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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Homer speaks to us in a bizarre dialect. Such vocalisms as 
and 
such formations as 
and 
are philological impossibilities; such a word as 
combines the peculiarities of both Aeolic and Ionic speakers of Greek, and could have been heard from the lips of neither; long words such as 
scan only by arbitrary licence, phrases such as 
seem not to scan at all. Yet commentators praise the euphony and onomatopoeia of the verses, and warn us severely that ‘unless readers of Homer are careful to sound every line (for the “inner ear” at least) many very beautiful effects of euphony will be missed’. What reason have we for supposing we hear the authentic voice of Homer ? Bound within the chaste, dark covers of the Clarendon Press, introduced by a solid, unread, praefatio, the regular columns of Greek, unsullied by lacunae or cruces, make Homer appear an unusually undisputed text. Indeed, the major editions likely to come into the hands of readers today differ little. It will be. candid to confess that such credit-worthiness is illusory. The foundations of the Homeric text are among the shakiest of any that have come down to us. I do not suggest that the text was ever the playground of dull redactors or carefree interpolators; I refer to the known or inferable facts of its transmission.
page no 4 note 1 See Kirk, Songs, 301 ff.; J. A. Davison, Companion, 215ff.; Pasquali, G., Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (2nd edn., Florence, 1952), 201 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 4 note 2 Stanford, W.B., Odyssey (2nd edn., London, 1958)Google Scholar, Introduction, xxiii, cf. his The Sound of Greek (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969, with record), and Cora, Angier, ‘Verbal Patterns in Hesiod’s Theogony ’, HSCP 68 (1964), 329-44Google Scholar.
page no 4 note 3 See the prefaces to his editions, and BSR 5 (1910), 1-84. Mazon, P. (ed.), Introduction à l’Iliade (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar, has a good description of the leading manuscripts (by P. Chantraine).
page no 4 note 4 Venetus A preserves the system of accentuation described by Herodian whereby vowel + nasal functions as a sort of diphthong, so ív9á τε, ανδρά μοι, like OTKÓÇ τε.
page no 5 note 1 Only three of Allen’s 188 MSS. fail to read the unmetrical Ικωμαι at 1 414 (a very old reading, known to the ancient grammarians); they read Τκωμι, a vox nihili and an obvious conjecture. Yet we must not suppose a single archetype. A general fluctuation is as rife in the papyri as it is in the medieval manuscripts.
page no 5 note 2 Very recent publications of papyri are scattered in the journals. Those known in the early 1960s are collected by Pack, R.A., Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (2nd edn., Ann Arbor, 1965)Google Scholar. For early papyri see Stephanie West, R., The Ptolemaic Papyri of Homer (Köln, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 5 note 3 Groningen, B.A. van, “ΕΚΔΟΣΙΣ”, Mnemosyne 16 (1963), 1–17 Google Scholar.
page no 6 note 1 Allen, T.W., Homer; the Origins and Transmission (Oxford, 1924), 321 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 6 note 2 See Valk, M.H.A.L.H van der, Textual Criticism of the Odyssey (Leiden, 1949)Google Scholar, and Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad (Leiden, 1963).
page no 6 note 3 By assuming (1) that the transmission always expanded and never contracted the text, and (2) that the Alexandrians always had manuscript authority G.M. Boiling, Ilias Atheniensium (Amer. Phil. Assoc, 1950), thought to restore a sixth-century Panathenaic text.
page no 6 note 4 Examples in van der Valk, Textual Criticism .61 ff., and Stanford, Sound of Greek.
page no 7 note 1 Bolling, , ‘Wackernagel’s Psilotic Homer’, CPh 41 (1946), 232-3Google Scholar, sees some doubtful traces of a psilotic tradition.
page no 7 note 2 The Atticisms were exhaustively treated by Wackernagel, J., Sprachliche Unter suchungen zu Homer (Göttingen, 1916)Google Scholar; briefer treatment in Chantraine, Grammaire homérique, 1 ff.
page no 7 note 3 Evidence in Murray, G., Rise of the Greek Epic (4th edn., Oxford, 1934)Google Scholar, App. i. 346 ff. Goold, G.P., ‘Homer and the Alphabet’, TAPA 91 (1960), 272-91Google Scholar, takes the contrary view.
