Department of the Classics, Harvard University

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

HEappearanceof Shackleton Bailey's Loeb edition of the Silvae of Statius invites consideration of some of the divergences between it and my OCT (about which his comments on pp. 8-9 are much appreciated),in the hope that this may promote understandingof some of the factors involved in constituting a text of this work. These divergences, as Shackleton Bailey (henceforwardSB) remarks (p. 8), are not few, yet our texts resemble each other far more than either does any other text, which is a testimony to a general similarityof approach. Some of the differences, as he says (p. 9), are due to his obligation to produce a translation,and therefore to print a reading which he could translate, in places where I had the luxury of equivocating with an obelus. In others it is not surprisingthat, in a work poorly transmitted and writtenin an artificialand manneriststyle, the best judgment of two editors should differently weigh up the pros and cons of available options and come down on opposite sides of the fence. Such a case is 1.2.136 in hanc uero cecidisset luppiter auro, which in this style I consider just acceptable, whereas SB regardsit as "a foolish conceit" and prefers to alter the text. I mention also 1.3.42 nox silet et pigros mutantia murmurasomnos, which I take to mean "night is silent, and so are the noises which breaksleep." A distinguishedscholar wrote to me saying "I can't believe Statius would have chosen mutantia for the sense you postulate with turbantia and rumpentiaavailable,"but it seems to me that the word was chosen precisely because it is not the obvious one; the diction of Statius is not like that of Wordsworth.For Statius' wide-rangingand varied use of this word see Damst6 in SertumNabericum (Leiden, 1908) 79, where this passage is not taken into account. SB, however,prefersto adopt the conjectureinuitant. In many passages which show divergent judgments the factors involved are self-evident and the reader can be left to make his own judgment;what I seek to do in this paperis to draw out the less obvious

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implications of some others, and incidentally to note some places where the presentation of the Loeb volume may mislead. I am, however, not reviewing the work, nor would I consent to do so. Sometimes questions of principleare at issue. Take 5.3.139-140 non totiens uictoremCastoragyro nec fratremcaestu uirides tclauserot Therapnae. Already in the renaissance this was altered to plausere, the problem with this being that this verb means "to strike with a flat or concave surface, to pat" (so OLD), and consequently to clap the handsfor someone, to applauda person in the dative, not in the accusative. I take it as a rule which is as nearly absolute as any rule in textual criticism can be that unattested usage should not be introduced by emendation. SB is reduced to defending the constructionby analogies, but one might ask why, if Statius wrote plausere, he did not write uictori Castori ... fratri, since he is quite willing to employ the Greek scansion of the dative in Greek names (4.2.28 Doridi as emended by Politian; Theb. 3.521 lasoni, 2.599 Pyracmoni,these two also by pretty certain emendation;Ach. 1.285 Palladi). At 3.3.78 longo transmittit habere nepoti (so presented by the manuscript)SB emends to ab aere and translates"after long service," comparing two passages from Cic. Ad Fam. which have (aliquis) in meo aere est (esse). In his note (vol. 1, p. 442) on one of these he paraphrases by meus est and refers to Otto, Sprichwiirterno. 30, whose explanation is "gehbrt zu meinem Besitz, d.h. ist mir verpflichtet (Gegens. aes alienum)."This makes plain the financial backgroundof the metaphor("is among my assets"), based on the literal use as in Hor. Ep. 2.2.12 meo sum pauper in aere. SB, realizing this, has to bring in the use of the plural aera to mean stipendia to bolster his emendation, which here too seems to me to be forbiddenby interdictand to give too much weight to palaeographicalfacility ("Anxious adherence to the ductus litterarumis the fruitful parent of false conjecture,"Housman, Manilius V, pp. xxxiv-xxxv). Not only that, but it transgressesanother interdict, namely that emendation should leave no problem behind. Here SB has to admit, and try vainly to palliate the fact, that Nero was not the grandson of Claudius; it will be necessary to adopt a second emendation, Markland'sNeroni (not that here that would be a great hurdle if ab aere were acceptable).

