(1) a 1553 letter from CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim to Joannes HervagiusHervagius, Johannes, his printer in Basel, (2) a 1550 letter from FabriciusFabricius, Georg to CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim consisting of a single paragraph; it is a cover letter to (3) FabriciusFabricius, Georg’ collection of the fragments of Plautus, and (4) CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim’ corrections and new notes to his 1552 Basel edition.
When HervagiusHervagius, Johannes reprinted CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim’ 1552 edition in 1558, he treated these four sections differently:
He silently disassembled and incorporated (4) ad locum in their entirety.
He reprinted (2) and (3) in their entirety.3
He suppressed (1) without saying a word.
It is, of course, (1) that is of greatest interest today, because in it, CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim confesses that he had been too lazy to proofread his manuscript before mailing it to HervagiusHervagius, Johannes (or less likely, that he was too lazy to check the galley proofs HervagiusHervagius, Johannes had sent him):4
Ioachimus CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim Pabeperg. Iohanni HervagioHervagius, Johannes Bibliopolae Basiliensi S.D.
Cum nuper ad te misissem absolutum tandem opus emendatarum5 Plauti fabularum, ut tua industria ederetur ad lectionem utilem studiosorum linguae Latinae, statim postea subiit vereri id quod expressis exemplis accidisse depraehendi, ne mendosius illae6 publicarentur. Cum enim multum temporis et cogitationum mearum in illius autoris scriptis recognoscendis posuissem, et non modo taedium iam quoddam in labore diuturniore, sed nonnunquam etiam dubitationes oborirentur, nunquid talis occupationis et profanitatem offensuram esse divinum numen, et tenuitatem contemtum iri a doctis, videretur esse pertimescendum, operam tum dedimus, ut illud quasi pensum, quod mihi mea voluntas dedisset quamprimum absolveretur, et mihi a molestia cum operae tum curae acquiescere liceret.
Etsi autem et mihi ipsi et aliis probasse me confido rationes consilii et facti mei, tamen tum accidit ut illud opus correctionum nostrarum, neque diligenter in fastidio, neque plane in festinatione, neque explicate inter multiplicia negotia quae tum mihi offerebantur, confectum ad te mitteremus.
Itaque, ut dixi supra, postea cogitans verebar, ne mendosius publicarentur exempla, cum mihi et meae negligentiae et incuriae operarum vestrarum in mentem veniret.
To Johannes HervagiusHervagius, Johannes, bookseller in Basel,
Joachim CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim of Bamberg sends greetings
Not long ago, right after I sent you the book of Plautine plays I’d finally finished emending, qualms crept in. I’d sent you those plays so you could carefully publish them for the benefit of Latin scholars, but I was worried those comedies would come out riddled with mistakes when they were published (I’ve seen it happen in printed copies).7 You see, I’d devoted a lot of time and energy to checking and rechecking Plautus’ writings, and I was getting a little sick and tired of the neverending work. And not only that, I also began doubting from time to time whether I should be afraid that God would get offended at the profanity of what I was working on, and/or that scholars would regard it as frivolous and turn their noses up at it.8
Because of that, I started doing everything I could to finish the job (which I’d given myself of my own free choice), to finish it as fast as I could so that I could get away from the toil and the anxiety and get back to normal.
Moreover, although I’m confident that the reasons of my work product have won me the esteem of myself and others (?), the fact of the matter is, I did send you a book of corrections I’d made that wasn’t completed carefully (because I was so sick of it), nor clearly (because I was rushing the job), nor as plainly as it could be (because many other matters kept getting in my way when I was trying to work on it).
And so as I said, as I was thinking about it afterwards, and every time that my own laziness and your proofreaders’ carelessness would come to mind, I kept getting anxious that copies of my edition would be published full of mistakes.
CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim goes on to say that the more he thought about it, the more he decided his work on Plautus was not blasphemous; on the contrary, it would prove useful, even necessary, for scholars to become acquainted with Plautus’ writings if they wanted to truly understand Latin. Confident in that belief, therefore, he adds:
[…] quod credibile esset te aliquando Plautina nostra exempla de officina tua denuo esse emissurum, sepositis aliis rebus, annotavi ea quae perperam expressa essent, ut altera editio tua esset inculpatior. Haec publice hic edi volui, ideo, ut qui iam exempla illa9 comparassent, de nostra subiectione errata possent corrigere, nam omnino decrevimus hoc quasi cumulo studii nostri extremam manum imponere ei labori, quem huic autori impendimus.10 Ne tamen nimis exilis et parvus esset hic libellus si nihil nisi correctiones erratorum in officina complecteretur, addidimus et Georgii Fabricii eruditiss. viri summi nostri, incredibilis diligentiae praeclariss. studio conquisita quaedam, habitura momenti et adiumenti allatura plurimum ad Plautinarum fabularum fructuosam lectionem. Quae mitto ad te et peto ut secundum illa ubi iterum edere Plauti fabularum nostrarum exempla volueris, libros corrigi, et, nisi tibi non videatur, hunc etiam libellum istic iam exprimi cures. [The rest of the letter is general flattery.]
Because it seemed likely you’d eventually republish my edition of Plautus, I put other business aside and drew up a list of things that had been printed mistakenly, so that your second printing would be less open to criticism. I wanted the list to be published here so that people who have already bought the first edition could use this appendix to correct the mistakes. You see, I have firmly decided that with this mass (as it were) of my attention [i.e. the list or appendix], to put my finishing stroke on the effort I’m giving to Plautus. Still, so that this pamphlet won’t be too small or insubstantial if all it contains is a list of typos, I’ve also added a number of things hunted down by Georg FabriciusFabricius, Georg. They will make a tremendous impact and offer a ton of help for reading Plautus’ plays properly. I’m sending them to you, and I ask than when you do want to reprint my edition of Plautus’ plays, you use it to correct them; and unless you don’t think it’s a good idea, I ask that you soon have this pamphlet printed there in Basel, too.
But HervagiusHervagius, Johannes ignored that last request. As the title page announces, the pamphlet was printed not in Basel but in Leipzig, where CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim lived. It is impossible to say whether HervagiusHervagius, Johannes took offense at what now looks like an “open letter to HervagiusHervagius, Johannes,” in which CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim waffles between accepting and rejecting blame for “mistakes” in the text, but it would be reasonable.
9. Conclusion
To sum up, my case remains circumstantial. I doubt the camel FabriciusFabricius, Georg mentions in his 1549 letter is the Vetus, though a palaeographer could change my mind (ch. 6), and I cannot prove it is the Decurtatus (ch. 7), because the Decurtatus contains no notes resembling HassensteinHassenstein, Bohuslaus von’s handwriting, and nothing is written on its untrimmed front, top, or bottom edges. If proof does exist – a shelfmark, say, or a handwritten title – a peek behind its binding might tell us. When I asked the Heidelberg librarian to pull it off and check, however, she politely refused.1
Nevertheless, if the salt road that brought us Plautus did pass through Bohemia, then in these days of increasing interest in provenance, some folks at the Lobkowicz Library might want their book back.
Hactenus en potui; tu nunc succede camelis
curandis, aliquis lector amice, mihi.
Summa: librum Decurtatum decorticet audax,
et Veteri impositas cum veter, ede notas.
Bibliography
Camel