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ОЮШШШШ MISCELLANEA
PHILOLOGIA CLASSICA
шшилиш
VOL. 18. FASC. 2. 2023
UDC 811.14
Sappho Fr. 96,8 Neri: Why the Moon Lost a Syllable*
Tatiana V. Kostyleva
St. Petersburg State University,
7-9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation; t.kostyleva@spbu.ru
For citation: Kostyleva T. V. Sappho Fr. 96,8 Neri: Why the Moon Lost a Syllable. Philologia Classica
2023, 18 (2), 380-383. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2023.216
This piece is a fresh take on the cruxphilologorum in Sappho fr. 96,8, an extended moon simile, where Aeolic as\avva, a commonplace of Sapphic poetry, easily restituted ex coniectura by W. Schubart in his editio princeps of PBerol. 9722 in 1902, was ousted by an unmetrical, if poetic, |if|va. The author offers an overview of the past and most recent scholarly effort along with an attempt (albeit a speculative one) to approach the issue of the irrational ratio corrupt-elae from the part of the resonant adjective РробобактиАо;, an altogether uncommon epithet of the moon, paying close attention to the fact that the intruding word is disyllabic. The dactylic feel of the weighty adjective РробобактиАо; is deemed at some point to have prevailed in a scribe's dictation interne to the result that f ш; could have landed in the text proper, or could have found its way there gradually from an intrusive marginal gloss left by a learned scribe unable to keep the Homeric clausula робобактиАо; f ш; to himself. At some point another, no less learned scribe, attentive to the context of the simile, picked up |ifva, not asAfvr|, as his remedy of choice, sticking to the number of syllables in the now resident f ш;. Keywords: Sappho, fr. 96,8, moon simile, conjectural criticism.
Vsevolodo Zelchenko quinquagenario
vuv 5s Либаюгу ¿^npsnsTai Yuvai-Ksaaiv ш; пот' asAlw
* Attending Vsevolod Zeltchenko's Sappho class when fr. 96 was read and discussed, the author idly promised herself (a promise soon forgotten) to try and discover how the corruption of asXavva to |ir|va arose. An explanation offered here suggested itself one day; it's a simple explanation, with the error presumed to be stemming from dictation interne and brought about not by the 'moon', but by its lengthy attribute. However unsuccessful this idea should prove, let the soft light of Sappho's moon simile bring, against all odds, some hope of a new morn, which, or so the author presumes, once found its unwarranted way into Sappho's text.
© St. Petersburg State University, 2023
öuvto; à ßpoSoSaKTuÄoc; asÀàvva 8 nàvTa nsp<p>£xoia' aaTpa^ metrum: cr 3gl ba |||
8 ppoSoSdKTuXot; perg. : apyupoS- Hindley 2002 | aeXdvva Schubart 1902 : |ir|va perg. : <Ke> |ir|va Privitera 2008, 2009a.
And now she stands out among the Lydian wives as when after the sunset the rosy-fingered moon surpassing all the stars
The crux in line 8, all but effaced from the text of the most recent critical edition of C. Neri (his text and apparatus criticus above), lies in the absence of a convincing ratio corruptelae for the substitution of a rare, and above all, unmetrical (the metre requires a three-syllable word of a pattern <u--) Homeric ||va of PBerol. 9722 for Aeolic commonplace
aeAdvva, the word Sappho uses in similar scenes in fr. 34, 154 (each time in verse-end bacchius). Promptly and easily corrected by W. Schubart in his editio princeps of 1902, the conjecture aeAdvva, palmary in itself, had a weakness of being ungrounded, with Schubrt himself refraining from any attempt at its defense. It has proved difficult ever since to explain just how a rare unmetrical word could have ousted a metrical common one. Giving a brief outline of the scholarly effort that followed, which, to my mind, has somewhat run out of road, I would then suggest shifting attention to the adjective Ppo8o8dKTuA.o;.
D. Page was the first to voice doubt and obelise the whole phrase fa Ppo8o8dKTu\o; ||vaf, and then ||va alone (thus 96 L-P), without accepting aeXdvva either.1 Putting explanations of a simple one-word marginal gloss2 aside, one is left with either mechanical corruption or some kind of complex involvement of the conscious or semi-conscious mind of a scribe or a number of them with the text and any marginal exegetical material. R. Janko suggests a haplographic error in OZZE with further elements of conscious conjecturing or "intelligent misreading" of the remaining letters on part of a (very intelligent) scribe,3 while C. Neri seems to fancy this explanation as well,4 but prefers to consider ||va a gloss of a more complex provenance, stemming from certain marginal notes on dialect, Sapphic scholia, and synonyms, later epitomised, and the result crammed to aAAot a£A|vn, Ttve; Se ||va, further abbreviated to a£A|vn ||va.5 Neri, in fact, comes close to the idea suggested below, but still seems to consider glossing to be the initial cause, with ||va then prevailing as a variant in its own right, and more pleasing to the ear of those who still had the rhythm of the Homeric clausula poSoSdKTuXo; on their minds.6
1 Page 1955, 87, 90.
2 Heitsch 1967, 391, suggesting that |ir|va, by that time a rather common poetic word (see, indeed, LSJ s. v.), could be required as a gloss not for asAr|vr|, but for asXàvva; Boiling 1961, 155, suggesting Attic provenance, with ||va an Acc. of |£Î;, a gloss on Acc. asMvvav, an "unconscious peculiar error" on part of the scribe.