OnEditing theSilvae Turnnow to 1.2.77 matribus,edomui uictum,

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where for no good reason SB adopts Eden's conjecture inuictum. Yet Statius in the Silvae nowhereelides a long at the junction of the second and thirdfeet, as I indicated,perhapstoo obliquely, in my note on Ker's conjectureastutumat 5.5.68. In additionthe rhythm- uu I - uu ( ) - (where my bracketindicateselision of a short or a syllable I - uvu in -m ) is found only five times, if I have not overlooked anything (in addition 3.1.112, where one should presume adero', 3.3.158, the only case with a pause after the first dactyl, 5.2.9 are analogous), and in all instances the first syllable of the third foot is a monosyllabic (at 2.2.71 by elision) prepositive copulative conjunction. One cannot believe the rhythmof the conjecture to be Statian. I should justify the words "for no good reason" employed above. Edomui uictum is an instance of a type of pleonasm quite common with participles,like tempora... uelas adoperta at Juv. 8.145, where my note refers to other examples and discussions. As Statius' rhythmicalhabits in verse are here ignored, like insensitivity to his prose rhythms is twice shown in the preface to Book I. I invite readers to note how carefully these are observed throughout this piece, and then to consider first libellos... cum singuli de sinu meo pro [ ]; for the requiredverb SB prefers the unrhythmicaland colorless prodierint, whereas I had singled out for mention the picturesquesugSecgestion prouolassent, which produces - u -- I - u - -. ond, look at Claudi Etrusci testimonium tdomonnumt est; the two, obviously uncertain,emendationswhich I mentionedproduce- u I - - and - u - I - u -, whereas SB's donandumgives no recognized clausula and yet again allots too much weight to palaeographicalfacility. 1.4.4 is presentedthus by M: et caelo diues Germanicecordi. Here I read es caelo, dis es, G., c. with Calderiniand other renaissance sources; SB prefers to follow Politian with es caelo, diue es G. c. and translates"Heaven loves you, Germanicus,"omitting, as you see, any equivalentfor the word diue. The following observations(cf. TAPA114 [1984] 334) are in order:

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(1) Statius never calls Domitian diuus, nor does Martial, and no living emperoris ever given this epithet (for a seeming exception see below); if he had been, his recollection of sit diuus dum non sit uiuus would have producedpainful results for the writer. (2) The form diue is rare, and functions as the vocative of deus; it is never found attachedto a propername. (3) It might be arguedthatdiue here is to be taken not in its specialized sense as applied to dead and deified emperors,but in its wider sense as a synonym of deus. However, that cannot be the case here, since nobody would say "You,god Germanicus,are beloved by the gods." (4) SB defends his readingwith a referenceto Ovid, Tr 3.1.77-78 di precor,atque adeo (neque enim mihi turbarogandaest) Caesar,ades uoto, maxime diue, meo. But this defense collapses. Ovid appeals first to the gods in general, then decides to focus his appeal, and does so to the greatest god of all, Caesar,just as Priapus is diue minor by contrastto Bacchus and Ceres (Priapea 53.5). This then is just another instance of a trope found repeatedlyin the exile poems, which I need not illustrate. All this just in orderto duplicate one letterratherthan alter one! However, there is a third option, suggested to me in personal communication by the late W. S. Watt;I can no longer secure his permission to publish it, but I do not think that he would object. This is to read et caelo <du>dum es (et caelo meaning non solum hominibus;cf. WJA 14 [1988] 160). I will mention anotherconjectureby Wattof the same status,fidum at 2.1.28. I turn now to some misunderstandingsand slips revealed in the work. Most remarkable is 3.5.104 uenarumque lacus medicos (so emended by van Buren), where SB informs us that uenarum lacus is gibberish.I sometimes detect in his wording an implicationthat the rest of the world is stupiderthan we actually are, and if I personally found myself attributingto fellow scholars the belief that "pools of veins" made any sense, I would re-examine my presuppositions.In fact what we have here is not uenarumlacus but, as van Buren makes abundantly clear, uenarum lacus medicos, pools which treat arteries, objective genitive. SB's own solution is to postulate an otherwise unknowntopo-

