of writing the Odyssey narrative so as to
Penelope' weaving
adhere to a balanced structure on more than one level, see A. The
carefully Bergren,
(Re)Marriage of Penelope and Odysseus: Architecture, Gender, A Homeric
Philosophy.
-
in J. Carter S. Morris of Homer:
The Ages A Tribute to
Dialogue', (eds.), Emily Vermeule,
Austin TX 1995; repr. 1998, pp. 205-220; on as or mechanism
weaving metaphor by which
the female characters in Homer manage to maintain control of social order and
leading
of narrative see M. Pantelia, and Weaving: Ideas of Domestic
epic orthodoxy, 'Spinning
Order in Homer', Am.Journ. Philol. 114, 1993, pp. 493-501.
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 57

collection of Idea andron, but each time he produces them in a different

combination, and so, through originality he retains the audience's interest
undiminished.*
Corinna literally speaking is not a weaver, nor does she
profess expertise
in any of the fine visual arts; yet she is in possession of the innate gift of
hair, which the technical mastery of hairstyling can transform
magnificent
into a as as a
piece of visual spectacle admirable and enjoyable sculpture,
a a of metal, and of course a woven tapestry. It is
painting, wrought piece
in her assertion to take control over the
precisely shaping and appearance
of this fine artistic raw material that Corinna lays claim to the territory of

literary metaphors reserved for the practitioners of artwork, and specifi

cally the weavers. Her equation to Arachne, the quintessential artist and
weaver, is obvious, while the employment of vocabulary borrowed from
the sphere of weaving or spinning, or even specifically the handling of
wool-work, features throughout the poem, naturally causing the image of
the hairstylist to appear as reflection of that of the weaver, and by extension
of the artist. The key vocabulary supporting the assimilation of the spider's
web to the texture and appearance of Corinna's hair is nectere (nectit, 8).

Technically, the term is not a vox propria for an actual weaver's work, but
a
rather, metaphor for the weaving of flower crowns and the decoration of
hair with flowers; this use appears with particular frequency in the poetry
of the Augustans, especially Vergil and Ovid. Yet, it is precisely the replace
ment of the literal with the metaphoric that sanctions the fusion of the
two, and, simultaneously, clarifies that each is distinct in its own right.
The deductum and levefilum, graphically called aranea opus, is mentally
visualized means of a verbal form that, if taken literally, it defines a
by
different kind of weaving and an alternative texture; Ovid has effectively
united the two images and notions. How carefully the particular term has
been selected to intertwine in the reader's mind the imagery of Corinna's
hair and the delicate texture of a spider's web ismade clear by the employ
ment of nexilis ("knitted", "bound", "tied up") on 1, 14, 26, the line that
concludes the first set of arguments in Ovid's emotional reaction to the

sight of the hair disaster. Overall, the phrase describes the impressive ap
pearance of elaborately ornate hair (albeit after the torturous application
of the curling iron, ferro ...et igni, 1, 14, 25); the selection of nexilis (sinus)
to provide a visual (nectit) of the
purports allegory for the manufacturing

1
As amatter of fact, the paradigm of the enchanting in Ovid's mind is Pene
storyteller
her spousal alter ego Odysseus, the Odysseus is
lope's counterpart, archetypal storyteller.
introduced in the Ars amatoria as the model smooth-talker, who held Calypso in suspension
the same stories from a different ille referre
year after year merely by retelling perspective,
aliter saepe solebat idem (Ars am. i, 128).
 58 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

levis and aranea opus on lines 7-8. This form, nexilis, is crucial for viewing
Corinna, the (hair)artist in the light of Arachne the weaving artist or tex
ture maker. A rare word, never occurring in prose text, nexilis features only
four times in Latin literature, three of which are in Ovid. The
particular
Amores is the earliest, and is followed by two others, both in the
attestation

