The Latin Commentary Tradition on “Inclusive” Intended Ambiguity

In the Latin commentary tradition, we find comments on types of intended ambiguity familiar to us from ancient rhetorical criticism: ambiguities employed for jokes or puns, or for accommodating hidden meanings. These ambiguities can be said to be ‘exclusive’ ambiguities, whereby there is a ‘surface’ and a ‘deeper’ meaning of a word or phrase, the latter being the ‘point’ of the utterance. However, Latin commentators also comment on intended ‘inclusive’ ambiguities, whereby the author is seen to communicate multiple meanings at once, with all these meanings operating on the same level and all being ‘correct’. There appears to be no ancient theoretical reflection on this topic. I argue that there are two reasons for this disconnect between theory and practice: not all statements in ancient prescriptivist treatises on prose apply to poetry, and ancient commentators - who need to explain a text line-by-line - do not always operate on the basis of the same exegetical principles as writers of rhetorical treatises do.