The focus of this note is the simile attached to Menelaus’ wound in Iliad 4 and its Virgilian transformation in Aeneid 12. My goal is to flesh out and specify the sense of the Homeric simile; as the parentheses in my title suggest, I call upon Virgil chiefly as a fellow-interpreter. Since an important part of my argument is that the simile only takes on its full significance when considered in its narrative context, I begin by setting the scene.

This essay focuses on the competing representational projects of poet and emperor as represented (or polemically misrepresented) in Ovid's poetry. I begin by developing two readings of the famous weaving contest of Metamorphoses 6, the first emphasizing Arachne's will to truth (her exposé of Olympian injustice), the second her will to power (her appropriation of Olympian potency). With these models in mind, I explore the vicissitudes of Ovid's rivalrous identification with Augustus in the Tristia, ending with some unhappier implications of (...) this identification, and with some reflections on the question of the reality of Ovid's exile. (shrink)