Gavin Kelly signals a work of historical fiction: At the Ruin of the World, by John Henry Clay (London, 2015), heavily based on Sidonius, covering events from Vicus Helena in 448 down to Avitus’ defeat, with Ecdicius as the lead character.
Look it up in GoodReads. For the author, see a recent article.
Contemporary list of the books donated by William of St Calais, bishop of Durham (d. 1096), to the cathedral (contributed to Twitter by @red_loeb, 5 Feb. 2023, signalled by Gavin Kelly [screenshot]). At two thirds: ‘Sidonius Sollius panigericus’.
View here
Giulia Marolla has written an article about the traces of Sidonius (and Mamertus Claudianus) in Giacomo Leopardi’s early works: ‘Leopardi lettore di Sidonio Apollinare e Mamerto Claudiano’, Bollettino di Studi Latini 52 (2022) 592-600.
Abstract: This paper analyses the quotations of Sidonius Apollinaris and Mamertus Claudianus in the works of Giacomo Leopardi, whose interest for the two late Latin authors can be traced back to the years he spent studying at his father’s library in Recanati (in particular to 1815-1823). As can be inferred from his epistolary exchange with Niebuhr, for Giacomo, Sidonius constitutes a useful source. He is also an author the young Leopardi admires in light of the peculiar details he relates and because of his refined word choice. Together with Mamertus Claudianus, Sidonius is in particular cited as a source on Fronto and on the evolution of Latin in Late Antiquity. Furthermore, the paper suggests to link one entry in Leopardi’s autograph document C.L.XV.31 (Claudianus= 1762) to Mansi’s 1762 edition of Mamertus Claudianus, which was owned by Leopardi, as can be inferred from his Lettera al Giordani sopra il Frontone del Mai.
A hitherto unknown name must be added to the pantheon of Sidonius scholars: Fritz Kretschmer. In the 1930s, Fritz Kretschmer, a Classicist and Romanist, pupil of Norden and Wilamowitz, composed the first-ever word index of Sidonius’ oeuvre. It got lost.
His biography which is as unexpected as it is tragic takes us from Berlin to Shanghai and on to San Francisco. An academic education in Berlin, the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the ghetto of Shanghai, a new start in the United States and the sudden death of Illinois professor William Oldfather mark a career that was defined by loss and hardship.
Were it not for the brutalities of the war and a dramatic accident, classical scholarship could have possessed a groundbreaking Sidonius index half a century before Peder Christiansen, James Holland and Bill Dominik published their indispensable concordances. The least we can do is honouring the memory of its author, Fritz Kretschmer.
Read the full story here, with illustrations and two papers by Prof. Abbott who inherited Oldfather’s archive.
INVITATION TO THE DANCE
As a surprise, a full-blown classical piece for chorus and orchestra with this title from 1936 by the American composer Arthur Sheperd turned up in a recent haul through Google. It is set to the text of Sidonius’ ‘Age, convocata pubes’ in an adaptation by Howard Jones. Below the results of a first investigation, added to the Reception – Other – United States section of this website.
Who knows of a recording of this piece?
Arthur Sheperd (1880-1958), Invitation to the Dance for chorus and orchestra (1936) on a poem by Howard Mumford Jones (1892-1980) after Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm. 37 in Ep. 9.13.5 ‘Age, convocata pubes’:
Spread the board with linen snow.
Bid ivy and the laurel grow
Over it, and with them twine
The green branches of the vine.
Bring great baskets that shall hold
Cytisus and the marigold,
Cassia and starwort bring
And crocuses, till everything,
Couch and sideboard, all shall be
A garland of perfumery.
Then with balsam-perfumed hand
Smooth disheveled locks; and stand
Frankincense about, to rise —
An Arabian sacrifice —
Smoking to the lofty roof.
Next, let darkness be a proof
That our lamps with day may vie,
Glittering from the chamber’s sky.
Only in their bowls be spilled
Oil nor grease, but have them filled
With such odorous balm as came
From the east to give them flame.
Then bid loaded servants bring
Viands that shall please a king,
Bowing underneath the weight
Of chased silver rich and great.
Last, in bowl and patera
And in caudron mingle a
Portion of Falernian wine
With due nard, while roses shine
Wreathed about the cup and round
The cup’s tripod. We’ll confound —
Where the garlands sway in grace
From vase to alabaster vase —
All the measures of the dance;
And our languid limbs shall glance
In a mazy Mænad play.—
Step and voice shall Bacchus sway,
And in garment let each man
Be a Dionysian!
