It seems to have been assumed that Lucretius elides final s promiscuously, as Ennius does, at any part of the line. The following statement of facts will show that the truth is very different: I take all cases where the reading appears certain. He has twenty-eight such elisions at the end of the fifth foot, including the emended ii. 623, 975, 986, v. 1410; ten at the weak caesura of the fifth foot, including the emended iii. 198, 1016, v. 949, (...) 1106. But except in these two positions the elison is quite rare and exceptional. I will begin the exceptions by giving a peculiar group: ii. 5, omm' sit. 458, omnibu' sunt , 1079, aliquoiu' siet , iv. 493, coloribu' sint, 1152, corpori' sunt, 1268, opu' sunt, v. 456, minoribu' sunt, 1445, priu' sunt; all these are from the first four feet, but evidently to Lucretius a combination like opu' sunt is very different from, say, opu' fit. Indeed, I take it that opusit was to him just one word like necessest; the following s in sit and sunt helps, perhaps, and so the solitary instance in Catullus is before s; at any rate, this group is obviously exceptional. There remain only two elisions at the end of the fourth foot, iv. 1035 and the emended vi. 972; two at the end of the second foot, immutabili' in i. 591, and immortalibu' in v. 53, both due to correctors and both words of a form which is rare at the opening of a line; one in weak fourth caesura, iii. 905; one at end of first foot, i. 978. You will hardly believe me, but those are all. (shrink)

Callimachus Aitia 82–85. I cannot quite get this right to my satisfaction, but it must have been something like:ΠλΧS0009838800019261_inline1σεΨΜλ.

That fat animals are bad breeders was well known to the ancients; Aristotle insists upon it several times. S0009838800017511_inline2 is, as Dr. Hunt observes, an epithet of the willow in Homer, but the explanations he quotes from Hesychius do not look very satisfactory; the willow was thought to ‘lose its fruit’ because it was supposed never to produce seed at all. Hence S0009838800017511_inline3 means ‘barren willows,’ and so Cercidas means ‘barren fat,’ i.e., fat which prevents a man from breeding.

ποιετ Heyler ' e libris suis scripsit pro S0009838800018528_inline1 says Hertlein. Neither verb looks very satisfactory; Julian probably wrote S0009838800018528_inline2. The Celts tested, or were fabled to test, the legitimacy of children by throwing them into the Rhine; cf. Nonnus, Diunysiaca, xlvi. 54–62.

It is plainly absurd to wish that Odysseus, who has been on Phrygian soil these ten years, should perish in the future before he even treads upon it. Paley gets some sense by supplying ‘as a conqueror or permanent settler,’ but obviously we have no right to supply all that: nor indeed would any Greek poet have ever said such a thing as έπí γâν îχνος βαλεîν ώς νικŵν or εìσαεí. See also Mr. Porter's note in C.Q. XI. 160. My (...) explanation may be hazardous, but such as it is it would be somewhat as follows: In the first place, it is notorious that in early Greek poetry the optative, present and aorist, is used in constructions which in strict Attic require imperfect or aorist indicative. I need say nothing of Ȅνθα ŵεν αѷт àπÓλοιτο and the like. But consider optatives after εì Not only does Homer use εì with present optative instead of indicative, e.g. B 780 ώς εȉ τε νέμοιτο, ۸ 467 ώς έȉ β ςιώατο X 411 ώς έί δμύχοιτο, ψ 274 εȉ νȗν άεθλεύοιµεν but he even does at least once so use aorist optative for indicative, a fact which I have not seen noticed, κ 416 ώς εί ίκοατο ‘as if they had come.‘ At N 343 ôς is substituted for εί in the sentence μάλα κε θρασυκρδιςεȉ ηôς ȍϚ τότε ηθήσειεƲ = ήν άν ός έγήθσεν. And the important point for my purpose is that this use of ει with present optative is occasionally found in Attic, as everybody knows. (shrink)

The Myrmidons going out to war are compared to a pack of wolves going to drink after they have devoured a deer; see the following lines; they are not like wolves which ‘are devouring’ it. Hence δπτουσιν looks wrong, and is probably a corruption of δΨουσιν, the old aorist subjunctive; this being taken for a future would infallibly be altered. In any case Ψ and πτ are not infrequently confused; thus in 161 λπτοντες is a variant for λΨοντες.

Inde Venus uaria produdt sorte figurasmaiorumque refert uoltus uocesque comasque,1225 quandoquidem nilo magis haec de semine certofiunt quam facies et corpora membraque nobis.1227 et muliebre oritur patrio de semine saeclummaternoque mares existunt corpore creti….

