Now Phoebus had bent his arch of light along the
shorter way and the time of Obscure Sleep was growing,
and now the conqueress Cynthia extended her reign,
and unsightly Winter snatched at those pleasing honors
of wealthy Autumn and with Bacchus ordered to grow old
the aged grape-harvester was plucking the sparse grapes.
I think more is understood if I should say: it was the month of October, three days before the Ides of October. I cannot tell you the exact hour (it will come easier among philosophers than among clocks) nevertheless it was between the sixth and seventh hour. "Excessive unsophistication! All poets, not content to describe the rising and setting of the sun, take pleasure so much in these things, that they also disturb the middle of the day: Will you thus pass by so great an hour?
Now Phoebus divided the globe down the middle in his chariot
and nearer to Night he was shaking the tired reins
leading out the bent light on a roundabout course:
Claudius began to gasp and could not find an exit.
This is the first bit of the poetry that is interspersed with the prose throughout the Apocolocyntosis. It is of admittedly poor quality (and worsens later on) using many dull adjectives for seemingly no reason. Not only that but the repetition of similar concepts does nothing to add to the depth of the poetry. On the good side of things it becomes more interesting later on how many different words Seneca comes up with that all basically mean the same thing (he uses three words for hair within two line of each other!).
ReplyDeleteThe prose aside pokes fun at the dullness of topics that many poets chose to discuss (a majority of poets that still survive were of similar bad quality to this, clearly not enough Vergils and Ovids). Adding to the humour of course is the next bit of poetry Seneca throws on top to make sure all the dullness of the day is discussed.
As said before the date was October 13th, a traditionally accepted date for Claudius' death.
The mention of philosophers and clocks is another humorous side-note. Philosophers in antiquity were famous for bickering among themselves and never coming to agreement. The clocks used we water clocks since the outdoor clocks would not function when the sun was down. These type of clocks also were famous for being very inaccurate and thus having a poor chance of agreeing with each other.