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Some recent experiments in Propertian criticism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
Extract
Ex Propertio semper aliquid novi. It is with novelties, to speak relatively, that I am concerned; but first a glance around and backwards.
If one wishes to separate Propertius' editors into conservative sheep and radical goats, it is tempting to take as a criterion their attitude towards the problem of (alleged) disorder of verses in his MSS.—the Properzproblem as some call it κατ'ἐξοχήν——which arises chiefly, though not exclusively, in his second book. An ‘unvereinbare Divergenz’ is held by Ulrich Knoche to divide the troop of critics who have in general adhered to the verse order of the MSS. from those others, Housman, Postgate, and Richmond among them, who have tended to deal with the vulgate as Omar would have dealt with the universe—first shattering to bits and then remoulding nearer each to his own heart's desire; a practice inaugurated by Scaliger during the six or seven weeks of convalescence which produced (along with editions of Catullus and Tibullus) the portentously transposed Propertius of 1577.
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- Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1953
References
page 10 note 1 Gnomon, XII, 1936, 260Google Scholar.
page 10 note 2 Gow, A. S. F., A. E. Housman, 12Google Scholar.
page 10 note 3 Eleg. of Prop. Intr. lxviii.
page 10 note 4 XVI, 1902, 306ff.
page 10 note 5 Ibid. 307. ‘The causes of this prejudice are not far to seek. The constitution of the human mind itself unfits it for considering changes of order fairly. Transpositions disturb the accustomed sequences of its ideas, of which sequences it is most tenacious. In addition to this, and by consequence from it, the mental effort required to appreciate a transposition is much greater than that required for any other form of change…. The modern mind appears to be much more tolerant of disorderly successions in thought than the ancient one, and accordingly it finds it harder to realise the need of a proposed trajection.’
page 11 note 1 Univ. of California Publ. in Class. Phil. XIV, no. 6, 1953, 215–53Google Scholar.
page 11 note 2 See Robathan, D. M., C. Phil. XXXIII, 1938, 194Google Scholar. Another has recently been reported by Damon: see C. Phil. XLVIII, 1953, 96fGoogle Scholar. It contains about seventy Propertian lines.
page 11 note 3 Ullman, B. L., ‘Tibullus in the Mediaeval Florilegia’, C. Phil. XXIII, 1928, 128ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 12 note 1 Except in one particular presently to be mentioned: see below, p. 13 n. 4.
page 12 note 2 See Fuchs, H., Mus. Helv. IV, 1947, 190fGoogle Scholar. and Damon Helmbold, op. cit. 242 n. 2.
page 12 note 3 Hermes, LXXI, 1936, 458–62Google Scholar.
page 12 note 4 Phil. Woch. 1937, 779–87Google Scholar.
page 12 note 5 ‘Wirklichkeitsbild und Gefühlsentwicklung bei Properz’, Philol. Suppl.-Bd. XXIX, 1936, 71–108Google Scholar. I had written this paper substantially in its present form before reading Reitzenstein's book, and shall indicate coincidences as they arise. That Jachmann, was not impressed by his critics appears from the boast in Gött. Nachr. 1943, 194 n. 1Google Scholar: ‘gegen meine Athetese von Properz II, 15, 23–8, 37–40 ist von keiner Seite irgend etwas Stichhaltiges vorgebracht worden.’
page 12 note 6 Op. cit. 242 n. 2.
page 12 note 7 Rh. Mus. LXXXIV, 1935, 193–240Google Scholar.
page 12 note 8 See Critica, XXXIV, 1936, 296–302 and XXXV, 1937, 378 fGoogle Scholar.
page 13 note 1 Rh. Mus. LXXXV, 1936, 10Google Scholar.
page 13 note 2 Loc. cit. 461.
page 13 note 3 Loc. cit. 227 f.
page 13 note 4 In Gött. Nachr. 1943 (194 n. 1)Google Scholar, Jachmann qualifies his earlier position so far (and so far only) as to admit the possibility that the Propertian verses attacked may have been simply additional, his views on the motives of interpolators having become rather less precise: ‘Doch das sind Nebensächlichkeiten, die den Kern der Sache nicht berühren.’
page 13 note 5 ‘J. macht sich selber den richtigen Einwand, dass Properz anscheinend im Altertum nach seinem Tode kaum gelesen worden ist und dass wir von keinem Grammatikerfürsorge für seinen Text wissen.’ Dornseiff, loc. cit. 461.
page 13 note 6 Op. cit. 90.
page 14 note 1 Plessis' Études Critiques of 1884 contains nearly sixty pages in defence of suspected verses.
page 14 note 2 It convinced Damon and Helmbold, op. cit. 230.
page 14 note 3 Loc. cit. 196.
page 14 note 4 Loc. cit. 19.
page 15 note 1 Reitzenstein (op. cit. 86f.) has nothing to say against it, though he objects to the postulate that Prop. II, 15, 25–6 is posterior to Tib. III, 11, 13–16. But I do Jachmann the justice to assume that he was thinking of Tib. II, 4, 3–4.
page 16 note 1 Compare also Prop. II, 16, 43–7 with Tib. II, 4, 27–8; I, 9, 11–12; and n, 4, 40.
page 16 note 2 attritis harundinibus (68) suggests Ecl. 2, 34 nec te paeniteat calamo trivisse labellum, pomis in 71 may echo Ecl. 1, 37 (cf. 2, 53), and quo seges in campo, quo viret uva iugo (78) recalls Georg. 1, 54 hiC segetes, illiC veniunt felicius uvae. For the rest see the commentaries.
page 16 note 3 Festschr. FritZ Schulz, Weimar (1951), 179–87Google Scholar.
page 16 note 4 Gnomon XII, 260 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 16 note 5 Rh. Mus. LXXXV, 1936, 8–63Google Scholar.
page 16 note 6 As witness Lindner, Albert's remarks on Scaligerian transpositions in Jahrb. f. Class. Phil. X(i), 1864, 836Google Scholar.
page 17 note 1 Op. cit. 97.
page 17 note 2 The majority of such hexameters in elegiac verse occur, as he points out, in couplets where there is enjambement and so cannot be quoted against him; neither, of course, can hexameter verse. But Ov., A.A. II, 277 fGoogle Scholar. aurea suntvere nunc saecula, plurimus auro ∣ venit honos; auro conciliatur amor and Tiberianus, 2, 19 auro emitur facinus, pudor almus venditur auro are worth noting.
page 18 note 1 Others are I, 11 (Bais…litoribus: litora…Baiae); I, 18 (deserta…nemus: silvae…deserta); I, 20 (hoc…Galle, monemus: his, O Galle,…monitus); II, 2 (haec…facies: hanc…faciem); II, 33 A (noctes…noctibus); III, 3 (umor equi…lymphis); III, 5 (proelia: arma); III, 6 (sic tibi sint dominae, Lygdame, dempta iuga: per me, Lygdame, liber eris); IV, 2 (uno corpore: unum opus…unus honos); IV, 4 (the name Tarpeia in first and last couplets); IV, 5 (lena, sepulcrum: 75 tumulus lenae, 77 bustum); IV, 7 (umbra: umbra).
page 19 note 1 There is a particular reason for the omission here. When Knoche urges that Cynthia's remarks in I, 3, 35 ff. are prefaced by sic ait, he forgets that the reader has not heard them before and might therefore have trouble in attributing them aright without guidance; the reader has heard quid iuvat ornato before—it may have been a notorious couplet (cf. Reitzenstein, op. cit. 95 f.)—and can place it without further prompting than versibus auditis in 54 and versus in 57.
page 20 note 1 J. Phil. VI, 28 fGoogle Scholar.