It might well be. But actually I couldn’t imagine better advertisement for their next number - I’m at least very temptated to actually buy it if it’s possible. Unfortunately they don’t sell ZPE at my nearest newspaper stand…
“taking aergh as acc of resp seems typical to me”
But it still leaves tan kefalan as a direct object without a verb. Wouldn’t the acc. of aerghs (if that’s the word) be uncontracted aergea in Lesbian, which would be metrically impossible?
But, as I mentioned earlier, one of the commenters (Evelyn Ruttnen) on this link: http://newsappho.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/discussing-the-two-new-sappho-poems/#comments reports that Dr. Obbink doesn’t think aerrh is a possible reading of the papyrus.
You wouldn’t expect aerrh, an easily recognizable word, would be changed to aergh, a reading that seems impossible to make sense of (as others have noted). Usually the opposite happens, which is the origin of the maxim difficilior lectio potior, but you can’t carry difficilior lectio to the point of nonsense.
Why couldn’t it be an accusative of respect? τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέργη Λάριχος. πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς. See Smyth. Or does the article pose some kind of problem here?
See the 111 year old book I linked to above. The regular Aeolic acc sg for a word like ἀέργης would be either ἀέργεα or ἀέργην (some sort of analogical formation apparently). ἀέργην would be metrical here.
τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέργη Λάριχος
Λάριχος is nominative, so ἀέργη can’t modify Λάριχος. It might modify τὰν κεφάλαν, but that leaves τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέργη without a syntactic function in the sentence, and why καὶ?
By the way, I wouldn’t be so tentative about citing the 111 year old book. It looks like a very careful and thorough study, taking into account the epigraphic evidence, even though it may to some extent be outdated. The author questions the idea that Thessalian, Boeotian and Lesbian/Asiatic “Aeolic” should be lumped together in a single “Aeolic” dialect, suggesting that these three dialects should be viewed as continuations of “Mycenaean” with some parallel and some divergent developments, which I think is consistent with current thinking. To a large extent, ancient Greek linguistics is based on work like this, mostly by Germans but some by French and British scholars, too.
Yeah that is a problem, thing I can’t for the life of me think what else would go without spending a lot of time going over it. Especially now that I only have the text in my head and already its fading and I know some of it is wrong…This is aging, as a kid I had huge amounts of verse in my head. Wow.
As for dialectology, well its in a state of flux. I’m sure you’re aware that in terms of post Mycenaean Mycenaean we group Arkadian and Cypriot together as a dialect, though the Greeks had no sense of this being the case, closest to Mycenaean. In general things are in a state of flux and actually I’m applying to be part of a project that’s going to put together a series of studies on this but its moot since I shall, alas, undoubtedly fail.
Why couldn’t τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέργη as a whole modify Λάριχος? καὶ can’t mean “and” of course, so it would have to mean something like “even”, i.e. strengthen δήποτ’. I don’t know. I guess I just want to make some sence out of the stanza as given by Obbink. The alternative with ἀέρρη doesn’t seem very satisfying either. I mean it’s syntactically quite clear but the sense just somehow feels artificial. Probably there’s deeper corruption involved, and we have to wait until someone comes up with a really ingenious conjecture.
As for the old book, I guess I agree. I was cautious because it was just something I hit upon with Google, not knowing who the author is. I really didn’t read anything but the bit I was looking for and anyway I have no idea how much these things have changed in a century. Hence my caution.
“Why couldn’t τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέργη as a whole modify Λάριχος?” I can’t say that such a construction – an accusative modifying a noun in the nominative – exists nowhere in Greek, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a construction.
πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς - ὠκὺς is an adjective modifying Ἀχιλλεύς, not πόδας.
The conundrum being “raise his head” seems to make the most sense grammatically, easy to turn it into a 3rd pers subjunctive despite the missing subscript. However the papyrus apparently doesn’t support that and the sense doesn’t seem as…well, nice. Not that the latter matters, I’m not an aesthete. But still.
Apparently, M.L. West has already contributed one conjecture to the Sappho fragment; maybe he’ll propose a convincing solution to this problem.
Of course. I feel like a total idiot. I must say I can’t figure out what it could mean with ἀέργη then.