See William S. Newman, ‘Arthur Sheperd’, The Musical Quarterly 36,2 (1950) 159-79, esp. 172; Archives West, entry ‘Arthur Sheperd’, Choral works 9.1; WorldCat, entry ‘Invitation to the dance’. Text from Philip S. Allen, The Romanesque Lyric, with renderings into English verse by Howard M. Jones, University of North Carolina Press, 1928, reprinted in An Anthology of World Poetry, ed. Mark Van Doren, New York, 1928, p. 453-54, where Sheperd may well have found it; also available here and here.
The three volumes of Max Manitius’ Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters are a Fundgrube of the most minute references. Joop van Waarden has made a three-page document which is an elaboration, for the lemma Sidonius Apollinaris, of the indexes of these volumes by means of the text passages they refer to. Its aim is to simplify access to the wealth of detail they contain, and make them even more accessible for the study of Sidonius’ reception.
This document initiates a new page ‘Appendices’ in the Companion Continued section. Here goes.
For his ‘Ad librum’, physician, botanist and poet Euricius Cordus (Heinrich Ritze, 1486 Hessen-1535 Bremen) was inspired by Sidonius’ famous envoi ‘Propempticon ad libellum’ (Carm. 24), up to its Phalaecian hendecasyllables, providing it with overtones of Catullus and Martial:
Ad librum
Non praeceps adeo ruas, libelle,
quin tuum prius audias parentem,
quae mandata tibi det exeunti.
Omnes quotquot ubique litteratos
cultoresque novem vides sororum,
meo nomine plurimum saluta.
Et si dignus eis videbor, ut me
antiquae numero sodalitatis,
extremum licet, adnotent, precare.
Dehinc ut rhinocerotas atque barros,
ronchos, auriculas ciconiasque
unius facias pili memento.
Demum quam potes eminus proculque
declines, fugias, abomineris
tectos tetrico hypocritas cucullo
rugosamque senum severitatem
et tantum placitos sibi sophastros,
invisum Latiis genus camenis.
Hoc est quod volui, osculare patrem
aeternumque vale, miselle fili.
See also the Receptions page Germany
Today, on the occasion of Sidonius’ death on a 21/23rd August some 1,540 years ago, a striking piece of literary reception giving an unexpected twist to the famous Carmen 12 on the impossibility of writing poetry among the barbarians.
Playwright and stage director Hartmut Lange (born 1937, in exile to West-Berlin from the DDR in 1965), in his 1972 play Staschek oder das Leben des Ovid on the dilemmas of compromising with the powers that be, has the protagonist meet Sidonius in Bordeaux instead of meeting Ovid in Tomi, as he expected. Staschek persuades Sidonius to smear his hair with rancid butter to assuage the barbarians. These, indeed, become nicer, but the stench makes Sidonius vomit all the time and prevents him from reciting his ‘ode to Venus’.
The play is a vivid satire of cowardice and self-interest in the face of totalitarianism (Horace and Vergil figure on the wrong side whereas Ovid refuses to collaborate). In the end, everybody has to compromise one way or another, even Sidonius.
See the Reception/Germany page for fuller detail on discussions by Kurt Smolak and Theodore Ziolkowski.
Text to be found in Hartmut Lange, Vom Werden der Vernunft und andere Stücke fürs Theater, Zürich: Diogenes. 1988, 307-41, esp. 338-39.
Lo specchio del modello: Orizzonti intertestuali e Fortleben di Sidonio Apollinare is in print. Edited by Anita Di Stefano and Marco Onorato, it brings together the papers given at the homonymous conference, 4-5 October 2018 at the University of Messina.
Authors include Silvia Condorelli, Franca Ela Consolino, Anita Di Stefano, Maria Jennifer Falcone, Luciana Furbetta, Jesús Hernández Lobato, Marco Onorato, Aaron Pelttari, Stefania Santelia, Rosa Santoro, Joop van Waarden, Étienne Wolff, and Matthijs Zoeter.
Contents here
Bust of Sidonius, one of thirty-four famous Lyonnais who adorn the corridors of the Hôtel du Département du Rhône in Lyon. The artist is the sculptor Joseph Bourgeot (1851-1910).
For another image of Sidonius, painted on the rear wall of the Assembly Room, see Gallery Page, “Sidonius in Art”
