Propertius: Elegies: Book II PDF
Preview Propertius: Elegies: Book II
PROPERTIUS ELEGIES BOOK Il — EDITED BY t W.A CAMPS ; CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS in U.S.A. PROPERTIUS: ELEGIES BOOKI I By W. A. CAMPS Fellow of Pembroke College and Lecturer in Classics in the University of Cambridge This edition of Propertius II, the last in the series edited by Mr Camps, follows gener- ally the style and arrangement of Books I, III and IV. Mr Camps presents, without concealing difficulties and uncertainties, a fairly conservative but readable and coherent text (with selective apparatus), together with sufficient annotation to help the modern reader of Latin to understand the language and follow the thought of this difficult, much disputed, but very rewarding poet. Throughout the series Mr Camps has had in mind the needs of undergraduates and sixth forms as well as other readers. The notes are weighted differently from those in Butler and Barber’s edition of 1933, and the text also differs in some respects both from the text of that edition and from the Oxford text of 1960. A list of variants from the Oxford text is provided for those who wish to use these notes and that text together. This book, like Book I, is almost wholly concerned with the thoughts and feelings [Continued on back flap PROPERTIUS ELEGIES BOOK II BY THE SAME AUTHOR Propertius, Elegies Book 1 (1961) Book ut (1966) Book 1v (1965) (Cambridge University Press) EXMODIUSTOESCINIRUi es [esperep BOOK II EDITED BY W.A.CAMPS Fellow of Pembroke College and Lecturer in Classics in the University of Cambridge CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1967 Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London, N.W. 1 American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 © Cambridge University Press 1967 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 67—18309 Printed in Great Britain at the University Printing House, Cambridge (Brooke Crutchley, University Printer) PREFACE The aim of this edition of Propertius’ second book, like that of its predecessors in the same series, is to present a coherent and readable text of the poems, with annotation designed to help the reader to follow the poet’s thought and understand his lan- guage and allusions, while at the same time not concealing the uncertainties which often attend the text or its interpretation. Such uncertainties are fairly frequent in all Propertius’ work, and most frequent and most acute in Book r1, because of certain features distinctive of this book which are briefly mentioned on pages 1-2 below. In a few places (e.g. xxii B and xxiv A-B, to which some might add ili, 45-end of iv) the uncertainties amount to a serious disfigurement, and the book has some- times been suspected of being mutilated or disarranged. But it seems in general to be in good order, and though there are plenty of problems of detail, no one need be afraid in approach- ing it of finding chaos and not finding pleasure. My hope is that this edition may help forward the clarification of some of the problems of the book, both in general and in detail. But still less than its predecessors in this series can it hope to have more than a provisional character, or to attain with anything near completeness the aim stated in the sentence with which this paragraph began. It is moreover all too likely that preoccupa- tion with what seemed to me the most difficult problems may have caused me to annotate some matters less fully than would be desirable; but I hope that the existence of Enk's large edition of the same book will be felt to justify, as well as excuse, the restricted scope of this one. The text presented here is based, as in the rest of this series, on E. A. Barber's Oxford text, in this case the edition of 1960, divergences from which are listed on pages 6-9 below. The apparatus criticus is for the most part excerpted from the same Oxford edition, again with the kind permission of the v PREFACE publishers. The text, though it admits substantially more con- jectures than the Oxford text, is none the less fairly conser- vative. It includes seven transpositions of couplets, as against three in the Oxford text and ten in Enk’s edition of 1962. It assumes one lacuna as likely, as against six in the Oxford text and one in Enk’s edition. It nowhere employs the obelus, which the Oxford editor used thirteen times and Enk once. This avoids the implication, more than usually hazardous in this book, that what is not obelized is established, and allows the text to wear a less forbidding aspect than else it might. On the other hand a number of conjectures in the text are shown in italics, to avoid giving them a currency premature or un- deserved. This has not been done with all conjectures, nor is an italicized conjecture necessarily supposed by the editor to be less probable than one not italicized. The italics have been used chiefly where the original reading may have been lost by extrusion rather than by misreading (e.g. uidi at 1, 5), or where a departure from the Oxford text substantially affects the meaning of the passage (e.g. mon at xxxiv, 33). Such departures are not necessarily new conjectures, though a few are. In a number of elegies what seem to be well-defined stages, or turns, in the development of the thought have been marked by spacing in the text. This has not been done in all possible places; sometimes from uncertainty, sometimes to avoid exces- sive fragmentation (e.g. elegies 1xA, xix, xx, xxi, and several of the shorter pieces). Sometimes the reader may wish to question the analysis of a piece reflected in the spacing or absence of spacing (e.g. at il, 45; X, I1; Xill, 39; Xv, 49; Xvi, 11; xxviii); but I hope I have not often risked error where error could have any serious consequences. I hope also that the spacing may be helpful to the reader in certain positive ways, especially by helping him over abrupt turns of thought (as in viii, and at xiii, 17; xvi, 13, etc.), and by showing the unity of pieces such as viii and i and xxxiv, and the schematic similarity of the latter pair. It will be noticed that in i, 17—78 and xxxiv, 25-94, vi PREFACE as here printed, exact numerical symmetry is misssed by one couplet in each case. Nevertheless the elaboration of the pattern in both pieces is such that there can surely be no doubt of the poet’s intention to make such a pattern, whether exact or not. In a few places (iii, 44; xvii, 16; xviii, 20 and xxxiii, 20 and 44) the punctuation ... has been used to mark a point at which excitement seems to subside into resignation. The traditional numeration of the elegies, though imperfect, is preserved by modern editors for the sake of a consistent system of reference. A revised numeration would be confusing unless it could be definitive, and for that the time is not ripe. Accordingly, editors express their views about the proper demarcation between elegies by adding A, B, etc., where they wish, to the traditional serial numbers, and keeping the traditional numeration of the lines. Hence it results, for example, that the piece numbered xxxB in the text below begins with a line numbered not 1 but (xxx) 13, yet is taken to be a separate elegy quite independent of the preceding piece xxx A. In preparing this edition I have relied on the same basic works as in Books 111 and 1v. Naturally I have also referred to the monograph on the structure of this book of Propertius by Damon and Helmbold in University of California Publications in Classical Philology, xiv (1952), 215ff. Above all, I have drawn extensively and gratefully, and usually without separate acknowledgement, on Enk's major edition of this same book, which appeared in 1962 when my own work was in its early stages. This edition of mine owes an immense and obvious debt to Enk's. It is not a résumé of his book; still less is it capable of being a rival. I hope it may be a useful complement, and that it may help to make this part of Propertius! work available to a wider circle of readers. J-P. Boucher's general study of Propertius (Paris, 1965), in which I have since found a great deal of profit and interest, reached me after my manuscript had gone to the printers. vii PREFACE It is a pleasure to thank Professors Brink, Fedeli and Luck for very kind assistance on particular points. It is a pleasure also to thank once again Messrs Lee, Sandbach and Wilkinson, and Sir Roger Mynors, for the generous help and encourage- ment they have given me in this book and in all the series which it concludes, saving me from many errors and teaching me very much that I should else not have known, at the cost of much time and trouble to themselves. They have not seen the book in its later stages, and are in no degree responsible for its defects. Finally, I am glad to have this opportunity of thanking too those who have been concerned with this book and its predecessors at the Cambridge University Press. | W. A.C. viii
The list of books you might like
