Abstract
From Book IV of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, we most often retain the severe criticism of the amorous feeling and the “traps of Venus.” However, two original aspects of the Lucretian denunciation of love, which I propose to study, are overlooked: on the one hand, the eulogy of the vagrant Venus, the volgivaga vagus Venere of verse 1071, an image of sexual infidelity that has become a philosophical virtue; on the other hand, the study of feminine pleasure—Lucretius acknowledges and values feminine jouissance in his description of the physiology of heterosexual coitus. Bearing in mind that Epicurean ethics identifies voluptas with telos or Sovereign Good, it is particularly interesting to note that these two elements actually propose the outline of a specific sexual ethos, characterized by two structuring elements: diversity and reciprocity. I will thus propose a global perspective on this question of sexuality within Epicurean thought, highlighting the particularities resulting from the Epicureans’ consideration of the feminine dimension and its ambivalence.
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Notes
- 1.
All translations of the Greek or Latin texts cited in this article are mine.
- 2.
“T. Lucretius poeta nascitur. Postea amatorio poculo in furorem versus, cum aliquot libros per intervalla insaniae conscripsisset, quos postea Cicero emendavit, propria se manu interfecit anno aetatis quadragesimo quarto.”
- 3.
Today preserved in the Universiteisbibliothek of Utrecht (Litt. Lat. X).
- 4.
Today preserved in the British Library with the shelfmark IA.23564.
- 5.
As Masson (1895) says, there is no reason to systematically question these texts wholesale: there is embellishment and historical dramatization, but against a backdrop he considers plausible. Nevertheless, whatever the likelihood these episodes truly occurred, their transmission sheds light on how erotic questions raised by the Lucretian poem were received.
- 6.
“alii furore percitum, in quem Lucilia, sive uxor sive amica, amatorio poculo porrecto, eum imprudens adegerat, cum ab eo amari, non ei necem inferre, aut bonam mentem adimere, vellet.”
- 7.
Cf. Morel (2013, pp. 249–274).
- 8.
Cf. Giovacchini (2012, pp. 21–40).
- 9.
Cf. Mitsis (2014, pp. 59–80).
- 10.
Τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μἐν εἰσι φυσικαὶ καὶ < ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ καὶ > οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ οὔτε φυσικαὶ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλὰ παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν γινόμεναι.
- 11.
φυσικὰς καὶ ἀναγκαίας ἡγεῖται ὁ Ἐπίκουρος τὰς ἀλγηδόνος ἀπολυούσας, ὡς ποτὸν ἐπὶ δίψους· φυσικὰς δὲ οὐκ ἀναγκαίας δὲ τὰς ποικιλλούσας μόνον τὴν ἡδονήν, μὴ ὑπεξαιρουμένας δὲ τὸν ἄλγημα, ὡς πολυτελῆ σιτία· οὔτε δὲ φυσικὰς οὔτε ἀναγκαίας, ὡς στεφάνους καὶ ἀνδριάντων ἀναθέσεις.
- 12.
Ἐν αἷς τῶν φυσικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν μὴ ἐπ᾿ ἀλγοῦν δὲ ἐπαναγουσῶν ἐὰν μὴ συντελεσθῶσιν, ὑπάρχει ἡ σπουδὴ σύντονος, παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν αὗται γίνονται, καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν φύσιν οὐ διαχέονται ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν.
- 13.
“It is not that certain simulacra arouse limitless desire; rather, desires are limitless when they feed on simulacra” (Konstan 2008, p. 70).
- 14.
“These vain desires are extrapolations upon or analogous to real needs, but rest, in some way, upon a false opinion” (Konstan 2008, p. 72).
- 15.
I am not commenting here on the attribution of certain maxims, including this one, to Metrodorus, insofar as Metrodorus’s orthodoxy in relation to the main positions of the founder of the Garden is well established. See Tepedino Guerra (2000).
- 16.
Πύνθανομαι σου τὴν κατὰ σάρκα κίνησιν ἀφθονώτερον διακεῖσθαι πρὸς τὴν ἀφροδισίων ἔντευξιν. Σὺ δὲ ὅταν μήτε τοὺς νόμους καταλύῃς μήτε τὰ καλῶς ἔθει κείμενα κινῇς μήτε τῶν πλησίον τινὰ λυπῇς μήτε τὴν σάρκα καταξαίνῃς μήτε τὰ ἀναγκαῖα καταναλίσκῃς, χρῶ ὡς βούλει τῇ σεαυτοῦ προαιρέσει. Ἀμήχανον μέντοι γε τὸ μὴ οὐχ· ἑνί γέ τινι τούτων συνέχεσθαι· ἀφροδίσια γὰρ οὐδέποτε ὤνησεν, ἀγαπητὸν δὲ εἰ μὴ ἔβλαψεν.
