Hylander wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 3:07 pm
A conjecture of Scaliger's is what got me thinking about this topic to begin with: cieat for amiciat in a line of very mangled classical poetry. In its restored context I find cieat very attractive, but its complete absence from the record of Latin literature is crushing my hopes.
I don't think the lack of attestation should crush your hopes, but perhaps it should be treated with caution, like most conjectural emendations of corrupted texts. In the small slice of surviving classical Latin texts, there must be a great many possible forms of otherwise well-attested verbs that don't happen to be attested.
Out of curiosity, what is the passage in question? Propertius or Catullus?
Interestingly, Tibullus 1.4.43-44. The poet is here explaining how a devoted 'amator' should follow his love whithersoever he goes, rain or shine:
Postgate's OCT follows the agreement of some of the best and oldest manuscripts, AX+, and obelises:
quamuis praetexens picta ferrugine caelum
†uenturam amiciat imbrifer arcus aquam†
Later critics are split between team 'imbrifer arcus' and team 'nubifer Eurus':
Luck (1985):
quamvis praetexens
picea ferrugine caelum
venturam
admittat nubifer Eurus aquam:
Goold (1987):
quamvis praetex
at picta ferrugine caelum
venturam
minitans imbrifer arcus aquam.
Unfortunately I don't have access to Guy Lee's text. I'd be interested to see what he prints.
'amiciat' is of course the most pressing problem. I wonder if its a gloss for praetexat/ens. I've also been toying with the idea of 'nimbifer Arctos', but 'nimbifer' is rare, and the idea of a constellation causing the sky to cloud over is admittedly quite strange. But perhaps it provides a nice balance to 'canis', the Dogstar, of 42.
Luck's 'admittat' follows HV, but I struggle with the meaning: OLD 14b 'directs the coming water’, or OLD 14a ‘gives rein to the coming water’. Maybe it was a fix for 'mittat': dittography of 'am' > venturamammittat, scribe reads 'ammittat', retains a syllable by altering it to 'admittat'. But is 'send the rain'/'emit rain'/'loose the rain' any better? *iaciat* shares this fault as well, but is palaeographically attractive.
One issue I have with Goold's text is his 'minitans', which (and I have not done all the research to confirm this) I think can only be used to mean "threaten to do x", not "threaten that x will happen". Compare "excīsurum urbem minitans" at Verg. Aen. 12.762. Any thoughts? I admit I feel quite out of my league when discussing textual problems like these!