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 Harrison on Theognis Studies in Theognis, together with a Text of the Poems. By E. Harrison, B.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Cambridge: University Press, 1902. Pp. xii, 336. 10s. 6d. net. Herbert Weir Smyth The Classical Review / Volume 17 / Issue 07 / October 1903, pp 352 - 356 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00208512, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00208512 How to cite this article: Herbert Weir Smyth (1903). Review of Ennis B. Edmonds, and Michelle A. Gonzalez 'Caribbean Religious History: An Introduction' The Classical Review, 17, pp 352-356 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00208512 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 08 May 2015 352 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. REVIEWS. HARBISON ON THEOGNIS. Studies in Tlieognis, together with a Text in almost any order as in their present of the Poems. By E. HARRISON, B.A., position. Welcker first suggested the Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. theory of 'catchwords.' In 1867 Cambridge: University Press, 1902. Nietzsche dealt with this method of Pp. xii, 336. 10s. 6d. net. explanation and with the repetitions. In 1869 Fritzsche toyed with the problem of WITH all divergencies of detail criti- catchwords, which he accepted as correct in cism of Theognis during the nineteenth the main; in 1877 K. Miiller came to the century has been well-nigh unanimous on conclusion that similarity of mere words in two points : many of the poems found in adjoining poems constituted the principle of the MSS. are not the work of the arrangement. The high water-mark of this Megarian poet; and their arrangement is theory was reached in the edition of due to some person (or persons) other than Sitzler (1880), who printed the catchwords the original author. Since the date of in special type. This editor is probably Welcker's edition (1826) no scholar has the last to maintain the untenable pro- ventured to defend the proposition that position that the text of Theognis was our text is free from interpolations of expanded because of its use as a schoolbook. considerable extent, derived, on the one Ten years ago Reitzenstein treated the hand, from the elegists before Theognis contradictory theories of his predecessors and, on the other, from accretions sub- with the silence of contempt: to him our sequent to his time. Over three hundred collection represents an expansion made at verses have in fact been referred to a very early date through the influence of definite authors on grounds that are often the symposium. convincing, but more frequently entirely Such in brief was the state of the fanciful. Bergk held that our text was Theognidean question when Mr. Harrison compiled not long after Isocrates; attacked the problem. He is, if I am Nietzsche dated the collection after Cyril not mistaken, the only British scholar and before Stobaeus; Cauer finds evidence since Gaisford and Frere who has of the insertion of foreign matter as early been attracted to the study of the as Clement; while Welcker himself was of Megarian elegist. His book is the most the opinion that the compiler lived at exhaustive discussion of the entire subject. Constantinople and gathered the fragments from later authors after the complete A new theory about Theognis may well Theognis had disappeared. Several be a paradox—and we have a paradox in scholars, such as Rintelin, H. Schneidewin, Mr. Harrison's volume. The pendulum Crueger, and Cauer, maintain that our text has now swung back a century or more is based on two collections at least, the and we return to that happy age of faith latter beginning, according to Schneidewin, which was untroubled by the existence of between v. 854 and v. 1038. Van der the ' compiler.' To Mr. Harrison the Mey thought to discover traces of three critical work of the period since Welcker is collections, the first ending about v. 756, the largely vitiated by reason of his belief that second beginning about v. 769. The study Theognis wrote all or nearly all the poems of metre has sought to disclose traces of current under his name and in the main workmanship later than Theognis (Lucas) ; in the order assigned to them in the MSS. the study of language has led to results With the exception of 903—30 and not dissimilar (Renner, Weigel). A 1221—30 every word is to be attributed quarter of a century ago numerous scholars to Theognis. Even the numerous repeti- endeavoured to discover the clue to the tions which occur in the MSS. from about present arrangement of the poems. 