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Paralipomena: Tibullus.
J. P. Postgate
The Classical Quarterly / Volume 6 / Issue 01 / January 1912, pp 40 - 43 DOI: 10.1017/S000983880001750X, Published online: 11 February 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S000983880001750X
How to cite this article: J. P. Postgate (1912). Paralipomena: Tibullus.. The Classical Quarterly, 6, pp 40-43 doi:10.1017/S000983880001750X
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 131.173.191.173 on 14 Apr 2015 PARALIPOMENA: TIBULLUS. I v. 31 sqq. hue ueniet Messalla meus cui dulcia poma Delia selectis detrahat arboribus, et, tantum uenerata uirum, hunc sedula curet huic paret atque epulas ipsa ministra gerat. THAT the hiatus in 33 is inadmissible in an Augustan poet has long been recognised by the critical. Of the three other examples, Prop. II xv. 1 'o me felicem ! o nox mihi Candida et o tu,' ib. xxxii. 45 ' haec eadem ante illam (add iam) inpune et Lesbia fecit,' and Manil. I 795 'emeritus caelum et Clausi magna propago,' only the first can claim any excuse, on the ground of the speaker's excitement and the pause after felicem, but, metre apart, even there ' nox, o' seems a better order. But the corruption has had perforce to be retained in our texts through lack of a reasonable correction. The line is perfectly sound Latin as it stands and, though not poetry, is sense. To take the words singly et, tantum and uenerata are clearly genuine and hunc, which has hitherto been the object of vain attack, is obviously and perfectly pro- tected by the huic that follows, uirum alone is left. Suppose now a copyist or reviser had deus before him, is it extravagant to suppose that he would change it ? Is it difficult to see what he would change it to ? What then should this deus have come from? From what but decus? the term which Horace addresses to his patron Maecenas ' O et praesidium et dulce decus meum ' and the author of the Panegyric to his patron Messalla 31 sq. ' sed generis priscos contendis uincere honores, | quam tibi maiores maius decus ipse futuris.' The confusion is easy, and it would be favoured by the meus which stands, in the same place of the verse, two lines above. But it will be said ' What is the good of replacing one metrical licence by another ?' The answer is that the second one is legitimate. The lengthening of decus is covered by the liberty which L. Mueller's strict, perhaps almost overstrict, canons concede to Vergil (r.m.z 396, cf. 402), and which Tibullus admits II ii. 5 ' ipse suos genius adsit uisurus honores' where the Itali corrected to ' adsit genius' (I now think wrongly). It is worth adding that Claudian, who adheres very closely to the classical norm in such respects, has the same lengthening in this very word c. min. 11 (91) 4 'egregiumque decus inuidiam- que tulit.'1 1 L. Mueller (407) disputes the authorship. PARALIPOMENA : TIBULLUS 41 I vi. 37 sq. ille ego sum, nee me iam dicere uera pudebit, instahat tota cui tua nocte canis. These lines are from a piece of Tibullus which is directly cited by Ovid at Trist. ii. 447 sqq. and patently imitated in Am. II xix. The representative of our pentameter in the first passage is in line 459 ' scit cui latretur ' and in the second ' incipe—quaerere quid latrent nocte silente canes.' So Baehrens read latrabat here, an improbable alteration. It must however be conceded that at least it is uncertified that instare, without an adjunct, can be put for latrare. The Vergilian phrase Aen. xii. 751 ' uenator cursu canis et latratibus instat' does not help here. Till further proof is forthcoming, it seems permis- sible to question the text, nocte, which is not wanted, as the time of the occurrence can only be night, may easily have come from ' uoce' and tota will have a suitable sense : the dog barked ' with all its lungs.' Ill iv. 25 sq. Non illo quicquam formosius ulla priorum aetas, humanum nee uidet ulla domus. The last editor of Tibullus, Prof. Cartault, corrects the pentameter as follows ' aut hominum mine uidet' and comments thus upon the changes : ulla domus (Lachmann) mal coupe a pu devenir facilement illud opus, mine (en abrege) etre lu nee; aut a pu tomber apres aetas et hominum etre change en humanum pour retablir le vers ou au contraire hominum a pu etre lu humanum et aut supprime volontairement; hominum mine s'oppose a priorum; uidit a tirer de uidet est sous- entendu dans le premier membre de phrase. I do not imagine that this new proposal will be preferred to Lachmann's ingenious and generally accepted heroum, which assumes only that hroum was mistaken for the compendium of hominum and that this was altered metri gratia to humanum. But I would point out that the sense of the new conjecture is already given by the MSS, provided we understand humanum as the genitive plural of humanus in the sense of homo. This genitive has been restored by Bothe and Ribbeck in Pacuuius ap. Non. 495, 31 ' aeternum, humanum sator' (MSS morum), a variation, as it would seem, on the phrase ' hominum sator atque deorum' and its like. In prose we should of course have humanorum (Justin xlii. 3. 2). This substantive, which is practically a synonym of movtalis, is commonest in the plural; humanos (Lucr. iii. 80) humanis (Varr. ap. Non. 81. 