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Odyssey 11. 90-4: Scholia, Text, Interpretation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
Extract
In this article I shall argue that Od. 11.92, omitted by nearly all our MSS., is an interpolation. This position is far from being a new one, but a return to the question may perhaps be justified by the fact that the line was defended by M. van der Valk in 1949, printed by W.B. Stanford in his text without comment in 1959 and unquestioningly accepted as genuine by D.J. Stewart in 1976. However, the main purpose of this article will be to emend the V scholium on Od. 11.91 and to show that – whatever its precise text – it provides further testimony against line 92.
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- Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1981
References
1 See e.g. Boiling, G.M. The External Evidence for Interpolation in Homer (Oxford 1925, repr. 1968), 26,Google Scholar and the list there of editors who omit or bracket the line. Note that Bekker, listed among those who omit it, later changed his mind (‘paenitet expuncti: tam enim aptus quam 473 et 617’, Odyssea [Bonn 1858], 377), and add to those who omit it Bérard, V. (L’Odyssée2 [Paris 1933])Google Scholar and to those who bracket it Hayman, H. (The Odyssey of Homer 2 [London 1873]),Google Scholar Pierron, A. (L’Odyssée d’Homère [Paris 1875]),Google Scholar Kirchhoff, A. (Die homerische Odyssée [Berlin 1879, repr. Hildesheim 1973], 131 and 228),Google Scholar , J.A. (The Odyssey of Homer Book 11 [Cambridge 1900]: see his notes on both 92 and 60),Google Scholar Ameis, K.F. and Hentze, C. (Homers Odyssée Band I Heft 2 [ 12th ed. Leipzig 1922]Google Scholar with Anhang Heft II [3rd ed. Leipzig 1889] ad loc.), Bruijn, J.C. and Spoelder, C. (Homerus, Ilias, Odyssée [Haarlem 1937])Google Scholar and Von der Mühll, P. (Homeri Odyssea [Basle 1946]).Google Scholar
2 Textual Criticism of the Odyssey (Leiden 1949), 273–4.
3 The Odyssey of Homer2 1 (London 1959). Earlier defences of the line (besides Bekker [above, n. 1]) include Faesi, J.U. and Hinrichs, G. Homers Odyssée 2 (8th ed. Berlin 1884)Google Scholar ad loc. and Hennings, P.D.C. Homers Odyssée (Berlin 1903), 318,Google Scholar cf. 295, 345 (on Od. 11.617), 540 (on Od. 21.85).
4 The Disguised Guest: Rank, Role, and Identity in the Odyssey (Lewisburg 1976), 32–4. The line plays an important part in Stewart’s literary argument.
5 Allen in his O.C.T. (2nd ed. 1917–19) ascribes the reading to his family q in general, but he is more precise elsewhere: PBSR 5 (1910), 56.
6 The fragmentary Pap. Med. inv. 210 (see Silvia Strassi, Aegyptus 58 [1978], 110–14), whose editor calls it a Homeric commentary (though this seems to me less than certain: the Homeric verses may have been cited in some non-Homeric cause), includes a citation of Od. 11.90 and the first half of 91, but no more: at this point the author reverts to prose discussion. But for what the fact is worth, one can record that there are certainly no traces of 92 in the remainder of the papyrus.
7 See Grenfell, B.P. and Hunt, A.S. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 15 (London 1922), pp. 224–5;Google Scholar Boiling (above, n. 1) 26; Gallazzi, C. and Vandoni, M. Papiri della Università degli Studi di Milano VI (Milan 1977), pp. 1–3 Google Scholar (this papyrus ed. D. Del Corno). Both papyri presumably omitted another weakly-attested vocative line, Od. 11.60.
8 For the methodology here — i.e. the use of a scholium on one line to show that a weakly-attested following line must have been unknown to the scholiast — cf. e.g. Boiling, , AJPh 37 (1916), 26–8;Google Scholar CPh 17 (1922), 218.
9 See e.g. Schol. Q on 91: έμε δ’ εγνω] τω νψ^ού τοίς όφθαλμοϊς, 'επεί τυφλός ην.
10 See e.g. Schol. BQ on 51; Eustathius 1674.1–15.
11 Dindorf, W. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam (Oxford 1855, repr. Amsterdam 1962), 2. 484.Google Scholar
12 Scholia antiqua in Homeri Odysseam (Berlin 1821), 359.
13 Buttmann presumably altered μαντείας to μαντικής because of the preceding defiftite article. It is true that μαντεία in this sense normally lacks the article, but we may apply the principle ‘Schol. V εκ Schol. V σαφηνίζειν’ and compare Schol. V on Od. 4.456… έπί τας μεθόδους της μαντείας (where Buttmann’s emendation τής μαγείας seems to me to give the wrong sense).
