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Horatian Notes II: Despised Readings in the Manuscripts of the Odes, Book II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

C. O. Brink*
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Extract

I continue on die lines set out in the last volume but one of these Proceedings. 1. C. II. 2. 19–20 numero beatorum / eximit Virtus (Prahaten). The noun beatus is well established in classical verse as well as prose, although naturally it never reached the substantival status of bonus or honestus. D. R. Shackleton Bailey's repointing of 1. 37. 9–10 contaminato cum grege turpium, / morbo uirorum, etc.,2 assumes a noun tur pis; thus Hor. S. 1. 6. 63–4 qui turpi secernis hones turn / non patre praeclaro, sed uita et pectore puro, A.P. 213 rusticus urbano confusus, tur pis honesto. These two passages suggest that it was the likeness of such terms as bonus or honestus that facilitated this usage. A search in the materials of the Latin Thesaurus (for which I am much obliged to Dr W. Ehlers) shows that this development is, as one might expect, much older than Horace. I am not thinking of Pl. Poen. 338 (where the notion is ‘plain, ugly’, promoted by the contrast with pulchra), but Cic. Att. x. 8. 2 turpissimorum honores, cf. Sen. Dial. VII. 8. ι nec minus turpes dedecus suum quam honestos egregia delectant, 24. 3 in turpes indignos que, Quint. I.O. III. 38 honestis contrasted with apud turpes.

Shackleton Bailey pays tribute to Bendey's taste when he said ‘in illa locutione, uirorum turpium morbo, non agnosco elegantiam Flacci’, while (rightly) refusing the same critic's conjecture opprobriorum for morbo uirorum. At first I found it hard to believe that turpium could be divorced from morbo uirorum, the words immediately following. But now I think that the pun morbo uirorum, ‘men only in vice’, is highly persuasive, and likely, even in a text without punctuation, to be effective in dissociating uirorum from turpium.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 17 note 1 Before turning to Book II of the Odes, I note in passing that the variant poscimur at C. 1. 32. 1 is not in my view supported by Pindar, Isth. 8. 5 αἰτέομαι χρυσέαν καλέσαι Μοϊσαν, as is claimed by Mayer, R., ΑΓωΝ, III (1969), 22 Google Scholar. For Pindar, as Mayer says, ‘expresses the feeling of obligation … and states what he is obliged to do, namely call upon his Muse etc. But there is no such obligation that commits Horace in this poem; it is the lyre that is asked, age die Latinum / … carmen (3-4), and that will make a response rite uocanti (16). This state of affairs calls for poscimus, the reading rejected by Mayer. However the isolated, and perhaps Grecising, character of Horace's invocation, to which he draws attention, is worth noting, though not, I think, sufficient to invalidate the reading poscimus.

page 17 note 2 Proc. Leeds Philos. Soc, Lit. and Hist. Section, X, 3 (1963), 113 Google Scholar.

page 17 note 3 Juv. 4. 3 solaque libidine fortes is a similar conceit, though the wording differs.

page 18 note 1 Q. Horatius Flaccus, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1854), p. xiii.

page 18 note 2 In his large edition of 1900.

page 18 note 3 Kiefner, G., Die Versparung (Klassisch-Phil. St. 25; Wiesbaden, 1964)Google Scholar, offers much evidence.

page 18 note 4 See especially Koldewey, F., ‘Die Figura ἀπὸ κοινοῦ bei Catull, Tibull, Properz und Hofaz’, Zeitschr.f.d.Gymnasial-Wesen, N.F. XI (1877), 337 ff.Google Scholar; bibliography, Hofmann-Szantyr, Lat.Gr. 386.

page 18 note 5 Cf. Fraenkel, , Horace, p. 387 n. 2.Google Scholar

page 18 note 6 Cf. Leo, F., Ausg. Kl. Sehr. I, 118 Google Scholar.

page 18 note 7 Leo, op. cit. p. 123, has surprisingly few instances of prepositions used in this manner.

page 19 note 1 Lejay's large edition attempts it, but in my opinion fails.

page 19 note 2 laborare ab here is a very different thing from Oudendorp's similar conjecture at C. 1. 27. 19, rejected in my article in Proceedings (1969), p. 3 Google Scholar.