I think it just has to be accepted as a crux unless and until someone proposes a better solution.
hi, just some random thoughts (nothing of value 
), when i first read this i thought it was a fake, did anyone else have that impression? I’m probably too biased to judge well as my favourite grk passages come from sappho. there’s something about the wooden stacking of infinitives etc in the earlier part of the poem that felt a bit modern verse comp, and the poem overall just didn’t seem as good as the ones that previously survived (maybe that’s why they did…). This may just be that it’s new and so hasn’t acquired the charm of a thousand readings, as william harris once said about some horace poems that he saved unread until his retirement, and didn’t seem as good as he hoped…
anyway i checked it against my aeolic grammar and metre notes that i took a few years ago, as you do: http://mhninaeide.webs.com/writingsapphics.pdf . i was surprised to see the localisation of word metrical shapes did actually match what i found when i did my notes on word metrical shapes in sappho (at bottom of pg 16, and on pg 24, of my linked notes) – e.g. trochaic words are largely localised at the beginning of the line (νᾶϊ, οἶδε, ταῦτα etc), i was expecting a fake to get things like this wrong…
a few things struck me as odd, like alpha not omega in the last syll of µεγάλαν (against the paradigm of μέγας that I took from Hamm 1957 pg 160, on pg 5 of my linked notes)… i would have expected an iota in θρύλησθα, as the alternative 2nd person ending of a verb in -εω (pf 3 of my notes summarising lobel 1927 pg 43), but iotas do get left out sometimes…
as for the expression which is bugging everyone, my first thought was that, if this actually is a genuine sappho poem, then before we get to the last corrupt word ΑΕΡ.Η, we should figure out what τὰν κεφάλαν might mean. people seem to be assuming this has its literal simple meaning and that it’s acc sg, but it could be gen pl (which ends -αν in aeolic), and could have another meaning entirely like the source of a river (see LSJ κεφαλή II(d) for this usage in the plural), and so maybe it’s some sort of metaphor for drawing from the source, i.e. in attic τῶν κεφαλῶν (τι) αἴρηι (assuming the verb does come from aeolic ἀέρρω and either the papyrus is corrupt or the scribe made a mistake). or something else entirely. who knows… not me. cheers, chad
You’re not alone in thinking it was fake at first. Apparently, Prof. Gauthier Liberman, the editor of Alcaeus fragments in the Bude/ series, originally thought so, too, but changed his mind, as this link explains (in Italian and Latin):
http://www.grecoantico.it/home/filologia-classica/carasso-larico-e-gli-accusativi/
Thanks for the link to your very comprehensive study of the composition of Sapphics.
oh man i’m thinking about this now. must… stop… taking a step back i’d expect to see a reference in the last strophe back to the idea in the 1st strophe - this is conjectured (although not actually possible to determine given the lack of evidence): see top of pg 13 of my sappho notes, summarising page 1955 pgs 11-12: http://mhninaeide.webs.com/writingsapphics.pdf
it would make sense if sappho was saying to put that bloody ship out of our minds, i.e. τάν functioning as a fem sg demonstrative referring back to the ship in the first strophe (and the article can replace the demonstrative in sappho: see pg 12 of my notes summarising lobel 1927 pg 63), with κεφάλαν in the gen pl. i realised assuming τάν is the same as κεφάλαν is not necessary, see my summary of the use of the definite article in sappho on pg 11 of the notes. as if she was saying in attic about the ship something similar to, ἔα χαίρειν αὐτήν! and stop talking to us about it…
who knows. i’ll wait for someone else to figure this out! cheers, chad
Wouldn’t µεγάλων be masc./neut. while the feminine form would be μεγάλαν or μεγαλᾶν ( α < α + ων)?
hi, i’m sure you’re right there. i’m at work and so don’t have my books which i assume explain the paradigm i gave in my notes there doesn’t apply through all the genders. cheers, chad
Apparently Sappho has -αων as an archaism and regularly αν. See the Old Book here.
That’s interesting, the idea that the end of the poem could refer back to the beginning. But I understood that the beginning is missing, so the end could point out to something that we don’t have…
Another thing: I agree that κεφάλαν could be something else than “head”. But I don’t think that word can be used for “the inner workings of the mind”, i.e. for what somebody feels inside - for that you have thumos, phrenes, stethos, etc. I don’t know how to exactly define kephale, but I think it’s more how other people see you, the representation that other people make of you, your “face” or “image”. I haven’t thought it all through, but I think the important thing is that the Greeks didn’t say that they think with their heads.
Good that you brought attention to the article. Is the Aelian Lesbian article then more like a demonstrative, like in Homer? I’ll have to have a more thorough look at your notes… The Old Book does not treat the article, apparently.
hi, i guess one other random thought is that the corrupt letter in ΑΕΡ.Η, which we’ve been assuming might be Ρ, could instead be Θ, i.e. ἀερθῆι, aorist subjunc pass of ἀέρρω (with the iota dropped as elsewhere in this poem). τάν κεφάλαν would then be a gen pl reference to κἄμμες mentioned at the beginning of the line (with τάν acting like a possessive as it can do), ie if Λάριχος is removed from us (maybe he’s crashing at home too long) and … i could imagine that theta could be mistaken /incorrectly written as gamma … i can’t dig into this further, so this time i really will try to stop thinking about it, someone else will crack this nut
Article by Obbink:
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1371516.ece