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The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Brandt's Ars Amatoria of Ovid P. Ovidi Nasonis de arte amandi. Libri tres erklärt von Paul Brandt. Dietrich, Leipzig. 1902. Pp. 256. 8 M. Robinson Ellis The Classical Review / Volume 17 / Issue 02 / March 1903, pp 119 - 121 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00207609, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00207609 How to cite this article: Robinson Ellis (1903). The Classical Review, 17, pp 119-121 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00207609 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.60.206.75 on 07 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 119 Belling, is confident that I. 20 is spurious, one which can be read running, for the so that the true number of Odes in Book argument is always intricate and requires a I. is 37, not 38. Deduct from this the most intimate knowledge of Horace, and first Ode and the last, as prologue and the style is of that honest German sort epilogue, and the remainder is 35, which which is always anxious to preclude the is obviously one decad and five pentads. possibility of mistake. If Mr. Belling has Or, if anyone prefers to think that I. 20 a reservation or qualification to make, he is genuine, he may divide the 38 Odes makes it on the spot and does not .leave it into the following symmetrical arrange- for a new sentence. Here is a sample of ment, 6, 5, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6. But it is observations that are to be found on likely that I. 3 was not written till almost every page : B.C. 19, when Vergil went to Greece, and was not included in the first edition 'In pedantisch-niichtern erfasster Wirklichkeit wiirde an solchem Orte der Page freilich vergebens of the book. In that case, if we omit laufen, ut devium scortum eliceret domo Lyden j I. 3 and also I. 38, as not yet written, denn die—an sich ganz unbedenkliche—Annahme and reject I. 20, we have from the yon Th. Plliss (Horazstudien S. 168) der Dichter first only 35 Odes. Mr, Belling is quite stelle sich—ahnlich wie III. 28—eine Lyde (nicht die Lyde, deren '' Lebenslauf" G. Friedrich, in ab- aware that, if he omits or inserts any ode, gethane Fehler zuriiekfallend, S. 1 Anm. zu recon- he alters the order of the rest and must struieren vermeint) als in dem Hause des Landguts explain the new order on quite different weilend vor, flndet in dem Wortlaut von v. 21 f. principles from those that he employed meines Erachtens nicht geniigenden Anhalt.' before, but he does not shrink from this The book concludes with a number of labour. The book of Epodes too causes notes on particular passages, mostly in difficulty, for there are 17 of them, but it is favour of traditional readings or interpre- to be observed that the first 10 are all tations (e.g. Apuliae and Apvlicum in III. iambic and the remaining 7 can be brought 4. 10 and 24. 4). There are some novelties : into a symmetrical arrangement. As the e.g. in II. 19. 23, 24 Mr. Belling regards explanation of this is complicated and not leonis ^unguibus horribUigtie mala as a convincing to me, I shall refer the reader description of Rhoetus and, at III. 30. 2, who wishes to be educated in such things to situs as = vetustas pyramidum. Mr. Belling himself. I should, however, not omit to remark that the book is not J. G. BRANDT'S ARS AMATORIA OF OVID. P. Ovidi Nasonis de arte amandi. Libri tres poet's banishment, however certain it may erklart von PAUL BRANDT. Dietrich, be that it was only the pretext. When we Leipzig. 1902. Pp. 256. 8 M. think of the small interval which separates the high moral tone of the Odes of Horace FEW books of the world-famous kind from this work of his successor, it seems have so long been waiting for an adequate almost incredible that each should belong to exponent as the Ars Amatoria. It is re- the principate of the same man. Why, we markable that this, the most read perhaps ask did not Augustus at once show his disap- of all Ovid's works, and if we except the proval ? Nothing could be in more direct Amores, the most deserving of that immor- opposition to one of his chief aims, the tality which the poet predicted as await- establishment of a chaster moral tone. We ing him in the future, has never been must, however, remember that Tibullus and edited with anything like the completeness Propertius had made love a popular subject it deserves. The cause of this, no doubt, even in the earlier and severer part of lies on the surface. It is not merely the Augustus' long reign ; that Ovid had him- Art of love