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graphicalname Venae,which seems to me to be yet anothercase of violation of interdict. Hardlyless remarkableis 1.4.39-40 quae tum patrumque equitumquenotaui lumina et ignaraeplebis lugere potentes! which SB translates"Whatluminariesof Senate and Knights did I then note, and the common folk not wont to mourn the powerful," and explains that from lumina "anothername, as 'crowds,' is mentally substituted by zeugma."I am almost ashamed to refer (for a second time; see CP 85 [1990] 256) to Housman,Manilius I, p. li, "These words are quite easy, and they mean 'quales (quam maestos) notauioculos patrum equitumqueatque adeo plebis.'" At 1.1.46 sonipes habitusanimosqueimitatusequestres he alters to Markland's suggestion eriles (which certainly merits the mention which I gave it) and notes "Equestrisis adjective from eques, not equus; not therefore 'equine.'" It would certainly be flat to say that the statue of a horse imitates a real horse, and apparentlySB has been misled by Frere into thinkingthat this is how those who retainthe reading take it. But others, e.g., Vollmerand Marklandhimself, interpretit to mean that the horse imitates the bearing and spirit of its eques, its rider Domitian, and though Marklandexpresses doubts about this he admits that he cannot disprove it. Here I will remarkthat at 1.3.50-51 quicquid et argentoprimumuel in aere minori colossos lusit et enormes manusexpertura haste has made him overlook my note in the addendaand corrigendato the second printing of my text (p. xxx), which his note at 2.1.130 (see below) shows him to have seen. There I contritely remarkedthat a note reading "experturaPhillimore: est experta M" had been accidentally omitted in my text. Like me, SB reads expertura,but without note; he translates"all that artist's imaginationwrought,first in silver or bronze miniature,then to attempthuge colossi." Here it might be advantageous to add "as well" or "also" after "colossi," so that the readeris not per-

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plexed 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 there by an afterthought has been overlooked. I proposed to read something on these lines (Apollo speaks), Arabumquod doctus in aruis <auxilium messor legit mortalibusaegris> aut Amphrysiacopastorde graminecarpsi. Such an omission could have been caused by homoeoarchon. This involves accepting the renaissancecorrectioncarpsi for M's carpsit; so SB's note 22 on p. 81 is out of date and based on the reading carpsit which I had originally retainedin the text, though dissatisfied by it. I will take the occasion to remarkon two other passages mentioned by me in the same place. In 2.6.79-80 as read in M. quintauix Phosphoroshora rorantemsternebatequum I had accepted Postgate's correctionOeta for hora, but in the addendaI expressed regret that I had not mentioned Schrader's quinto ... ortu, which SB adopts (hora being assumed to be due to ora at the beginning of 79). However, I still like Postgate's idea; quinta Oeta will mean the fifth rising of the morning star over Oeta, with which it (or at least dawn; see Lyne on Ciris 350) is traditionallyassociated (e.g., at 5.4.8). The expression will be like puluere quarto at Theb. 6.469, "the fourth dirt-track" race. meaning the fourthlap on a dirt-track The other passage is 2.1.129-30 breuibusconstringerelaenis et nolens artarelacerna, angusta pectora where nolens is my conjecturefor M's telas; this conjecture is accepted by SB and, I believe, gives the right sense, but is unlikely to be right in itself, because the Romans, possessing the word inuitus, in classical times avoid nolens (see Neue-Wagener,Formenlehre3.622). We therefore need another word of similar sense, and the best option is uitans, which Wattcommunicatedprivatelyto me, though rejecting it himself.

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I now turn to miscellaneous observations, and first to 1.6.15, where in Vollmer's wake SB reads Ebosea Caunos and understands "the Caunos of Ebusos,"i.e., Iviza whose figs match the proverbiallysuperb ones of Caunos. This runs up against the problem, which he recognizes, that the island's name in verse always has a short first vowel, even in Statius' contemporarySilius, and in Greek is spelt with epsilon; this too would seem to me to fall under interdict. And it does not even give sense. If one were to speak of the Oxford or the Monte Carlo of America, one would mean not America, but Harvard(at least some would so mean it) and Las Vegas. Now 2.6.40-43 toruaatque uirilis gratia nec petulansacies blandiqueseuero igne oculi, qualis tbellist iam casside uisu erat. Parthenopaeus Here amazingly SB adopts Krohn's conjecture bellus. One might well ask why, if the solution is as simple as this, it eluded four centuries of Statian criticism and had to await the decade which saw the nadir of should be described as a "pretty that criticism, and why Parthenopaeus as in SB's translation,though his note on boy" (not just "handsome," mark 390 comes nearer the with "pretty")when all the context (not p. has been the insisting on the masculinityof the just part quoted by me) dead boy who is being compared to him, and why Statius should describe an epic hero by an undignifiedword which is used neither by himself nor any epic poet, nor indeed any writer of elevated poetry except sarcastically by Lucretius. When Statius names Parthenopaeus he is inevitably thinking of his own portrayalof the young hero in the Thebaid, and Baehrens' liber finds admirable support in 9.699 sqq., duly mentionedby commentators, ast ubi pugna cassis anhela calet, resoluto uertice nudus exoritur;tunc dulce comae radiisquetrementes dulce nitentuisus et, quas dolet ipse morari, nondummutataerosea lanugine malae (in 2.6.44-45 Statius mentions the first facial hair of the boy). SB's

