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 Blass's Interpolations in the Odyssey Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee. Eine Untersuchung von Friedrich Blass. Halle a. S. Verlag von Max Niemeyer. 1904. 9¼″ × 6″. Pp. 306. M. 8. T. W. Allen The Classical Review / Volume 20 / Issue 05 / June 1906, pp 267 - 271 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00995635, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00995635 How to cite this article: T. W. Allen (1906). The Classical Review, 20, pp 267-271 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00995635 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 28 Apr 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 267 large number. Compare the New Hol- I am inclined to think that ' Four ' presents landers' ' One, Two, Many, Very many.' an insoluble mystery. But this does not seem very plausible, and LILIAN M. BAGGE. REVIEWS. BLASS'S INTERPOLATIONS IN THE ODYSSEY. Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee. Eine remark (p. 1) that Archilochus' Homer was Untersuchungvon FRIEDRICH BLASS. Halle substantially the same as ours; and that a. S. Verlag von Max Niemeyer. 1904. (p. 24) on the extraordinary inability, of 9}" x 6". Pp. 306. M. 8. both ancients and moderns, to accept the heroic standard of morality and propriety. WHEN I reviewed (C.B. 1905, p. 359) Prof. The writer, however, holds that the poems are Henning's work on the Odyssey, I observed indubitably not in the state in which their that that book marked the end of the author left them; two species of 'fremde German or Woman period of Homeric criti- Handen' have had dealings with them, cism. I was not consciously following the diasceuasts, who added episodes, rhapsodes rule never to prophesy unless you know; and scribes who added lines here and there. but here is Herr Blass' book to confirm my The preface gives us Herr Blass' tests for vaticination. It contains the most sensible discovering these foreign elements. His view of Homer published for a hundred tests are of two degrees ; proofs, TiKfirjpia, years—may I say the only sense written and presumptions, a-q/xua. Proofs are un- about Homer since Wolf? To assert so homeric allusions and usages—Sicily in <o, much would be unjust to G-. W. Nitzsch, Hermes faxono/tiros likewise in o>; the athe- who though unreadable has many good con- tesis of ancient commentators, omissions in clusions, but the remark would be true of ancient MSS. On the other hand, discre- other writers, both German and English. pancies within the poems, chronological and lam redit et uirgo, and that the harbinger of material, are to be used with caution; a better age is the soundest and most encyclo- repetitions (of formulae, etc.) are but o^/xcia. paedic Hellenist now living increases our Interruption in a context, delay in an action, satisfaction. We have a guarantee that no is always a aujfulov and often amounts to factors will be overlooked, least of all the positive proof. Herr Blass is alive to the linguistic, in which Herr Blass is a past relative and provisional nature of some of master. The tone of the book is sane, the these rules (and I fancy he overestimates style terse and even blunt. The writer the authority of the ancient grammarians), works with the external evidence, wherever but his procedure is reassuring, and com- there is any. A reader accustomed to the pared to that of any other critic, satisfactory. vagaries of Blass' distinguished predecessors, However, the bearing of his remarks lies in Kirchhoff and v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, their application, and we must see him at feels that he has escaped from Plato's cave work. into the light. He takes the rhapsode (and the scribe) The preface is the part of the work which first, and traces his mole-run over the text will find most acceptance. It contains from a to <ii. A reviewer cannot follow him several remarks of a quality which we do all the way. I will take the Phaeacian not often meet; as (p. 12) that the difficulty books, £-0.1 of conceiving a single Homer author of both poems decreases as our knowledge of anti- £ 119 &fioi iya>, Tf(ov airre fSpormv es yaidi' quity increases: that the Cyclic poets ludvoi ; (p. 9) were ' Sagengelehrter' rather than rj p" o? y' vppuTTaX re KOI aypioi ovSe poets, and (p. 3 n.) died a natural (though S since Proclus read them, lengthy) death of rje <fti\6$€ivoi /cot' <r<f>w voos «rri OtovSys ; their own inferiority ; his hearty admiration Sxrre fie Kovpaiav afi<j>y\.v6e