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Ovidian Ambivalence and Responses to Myrrha in Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and Bidart’s Desire

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Abstract

In the Metamorphoses Ovid authorizes opposing responses to the figure of Myrrha and her incestuous desire. While Ovid’s Orpheus (who narrates Myrrha’s story) condemns Myrrha at the outset of the tale, Ovid’s portrayal of Myrrha may invite an audience’s sympathy. The unclear cause of Myrrha’s desire and Myrrha’s own recognition of the social force of pudor allow her to be viewed as a mortal caught in an impossible predicament rather than as a unclean criminal. Ovid allows audience members to decide how they will respond to Myrrha. Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses reshapes the story of Myrrha to fit an economy of reward and punishment. In Zimmerman’s play Myrrha becomes a representative of abnormal and culpable desire who is punished and then made to disappear, like a bad dream. Frank Bidart takes an opposite tack in his Desire. Bidart presents Myrrha as an embodiment of the difficulties of desire and encourages an audience to offer her not merely sympathy but even empathy, since her desire cannot be decisively distinguished from our own.

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Notes

  1. See survey in Flinker [15].

  2. For Myrrha's place among the falsifiers, see Inferno canto 30. For Myrrha as a taboo Virgin Mary and the possible influence of that identification on Dante's depiction of the center of Hell, see Spence [48]. It is worth noting that Spence's argument relies on exceptional allusiveness.

  3. Hopkins [19]; Wray [51], p. 256.

  4. Newman [37].

  5. Hopkins [19].

  6. Kass [23], pp. 3–4, pp. 21–28. Kass' reading causally connects Pygmalion's desire for the perfect woman and the incestuous desire of Myrrha, Pygmalion's great-granddaughter.

  7. Bidart's Desire [7] was awarded the 1998 Bobbit Prize by the Library of Congress; for her Metamorphoses [55] Zimmerman received the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director. Later citations of these texts will be noted in the body of the paper.

  8. The Latin text of the Metamorphoses is from Tarrant [49]. All translations are my own.

  9. Barchiesi [3], p. 59.

  10. Archibald [2], p. 17, remarks on the general trend in Greco-Roman literature to see incest as ‘barbarically' non-Greek and non-Roman. In telling Myrrha's tale, Orpheus focuses on her associations with the east. But there may be some sleight of hand here: Cinyras is the child of Paphos of Cyprus. While we can be certain that Myrrha's exile ultimately lands her in Asia, does the earlier part of her story take place there or in Cyprus? Anderson [1], p. 515, explains that other versions of Myrrha's story locate it in Assyria; for placing Myrrha in Asia, also see Brooks [10], p. 189. The focus on Myrrha's final destination from the outset allows Orpheus to emphasize Myrrha's deviancy through geography yet link this story to the preceding one through descent from Pygmalion.

  11. Putnam [40], p. 172, puts it thus: ‘Topographical and moral, spiritual distances are mutual metaphors, with literal symbolizing figurative.'

  12. I am grateful to one of the anonymous referees for IJCT for pointing this out, although in Catullus 95 the contrast of east and west works in the favor of Cinna, whose Smyrna will have a farther reach than Volusius' annals. Cinna's Smyrna is discussed in Courtney [14], p. 214, pp. 218–220. Also see Knox [26], pp. 54–58.

  13. Solodow [47], p. 40.

  14. Ovid introduces Tereus in book 6 with the words ‘Threicius Tereus' (6.424); also see Anderson [1], p. 503.

  15. Archibald [2], p. xv.

  16. Barchiesi [3], p. 61.

  17. Nagle [35], especially p. 301 and p. 315.

  18. Knox [26], p. 55.

  19. Myrrha herself presumes that if she acted on her desire she would be subject to the Furies' punishment (10.349-351).

  20. For example, (explicitly) Regosin [44], pp. 233–234 n. 1, and (implicitly) Kass [23], pp. 3-4, pp. 21–22.

  21. In book 4, the Fury Tisiphone drives Athamas and Ino into a madness that leads to familial crime. Athamas and Ino themselves have done nothing prior to warrant punishment from the Furies, but Tisiphone acts at the behest of Juno, who wants to destroy the couple out of a sense of jealous indignation.