Metamorphoses, the former of which is set at the opening of Book 6, in the

contest between Arachne and Minerva, and describes the borderline of
Arachne's tapestry: Met. 6, 127-128, ultima pars telae, tenui circumdata limbo,
nex?ibus flores hederis habet intertextos ("the edge of the web with its narrow
border is filled with flowers and clinging ivy intertwined").1 Interestingly,
the placement of nexilis here, in the concluding lines to the entire Arachne
episode, corresponds with the presence of the same term in Amores 1, 14,
26, a section which likewise marks closure or transition from one thematic
unit to another.
The reading of the Arachne story inMetamorphoses 6 as symbolic for the
experience of the vulnerable non-conventional poet,2 even for Ovid him
self,3 has naturally led to the reception of her tapestry as allegory for po
etry. As already remarked, Amores 1,14, 7-8, capturing the weaving imagery,
is replete with prominent poetological metaphors. Iwould only draw at
tention to the opening phrase of line 7, pede ... gracili. Pes in this case hints
at much more than the graceful - it
Toot' of the spider simultaneously
stands for the delicate Toot' of the elegiac beloved, appropriately described
at Amores 3, 3, 7 (pes erat exiguus -pedis est artissima and the metri
forma)
cal Toot' of elegy (cf. Amores 1, 1, 4, [Cupido] dicitur... unum surripuisse
pedem).4 Ironically, the lame foot' represents a principal characteristic of
personified Elegy in Amores 3,1, 7-10. This foot, shorter and defective, spoils
the otherwise unblemished appearance of Elegy, whose overall description

1
The other attestation occurs in Met. 2, 499 and describes Callisto's son Areas as a nov

eager hunter with nets and traps (nexilibusque stars in one of

ice, equipped plagis). Areas
the several hunting in Ovid's a poem inside which the hunt motif
episodes epic, operates
as a an allusion to (the for the reader's at
metaliterary trope, poet's/author's) 'hunting'
tention (and ultimately on as of literary creation, see N.
appreciation); hunting metaphor
O'Sullivan, Allusions of Grandeur?: on in Latin Electr.
Thoughts Allusion-Hunting Poetry',
Antiq. 1.5,1993-1994 [non paginated]; also, M. Paschalis, The Narrator as Hunter:
Longus.
in S. Harrison - -
Virgil and Theocritus', M. Paschalis S. Frangoulidis (eds.), Metaphor and
the Ancient Novel (Ancient Narrative 4), 2005, pp- 50-67.
Suppl. Groningen
2
'Arachne offers the paradigm of human artistic skill", according to D. Lateiner,
'Mythic
and Artists in Ovid's Ramus 12, 1984, pp. 1-30.
Non-mythic Metamorphoses',
3
B. Harries, The and the Poet: Arachne in Ovid's Proc. Cam
Spinner Metamorphoses',
bridge Philol. Soc. 36,1990, pp. 64-82.
4
On pes as code word for metrical see A. Keith,
foot, 'Corpus Eroticum: Elegiac Poet
ics and Elegiac Puellae in Ovid's Amores', Class. World 88, 1994, pp. 27-40, which further
identifies an assortment of Callimachean and tropes in Amores 1.1.
ample vocabulary
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 59

is also designed to introduce her as incarnation of the elegiac puella. By

comparison, the elegiac maiden, a fundamental constituent of the genre,
is likewise a construction. The detail of the uneven feet deforms alike the
beloved's and the personified The latter, pictured as
elegiac body Elegy.
an mistress with a an both comic and absurd,
elegiac limp, projects image
and this breaks the illusion of verisimilitude in the portrayal of the female

elegiac beauty.*
At this point and with respect to the poetics of the uneven feet it isworth
observing that in Amores i, i and 3,1, the term pes, semantically equivalent
to the metrical Toot' of Elegy, features on the pentameter verse (1,1, 4; 3,
1, 8; 3,1,10). On the contrary, in Amores 1,14, 7, the spider's Toot' is part of
the hexameter verse. Inside the broader literary environment of Ovidian
elegy, the artistic Toot' could be either of the following four: the Toot' of
the poet's verse, Eleg?as Toot', the Toot' of Elegy as genre feminized, or
even the spider's Toot', whose as weaver epitomizes the poetic art
identity
ist. In fact, the appearance of the spider's Toot' on the hexameter rather
than the pentameter verse captures well Ovid's playful acumen: the spider's
Toot' is gracilis; hence, it should be positioned apart from the other Teet',
the so-believed defective (pedibus vitium, 3,1,10).
If anything else, the previous analysis has substantiated that Corinna's
- on a raw or the
hair which metaliterary level stands for poetic material
- text are inter
spider's filum and Ovid's elegiac actually interrelated and
locked. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that Corinna's hairstyling
ambitions represent a for the writing of poetry. What should
metaphor
next come under scope is Ovid's one-sided appreciation of the technique
which Corinna to express
espouses this ambition, that is, the excessive,
often torturous treatment
of the hair. In the remainder of this paper the
on Amores 1,14 to
discussion will focus exclusively seeking a) identify in the
second half of the poem the various stylistic and thematic tropes by which
Corinna's tampering with her hair substantiates the equation of hairstyling
to poetic composition, albeit a 'bad' one; and b) to prove that Ovid's effort
at the end to console his beloved is essentially a that she
polite suggestion
should give up trying to control this magnificent (poetic) material, and sur
render the art of 'hairstyling' to someone better qualified for the task.
Ovid emphasizes the exquisiteness of the hair (singular color, 9-12; soft
ness and smoothness, 13-14; easy to comb, therefore undamaged by persist