3 Janko 1982, 323.
4 Neri 2018, 28: "possono in effetti aver partorito questo miracolo lunare".
5 Neri 2001, 11-18; Neri 2018, 31-33, a lengthy reiteration of 2001 with minor additions.
6 Neri 2018, 34, in small print.
Let us now turn to this very adjective РробобактиХос; and voice a point of difference with the above. Deemed (wrongly7) unsuitable as an attribute of the moon, its corruptive potential has not, as it transpires, been given enough attention, while the fact that obtrusive unmetrical ^fva is disyllabic could offer a welcome hint. What I would suggest is that the dactylic (and together with the article forming 2da) Homeric adjective робобактиХо; with its fixed position in the fifth foot (see LfrgE s. v.), the very own epithet of disyllabic prevailed over the Sapphic context altogether. Before the ultimate scribe became ignorant of any meaning whatever — thus Schubart commenting on the quality of the PBerol. 9722 dated between 6th and 7th CE — the Sapphic texts were long held in the hands of people who knew their Homer, and could have thus directly found its way in the text ousting aeXävva and making the line more dactylic than it should be (it is a phalecian) in what could be treated as a semi-conscious instance of dictation interne. Later on, in a more conscious moment, another scholarly scribe realised that the context required the moon, and changed the insidiuous to equimetrical ^fva, thus preserving — or so he thought — the metre and restoring the sense.
References
Bölling G. M. Textual Notes on the Lesbian Poets. The American Journal of Philology 1961, 82, 2, 151-163.
Heitsch E. Zum Sappho-Text. Hermes 1967, 95 (4), 385-392.
Janko R. Sappho Fr. 96,8 L-P: A Textual Note. Mnemosyne 1982, 35, 3/4, 322-324.
Lobel E., Page D. Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963.
Neri C. In margine a Sapph fr. 96,8 V. Eikasmos 2001, 12, 11-18.
Neri C. (crit., comm.) Saffo, testimonianze e frammenti. Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 2021.
Neri C. Saffo e i 'secondi pensieri' (ancora sul fr. 96). Athene e Roma 2018, 24-34.
Page D. L. Sappho and Alcaeus. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1955.
Schubart W. Neue Bruchstücke der Sappho und des Alkaios. SPAW 1902, 195-206.
Sappho Fr. 96,8 Neri: почему луна стала двусложной
Татьяна Владимировна Костылева Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет,
Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7-9; t.kostyleva@spbu.ru
Для цитирования: Kostyleva T. V. Sappho Fr. 96,8 Neri: Why the Moon Lost a Syllable. Philologia Classica 2023, 18 (2), 380-383. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2023.216
В заметке предложена попытка нового взгляда на crux philologorum а РробобактиХо; |ifva в Sappho fr. 96,8, развернутое сравнение с луной, в котором эолийское слово для луны asMvva, обычное в сапфической поэзии (оно встречается в целом ряде фрагментов) и легко восстановленное В. Шубартом ex coniectura в editio princeps PBerol. 9722 1902 г., было вытеснено неметричным поэтизмом |ifva. Автор заметки предлагает краткий обзор прошлых и недавних научных работ, посвященных анализу этого места, а также попытку (хотя и неизбежно умозрительную) подойти к проблеме иррациональной ratio corruptelae со стороны звучного прилагательного РробобактиХо;, редкого, но возможного эпитета луны, обращая при этом внимание на то, что вторгшееся на место asXavva слово является двусложным. Можно предположить, что дактилическое звучание весомого прилагательного РробобактиХо;, неотъемлемой части гомеровской клау-
7 See LfgrE s. v.; West 1978, ad v. 610.
зулы ^ po6o6aKTuAoç f ¿ç (2da пятой и шестой стопы), в какой-то момент возобладало в dictation interne писца, в результате чего двусложное f ¿ç могло попасть прямо в текст, или проникло туда постепенно из навязчивой маргинальной глоссы, оставленной ученым писцом, не сумевшим удержать столь знакомую гомеровскую клаузулу при себе. В какой-то момент другой, не менее ученый переписчик, более внимательный к контексту и образу в сравнении, исправил текст, выбрав в качестве замены не общеупотребительное слово asAf|vr|, а |if|va, придерживаясь количества слогов в ставшей уже привычной двусложной f ¿ç.
Ключевые слова: Сапфо, fr. 96,8, развернутое сравнение с луной, конъектуральная критика.
Received: July 24, 2023 Accepted: October 22, 2023
