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Notes on Some Passages in Seneca's Tragedies: II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. Hudson-Williams
A. Hudson-Williams
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Aberystwyth
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Extract

A list of the principal works referred to is given in my previous article, ‘Notes on Some Passages in Seneca's Tragedies and the Octavia’, CQ 39 (1989), 186–96.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 427 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 templa plural for singular as in 521, 616, and elsewhere.

2 Text with commentary of H.F., Tro., Medea (New York, 1909).Google Scholar

3 Cf. Juv. 7.47 ‘quaeque reportandis posita est orchestra cathedris’: the chairs have to be returned.

4 For trabes = ‘roof-beams’ or ‘ceiling’ cf. too Phaed. 497, Thy. 347, 646, 674 (or ‘trees’?), Hor. Od. 3.2.28, Ov. Tr. 3.12.10, etc.

5 Gnom. 41 (1969), 767f.

6 K.K. 117.

7 Varro, Rust. 1.31.5, Cic. Cael. 75, N.D. 2.135, Vitr. 7.3.6, Liv. 38.49.10.

8 I have commented with examples on the frequent existence of a ‘Unikum’ in a poet's language in CQ 30 (1980), 127Google Scholar; 34 (1984), 459 n. 50; and 39 (1989), 194 n. 51.

9 The transposition of the initial hemistichs of 22 and 23, proposed by Leo, certainly seems right. Cf. my note below on Thy. 57–9.

10 Cf. too Tro. If. ‘quicumque…magna potens | dominatur aula’.

11 Commentators have compared Frag. Eur. 269 (Nauck, , Trag. Graec. Frag 2., 1889)Google Scholar “Eρωτα δ' στις µ θεν κρνει µγαν | κα τν πντων δαιµνων ὑπρτατον, | ἢ σκαις στ;ιν ἢ καλν ἄπειρος ὢν | οὐκ οἶδε τν µγιστον νθρώποις θον, Ov. Her. 4.11f. ‘quidquid Amor iussit, non est contemnere tutum: / regnat et in dominos ius habet ille deos’.

12 Mnem. Ser. 4.13 (1960), 371.Google Scholar

13 Mnem. N.S. 41 (1913), 178f.Google Scholar

14 Hygin. Fab. 38, Apollod. Bibl. 3.16.2 (Frazer, Loeb, see pp. 122–5).

15 Diod. 4.59.3, Paus. 2.1.4 ληστς Δνις λαµβανµενος πιτων ἦγεν ς τ κτω σϕâς· πσων δ µχῃ κρατρεεν, π' αὐτν δρας ϕκεν ἂν τ δνδρα ἄνω ϕρερθαι νταθα κατρα τν πιτων τν δεθντα ϕ' αὑτν εἷλκε, κα το δερµο µηδετρωσε εἴκοντος λλ' µϕοτρωθεν π' ἴρης βιαζοµνομ διεσπτο δεδεµνος.

16 Note the use of trabs (‘tree-trunk’) in the extended sense of ‘tree’ , e.g. Sen. Ben. 3.29.5 ‘adspice trabes…altissimas’; and the corresponding word in Paus. l.c. τ δνδρα ἄνω ϕρεσθαι. The usage is not noted in OLD nor seems generally recognized.

