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On Editing the "Silvae"

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    Department of the Classics, Harvard University

    On Editing the "Silvae"Author(s): E. CourtneyReviewed work(s):Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 102 (2004), pp. 445-453Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4150048.Accessed: 26/04/2012 07:01

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    ON EDITINGTHESILVAEE. COURTNEY

    HEappearanceof ShackletonBailey's Loeb edition of the Silvaeof Statius invites consideration of some of the divergencesbetween it and my OCT (about which his comments on pp. 8-9 aremuch appreciated), n the hope that this may promoteunderstandingofsome of the factors involved in constitutinga text of this work. These

    divergences, as Shackleton Bailey (henceforwardSB) remarks (p. 8),are not few, yet our texts resembleeach otherfar more than eitherdoesany othertext, which is a testimonyto a general similarityof approach.Some of the differences, as he says (p. 9), are due to his obligation toproduce a translation,and thereforeto printa reading which he couldtranslate,in places where I had the luxury of equivocating with anobelus. In others it is not surprising hat, in a work poorly transmittedandwritten n an artificialand mannerist tyle, the bestjudgmentof twoeditors should differently weigh up the pros and cons of availableoptions and come down on opposite sides of the fence. Such a case is1.2.136 in hanc uero cecidisset luppiterauro, which in this style I con-siderjust acceptable, whereas SB regards t as "a foolish conceit" andprefersto alterthe text. I mentionalso 1.3.42 nox silet et pigros mutan-tia murmurasomnos, which I taketo mean "nightis silent, and so arethe noises which breaksleep."A distinguishedscholarwroteto me say-ing "I can't believe Statius would have chosen mutantiafor the senseyou postulate with turbantiaand rumpentiaavailable,"but it seems tome that the word was chosen precisely because it is not the obviousone; the diction of Statius is not like that of Wordsworth.For Statius'wide-rangingand varieduse of this word see Damst6 in SertumNaber-icum (Leiden, 1908) 79, where this passage is not taken into account.SB, however,prefersto adoptthe conjecture nuitant.

    In many passages which show divergent judgments the factorsinvolved are self-evident and the reader can be left to make his ownjudgment;what I seek to do in this paperis to drawout the less obvious

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    446 E. Courtneyimplications of some others, and incidentally to note some placeswhere the presentationof the Loeb volume may mislead. I am, how-ever, notreviewing the work,norwouldI consent to do so.Sometimes questionsof principleareat issue. Take5.3.139-140

    non totiens uictoremCastoragyronec fratremcaestu uiridestclauserot Therapnae.Already in the renaissance this was altered to plausere, the problemwith this being thatthis verbmeans "to strike with a flat or concave sur-face, to pat" (so OLD), and consequently to clap the handsfor some-one, to applauda person in the dative,not in the accusative. I take it asa rulewhich is as nearlyabsolute as any rule in textualcriticism can bethat unattestedusage should not be introducedby emendation. SB isreducedto defending the constructionby analogies,but one might askwhy, if Statius wrote plausere, he did not write uictori Castori ...fratri, since he is quite willing to employ the Greek scansion of thedative in Greek names (4.2.28 Doridi as emended by Politian; Theb.3.521 lasoni, 2.599 Pyracmoni,these two also by prettycertain emen-dation;Ach. 1.285 Palladi).At 3.3.78 longo transmittit habere nepoti (so presented by themanuscript)SB emends to ab aere and translates"afterlong service,"comparing two passages from Cic. Ad Fam. which have (aliquis) inmeo aere est (esse). In his note (vol. 1,p. 442) on one of these he para-phrases by meus est and refers to Otto, Sprichwiirterno. 30, whoseexplanation is "gehbrt zu meinem Besitz, d.h. ist mir verpflichtet(Gegens. aes alienum)."This makes plain the financialbackgroundofthe metaphor "is among my assets"),basedon the literal use as in Hor.Ep. 2.2.12 meo sum pauper in aere. SB, realizing this, has to bring inthe use of the pluralaera to meanstipendia to bolsterhis emendation,which here too seems to me to be forbiddenby interdictandto give toomuch weight to palaeographicalfacility ("Anxious adherence to theductus litterarum s the fruitfulparentof false conjecture,"Housman,Manilius V, pp. xxxiv-xxxv). Not only that,but it transgressesanotherinterdict, namely that emendation should leave no problem behind.Here SB has to admit,and try vainly to palliate the fact, thatNero wasnot the grandsonof Claudius; it will be necessary to adopt a secondemendation, Markland'sNeroni (not that here that would be a greathurdleif ab aere wereacceptable).

