(I do not have the old OCT; it is b6 in TLG) The edited text reads “πιθοῦ καὶ σώθητι”; the apparatus: “b 7 πιθού Burges ( et fort. corr. nesc. in S): πείθου βΤδ”.
β,Τ, δ are the only three families used, S is a ms. in the family δ.
My understanding is that the point of the emendation was to change the tense to aorist, thus bringing it in line with the aorist of its coordinate member, σώθητι, the ground for which is found in one ms. (S). Please correct me if I am wrong in this. My question is: what do abbreviations “fort. corr. nesc.” exactly stand for?
Thanks in advance.
“and maybe an anonymous corrector in S” – I would guess that something is written in the margin or interlinear in S by an unknown person that looks like πιθοῦ but is not completely legible. This could be someone who was comparing S with another manuscript in which the reading πιθοῦ was actually preserved, or a conjecture that occurred to someone reading the manuscript S (just as it occurred to Burges) who noted it by writing it in. There’s apparently no way to tell. In any event, the OCT editor (W.S.M. Nicoll) printed the conjecture (as did Burnet in the old OCT), perhaps having arrived at it on his own and then found that it should be credited to Burges and the anonymous corrector. Modern editions are scrupulous about attributions like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Burges
The Wikipedia article (based on a century-old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) states that he was “too fond of introducing arbitrary emendations into the text of classical authors”, but some of his conjectures were undoubtedly well founded, and very often conjectures that aren’t adopted by editors are valued as “diagnostic”, i.e., they point out that something is amiss in the received text without necessarily solving the problem definitively. Buttmann probably belongs in that category too, as do others from that era.
I think it’s more than just bringing the tense/aspect in line with σώθητι: the aorist aspect is appropriate because the act of being persuaded or giving in to what Crito is urging him to do is punctual and not continuous here. S. is being urged to change his mind, and he would have to undergo the change of mind before taking steps to be rescued.
πιθου and πειθου would have been indistinguishable in pronunciation by the first c. CE if not earlier, and I believe (though mwh knows a lot more about this than I) there is frequent confusion between ι and ει in papyrus and later mss.
Very illuminating, thanks a lot!
See edited post.
Very convincing, good points. Thanks again.
πιθου and πειθου would have been indistinguishable in pronunciation by the first c. CE if not earlier,
I believe the loss of distinctive vowel quantity is thought to have occurred some time later than the raising of the long closed vowel ει and its merger with long ι, so these words would have been somewhat distinguishable by the quantity (but not the quality) of the vowels until the loss of distinctive vowel quantity. But I think misspellings with interchange of ει and ι were not unusual from an early period (maybe even 4th c. BCE?). The changes probably occurred over an extended period of time and at different times in different dialects and social levels.
Allen has a detailed discussion. Confusion between ῑ and ει start in late 4c B.C. and become common from the 3c. Before vowels, the interchange was more often ει and η. (pg. 69ff).
However, confusion between ῐ and ει (as here) doesn’t show up until 2c A.D. (pg. 93).
I actually like πείθου. Crito wants Socrates to listen to the arguments that he is making νῦν. Making it aorist just to match σώθητι strikes me as a little bit fussy. But every editor who has been involved in the decision knows Greek much better than I do, so my opinion isn’t worth much here.
I don’t have the text at the moment, and I recall that MacDowell has a note on this, but here’s the opposite tense mismatch in Andocides:
ὁ δὲ πείσας καὶ δεόμενος μεῖναι τὸν πατέρα ἐγὼ ἦν μάλιστα
Making it aorist just to match σώθητι strikes me as a little bit fussy.
It’s not just to “match” σώθητι. Crito wants Socrates to change his mind. He wants a completed change of mind; he’s not telling Socrates to be in the process of changing his mind. The aorist is the right aspect/tense here. After all, Socrates can’t take measures to escape unless and until he has heeded Crito and completed a change of mind.
However, I’m wondering about the middle form πιθου. επιθομην is usually poetic, isn’t it? But wouldn’t πεισω be harder to justify paleographically? And, being less familiar, πιθου would seem more likely to be confused with πειθου.