page 19 note 3 CR IV (1890), 341.

page 19 note 4 Virg. G. II. 277 is probably paratactic, Hor. C. III. 25. 12 is undeniable, Ov. Met. XV. 180 has ut only in a late thirteenth-century codex, and Sil. VI. 329 is again paratactic and the erroneous et of the MSS may point to ac (ς) at least as much as to ut.

page 19 note 5 Neither Villeneuve nor Klingner nor Lenchantin and Bo even advert to the problem in an apparatus which is, after all, traditionally called criticus.

page 19 note 6 Pasquali, G., Orazio lirico (1920), p. 556 Google Scholar; Wilkinson, L. P., Horace and his Lyric Poetry7 , (1951), pp. 128–9Google Scholar; Commager, S., The Odes of Horace (1962), pp. 284–5Google Scholar.

page 19 note 7 Wilkinson, op. cit. p. 129. The not so ostensible answer mooted by Wilkinson is beyond the purview of this note.

page 19 note 8 Cf. Horace on Poetry: The ‘Ars Poetica’ (1971), pp. 450, 455 Google Scholar.

page 20 note 1 I argue op. cit. pp. 31 f. that this is not likely to be the case.

page 20 note 2 Epilegomena zu Horaz, I (1879), 127 Google Scholar, ‘So ist mit Bestimmtheit anzunehmen, dass der Gesamtarchetyp Quo [1. 9]… quid [1. 11] hatte’.

page 20 note 3 Cf. Keller, cited above, n. 2.

page 20 note 4 Wickham non sibi fidit in saying ‘there are some signs of disturbance in the MSS, and there is not Horace's full point in the rhetorical question’.

page 20 note 5 The last at C. 1. 38. 3.

page 20 note 6 Thus Caldenbach (ed. 1690), Bendey, Peerlkamp, Mitscherlich (ed. 1800).

page 21 note 1 C. Fea for ramis; quid.

page 21 note 2 Haupt, M., Observationes Criticae (1841), pp. 19–20Google Scholar = Opúsculo. I. 91–2.

page 21 note 3 Thus Keller, O., Epilegomena 128 Google Scholar, ‘Eine Besprechung der Conjecturen Bentleys (ramosque et), Haupts (ramisque et)… wird man mir erlassen’, A. Y. Campbell (ed. 1945) ‘ramisque et, quod coniecerat obs. crit. p. 19, in ed. prudens retractauit Haupt’. But -que et is a plausible explanation of the paradosis rather than a conjecture, and Haupt's prudent conservatism in dropping this proposal in an edition of the text tells us nothing of the intrinsic merit of the proposal.

page 21 note 4 I am referring to the instructive if idiosyncratic edition, Horace, , Odes and Epodes: A study in poetic word-order (Cambridge, 1922), p. 213 Google Scholar.

page 21 note 5 So it has been righly felt by G. Hermann, K. Lehrs, and such others as A. Y. Campbell.

page 21 note 6 E.g. pinus at C. II. 10. 10 in the sequence 9–11 saepius uentis agitatur ingens / pinus et celsae grauiore casu / decidunt turres, etc.

page 22 note 1 aetas…ganz allgemein die Zeit, volat enim aetas, Cicero Tusc. 1. 31. 76”; thus Kiessling rightly as far as it goes, though he does not explain ferox. ‘Die Zeit des Lebens, aetas, ist ferox, wei sie unaufhaltsam und unwiderstehlich dahmstürmt’; thus Heinze in his editions of Kiessling’ commentary, getting fully wrong what his predecessor got half right. Wickham's rendering (3rd ed. 1896), ‘her time of life makes her shy, and time is flying’, attaches a meaning to ferox which would be out of context even if it were otherwise possible and his remarks on the grammar of the sentence were convincing.

page 22 note 2 Thus G. Jachmann's article on ferox, TLL VI. 1, 569. 5 citing Sail. Cat. 38. I adolescente quibus aetas animusque ferox erat.