  22. Hopkins [19], p. 791.

  23. Hopkins [19], p. 791, discusses how Myrrha's citation of social terminology and concepts allows a reader to have a complex attitude toward her and her desire.

  24. Barton [4], pp. 244–269, though Barton does not use Myrrha's actions as prime illustrations of the workings of pudor.

  25. Barton [4], p. 257. Although Barton uses this phrase generally, I think it is particularly apt for Myrrha.

  26. Coleman [13], p. 470, also compares and contrasts these three female characters, but focuses on their varying pietas.

  27. For elegy and Byblis, see Janan [20] and Raval [42]. Nagle [35], p. 309, discusses Byblis' delusion.

  28. Parthenius recounts Byblis' story in Sect. 11 of Erotica Pathēmata; see Lightfoot [28], pp. 328–331.

  29. As Ormand [39] demonstrates, Iphis realizes that within her social context a wedding between women is unthinkable, and although she desires Ianthe, she does not try to construct a self-justifying framework in which such a union would make sense.

  30. Barton [4], p. 200.

  31. McKinley [33], pp. 41–42.

  32. E.g., Hinds [18], p. 25, and Newlands [36], p. 480.

  33. Janan [21], p. 134, maintains that Ovid's use of Orpheus as a narrator allows Ovid to avoid making ‘authoritative' statements. Cahoon [11], pp. 63–64, similarly suggests that the heavily embedded, multiple narrations of Metamorphoses book 5 allow for a variety of possible audience responses. Rosati [45] sensitively discusses the interpretive implications of Ovid's use of embedded narrators, including the calculated loss of authoritative, epic truth. For Ovid's increasing use of internal narrators in the course of the Metamorphoses, see Wheeler [50], pp. 162–164, pp. 185–193.

  34. Rosati [45], especially pp. 303–304.

  35. Newlands [36], p. 485.

  36. Zimmerman [55] uses Greek ‘Eros' rather than Latin ‘Cupid.' She also uses Greek ‘Aphrodite' rather than Latin ‘Venus.' When writing about the characters in Zimmerman's play, I will use her names for them.

  37. Nouryeh [38], pp. 64-65, points out that all of the stories included in Zimmerman's Metamorphoses—with the exception of Myrrha—can be found in Edith Hamilton's Mythology, a book important to Zimmerman in her youth.

  38. Zimmerman [55], p. 3, discusses the role of the pool in ‘A Note on the Staging.'

  39. Characters rewarded are Alcyone, Erysichthon's mother, Vertumnus, and Baucis and Philemon; characters punished are Erysichthon, Phaeton, and Myrrha; characters both rewarded and punished are Orpheus, Psyche, and Midas.

  40. Ovid's Vertumnus also invokes the imagery of (female) vine and (male) tree (14.661-668), but Zimmerman extends the imagery by using it as a frame for the entire episode.

  41. Narcissus' self-love is not fully treated: according to Zimmerman [55], p. 48, Narcissus appears only briefly (and wordlessly) onstage during an interlude.

  42. Myrrha's love is a punishment from Aphrodite; Psyche is the beloved of Eros, who fell in love with her instead of punishing her at Aphrodite's behest. Myrrha can see Cinyras at night, though Cinyras cannot see her; Psyche is not allowed to look on Eros when he visits her at night. Cinyras looks at Myrrha, and that leads to her flight; Psyche looks at Eros, and that leads to her separation from her spouse. Myrrha is ontologically undone; Psyche is ontologically promoted. Kenney [24], p. 19, notes that Apuleius' Psyche bears some similarity to Ovidian heroines, including Myrrha.

  43. Nouryeh [38], pp. 68-69, connects Zimmerman's treatment of love in the Metamorphoses to Zimmerman's own recovery—through art—from loss in love. Garwood [17], p. 74, sees the tales of the play circling around the theme of ‘the redemptive power of love.' Because Myrrha's desire is a punishment as well as a foil to the other loves celebrated in the play, Meyers [34], p. 56, can describe Myrrha's story as ‘[a] tale, then, of transgression, but not in the least transgressive.'

