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Plants' Interconnected Lives: From Ovid's Myths to Presocratic Thought and Beyond

2016; Boston University; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/arn.2016.0026

2327-6436

Claudia Zatta,

Plant and Biological Electrophysiology Studies

Plants’ Interconnected Lives: From Ovid’s Myths to Presocratic Thought and Beyond CLAUDIA ZATTA Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES starts with a grand epoch of cosmogonic changes and moves on to a new era, the first event of which is the transformation of a nymph into a plant. By then, the world has gone through a number of catastrophes: the falling of mountains and a deluge, with the consequent extinction of multiple human races and other forms of life. The humans associated with the metal ages have vanished, and gone also is the race born from the blood of the irreverent Giants, whose descendant Lycaon—the Arcadian king transformed into a wolf—left behind enduring fame for cruelty. After the deluge, the world has become a vast solitude with only a couple of human beings as survivors: Deucalion and Pyrrha. The gods granted these pious children of Prometheus—themselves afraid of being alone and longing for the company of others—the power of repopulating the world by throwing stones behind their backs. The transformation happened simply. The stones became bigger and softer and achieved a human form. Ovid adds further details: quae tamen ex illis aliquo pars umida suco et terrena fuit, versa est in corporis usum; quod solidum est flectique nequit, mutatur in ossa; quae modo vena fuit, sub eodem nomine mansit. (Metamorphoses 1.407−10) that part in them which was both moist and earthy was used for the creation of their flesh, while what was solid and incapable of bending turned to bone; what had been veins continued on, still having the same name.1 arion 24.2 fall 2016 In this process of world “repopulation,” the earth played a part, too. As if it were a gigantic womb, it spontaneously conceived and nourished the seeds of countless kinds of living beings, which later emerged from it as full-blown creatures . They comprised specimens that existed at the time before the deluge as well as new, bizarre individuals like the monstrous snake Pytho, which Apollo would eventually kill in the territory of Mount Parnassus.2 Yet, not all forms of life were created at that point. The laurel tree, for instance, was still missing and the story of the unfulfilled love of Daphne and Apollo serves in fact as an etiological explanation to account for its origin. Here, too, Ovid doesn’t spare details about the way Daphne’s metamorphosis happened, and in the description of her physical transformation into a tree, he offers a narrative model which he will use again and again for similar types of metamorphoses: vix prece finita torpor gravis occupat artus, mollia cinguntur tenui praecordia libro, in frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt, pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret, ora cacumen habet; remanet nitor unus in illa. Hanc quoque Phoebus amat, positaque in stipite dextra sentit adhuc trepidare novo sub cortice pectus conplexusque suis ramos, ut membra, lacertis oscula dat ligno: refugit tamen oscula lignum. (Metamorphoses 1, 548−56) her prayer was scarcely finished when she feels a torpor take possession of her limbs— her supple trunk is girdled with a thin layer of fine bark over her smooth skin; her hair turns into foliage, her arms grow into branches, sluggish roots adhere to feet that were recently so swift, her head becomes the summit of a tree; all that remains of her is a warm glow. Loving her still, the god puts his right hand plants’ interconnected lives 102 against the trunk, and even now can feel her heart as it beats under the new bark; he hugs her limbs as if they were still human, and then he puts his lips against the wood, which, even now, is adverse to his kiss. (Martin 1.754−68) From the transformation of Daphne on, the poem will feature countless metamorphoses producing new beings—from plants and animals to geographical features and even constellations —further enriching the population, landscape, and history of an ever-changing world.3 This sketch of the tumultuous scenario of the origins in book 1 not only shows the poetic virtuosity and intellectual sophistication of a poet who masterfully fuses literary and philosophical traditions into a unique composition, but the...