5., 5., 22

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Constantinus Philo
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5., 5., 22

Post by Constantinus Philo »

οὐκοῦν τούτου τυχὼν παρὰ σοῦ οὐδὲν ἦν.
Me having got this from you was nothing. Does this mean that οὐκοῦν τούτου τυχὼν παρὰ σοῦ is the predicate?
I do not think the sentence is correct, especially since other editions have ἤνυτον here, which makes everything clear.
Semper Fidelis

Hylander
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Re: 5., 5., 22

Post by Hylander »

ἤνυτον is a modern conjecture. All of the mss. used by Marchant have ἦν except for one late mss. and a variant recorded by a second hand in another, possibly taken from the first, which read ἤνυον, a form that is apparently not found in Attic prose per LSJ.

The argument in favor of ἦν is that it's easier to see ἤνυον as a conjecture intended to "correct" a tolerable anacoluthon with the weight of mss. authority (not that that's necessarily dispositive) than it is to see how ἤνυον/ἤνυτον might have been mistakenly transformed into ἦν, the difficilior lectio. The anacoluthon seems more forceful and effective than the alternative.

Marchant doesn't use dashes, but the sentence could be punctuated this way: οὐκοῦν τούτου τυχὼν παρὰ σοῦ -- οὐδὲν ἦν.

I should point out that Marchant notes in his introduction that the manuscript reading ἤνυον sometimes has good readings not found in other mss., so perhaps this is an instance.
Bill Walderman

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