Theocritus, Edited with a Translation and Commentary. Volume I: Introduction, Text and Translation. Volume II: Commentary, Appendix, Indexes, and Plates (2 Vols. in 1)

1013 Pages·1952·32.24 MB·English

by  Theocritus

T H E O C R I T US
EDITED WITH
A TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
BY
A. S. F. GOW
M.A., F.B.A.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
VOLUME I
•
INTRODUCTION, TEXT,
AND
TRANSLATION
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY
THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bcntley House, 200 Euston Road, London NWI 2DB
American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
ISHN: ο 52i ο66ιβ 6 two vols
First published 1950
Second edition 1952
Reprinted 1965, 1973
First printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge
Reprinted in Great Britain by Kingprint Ltd., Richmond, Surrey
PARENTVM D.M.
AMICIS ET ADIVTORIBVS
I.D.B. D.S.R. A.F.S.
DEDICATVM
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
Preface page ix
INTRODUCTION
I. THE LIFE OF THEOCRITUS
i. External Evidence xv
2. Internal Evidence xvii
3. Relations with Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus xxii
4. Lost Works xxiv
5. Summary xxv
IL THE TEXT OF THE POEMS
1. Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts xxx
2. Papyri and other early sources xlviii
3. The Relation of the Papyri to the later mss Η
4. The ms Tradition
(i) Idylls 1-18 Hv
(ii) Idylls 19-30, Epigrams lvi
5. The Early History of the Text lix
6. Recension lxii
7. The Order of the Poems lxvi
8. The Titles of the Poems lxix
9. Dialect lxxii
(i) Genuine poems in Doric lxxii
(ii) Dubious and spurious poems in Doric lxxv
(in) Epic poems with an admixture of Doric lxxvi
(iv) Poems in Epic and Ionic lxxvii
(v) Poems in Aeolic lxxvii
vii
CONTENTS
ίο. The Scholia page lxxx
(i) The Families lxxxi
(ii) The Commentators lxxxii
TEXT AND TRANSLATION
Sigla page 2
Idylls 4
Fragments 238
Epigrams 240
The Syrinx 256
Addendum
257
VOLUME II
Commentary page 1
Appendix
Abbreviations 56i
(i) Texts 563
(ii) Commentaries 563
(iii) Papers in Periodicals, etc. 565
(iv) Index to Books and Papers 578
Addenda and Corrigenda 591
Indexes
(i) Greek 597
(ii) English 623
Plates 639
vm
PREFACE
The commentary on Theocritus contained in these volumes has
occupied my not very extensive leisure for the last sixteen years.
Much still remains to be done, but such a book can never be complete,
and since time begins to press I have chosen, despite its deficiencies,
to print the book now rather than to risk embarrassing others with
a task which an author should, if possible, discharge for himself.
I have used the word commentary advisedly, for to the text of
Theocritus this edition contributes nothing of importance. My in­
formation as to the manuscripts is almost entirely derived from others,
and my own innovations in the text are few and trifling; and if there
had existed a readily accessible edition with an adequate apparatus
criticus embodying reports of the papyri, I should have been tempted,
at whatever inconvenience to the reader, to publish the commentary
by itself. Except however for a few readings incorporated in the
later editions of J. M. Edmonds's Bucolici Graeci the most extensive
papyri were until 1946 unreported in any edition of the poet, and
C. Gallavotti's text of that year, which was based on a fresh inspection
of nearly all the mss, has enabled me to present a much tidier apparatus
than that which I had compiled from the sources previously available.
My own text differs a good deal from Gallavotti's, and the account
of the mss contained in my Introduction embodies material drawn
from other sources, but his reports of their readings, and the
original publications of the papyri, are almost the only sources of
my apparatus.
The version which faces my text has no higher aim than to show
in tolerable English what I understand to be the poet's meaning. The
only translations I have regularly consulted are the English of J. M.
Edmonds and the French of P. E. Legrand, and I have consulted those
not for the style but for the interpretation. My own version should
be similarly used; but though it is an adjunct to the commentary, not
an essay in translation, it makes no attempt to reproduce the compost
of artificial dialect, far-fetched vocabulary, and constant novelty of
expression which constitutes Theocritus's style. I have done what
I can in the commentary to trace the history of his language; to
reproduce it would be both impossible and undesirable.
My commentary is long, and would be so even if linguistic detail
occupied less space than it does. Theocritus is not a difficult author in
IX
PREFACE
the sense that Pindar or Aeschylus is difficult. His thought is for the
most part simple and straightforward, and in the genuine poems there
are very few places where the corruption of the text has left the
general sense in doubt. In most Greek poets however the precise
sense of a word or phrase is often difficult to determine, and in
Theocritus such difficulties are often increased by the liberties he
allows himself to take with language. Moreover even where his
meaning is quite clear, its implications have often been left un­
investigated and points have been missed which throw light on the
context or on the poem as a whole. My commentary is longer than
its predecessors because it discusses many questions untouched by
them. It may well be that I have sometimes felt a doubt where there
should be none, but if it is judged that most of my questions have
been justifiably raised and that some have been satisfactorily answered
I shall be satisfied.
A new commentator on a familiar author should hope that it may
be said of him, as Theocritus says of Ptolemy, that he is concerned to
guard the treasure which he inherits and to make himself some
addition to the store. I have certainly borrowed from my pre­
decessors everything of theirs which seemed to me of value, and it is
