M. BOTHE'S professed design is to exhibit a correct text, with short explanations of the most difficult passages; and the book is intended for the use of students, and of such polite scholars as are apt to shrink from the perusal of bulky volumes. In the explanatory part, Schutz is followed: but in the restitution of the text, and the arrangement of the metres, much remained to be done, even after the labours of that editor and of M. Herman. Tentavi igitur,' says M. BOTHE, audacius fortasse quam felicius, tentavi certe, verborum auctoritatem ubique explorando, interpretamenta, quæ magis propria nostra est provincia, expungendo, denique metra, præsertim chorica, exigendo ad sensum puleri historicamque veritatem. Qua utcunque mihi cesserit opera (multum autem de esse ad perfectionem, ipse sentio); viam certe muniisse dicar, qua nisi alii meliores perrexerint, nihil in hoc genere prastari poterit lavigatum et quasi omnibus numeris absolutum. Scribebam Berolini, mense Maio clǝlocccv.' The substance of the whole preface is here given. Not a word is said of the subsidia which are used; Schutz's first edition is M. BOTHE'S repository of facts; Stanley's notes, Schutz's second edition, and the Glasgow folio, are occasionally quoted; the last probably at second-hand from Schutz. That great innovations would be made in the text was to be expected from the above quotation: but that such innovations, as M. BOTHE has introduced, could be ventured by any editor, would before the perusal of this book have been pronounced impossible. Few passages escape without a conjecture: every conjecture is admitted into the text; and the boldness of the alterations is quite as remarkable as their number. This unbounded licence renders it difficult for the mature scholar, and impossible for the student, to read the book with any degree of security; and had the text been undeserving of much reprehension, the defects of the notes would alone have disqualified the work from being, what it professes to be, a manual for the general reader. The readings which are adopted from others are seldom recorded; and even the editor, conjectures are sometimes unnoticed, in direct violation of the obvious duty of every one who revises an antient author. Another fault of the notes is their extreme jejuneness. Sometimes a quotation does not appear for pages together, and the absence of all learned illustration is poorly compensated by a few formula, vulgo, inepte, inconcinne, corrupte, male, in which M. BоTHE Commonly passes sentence on the readings that have the misfortune of displeasing him.-His chief attention has been given to the expulsion of glosses, and the restitution of the metre; and to the accomplishment of this design he cheerfully sacrifices whole verses in some abundance, besides clauses and and half lines innumerable. He is persuaded that lacune in antient authors are for the most part imaginary; and accordingly, if a strophe or antistrophe be a little longer than its fellow, the excess is sure of being amputated without mercy. doctrine so curious in itself, and so curiously carried into practice, deserves to be given in the author's own words. Prometheus, V. 885.* H* copis, ñ σopès iv, ος πρῶτος ἐν γνώμα τόδ ̓ ἐδίστασε καὶ γλώσσα διεμυθολόγησεν, ὡς τὸ κηδεύσαι καθ ̓ ἑαυτὸν ἀριστεύει μακρύ. The beginning of the antistrophe is this: Μοίραι λεχέων Διὸς εὐνάτειραν ἴδοισθε πέλουσαν, In the new edition, we read, Η σοφὸς ἃς πρῶτος τόδ' ἐβίστασε V. 875 (885) V. [this V. means vulgo, i. e. Schutz's 1st ed. Η σοφός, * σοφὸς ἦν ὃς πρῶτος ἐν γνώμα τίδ' εβάστασε, etc. Α quibuscum comparata antistrophica Heathio aliisque videbantur lacunosa : quod non est: nam et verba ñ cofòs et in antistropha pzors inutiliter re. petuntur, et eleganter aberit; Caorale autem per se quoque ponderare quid animo significat, ut iv pa pro glossemate recte baleatur. Tenendum vero omnino illud est poëtarum, præsertim Tragicorum, interpreti, sententiis quidem locorum integris, ubi metræ laborare videantur, non tam cogitandum esse de defectibus quam de interpolationibus, quibus scatent utriusque linguæ carmina et scripta, sed magis Græcæ.' This canon is promulgated on a very unfortunate occasion : for the structure of the sentence requires that iv you should be retained to balance woog; and it happens that Aristo * Our references, throughout this article, are made to the Greek and Latin edition in two volumes small octavo, published in the last year, but printed at Glasgow in 1794, under the direction of Mr. Porson The Glasgow folio, 1795, is nothing but a surreptitious and imperfect copy of the text of this edition. See "M. R. Feb. 1796. It is deeply to be regretted that the notes have not appeared: for we have no hesitation in avowing our decided opinion that the corrections already published, admirable and unrivalled as they are, exhibit only an imperfect specimen of Mr. Porson's atchievements in restoring the text of Eschylus. L13 phanes phanes has alluded to the verse, so as to demolish the new reading: Vesp. 724. Ἦ του ΣΟΦΟΣ ΗΝ ὍΣτις ἔφασκεν, Πρὶν ἂν ἀμφοῖν μύθον ακούσης, οὐκ ἄν δικάσαις. It is not possible to follow M. BoTHE in many of his rambles; and it would be unpardonable to dwell too minutely on a work, the merits of which it is easy to enable our learned readers to appreciate by a few samples. Prom. V. 93. δέρχθηθ' οἵαις αἰκίαισιν διακναιόμενος τὸν μυριετὴ χρόνον αθλεύσω. τοιόνδ' ὁ νέος φεῦ φεῦ τὸ παρὸν κ. τ. λ. · Β. οἴαισιν ἐν αἰκίαις. relur metrum. 93. V. A. dais aixía. Porsonus: alxianow ut aliquo saltem modo servaSed talem versum (anapasticum an spondaicum nescias) tam elumbem, omnique gratia, imo cæsura carentem, num tulissent aures Grace ? Iia v. 168. κρατεραῖς ἐν γυιοπέδαις αἰκιζομένου. be an Anapesticum an spondaicum nescias. If so, the company, in which the verse is found, determines its metre. If it may anapastic, and it be found among anapæstics, it is an anapastic-Num tulissent aures Græca? Let Dionysius of Halicarnassus answer the question. Σπονδεῖος ἀξίωμα ἔχει καὶ σεμνό τητα πολλήν παράδειγμα δὲ αὐτοῦ τόδε, Ποίαν δὴθ ̓ ὁρμάσω, ταύταν sia; words clearly taken from tragic anapastics. In the present instance, spondees are peculiarly well introduced, since the slowness of the measure exactly suits the solemnity of the speech. Casura carentem.-This observation is a greater curiosity than the last. An anaæstic verse is censured, because it has no casura. Now the Prometheus, if our computation be right, contains one hundred and twenty-two dimeters and monometers; of which one hundred and one are as much without casura as the verse in question: so that if M. BOTHE be consistent with himself, he must alter these hundred and one, or five verses out of every six. To make the case still stronger, of the hundred and twenty two lines, not one has a casura at the end of a dipodia, such as δέρχθηθ' οίκισ ιν ἐν αἰκίαις. This does indeed sometimes occur; Agam. 1343. * De Struct. Orat. T. II. p. 29. ed. Hudson, ex. emend. R. Personi ad Eurip Hec. 165. τις ἂν εὔξαιτο βροτῶν ἀσινεῖ δαίμονι Φῦναι, τάδ' ακούων ; -M. BOTHE publishes, τίς ἂν εὔξαιτο Εροτὸς ὤν, ασινει — violata synophea. avis Some such supplement as τίς ποτ' ἂν — or φεύ, τίς ἂν clearly required:- but, though such casure are sometimes found, they should never be introduced ex emendatione, except from unavoidable necessity;-for all casure, as every one but M. BOTHE knows, are defects in anapastics. These observations are applicable to V. 122, TŴv Aid's aúλ`v love, which the editor pronounces to be nullis numeris, ambiguoque metro, and alters to-aλelov ÉcoixieÙTIV. V. 