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TWO TEXTUAL NOTES ON PINDAR'S EIGHTH NEMEAN*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2015

Nicholas Lane
Nicholas Lane*
Affiliation:
Ealing, London
*
[email protected]
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Extract

      πολλὰ γὰρ πολλᾷ λέλεκται, νεαρὰ δ᾽ ἐξευρόντα δόμεν βαϲάνῳ     20
      ἐϲ ἔλεγχον, ἅπαϲ κίνδυνοϲ· ὄψον δὲ λόγοι φθονεροῖϲιν,
      ἅπτεται δ᾽ ἐϲλῶν ἀεί, χειρόνεϲϲι δ᾽ οὐκ ἐρίζει.
      κεῖνοϲ καὶ Τελαμῶνοϲ δάψεν υἱόν, φαϲγάνῳ ἀμφικυλίϲαιϲ.
      21. ὄψον δὲ λόγοι BD : δὲ λόγοι om. Triclinius
      φθονεροῖϲιν BD : φθόνῳ εἰϲίν Vauvilliers (vel potius φθονερῷ ᾽ιϲιν)
I translate: ʻFor many things have been told in many ways, but to give novel things, when one has found them out, to the touchstone | For testing is pure danger: words are an amuse-bouche to the envious, | And it fastens on good men always, not taking issue with inferiors. | That too gnawed at Telamon's son, had him writhing on a sword.’ The difficulty presented by the transition in 22 from the plural ʻthe envious' to the singular subject ʻit' will be obvious. However, some commentators, including Mezger, Fennell and Bury, have assumed that φθόνοϲ can be supplied as the subject of ἅπτεται in 22 from φθονεροῖϲιν in 21, and the modern texts of Pindar – Bowra, Puech, Turyn and Snell–Maehler – do not mention the possibility of corruption in 21.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , May 2015 , pp. 356 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Professors James Diggle and David Kovacs, as well as the anonymous reader of CQ, for helpful comments on a draft of this note.

References

1 Mezger, F., Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig, 1880)Google Scholar, 328.

2 Fennell, C.A.M., Pindar: The Nemean and Isthmian Odes (Cambridge, 1889 2)Google Scholar, 103: ʻFor the extraction of φθόνοϲ from φθονεροῖϲιν cf. Soph. Aj. 201 [sic] νόϲου from νοϲήϲαν [sic].' The reference seems to be to νοϲήϲαϲ at Aj. 207, but Fennell leaves it to the reader to extract what support he can from the cross-reference.

3 Bury, J.B., The Nemean Odes of Pindar (London and New York, 1890)Google Scholar, 153.

4 Bowra, C.M., Pindari carmina (Oxford, 1947 2)Google Scholar; Puech, A., Pindare. Tome III: Néméennes (Paris, 1952 2)Google Scholar; Turyn, A., Pindari carmina cum fragmentis (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar; Snell, B. and Maehler, H., Pindarus (Leipzig, 1987 8)Google Scholar. By contrast, Schröder, O., Pindari carmina (Leipzig and Berlin, 1923)Google Scholar, 321 did note some conjectures in his apparatus.

5 Heyne, C.G., Pindari carmina cum lectionis varietate et adnotationibus. Nova editio correcta et ex schedis Heynianis aucta, 3 vols. (London, 1824)Google Scholar, 1.421.

6 Farnell, L.R., The Works of Pindar, 3 vols. (London, 1930–2)Google Scholar, 2.306.

7 Gerber, D.E., Emendations in Pindar 1513–1972 (Amsterdam, 1976)Google Scholar, 118. In addition to the conjectures of Vauvilliers cited in the apparatus above, Gerber records conjectures changing ὄψον δὲ λόγοι (λόγω/λόγῳ Pauw, ὄψον λόγιοι Bergk, δ' ὄαροϲ Stone), and subject and word order (ὄψον φθονεροῖϲι δὲ μόμφοι/μόμφοϲ Christ, ὄψον φθονεροῖϲι δὲ μομφαί Herwerden).

8 Henry, W.B., Pindar's Nemeans: A Selection (Munich and Leipzig, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 80.

9 Cf. Garvie, A.F., Aeschylus: Persae (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar, commenting on Aesch. Pers. 12–13 πᾶϲα ... ἰϲχὺϲ Ἀϲιατογενήϲ: ʻThat the subject [sc. of βαΰζει] can be Ἀϲία, understood from Ἀϲιατογενήϲ, is highly improbable.’