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assertion(p. 390) that iam loses point with Baehrens' correction, which is not true when the reference to the Thebaidis taken into account, can be turned back on his own rendering "now handsome in his helmet," which invites one to wonder whether he was not handsome before he donned the helmet. As for the corruption,palaeographicalfacility will not influence us (see above on 3.3.78); I will however note that it would be the converse of that seen by me (Fragmentary Latin Poets, pp. 316-319) in the fragmentof AlbinovanusPedo 19, where I believe thatbellis has been corruptedinto liberis. Next 2.6.88 Assyrio manantesgraminesucos. Here SB adopts Heinsius' conjecture germine "quia amomum (cf. to quote my apparatus. 2.4.34) non e gramine sed ex frutice proueniat," Yet I did not accept the conjecturefor this reason: I had advocated it in the first version of an article, but the anonymous referee, to whom I would give the credit by name if I could, pointed out that costum, which Statius describes as Indumgramen at 2.1.160, is also the product of a frutex (Pliny NH 12.41), and that at 2.4.35 he speaks of gramen Arabum,probably meaning myrrh,which is the productof a small tree. At 5.5.9 morientibusecce lacertis tenens uiscera nostra animaqueauelliturinfans I can assure SB that animaque is not a mistake in my text but is the reading of M and is right. Look at his translationof the renaissance conjectureanimamque,which he silently adopts: "a child is torn away as he grasps my heart and soul with dying arms."How can one grasp a soul with one's arms? On the other side see 5.1.46-47 te ... uisceribus totis animaqueamplexafouebat. Again at 2.2.13-16 placido lunatarecessu hinc atque hinc curuasperrumpunt aequorarupes. dat Naturalocum montiqueinteruenitunum litus et in terrasscopulis pendentibusexit

OnEditing theSilvae

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I can again assure SB that, while I cannot answer for Vollmer and Van Dam, I know what Suet. Tib.40 uno paruoque litore means, and do not rely on it to defend unum here, but ratheron the passages collected in OLD unus 5b, "one whole or continuous (opp. a number of separate entities)." What is described is "a bay backed by a shore" which "runs inland between overhangingcliffs" (SB). This shore curves around the bay without a break, i.e., the overhangingcliffs leave room for it and do not interruptit by projecting out into the sea. Heinsius' udum is as vapid here as litore ... udo is pointed at 3.1.68. Some slips are found in the presentationat 2.7.132, where Markland is said to have conjecturedgenialis, which in fact he rejected in favor of genitalis; at 1.3.41, where tibi is obelized but translatedwithout note; at p. 263 n. 12, where we are referred to a non-existent note for Coleman's transposition of 4.3.111 to follow 113; and at 5.5.8 tanti had already been suggested by Merrill(UCPCP 5.5 [1923] 178) and Traglia (I have to admit to doubts of the Latinity of this, since I do not recall meeting the word in any such combination as tanti errorem luere; at any rate Sen. Tro. 193-194 non paruo luit / iras Achillis Graecia et magno luet did not use genitives). I pass over some other trivial oversights. I will remarkthat G. Laguna-Mariscal's1992 edition of Book III is listed in the bibliography supplied by Professor K. M. Coleman; I would have thoughtthat at 3.5.40-41 scilicet exhausti Lachesis mihi temporafati te tantummiseratadedit his conjecturefili would deserve mention (cf. 5.1.157 exacti superest pars ultimafili). I would also have thought that a conjecture (gauisa notauit 5.3.263) arrivedat independentlyby two scholars of the stature of Delz (MH 49 [1992] 251) and Watt (ICS 17 [1992] 82) would merit mention. It is a pity that the acumen shown by SB, e.g., in emending to Tiburs at 1.3.1, where the rest of us have been asleep, should be so often spoiled by haste and lack of self-criticism.
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA