Desired Silence: Amor and Mors in Tibullus 1.1

K. Bassi: Desired Silence53 Desired Silence: Amor and Mors in Tibullus 1.1 Karen Bassi Lines 69 and 70 of Tibullus' first elegy provide a phonological clue to die poem's meaning. Here, in what will become a common motif in Tibullan elegy, the speaker admonishes diepuella to love him while she can before death separates diem, as it inevitably will: Interea, dum fata sinunt, iungamus amores: Iam veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput. Meanwhile, while the fates allow, let us join in love: for soon death will come, veiled in shadows, In the second hemiepes of die pentameter line, Mors followed by die -a (in adoperta) inverts and yet reverberates die sound of a-mor-es in die hexameter.1 That is, a phonological similarity is produced. According to R. Jakobson, such similarities express a semantic relationship as well, especially in a poetic context: "In a sequence, where similarity is superimposed on contiguity, two similar phonemic sequences near to each other are prone to assume a paronomastic function. Words similar in sound are drawn together in meaning (371)."2 Or, as he puts it more succinctiy (370), "Anything sequent is a simile." In die context of Latin poetry in particular, F. AhI argues that "die syllable is a sense and sound unit" (36), so diat "there is death in love because diere is MOR in aMOR, just as diere is fire in wood because there is IGNis in lIGNis" (40; cf. 56-57).3 According to Jakobson's and 1 M.C.J. Putnam (Tibullus, A Commentary [Norman 1973] on Mors adoperta ) notes that "there is no ancient parallel for this effective description." Cf. K.F. Smith, The Elegies ofTibullus (New York 1913, repr. Darmstadt 1964) ad loc.; and F.-H. Mutschler, Die poetische Kunst Tibulls (Frankfurt am Main 1985) 47, note 38. 2 "Linguistics and Poetics," in Style in Language, T.A. Sebeok, ed. (Boston, New York and London 1960) 350-77. 3 Metaformations, Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca and London 1985). Of course, the quantity ofthe vowels is important In the lines under discussion, the quantity of the "o" in mors is long by position, like the quantity of the "o" in amores; the "a" in amores and adoperta is short by nature and position. But cf. W.S. Allen, Vox Latina, A Guide to 54Syllecta Classica 5 (1994) Ahl's formulations, the phonological sequence produced by amores and Mors-a in Tibullus' poem produces a semantic relationship which can best be described by the simile "Love is like death." But if this message is suggested in lines 69-70, does the same message inform the poem as a whole? Does this phonological equivalence have semantic staying power and if so, what conclusions does it provide for our understanding of Tibullus' elegiac enterprise and Roman elegy in general? An initial reading of 1.1 seems to invalidate the suggested simile when the clearjuxtaposition of love and death in line 70 gives the overt warning that death will destroy love. Here love is not like death; rather death negates love.4 This perversely overt threat seems to aim at temporal domination; it is ostensibly meant to persuade the puella to love now, before it is too late. DJF. Bright remarks, "This [the enjoyment of love in the present moment] is the real dream towards which he [the speaker] has been building all the time."5 Encouraged by the generic pretense of elegy, critics imagine a dramatic plot in which the elegiac speaker, a persistent lover, aims (however incompetendy) at sexual satisfaction and that the threat of death is simply in the service of this goal.6 W. Wimmel's reading of the death threat in 1.1 adds psychological intrigue to that drama; he states that the "fantasy of death" in the poem is "a wish to be able to represent the affectionate, the 'true' Delia and thus to mold the situation."7 These interpretations, based on the notion diat the speaker's allusion to his own death is a sign of his desire for power (either over the girl's person or over his own self-doubt), are certainly in evidence on the...