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    OnEditingheSilvae 447Turnnow to 1.2.77

    matribus,edomuiuictum,where for no good reason SB adopts Eden's conjecture inuictum.YetStatiusin the Silvae nowhere elides a long at thejunction of the secondand thirdfeet, as I indicated,perhaps oo obliquely,in my note on Ker'sconjectureastutumat 5.5.68. In additionthe rhythm uu I - uu ( )I - uvu (where my bracket ndicates elision of a short or a syllablein -m ) is found only five times, if I have not overlookedanything(inaddition 3.1.112, where one should presume adero', 3.3.158, the onlycase with a pause afterthe firstdactyl, 5.2.9 are analogous),and in allinstances the first syllable of the thirdfoot is a monosyllabic (at 2.2.71by elision) prepositivecopulative conjunction.One cannot believe therhythmof the conjectureto be Statian. I shouldjustify the words "forno good reason"employed above. Edomui uictum is an instance of atype of pleonasm quite common with participles, ike tempora .. uelasadopertaat Juv.8.145, wheremy note refers to otherexamples and dis-cussions.

    As Statius' rhythmicalhabitsin verse are here ignored,like insensi-tivity to his prose rhythms is twice shown in the preface to Book I.I invite readers to note how carefully these are observed throughoutthis piece, and thento considerfirstlibellos... cumsinguli de sinu meopro [ ]; for the requiredverb SB prefersthe unrhythmicaland colorlessprodierint,whereas I had singled out for mention the picturesque sug-gestion prouolassent, which produces- u -- I - u - -. Sec-ond, look at Claudi Etrusci testimoniumtdomonnumt est; the two,obviously uncertain,emendationswhich I mentionedproduce- u -I - - and - u - I - u -, whereas SB's donandumgives norecognized clausula and yet again allots too much weight to palaeo-graphical acility.1.4.4 is presentedthusby M:

    et caelo diues Germanicecordi.Here I read es caelo, dis es, G., c. with Calderiniand other renaissancesources; SB prefers to follow Politian with es caelo, diue es G. c. andtranslates"Heavenloves you, Germanicus,"omitting, as you see, anyequivalentfor the word diue. The following observations(cf. TAPA114[1984] 334) are in order:

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    448 E.Courtney(1) Statius never calls Domitian diuus, nordoes Martial,and no livingemperoris ever given this epithet (for a seeming exception see below);if he had been, his recollection of sit diuus dum non sit uiuus wouldhaveproducedpainfulresults for the writer.(2) The form diue is rare,and functions as the vocative of deus; it isnever found attached o a propername.(3) It mightbe arguedthatdiue here is to be taken not in its specializedsense as applied to dead and deifiedemperors,but in its wider sense asa synonym of deus. However, that cannot be the case here, sincenobodywould say "You,god Germanicus,arebelovedby the gods."(4) SB defends his readingwitha referenceto Ovid, Tr 3.1.77-78

    di precor,atqueadeo (nequeenim mihi turbarogandaest)Caesar,ades uoto, maximediue, meo.But this defense collapses. Ovid appeals first to the gods in general,then decides to focus his appeal,anddoes so to the greatest god of all,Caesar, ust as Priapusis diue minorby contrast to Bacchus and Ceres(Priapea 53.5). This then is just another instance of a trope foundrepeatedlyin the exile poems, which I need not illustrate. All this justin orderto duplicateone letterrather han alter one However,thereis athird option, suggested to me in personalcommunication by the lateW. S. Watt;I can no longer secure his permissionto publish it, butI donot think thathe would object. This is to readet caelo dum es (etcaelo meaning non solum hominibus;cf. WJA14 [1988] 160). I willmentionanotherconjectureby Wattof the same status, idumat 2.1.28.I turn now to some misunderstandingsand slips revealed in thework. Most remarkable is 3.5.104 uenarumque lacus medicos (soemended by van Buren), where SB informs us that uenarumlacus isgibberish.I sometimes detect in his wordingan implicationthat the restof the world is stupiderthan we actuallyare, and if I personallyfoundmyself attributingto fellow scholars the belief that "pools of veins"made any sense, I would re-examinemy presuppositions.In fact whatwe have here is not uenarum acus but,as van Buren makesabundantlyclear, uenarum lacus medicos, pools which treat arteries, objectivegenitive. SB's own solutionis to postulatean otherwise unknowntopo-