1 of the body and the imagery of the elegiac beloved in

On the theme of manipulation
Ovid's of a see M. op. cit. pp. 119-130; 122-123, particularly
shaping personified Eleg?a, Wyke,
on the detail of the unequal feet, which, in her words (p. 123), manifest that "here at least
a female has been to suit a poetic because con
body shaped programme, physically they
stitute a defect (vitium), an asset (decor)".
stylistically
6o SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

- as was a) not tampered

ent treatment, 15-17) long as it by Corinna, and
b) left to the care of the ornatrix. The reference to the actual process of
is, once coded. The acus, by which the hair is
hairdressing again, poetically
acus abrupit, 15), ismost involved in The word
shaped (non likely wordplay.
features thrice in fifteen lines, and it principally means the "hairpin". Logi
then, Ovid's texts that are concerned with femi
cally, elegiac particularly
nine beauty and cosmetics, as is Amores 1, 14, are full of these "hairpins".
The same term, however, occurs also in the Arachne episode at Metamor

phoses 6, where it stands for the weaver's (6, 23, sen pingebat acu).
needle
The combination with the verb pingebat, "to decorate", "to embellish",
"to embroider", as well as "to paint", "to color", echoes Corinna's
merely
dyed hair in the Amores passage (tingere, 2).1 The play between the needle
for embroidering a cloth (Arachne's) and the hairpin for decorating colored
hair (Corinna's 'cloth') is barefaced.
Additional observations on word selection and arrangement reinforce
the view that Arachne's look back to Corinna as
portrayal may potential
artistic model. Next to the hairpin (acus), Ovid cares to mention the teeth
of the comb (1,14,15, non acus abrumpit, non vallum pectinis illos) as yet anoth
er instrument at the service of the artist-hairstylist (ornatrix, "decorator").
The noun pexus, however, may translate also as "the weaving slay" (cf. its
once
attestation, again in the Arachne unit, Met. 6, 56), which is suitable,
just like acus on the same line, both for hair ornamentation and weaving,
and suggestively views the two as alternating and equivalent.2
The equation of the art of hairstyling to the poetic art is implicit in the

couplet immediately following (1, 14, 17-18). Here, the poet feels the need
to defend his imposing physical presence inside Corinna's private cham
bers during the fashioning of the puella s hair, and so, he declares that his
guarantees a coiffed head for the mistress and
regular overseeing perfectly
averts attacks
against the hairdresser.3 On the contrary, when Ovid is not
present, Corinna's hair-fashioning choices result to complete failure. The
most recent occasion of hair loss suffices to prove that they are disastrous
- likened to torture:
rightly

1
The detail that pingere and sound identical the success of the
tingere nearly upgrades
parallelism.
2
The so-declared safe environment that the hairdresser at the service of Corinna
enjoys
(tuta sit ornatrix) appears ironic in the of the of the brutal treat
patently light description
ment that the maid receives lover and our elegiac
by Corinna's poet; cf. James, op. cit. p.
304 n. 34.
3
Naturally, Ovid's supervising eye prohibits Corinna from have a say on how she wishes
her hair to be fashioned. McKeown, op. cit. (1989), ad 1,14,17-18 draws attention to a simi
lar thought at AA 235-236, at non pectendos cor am / ut iaceant fusi tua
praebere capillos, per
terga, veto.
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 6l

cum essent tarnen et instar,

graciles lanuginis
heu, mala vexatae tulere comae!
quanta
se ferro et
quam praebuerunt patienter igni,
ut fieret torto nexilis orbe sinus!
clamabam 'scelus est istos, scelus, urere crines.

sponte decent; capiti, f?rrea, parce tuo!