94-7. dianraiquevos is made to constitute a monometer, and the rest of the sentence to form three dimeters. On this exploit M. BOTHE thus exults: '97. Verba dropov auxñ vulgo singulum versum constituunt, anapasticum monometrum, reliquis hujusmodi versiculis, qu bic leguntur, in dimetrorum formam redactis; in quo peccasse librarios, nativus cogitationum cum metris consensus a nobis jam restitutus, docet. Præstat igitur reponere, secundum codicem rundel. φεύ, φεῦ τὸ παρὸν pro vulgato αι αι τὸ π., ne versus hiet.' The whole system being composed by the poet as one verse, the division of it into dimeters, monometers, and paræmiacs, is purely arbitrary, and a matter of mere convenience. We shall therefore not object to the new arrangement; and pu, also, is certainly right :-but it is curious to observe how impossible it is for M. BOTHE, even when he happens to be correct in the main, to avoid some accidental error. • Præstat igitur reponere qe qe, ne versus hiet;' as if a hiatus were more allowable at the end of a monometer than of a dimeter. If the whole system be one verse, of what consequence can it be, as to any metrical question, into how many lines an editor is pleased to divide it?-Eu, çeu, moreover, had been already restored by Mr. Porson. V. 153. τοῦ νεκροδέγμονος εἰς ἀπέραντον 156. μήτα τις άλλος τοῖς δ ̓ ἐπεγήθει. 155. 158. (53. 156.) His et similibus tum Æschyli tum aliorum versibus quam plurimis intelligitur, dactylisos versus rite immisceri anapasticis, quis enim tales, quales bi'sunt, pro anapasticis venditet ?' Another new canon ;-No verse can be anapastic which is composed of dactyls, or of dactyls and spondees.-1. Since dactyls and spondees are introduced into anapæstics, in any number, L14 and and in any order, must it not sometimes happen, from the very nature of the metre, that these feet will exclusively occupy a whole verse? 2. The anapæstic system, from its coûtinuous nature, can no more permit a dactylic verse to be thrust into it, than any verse (suppose an iambic trimeter) can be cleft asunder by the intrusion of a verse of some other metre into the middle of it. 3. If the last objection did not apply, the intermixture of dactylics and anapastics would make an intolerable confusion in the rythmus and the music. 4. The position of the ictus or accentus metricus clearly distinguishes these anapæstics from dactylics. Thus the verses ought to be read +: του νεκροδεγμένος εἰς ἀπεραντόν μητέ τις αλλος τοισδ' ἔπεγηθεί. Had they been dactylics, thus: του νεκροδέγμονος εἴς απεραντον This consideration also takes away the ambiguity in V. V. 93, 122. 5. The sole reason on which the new canon is founded is, that the verses have the same feet as dactylic tetrameters.Now the self-same line may often be scanned several ways; so that the true metre can only be determined by that of the adjoining verses. The preceding extracts sufficiently shew the extent of M. BOTHE'S metrical skill.-He shall therefore be left in peace to reduce the choruses to a sense of the beautiful, and to historical truth. Two luculent specimens, however, must be given:Prom. 568. Io is introduced in an agony of madness and pain in which comfortable situation she is made to sing out, in iamb. tetram. cat, ἔἴδωλον Α'ργου γηγενοῦς ἄλευε, Δα! φοβούμαι which is a metre entirely comic, and scarcely used by comedy herself, except in her easiest and jolliest moments.—It is means to occur elsewhere in this new Eschylus; Prom. 431, 2, (424. Both.) Ὃς αιὲν ὑπέροχον σθένος νώτοις υποστηρίζει, This certainly is as good a verse as τῇ παιδὶ τοὺς ἀυλοὺς ἐχρῆν ἤδη προχείρους είναι, On the subject of the ictus metricus, or arsis, see Bentley's Schediasm on the metres of Terence, and Dawes, Sect. V. init. The accents are omitted, and the ictus metricus only is marked, to avoid confusion. |