Seneca, Natural Questions

Looking at motion in the NQ’s rather posthuman world, and in its physics, prevents too narrow an emphasis on humans and ethics. Yet entities like wind and sea are personified through movement. Transitive (imposed) and intransitive movement have hierarchical consequences; agency and causation enter. Motion runs through the treatment of people, both metaliterary, for narrator and addressee, and satirical, for the depraved. The work’s precision on motion is shown in its handling of verbs and especially preverbs; Seneca’s vocabulary expands for the NQ. The work does not treat the whole cosmos; it concentrates on things that move, especially in disruptive change. The regular movement of heavenly bodies contrasts; spiritus (wind, air) is quite different. Passages include: throwing stones into water, the possibility of fire falling, the journeying of old Hannibal and old Seneca, the types of earthquake, the madness of sailing to war. In them description of motion is both evocative and argumentative, argument on motion is organized and visionary; levels of motion differ pointedly; types of motion are conveyed with nuance; human motion is reproached through elaborate structures of thought, not just shouting. The NQ do not, like narrative works, present a single world to immerse the reader; argument is to the fore, and rival views are prominent (so Democritus on atoms, Epigenes on comets). Truth is reached through observation and understanding of movement (so on the roundness of drops). Motion is presented both with philosophical penetration and with literary richness.

Sophocles, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus

Tragedy presents motion visually, but this is only part of one level of motion. Actual but unseen motion and metaphorical motion interact with stage motion in the rich mythology and language of tragedies. Tragic plots involve motion beyond the stage and are part of larger myths of motion; lyric and speech in Antigone and OT exhibit dense complexes of poetry, events, action. The tragic language of motion is elaborate; each of Sophocles’ plays has its specialities. Tragedy likes speed; but the Philoctetes and OC exploit laborious movement, fraught with long suffering. They survey through motion Philoctetes’ solitary disability and Oedipus’ old age with his daughter. The passages looked at include Philoctetes telling of his endeavours to get food, an attack on stage in which he falls down, the moral and dramatic intricacies of attempted joint motion with Neoptolemus, Antigone being carried off, the winds assailing old age, the failed journey of Oedipus’ son. They manifest: the difficult specifics of movement, graphic stage movement, interweaving of drama and metaphor, groups and individuals, near-authorial lyric, obstinate immorality. Motion in the plays ranges from imagined entry into heaven or the underworld to pain within the body and awkward sitting down. The chamber Philoctetes offers a vast breadth of motion; the fixed OC shows constant fluctuation.

Parmenides, On Nature

On Nature is a poem as well as philosophy. The different parts of the poem deny motion, assert motion, offer abundant metaphorical motion. The prominent opposition between motion and immobility is both philosophical and poetic; it differs from, and relates to, verbal and philosophical clashing in Heraclitus. Parmenides’ language presents a further clash between the traditional and the new (Homeric poetry, not prose, but turned in startling directions). The image of the chariot ride has both mythological and contemporary resonance. Most of what remains from the poem is discussed in detail, including: the narrator’s ride towards the unnamed goddess, the two roads of inquiry, a third road wandered on by bewildered two-headed mortals, the revelation of unmoving reality with metaphors of motion, the wandering of the moon (in the world as seen by opinion). These present: arresting combinations of abrupt obscurity and speed, of intellectualism and mythology; a satirical vision of Heracliteans; multiple levels of motion and non-motion in challengingly opaque argument; inferior and superior modes of movement in heavenly bodies. The contrasts involving motion go beyond movement and immobility to wandering and firmly purposeful action. The narrator’s individual motion is enhanced by a group (goddesses) and opposed to groups (mortals and Heraclitean mortals). The treatment of motion is doubly vital to the philosophical poem.

Tacitus, Annals

Tacitus’ Annals give intriguing turns to the motion important in historiography. The emperors in Rome or Italy do not move much, by contrast with warfare at the edges of empire. This absence of substantial motion is pointed, and opposed both to subtle motion at the centre, and to the metaphorical motion (motus) of political upheavals. Mental motion is important too. Motion helps display the range of the Annals: a range seen not just in material but in the fullness of treatment. Close treatment is especially significant in the treatment of death. Tacitus’ language of motion (compound verbs etc.) shows his interest in precision and in grasping attention. Among the passages are a Roman legion recovering the plot under Germanicus, the Roman people prostrate outside Sejanus’ country house, scary British women, fire in strange and monstrous motion, the comings and goings around Tiberius’ fluctuating health, the wild movements at and after Messalina’s party. The passages show the satisfactory organization of military narrative and the political collapse of Roman structures; they explore barbarian gender, inanimate nature, pointedly different scales and levels of motion, motion for itself and with a desperate purpose. The treatment of group motion is more important than in Ovid, more complex than in Homer (so defeated Germani, or the return of Germanicus’ widow). Structures of power are scrutinized through motion (so Mithridates of Armenia or Nero’s mother). Detail is lively (as on climbing trees); the voice of the narrator, that central character, guides the reader’s responses with complex cohesion.

