DOI 10.1515/bz-2020-0038 BZ 2020; 113(3): 879–904 Krystina Kubina Eight unedited poems to hisfriends and patrons by Manuel Philes Abstract: This article presents the critical edition of eight hitherto unpublished poems by Manuel Philes together with atranslation and acommentary.The poems are verse letters addressed to various high-rankingindividuals. Poem 1 is addressed to the emperor,whose power is emphasised in arequest to help Philes escape from his misery.Poem 2isafragment likewise addressed to the emperor.Poem 3isaconsolatory poem for afather whose son has died.In poem 4, Philes addresses apatron whose wife hurried to Constantinople after she had become the object of hostility of unknown people. Poem 5isaddressed to the month of August and deals with the return of abenefactor of Philes to Con- stantinople. In poem 6, Philes writes on behalf of an unnamed banker and asks the megas dioiketes Kabasilastojudge the latter justly. Poems 7and 8are tetra- sticha includingarequestfor wine. Adresse: Dr.KrystinaKubina, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Institut für Mittelalterforschung,AbteilungByzanzforschung,Hollandstraße 11–13, A-1020 Wien; [email protected] Manuel Philes (c. 1270–after 1332)suffers from aparadoxical fate. Philes was the most important and most prolific poet of the final 300 years of the Byzantine em- pire; yetthe greater part of his oeuvrestill languishes in outdated and uncritical editions from the 19th century.¹ There are even some poems that are still unedited Idearly thankAndreas Rhoby, MarcLauxtermann and Nathanael Aschenbrenner fortheir com- ments on earlier drafts of thispaper.Iam also grateful to ZacharyRothstein-Dowden whose help withmyEnglish translations by far exceeded alanguageproof.They all saved me from some blatant errors.Mythanksare extended to the two anonymous reviewerswhose sugges- tions greatly improved the quality of thispaper.Itgoeswithout saying that all remaining mis- takesare my own. Thisarticle waswritten as part of the project: “Late Byzantine Poetry from the Fourth Crusade until the End of the Empire”,funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF project no. T–G). After long years of neglect,Manuel Philes has latelybegun to arouse moreinterest.Cf. most recentlyK.Kubina. Die enkomiastische Dichtungdes Manuel Philes.Form und Funktion des li- terarischen Lobes in der frühen Palaiologenzeit. Byzantinisches Archiv, .Berlin/Boston , with an overview of the editions and the state-of-the-art research on p. –.Onlyfew other 880 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 113/3, 2020: I. Abteilung entirely, scattered across several manuscripts. Among these are some religious epigrams, the main part of his metaphrasis of the psalms² and anumberof poems addressed to friends and patrons.Thisarticle aims to rectify this absence of scholarlyeditions of his works by providingacritical edition of the latter group – the poems to patrons and friends – together with atranslation and a short commentary.³ These poems show how Philes used his poetic craft in order to establish and secure his social standingand how he positionedhimself as asocial actor:asasuppliant,friend, correspondent,and advocate. Philes maintained contact with manyhighrankingmembers of Byzantine society.Fromhis extant works,about 150 donorsand addressees can be identi- fied by name. Among those he addressed, we find emperors (Andronikos II, An- dronikos III and the co-emperor Michael IX), the patriarch Niphon I, high-rank- ing bureaucratslike the protostrator Michael Tarchaneiotes and his wife, the tax official Theodoros Patrikiotes,the cleric and historian Nikephoros Kallistu Xan- monographs have been published on Philes, namelyE.Braounou-Pietsch,Beseelte Bilder.Ep- igramme des Manuel Philes aufbildliche Darstellungen. Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, .Wien ;G.Stickler.Manuel Philes und seine Psalmenmetaphrase. Dissertationen der Universität Wien, .Wien ;and N. Papadogiannakis.Studien zu den Epitaphien des Manuel Philes.PhD thesis,FreieUniversität Berlin .The most important editions of Philes arethose of Miller,Martini and Gedeon.Icite Philes’ poems fromthese editions using the followingsigla: Manuelis Philaecarmina ex codicibus Escurialensibus,Florentinis,Parisinis et Vaticanis,ed. E. Miller, vols.Paris – – sigla E, F, P, V, App.; Manuelis Philae carmina inedita, ed. E. Martini.Torino – siglumM;M.Gedeon, ΜανουὴλτοῦΦιλῆἱστο- ρικὰ ποιήματα. Ekklesiastike aletheia (/), –, –, – – siglum G. Approximatelyone thirdofthe metaphrasis was edited by Stickler,Psalmenmetaphrase. In arecent research project hosted at the Austrian AcademyofSciences and the University of Ghent (“The Legacyofthe Psalms in Byzantine poetry.Book epigrams and metrical paraphrases”,pro- ject leaders Kristoffel Demoen and Andreas Rhoby),Anna Gioffreda preparesacomplete edition of the text.For first results see A. Gioffreda/A.Rhoby,Die metrische Psalmenmetaphrase des Manuel Philes.Präliminarien zu einer kritischen Edition. MEG (), –. The information about the unedited poems and the manuscripts in which they areincluded is mainlytakenfromthe manuscript list of Stickler,Psalmenmetaphrase –.Apart fromthe poems presented here, Stickler lists another poem addressed to adonor with the incipit ᾿Aγρὸς φορητός,transmitted in the important manuscript Vat. gr. (V), f. v (see and ). However,the text is apassage fromP.