Plato Ion - Or: On the Iliad. Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology - Vol. 14)

299 Pages·2007·2.6 MB·English

by  Albert Rijksbaron

Plato
Ion
ASCP-14-rijksbaron_CS2.indd i 25-9-2007 14:16:36
Amsterdam Studies in
Classical Philology
Editorial Board
Albert Rijksbaron
Irene J.F. de Jong
Caroline Kroon
VOLUME 14
ASCP-14-rijksbaron_CS2.indd ii 25-9-2007 14:16:36
Plato
Ion
Or: On the Iliad
Edited with Introduction
and Commentary
By
Albert Rijksbaron
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2007
ASCP-14-rijksbaron_CS2.indd iii 25-9-2007 14:16:36
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISSN 1380-6068
ISBN 978 90 04 16321 8
© Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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printed in the netherlands
ASCP-14-rijksbaron_CS2.indd iv 25-9-2007 14:16:36
To the Amsterdamse Hellenistenclub
ἐπάγγελμα τῆς τελειοτέρας (γραμματικῆς) ἀνάπτυξις τῶν παρὰ
ποιηταῖς τε καὶ συγγραφεῦσιν—Chrysippus
CONTENTS

Preface .................................................................................. ix

Introduction .......................................................................... 1
1. Dramatic date; date of composition; authenticity ........... 1
2. Some comments: Plato and poetry ................................. 9
3. Title(s); the names of the speakers ................................ 15
3.1 Title(s) .................................................................... 15
3.2 The names of the speakers ....................................... 23
4. The textual foundation of the present edition of the Ion 26
4.1 Papyri ...................................................................... 26
4.2 Medieval manuscripts used for this edition .............. 26
4.3 Excursus: the text of the Homeric quotations ........... 37
4.4 The indirect tradition ............................................... 49
4.5 Latin translations ..................................................... 52
4.6 Excursus: The editio princeps .................................. 52
5. Some editorial decisions underlying the text of the Ion in
the present edition ......................................................... 58
5.1 Orthography ............................................................ 58
(i) The spelling of the 2nd person singular middle
thematic indicative .................................................... 58
(ii) The spelling of the nominative plural of nouns
in -εύς ....................................................................... 61
(iii) Other cases ......................................................... 61
5.2 Accents ................................................................... 61
(i) Enclitics ................................................................ 61
(ii) νυνδή/νῦν δή ........................................................ 64
5.3 Punctuation marks and other lectional signs in the MSS 68
(i) Punctuation marks ................................................ 68
(ii) Other lectional signs ............................................ 71

Text ...................................................................................... 73

Commentary ......................................................................... 95
viii CONTENTS
Appendices ........................................................................... 243
Appendix I: τί δέ and the punctuation of the Plato text ....... 243
I.1 τί δέ as a marker of Topic shift ................................. 244
I.2 τί δέ in the MSS and the Aldina ................................ 252
I.3 τί δέ in Stephanus’ edition ........................................ 254
I.4 τί δέ in Plato’s own text ............................................ 255
Appendix II: Some remarks on the use of the vocative ....... 258
Appendix III: ἀκροᾶσθαι or ἀκροάσασθαι (530d9)? ........... 261

Bibliography ......................................................................... 271

Indices .................................................................................. 281
General index .................................................................... 281
Index of Greek words ........................................................ 284
PREFACE

‘Little need be said about this slight dialogue on the nature of “poetic
inspiration”.’ Thus opens the brief passage on the Ion in Taylor’s
Plato. The man and his work of 1928, p. 38. Taylor’s perfunctory and
dismissive judgement has not exactly deterred later scholars from
writing about the Ion. On the contrary, the literature on the Ion is vast
and diverse, just like the literature on Plato and poetry in general, of
course. By way of an illustration I may refer to the rather extensive,
but by no means exhaustive bibliography to this book. For a far fuller
bibliography one may consult Capuccino’s recent publication (2005).
Perhaps a few words are in order, then, to justify the appearance of yet
another book on the Ion.
The book originates from a course for first-year students of classics
at the University of Amsterdam, which I taught for a number of years.
At some point, I planned to turn my rather simple notes in Dutch into
a more extensive but still brief commentary in English, using Burnet’s
text and apparatus criticus as a basis, like many other editions (and
translations) of the Ion. Now I knew, from the problems encountered
and discussed by Dodds and Bluck in their editions of Gorgias and
Meno, respectively, that Burnet’s apparatus might not be fully reliable,
notably with respect to the readings of Cod. Vindobonensis suppl.
graecum 39, commonly designated by the siglum F. And indeed, at the
very beginning of the Ion (530a7) Burnet notes in his apparatus ‘γε
TWf : τε F’, without specifying which of the two γε’s in that line is
meant. In this case Méridier’s edition in the Budé series made it clear
that the second one must be meant. But I also had to deal with the fact
that, at 530b2–3, Burnet printed νικήσομεν, with nothing in his appa-
ratus criticus, while Méridier reports that νικήσομεν is the reading of
T, that of W and F being νικήσωμεν. Furthermore, at 530c2 Burnet
printed ἀγαθὸς ῥαψῳδός, with F, and at 530d9 ἀκροάσασθαι, again
with F, while Méridier in both cases followed TW, printing ῥαψῳδός
and ἀκροᾶσθαι, both naturally without comments, as is usual in edi-
tions without commentary, and likewise in several other cases of MS
variation. Both these readings would seem to yield acceptable Greek.
Why was what was so attractive to Burnet unattractive in the eyes of
Méridier? The two scholars had used the same MSS, and while Burnet