  44. The use of Rilke's poem was suggested to Zimmeran by a cast member; Nouryeh [38], p. 77 n. 27.

  45. Nouryeh [38], p. 72. Zimmerman [52], [53], [54]. Zimmerman's adaptation of The Arabian Nights and an earlier (two-night) version of The Odyssey pre-date her Metamorphoses.

  46. Jones [22], p. 22.

  47. Zimmerman's scripts contain additional material with details about the set, staging, casting, and other technical features: [55] p. 3, pp. 85-86; [54] pp. xv–xvi, pp. 141–144; [53] p. xv, pp. 167–173; [52] pp. xi–xii, pp. 149–156. At the end of each script a selection of photographs of the play are also provided.

  48. Zimmerman quoted in Nouryeh [38], p. 73.

  49. Reviewing Zimmerman's Metamorphoses for The New Yorker, Lahr [27], p. 151, concludes: ‘As staged, although delightful to look at, these tales are to the myths what Big Macs are to meat.'

  50. All poems mentioned in this paper can be found in Bidart [7] or [8].

  51. Birkerts [9], p. 122.

  52. Looking at Bidart's early uses of Classical material, Schwartz [46], p. 33, suggests that they are parallel to his more famous explorations of intense personalities; both afford Bidart the means to imagine ‘an alternative self, an alternative culture.'

  53. Kirchwey [25], p. 153.

  54. Mattison [31], p. 42. Many of the other reviews and appreciations in Rector and Swenson [43] also mention the family resemblance among these figures.

  55. Rathmann and Allen [41], p. 37. In another interview, Bidart mentioned that he wanted to write a poem ‘to question the traditional assumptions about love,’ Liu [29], p. 6.

  56. The title comes from the Egyptian Book of Gates; see Longenbach [30], p. 273; pace Wray [51], p. 256, who identifies the poem's title as Ovidian.

  57. In his poems, Frank Bidart makes extensive use of italics, capitalizations, and non-traditional spacing. In the quotations from Bidart's work here, I retain Bidart's typographical choices.

  58. Chiasson [12], p. 134, finds in this movement the very rhythm of desire.

  59. Bidart's source for other ancient material is Robert Graves' Greek Myths. Bidart [6], p. 18.

  60. 'Guilty of Dust,' Bidart [8], pp. 14-15; discussed by Chiasson [12], pp. 124–125.

  61. Rathmann and Allen [41], p. 23.

  62. Rathmann and Allen [41], p. 32.

  63. Bedient [5], p. 166.

  64. Longenbach [30], p. 282.

  65. Fowler [16] uses the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as his touchstone to explore a perhaps necessary tension between distance and intimacy, detachment and empathy, in the Metamorphoses.

  66. In this context it may be worth mentioning that Ovid uses words related to pietas more in the Myrrha episode than in any other story in the Metamorphoses. By my count (and with the help of McCarty et al. [32]), forms of pius, pietas, impius, and impietas occur seventy-eight times in the Metamorphoses as a whole; ten of these are in the Myrrha episode. The stories of Meleager and Tereus, Procne, and Philomela have the next highest individual concentrations, with six each. Taken together, the various tales in the account of Aeneas' wanderings contain seven; with Myrrha, Ovid has chosen a very different vehicle than Vergil for an exploration of pietas.

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  1. Department of Foreign Languages, Hendrix College, 1600 Washington Avenue, Conway, AR, 72032, USA

    Rebecca Resinski

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Correspondence to Rebecca Resinski.

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I am grateful to have had opportunities to present some of my ideas about Myrrha at Yale University, the Lambda Classical Caucus panel at the 2005 APA/AIA annual meeting, and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. I am also thankful for various advice and support from Robert Babcock, Chris Campolo, David Fredrick, Hendrix College, the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation, Daniel Levine, Ann Muse, Carole Newlands, Catherine Schlegel, Celia Schultz, the students in my Metamorphoses reception course at Hendrix College in spring 2008, and the editors and anonymous referees for IJCT.

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Resinski, R. Ovidian Ambivalence and Responses to Myrrha in Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and Bidart’s Desire . Int class trad 21, 273–295 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-014-0345-z

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