Lines 23-28 capture the emotionalthat Ovid distress

experiences upon
his mistress' ideal hair enduring as a result of Corinna's
watching suffering
initiative. Indeed, in order to emphasize
this suffering the poet recours
es, on the one hand to aesthetics, and so, he stresses the sensation that a
visual pleasure might evoke, and on the other to the mechanics that is at
work in order to produce this feast for the visual senses. Thus, the loose
tresses whose appearance satisfies the Ovidian standards are graciles, pre

cisely like the spider's foot in the earlier section of the poem (7), and simi
lar to wool (lanuginis instar), the weaving artist's raw material (cf. Met. 6,
19, rudem..Xanam)} Yet, when the poet evaluates the outcome of Corinna's
the sensual softness of a smooth woolen texture is
artistry, replaced with
the technicalities of elaborate hairstyling, which is now projected as a job
torturous, graceless, and unpleasant: Corrina's artificially pleasing coiffure
may well be a work (nexilis...sinus), but at the cost of grave
sophisticated
distress (vexatae...comae), even excessive violence (ferro...et igni; urere).2 The
powerful language that humanizes the hair also baits the readers to identify
with it and to envision going themselves through the same torturous expe
rience. In fact, the condemnation of Corinna's as scelus (twice
techniques
on the same line) and the dramatic appeal capiti, f?rrea, parce tuo!, its hu
morous aside, the poet's intention to set the hair and
absurdity bespeaks

1
McKeown, op. cit. (1989), ad 1,14, 23-24 distinctly notes that the comparison of hair to
wool is unparallel.
2
the "heated iron" reference is most to McKeown,
Markedly, likely taken, according
op. cit. (1989), ad 1,14, 25-26, from Prop. 1,1, i7,fortiter saevos patiemur et ignes, or
etferrum
rather, from Prop. 3.24.11, ego non ferro, non ign? coactus; in both texts the simile colors the
enamored confession of devotion to his beloved The textual
madly elegiac poet's Cynthia.
affinity, particularly, of Prop. 3, 24,11 to Ovid's style is unmistakable: both passages include
references to torture, while in the programmatic monobiblos poem fire and knife (ferro)
allude to medical treatment. On both passages, the subject of the severe treatment is the
lover. Ovid's use of this distinct Propertian model serves as marker of an identifi
poetic
able reflexive annotation: in the torture of the mistress' hair the elegiac reader is tempted
to detect a reference to the similar fate of the poet/lover. Ovid draws on
sly, suggestive
the of Propertius in order to express his own, similar to become the ob
language longing
and treatment use and ignis in
by his mistress.
ject of fondness On the primary of ferrum
combination with reference to armies, see McKeown, op. cit. (1989), ad 1, 6, 57
assaulting
58, s.v. 'ferroque ignique'.
 62 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

the hairdresser/Corinna in opposite corners, and to portray the former as

a defenseless and innocent victim to the 'attack' of the latter. Finally, the
substitution of the hair with caput adds a comic touch to the scene: the

puella is attacking her own head. Thus, precisely in the middle of the elegy
(line 28), as the second section (with the same as the
begins stylistic trope
first, namely, the poet crying out in self righteous distress at the sight of
the ruined hair), Corinna and her hair, carefully separated soon after the
opening with the simile, fuse back into a
spider single entity.
The recurrence of acus, for a third time, on the same line (30) as the
words capillus and erudit, "instructs", "guides", brings up anew the theme
of hair-instruction. Corinna's tresses were called dociles et centum flexibus
apti already on line 13. Seventeen lines later, the obedient locks, which in the
past always were eager to receive instruction and shape, now seek to direct
this shaping (erudit) on their own (ipse). The transformation from student
to instructor portrayed in the hair reflects the metamorpho
corresponding
sis of Corinna from source of poetic material to poet in her own right.
on Corinna's
With line 30 the poet's reflections perfect hair reach con
clusion. By phrasing his closing line in direct speech, he uses the same
structural trope with which he opened the poem, an exclamation of in
dignation for the destroyed beauty, and so, he effectively underscores the
unity of the first lines means of a notable Line
thirty by ring composition.
31 switches to the hard reality of the present: the hair is gone. Now what?
We shall see that in this section (lines 31-54), too, hair and poetic expression
converge, while Ovid's dismissal of Corinna's hairstyling choices is now
carried through allusions that parallel them to literary initiatives.
Formosae pe?ere comae: The adjective formosus, while a rare attribution
to coma,1 is the most prominent modifier for the
arguably elegiac puella.
Moreover, Corinna's hair is "beautiful" as long as Corinna does not experi
ment with it. In view of the puella to the elegiac po
the identification of
etry that celebrates her because it derives
inspiration from her, the fusion
of identity between the mistress and her hair toys with the definition of
the very genre of Elegy. When the puella assertively claims control over
her hair-fixing instead of surrendering authority to the male poet's super
vising gaze (Ulis contulerim, 33), she also threatens to revise the rules of the

elegiac genre overall.