page 22 note 3 Cruquius, ed. 1578, ‘hic monitum uelim doctum lectorem vt dispiciat haec epitheta, ferox aetas, & Pholoë fugax, num suis locis aptè sint posita, num rectius commutari possint, ita vt aeta fugax, & Pholoë ferox potiùs dici debeat’, G. Wakefield in his edition of 1794. The significano of the erasure in cod. R oí fugax l. 17 is not known.

page 22 note 4 C. I. II. 7–8 dum loquimur,fugerit inuida / aetas, II. 14. 1–2 ehe u fugaces, Postume Postumi labuntur anni, Ep. II. 2. 55 anni…euntes, A.P. 175–6 anni uenientes…/…recedentes, Cat. 68.43 Virg. G. III. 284, Ov. Met. XV. 183, et saepe.

page 22 note 5 C. I. 33. 6–7 Cyrus in asperam / declinat Phöben, III. 15.8 ff. (Pholoe) rectius / expugnat iuuenun domos, I pulso thyias uti concita tympano.

page 22 note 6 A. Y. Campbell rewrites the whole passage, and thus avoids the difficulties inherent ii ferox.

page 23 note 1 In the 1890s, J. Go w still recorded the transposition as a matter of course.

page 23 note 2 Epilegomena, 132. He continues by saying, characteristically, that the paradosis may after all be justified without an alteration.

page 23 note 3 Apparent unanimity, because Valart reported saeuius from an unidentified ‘codex Sorbonensis’ and Orelli repeated this attribution. This has not been borne out by the collation of an extant Sorbonne codex; see Keller, Epileg. 144. The unmetrical variant s(a)epe ς) however is not relevant to the textual question.

page 23 note 4 Thus Trag. Gr.fr., adesp. 547 (Nauck2) οὐδʾ ἀσφαλὲς πᾶν ὑψος ἐν θνητῷ γένει κτλ., Lucii. Anth. Pal. referred to below, p. 24 n. 5, Maecenas ap. Sen. Ep. 19. 9, Liv. VIII. 31.7, Ov. Rem. 369–70 summa petit liuor: perflant altissima uenti, / summa petunt dextra fulmina missa Iouis.

page 23 note 5 Herod. VII. Ιοε ὁρᾷς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα зῷα ὡς κεραυνοī ὁ θεὸς… ὡς ἐς οἰκήματα τὰ μέγιστα αἰεἰ καὶ δένδρεα τὰ τοιαῦτ΄ ἁἀποσκήπτει βέλεα.

page 23 note 6 Luer. V. 1131–2 invidia quoniam, ceu fulmine, summa uaporant / plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque, VI. 421–2 attaque cur plerumque petit loca (Iuppiter) plurimaque eius / montihus in summis uestigia cernimos ignis?, Liv. XLV. 35.5 intacta inuidia media sunt: ad summa ferme tendit, Sen. De Prov. 4. 16 non est arbor solida…nisi in quam frequens uentus incurrat, [Sen.] Oct. 895–8 benepaupertas / humili tecto contenta latet: / quatiunt altas saepe procellae / aut euertit Fortuna domos.

page 23 note 7 Cf. Juv. 10. 106–7 unde altior esset / casus, Claud. Ruf. I. 23 lapsu grauiore.

page 23 note 8 Like the passages n. 4 above.

page 23 note 9 Porphyrin's comment on this clause (et hic et in superiore ‘saepius’ per zeugma accipiendum, ut sit ‘saepius feriunt’) is invalidated by the intervening grauiore casu.

page 23 note 10 Editio Rhotomag. (Rouen) 1701; Burman, 1727, on Ov. Her. 14. 39.

page 24 note 1 ‘non enim saepius Pinus agitatur alia arbore, sed saeuius, quia altior, & plerumque in montibus, qui inde passim piniferi Poëtis dicuntur, & ideo magis exposita uentis’.

page 24 note 2 There are several parallels, to which C. 1. 23. 5–6 could be added if two palmary emendations were allowed their places in the text of Horace: nam seu mobilibus ue‹p›ris (Gogavius, Salmasius, Bendey) inhorruit / ad uentum foliis (Muretus for aduentus; ad uentos, Keller). Professor Nisbet and Miss Hubbard make a convincing case for these conjectures in their commentary (1970), but finally suspend judgement. A. Y. Campbell, always ready for a decision, admitted the conjectures into his text.