– with few variants:v.λιβὰςπεπεγμένη V: λιβὰς ὑφασμένη P.;v.is acombination of the first hemistich of P. and the second hemi- stich of P.;v.ἐμοὶ βασιλεῦ V: πεινῶντι Φιλῇ P.;v.τῷχρυσῷ V: ἐξ ἁφῆς P.; v. , ὡςδοῦλος οἰκτρὸςτάδε τολμήσας ἔφην,isnot present in P,but similar lines arefound in other poems by Philes (e.g. P.,P.,P.). P is most likelythe original poem, whereas the text transmitted in Visanexcerpt.Inverse the scribe confused twodistinct verses and mergedthem into one – acommon scribal error.Furthermore, the reading ἐξ ἁφῆς in P. should be preferredover τῷ χρυσῷ as the former is better fitted to the metaphor of heat.The last line in Visadded as an end to the text thus producinganalone standingpoem. K. Kubina, Eight unedited poems by Manuel Philes 881 thopulos and manymore. Forthese figures he wrote poems on commission,⁴ such as epigrams (i.e., metrical inscriptions), but he also addressed them di- rectlyinhis numerous verse letters.⁵ These letters have largely been neglected in scholarship mainlyinfavour of his epigrams, but internal markers as well as theircontent identify these poems as letters.Philes’ surviving corpus includes about 320such poems which give witness to the wide epistolary network that Philes possessed, and how versifying remained the medium through which he operated thatnetwork. Thepoems edited beloware,inall likelihood,verse letters. As such,they largelyshare thethemes, rhetorical practices andfunctions with theirprose coun- terparts writtenbyother 14th-century intellextuals. Themain difference between them is theform: whileprose letterswereoften rhythmical in language,these let- ters arewritten in verse, mostly dodecasyllable. Lettersbothinprose andinverse arethusbothpiecesofart andameansofcommunication.Poem1forms an ad- dresstothe emperorAndronikosIIrequestingthatthe author be savedfromhis misery andhis creditors. Poem 2alsoaddresses an emperor, butthe fragmentary stateofthe text makesitimpossibletograspits meaning. Poem 3isaconsolation poem forafather whohas lost hisson.Inpoem4,Philesaddresses apatron whosewifehurried to Constantinople aftershe hadbecomethe object of hostility of unknownpeopleinanunknown provincial town.Poem5is awitty textad- dressedtothe monthofAugustbut dealingwiththe felicitous return of oneof Philes’ benefactors to Constantinople. In poem 6, Philes writes on behalf of an un- namedbankerand asks the megasdioiketes Kabasilas, presumably TheodorosKa- basilas, elsewhereattestedasfinancial andjudicialofficer,tojudge thebanker’s suit justly. Poems7and8aretetrasticha includingarequestfor wine much like many others in Philes’ oeuvre. On commissioned poetry in lateByzantium see A. Rhoby,Poetry on commission in lateBy- zantium (th–th c.), in W. Hörandner /A.Rhoby /N.Zagklas (eds.), ACompanion to Byzan- tine poetry. Brill’sCompanions to the Byzantine World, .Leiden/Boston , – and K. Kubina, ‘But afriend must not sleep, when such aman commands him to write’.Motivations for writingpoetry in the earlyPalaiologan period, in N. Gaul /I.Stouraitis /M.Carr (eds.). The post- Byzantine world. New approaches and novel directions.Proceedingsfromthe st Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies,Edinburgh(forthcoming). On Philes’ verse letters see K. Kubina,Manuel Philes – abeggingpoet?Requests, letters, and problems of genredefinition, in A. Rhoby /N.Zagklas (eds.), Middle and lateByzantine poetry. Texts and contexts. Studies in Byzantine historyand civilization, .Turnhout , –. Byzantine verse letters areawidelyneglectedgenre; for afirst studyofthem see K. Kubina / A. Riehle (eds.). Greek epistolary poetry in lateantiquity,Byzantium and the Renaissance. Lon- don/New York, forthcoming; including on PhilesK.Kubina,Functions of letters in verse and prose. Acomparison of Manuel Philes and Theodoros Hyrtakenos. 882 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 113/3, 2020: I. Abteilung Theeditionshavebeenpreparedaccording to thefollowing guidelines.The orthographyhas been normalised accordingtothe lexiconforms,and allchanges arenoted in thecritical apparatus. Breathings andiotasubscriptshavebeencor- rected or addedand proper namescapitalised withoutcomment.Accents have been normalised except in thecaseofenclitics.⁶ Thepunctuation hasbeenmod- ernisedtofacilitateunderstandingfor