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A Note on the Berlin Papyrus of Corinna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. E. Harvey
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Abstract

AT the conclusion of his recently published paper on Corinna1 Professor Page leaves open the question whether the poetess was a contemporary of Pindar or of Moschus-whether she belongs to the middle of the fifth century or the end of the third. He gives excellent reasons for believing that these two dates exhaust the possibilities: they are far more probable than a date either outside or between them; but there seems to be no sure criterion by which we can decide between the two, and Professor Page has to end his researches with a suspension of judgement.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3-4 , December 1955 , pp. 176 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1955

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References

page 176 note 1 Corinna by Page, D. L., J.H.S. Supplementary Paper No. 6, 1953.Google Scholar

page 176 note 2 I do not understand the implication which appears to run through page's paper that if Corinna was a contemporary or nearcontemporary of Pindar (as is suggested by the admittedly wretched ancient evidence) she must have lived right at the beginning of the fifth century (cf. p. 20 n. 5: ‘…the hypothesis that her poetry passed out of fashion in or soon after her own lifetime (in, for example, the early fifth century)’). A contemporary of Pindar may well have been writing (like Pindar) c. 450, in which case her choriambic dimeters do not greatly antedate those of the Antigone (produced 443 or 441). And so far as the argument from the orthography goes, she may well have been a contemporary of Sophocles (v. Page, p. 75). Incidentally the syncopated ionic clausula of II col. i has now turned up in a poem of Anacreon (Ox. Pap. xxii. 2321, fr. 1).

page 178 note 1 The statement of Hephaestion (p. 74, 17 f. Cons.) that Alcman, in writing a poem of fourteen stanzas, made the first seven alike of one metre, the other seven alike of another, does not make the break in this poem any easier to understand.

page 178 note 2 That the change of metre is to be placed after 6 and not after 10, and that 7–9 are therefore ionic dimeters, is an equally un-acceptable hypothesis. A string of 6-line stanzas preceded by a 4-line stanza of the same character is unthinkable.

page 178 note 3 There is certainly no paragraphus in col. ii around v. 5 (where the colometry again seems to be at fault) and Croenert was unable to detect one after i. 22. In the other places the state of the papyrus makes it impossible to judge. In the next poem (col. ii. 12 ff.) the paragraphi are bold and regular until the latter part of col. iv.

page 178 note 4 in this text can stand either for (= Attic ), cf. i. 28 ; or for (= Hom. ), cf. i. 23 The marginal note is presumably the word (not ) and does not help one to decide. In any case there is no reason to assume that the top of the column coincides with the beginning of a stanza, and one place is not much more probable for the clausula than another. The same reason makes it impossible to reconstruct the arrangement of the first 10 lines; all one can say is that the line-endings which survive are all, except the last, capable of standing in some part of an ionic line.

page 178 note 1 Page's reading, which gives will not go into either ionics or polyschematist dimeters; Croenert thought the ρ had been deleted and read]. which could occur in an ionic line; this reading has not been generally accepted. Since only the last upright of the first letter is visible, Wilamowitz read ] which could either be a clausula (unwelcome at this point) or an instance of anaclasis, a licence which does not occur elsewhere on the papyrus but is not absolutely to be ruled out. Metrically Croenert's reading is the easiest, and Page in fact prints an otherwise unexplained dot over the ρ.

page 179 note 2 On this v. Page, p. 87 n. Croenert's detection of an extra line at the foot of col. i has not been endorsed by other editors.

page 179 note 3 The same goes for ii. 4 [; but the previous line ends with an open vowel, and since a hiatus of this kind does not occur elsewhere in the manuscript it is perhaps better to reject the reading (only the extreme left-hand portion of the ω is visible). Even if it is retained, the same explanation will apply.

page 179 note 4 The lack of a paragraphus at ii. 5–6 is then no longer a ‘mystery’, as Page would have it. Clearly the bewildered scribe was in no mind to put one in. In any case the absence of one here is no more remarkable than in col. i.

page 179 note 5 Cf Dion. Hal. De Comp. Verb. 156, 221.Google Scholar On the question of colometry at this date, see Wilamowitz, , Isyllos von Epidauros, p. 12. Stichometry, as opposed to colometry, was of course practised much earlier; but I know of no new papyrus finds which substantially affect Wilamowitz's arguments.Google Scholar

page 180 note 1 Alexander, , F.G.H. 273Google Scholar F. 97 with Komm. Trypho may be the source of Athenaeus 4, c. 75 = Corinna fr. 34 Page, cf. Bapp in Lips. Stud. viii (1885), ärber, äGoogle Scholar, Die Lyrik in der Kunsttheorie der Antike (Munich, 1936), i. 26.Google Scholar

page 180 note 3 There is no attempt at metrical division in the late anapaestic poem Pap. Berol. P. 9775 (iA.D.).

page 180 note 4 Something more should also be said about the mention of Corinna in [Plut.] de Mus. 14. 1136 b (=fr. 17 Page). The author expressly disowns responsibility for the views set out in that chapter and it is surely a very natural inference that the reference to Corinna is also drawn from one of the two books cited in the chapter, the of Istros and the of Antiklides. Both these works belong to the third century B.C. Cf. Wilamowitz, , Textgeschichte, p. 21 n. 3, F.G.H. 140 F. 14, 334 F. 52 with Komm.Google Scholar