De Gruyter (2016) h/b 97pp £44.99 (ISBN 9783110455762 h/b)
In this engaging little book, C. examines a number of places where Virgil’s text, interpretation, or both have been questioned. Any editor (and would-be emendator) of Virgil is, of course, faced with two challenges before s/he starts work: first, the text has been exhaustively scrutinised for over 2,000 years; and secondly, Virgil died before he could make any corrections, additions etc. to what he had written. There is thus the risk that any emendator may be not correcting, but ‘improving’ the text (as Jebb notoriously warned in the case of Sophocles). Your reviewer can look here only at cases where assessment would not be as lengthy as the argument presented.
C. looks at a couple of instances where the MSS offer ‘hypermetric’ lines—i.e. where there is a superfluous vowel at the line’s end which merges by synaphea into the vowel which opens the next line. In cases where the hypermetrism is –que, no problem arises: but at Georgic 2.69 fetu nucis arbutus horrid(a), where the next lines starts et, Ribbeck’s nucis arbutus horrida fetu has been called on, and has some appeal by instantly eliminating the hypermetrism. Yet the Georgics offer hypermetric lines at 1.295 and 3.449, and if one can (cautiously) accept the principle of difficilior lectio potior, how likely is it that scribal error would produce a hypermetrism? C. retains the MSS tradition.
At Aen 3.684-86 C. goes boldly and further (partly anticipated by N. Heinsius), by altering a line which ends Scylla atque Charybdis, into Scyllamque Charybdinque, followed by line 685 which starts inter and, in C.’s reading, governs the preceding words. This unquestionably improves the sense, and eliminates that unappealing and unelided atque (there is more detailed argumentation to this proposal, which deserves careful attention, though the resultant rather strained word order may tell against it).
It does seem very likely that spurious verses have crept into the tradition. C. firmly eliminates Georg. 2.433, with Ribbeck and others (it is missing from one of the main codices, and is not commented on by Servius); the second half of Aen. 1.378 (irrelevant ad loc. and copied from an earlier line); 4.126 (identical with a certainly correct later line, but irrelevant ad loc.); Aen 9.151 (clumsy, and copied from 2.166); 6.901 (identical with 3.277, condemned by Bentley and, ad loc., an atypical monostich); and Georg. 4.291 (left over from a phase of the text that preceded the removal of the name of Gallus, the disgraced governor of Egypt). C. writes interestingly in this section about the tibicines (half-lines) that have been boldly supplemented, the most grotesque example being at Aen. 3.661 where, after the blinding of Polyphemus, and the words solamenque mali, the tibicen is supplemented by de collo fistula pendet. (Readers are of course advised to have texts at hand here and elsewhere.)
Most other examples of C.’s work, though interesting and often persuasive, are too detailed for consideration here, except indeed at Aen 5.326, where C. ‘pays homage’ to Bentley, accepting his certain correction of ambiguumque to ambiguumve: to be sure, this not only restores the sense, but is to all intents and purposes a translation of Iliad 23.382. Bentley will certainly have made the correction currente calamo. There is also a long and valuable excursus on the Helen episode (Aen. 2.567-588)—to which, as C. observes, N. Horsfall had devoted 34 pages in his edition of Book 2 in 2008—in which C. concludes that the text as we have it is a first draft by Virgil, left unpolished: it’s an attractive thesis, well presented.
It is refreshing to have a book devoted solely to questions of textual criticism, with argumentation governed by ratio et res ipsa. The views of other scholars are invariably given a full hearing, even, or especially, when C. takes a different line: perhaps only Emil Kraggerud is given a hard time. Inevitably, not all of C.’s proposals will find acceptance, though all deserve careful consideration.
Finally, should we read pernix or pernox at Georg. 3.230? The arguments are finely balanced, but after eight (!) pages of complex discussion, C. settles on pernox: perhaps it is impertinent of your reviewer to add that pernox would be a hapax in Virgil, though it is found just once in Ovid.
When R.J. Tarrant’s OCT of Virgil comes out, it will be instructive to see where and if he agrees/disagrees with C. Meanwhile, this book is warmly recommended to all Virgilians as an amuse-bouche—or additamentum—to the Christmas stocking? As noted, it is helpful, but not necessary, to have a complete text to hand.
Colin Leach