- 17.
- 18.
Σύντονον ὄρεξιν ἀφροδισίων μετὰ οἴστρου καὶ ἀδημονίας.
- 19.
The question of the inconsistency of the Lucretian text has been very deeply worked on in recent years, both from an internalist point of view (is the De Rerum Natura text consistent from Book I to Book VI?) and an externalist one (is Lucretius a good Epicurean student?). I do not intend to revisit this issue here, which was in my opinion perfectly addressed by Gale (1994, 1996) and O’Hara (2006). If Sedley’s (1998) thesis of a Lucretian fundamentalism can no longer really be assumed today, it nevertheless seems to me that we can begin by validating the hypothesis of a philosophical sincerity of Lucretius, which in this respect places coherence at the very least as a prescriptive idea, even if it is not absolutely implemented. The paths opened by Gale (1994, 1996) and O’Hara (2006, ch. 3) regarding the rhetorical function of incoherence, or the possible failures of the Lucretian project in the details of such a texte-monde, are extremely fruitful. Nevertheless, in this paper I will assume that Lucretius has an extreme philosophical requirement towards his reader, and that he claims to offer him a consistent philosophical material. Lucretius’s text is intended for a neophyte but literate Epicurean, experienced in discursive and conceptual finesse, and fully capable of interpreting the multiple paradoxes presented in the poem.
- 20.
Lucretius’s position would therefore be close to that defended by Lysias in the Phaedrus.
- 21.
[Π]άν|τα [μὲ]ν̣ οὖν οὐ φευ[κ]τέον, ὧν | ὑπα[ρχό]ντων καὶ πρ[άγ]ματα | ἔχει[ν] ἔστιν καὶ φροντίδ[α]ς | καὶ [ἀγ]ωνίας οἱασδήποτε, ὡς | π̣ροείπαμεν· τινὰ δὲ | δεκ̣[τέον], ὧν κ̣αὶ τὸν πλοῦ|τον, τ[ὸ] βάρος ἔχοντα μ̣ε[ῖ]|ον ὅτα̣ν π̣α̣ρῆι, μᾶλλον π[ρ]ὸς | ὅλον [βί]ον ἀλλὰ μὴ πρός τ[ι]να | καιρό[ν]
- 22.
Cf. Tsouna (2013).
- 23.
Cf. Nussbaum (2002, p. 142).
- 24.
Cf. Gigandet (2003).
- 25.
v. 1065: “iacere umorem coniectum in corpora quaeque.”
- 26.
“Bilan: Vénus est le nom d’un processus physique dont Lucrèce souligne d’un bout à l’autre le caractère mécanique, anonyme, sans place pour une quelconque instance subjective” (Gigandet 2003, p. 99).
- 27.
v. 1053: “puer membris mulieribus.”
- 28.
Physiologies that repudiate the existence of female semen will attribute mechanical causes to female infertility (focusing on either the nature of the matrix or the positioning) and totally separate the question of fertility from that of pleasure. Two consequences ensue: 1) female infertility alone is the subject of advanced treatments (because seed production is assumed to exist so long as the male experiences pleasure); 2) female pleasure becomes an incongruity or a physiological surplus. See in particular Flemming (2013, pp. 565–590).
- 29.
“Et commiscendo quom semine forte virilem femina vim vicit subita vi corripuitque, tum similes matrum materno semine fiunt, ut patribus patrio.”
- 30.
These attributes are commentedon by Philodemus, in his Peri Eusebeias where he comments on Chrysippus’s Peri Theon. Cf. Asmis (1982, pp. 465–466): “Lucretius presents Venus’ conquest not as a forced submission on the part of the conquered, but as a voluntary, eager pursuit of the goddess. […] Stoic Providence and Fate have been replaced by Epicurean desire and freedom.”
- 31.
“nec molles opus sunt motus uxoribus hilum. / nam mulier prohibet se concipere atque repugnat, / […] / idque sua causa consuerunt scorta moveri, / ne complerentur crebro gravidaeque iacerent, / et simul ipsa viris Venus ut concinnior esset; / coniugibus quod nil nostris opus esse videtur.”
- 32.
“Les courtisanes font alors peut-être le meilleur calcul: en donnant plus de plaisir, en en prenant elles-mêmes sans doute plus (voir IV, 1192–1197, où est montré, de manière assez nouvelle sans doute et c’est suffisamment rare en philosophie pour être souligné, que la femme prend elle aussi plaisir à faire l’amour), elles ne risquent pas d’avoir d’enfants: on ne saurait beaucoup plus désolidariser le mariage du plaisir, puisque lorsque l’on recherche l’un, on évite la fin naturelle de l’autre, et lorsqu’on veut un enfant dans le mariage, on évite le plaisir” (Laurand 2007, par. 22).