page 24 note 3 Especially Sanadon (1728 and later), Jani (1795) who puts the case with great clarity, Mitscherlich (1800), and Doering2 (1838) ‘Vulgaris lectio “saepius” finget’.

page 24 note 4 In the Horatian MSS, A.P. 378 (with my note on uergit: pergit) may be compared. This instance is one of several, including saeuius and saepius above, which, as Dr J. Diggle reminds me, were adduced by Housman, , JP, XVII (1888), 316 Google Scholar. I doubt however if C. IV. 6. 17, which gave rise to Housman's note, is one of them.

page 24 note 5 Peerlkamp's defence is not convincing. Nor is Keller's defence, which rests on citations of the passages of Herodotus, Lucretius, Seneca, and the Octavia, mentioned at p. 23 nn. 5, 6 above; saepe in the Octavia quite differs from saepius in the context of Horace. L. Mueller (ad loc. 1900) sought to justify saepius through comparison with an Aesopian fable (179 Halm, cf. Babrius, 36) in which reeds, κάλαμοι, explain to the large oak that they are saved from destruction because they bend to the wind whereas the oak tries to resist it. He might also have compared Lucillius' epigram, Anth. Pal. x. 122. 5–6. But, as Campbell pointed out, proici is not the same as agitări.

page 24 note 6 Stowasser in Zeitschr.f. Österr. Gym. XLIII (1892), 208 Google Scholar.

page 24 note 7 Isid. Syn. II. 89, Migne, P.L. LXXXIII, 865.

page 25 note 1 Op. cit.

page 25 note 2 ‘saeuius editio Rothomagensis 1701 et sic fonasse legebat Isidorus’ Villeneuve ad loc.; ‘saeuius ?Isid’. Klingner.

page 25 note 3 Horace on Poetry, II (1971), 34–5Google Scholar.

page 25 note 4 TLL III, 1991. 28–40.

page 25 note 5 Hair tied in a knot would be simplex, but hair falling un tended on the shoulders neglectus; both occur in two adjoining verses, O v. Met. III. 169–70 (Crocale attending Diana bathing) sparsos per colla capillos / colligit in nodum, quamuis erat ipsa solutis. For simplex see below p. 26 n. 4. For neglectus commentators cite Ov. Met. II. 413, Fast. v. 79. incomptus naturally may imply the same; thus Tib. III. 8 ( = IV. 2). 9–10 seu soluit crines… / seu compsit, or in the ritual neglect at the grave, Tib. (Lygd.) III. 2. 11 ante meum (rogum) ueniat longos incompta capillos, or in the case of prisoners, Sen. Ag. 586–7 turba tristis incomptae comas / Iliades adsunt. That incomptus can also mean ‘dishevelled’ is shown by such passages as Suet. Aug. 69 in conuiuium rubentibus auriculis incompúore capillo reductam.

page 26 note 1 Porphyrin's (mistaken) explanation shows up the difficulty: ‘grate, ut soient mutteres festinantes pexum tantum capillum in nodum colligere’.

page 26 note 2 This construction Bentley further illustrated by C. II. 19. 19–20 nodo coerces uiperino… crines, Sen. Phaed. 401–2 et nodo comas coegit.

page 26 note 3 Ov. A.A. III. 143 (about hairstyles) altera…religetur more Dianae, Stat. Theb. II. 237, et al.

page 26 note 4 Ov. Met. VIII. 319 crinis erat simplex, nodum collectas in unum.

page 26 note 5 Peerlkamp even said ‘Unde imaginem Lacaenae sumserit, ignoro. Finxit fortasse propter metrum’.

page 26 note 6 Hor., 2nd ed. (1854), p. XV: ‘Postremos versus Bentleio assentior ita corrigenti’ etc. ‘Lacaenis nulla erat cura molesta comae Propert, III, 14, 28.’ L. Mueller, in his sensible note, agrees; so, surprisingly when Bentley's work is concerned, does Keller, O., Epileg. 150–3Google Scholar.

