Happily surprised to learn that Martin West’s edition is scheduled for release later this year:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odyssea-Testimonia-Bibliotheca-Scriptorum-Teubneriana/dp/3110425394
The amazon description is incorrect. A more accurate description here:
I’m waiting for that with impatience!
I wonder if there will be a Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Odyssey.
Now postponed until November 2017. I have a bad feeling about this…
I have a bad feeling about this…
Don’t. This is typical.
According to Amazon
“This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections”
Half right?
I love Van Thiel’s editions of Homer, beautifully printed, elegantly laid out, and the Iliad is one volume! The recent Teubner printings are so ugly: the bindings, the font, the print quality: all kaka. Of course West is god, and I have his Iliad, but almost never look at it.
Half right?
No, doubly right.
West was purporting to reproduce a book published around 650 BCE, which was well before 1923 (I think we can assume Amazon meant 1923 CE), but, as Amazon perceptively notes, there may be “occasional imperfections.”
West’s edition is now available. 
Just ordered the ebook on De Gruyter’s site.
My pre-ordered copy just arrived in my mailbox.
I haven’t got mine yet. Any first impressions you want to share with us?
As one would expect, it seems to be much along the same lines as his Iliad. He takes extensive account of the evidence of papyri and testimonia, the omission of which he sees as a weakness of van Thiel’s editions (rightly, I think). In the preface he says that since, as he believes, the Odyssey, unlike the Iliad, was not composed in Ionia but perhaps in Euboea or Attica itself, he thinks that Atticisms should not be rejected too readily. Many of the same spelling principles he followed in the Iliad. Three years have made me less resistant to εο for ευ. Surprisingly, thumbing through the text, I get the impression that he doesn’t reject as many lines as I would have expected, e.g., β 4, which apparently already shows up in a 2d c. CE papyrus, as well as Macrobius, and only missing in a single ms. I don’t see any bracketing (even the end of the Odyssey), but he doesn’t accept lines deemed spurious into the text itself, so rejection appears as a there’s a gap in the numeration.
Can we expect it to become the standard edition, as it has been hailed on the publisher’s website, or is it too early to judge? I wonder how completed it was at the time of its editor’s death.
As far as at least his Iliad is concerned, bracketed lines are just as much rejected as those that are not accepted in the text as all. The difference is that West leaves those spurious lines in the text that are well attested (and brackets them), and leaves out spurious lines only if they are very poorly attested in the tradition.
He doesn’t bracket longer sections in the Odyssey, not even the end, because he thought that the irregularities result from the author’s tampering with his own text in the process of making it, and not fully adapting later additions into their context. In the main, the reasoning is the same as for his Iliad, and we’ve had quite a lot of discussion about it. (It’s some time since I read the Making of the Odyssey, so I don’t remember every detail anyway.) It’s interesting to note though that Nigel Wilson thinks that something more or less analogous happened with Herodotus (but on a smaller scale, I presume), and he marks some such passages with double asterisks in his edition (in Wilson’s words: “In some passages [thus marked] there is an addition which has not been accompanied by the necessary adjustment of the immediate context, in others two alternative versions stand side by side, as if the author had not decided which he preferred”.) According to Wilson, this view was already developed by Heinrich Stein (in the 19th century). I even wonder if West wasn’t influenced by Herodotean scholarship to some degree.
Here are the bracketed lines in his text through book δ. I notice that he doesn’t separate out the different books, only indicated them in the line numbering on the side.
α140 {εἴδατα πόλλ’ ἐπιθεῖσα, χαριζομένη παρεόντων·}
140 (habet etiam 162, om. Ath.) damn. Nitzsch
α148 {κοῦροι δὲ κρητῆρας ἐπεστέψαντο ποτοῖο·}
148 (= γ 339) abest ab 106 253 G: post 147 ferunt H P M Eust., post 146 F B 148a (= γ 340) νώμησαν δ’ ἄρα πᾶσιν ἐπαρξάμενοι δεπάεσσιν add. Hm M
α171 {ὁπποίης δ’ ἐπὶ νηὸς ἀφίκεο; πῶς δέ σε ναῦται
α172 ἤγαγον εἰς Ἰθάκην; τίνες ἔμμεναι ηὐχετόωντο;
α173 οὐ μὲν γάρ τί σε πεζὸν ὀΐομαι ἐνθάδ’ ἱκέσθαι.}
171–173 (= ξ 188–190) ath. Ar, ἔν τισιν οὐκ ἐφέροντο 171 δ’ (nov. Did) Ω: τ’ Ar. – cf. ad ξ 188 172 εὐχετόωντο Z Ω* (ηὐχετάοντο van Leeuwen): -όωνται Fc Ps M Eust. – cf. ad ξ 189, π 58, 223
α238 {ἠὲ φίλων ἐν χερσίν, ἐπεὶ πόλεμον τολύπευσεν}·
238–241 (= ξ 368, [369–370], 371) damn. Düntzer Abh. 477, saltem 238 Hennings
β251 {εἰ πλεόνεσσι μάχοιτο· σὺ δ’ οὐ κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες}.
251 damn. Düntzer πλεόνεσσι μάχοιτο (nov. Did; cf. 245) 282 Ω: πλέονές οἱ ἕποιντο (ita Bu mann pro -νεσσιν ἕποιτο) Ar (Hλ Μλ)
β393 {ἔνθ’ αὖτ’ ἄλλ’ ἐνόησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη.}
393 (= 382) om. 1 G B: hab. Ω*
γ131 {βῆμεν δ’ ἐν νήεσσι, θεὸς δ’ ἐκέδασσεν Ἀχαιούς,}
131–178 m. rec. suppl. U2; non cito 131 (= ν 317) del. Nitzsch
γ214 {εἰπέ μοι, ἠὲ ἑκὼν ὑποδάμνασαι, ἦ σέ γε λαοί
γ215 ἐχθαίρουσ’ ἀνὰ δῆμον, ἐπισπόμενοι θεοῦ ὀμφῆι.}
214–215 (= π 95–96) damn. Bekker; cf. Blass 59 sq.
δ246 ἀνδρῶν δυσμενέων κατέδυ πόλιν {εὐρυάγυιαν·
δ247 ἄλλωι δ’ αὐτὸν φωτὶ κατακρύπτων ἤϊσκεν,
δ248 Δέκτηι, ὃς οὐδὲν τοῖος ἔην ἐπὶ νηυσὶν Ἀχαιῶν.
δ249 τῶι ἴκελος κατέδυ Τρώων πόλιν}, οἳ δ’ ἀβάκησαν
246–249 εὐρυάγυιαν…πόλιν secl. Friedländer Phil. 4 (1849) 580 sq.; insertum u.v. ut ad Iliadis Parvae historiam aptaretur 247 αὐτὸν G Ha Pa: αὑτ- Ptol Ω* 248 Δέκτηι nom. propr. sicut Il. Parv. fr. 9: δέκτηι ‘mendico’ interpr. Ar. – cf. West Cycle 196 sq. 249 τῶι 23 Ω*: τῶι δ’ Hc κατέδυ Τρώων EtMα8 Ω: κατέβη Τρώων 23 K: Τρώων κατέδυ t* Eust.
δ276 {καί τοι Δηΐφοβος θεοείκελος ἔσπετ’ ἰούσηι.}
276 ath. Ar et nescioquis iam prius, v. West Cycle 207
δ399 ‘{τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι ταῦτα μάλ’ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω.}
399 (cf. 383) om. 5 G, post add. 141 (cf. ad 399) ut supra 141 F H Pγρ Μγρ U: τοιγὰρ ἐγὼν ἐρέω, σὺ δ’ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεοσῆ(ι)σινPMB
δ514 {ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ τάχ’ ἔμελλε Μαλειάων ὄρος αἰπύ
δ515 ἵξεσθαι, τότε δή μιν ἀναρπάξασα θύελλα
δ516 πόντον ἔπ’ ἰχθυόεντα φέρεν βαρέα στενάχοντα,}
δ519 {ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ καὶ κεῖθεν ἐφαίνετο νόστος ἀπήμων,
δ520 ἂψ δὲ θεοὶ οὖρον στρέψαν, καὶ οἴκαδ’ ἵκοντο,}
514–516 et 519–520 post insertos esse vidit Von der Mühll RE Supp. VII 708; cf. West Cycle 265 sq. 514 τάχ’ Ω: ῥα t 516 βαρέα (cf. ε 420) Hs Ω*: μεγάλα (cf. ξ 354) F H B. – cf. adκ76,ψ317 517 ἐσχατιήν329FHc BEust.:-ῆςtΩ*.–cf.adε238 519 καὶ κεῖθεν Ar Ω*: καὶ ἐκ- G, κἀκ- Hc P B 520 στρέψαν G H Pc: τρέψαν Ω*
δ553 {ἠὲ θανών· ἐθέλω δὲ καὶ ἀχνύμενός περ ἀκοῦσαι}.’
553 “ἐν ἁπάσαις ἠθετεῖτο”: habent 141a 171 329 Ω
he doesn’t separate out the different books, only indicated them in the line numbering on the side.