10 Cf. Braswell, B.K., A Commentary on the Fourth Pythian Ode of Pindar (Berlin and New York, 1988)Google Scholar, on Pyth. 4.5(c): Pindar freely admits epic correption ʻin all four places within the hemiepes (D, i.e. ‒ ⏑1 ⏑2 ‒ ⏑3 ⏑4 ‒) in dactyloepitrites, but avoids [it] elsewhere (very rare in d1 and d2 and totally absent from epitrites'). Vauvilliers’ φθόνῳ εἰϲίν would introduce correption at Braswell's position 4 in the hemiepes in dactyloepitrites and thus would be acceptable.

11 Cf. Kühner, R., Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, rev. F. Blass, 2 vols. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1890 3)Google Scholar, 1.241. Even in tragic iambics, where prodelision is not uncommon, it seems to be restricted mainly to ἐϲτί (see Diggle, J., Studies on the Text of Euripides [Oxford, 1981]Google Scholar, 33: ʻDenniston's suspicion that the only part of εἰμί which suffers prodelision in tragic iambics is ἐϲτί is almost true; but there is the solitary ποῦ ᾽ϲτον at S. OC 1107').

12 I do agree with Henry's diagnosis that ʻφθονεροῖϲ might well have been written above φθόνῳ as an explanation'. However, I find it difficult to see how it would then have been ʻmistaken for a correction of φθονωιειϲ and placed in the text'. It seems to me more likely that φθονεροῖϲ explained something which it then simply dislodged without the intermediate stage of ʻcorrection'.

13 Vauvilliers actually retracted his original conjecture in favour of the impossible φθονερῷ ᾽ιϲιν (cf. Vauvilliers, J.-F., Traduction poétique des odes les plus remarquables de Pindare [new edn, Paris, 1859], 281–2)Google Scholar. (Professor Diggle also justly asks, per litteras, why the prodelided form would not be ᾽ϲιν instead of Vauvilliers' ᾽ιϲιν.) I say impossible because I have not been able to find a single example of εἰϲί prodelided anywhere in early or classical Greek. Had it appeared, it would have been unlikely to do so in Doric because of that dialect's avoidance of aphaeresis (cf. n. 11 above). Vauvilliers' reason for retracting his original suggestion seems to have been a lack of manuscript authority (perhaps an odd reason given the paucity of manuscripts transmitting the Nemeans), whereas with his second proposal he felt that he had ʻobtenu le double succès et d'avoir corrigé le texte et de l'avoir conservé'.

14 Different editors punctuate differently. I have taken the punctuation in Snell–Maehler (n. 4) as standard.

15 Ἐντί at Ol. 9.104, Pyth. 4.139, 5.98, 9.39, Nem. 1.24, 6.45, 9.32, Isthm. 2.30, frr. 123c.2 and 223 S–M; εἰϲί at Pyth. 5.116.

16 On the unarticulated substantivized participle as a form of Pindaric brachyology, see Braswell's introduction to his commentary on Pyth. 4 ([n. 10], 32–3) and his note on Pyth. 4.180(c) ναιετάοντεϲ (ʻThe use of a substantivized participle without the definite article is an archaic feature of Greek found in high poetry ...'). Further instances of the dative participle used in this way by Pindar include e.g. Ol. 10.90 (θνᾴϲκοντι), Pyth. 10.67 (πειρῶντι) and Nem. 7.75 (νικῶντι).

17 Drachmann, A.B., Scholia vetera in Pindari carmina, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1903–27).Google Scholar

18 If the point needs illustrating, one can see how a singular participle in the text might be discussed in the plural in the scholia from e.g. Ol. 5.7–8, where νικάϲαϲ prompts discussion by the scholiast (on Ol. 5.16 [= Drachmann 1.143.13–14]) of οἱ νικῶντεϲ.

19 Race, W.H., Pindar: Nemean Odes, Isthmian Odes, Fragments (Cambridge, MA and London, 1997)Google Scholar, 91.

20 Neither Wackernagel, nor Henry (n. 8) in his commentary, discusses how καί functions if the former's conjecture is admitted to the text.

21 The reading ἁδῶν in D might have resulted from an original ἁδεῖν.

22 For καί meaning ‛even’ modifying participles in Pindar, cf. Isthm. 4.31 ἔϲτιν δ’ ἀφάνεια τύχαϲ καὶ μαρναμένων and 8.60 ἐϲλόν γε φῶτα καὶ φθίμενον ὕμνοιϲ θεᾶν διδόμεν. The latter is an apt parallel for both syntax and subject matter.