page 26 note 7 Heinze does not make it clear what difference, if any, he finds between the passages of Horace and Propertius: ‘das Haar zurückgebunden in einem Knoten, wie es die lakonischen Mädchen tragen, bei denen est neque odoratae cura molesta comae, Prop. III. 14, 28’.

page 27 note 1 Lenchantin in the Paravia text accepts, and oddly justifies, incomptum comae…religata nodum as an ‘enallage’ for incomptae comae religata nodum.

page 27 note 2 Horace on Poetry, II (1971), 13, 21–2, 32–3Google Scholar.

page 27 note 3 For this term see ibid. 9.

page 27 note 4 Ibid. 32–3.

page 27 note 5 P. Maas in the important paper, SI, XXVII–XXVIII (1956), 227–8, cited at the beginning of my earlier article, Proceedings N.S. XV (1969), 1.

page 27 note 6 I had noticed a close parallel, Tib. I.4. 5 5–6 (oscula) rapta dabit primo, post offeret ipse roganti, / post etiam collo se implicuisse uolet, only to find it cited by Kiessling – and jettisoned by Heinze.

page 27 note 7 The refutation in his Epileg. 154–5, the acceptance in his text.

page 27 note 8 Lucr. VI. 715, 724. The instance from Lucretius and the even more persuasive one from Propertius (foll, n.) are cited by Vollmer, TLL II, 1572. 64–5.

page 27 note 9 Prop. II. 22B. 43.

page 27 note 10 Hor. Ep. I. 7. 66–8, 18. 52–5.

page 27 note 11 Hor. S. II. 2. 130–2.

page 28 note 1 Nor is the limp healed by H. Darnley Naylor's suggestion (ed. 1922, ad loc.) that interdum be taken ᾀπὸ κοινοῦ with gaudeat as well as with occupet.

page 28 note 2 See Calvert Watkins's summary, HS LXXI (1966), 115–19.

page 28 note 3 O. Keller's lists in Epileg. 813 ff. offer much evidence, though it has to be remembered that his judgement is often at fault.

page 28 note 4 For some other instances of this kind, see Horace on Poetry, II (1971), 34 Google Scholar.

page 28 note 5 G. Linker's observation on the spelling Thoenus may be taken into account (Spicilegium criticum philologis… Vindohonae conuentum agentibus…xenion obtulerunt H. Bonitz, E. Hoffmann, G. Linker, Vindob. 1858, pp. 5–6). The emendation if adopted should not however be spelt Thoenus, though the corruption could well have evolved thus, Thynus < Thoenus < Poenus. Similar spellings substituting oe for Greek υ in late Latin codices are cited by Schuchardt, H., Der Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins, II (1877), 278–87Google Scholar.

page 28 note 6 Munro's edition 1869, pp. xxii–xxiii.

page 28 note 7 Lachmann, Luer. II. 27 n., cf. Heinze ed. Hor. Odes 6, Introd. p. 13.

page 28 note 8 Although no other instance of such an Alcaic hendecasyllable is known from Horace, caeca timét preceding a vowel differs in no way from the other cases in the Odes: C. I. 3. 36 perrupít after the first trisyllable of an Asclepiad, I. 13. 6 certa sede manét and III. 16. 26 quam si quidquid arát in the middle ‘caesura’ of the same metre, 11. 6. 14 angulus ridét in the ‘middle caesura’ of a Sapphic hendecasyllable, and III. 24. 5 si figít after the first trisyllable of a glyconic.

page 29 note 1 So Lucian Mueller thought, De re metrica 2, 404 ‘namque minime, quod visum plerisque, ratione solum metrica, etiam sensus pravitate versus ille laborat, quo significa tur aperte a nauta Bithyno, simul atque emenso angustias Bospori liberum pateat mare, non aut tempore ullo aut loco iam timeri periculum. quae apte ut exprimantur non potest omitti particula disiunctiva’, cf. Mueller's commentary ad loc.

page 29 note 2 Horace on Poetry, II (1971), 33 Google Scholar.

page 29 note 3 Edition (1721) ad loc. ‘Forte quis malit superbis”.

page 29 note 4 Odes (1924), ad loc.

page 29 note 5 SI XXVII–XXVIII (1956), 227.

page 29 note 6 Latomus XXVI (1967), 391–8Google Scholar.