17 For the legend of Sinis see RE III A. I. 238ff., Roscher's myth, lexicon IV 921ff.

18 Seneca, , Phaedra, ed. with comm. (Paris, 1965).Google Scholar

19 Seneca, , Phaedra, ed. with comm. (Cambridge, 1990).Google Scholar

20 See Zw. K.K. 405, noting e.g. Oed. 452f. ‘uerno platanus folio uiret / et Phoebo laurus carum nemus’.

21 Seneca, , Four Tragedies and Octavia, translated (Harmondsworth, 1966).Google Scholar

22 Seneca Oedipus, text and translation, (Stuttgart, 1974 (1981)).Google Scholar

23 Statius' Silvae (Lund, 1969), 67f.Google Scholar

24 Spicilegium in Silvis Statianis, Mnemosyne 51 (1923), 135–78.Google Scholar

25 Citing Silv. 2.3.17, where a nymph fleeing from Pan eventually ‘niueae posuit se margine ripae’, H. thinks that here ‘ripae means the pond: …at the edge of the cold water’, but fails to compare the language, for example, of Ov. Met. 1.729f. ‘positisque in margine ripae / procubuit genibus’, and its meaning ‘at the edge of the bank’, id. ib. 5.598, Her. 5.27, Stat. Theb. 4.703, Sil. 6.165 ‘caput aduersae ponebat margine ripae’, etc. The use of ripa meaning ‘water’ H. following Damsté finds also in Stat. Silv. 1.3.107 ‘flauis ripis’ and 4.3.90 ‘tacente ripa’, where the word again has its usual sense (see Vollmer ad loc.). In Virg. Aen. 9.104f. also cited we find an obvious reference to the two parts of the underworld river, the Styx, per flumina (the waters) and per .. ripas (the banks); cf. too Stat. Theb. 7.325 ‘ripis animosus gurges anhelis…’

26 Rhein. Mus. 34 (1879), 555.Google Scholar

27 K.K. 221: ‘ein komisch anmutendes Verspaar’.

28 The expression uiuacis cornua cerui occurs in Virg. Ecl. 7.30, Ov. Met. 3.194 (see Böhmer ad loc.).

29 See Zw.'s lists in OCT, pp. 467–9 and Tarrant's notes on polymetric cantica in his Agamemnon, pp. 372–81.

30 Cf., where the metre is anapaest, Ag. 86 tulit ex alto, 318 bibis Ismenon, 665 lacerant curae.

31 In line 1 an interesting variation lies in the readings inferorum E and me furor nunc A, both of which make sense and are metrical, but that of E seems the superior, A representing the errors me for in, furor f. feror, and nunc f. um. Farnaby, I note, follows A, but records E.

32 Del Rio gives examples of quis deus or the like: Virg. Aen. 6.341 quis … deorum, 9.601 quis deus, Ov. Met. 10.611; so too Sen. Thy. 561.

33 Unsatisfying also is Herrmann's rendering ‘Quel dieu fait revoir à Tantale cette maison qu'il a vue pour son malheur?’.

34 See OLD domus 6; TLL domus 1980. 26ff., 1982. 76ff.

35 In his reprint with corrections (1987, 1988).

36 CQ 39 (1989), 193f.Google Scholar

37 Gnomon 42 (1970), 267f.Google Scholar, and K.K. 359.

38 Korruptelenkult: Studien zur Textkritik d. unechten Seneca-Tragödie H.O. (Lund, 1967), pp. 109f.Google Scholar

39 K.K. 363f., Gnomon 42 (1970), 270f.Google Scholar

40 Zw. compares Thy. 221f. ‘quid enim reliquit crimine intactum aut ubi / sceleri pepercit?’. Cf. too ‘aut quas [herbas]…’ in 465 (above), H.F. 1321 ff. ‘quem locum profugus petam? / ubi me recondam quaue tellure obruar? / quis Tanais aut quis … ' etc., Phaed. 1169f., H.O. 95f.

41 Cf. OLD ut C 28 d.

42 The referee well compares Virg. Aen. 4.56 ‘pacemque per aras / exquirunt’.

43 Ed. Lucan 1, Camb. Univ. Press, 1940 (1955), Introd. lxv. See my note in CQ 34 (1984), 453.Google Scholar

44 Cf. Oed. 101 fortis A for sortis E, Phoen. 632 sors ωf.fors Ascensius var. lect., Med. 26 fero Af. sero E, Oct. 114 morte Af. sorte Lipsius.

45 Cf. Ov. Am. 3.6.28 ‘rapuit uultus, Xanthe, Neaera tuos’, Met. 7.133 ‘demisere metu uultumque animumque Pelasgi’, 10.601 ‘uultuque in uirgine fixo’, etc.

46 My thanks are due to the editors for their help, and to the referee for his comments, in presenting this article.