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Parmenides B1.3: Text, Context and Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

H. A. S. Tarrant
H. A. S. Tarrant*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

It is an almost universal principle that texts should not receive emendation until the reading of the MSS. has received careful consideration. An initial awkwardness may, after reflection, prove to be a poet's sacrifice of style to achieve some higher end – an allusion to traditional literature, a word-order reflecting the structure of his ideas, or the accurate expression of ideas which are not easily put into verse. The last reason is usually held responsible for the short-comings of Parmenides' poetry, while in his prologue, with which I am here concerned, sacrifices of the first kind may also be expected, as literary allusions have been proved plentiful and significant. In a previous publication I have also argued for a carefully contrived word-order at B8.53, hinting that this may also be the case at B1.3. If my hunch were correct, then it would involve restoring the manuscript reading in that line.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 10 , 1976 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1976

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References

1 One may refer the reader to Schwabl, H., ‘Hesiod und Parmenides’, Rh Mus 106 (1963), 134-42Google Scholar; Dolin, E.F., ‘Parmenides and Hesiod’, HSCPh 66 (1962), 93-8Google Scholar; Bowra, Sir CM., Problems in Greek Poetry (Oxford, 1953), pp. 38–53Google Scholar; Mourelatos, A.P.D., The Route of Parmenides (New Haven/London, 1970), pp. 1–46Google Scholar; Cosgrove, M.R., ‘The Motif in Parmenides', Phronesis 19 (1974), 81–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 “Parmenides and the Narrative of Not-Being’, Proceedings and Papers of AULLA XVI (Adelaide, 1974), 90–109, particularly 101 f.Google Scholar

3 ‘The Text of Parmenides fr.1.3’, CQ n.s. 18 (1968), 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 I refer to his association of the path of the poet with the journey of Phaethon, and his explanation of as ‘over all cities’, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. ii, p.7.Google Scholar

5 I retain the reading of the MSS., rejecting with most modern editors the once popular (Stein, Wilamowitz and Diels-Kranz).

6 For Sextus the divinity is masculine, his path the antecedent. In supporting the text of the MSS. I prefer to regard the divinity herself, not her road, as the antecedent of the relative pronoun. This would mean that she is herself identified with that power generally known as Atē. Thus Atē would be one of the divinity's prosōpa, and stand here in apposition to the relative pronoun. Names of divinities tend to indicate functions in Parmenides' poem, and such a name would be related to her task of leading men of knowledge astray. Naturally the use of this name here would not exclude the use of the name Night for the same divinity later.

7 Theogony 9; for the reversal of Hesiodic imagery in the prologue see Dolin, op. cit. (n.1. above).

8 See L. Taran's comparison of B12.1-2 with Anaximander's stars, Parmenides (Princeton, 1965), p. 240Google Scholar. Also my remarks, op. cit. (n. 2 above) 102-4.

9 Later Orphism at times makes Night the daughter or consort of Eros. I am, however, confident that the orthodox early view (if orthodoxy meant anything to what was a religious movement rather than a doctrine) is correctly reflected by Aristophanes, Birds 695-6; Orphic fr.1 (Kern).

10 Orphic fr. 306 (Kern). See also my general view of the Doxa, op. cit. (n. 2 above) 94.

11 Jaeger, W., The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford, 1947), p. 99Google Scholar; Taran, op. cit. (n. 8 above) p. 26; Untersteiner, M., Parmenide ((Firenze, 1958), p. 122 nGoogle Scholar.

12 256, 275, 279; the passage concerning the two roads follows immediately after, and the theme of rewards and punishments continues through it.

13 A.P.D. Mourelatos has pointed out the use of striking expressions (almost oxymorons) when Parmenides describes heavenly entities in the Doxa, op. cit.(n. 1 above) pp. 222-63: the moon is a ‘round-eye’, the pure light of the sun performs ‘dark deeds’, etc. The use of divinities in B8 is of just the same type.

14 See my op. cit. (n. 2 above) 97-8.

15 It is interesting to note with LSJ that the word is probably connected with , ‘I distribute destinies’; I do not, however, wish to emphasize the connexion between and the of B 1.3.

16 B10, B32, B49a, A7.