Visual Art

Visual art shows the ancient interest in motion palpably, and helps in perceiving both differences between depictions in art and literature and aspects they have in common. Mostly well-known works of art are chosen for detailed discussion. A Corinthian arbyallos shows leaping in a dance as an action admired in itself; a Boeotian skyphos gives a dynamic picture of Odysseus blown by the wind. The stele of Dexileos presents a moment of motion just before a decisive event, as does a wall-painting of Pentheus. Still further back before events come the discus-thrower (Discobolus) and a painting of Medea. A wall-painting of Hades and Persephone and Exekias’ vase-painting of Dionysus show gods in motion at the start and in the sequel of events. Artistic depictions exploit space, visual detail, and the regularity of motion; the viewer’s knowledge is important, as in literature. Lessing misguidedly thinks that literature is more suited to depicting motion; literature can do more with time, but less with physical detail and space. The contribution of the reader’s or listener’s imagination does not reduce the significance of described motion, any more than the contribution of the viewer reduces the significance of depicted thought. Part of literature’s interest in art is an interest in motion, as in ekphrasis or Pindar. Art and literature together show important variables (like speed), oppositions (as between individual and a group), structures (as of male and female). In literature, language is important to what motion arrests attention.

Conclusion

Passages and works are now confronted. Works can be viewed along the axes of genre and of time (literary history). A particularly important change is the development of philosophy; but genre affects its impact on works. The worlds which structure motion differ drastically in Metamorphoses, NQ, and Annals, over little more than a century. Worlds can be akin, language divergent—so Iliad and Sophocles—or language akin, worlds divergent—so Iliad and Parmenides. A basic question is whether someone or something is moved or moves, and if moves, whether willingly. A basic variable is speed; speed can also mark hierarchy: gods and heavenly bodies outdo humans. A subtler variable is shape of motion, twisting, circular, straight; straight, purposeful motion is set against planless wandering. An important opposition is between the motion of a group and of an individual. Contrasts of scale matter too. Particularly significant is the opposition between moving and not moving. Literature, still more than art, is interested in levels of motion beyond the immediate: images, possibilities, pondered choices, refuted theories. Motion is important to meaning and to religious and political structuring. Whether or not motion is distinctively important in ancient literature, it has a bearing on modern literature; Tolstoy’s War and Peace illustrates. On the level of narrative, motion is expressive (Natasha’s running); but narrated motion is related to historical motion and the movement of peoples, made up from the individual movements of participants. Imagistic motion abounds, not least the haunting and transcendent comet of 1812.

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Striking depictions of motion in the Metamorphoses come readily to mind: Daphne, Actaeon, Daedalus and Icarus…. The motion shows copious diversity more than rigorous structuring, as in the Iliad. Wandering motion is frequent; a great range of spaces is covered. But the poem is interested in motion as a state of the universe, as Pythagoras’ philosophical speech brings out. The relation of metamorphosis to motion is manifold and complex; motion is connected to life and type of creature. Imagined possibilities of motion are important as well as narrated movement. The interest of the poem in motion is indicated by the frequency of moueo and motus there as compared to Aeneid and Fasti. Passages discussed include Niobe turning to not quite unmoving stone, supremely fast animals in impossible competition, the girl Iphis becoming a man and moving like one, Medea contemplating a voyage, Myrrha moving towards her father’s bedroom, Dis abducting Persephone. The depiction of motion is thus related to paradox, puzzles, refined observation, thought, morality, hierarchy. Motion is made conspicuous by drastic differences (as between the Greek army and snake and birds). The gods’ motion is both universal and individual (Venus briefly takes up Diana’s); more philosophically universal is the movement of time. The diversity of motion is held together by the flair of style.

Homer, Iliad

Motion is fundamental to the Iliad: both its continuous flow of swift movement, and significant refusals to move. In the prime story, Achilles refuses motion, then speeds in action. In mid-poem, forces pressing for motion meet in fixity, until Hector breaks through. The Iliad is more interested in speed than the Odyssey, as analysis of lexicon confirms. It also much exploits the basic traditional language, with e.g. preverbs of direction detachable for emphasis. Verbs of non-motion like ‘lie’ or ‘stay’ acquire great resonance. Particular passages include Helen refusing movement and urging it on a goddess, Andromache’s reluctant and Paris’s eager movement, Nestor’s thought on motion like a poised wave, Hector’s pondering on motion and his flight from Achilles, Patroclus and Hector leaping from their chariots while Cebriones falls. These show: hierarchy, emotion, motion as imagery and as subject-matter for thought, willed motion and motion externally caused (‘intransitive’ and ‘transitive’), the development of narrative in time. Contrasts (as of slow and quick goddesses), conflicts of will (as between Apollo and Diomedes), shapes of movement (as of twisting snake and circling sparrow) construct in the poem a connected and variegated web of motion.

Introduction

Classical literature is full of motion, but motion has been little considered, unlike space. Motion was of more interest to ancient philosophers than space; it is bound up with ethics, character, and other central aspects of literature. The unfamiliar subject is best considered in relation to familiar works: mostly large and well-known works are chosen, across a range of time and genre. The chapters each look at the general roles of motion in a work, scrutinize the language used for motion, and analyse a series of passages. Art makes a good starting point, and introduces us to features found in literary depictions of motion: so to oppositions (e.g. willed and inflicted motion) and to hierarchies (e.g. gods and mortals). Literary descriptions of motion can be seen to invite the attention of readers or listeners, and authors are visibly interested by motion, either as a general concept, or in the drawing together of different types (such as sailing, running, and flying).