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In Latin, invidia is the sense of envy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from invidere, "to look against, to look in a hostile manner." [1] Invidia ("Envy") is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief.
The material culture and literature of ancient Rome offer numerous examples of rituals and magic spells intended to avert invidia and the evil eye. When a Roman general celebrated a triumph, the Vestal Virgins suspended a fascinus , or phallic effigy, under the chariot to ward off invidia.
Envy is the vice most associated with witches and magic. The witch's protruding tongue alludes to Ovid's Invidia who has a poisoned tongue. [2] The witch and Invidia share a significant feature – the Evil eye. The term invidia stems from the Latin invidere, "to look too closely". One type of the aggressive gaze is the "biting eye", often associated with envy, and reflects the ancient belief that envy originates from the eyes. [3] Ovid feared that a witch who possessed eyes with double pupils would cast a burning fascination over his love affair. [4]
Fascinare means to bewitch. Catullus in one of his love poems [5] jokes nervously about ill wishers who might count the kisses he gives to his beloved and thus be able to "fascinate" the lovers with an evil, envious spell. A shepherd in one of Vergil's poems [6] looks at his lambs, all skin and bones, and concludes, "some eye or other is bewitching them [ fascinat ]" – to which the commentator Servius adds [7] "[the shepherd] obliquely indicates that he has a handsome flock, since it was worth afflicting with the evil eye [ fascinari ]". Any unusual felicity or success was felt to be subject to the unspecific but powerful force of envy [ invidia ]. That is why everyone from soldiers to infants to triumphing generals needed a fascinum , a remedy against the evil eye, an antidote, something that would make the evil wisher look away. [8]
The experience of invidia, as Robert A. Kaster notes, [9] is invariably an unpleasant one, whether feeling invidia or finding oneself its object. Invidia at the thought of another's good may be merely begrudging, Kaster observes, or begrudging and covetous at the same time: "I can feel dolor ["pain, sorrow, heartache"] at seeing your good, just because it is your good, period, or I can feel that way because the good is yours and not mine." [10] Such invidia is morally indefensible: compare the Aesop fable "The Dog in the Manger". But by far the most common usage in Latin of invidia occurs in contexts where the sense of justice has been offended, and pain is experienced at the sight of undeserved wealth, prestige or authority, exercised without shame (pudor); this is the close parallel with Greek nemesis (νέμεσις). [11]
Invidia, defined as uneasy emotion denied by the shepherd Melipoeus in Virgil's Eclogue 1. [12]
In Latin, invidia is the Greek personification of Nemesis and Phthonus.[ citation needed ]Invidia can be for literary purposes a goddess and Roman equivalent to Nemesis in Greek mythology [ citation needed ] as it received cultus , notably at her sanctuary around Rhamnous north of Marathon, Greece. [13]
Ovid describes the personification of Invidia at length in the Metamorphoses (2.760-832):
Her face was sickly pale, her whole body lean and wasted, and she squinted horribly; her teeth were discoloured and decayed, her poisonous breast of a greenish hue, and her tongue dripped venom. … Gnawing at others, and being gnawed, she was herself her own torment. [14]
Among Christians, Invidia is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
In the allegorical mythography of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the three heads of Cerberus sometimes represent three kinds of invidia. [15]
In Late Gothic and Renaissance iconography, Invidia is personified invariably as a woman. Cesare Ripa's influential Iconologia (Rome, 1603) represented Invidia with a serpent coiled round her breast and biting her heart, "to signify her self-devouring bitterness; she also raises one hand to her mouth to show she cares only for herself". The representational tradition drew on Latin authors such as Ovid, Horace, and Pliny, as well as Andrea Alciato's emblem book and Jacopo Sannazaro. Alciato portrayed her devouring her own heart in her anguish. [16]
Invidia is the fatal flaw of Iago in Shakespeare's Othello: "O you are well tuned now; but I'll set down the pegs that make this music." (Othello II.i). [17]
The name of the Nvidia Corporation comes from Invidia in Roman mythology. [18]
Invidia is also the name of a battle theme in Final Fantasy XV .
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems to be dubious.
Proserpina or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in the Aventine temple of the grain-goddess Ceres, along with the wine god Liber.
Aegle is the name of several different figures in Greek mythology:
In Greek mythology, Cyparissus or Kyparissos was a boy beloved by Apollo or in some versions by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. The boy's grief was such that it transformed him into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii. No Greek hero cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
In Greek mythology and religion, Themis is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, law, and custom. She is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is associated with oracles and prophecies, including the Oracle of Delphi. Her symbol is the Scales of Justice.
In Greek mythology, the Crinaeae were a type of Naiad nymphs associated with fountains or wells.
Silvanus was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and uncultivated lands. As protector of the forest, he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild. He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields. The similarly named Etruscan deity Selvans may be a borrowing of Silvanus, or not even related in origin.
In Roman mythology and ancient religion, Clementia is the goddess of clemency, leniency, mercy, forgiveness, penance, redemption, absolution, acquittal and salvation.
The Georgics is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose.
The Appendix Vergiliana is a collection of Latin poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia of Virgil.
In ancient Roman religion and magic, the fascinus or fascinum was the embodiment of the divine phallus. The word can refer to phallus effigies and amulets, and to the spells used to invoke his divine protection. Pliny calls it a medicus invidiae, a "doctor" or remedy for envy or the evil eye.
Medicamina Faciei Femineae is a didactic poem written in elegiac couplets by the Roman poet Ovid. In the hundred extant verses, Ovid defends the use of cosmetics by Roman women and provides five recipes for facial treatments. Other writers at the time condemned women's usage of cosmetics.
In classical mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and the god of war Mars. He is also known as Amor. His Greek counterpart is Eros. Although Eros is generally portrayed as a slender winged youth in Classical Greek art, during the Hellenistic period, he was increasingly portrayed as a chubby boy. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power: a person, or even a deity, who is shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire. In myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a main character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons, he experiences the ordeal of love. Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid.
In ancient Athens, Eleos or Elea was the personification of mercy, clemency, compassion and pity – the counterpart of the Roman goddess Clementia. Pausanias described her as "among all the gods the most useful to human life in all its vicissitudes."
In Greek mythology, Oaxes or Oaxos was the founder of the town of Oaxus within Crete, a place known to Servius and Herodotus. He was the son of the god Apollo either by the Cretan nymph Anchiale or Acacallis, daughter of Minos. Apollonius wrote in Argonautica of Crete being the Oaxian land. Vibius Sequester wrote the river Oaxes gave its name. The river Oaxes was, according to Baudrand, very cold.
Anser was a minor poet of ancient Rome who lived in the 1st century BC. He is mentioned by Ovid as a writer of love poetry associated with Catullus, Calvus and Cinna. According to the 4th-century AD grammarian Servius, he was a "very bad poet" who wrote in praise of the triumvir Mark Antony and was a detractor of Virgil. None of his work is known to have survived.
In Greek mythology, Hesperia or Hesperie, may refer to the following characters and places:
In Greek mythology, Aganippe was the name of both a spring and the Naiad associated with it. The spring is in Boeotia, near Thespiae, at the base of Mount Helicon, and was associated with the Muses who were sometimes called Aganippides. Drinking from her well, it was considered to be a source of poetic inspiration. The nymph is called a daughter of the river-god Permessus. Ovid associates Aganippe with Hippocrene.
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