fr. 2) (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, inv. 22008. Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali.)
The Readings
Literary papyri are often published in parallel, with a diplomatic edition (i.e., the raw, visible text) alongside an edited text (i.e., articulated, normalized, and reconstructed)—as with the two editions of P.Fouad inv. 239, Figure 7.1. Each is ideally accompanied by a critical apparatus: the former’s describes the traces of ink and the possibilities for individual letters where there is doubt, the latter’s the emendations or conjectures of other scholars, conventionally by way of a compressed, abbreviated Latin (Figure 7.7). Each apparatus is important: understanding what the editor saw on the papyrus is the necessary precursor to a reanalysis of the readings, and any second-guessing of the editor’s judgment regarding the articulated text is similarly facilitated by a catalog of alternatives. A good editor is therefore honest and humble in addition to being meticulous and learned.
Figure 7.7 Critical apparatus of the “new” Simonides elegy on Plataea (= P.Oxy. 22.2327 + 59.3965), in abbreviated Latin as per convention. (The New Simonides: Contexts of Praise and Desire, edited by Deborah Boedeker and David Sider, 2001, ca. 600w from p. 19. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA.)
The movement from individual letters to a fully articulated text is where editors shine. Ancient scribes, for one thing, wrote in scriptio continua (i.e., without spaces between the words). Holes or other gaps in legibility, moreover, obstruct the analysis of letters into separate words. But even where the letters are clear enough, scribal error, peculiarities of dialect, or (rarely) new additions to the lexicon can perplex, invite emendation, or otherwise hinder the production of recognizable, articulated Greek. Editorial intervention, in other words, is an inevitable part of the job, and everyone who makes use of texts preserved on papyrus must therefore appreciate the countless decisions that make up an edition’s artifice. But although they deserve our profound gratitude, editors’ judgment is not sacrosanct, and every intervention is subject to interrogation (and, potentially, revision). The study of papyri—and especially literary papyri—is perpetually work-in-progress.
Some best practices are commonly recognized: “Youtie’s law,” for example, advises against emendation in the vicinity of a lacuna—iuxta lacunam ne mutaveris. But editors occasionally disagree in their approaches to a text, the most significant case in point of which is the treatment of textual supplements. Where a supplement is obvious or where grammar demands a particular form, most casually supply it in the service of continuous text; when only a few letters are missing, such interventions are relatively benign. But with more substantial lacunae, the impulse to supplement the text—a papyrological horror vacui!—requires verse composition on a larger scale. For poetry (and lyric, in particular), such exercises are fraught with hazard: the corpus of some poets is so threadbare, for example, that both style and output are imperfectly understood. But even in relatively fulsome cases, caution is still warranted: the syntax and poetic imagery of Pindar can challenge even when the text is relatively secure (Brown, this volume). And even for less idiosyncratic poets, reconstruction and interpretation run the risk of reinforcing one another in an editorial feedback loop: this is how I understand the poem leads to this is what I think is missing, which can become this is what the poet must have written before concluding my intuition/analysis of the poem works! No matter how ingenious the scholar and how sensible the suggestion appears, it must still be remembered that the reasoning can be circular and that we are puzzling over something that is not there. Users of papyrological texts must therefore be sensitive to the extent of an editor’s interventions and (un)willingness to presume the poet’s thinking, lest they construct a larger interpretation upon conjectured or uncertain text. But that caveat notwithstanding, reasoned arguments for and against various supplements, as well as informed interpretations of individual fragments, are at the heart of scholarship on lyric: the goal, as always, is to maximize our understanding of poem, poet, corpus, and context. And the fragmentary nature of most texts means that some amount of speculation is unavoidable.
Where a publisher grants the space, alternative versions can be printed in tandem, illustrating the preserved text and acknowledging the possibility of diverging reconstructions: compare the two versions (Sider’s and West’s, respectively) of a passage from P.Oxy. 22.2327 + 59.3965 (the “new” Simonides elegy on Plataea). Although Sider endorses many of West’s supplements, his text makes a point of keeping restoration to a minimum (see, e.g., lines 24–26) (Figures 7.8 and 7.9).
Figure 7.8 Excerpt from the “new” Simonides elegy on Plataea (= P.Oxy. 22.2327 + 59.3965), as conservatively restored by David Sider. (The New Simonides: Contexts of Praise and Desire, edited by Deborah Boedeker and David Sider, 2001, 145w from p. 18. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA.)
Figure 7.9 Excerpt from the “new” Simonides elegy on Plataea (= P.Oxy. 22.2327 + 59.3965), as more comprehensively restored by Martin West. (The New Simonides: Contexts of Praise and Desire, edited by Deborah Boedeker and David Sider, 2001, 205w from p. 28. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA.)
In P.Köln 11.429 (the so-called “Tithonus” or “Old Age” song of Sappho), similarly, the opening doublet has been variously restored (in bold):
[φέρω τάδε Μοίϲαν ἰ]ο̣κ[ό]λ̣πων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδεϲ, [λάβοιϲα πάλιν τὰ]ν̣ φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν· [I bear these] lovely gifts of the fragrant-bosomed Muses, girls, [having taken up again the] clear melodious lyre.
Gronewald and Daniel (2004a: 7, printed exempli gratia)
[ὔμμεϲ πεδὰ Μοίϲαν ἰ]ο̣κ[ό]λ̣πων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδεϲ, [ϲπουδάϲδετε καὶ τὰ]ν̣ φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν· [You for] the fragrant-bosomed Muses’ lovely gifts [be zealous,] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre.
West (2005: 5); cf. Janko (2017b)
[ὔμμιν φίλα Μοίϲαν ἰ]ο̣κ[ό]λ̣πων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδεϲ, [πρέπει δὲ λάβην τὰ]ν̣ φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν· [The] lovely gifts of the fragrant-bosomed Muses [are dear to you], girls, [and it is appropriate to take up the] clear melodious lyre.
Di Benedetto (2005: 18)
[νῦν (τ’) ἄδεα Μοίϲαν ἰ]ο̣κ[ό]λ̣πων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδεϲ, [φίλημμί τε φώνα]ν̣ φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν· “[Now] the fragrant-bosomed Muses’ lovely gifts [are sweet], girls [and I love] the song-loving [voice] of resounding lyres.”
Yatromanolakis (2008: 243), cf. Lidov (2009: 93–94).
While the supplement Μοίσαν is generally accepted, other crucial information (i.e., the verb!) is lacunose (Figure 7.10). The extant text