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Simonidea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

‘You will be unable to comprehend strophe, antistrophe or epode; it will read like a piece of continuous prose:’ the question has been long debated, whether Dionysius' claim is justified.

Experiment has proved that brute force will be required to hammer the following quotation from Simonides into the shape of a complete strophe and complete antistrophe, with or without all or part of an epode. Specimens may be seen and judged elsewhere. They need never again be repeated; they demonstrate that either the text is corrupt beyond the possibility of a scientific restoration, or there is no complete strophe and antistrophe present.

It is at least natural to suppose that when Dionysius says, ‘You will not recognise strophe, antistrophe and epode,’ he must, in this context, imply that all three of these elements are represented; not necessarily that all three are complete, but that parts at least of all three are included. It appears therefore prima facie reasonable to look for metrical correspondences between strophe and antistrophe; but of all such investigations one only has led to a result which is widely approved.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1951

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References

1 See especially Davison, J. A., C.Q. xxix (1935), pp. 85 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, including a detailed transcription of Simonides' text from a photograph of the Parisinus and a sufficient bibliography of earlier work.

2 Among recent examples: Garrod, , C.Q. xvi 1922 pp. 117 f.Google Scholar; Edmonds, , Lyra Graeca ii, pp. 292 ff.Google Scholar Both are relatively conservative, yet both have to postulate a degree of corruption far beyond anything indicated by the MS. evidence.

3 I am in accord with, and have nothing to add to, Davison's rejection of those theories which suppose that Dionysius' quotation had in fact no such structure at all.

4 Davison himself excludes or ionic a minore with first or second long resolved (p. 93 fin.), a phenomenon not found before Euripides' Bacchae.

5 I see no reason to suppose that the correspondence of trochee to ionic a minore (let alone ionic ‘a majore’), if an example could be found (e.g., Ar. Ran. 336 = 353), has any value as evidence for the correspondence of iambic to ionic a minore. Davison alleges that Simonides 4.21 (Diehl) corresponds to 29 as trochee to ionic ‘a majore’; even if it were relevant, this would be special pleading, for the metre is much better interpreted otherwise pher. er. ba. = so also Schroeder Grundr. §205, Wilamowitz S. und S. p. 182). Sappho, Inc. Lib. 35Google Scholar (Lobel) has in two consecutive lines and but even if the tradition were trustworthy (the second line is very easily made to conform to the first) we should still lack evidence that the lines were in correspondence. Aesch. PV 534 = 543 too easily squared to be a reliable witness. The most interesting example in this category is Alcaeus, P. Oxy. xviii 2165Google Scholar fr. 1 col. ii 20 or There are, in short, some indications of evidence for there is none adduced for For alleged examples in Pindar and Bacchylides see Maas, Responsionsfreiheiten, passim; the faith which survives his criticism must be sturdy, and may be blind.

6 See Davison's transcript of the Parisinus: by ‘superficial errors’ I mean 2 5 8 ( Athenaeus), Casaubon, though Athenaeus may be thought to indicate Bergk; 9 Guelf.; 15 16 Sylburg, perhaps rather 19 22 Victorius. These are mere clerical slips, admitting of instant (and almost universally accepted) correction.

7 Quoted in vain by Davison p. 91.

8 There are those who believe in or even in Fr. 6. 1.

9 See especially Davison p. 87; but his statement of the case is marred by the judgement, incomprehensible to me, that ‘if is the subject of it must also be the subject of and

10 Hdt. ix 70, Paus, iv 25.2, x 32.6, Qu. Smyrn. xiii 452, are properly rejected as inadequate evidence; LSJ s.v.

11 Bacchyl. x 68, S. Ant. 596.

12 For μαίνομαι metaph. of the elements, Nietzsche compared Semon. Amorg. 7.37 f. cf. Il. 15. 606 Mosch, fr. 1. 5. The conjectures τέτμε (Weir-Smyth), (Davison), (Nietzsche), make no appeal to me.

13 N.B. in this version δὲ before λίμνα need not be changed to τε: see Denniston, , Gk. Particles p. 513Google Scholar for Α τε … Β δὲ …

14 Davison says that the words, with will not scan. We do not know which of the four theoretically possible scansions of is correct here; but I find no insuperable difficulty with any of them.

15 In 20.4 we have no reason to suppose that the metre (of which we are ignorant) excluded In 39, 50 49 29 and a few other places, text or metre or both are too uncertain to be used in evidence.

16 11.2 40.3 48.3 but 48.3 and contrast 22.1, prob. with 8.2,

17 6.2 30.3

18 48.2 a certain example of the shorter form within the verse. There are some doubtful examples: but may be correct in 5.1, and in 37.4 I should divide etc.; there are a few other places where text or metre or both are uncertain.

19 4.6 10.2 27.2 32.2 9.4 prob. one or two other possibles.

20 31.3 text and metre of the whole line are uncertain. In 34 has been conjectured.

21 I 4.2 11.1 dub.

22 About ten examples.

23 καί 8.2, 27.1, υοι 4.4, τοι 60. Nothing profitable can be said about κλυτα κλυτα εαρος in 46, οιωι εικει v.l. in 39; but some have interpreted in 6.1.

24 This is particularly unfortunate. We do not know how to scan, e.g. Davison p. 92 n. 4 says that ‘Simonides and Bacchylides appear to admit synizesis only in words which are contracted in Attic’: but the evidence is far too meagre to prove this conclusion for Simonides; in 4.21 is, in my view, a certain example of the contrary.

25 Apart from removal of clerical errors, for which see p. 135 n. 6 above; to them we now add 12 for 19 for (or ), 22 λετττῶν for -ὸν, 23 εὗδε for σ' εὗδε, 25 εὑδέτω ἂμ. for εἂδέτω δ' ἂμ., 28 δὴ for δέ, and probably ὃτι for ὃττι. In 12, τε added to connect νυκτί and Δνόφωι.

26 Or simply ‘was fleeced’: for passive, see Wackernagel Vorles. 1 pp. 137 f.; Gow on Theocr. 28. 12.

27 Ar. und Athen. ii p. 284 n. 4.

28 S. und S. p. 145 n. 1.

29 Nothing is to be inferred (nor does Wilamowitz infer anything) from the allusion to the poem by the title ὠιδὴ εἰς Κριόν.

30 Pindaros p. 118 n. 1.

31 Hdt. vi 50.

32 Hdt. vi 73.

33 ibid. 85.

34 ibid. viii 92 f.

35 Contrast P. Nem. v 48 ff. with Bacchyl. xiii (xii) 191 f.; cf. Wilamowitz, Pindaros p. 170.Google Scholar