Kommentar zum Tischgebet des Prudentius (cath.3). By MARIA BECKER.

Abstract

Prudentius may be the single most important Latin poet of Late Antiquity, as Maria Becker states at the outset of her fine book, a commentary on Cathemerinon 3 (pp. 47–260) with introduction (pp. 1–28) and Latin text and facing German translation (pp. 30–45). Yet the first comprehensive treatment of Prudentius’ work in English dates from as recently as 1989 and, despite a growing number of studies published since then, we are still far from able to paint a detailed picture of Prudentius’ poetic universe. What we lack in particular are commentaries that put our understanding of Prudentius’ poetry philologically on safer ground. Becker's book is such a work. It focuses on only one poem. This, however, contains all the wealth of imagery of Prudentius’ poetry as in a microcosm. Most of it pertains to smell and taste, but there are also violent and erotic images. A fish's mouth is torn and bloodied by an angler's hook. Cattle are ‘murdered’ and shredded into bloody pieces. The Virgin's pregnant body is repeatedly invoked in no uncertain terms, as is Eve's seduction by the serpent and her subsequent suffering as an oppressed housewife. Buckets are foaming with snow-white milk gushing from twin breasts, honey is perspired by the bee hive. The sweet smell of roses, honey, and apples is mixed with the foul smell of corpses. True, Prudentius’ aim is to deny what he affirms: it is the untouched Virgin who conceives. It is God's word that is sweet. It is not meat that is consumed. In fact, the hymn promotes vegetarianism, as Becker explains in a thirty-page excursus (pp. 105–37). But herein also lies the mystery of Prudentius’ poetry: in an effort to overcome passion, passion is aroused by the most sensual imagery, much of which is borrowed from classical literature. The meaning, function, and ultimate purpose of this technique is not yet fully understood. Becker is right in pointing to the typology of Eve and the Virgin as a key motif more than previous studies have done and in developing it in a second long excursus (pp. 210–25). Yet even she does not quite explain why Prudentius embellished it in such erotic terms, mixing metaphors of violence, food, and smell with allusions to the act of procreation that are supposed to constitute a denial of sexual activity (and a denial of physical pleasure in general) and an affirmation of the ascetic, the ‘taming’ of the body by depriving it of pleasure, be it by abstaining from meat (product of physical violence against animals) or by celebrating virginity. The wider ascetic background of Prudentius’ poetry is, of course, well known. What is less understood is why this asceticism operated with such sensual, including violent and sexual, imagery. In that respect, Prudentius’ poetry is as puzzling and probably as little understood as some of Jerome's prose still is, where the same technique is used. Here much interpretative work still needs to be done. But from now on at least we have Becker's excellent commentary as an indispensable aid in that pursuit.