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    OnEditingthe Silvae 449graphicalname Venae,whichseems to me to be yet anothercase of vio-lation of interdict. Hardly ess remarkables 1.4.39-40

    quaetumpatrumque quitumquenotauiluminaet ignaraeplebis lugerepotenteswhich SB translates"What uminariesof Senate and Knightsdid I thennote, and the common folk not wont to mourn the powerful,"andexplains that from lumina "anothername, as 'crowds,' is mentallysub-stitutedby zeugma."I am almost ashamed to refer (for a second time;see CP 85 [1990] 256) to Housman,Manilius I, p. li, "Thesewords arequiteeasy, andthey mean 'quales (quammaestos) notauioculos patrumequitumqueatqueadeoplebis.'"At 1.1.46

    sonipes habitusanimosque mitatusequestreshe alters to Markland'ssuggestion eriles (which certainly merits themention which I gave it) and notes "Equestris s adjectivefrom eques,not equus;not therefore'equine.'"It would certainlybe flat to say thatthe statueof a horse imitatesa real horse, and apparentlySB has beenmisled by Frereinto thinkingthat this is how those who retainthe read-ing take it. But others,e.g., Vollmerand Marklandhimself, interpret tto mean that the horse imitates the bearing and spirit of its eques, itsrider Domitian, and though Marklandexpresses doubts about this headmits thathe cannotdisproveit.HereI will remark hat at 1.3.50-51

    quicquidet argentoprimumuel in aereminorilusit et enormes manusexpertura olossoshaste has made him overlook my note in the addendaandcorrigenda othe second printingof my text (p. xxx), which his note at 2.1.130 (seebelow) shows him to have seen. ThereI contritelyremarked hata notereading "experturaPhillimore: est experta M" had been accidentallyomitted in my text. Like me, SB readsexpertura,but without note; hetranslates"all thatartist'simaginationwrought,first in silveror bronzeminiature, hen to attempthuge colossi." Here it might be advantageousto add "as well" or "also"after"colossi,"so that the readeris not per-

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    450 E.Courtneyplexed by the second et (cf. TAPA114 [1984] 332); some such word as"destined"before "then"would also help.Again at 1.4.105 a correctionwhich I made thereby an afterthoughthas been overlooked. I proposed to read something on these lines(Apollo speaks),

    Arabumquoddoctus in aruisautAmphrysiacopastorde graminecarpsi.Such an omission could have been caused by homoeoarchon. Thisinvolves accepting the renaissancecorrectioncarpsi for M's carpsit; soSB's note 22 on p. 81 is out of date and based on the reading carpsitwhich I hadoriginallyretained n the text, thoughdissatisfiedby it.I will take the occasion to remarkon two otherpassages mentionedby me in the same place. In 2.6.79-80 as readin M.

    quintauix Phosphoroshorarorantem ternebatequumI had accepted Postgate'scorrectionOeta for hora, but in the addendaIexpressed regret that I had not mentioned Schrader'squinto ... ortu,which SB adopts(hora being assumed to be due to ora at the beginningof 79). However,I still like Postgate's idea; quinta Oeta will mean thefifth rising of the morning star over Oeta, with which it (or at leastdawn; see Lyne on Ciris 350) is traditionallyassociated (e.g., at 5.4.8).The expression will be like puluere quarto at Theb.6.469, "thefourthdirt-track"meaningthe fourth apon a dirt-track ace.The otherpassage is 2.1.129-30

    breuibusconstringere aenispectoraet angustanolensartare acerna,where nolens is my conjecturefor M's telas; this conjectureis acceptedby SB and,I believe, gives the rightsense, but is unlikely to be right initself, because the Romans, possessing the word inuitus, in classicaltimes avoid nolens (see Neue-Wagener,Formenlehre3.622). We there-fore need another word of similarsense, and the best option is uitans,which Wattcommunicatedprivately o me, thoughrejectingit himself.

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    OnEditingheSilvae 451I now turn to miscellaneous observations,and first to 1.6.15, wherein Vollmer's wake SB reads Ebosea Caunos and understands "theCaunosof Ebusos," .e., Iviza whose figs match the proverbiallysuperbones of Caunos. This runsup againstthe problem,which he recognizes,that the island's name in verse always has a short first vowel, even inStatius' contemporarySilius, and in Greek is spelt withepsilon; this toowould seem to me to fall under interdict.And it does not even givesense. If one were to speakof the Oxfordor the Monte Carlo of Amer-ica, one would mean not America,butHarvard at least some would someanit) andLas Vegas.Now 2.6.40-43

    toruaatqueuirilisgratianec petulansacies blandiqueseueroigne oculi, qualis tbellist iam casside uisuParthenopaeus rat.

