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Notes on Lucretius
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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In 294 most modern scholars either accept rapidique or adopt Lachmann's rapideque. An exception is Romanes, who oddly favours rapidisque, which he takes with impetibus crebris, placing a comma after corripiunt. If rapidique is read, one has to assume that Lucretius is writing as though venti, not flamina, were the subject. There are parallels for this kind of grammatical irregularity (e.g. 1.190, 352, if the text is sound), but there is no need to assume an irregularity here, for, as E. J. Kenney has pointed out to me, the right reading is almost certainly rapidoque. rapidoque was favoured by Lambinus, but did not originate with him. He notes ‘ex libris scriptis alii habent, rapidoque rotanti, alii rapidique rotanti’, and Pius (1511) knew rapidoque, which is printed in the ed. Juntina (1512). rapido…turbine is strongly supported by 1.273 rapido…turbine and 6.668 rapidus…turbo, also by subito…turbine in 1.279, a line which, as we shall see, is to be closely compared with 1.294.
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References
1 Romanes, N. H., Further Notes on Lucretius (Oxford, 1935), p. 8Google Scholar.
2 In an unpublished note, of which he has kindly allowed me to make use. Both he and Professor M. D. Reeve have read the present article and made valuable comments on it. I am very grateful to both of them; also to Professor M. L. Clarke for his discussion of 4.418–19.
3 The ed. Juntina reads rapidoque rotantes.
4 It is worth noting also that Virgil has rotantia (used intransitively) in a similar context: at parte ex alia, qua saxa rotantia alte|impulerat torrens arbustaque diruta ripis,…(Aen. 10.361–2). I am indebted to CQ's anonymous reader for bringing this point to my attention.
5 Phoenix 39 (1985), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Havercamp, S., T. Lucretii Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex (Leiden, 1725), i. 109Google Scholar.He does not adopt late.
7 Merrill, W. A., ‘The Italian Manuscripts of Lucretius. Part II: Variant Readings’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 9 (1926), 59Google Scholar.
8 CPh 56 (1961), 153–1Google Scholar.
9 Godwin, J., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura IV (Warminster, 1986), p. 118Google Scholar.
10 Cf. Townend, G. B., ‘Punctuation in the Latin Hexameter’, CQ n.s. 19 (1969), 330–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 338, where he maintains that ‘it may be claimed with some confidence that, except where the run of the sentence is absolutely clear, a sense-break before the last word can never be assumed’, and that ‘nowhere in Lucretius is there a sentence whose meaning is determined by the presence of a comma’.
11 caeli and caerula would be unusually far separated, but cf. 6.809, where terrai and abdita are separated by two words.
12 In his edition of 1570 Lambinus obelizes et and 419.
13 Bailey, like Merrill and Martin, credits Bernays with the proposal, which is misprinted videret et in Martin's critical note.
14 Op. cit. (see n. 9 above).
15 Cf. e.g. Cic. Amic. 41, Div. Caec. 45.
16 Lucretius explains in 1.483–4 that corpora are either atoms or compounds. For corpora = ‘objects’, see e.g. 1.384, 867.
17 Cf. 1.297, 915; 2.182; 4.54, 467, 596, 811; 5.1062.
18 Godwin, J., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura VI (Warminster, 1991), p. 114Google Scholar.
19 MH 47 (1990), 126Google Scholar.
20 Martin attributes the suggestion to Bockemüller.
21 CQ n.s. 41 (1991), 257CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 See n. 18 above.
23 It has been suggested to me that qua and fronde are improbably far separated, but cf. 3.416, where hoc and foedere are equally far separated.