14 Surprisingly, though Merry brackets line 92, he comments: ‘Its retention or omission is important as bearing on the question as to the power of Teiresias to recognise Odysseus without tasting the blood’ (Merry, W.W. and Riddell, J. Homer’s Odyssey Books I–XII2 [Oxford 1886]Google Scholar ad loc.). I am not sure just what Merry means to assert, but in fact the line has no real importance for this question, because whether we include or exclude it Odysseus has already said ‘εμε δ’ εγνω in 91, which in reality can only mean ‘He recognized me’, or, if one objects to the power of vision and the previous acquaintance with Odysseus which this translation would normally imply, ‘He realized who I was‘: cf. Od. 11.144, 153, 390, 471, 615.
15 άρα ης Buttmann, Dindorf. Early editors printed άρα ης(sic), more recent editors αν τις, which is also found in the MS. (saec. xi–xii). See Dindorf (above, n. 11) 2.484,1. lviii.
16 Loc. cit. (above, η. 2); cf. id., Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad Part Two (Leiden 1964), 497–9, 513–14.
17 See my Manuscript Evidence for Interpolation in Homer (Heidelberg 1980), Ch. 1.
18 See MS. Ev. (above, n. 17), Ch. 3.
19 See MS. Ev. (above, n. 17), Ch. 4.
20 Thus, presumably, the interpolation of the weakly-attested II. 4.69a, 11.316a, 346a, 13.255, Od. 10.504, 11.60, 24.121. Ci. Acta Classica 17 (1974), 12 and MS. Ev. (above, n. 17), 73.
21 Cf. the preoccupation of the scholia with the question of Teiresias’ blindness; and for a train of thought somewhat similar to (b) cf. , E. Die Odyssée (Munich 1924), 139:Google Scholar ‘Vermutlich [i.e. in an earlier state of the poem] hat Teiresias Odysseus nicht auf den ersten Blick erkannt — er hatte ihn ja im Leben nie gesehen.’
22 Cf. e.g. the notorious case of Od. 10.275–308: how does Odysseus know that the helpful young man is really Hermes in disguise (277–9) and that as he disappears into the woods (308 νήσον άν’ ύλήεσσαν) he is really on his way back to Olympus (307 προς μακρόν “Ολυμπον)Ί See e.g. Page, D.L. Folktales in Homer’s Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass. 1973), 55–6,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, for a wide-ranging discussion of similar examples, Bassett, S.E. The Poetry of Homer (Berkeley 1938), 128–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23 Di’e Interpolationen in der Odyssée (Halle 1904), 124 (and cf. Nairn [above, n. 1] ad loc.). Although Blass does not regard the line as indispensable, he thinks it may well be genuine, and puts forward a far-fetched and indeed impossible theory to account for the testimony of our MSS., a theory justly castigated by Boiling (above, n. 1), 5–6 (see also ibid. 4 and my MS. Ev. [above, n. 17], 19–29). A post-Aristarchean excision such as Blass envisages could have had only minimal influence on our MSS.: it could not have led to the disappearance of the line from virtually the whole post-Aristarchean tradition.
24 Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford 1955), 13 n. 2, where further discussion (based on Homeric examples) may be found.
25 Forthis interpretation cf. Ameis-Hentze, both edition and Anhang (above, n. 1) ad loc., and their edition on Od. 10.281; also Pierron (above, n. 1) ad loc., where he quotes Bothe and an earlier comment by Ameis. Bothe is also quoted with approval by E. Sommer in his edition of Book 11 (Paris 1887) ad loc. However, Bothe misjudges Teiresias’ tone in his interpretation of Od. 11.93–4 as equivalent to ‘τίπτ’ αυτε νοήσας ήλυθες, quid cogitans, quidve struens, denuo, more tuo, hue advenistiV: Teiresias’ attitude is not admiration for Odysseus’ nerve but pity for his plight. This is shown by ώ δύατηνε and its use in the parallel passage cited in my text. Bothe’s interpretation would require not ώ δύστηνε but σχετλιε, as in Od. 11.474–6: this is indeed how Achilles sees Odysseus’ visit.
26 So Hennings (above, n. 3).
27 However, contrary to what is often stated, there is no clear evidence that Aristarchus omitted Od. 10.189: see MS. Ev. (above, n. 17), 8–9.