LOOKING EDGEWAYS. PURSUING ACROSTICS IN OVID AND VIRGIL

Abstract

What follows is an experiment in reading practice. I propose that we read some key passages of theAeneidand theMetamorphosesin the active pursuit of acrostics and telestics, just as we have been accustomed to read them in the active pursuit of allusions and intertexts; and that we do so with the same willingness to make sense of what we find. The measure of success of this reading practice will be the extent to which our understanding of these familiar and well-studied texts can be usefully enriched by our interpretation of our discoveries (or rediscoveries). These will include an undiscovered authorial signature NASO in the ‘second proem’ of theMetamorphoses; an unnoticed self-referential response to Horace with NITIDO at the centre of Ovid's epic and a similarly self-referential AVSVM at the centre of Virgil's epic; in theAeneidwe will also find glances to Aratus with LEPTE and an Aratean anagram on Aeneas’ shield; and two new acrostics connecting Dido, Ajax and Lavinia.