Trouble understanding critical apparatus

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Paul Derouda
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Trouble understanding critical apparatus

Post by Paul Derouda »

Continuation from this thread.

At 1.346, Van Thiel's Odyssey reads
"μῆτερ ἐμή, τί τ᾽ ἄρα φθονέεις ἐρίηρον ἀοιδὸν

The critical apparatus reads:
346 ἄρα D : ἂρ αὖ (= ψ 264), ἂρ ἂν F

I don't understand the apparatus. All the other editions just have τί τ᾽ ἄρα and don't even mention a variant (I checked the OCT, von der Mühll, Merry-Riddell, Ameis-Hentze-Cauer). The way I understand it, different readings are separated by a colon. So ἄρα should be the reading of D. But how can it be the reading of only one manuscript, if most editions don't even mention there are better attested alternatives? And is ἂρ αὖ then attested at all, or is it just adduced as a parallel from ψ 264? Or should ἂρ αὖ be understood as the reading of D?

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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

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I don't understand this either. I took a look at the English preface but didn't find anything illuminating. If you can find a copy of Ludwich's edition, it has the most complete repoprting of a large number of mss, and I think van Thiel's apparatus is based largely on ms. readings reported in Ludwich (except for papyri), not on his own collation of the mss. he uses. All of the other editions have of necessity more or less selective apparatuses and don't report every minor variation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but F's reading ἂρ ἂν seems impossible without an optative, doesn't it? If that's the case then other editions might not report it.

Paul, did you see Walter's reports that West is preparing an edition of the Odyssey? While there some things I don't like about his Iliad (particularly the non-traditional but supposedly authentic 7th c. Ionic spellings, and tar) and as you know I'm an agnostic on the early history of the poems, I've come to appreciate it more and to like van Thiel less.

Bill

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Paul Derouda
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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

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Qimmik wrote:I don't understand this either. I took a look at the English preface but didn't find anything illuminating. If you can find a copy of Ludwich's edition, it has the most complete repoprting of a large number of mss, and I think van Thiel's apparatus is based largely on ms. readings reported in Ludwich (except for papyri), not on his own collation of the mss. he uses. All of the other editions have of necessity more or less selective apparatuses and don't report every minor variation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but F's reading ἂρ ἂν seems impossible without an optative, doesn't it? If that's the case then other editions might not report it.
The only way I can understand is that "D" slipped at the wrong side of the colon. That would make sense to me. Obviously ἄρα should be the majority reading, since most editions don't even bother saying there are variants. ἂρ ἂν seem ungrammatical to me too, but I think the point of reporting it is that it could be a corruption from ἂρ αὖ, no?

As for West's edition of the Odyssey, I find it very selfish of him to make us wait until 2016. ;) I don't have an opinion on ταρ, really... But I do like the version with αὖ of α 346, whether it's with ταρ or τ᾽ ἂρ. Makes it... less banal.
Last edited by Paul Derouda on Tue Oct 07, 2014 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

Post by Paul Derouda »

It actually occurred to me to check Ludwich. But I couldn't find it online, though I'm pretty sure I could a year or two ago (archive.org or something. Now archive.org only has his editio minor, without critical apparatus). There's a copy at the university library, I know because I've had it at home once, maybe I'll check next time I pass there...

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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

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As for West's edition of the Odyssey, I find it very selfish of him to make us wait until 2016.
And when the projected publication date is two years in the future, it usually means that the actual publication date will be four or five years in the future.

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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

Post by Paul Derouda »

I checked Ludwich. He does give more information, but this doesn't make it much clearer to me. Ludwich's apparatus gives:

346 ἄρα D, cum γρ´ s; ἄρ᾽ ἂν F O; ἄρ᾽ αὖ T U; ἂρ αὖ G P H, pc. F2.

s is an edition (Henrici Stephani) from 1566. "cum γρ´" means, I think, that ἄρα is cited as a variant. But what does the edition actually print?

And what's in the the editions that are not actually cited? Do they all have ἄρα?

Van Thiel seems to use the same sigla as Ludwich, except that I'm not sure if O is used of the same manuscript in both.

T, according to van Thiel, omits α 320-69. So why does Ludwich cite it here? Has the manuscript been damaged since his time, or is it just a mistake? And why doesn't van Thiel cite U, as it's one of those manuscripts he is supposed to be making consistent use of? And why doesn't he cite G P H, or O? Why doesn't he indeed cite any manuscript evidence for ἂρ αὖ, but only the parallel in ψ 264?

I can't see any good reason why most current editions don't even mention the variant αὖ. The only reason I can see is that at some stage, it just passed the notice of some editor, and since new editions generally didn't make their own collation of manuscripts but relied on earlier editions, the slip just passed on to their editions as well.

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Re: Trouble understanding critical apparatus

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I actually found Henri Estienne's (=Henricus Stephanus, Ludwich's "s") edition online on Google books. You can read it there if you have a Google account.

If you prefer to have a hard copy, you can buy one here at a bargain price.

Estienne's text reads ἄρ᾽ αὖ and "γρ. ἄρα φθ." is to be found in the margin.

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