which Ovid has treated, but self published his Amores seemingly as early the art of the lover, in other words he has as 19 ac. (death of Tibullus) certainly not written a manual of the most practical kind later than 15 B.C. : that the Amores at once for the everyday purposes of the seducer. became so popular that all Rome was asking It was not without reason that Augustus ' who is Corinna ?', and that, when the made the Ars Amatoria the pretext of the Ars appeared many years later, probably 120 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. (as Schanz thinks) in the first or second feature in Brandt's notes is the even-handed year of our era, Ovid was and had long citation of parallels from Greek as well as been the most famous poet of his time. Latin writers; see for instance the note on Even the omnipotent master of the Roman d</>poSicrios opKos p. 54, on the little-known world might well shrink from attacking such Amoebeus p, 173, on the proverb occultae a man; a man who had done much to make his musicae nullua est respeetus (ib.) There is Empire and the imperial house popular ; let perhaps hardly enough notice of grammati- us add, who had made the Roman language cal or syntactical points e.g. the use of non known through the entire empire by -the in III. 129 Vos quoque non caris aures unequalled finish and perfection of the onerate lapUlis, followed by nee in 131 nee series of poems which he had consecrated prodite graues insuto uestibus auro: I. 389 to the most popular of all the subjects of Aut non temptaris out perfice; but this poetry, love. would perhaps be foreign to the plan of the Ovid himself in the second book of his work proposed to himself by the author. Nor Tristia, by the elaborate and lengthy can I approve of the frequent parentheses defence of his Ars, seems to show that it which Merkel introduced and Ehwald has must have been one, if not the chief, cause left unaltered, e.g. II. 79, 80 lam Samoa a of his relegation to Tomi. But it cannot dextra (fuerant Naxosque relietae Et Paros et have been more : for the poet himself tells Clario Delos amata deo,) Dextra Lebinthos us with the greatest openness that the real erat; III. 51, 52 Si bene te noui (eultas ne cause was something he had seen; in other laede puellas) Gratia, dum uiues ista petenda words that he had witnessed some act (cer- tibist: nor of the shortened fuerant III. tainly not the Empress Livia bathing) which 405.6 Gura deum fuerunt olim regumque it was dangerous to know. We may there- poetae Praemiaque antiqui magna ttdere chori, fore exculpate the Ars on this head : it for fuerant is not only the reading of the would not by itself have caused the poet's most authoritative MSS., but is made nearly relegation; but it was a convenient pretext, certain by olim; the substitution of such under which that act of stern severity shortened perfects has gone too far in many might seem to find its justification. recent editions of Latin poetry, and will be In the preface to his edition, Brandt found very often in conflict with the MS. disclaims anything like finality or exhaus- tradition. On metrical grounds too the tiveness. His aim is to give an intelligible elision of i in Lemniasi et III. 672 should and easily accessible explanation and illus- have been defended ; it is at any rate very tration of a famous work, in the best unusual. Few will agree, again, to accept manner of Ovid's earlier and more polished Madvig's correction, II, 217 Siue fatigata style. We are therefore not much surprised praebendo monstra nouerca Qui meruit caelum, to find that nothing new has been done as quod prior ipse tidit, where R gives fatigatae regards the criticism of the text. Ehwald praebendo m. nouercae, other MSS. premendo is followed throughout, and no new examin- or perimendo, which latter was restored by ation of MSS. has been attempted, though Heinsius and is rightly printed in Merkel's much yet remains to be done. Indeed the earlier editions. The change from the geni- MS. criticism not only of the A.A. but of the tivefatigatae . nouercae to the abl. fatigata Remedia and Amoves still calls for a much . nouerca seems unsupported by any MS., larger investigation than any one since and is improbable. As I am here attack- Heinsius has been able to give to them; ing one of Madvig's corrections of the Ars, we have as yet no edition even which I may say that thisj great critic appears presents a complete collation of the three to very little advantage in his corrections best MSS.; in which particular these works of the same work elsewhere.

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