“L’uomo di genere neutro”. Note su Vn. poet. syll. 19-20 Z e Aus. epigr. 50 K

Abstract

The paper examines some literary variations on the theme of the eunuch’s figure, with particular attention to the Late Antiquity’s epigrammatic production, starting from the unusual Phaedrus’ fable 3, 11, with the analysis being specifically dedicated first to un. poet. syll. 19 Z[urli] (= 97 SB = 108 R) (De eunucho), whose mischievous and more hidden wit is reinterpreted in the light of Mart. 6, 67 and Iuv. 6, 366-368 e 6, 29-33 W, and, secondly, to the next poem un. poet. syll. 20 Z (= 98 SB = 109 R), and in particular to the use of the “restored” term clunis also common to Lux. 293 SB (= 298 R) (un. poet. syll. 3 femineo [...] clune ~ Lux. 2 roseo [...] clune). In fact in both poems this word is the result of a speculative and conjectural proposal by modern philologists (Franz von Oudendorp for the unus poeta and Eugenio Grassi for Luxorius), but the use of this word in the unus poeta is moreover confirmed by 40 Z (= 118 SB = 129 R), 2. After examining the possible and different points of contact between the two texts of the unus poeta under consideration and Ov. am. 2, 3, in which the poet complains to the irrepressible eunuch guardian of the woman he loved for his excessive intransigence, the article deals with the origin and significance of the wit neutri (...) homo generis (un. poet. syll. Z 40, 6), not attributable to the anonymous African poet’s invention, but recovered and resumed completely from Aus. epigr. 50 K (Item [= De Rufo rhetore]), where it appears the similar expression neutri filii generis (v. 6) and which is analyzed here, in all its deliberate and strategic ambiguity, even in relation to the controversial relationship with the coeval Pallada’s epigram A.P. 9, 489. The unus poeta author of the sylloge, included in the codex Salmasianus, has in fact been able to understand and interpret subtlety the less apparent meaning of the mocking pointe which marks the epigram 50 K of Ausonius, adjusting and reporting its wit of the genus neutrum to the only epigrammatic subject which could befit, strictly speaking, in respect of the words’ meaning and according to the anatomy: an eunuch.