Series | Studi di archivistica, bibliografia, paleografia
Volume | Memoria poetica e poesia della memoria
Chapter | Te, lapis, obtestor…: le vicende di un distico sepolcrale
Te, lapis, obtestor…: le vicende di un distico sepolcrale
Abstract
All the approximately 30 inscriptions which exhibit the elegiac couplet Te, lapis, obtestor, etc., or its varied and derived forms (CLE, 1470-1475 and others) are listed and carefully compared here. From its likely original pattern Te, lapis, obtestor, leviter super ossa residas / ne nostro doleat conditus officio, which is the most documented since the first century AD, especially in Rome, a new one sprang later. Probably documented earlier in Italy (late first century) than in Rome, this new form was characterized by a quite different pentameter such as ne tenerae aetati iam gravis esse velis (CLE, 2138) and related variations. Another couplet dating back already in the first part of the century and entreating terra instead of lapis, preserves some keywords or word-strings of the original pattern. Some related questions are then discussed, such as the proper meaning and the emotional source, and the poetic features of the couplet(s); the single Greek epigrammatic evidence of a comparable couplet in AP, 7, 554 by Philip; the geographical spread; the comparison between the literary (particularly Virgilian) and the epigraphic technique of variation, and so on.
Language: it
Keywords Carmina Latina epigraphica • Poetic pattern and its variations • Sepulchral elegiac couplet • Geographical spread of epigraphic patterns • Latin poetic language
Copyright © 2015 Matteo Massaro. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/97735-95-3/SABP-3-4