The two direct questions, the examples of mythological
following fig

1
McKeown, op. cit. (1989),
p. 376 ad 1,14,31-32, lists only two other occasions,
only
one of
which is poetic (Tib. 1, 4, 30). What is more, even this poetic attestation ismetaphoric, for
the term coma does not refer to human hair but to the foliage of the poplar tree.
Perhaps
the only poetic exception be the attribution of formosus to capillos in the pseudo
might
Vergilian Ciris 236.
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 63

ures who once again tie poetics

gladly switch hair with Corinna,
would
to hair. McKeown translates, or more tries to interpret, the first
correctly
question, on line 35, as follows (378 ad loc): do you about
"why complain
the loss of hair (which you considered to be) badly ordered?" I believe
that the parenthetical explanatory comment is only muddling an other
wise clear statement: the 'badly ordered' hair is actually so labeled not by
Corinna but by the poet-being after all the hair arranged by the puella her
self. The harangue continues on the line following next, where the poet
addresses Corinna as inepta. This term contrasts the
cleverly employment
of the positive form of the same adjective to depict Corinna's hair earlier
in the poem (13, centum flexibus apti). The distinction is essential. The crines
are apti, but as as the who is dismissed
(poetic inspiration) only long puella,
as inepta with to the was not in ar
respect particular skill, charge of its
rangement.
The to speculum, the mirror
reference into which Corinna may see for
herself the size of the disaster, is also crucial. One knows what he or she
looks like, or rather what the others perceive of him or her, the image that
he or she projects outwards, by looking into the mirror. More often than
not, the consultation of amirror translates into consciousness of the image
of self that one wishes to present publicly. This image is not necessarily in
accord with an individual's own ideal perception of self-appearance, which
in private might be (and often is) incongruent with the one introduced in
As Corinna explores in her mirror reflection the extent of the dam
public.
age inflicted upon her hair, she is saddened (maesta, 36). Both the image of
the woman tearing her stare away from the mirror in tears as well as her
are filtered for the reader
subsequent emotions and reactions, through the
eyes of the elegiac poet.
in the tone of the preceptor, endeavors to
Initially, the poet-observer,
make Corinna feel bad and guilty as he calls the disaster the puella s ex
clusive fault. The emphasis is engrossed means of inserting between
by
the awareness of the baldness and the consciousness of personal error a
climactic sequence of four causes of potential hair damage. These causes
are over four lines (39-42) and are arranged in pairs on the basis of
spread
the negative particle them (non-non; nee-nee). The ex cathedra
introducing
argument professes that a rival's magic herbs (cantatae ... paelicis herbae),
an old Haemonia an actual hair
hag's magic lotion (anus p?rfida lavit aqua),
disease (vis morbi), or envy (invida lingua) could be expected (and accept
able) reasons to justify the hair loss as a disaster beyond the control of the
-
elegiac lady but also of her creator, the poet. The rivalry between the
and an old who to be a powerful witch,
poet hag, incidentally happens
over the puella s interaction with her lover including of course her appear
ance, is the theme of 1, 8, the central and lengthiest poem in the first book
64 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

of the Amores. The bawd/witch in i, 8 rivals the poet in terms of intellec

tual acuity and literary artistry. Skilled in sorcery and able to manipulate

magic carmina (i, 8, 2), the anus may translate her incantation mastery into
amatory (1, 8, 20, nee tarnen eloquio lingua nocente caret).1 As she
eloquence
espouses a lover's oratorical strategy, including the appropriate language,
she performs in lieu of the lover who is also a poet. In view of Ovid's ar
constructed amatory (Corinna is now
tificially relationship by commonly
accepted to be a construction of an elegiac puella), it appears only reason
able to expect that the witch, mistress of carmina often composed to elicit
love, usurps Ovid's poetic creativity.2
The same fear for the metaliterary disempowerment of the artist may be
detected behind the double reference to magic and sorcery in 1,14, which
separates the two roles of the anus, only to elucidate them. In their light,
the typical sorceress of elegy and a duplicate of the poetologically antago
nistic Dipsas of 1, 8, qualifies as a poetic rival (paelex). Ovid, the poet/lover
of 1,14, equates the abortive results of the mistress' artistic independence,
the fallen hair, to the hair treatment at the hands of a paelex or/and an anus.
In other words, he indirectly admits that his control over the manipulation
of the appearance of his puella is subject to constant challenge. His trium
phant 'I told you
so' self-justification only underscores this anxiety.
The duplicitous semantics of carmen as poetic text and chant is at
magic
perfect unison with the ambivalent significance of the hair/text. This ambi
guity continues with the next pair of potential causes of hair disaster, a hair
disease and envious speech (nee tibi vis morbi nocuit-procul omen abestol- I nee
minuit densas invida lingua comas, 41-42). In ancient sources the two appear
related, yet in reverse order and in cause-effect relationship to each other:
mala lingua, among other
things, often elicits disease. Envy occupies amost

distinguishing place in the poetics of Callimachus and the Alexandrians: it

is inherently tied to poetic creativity and originality, which it vehemently
and constantly inhibits. The same motif is likewise prominent in the works
of the Neoterics and the Augustans, and in similar mode, the preoccupa
tion with facing Envy's attack covertly aspires to sublime artistry. In this
our a
view, when poet makes point of dismissing envious speech as poten