for considerations of space and of the reader's convenience, not for
lack of gratitude, that my debts are not acknowledged in detail on
every page. A hst of the commentaries I have consulted will be
found on pp. 563 f. of vol. n. My other obligations are, I hope, dis­
charged at least in part by the hst of articles in periodicals on pp. 565 ff. of
vol. 11, and by the index to them and to certain books which follows.
The latter is something of a novelty and requires a word of ex­
planation. Users of Wecklein and Vitelli's Aeschylus or of Prinz and
Wecklein's Euripides will be familiar with their appendixes con-
iecturarum incertiorum, and have probably been exasperated by the
constant difficulty of discovering where the conjectures were made
and by what arguments they were supported. My index does not set
out, but it directs the student to, attempts both at emendation and
(what is not less important) at exegesis. It cannot be complete, and
if, as I think, it records even so a great deal not worth recording, I am
aware that judgment is fallible, and that what seems nonsense to me
may seem sense to the next scholar who concerns himself with the
passage in question.
In constructing indexes to the commentary I have thought it best,
even at the cost of including many trifling notes, to make the Greek
index as full as possible. The English index is more selective.
It is unusual, and in my opinion regrettably so, for a book of this
χ
PREFACE
kind to include plates. In Theocritus at any rate mere are a good
many passages which are more easily intelligible with the aid of
illustrations, and I have counted it part of an expositor's duty to
provide the reader with the more important of them rather than send
him to archaeological publications which may be unfamiliar to him,
or inaccessible, or both.
It remains to acknowledge my obligations, which are numerous.
Sir J. D. Beazley and Professor D. S. Robertson found time to read
the whole of the Introduction and Commentary in typescript, and
Mr E. Harrison had read substantial portions of the Commentary
before his death in 1943. Mr E. Lobel read those parts of the Intro­
duction and Commentary which are concerned with the Aeolic
poems, and I have profited greatly from the notes and criticisms of
these scholars. The proofs have been read by Mr Walter Hamilton
and Mr A. F. Scholfield; those of the Commentary by Professor C.
Trypanis; those of the Aeolic poems by Mr Lobel; those of the
Appendix and Indexes by Mr J. C. T. Oates. They have detected
many mistakes and oversights of mine, but it is, I fear, unlikely
that even so large a body of helpers can have detected all.
To Dr R. Pfeiffer I am indebted for allowing me to see the proof-
sheets of the first volume of his edition of Callimachus, which was
being printed at the same time as this book. Though I have not been
able to make as much use of his work as I should have wished, it
has been possible by substituting his enumeration greatly to simplify
my numerous references to the fragments, many of which were
previously to be found only in publications of papyri.
Sir J. D. Beazley has advised me throughout on archaeological
matters, Mr Scholfield has given me much valuable help with the
Indexes, and many scholars have answered particular questions which
I have addressed to them. I must express here my thanks to Professor
F. E. AJcock, Sir H. I. Bell, Mr H. Gilbert-Carter, Professor A. B.
Cook, the late Mr J. D. Denniston, the late Sir Arthur Eddington,
Professor C. Gallavotti, Professor S. R. K. Glanville, Mr S. W. Grose,
Dr F. M. Heichelheim, Mr W. C. Helmbold, Dr P. Jacobsthal, Pro­
fessor P. E. Legrand, the late Miss Alice Lindsell, Dr P. Maas, the late
Dr F. H. A. Marshall, Mr A. Mayor, Miss J. B. Mitchell, Mr J. E.
Raven, Mr E. S. G. Robinson, Mr Walter Rose, Mr C. T. Seltman,
Dr W. W. Tarn, Professor D. W. Thomas, Professor A. Tovar, and
Mrs Ure for information of very various kinds; and if, as is possible,
there are others who have done me similar services during the last
sixteen years, I hope they will assign my silence here to forgetfulness
and not to ingratitude.
XI
PREFACE
I am indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum, and to the
authorities of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Glyptothek,
Munich, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, for permission to
publish objects in their keeping, and for photographs and for casts
of coins and gems. The photographs reproduced on Plate II, which
have been published by me before, were supplied by the late Dr R.
Zahn of the Berlin Antiquarium in 1913. The map on Plate VI was
drawn for me by Mr G. W. Puttick of the Cambridge Department
of Geography.
Finally I must thank the Syndics of the University Press for under­
taking the publication of so unremunerative a book, and the staff of
the Press for the care they have expended on its production.
Towards the end of the last century Professor A. B. Cook and the
late Dr P. Giles made some progress towards a joint edition of
Theocritus which was never completed. Since the materials collected
by these scholars were recently advertised for sale by a Cambridge
bookseller, it may be well to say here that I have not seen them.
A.S.F.G.
TRINITY COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE
August 1949
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The second edition of this book has been produced photographically,
and it has therefore been impossible to make extensive alterations or
additions to the text. I have introduced a few unimportant changes,
and a number of small mistakes and misprints, few of which would
trouble an attentive reader, have been corrected where thef occur.
Other addenda and corrigenda I have collected at the end of vol. 11,
and I have drawn attention to them in vol. 1 by a reference, in vol. π
by an asterisk at the relevant place in the commentary. I am indebted
to friends or reviewers for much of the information which they
embody.
A. S. F. G.
February 1952
Xll