Apuleius, Met. 2.1

Latin Learning Latin
1

The edition provided by Perseus has:
“…reputansque me media Thessaliae loca tenere, quo artis magicae nativa contamina totius orbis consona ore celebrentur”;
the one in An Apuleius reader : selections from the Metamorphoses by Ellen D. Finkelpearl:
“… reputansque me media Thessaliae loca tenere, qua artis magicae nativa cantamina totius orbis consona ore celebrentur.”
I have problems with both. But my first question is which of the two it would be safer to stick with. Thanks in advance.

2

cantamina is obviously right, especially since *contamen is not a word that managed to find its way into the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Zimmerman’s Oxford text prints cantamina and doesn’t even indicate a variant.

quo is the reading of the manuscript; qua is a conjecture of Helm in his Teubner editions. Zimmerman accepts quo in the text. There was a discussion of quo and qua in a recent thread here. Quo would typically refer to a specific location; qua would refer to a general area or region, which might seem fitting here and that’s presumably the reason for Helm’s conjecture. However, the Oxford edition indicates in the critical notes that W.A. Baehrens defended quo in a book on Latin syntax published in 1912.

What is your problem with the text?

3

Thanks!!! This answers most of my questions. The one that remains is what verb exactly is qualified by the adverb “quo/qua”? Is it “celebrentur”? I.e., “media Thessaliae loca” is the place where “artis magicae nativa cantamina…celebrentur”? But, if so, how does this square with the claim that they are “celebrentur totius orbis consona ore”?

4

quo goes with celebrentur: where the native spells are praised by the whole world, it looks strange,yes, but it is where because the spells are there, that is I was in Thessaly where the spells which are there are praised.. it’s like I was in new York where hot dogs are praised by the whole world. another irregularity is that the sequence of tenses is not observed here but of course this is post classical Latin. Again on contamination of the meanings of ubi and quo see Ernout Thomas.

5

Thanks a lot! It’s a relief to learn that my puzzlement is valid :slight_smile: … and a shame that Ellen D. Finkelpearl doesn’t address this in her annotations.