This is the first of 3 times that the manuscripts have Crito asking Socrates πείθου μοι in this section of the dialogue, and they leave the other two instances alone.
But it’s fair if you tell me, as Callicles in Gorgias: “ἀλλ’ ὠγαθέ, ἐμοὶ πείθου, παῦσαι δὲ ἐλέγχων.”
A crude Perseus search for πιθου turns up, in addition to this passage, only quotes from Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides and Sophocles (and one or two other poetic passages).
I am enjoying and getting a lot out of your discussion; also have gotten my appetite whetted for reading Allen. Do you know, by any chance, where one can download the 3rd edition? I’ve found only the first one online so far.
The other instances are 45a and 46a, but they are accompanied by pres. imperative ποιει:
ἀλλ᾽ ἐμοὶ πείθου καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει. (45a; 46a is similar). Here , I guess, the point of the pres. imperative (instead of aor. subj.) in the prohibition is “don’t carry on a different course of conduct”, i.e., continuous, and pres. πείθου would seem more appropriate in this context.
Gorgias: “ἀλλ’ ὠγαθέ, ἐμοὶ πείθου, παῦσαι δὲ ἐλέγχων.”
παῦσαι δὲ ἐλέγχων is a quote from Euripides.
I don’t myself see anything against the transmitted πείθου. In fact if the medieval tradition were divided between πείθου and πιθοῦ (which it’s not) I’d opt for πείθου. I’m rather surprised that Burnet adopted πιθοῦ in his OCT (less surprised that the newer editors follow him). He was a truly excellent reader of Plato, but I fancy (perhaps wrongly) that if he’d had the textual data on πείθου and πιθοῦ at his finger-tips like we do today (thanks to the TLG), he’d have kept the present. The choice of πιθοῦ, defensible and understandable though it is (especially after ετι και νῦν), seems facile to me, and not adequately informed by actual usage.
That both B and Τ (plus the δ mss) have πείθου counts for little but not for nothing. It does suggest that πειθ- was well established in the earlier tradition (which doesn’t mean that πιθ- wasn’t as well). Long iotas are often or even regularly written ει in literary papyri of any era, short iotas less frequently but quite commonly. πειθ/σ- and πιθ/σ- would normally be kept distinct. The accent, which distinguishes πείθου from πιθοῦ, may not have been added prior to the minuscule mss of the 9th-10th centuries (such as B and T), but that too could well be inherited from their majuscule exemplars.
No weight can be put on the uncertain alteration in S.
Burnet’s OCT does cite Burges as the source of this emendation. Burges actually has quite the discussion on this – it appears that they did pretty well for themselves without the TLG – however I don’t quite follow his logic in the last quote. What exactly is Hermann calling ridiculous?
I’ll start with the LSJ:
πείθου be persuaded, S.OC520, El. 1015, E.Fr.440 ; but πιθοῦ comply, S.OC1181, El. 1207
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101045351630;view=1up;seq=22
§ III. 1. πείθου, καὶ σώθητι] So Bekk. But the aorist σώθητι here demands πιθοῦ. See our note on AEsch. Prom. 282. Πίθεσθε–συμπονήσατε. Hence in Phaedon, p. 117. A. πείθου, καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει, Bekk. has wrongly edited, from the three best Mss. πιθοῦ, as appears from the note of Wyttenbach, who quotes Crito, p. 45. A. ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ πείθου καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει: and might have added Crito, p. 46. B. πείθου, καὶ μηδαμῶς ἄλλως ποίει, to the other examples of this formula.
https://books.google.com/books?id=S1tiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q&f=false
- πίθεσθε–πίθεσθε. This is the emendation of Elmsl. on account of the following aorist συμπονήσατε: otherwise the present might have stood, as in Eurip. Hippol. Fragm. Γυναικὶ πείθου μηδὲ τἀληθῆ κλύων: which Blomf. alters unnecessarily into πιθοῦ γυναικί. In Soph. El. 1003. Πείθου· προνοίας, one Ms. gives πιθοῦ, adopted by Brunck, and others. Hermann says ‘this is one of the ridiculous Atticisms, to which the present age has given birth. πιθοῦ means, > obey> ; πείθου, > be persuaded> .’ But in what consists the mighty difference of the two expressions? Reisig, in Conjectan. Aristoph. p. 204. remarks that πείθου is written by approved authors, as Euripides in Helen. 1000. Eupolis in Stob. Florileg. Grot. p. 31. ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ πείθεσθε: and Plato in Phaed. p. 117. A. πείθου, καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει.