page no 7 note 4 Evidence in Allen, Origins, 226 ff. Merkelbach, R., an analyst, ‘Die pisistratische Redaktion der homerischen Gedichte’, Rheinisches Museum 95 (1952), 23–47 Google Scholar, is in favour; Davison, , ‘Peisistratos and Homer’, TAPA 86 (1955), 1-21Google Scholar, finds against.
page no 8 note 1 Sealey, R., ‘From Phemius to Ion’, Revue des études grecques 70 (1957), 312-55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 8 note 2 With a magico-religious aspect. This aspect, which may be thought vital, is missing from the Homeric side of the comparison.
page no 8 note 3 Lord, A.B., ‘Homer’s originality: oral dictated texts’, TAPA 84 (1953), 124-34Google Scholar (reprinted in Language and Background of Homer, ed. Kirk, [Cambridge, 1954], 68–78)Google Scholar.
page no 9 note 1 ‘Homer and modern oral poetry: some confusions’, CQ 10 (1960), 271-81 (= Language and Background, 79-89), and Songs, 98 ff.
page no 9 note 2 ‘Have we Homer’s Iliad?’, YCS 20 (1966), 177-216.
page no 9 note 3 ‘Homer as Oral Poet’, HSCP 72 (1968), 1-46.
page no 9 note 4 Kirk, Songs, 274 ff.
page no 10 note 1 See Davison’s report of the experiment at Tübingen, , ‘Bebenaia I’, CR 14 (1964), 14 Google Scholar, and with rather fanciful development in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 6 (1965), 5-28.
page no 10 note 2 So D.L., Page, The Homeric Odyssey (Oxford, 1955), 75-6Google Scholar.
page no 10 note 3 Cf. J.A., Notopoulos, ‘Studies in Early Greek Oral Poetry I’, HSCP 68 (1964), 1–18 Google Scholar.
page no 10 note 4 So Murray, , Rise of the Greek Epic, 187, 310 Google Scholar; Wade-Gery, H.T., The Poet of the Iliad (Cambridge, 1952), 1-18Google Scholar; Webster, , From Mycenae to Homer (London, 1958 Google Scholar, repr. with corrections 1964), 267-75.
page no 10 note 5 Kirk, Songs, 105 ff.
page no 10 note 6 Whatmough, J., AJA 52 (1948), 45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 11 note 1 Homeric Odyssey, 159. The Iliad will always permit a more reactionary view, thanks to its less intricate structure; cf. his History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959), App., 297 ff.
page no 11 note 2 Schadewaldt, W., Neue Kriterien zur Odyssee-Analyse (Heidelberg, 1959)Google Scholar; cf. HSCP 62 (1958), 15 ff.
page no 11 note 3 One may mention during the last decade Broccia, G., Struttura e Spirito del Libro VI dell’Iliade (Sapri, 1962)Google Scholar; Beck, G., Die Stellung des 24. Buches der Ilias in der alten Epentradition (Brunswick, 1964)Google Scholar; Eichhorn, F., Homers Odyssee (Göttingen, 1965)Google Scholar; Bona, G., Studi sull’Odissea (Turin, 1966)Google Scholar; Besslich, S., Schweigen-Verschweigen- Übergehen; die Darstellung des Unausgesprochenen in der Odyssee (Heidelberg, 1966)Google Scholar. Jachmann, G., Die homerische Schiffskatalog und die Ilias (Opladen, 1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Theiler, W., ‘Ilias und Odyssee in der Verflechtung ihres Entstehens’, Museum Helveticum 19 (1962), 1 ff.Google Scholar, maintain their analytical positions. Even Schadewaldt felt obliged to posit two Odyssey-poets, but for poetical reasons.
page no 11 note 4 Die Ilias und ihr Dichter (Göttingen, 1961).
page no 11 note 5 Pestalozzi, H., Die Achilleis als Quelle der Ilias (Zürich, 1945)Google Scholar.
page no 12 note 1 Kullmann, W., Die Quellen der Ilias (Wiesbaden, 1960)Google Scholar; Schoeck, G., Ilias und Aithiopis (Zürich, 1961)Google Scholar.
page no 12 note 2 CR 13 (1963), 21-4.
page no 12 note 3 West, M.L., Theogony (Oxford, 1966), 28 f.Google Scholar Walcot, P., Hesiod and the Near East (Cardiff, 1966)Google Scholar, inclines to a late dating.
page no 12 note 4 From Mycenae to Homer, 58 ff.
page no 12 note 5 Songs, 136 ff.