1070 to 1185 are genuine; as are even Didacticism, it is true, lends itself ill to the verses forming the ' Delic epigram' constructive continuity, and liks the (255—6) which was inscribed in the sentences in Emerson's Essays, the temple of Leto at Belos according to elegies of Theognis seem to be ag coherent Aristotle. Mr. Harrison's results are attaiped by a detailed examination of the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 353 various groups of elegies and by a search- io-Okbv coeval; or, in lxxxv, cites Z 146 ing investigation of their interconnection with approbation (the earliest quotation in thought. from Homer): eV §e TO KOWICTTOV XTog The text is conservative. Added as an Unrev avrip. In Chapter ii (Methods of afterthought, it is rather a convenience Modern Criticism) Mr. Harrison proposes to the reader than a contribution of an indefensible extension of this principle. critical value. A brief apparatus sets According to his view the passages found forth the readings of A and 0 unless in the MSS. of Theognis and reappearing either MS. is palpably corrupt; variations in Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, and other are rarely recorded, and in general no poets, were inserted by Theognis for the undue importance is attached to the purpose of amendment more or less inferior MSS. The critical notes do not pronounced but without mention of aim at completeness. Of new readings I their source—and that by a poet note the following : 288 <Ls 8e TL o-ukr' aiei, who makes so much of the purloining of 400 'EvrpaTTik' (norm, prop.), 733 o.6r]prj, 961 his own wares by the literary thieves of v\u, 1380 ipC&oiv (Dr. Jackson). his day. In v. 771 Mr. Harrison thinks Chapter i (Theognis in Literature) tra- to discover an avowal of the threefold verses much-debated ground and argues art of the poet, and in 6Xka ra plv that no Greek writer (not excepting IX.SKTOO.1, TO. 8e SeiKVvvai, a\\a 8e Troieiv, Stobaeus) who mentions Theognis knew the word fiSxrOai is interpreted to mean him in any form different from ours. appropriation of earlier writings or of This conclusion rests in part on the assump- thoughts that the poet could not honestly tion that, setting aside the second book call his own; SeiKvvvai denotes illustration (which Mr. Harrison admits was extant in of his exemplar's ideas, while TTOIUV points the fourth century B.C., though unknown to wholly original work. That is, apart to Isocrates, but neglected till the date of from those poems which are all his own, A), such passages as 87 ff., 371-2, 597 Theognis published in his work brief do not inculpate the poet of immoral poems of his predecessors for the purpose relations with Cyrnus. Even the passage of transforming, to a greater or less 719—28 is held to have escaped attack extent, the sentiments expressed in them. by Athenaeus because that writer (though Sometimes he desired to make only slight usually keen enough in discovering the verbal changes (often of the most trivial weaknesses of famous personages) did not character) to give an air of novelty take into account Solon fr. 24 which (315—18) ; sometimes he incorporated in Theognis, it is claimed, made his own by his book the passages that he borrowed turning it to base uses; though elsewhere, (1020—22); at other times he gave a new as Mr. Harrison shows, Theognis' application by the setting in which he rehabilitation of the older poet must have put the passages in question (935—38, lost its point if his readers did not have 1253—54); and finally it was often his the original in mind—here an original plan to remodel the essence of the well known to all. The scrutiny of the thought by making vital substitutions, passage in Stobaeus Flor. Ixxxviii. 14 yields which are, it is held, justified by the a different result from that obtained by addition of lines of his own (227—32, Immisch, who regards the extract as the 585—90, 719—24, 1003—06). work of Xenophon; and furnishes an illuminating note by Sir Richard Jebb, For this novel explanation I find warrant who takes the words r/ ovv ap^rj /JLOL TT}Sneither in the passages under consideration n-oiijcr£<i>s KT\.. to mean " Now the starting nor in the history of Greek literature point of the poet's conception " etc. at large. Thus, in 1004, the point of the ' contemptuous' ao<jna for Tyrtaeus' Explicit literary criticism of a single ve'o) is far from convincing. 933—34 idea or closely connected group of ideas destroys the force of Tyrt. xii. 35 ff., assumes, in early Greek, the form of and leaves piv in 935 without definite the citation of a phrase or of a line.