Hermann’s original quote is on page 143 here, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand his Latin:
https://archive.org/details/sophoclistragoe00hermgoog
And finally, here is the modern OCT on Phaedo 117a: πείθου καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει
a3 πείθου C ut vid., T> δ> : πίθου D: πιθοῦ B
Am I getting it right that, according to LSJ, the difference between the two imperatives is not, as one might expect, in aspect but in semantics? (English is not my native language, so this question might be only betraying my insufficient knowledge of it. As I understand it, each of the two respective translations, “comply” and “be persuaded,” can have either perfect or imperfect aspect, depending on the context.)
As I understand LSJ, I think the difference between πειθου and πιθου would in fact be a difference of aspect, but the semantic range of the middle voice of πειθω, i.e., πειθομαι etc., encompasses both the English verbal ideas “be persuaded” and “comply, obey”. You’re right that LSJ distinguishes between πειθου “be persuaded” and πιθου “comply”, but I think this is ultimately a distinction of aspect that results in two different English translations of the imperative forms. I think LSJ’s point is that aorist πιθου is more peremptory, and therefore lends itself better to the English translation “comply!”.
It’s best to think of this as a single Greek verb rather than two English ones.
The problem is somewhat complicated by the confusing fact that active and middle πειθω has two aorist forms, επεισα/επεισαμην (“1st” or “sigmatic” aor.) and επιθον/επιθομην (“2d” or “thematic” aor.), as well as an aorist passive, επεισθην. As best I can tell, the thematic aorist form επιθον/επιθομην (which would be more ancient or archaic) is mainly if not exclusively poetic, appearing in Attic drama but apparently not in Attic prose. That was what was making me feel uncomfortable about πιθου in Crito (after having tried to defend it), before mwh stepped in.
As an interesting irrelevancy, in the phrase quoted by jeidsath from Gorgias, ἀλλ’ ὠγαθέ, ἐμοὶ πείθου, παῦσαι δὲ ἐλέγχων, 486c, Cobet conjectured πιθου for πειθου, but this conjecture hasn’t found favor with either Burnet or Dodds. It could be right, because it may or may not be part of a quotation from a lost play of Euripides that runs through this passage and it could be part of an iambic trimeter (where ἐμοὶ πείθου, if a single iambic metron, would not scan), and a slightly ruder and more urgent tone might be more consistent with the Callicles character. But Cobet is another one of those 19th c. critics like Burges who went through Greek literature making “corrections” everywhere and then vehemently attacked anyone who disagreed, as if textual criticism were a blood sport (not that they were always wrong).
Another interesting irrelevancy: πειθω has two perfects as well as two aorists: a “kappatic” (1st) perfect, πεπεικα, and a “thematic” (2d) perfect, πεποιθα, for which LSJ gives “rely on,” “trust”. So it has a “regular” set of forms, πειθω-επεισα-πεπεικα, and a more ancient set of forms based on the normal pattern of vowel mutations, πειθω-επιθον-πεποιθα, analogous to λειπω-ελιπον-λελοιπα.
Wow… Cool input, thanks!
πειθου – maybe conveys “listen to what I have to say and let yourself be persuaded to follow my advice”
πιθου – brusque and peremptory, demanding an immediate action, “do what I tell you to do”
The distinction jeidsath drew seems right to me.
Hermann: πιθου is “to obey [obedi]”, which is for the mind to immediately be changed and to become that of someone wanting to do what is commanded; πειθου – “let yourself be persuaded [sine tibi persuaderi]” (I looked at Hermann after I wrote the above, honest.)