1
N. Gross, 'Ovid, Amores 1.8:Whose Rhetoric?', Class. World 89,1996, 197
Amatory pp.
206.
2
K. S. Myers, 'The Poet and the Procuress: the Lena in Latin Love Journ. Rom.
Elegy',
Stud. 86,1996, pp. 1-21, discusses the character of the lena in Tibullus (1, 5; 2, 6), Propertius
(4.5) and Ovid (Am. 1.8), arguing that in all three elegists, with Ovid being the culmina
tion, the procuress antagonizes the elegist and usurps his role as "instructor and
regularly
constructor of the thus posing a serious threat to his control, and
elegiac puella", literary
not just to his sexual Of particular interest is the argument on pp. 18-20,
potency. detailing
the poetics tied to the and behavior of the procuress.
physical description
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORE5 1, 14 65

rial cause for the falling of Corinna's hair, he actually refuses to admit that
the hair-'texture' produced by Corinna's artistry may be of quality such, as
to attract the attention and, subsequently, the spite of Envy At the same
time, the very dismissal of Envy presupposes at least of
acknowledgement
Envy as origin of disease, which in fact validates the
potential poetological
symbolism behind the status and significance of Corinna's hair.
In the following couplet (43-44) the poet switches from serial negation to
affirmation as he concludes that Corinna caused her hair to fall
emphatic
off by her own hand. Still, no elegiac puella may be bald and simultaneously
maintain her literary status. Accordingly, the poet hastens to suggest that
the situation needs to be remedied: Corinna could wear awig made of hair
that formerly belonged to German
captives, who,war amidst the spoils of
victorious campaigns, the city in a triumph's parade
entered (45-46). It is
often noted that the long, blond and reddish hair of German women was

particularly admired and priced for its exotic appearance.1 Nevertheless,

the prospect of assuming this potentially impressive and attractive new
look does not console Corinna. On the contrary, if we are to believe our
poet, this disguise would only exacerbate her feeling of failure, causing
her to blush in shame (rubebis, 47). How could we justify this kind of reac
tion? Why would a borrowed
wig of exquisite beauty make Corinna sad
and tearful instead of consoling her? The following words, which the poet
introduces as Corinna's reaction to the praise of her beautiful but
alleged
simulated new hair, may help the reader understand the woman's psychol
ogy, or rather how the poet who on her behalf it:
speaks interprets
Et dices 'empta nunc ego merce probor;
Nescioquam pro me laudat nunc iste Sygambram;
Fama tarnen memini cum fuit ista mea\

The mistress more concerned for the

elegiac appears genuineness (empta...
merce) of her hair rather than the verisimilitude in its appearance. She is
saddened because she passes for genuine (probor), acknowledging that she
usurps praise that belongs to someone else (pro me laudat iste Sygambram).
In the meta-language of literary composition the puella- 'poet' is neither
nor embarrassed to someone else's
proud pleased but, rather, appropriate
composition.
The above reading against two alternative
clashes approaches that see
the hair as or the Both
symbol for either the puella/ beloved poet/lover.
these interpretations stem from the fact that throughout the poem we
share the puella s thoughts and follow the various stages of her emotional
the ears and eyes. The readers can only wonder
upheaval through poet's

1
McKeown, op. cit. (1989), p. 381 ad 1,14, 45-50.
66 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

whether the poet describes a situation that he actually witnesses, or an im

aginary setting, which foremost reflects his innermost wishes. In view of

this dilemma of perspective, Corinna's confession of unhappiness at the
of borrowed cosmetics may reflect an actual situation
acknowledgement
of baldness, or may capture inwords awishful Or, is a
merely imagination.
bald Corinna a persona for the poet, directed to step on the dramatic
only
stage of Amores i, 14 and say the words that actually reflect the poet's point
of view? Or, as Kennedy argues, does the poet's discourse actually try to
suppress awareness of the s and manage to
puella impulses, simultaneously
assert control over her?1 Indeed, the emphasis on the hair throughout cor
roborates the argument in favor of the obj edification of the elegiac lady,
while the poet/lover's persistence to dissuade her from experimenting with

hairstyling communicates his anxiety that the girl's experiments may un

dermine his authority over her behavior.
Still, this overtly detailed description of this single physical feature of the
hair2 to a degree unprecedented in the Amores, notwithstanding the po
et's occasional fetishization of other physical characteristics of his beloved,
such as her eyes, legs and breasts, is not easy to explain simply as part of
the poet's strategy to depersonalize the puella. Such provoking description
appears particularly intriguing, given the Romans' not to describe
tendency
physical beauty in full detail, but rather, define it abstractedly and in terms
of its opposite, ugliness.3 Kennedy has noticed the unconventionality of
this overt focusing on a and he has offered an alternative
single feature,
explanation that is closely tied to poetics: Ovid wishes to
identify himself
with his mistress' hair. Thus, the unique and precious hair that readily un
a hundred different (13) could be the poor elegiac
dergoes style changes
lover himself, whose devotion to his lady is as and unconditional,
complete
as and tractable is the latter's hair (cf. esp. 1, 14, 19-22), and who, by
pliable

1
op. cit. p. 71 defines the poem as a of a dramatic situation,
Kennedy, representation
albeit a monologue, and argues for an appreciation of the beloved's words and
portrayal,
reactions the lover's words and the perspectives
"only through they assert".
2
The only other reference to Corinna's appearance in the poem con
physical particular
cerns two brief mentions to the of the cheeks (47, rubebis; 52, rubore
blushing ingenuas picta
genas) and her tearful eyes (51, lacrimas male continet), her listening to (undeserved)
following
praises for the beauty of her borrowed fake hair.
3
One of the reasons for the Romans' not to describe be
tendency physical beauty may
their embrace of the Stoic of beauty as outlined in Cicero's
conception Disp. Tuse. 4, 31
and Plotinus' Enneads 1, 6,1, On Beauty. Both these texts argue that according to the Stoic
view a and or can be beautiful. Indeed, the
only composite thing, nothing single simple,
various sources attest that the Romans knew perfectly well when and how to
literary judge
a woman beautiful, and what to look for to substantiate such a but
judgment, they gener
contained themselves to summarized lists of standardized attractive features; cf. Karl
ally
Jax, Der Frauentypus der R?mischen Dichtung, Innsbruck-Leipzig 1938.
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 67

extension, has sustained torture comparable to the hair treatment with the
hot curling iron.* Nonetheless, the lover's identification to the maltreated
a a
hair of his beloved may be pursued only to degree. The fallen hair is
reality that ultimately does not reflect the poet's fortunes.
Next to these two different but just as conceivable readings of the elegiac
poet's angst over hair one could suggest a third. The lover's
manipulation
about the proper, the ideal, or the desired coloration of the elegiac
fretting
hair reflects the reaction of a author/creator over his text when
controlling
his authorship is disputed and contested. The fact that the precious hair is
so "tractable" as to "be suited to one hundred styles" (centum flexibus apti,
13) actually reinforces this authorship contest, implying multiple different

styling attempts
over the same material. In fact, the last verse of Corinna's
remorse, Jama tarnen memini cum
presumed words of fuit ista mea, is gov
erned by two prominent terms of literary self-reflexivity.2 Corin
Through
na's dramatically staged metapoetical speech the reader is invited to recall
the descriptions of poetically allusive hair elsewhere in the Amores collec
tion - of which several prominent instances have been already discussed
- are not to
that necessarily limited Corinna's coiffure alone.
In view of this contest between the lover and the beloved over the po
etic representation of their relationship, the portrayal of Corinna, in 1,14,
45-50, wearing a of borrowed hair for which she receives praise, and
wig
confessing embarrassment for this undeserved acclaim in words seemingly
her own but clearly set in her mouth by the poet himself, renders what the

poet/lover considers to be the ideal closure to the poem. The humiliated

Corinna, her head bowed and her eyes downcast and fixed on the fallen
new role handed over to her
hair in her lap (53), enters the skin of the
with her new costume, the role of a woman
along wig/dramatic namely
in submission. The redness of the face (ingenuas picta rubore genas, 52), the
tears (lacrimas male continet, 51), the downcast look (gremio spectat capillos,
53) and the drawing of the hand before the eyes (oraque dextra protegit, 51
a
52) in gesture and unmistakably
telling of feelings definitely mixed nega
tive, only enhance the dramatization of the surrender which the reader
has the opportunity to attend synchronically with, and via the descriptive
viewpoint of, the elegiac poet. The two expressions of self-pity (51, me
miserum; 54, exmihi), which introduce the first and last line of the manipu