7). But it is also found in the singular Ovid F. ii. 503 ' pulcher et humano maior'1 and Cic. ad AH. xiii. 21 5 'possum falli ut humanus' where editors persist in altering to homo. The restoration of this genitive is, I am convinced, the real remedy of the hitherto incurable corruption in Hor. Epod. 5. 88: uenena magnum fas nefasque non ualent conuertere, humanam uicem. 1 Of the apparition of Romulus and so a good commentary on our passage. 42 J. P. POSTGATE The meaning is rightly explained in Dr. Gow's edition. But the difficulty about the usage of the adjective, humanain uicem for hominum u., is serious. huma n u m however with the change of one letter gives a clearer sense than hominum, ' like mere men,' and brings the construction into line with that of uicem elsewhere, for which see the lexicons and Sallust Fr. Hist. ap. Non. 497, 30 ' ceteri uicem (MSS uice) pecorum obtruncabantur.' The thought of the passage that the lawless power of the witches cannot change the eternal laws of right and wrong, whatever they may do to defenceless human beings, recalls in certain respects Antigone's magnificent defiance of Creon, Soph. Ant. 450 sqq. Ill iv. 49 sq. quare ego quae dico non fallax accipe uates quodque deus uero Cynthius ore feram. This is the vulgate reading. Its tautology, (1) quae (2) dico (3) non fallax (4) uates=(i) quod (2) feram (3) uero ore (4) deus Cynthius, is obvious; but in Lygdamus this counts for little. Far more serious is the objection that the same thing which is called quae in one verse is called quod in the next, and the time of the same action is present in the hexameter and future in the penta- meter, and that no reason, metrical or other, is discernible for the changes. What would be intolerable in an attested reading can in no wise be accepted from conjecture. And here quod is a correction in G (the Wolfenbiittel MS lately published in the Leiden series of facsimiles) for qui, and feram an emendation of Broukhusius for ferant. Now it may be observed that the Delian god of the ' dream of Lygdamus ' betrays an anxiety (which he owes to the ' dreamer') that the errant Neaera will not treat his utterances seriously. This crops out again in the curiously worded expression in vv. 77 sqq. ' quod si uera canunt sacris oracula templis, | haec illi nostro nomine dicta refer, | hoc tibi coniugium promittit Delius ipse.' And here I think he asserts not only the truth of his message but his own character for truth-telling. Two changes, at least as easy as those of the vulgate, will give this result, 'quamque deus uero Cynthius ore ferar.' That is ' Hear my message, chat of no deceiving seer, and how truth-speaking are the lips of the god of Cynthus.' There is a slight change in the construc- tion of accipe ; and ferar does not differ much from sim. Compare the use of dicitur Tib. I iii. 10, v. 10, feror id. ii. 81 ' num feror incestus sedes adiisse deorum ?' corresponding to 79 ' num Veneris magnae uiolaui numina uerbo ?'; so also viii. y^, and elsewhere. Ill xi. 1 sq. Qui mihi te, Cerinthe, dies dedit, hie mihi sanctus atque inter sanctos semper habendus erit. It must be confessed that to us it seems a strained expression to use dedit here by the side of the dative mihi in the sense of ' gave birth to' {edidit as in Horace c. Ill vi. 47 ' daturos | progeniem '), when the speaker is not a parent PARALIPOMENA : TIBULLUS 43
but a lover. But if the text is corrupt, its corruption is early. For a passage : of Censorinus de die natali iii. 6 seems to show that he read it as in our text, i although he represents it by more ordinary Latin ' nam cum ex te tuaque I amicitia honorem dignitatem decus atque praesidium, cuncta denique uitae )• praemia recipiam, nefas arbitror si diem tuum, qui te mihi in hanc lucem edidit, I meo illo proprio neclegentius celebrauero.' I As I have cited Censorinus, I take occasion to observe that he appears \ to have been acquainted with the much disputed ode to his namesake which I stands eighth among the poems in the fourth book of Horace. The exordium !? with both is very similar, especially Cens. i. § 5 ' quare cum dona pretiosa I neque tibi per animi uirtutem desint nee mihi per rei tenuitatem supersint, I quodcumque hoc libri est meis opibus comparatum natalicii titulo tibi misi' \ compared with IV viii. 9 sq. [ *...... I sed non haec mihi uis, nee tibi talium i res est aut animus deliciarum egens. \ J. P. POSTGATE. [ LIVERPOOL.
CERCIDAS, FRAG. 2, ii. 12.
av fiev afkealicapiTov. That fat animals are bad breeders was well known to the ancients; Aristotle insists upon it several times. GykealKapiros is, as Dr. Hunt observes, an epithet of the willow in Homer, but the explanations he quotes from Hesychius do not look very satisfactory; the willow was thought to ' lose its fruit' because it was supposed never to produce seed at all. Hence treat mXeaUap-n-ot means ' barren willows,' and so Cercidas means ' barren fat,' i.e., fat which prevents a man from breeding. It seems not impossible that he may have had in mind Aristotle de Gen. An. I. xviii. 59 (726" 3) : Kal 01 irloves Be ayovcorepot cfraivovrai elvai ra>v firj inovtov, Kal yvvaoKes Kal avSpes, Bia TO rot? evTpa