Yes, that’s what West did in his Iliad edition. He thinks the book divisions were not present in his reconstructed “original” versions of the Homeric epics, and that both should be read as continuous poems without interruption. In his editions, the traditional book divisions serve only as reference points for citations, instead of a continuously numbered text, which would be unworkable.
I finally have a physical copy of the text. Here are a few first impressions.
I like the font, which is a lot nicer than the one used in West’s Iliad. The characters in the Iliad are rather ugly and what’s more, they’re unevenly spaced, which makes the text look restless. The Odyssey font is one of my favorite Greek fonts – if I’m allowed to complain just a bit, I think the “handwriting look” is a tad overdone, with the stroke width varying slightly too much.
Like Hylander says, West isn’t very eager to bracket lines as “concordance interpolations”, unlike for example Richard Janko (see his review of van Thiel’s Odyssey). The mere fact that a line or a group of lines appears verbatim at several locations doesn’t mean for West that it should be bracketed at a location where it’s missing in one manuscript and is not required for its contents. Clearly he brackets the most obvious interpolations of this sort, but I wonder what were the precise criteria.
Some interesting passages in book 1:
1.320 ὄρνις δ’ ὣς ἀν’ ὀπαῖα διέπτατο· τῶι δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῶι
Printed like this, ἀν’ ὀπαῖα apparently means “through the hole in the ceiling”. There have been many interpretations for ανοπαια, including the idea that it’s some species of bird.
1.346 (Telemachus to his mother): μῆτερ ἐμή, τί ταρ αὖ φθονέεις ἐρίηρον ἀοιδόν
Here we see ταρ in the action, a more or less reconstructed particle that has been discussed several times before. I’m not sure I understand the note in the apparatus: “346 ταρ αὖ dedi, τ’ ἂρ αὖ Ω (cf. ψ 264): τ’ ἄρα D, editores inde a Wolf, at τε in interrogativis non datur (pace Denniston 533sq.)”. Does this “dedi” mean something like “is what I propose”? How about the rest: “τ’ ἄρα is the reading given by all editors since Wolf, although τε isn’t attested in interrogatives (Whatever Denniston says?)”?
1.356-359 (M.L. West doesn’t athetize Telemachus’ “wise” words to his mother, telling her to mind her own business. Many editors, including S. West, were inclined to bracket these lines, which according to Aristarchus were not in the χαριεστεραις γραφαις.). I don’t understand the critical note: “356 ἀλλὰ σύ γ’ εἰσελθοῦσα ci. aliquis ante Ar ne Penelope ‘domum’ ire iuberetur, et in 360 θάλαμόνδε (cf. A.R. 3.450)” (A.R. must stand for Apollonios Rhodios 3.450 καρπαλίμως θάλαμόνδε σὺν υἱάσιν οἷσι βεβήκει):
ἀλλ’ εἰς οἶκον ἰοῦσα τὰ σ’ αὐτῆς ἔργα κόμιζε,
ἱστόν τ’ ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε
ἔργον ἐποίχεσθαι· μῦθος δ’ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει
πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ’ ἐμοί· τοῦ γὰρ κράτος ἔστ’ ἐνὶ οἴκωι.
360 ἣ μὲν θαμβήσασα πάλιν οἶκόνδε βεβήκει
Paul, your understanding of West’s notes to 346 is correct.
356 ἀλλὰ σύ γ’ εἰσελθοῦσα ci. aliquis ante Ar ne Penelope ‘domum’ ire iuberetur, et in 360 θάλαμόνδε (cf. A.R. 3.450)" (A.R. must stand for Apollonios Rhodios 3.450 καρπαλίμως θάλαμόνδε σὺν υἱάσιν οἷσι βεβήκει):
There are ancient variants ἀλλὰ σύ γ’ εἰσελθοῦσα in 356 and θάλαμόνδε in 360 (reported in the scholia).
West says that these variants are conjectures (“ci.” stands for coniecit) made by someone before Aristarchus to avoid having Penelope being ordered to go into the οἶκος, which whoever made the conjecture erroneously thought meant not “chamber,” but “house” (domus), where she already is.
Stephanie West has a note on this ad loc. in the Oxford commentary.
I assume that M. West cites the line from Apollonius to suggest that it may be a reminiscence of Odyssey 1.360 with the conjectural reading, which would indicate that the conjectures were present in Apollonius’ text of the Odyssey (or perhaps in typical Hellenistic fashion Ap. is showing off his awareness and approval of an obscure textual variant).
You can read the scholium here:
https://archive.org/stream/scholiagrcainho01homegoog#page/n141/mode/2up
The scholiast describes the variants as changes to the text that are made by some and rejects them on the grounds that Homer sometimes uses οἶκος to mean the whole house, and sometimes to mean “the men’s quarters” or “the women’s quarters”.