Parmenides i 37. S0009838800006005_inline1. It is generally admitted that S0009838800006005_inline2 is unintelligible; people who ‘ can construe anything’ can of course construe this also. Others compare viii I, S0009838800006005_inline3, and would read S0009838800006005_inline4 here. This is no more intelligible than the other, and it is pretty clear that both lines are corrupt, and that the phrase was originally neither S0009838800006005_inline5 nor S0009838800006005_inline6.

Mr. Richards is justified in saying that S0009838800006017_inline1 is here indefensible, but he does not much mend matters by reading S0009838800006017_inline2. Iocasta may have been a paragon of all the virtues, but what has that to do with it? No, the real correction is S0009838800006017_inline3. ‘ To whom should I tell even greater things than this rather than to thee ?’.

At the end of the twenty-eighth chapter of the eighth book of the Natural History Aristotle says: S0009838800018425_inline1, and goes on to narrate a strange story of the method employed to procure the hybrid. Though the details are entirely fabulous, it has not been doubted that the Indian dog was a real animal. In de Generatione Animalium 746a34 he says more cautiously S0009838800018425_inline2 What then was this creature ? Sundevall declines to commit himself. Aubert and Wimmer think perhaps a jackal, (...) for they hold that the θxs1F7Dς of Aristotle was no jackal. But apart from other considerations there is not the slightest reason for saying that θxs1F7Dς does not mean a jackal in Aristotle as much as in other authors; if some of his statements about it are not true, no more are most of his statements about the lion. Yet this absurd notion that the ‘Indian dog’ was perhaps a jackal is adopted in the Berlin Index 419a15. If we look to India for a dog really foreign to the Greeks we are of course at once confronted with the genus Cyon, familiar to all readers of the Jungle Books as the Red Dog; accordingly our problematical Indian has been identified also with this. One would not think that anybody who had ever seen a specimen of Cyon would dream of calling it a cross between a dog and a tiger. It is true, however, that Aristotle believed that the Laconian hound was descended from a cross between dog and fox , and that the ancients were very reckless in making guesses of this kind; so the Arabs say that the cheetah is a ‘breed between the lion and the pard’! (shrink)

84 B. . Surprise has been expressed at this nominative after o' oo o v. Herodian Hist. I. X. 4, . lsocrates is. 30, o came to be thought of as a single word, in which superflously to a primitive use of I think fit to love.carrybear is and tben had come to mean There is a good instance of the primitive use of in Odyss. xix. 312, ' : surely this is simply , . Anyhow 0ν may be followed (...) by a nominative and infinitive. (shrink)

84 B. ζῆν τε οῐεται οὕτω δεῖν … καὶ… ἀϕικομένη ἀπάλλαττεσθαι. Surprise has been expressed at this nominative after οἲεται δεῖν. Cf. Magna Moralia II. xi. 31, οὐκοἲ ονται δεῖν αὐτοι ϕιλεῖν ἀλλ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνδεεστέρων οἲονται δεῖν αὐϒοῖ ϕιλεῖσθαι. Herodian Hist. I. X. 4, ῲήθη δεῖν μέϒα τι δράσας κατορθῶσαι. Isocrates ix. 30, οὐΧ ἠϒήσαϒο δεῖν χωρίον καταλαβὼν και τὸ σῶμα ἐν ἀσϕαλείᾀ καταστήσας περιιδειν.… Either such phrases were so common that οἲομαι δεῖν came to be thought of as (...) a single word, in which δεῖν did not count, or else this use comes from adding δεῖν superfluously to a primitive use of οἲομαι with an infinitive. It is of course common enough to say οἲομαι ϕιλεῖν in good Attic for ‘I think fit to love.’ I should prefer the latter hypothesis myself: οῐομαι is properly to ‘carry’ or ‘bear’ so οἲομαι ϕιλείν is ‘I propose to love,’ and then δεῖν was added, especially when οἲομαι had come to mean ‘I think.’ There is a good instance of the primitive use of οἲω in Odyss. xix. 312, ῶδʹἀνὰ θυμὸν οἲεται surely this is simply ‘it is borne in upon my mind,’ ‘je suis porté à croir’. Anyhow οἲομαι or ἡ ϒοῦμαι δειν may be followed by a nominativeand infinitive. (shrink)

I need scarcely say that I do not propose to disturb Jebb's celebrated emendation of this passage in so far as the construction of is concerned. But I do think that there is yet a difficulty left. How can Oedipus fee said to have ' taken Iocasta as a gift out of the city'? Or how can the Greek mean ' receive her from the city '? would be right for ' to choose out from among many possessions', but I (...) desiderate examples of such a phrase as in the sense here required. The suggested correction ⋯πωφελ⋯σας strikes me as harsh without an accusative. Might it not then be better to read ⋯π’ ὠφελ⋯σει π⋯λεος, ‘on the strength of having served the city’? The change is scarcely, if at all, more violent; others might prefer ⋯π’ ὠφελε⋯ᾳ. That this phrase can also mean ‘with a view to help’ does not seem to me to matter. (shrink)