- 33.
“Nec mulier semper ficto suspirat amore, / quae conplexa viri corpus cum corpore iungit / et tenet adsuctis umectans oscula labris; / nam facit ex animo saepe et communia quaerens / gaudia sollicitat spatium decurrere amoris.”
- 34.
Usener’s critical apparatus here highlights this confusion among the editors of Diogenes Laertius’s testimony (1887, fr. 19, pp. 97–98).
- 35.
See for example Brennan (1996, pp. 346–352).
- 36.
Καλλίστη καὶ ἡ τῶν πλησίον ὄψις τῆς πρώτης συγγενήσεως ὁμονοούσης ἢ καὶ πολλὴν εἰς τοῦτο ποιουμένης σπουδήν.
- 37.
“Si bello animost et non odiosa, vicissim praetermittere <et> humanis concedere rebus.”
- 38.
- 39.
There is in fact a positive use of artifice in the De Rerum Natura, expressed by the well-known image of honey and absinthe, developed as if by chance in the same Book IV (vv. 11–25). The use of poetic art is presented by Lucretius as a legitimate ruse intended to lead the mind to the truth through a pleasure (honey) masking the bitterness and harshness of the philosophical doctrine. This is a rhetorical tension in the Lucretian text, which we have already had the opportunity to analyze in a previous article (Giovacchini 2013, especially pp. 48–49), and which must be considered when examining the different faces of Venus. The pleasure of honey is a misleading pleasure to a certain extent; it is not intended to remove or veil the truth, but on the contrary to make it possible to appropriate it; this is what distinguishes the philosophical Venus from the libertine Venus here criticized.
- 40.
“Quod licet et facile est, quisquis cupit, arbore frondis, / Carpat et e magno flumine potet aquam!” Cf. Laurand (2007, par. 5): “Les plaisirs non interdits, faciles à se procurer, les plaisirs naturels et nécessaires épicuriens pour tout dire, ne font pas plaisir—et surtout ils n’ont rien à voir avec la passion amoureuse.”
- 41.
“À cet égard, il en va des institutions comme des techniques: elles ne produisent pas avec elles leur mode d’emploi éthique, et sont de ce fait inévitablement ambivalentes” (Gigandet 2003, p. 110).
- 42.
It is in fact another considerable difference between Lucretius and Ovid, the latter making the woman a prey, a conquest or a manipulator and adopting her point of view only in a rhetorical way and without any possible identification in the third part of Ars Amatoria.
- 43.
Gordon (2012, p. 109): “as a Greek import and as the school that promoted ‘pleasure,’ the Garden threatened to disrupt a requisite component of Roman public life: the vigilant maintenance of the masculine self. A fundamental mode of response to this threat involved a seizing of control of Epicurean language.”
- 44.
After submitting this paper, I was able to consult Morel’s article (2019) on what the author interprets as a Lucretian common approach between sex, love and politics. Morel considers that the positive amorous model of free sexuality is for Lucretius a counter-model, opposed to the situation of alienation characteristic of political life: “Il me semble donc que l’évocation de l’amour primitif, en un sens, mais plus encore la justification de l’amour volage, sont non seulement une alternative radicale à l’amour passionnel, mais encore un contre-modèle fécond face à cette autre forme d’union que constitue la vie sociale et face aux vaines ambitions qu’entretient la pratique politique” (Morel 2019, p. 80). Morel argues that the Lucretian position therefore values neither free sexuality nor conjugal affectivity for themselves, but only as alternatives to uncontrollable passion. Thus, Lucretius would not constitute them as real practical norms—in particular not to be “en contradiction avec les restrictions formulées par Épicure à propos de la sexualité.” My reading proposes a more prescriptive interpretation of the De Rerum Natura, in that I set out to read in Book IV a loving and affective ethics that could well constitute a true political model.
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Acknowledgments
The hypotheses developed in this article were presented in March 2018 as part of the symposium Feminine Perspectives in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, for which I warmly thank the organizers. I would also like to express my gratitude to Griffin Lasher Smith for reviewing the English version of this text. My debt is also great towards the three reviewers of this article for their suggestions and remarks. All the errors remaining in this text are mine.
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Giovacchini, J. (2021). Sexual Freedom and Feminine Pleasure in Lucretius. In: Chouinard, I., McConaughey, Z., Medeiros Ramos, A., Noël, R. (eds) Women's Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_7
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