    Here amazingly SB adopts Krohn'sconjecturebellus. One might wellask why, if the solution is as simple as this, it eluded four centuries ofStatian criticism and had to await the decade which saw the nadirofthatcriticism, and why Parthenopaeus hould be describedas a "prettyboy" (not just "handsome,"as in SB's translation, hough his note onp. 390 comes nearerthe markwith "pretty")when all the context (notjust the partquoted by me) has been insisting on the masculinityof thedead boy who is being compared to him, and why Statius shoulddescribe an epic hero by an undignifiedword which is used neitherbyhimself nor any epic poet, nor indeed any writer of elevated poetryexcept sarcastically by Lucretius.When Statius names Parthenopaeushe is inevitably thinkingof his own portrayalof the young hero in theThebaid, and Baehrens' liber finds admirablesupport in 9.699 sqq.,duly mentionedby commentators,

    ast ubi pugnacassis anhelacalet, resoluto uertice nudusexoritur; uncdulce comae radiisque rementesdulce nitentuisus et, quasdolet ipse morari,nondummutataerosealanuginemalae

    (in 2.6.44-45 Statius mentions the first facial hair of the boy). SB's

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    452 E.Courtneyassertion(p. 390) thatiam loses point withBaehrens' correction,whichis not true when the reference to the Thebaid s taken into account,canbe turned back on his own rendering"now handsome in his helmet,"which invites one to wonder whether he was not handsome before hedonnedthe helmet. As for the corruption,palaeographical acility willnot influence us (see above on 3.3.78); I will howevernote that it wouldbe the converse of that seen by me (Fragmentary Latin Poets,pp. 316-319) in the fragmentof Albinovanus Pedo 19, where I believethat bellis has been corrupted nto liberis.Next 2.6.88

    Assyrio manantesgraminesucos.Here SB adopts Heinsius' conjecture germine "quia amomum (cf.2.4.34) non e graminesed ex fruticeproueniat," o quote my apparatus.YetI did not accept the conjecturefor this reason:I had advocatedit inthe first version of an article, but the anonymous referee, to whom Iwould give the credit by name if I could, pointed out that costum,which Statiusdescribes as Indumgramenat 2.1.160, is also the productof a frutex (Pliny NH 12.41), and that at 2.4.35 he speaks of gramenArabum,probablymeaning myrrh,which is the productof a small tree.At 5.5.9

    morientibus cce lacertisuisceranostratenensanimaqueauellitur nfans

    I can assure SB that animaque is not a mistake in my text but is thereading of M and is right. Look at his translationof the renaissanceconjectureanimamque,which he silently adopts:"a child is torn awayas he graspsmy heartand soul with dying arms."How can one graspasoul with one's arms?On the otherside see 5.1.46-47 te ... uisceribustotisanimaqueamplexa ouebat.

    Again at 2.2.13-16placido lunatarecessuhincatquehinc curuasperrumpunt equorarupes.

    datNatura ocum montiqueinteruenitunumlitus et in terrasscopulis pendentibus xit

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    OnEditingheSilvae 453I can again assureSB that,while I cannot answerfor Vollmerand VanDam, I know what Suet. Tib.40 unoparuoquelitore means, and do notrely on it to defend unumhere, but ratheron the passages collected inOLD unus 5b, "one whole or continuous (opp. a number of separateentities)."What is described is "a bay backedby a shore"which "runsinland between overhangingcliffs" (SB). This shore curves around thebay withouta break, i.e., the overhangingcliffs leave room for it and donot interrupt t by projecting out into the sea. Heinsius' udum is asvapidhere as litore ... udo is pointedat 3.1.68.Some slips are found in the presentationat 2.7.132, where Marklandis said to haveconjecturedgenialis, which in fact he rejectedin favor ofgenitalis; at 1.3.41, wheretibi is obelized buttranslatedwithout note;atp. 263 n. 12, where we are referredto a non-existent note for Cole-man's transpositionof 4.3.111 to follow 113; and at 5.5.8 tanti hadalreadybeen suggested by Merrill(UCPCP 5.5 [1923] 178) andTraglia(I have to admit to doubts of the Latinity of this, since I do not recallmeeting the word in any such combination as tanti erroremluere; atany rate Sen. Tro. 193-194 non paruo luit / iras Achillis Graecia etmagno luet did not use genitives). I pass over some other trivial over-sights.I will remark hatG. Laguna-Mariscal's1992 edition of Book III islisted in the bibliography supplied by Professor K. M. Coleman; Iwould havethoughtthatat 3.5.40-41

    scilicet exhaustiLachesis mihi tempora atite tantummiseratadedithis conjecturefili would deserve mention (cf. 5.1.157 exacti superestpars ultimafili). I would also have thought that a conjecture (gauisanotauit 5.3.263) arrivedat independentlyby two scholarsof the statureof Delz (MH49 [1992] 251) and Watt(ICS 17 [1992] 82) would meritmention.It is a pity thatthe acumenshownby SB, e.g., in emending to Tibursat 1.3.1, where the rest of us have been asleep, should be so oftenspoiled by hasteand lackof self-criticism.UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA