Opsimath—Mar. 31, 2025
Iphigenia and the Most Ambitious Poem Ever
It’s a contender for the most ambitious poem ever written. No—it’s not the Iliad. Not the Odyssey or Works and Days. Forget Paradise Lost. It’s not even the Divine Comedy.
It’s De Rerum Natura, and the author is Lucretius.
In a letter to his brother, Cicero spoke thus of Titus Lucretius Carus (mid-90s to mid-50s BCE):
Lucreti poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt: multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis.
De Rerum What?
Lucretius’ masterful poem provides us with the most detailed account of Epicureanism. Yep, that’s the school of thought that loved pleasure and wasn’t a fan of religion. (Ok, there’s more to it…)
It’s a tour de force. It talks of atoms as motes of dust in a sunbeam, the fear of death, gods and centaurs and gloomy Hades, cosmic designs and body parts, and the catastrophic Athenian plague. And don’t forget THE SWERVE!!!
But most of all—it’s exquisite Latin.
Not only did Lucretius stretch the limits of Latin—not only did he attempt a colossal feat by putting Greek philosophic prose into Latin verse.
He succeeded! And the poem isn’t even finished!
Let’s look at some lines. There are too many good ones to pick, and I wish I had more time to write a longer post. But this will do for now:
Aulide quo pacto Triviai virginis aram
Iphianassai turparunt sanguine foede
ductores Danaum delecti, prima virorum.
cui simul infula virgineos circum data comptus
ex utraque pari malarum parte profusast,
et maestum simul ante aras adstare parentem
sensit et hunc propter ferrum celare ministros
aspectuque suo lacrimas effundere civis,
muta metu terram genibus summissa petebat.
nec miserae prodesse in tali tempore quibat,
quod patrio princeps donarat nomine regem;
nam sublata virum manibus tremibundaque ad aras
deductast, non ut sollemni more sacrorum
perfecto posset claro comitari Hymenaeo,
sed casta inceste nubendi tempore in ipso
hostia concideret mactatu maesta parentis,
exitus ut classi felix faustusque daretur.
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. (Book I, 80-101)
I mean…I…just…placet mihi maxime!
It took me a long time to come around to what I’m about to say, but I’m now convinced it’s absolutely true.
(Drum roll, please.)
You can’t appreciate Lucretius (or any Greek or Latin poetry, for that matter) if you ignore the meter. That might sound silly and simple to you, or it might not. Let’s be honest, scanning verses—chopping them up into feet, spondees, syllables, and adorning them with a tasty caesura every once in a while—is not as fun as this sentence made it sound.
Let me just read the lines! Who cares if it’s bam-ba-bam or bam-ba-ba-bam?
Lucretius cared. So much. Too much! (Saint Jerome tells us he went mad after drinking a love potion. Read the end of book V and you just might believe it. Thinking about how to take care of dactylic hexameter might have precipitated his doom.)
Just look at how carefully he placed his words.
Muta metu—mactatu maesta—casta inceste.
The alliteration!
Three words stand between maestum and parentem—the burning emotion, the heart torn apart! And why the accusative? Sensit—tension resolved with a new verse, and a new tension evoked.
Can you hear it? The fierce hexameter rolls the tongue as the mind conjures images of Iphigenia prostrated on the altar, sensing the deadly air, and the hidden blade, and the tears the audience shed at sight of her.
Unparalleled beauty. Unstoppable force. And a great text to learn some Latin.
Speaking of which—here’s a state-of-the-art collection of delicious selections from the poem, with facing-page, line-by-line grammar and vocabulary notes, and much more (thank you Bonnie Catto!!!)
Maybe you just want to get a clearer ideas about wha Lucretius was up to—if so, this study guide will get you started.
This will do for now. But we’ll be back with more Lucretius, as soon as time swerves in our favor.
~ Leo
P.S.: Here’s my prosaic translation of those lines. That’s just to get the gist.
As once at Aulis the leaders of the Greeks, best of men, Danaan counselors, abhorrently defiled virgin Diana’s altar, with the blood of Iphianassa. At once the ribbon around her maiden locks fluttered down her cheeks in equal part—and she sensed her grieving father at the altar—and the priests beside him who concealed the knife—and the bystanders who shed tears at sight of her. Struck speechless, she fell to the ground, sinking on her knees. Alas, it would not help at such a time to know that she was first to bestow the name of father on the king. For men’s hands lifted her and led her, trembling, to the altar, not that Hymen’s choir may escort her through the solemn, sacred rite of marriage, but that a virtuous victim abhorrently defiled at the very age of wedlock, a grieving sacrificial subject, should be slaughtered by a father’s blade so that the fleet may be given fruitful and auspicious passage. So great an evil thing could religion motivate.
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