These notes are written with special reference to Jebb's edition, as having practically superseded every other. In spite of its many and undoubted merits, this edition contains more errors than the general public believes; and if I am compelled by the nature of the case to touch only upon the latter in the following observations, I hope I shall not be supposed to be blind to the former. In such a case one must needs appear to write, as De Quincey (...) has it, ‘in a mood of revolting arrogance.’. (shrink)

I have never been able to swallow the explanation that this means οίσθ' ὃ τɩ ἒστɩ τ⋯ν κακ⋯ν ⋯ποῖον κ.τ.λ. The order of words is dead against it, since Zεύς ought to be in the ⋯ποῖον clause; it may be safely said that there is no shadow of a parallel to such an order in Sophocles, and probably not in anyone else either. Look at line 2 by itself and consider whether any hearer could possibly suppose that δτɩ Ζεὺς could (...) mean anything but ‘that Zeus’ is doing or will do something or other. So Aristophanes seems to have thought; in a passage crammed with reminiscences of tragedy he declaims :ἆρ' οἶσθ' ὃτɩ Ζεύς εἳ με λυπήσεɩ πέρα μέλαθρα μ⋯ν αύτο⋯ κα⋯ δόμοѵς' AμΦ⋯ονος καταɩθαλώσω πυρΦόροɩσѵν ⋯ετοῖς;Moreover, I flatly deny that οἶσθ' ⋯ τɩ κακ⋯ν όποῖον ού τελεῖ is possible Greek even when the order has been corrected. οὐĸ οἶδα ὃστɩς τ⋯ν ‘Eλλήνων όποῖος ούκ ᾀπαρνοῖτ’ ἂѵ τοȖτο μ⋯ οὺκ εἶναɩ ⋯ληθ⋯ς. Just look at it! (shrink)

Cf. Aeschines Ctes. 148, S0009838800019248_inline1 ‘ mirrored,’ says Prof. R. B. Richardson ad loc, ‘ in Plut. Dem. 20, S0009838800019248_inline2’ Philostratus Vit. Apoll. v 24, S0009838800019248_inline3, where the context shews the meaning to be ‘ a small part of a day,’ not ‘a little day,’ Lucian Hermotimus 54, S0009838800019248_inline4 S0009838800019248_inline5 where again the meaning is decisively ‘part of a day.’ The Aeschines passage is not quite so clear, but certainly is naturally taken in the same way.

This must be the right reading, not ζυγγxs22EFν for the next line begins with a vowel, and by Headlam's canon the final dactyl must be pure. Compare also 291: S0009838800019091_inline1.

Daphnis has taunted Aphrodite with Anchises; he goes on to Adonis as a still greater disgrace. ‘Fair is Adonis also,though he is only a shepherd, not even an oxherd.’ xs22EFπεxs22EF is common enough in this sense in latish writers, or we may supply an ellipse : ‘I mention Adonis, because—’ Then the reference to his hunting is also intended to vex her; Daphnis speaks ironically, as if he did not know that Adonis was killed while hunting.

Heracles had gone to Arcadia to fetch the Erymanthian boar; when he had just returned he heard of the voyage of Argo, and, hastily depositing the boar at Mycenae, departed to join Jason without the knowledge of Eurystheus. λυρκήιον Αργος άμείψας is supposed to mean ‘having come to Lyrceian Argos’. But, first, άμείβω Αργος ought not to mean ‘I come to Argos’; άμείβω and άμείβομαι alike mean either change or pass or leave; enter they do not mean. The lexica quote (...) passages as meaning enter which do not mean any such thing; Θύρας or βαλόν άμείβω is ‘I pass’ the door or threshold, πόλιν έκπόλεως άμείβω or άμείβομαι is ‘I change one city for another,’ άμείβομαι έρκοςόδότων ‘I pass the hedge of the teeth,’ and so on. Until I see an instance of it I shall not believe that πόλιν άμείβω can mean merely I enter or come to a city. Nor can we take it to mean pass in this place, because the road from Arcadia to Mycenae does not pass Argos. Secondly, what is Lyrceian Argos ? Whether a river or a mountain be implied by Lyrceian, it is not a Greek expression; we do not speak of Hymettian Athens or Cephisian Athens, of Cithaeronian or Asopian Thebes or Boeotia. There is indeed found the expression Πηλιωτιν 'Ιωλκόν in Euripides, Medea 484, and the scholiast on iv. 131 says that Τιτνίδος Αίης means Aea of the river Titen, referring to Eratosthenes as his authority for the river, but no one else knows anything about it, and it is more than probable that Mr. Mooney is right in regarding it with suspicion. (shrink)