lating poetic demiourge's declaration of victory (51-54) over his challenger,

the puella/creation, only enhance the impression of authorial control. The

1
Thus Kennedy, op. cit. p. 73.
2 see
On fama est and memini as terms of recently S.
prominent poetic self-reflexivity,
Hinds, Poetic Allusion and Intertext: in Roman Poetry, Cambridge
Dynamics of Appropriation
1998, pp. 1-16 with further literature in the footnotes.
secondary
68 SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

poet projects himself as a creator who cast himself in a contest against an

opponent whom he himself and momentarily allowed to escape
designed
his control.
Ei mihi, non illo mu?era digno loco (54): our poet concludes his corrective
harassment with a that, among other things, reasserts, so close to
phrase
the end of the poem, the poetological symbolism of the hair, which is now
called mu?era, a 'gift'. The poet clarifies that the crines dociles, the hair that is
so easily susceptible to alternative fashions, or else, this poetic material that
is so flexible, varied and rich, is his own intellectual property; and that in
the poem we just read, this material was experimentally on loan to
granted
the mistress to test her verisimilitude, that is, her entity as real elegiac docta

puella. The poet, who midway(line 27) realizes that he nearly

his diatribe
surrenders character
independence to his puella/creation, initiates a turn
to the tone of his discourse in order to check her intellectual expectations
and the possibility of seeing her rising as threat to his authorial control. In
the second half of the elegy, accordingly, he overtly dramatizes the disaster
of the hair loss, and he invites the reader to reflect between the then (the
hair and the lady's appearance under the poet's control) and the now (the
herself claim on her own The reader watches Corin
lady lays appearance).
na's failure the eyes of the creator, who wishes
through that his mistress be
viewed but as as she has turned into a
sympathetically only long dispirited
victim on account of her own fault. Line 54 implies that only when hair

styling is under Ovid's control, the hair, and Corinna's overall appearance
can maintain *
its conventional, elegiac shape at 19-23.
The appreciation of the literary dynamics in the poem is not complete
until we reach the final couplet: collige cum vultu mentem: reparabile dam
num est; / postmodo nativa conspiciere coma (55-56). These lines are patently
ironic: it suddenly becomes clear that the poet was in control of his mis
tress' character development all along. The obvious irony and the spirit of
deflated emotion enthrone the triumph of the elegist. On the other hand,
the emphasis on the mistress' hair confirms its symbolic function, as al

legory for the elegiac material. Furthermore, it is communicated that the

advice that a full head of hair grown back, would the
consoling inspire
s optimism anew, a possibility which suggests that the poet may ex
puella
periment again, in poetic terms, with the portrayal of his puella as literary
opponent. In fact a similar experiment has already been carried out with
great success, in Amores 1, 7. Briefly, Amores 1, 7 celebrates another drama
tized argument between the elegiac lover and his beloved that obviously
echoes 1,14 in its narrative and thematic prescripts: a
lengthy confession of

1
The link between the clinical of the hair and the objectification of the puella
portrayal
who wears it, has been well noted in op. cit. p. 73.
Kennedy,
 POETOLOGY OF HAIRSTYLING IN OVID, AMORES 1, 14 69

remorse and self-chastising on account of his

physically attacking Corinna,
not least tearing her hair (11-12; 65), and above all a likewise and
unexpected
deeply ironic epilogue which refocuses the tone and thematic arrangement
of the poem.
In conclusion, the detailed analysis of Amores 1,14 in this article was ini
tiated to demonstrate that Ovid employs a as much
widely acknowledged
as representation of elegiac composition, the theme of
complex allegorical
the mistress' hair, in order to hone further his strategy of advertising his
This is effected means of a clever of the role of the
poetics. by redrafting
docta puella, who in the particular poem strives to exit the limitations of
the role customarily written for her in elegiac poetry, namely that of the
audience that ismerely asked to approve the writings of the elegiac mas
ter. In this alternative performance the erudite elegiac mistress acts out a

script allegedly of her own making, in which she sees herself

ambitiously
in terms of poetic creativity. Nonetheless, this reac
standing independently
tion of the manipulated elegiac lady only experimentally revives the debate
over In the end, the readers should realize that no elegiac
elegiac thematics.
puella may stand independently; the elegiac poet may stage a competition
where he could appear at risk of being overpowered by his creation, but
a loss of control is never seriously at stake - the poet is eager to
complete
surrender the rule of the narrative director only to experiment with modes
that would ultimately reinforce it - otherwise the poem produced would
not have been part of his own work.

University of Cyprus