Ofjkvs avrr), of the proportion and arrangement of the vvjjLtjxiuyv at i\ovcr opiwv ahrtwa Kaprjva. Odyssey, as a single work of art, and his 1 But as the English which falls from my pen is comparison of it to Plato's Republic, and to apt to be misunderstood, I should like to say that I tragedies, to their disadvantage (p. 6); the have read the whole book. 268 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. Kat jnjyas TroTa/imv Kai iruria iroir/evra ; Standorte aus, vor dem Hause, zwar von 125 7} vv irov avOpwirwv cip.1 o-\eBbv avSijei'- dem Innern etwas sehen und dies bewundern TIOV kann, das Weitere aber . unmoglich.' So dAA' ay' eyo>v avfos ireiprjo~ofiai i)8e Alcinous' house blocked out his fruit-trees ; but at Monaco, which must be something like Scheria, you catch a glimpse of the The unprejudiced reader finds no stumbling- Prince's gardens without passing the sentry. block here, any more than Herr Blass, on It is a lesson to us philologers, this scholastic a general reading, did in a-£ (p. 4). criticism, which emasculates the poem of its The learned, however, feel differently; best portions, compared to the objective one cuts out 120, 121; another 123-125. method of Berard, resting on facts, which is Herr Blass adstipulates to the former. This capable of admitting a false quantity, but is a typical case of the minor critical opera- shows us things as they were. tion. It implies two working principles: On the other hand the remark that in 17 (a) the ' dispensable supplement'; nothing 51, 52 may be kept which the syntax does not necessitate. We can get on with 119, 122, Oapo~a\eos yap avijp ev iraxiiv d//.etV<ov 126. 'Then make it so.' (b) Nothing, epyaurar TtXiOet, tl Kat iroOtv aWoOev t\6oi except sunrise and sunset, must be repeated. 52 is an addition, is true. This is a type of The original poet was sensitive on this real expansion, the amplification of a gnome, point; the rhapsodes (and scribes) were and in so far the easing of the sense. It is victims to association. In this passage 120, 'gag,' and has its parallel in Tragedy. I 121=t 175, 176, and 123-5 = Y 8-10 am glad to see that Herr Blass resists (nearly). Both these canons require demon- KirchhofFs extirpation of 17 56-68, the stration, and both are contradicted by effect of which would be to make Alcinous the nature of epos, Greek and foreign. and Arete brother and sister. It is im- Abundance and formulism are the first portant, however; if as Berard believes, the characteristic of hexameter verse, in vocab- Scherian civilisation is non-Hellenic, the ulary, phrase, figures, and ideas. Particularly custom would have given offence in the weak is the assumption of additions ; £ 221 heroic age, and we should have a TtK/j.^pwv ! The reference to Athens, rj 80, is justly avrrjv 8' OVK av eyiaye Xoiaraofuir aiSeo/tai yap defended; after all it was there. ^The yv/j.vovcr$ai Kovpy<nv ivTrkoKa/jLourt. fiereX6<ov. professor also stands by Alcinous when he ' Der Vers 222 ist irepirros wenn einer'; offers his daughter to Odysseus (17 311 sq.). then whose interest was it to add it 1 The He gets rid too lightly of the Delphic oracle first line was clear; the second involves a (0 79, 80). It existed, as we know from difficulty of construction which moves Herr I 404. Why should not Agamemnon have Blass to reject it. This is not the place to consulted it? Because no one else did? enuntiate a definition of insertions; we How do we know that? No one else shall come directly to a case of them where launched a thousand ships. You cannot they are legitimate. Similar criteria are prove a negative, and an oracle implies employed, with a somewhat pettifogging applicants. It was just over the gulf from verbal exegesis, upon the end of the book. Agamemnon's kingdom. On 6 20 sq. I £ 328 Ss e<par' etyd/tevos is inconsistent with observe that the plural aeOkoi recurs 146, rj 1 S)s 6 (itv hiff riparo. But rj 1 resumes 155 ; the Phaeacians offered Odysseus all or after a pause. £ 329 avr<3 8' ovirot tjtaiver any ; on 6 144 sq. that Odysseus is aware his ivavrlr) is contradicted by rj 18 dAA' ore Srj passage is safe, but he wants it at once. ap' e/xeXXe 7r0A.iv 8vo~ear0ai. epawr/v | tvffa oi The games bore him, and Laodamas' gibe avrefi6\r](re ded. The contradiction requires turns on this unsportsmanlike spirit. a microscope to make it visible; to the naked eye ovn-ia is well balanced by ore S17. The 6 219 otos 817 /«.€ ^iKoKrrjTTq^ aireKaivvro TO'^W same niggling procedure removes 17 40-42, 8»;yu.o) ivl Tpuxav ore ro^a^otfieO' 'A^aiot.