act 1 Flashcards
line 13
ennius’ ‘medea’, catullus… george gould argues for changing the text when two alternatives are equally probable - demonstrating the importance of fluidity of the text
line 34
loris in E, locis in A (other examples highlighted in OCT apparatus) - scribe of A having problems reading the letter ‘r’
line 39
E = Caedam, A = Caecam (errors in the middle of words - difficulty in distinction of letters due to uniformity of minims?)
line 40
‘ipsa’ - after reference to victims in previous lines it seems to mean seek a way to punish victims through the entrails ‘themselves’ but are also moving on - darker connotations could be taken to mean through the ‘very’ guts of the ‘humans themselves’ implied, through ‘my own’ guts could also be a meaning (either suicide or through her children)
line 43
E misreads ‘cauca(sum)’ as ‘causa’ producing an inconclusive ‘sum’… also non-standard use of ‘indue’ where ‘menti’ would restore senecan norm
line 44
E swaps ‘pontus’ and ‘phasis’ where other’s don’t. swapping words doing the same,e thing with the same metrical style is very common, only clue E is wrong is the order of Medea itself
line 52
‘toto’ may be a different adjective; common for adjectives to swap - also ‘tuis’ over ‘tua’ would work better - let an equal divorce be directed to ‘your’ wedding - allowing each noun its own adjectival pair
line 53
‘linques’ comes from a commentary based on a lost manuscript
line 55
‘rumple…mora’ - georgics 3 and aeneid 4, here seneca reverses the effect of the aeneid reference
does Medea enter into the house? next speaker after chorus…also either odd or significant inversion for her to describe the ‘to be left house’. Next line involves ‘we heard’ rather than ‘we saw’
Ovid has Jason at bridal ceremony in heroides - unclear in seneca if creusa was there
line 56
‘numine’ meaning ‘power’ is ‘entirely inoffensive’ (tobias, 2024)
line 57
‘fretum’ might become ‘freta’ (a la Giardina)…reference to gods of the sea and sky, omitting only the underworld gods but Corinth is important seafaring town, gods of the sea also conjure thoughts of the Argo
line 59
E = primum, A = primus
emphasis on the gods. more important than sacrificial animals so suggestive of ‘primum’ as correct
line 62
as transmitted, ‘asperi’ goes with Mars, but could instead be ‘aspera’ to go with ‘femina’ in previous line
line 71
Ovid Metamorphoses 15.100 ‘praevia lucis’
line 82-83
if line 83 comes after 82 then it awkwardly interrupts ‘cadent’ and its subject but if 83 comes first we cont know if Jason is the subject of ‘velit’ and 83 is a pretty rough line. possibly 83 interpolated from the margin and ended up slipping into the line.
line 90
sic..sic could be sic..haec (Giardina) with ‘haec’ looking ahead to ‘femina’
ALTERNATIVE
sic…sit (Gronouius) with a colon, let me look to gods to pray:
line 93
‘virgineo’ is attaractive due to catullan reference
line 98-99
two lines plausibly dropped out of- we go from talking about light intensity to colour effects without a credible transition
leo proposes ‘lacuna’ involving a blushing Jason
Fitch argues Creusa should be the one blushing
Zwierlein not convinced that the change in topic is there which seoul’s lead to ideas of ‘lacuna’
summary: two lines dropped, talking about blushing - ‘lacuna’ in line 99 seems probable as still difficult to read without it
explanation on for omission: the ‘-or’ of ‘color’ (reflected in rub or and pudor) and the ‘perfusus’ (reflected in ‘perfudit’ and ‘perfundit’)
line 99
E =‘puniceo’. A= ‘pheniceo’
same meaning in sense, ‘pheniceo’ is rarer - does that make it more or less probable?
line 101
pepper posits a ‘lacuna’ to replace line 102 - unhappy with reference to jason being snatched away from ‘fassis’
line 102
‘horridi’ is written as. ‘horridis’ because of next line
line 104
if scared of ‘scary wife’s breast’ then ‘prendere’ is the wrong word - ‘tangere’ is better OR could swap out ‘pectora’ for ‘bracchia’ or something similar on the basis of dactylic substitution
‘tangere’ reading more compelling but other is possible
line 105
‘Aeolian’ - pragmatically wrong because Creusa is Corinthian not Boetian
line 106
E = socero, ‘soceris’ is a slightly odd plural
line 109
if ‘iusta’ means justified then it seems irrelevant and might prefer ‘ista’ or ‘tuta’ - one sense that might work is ‘legally permitted’, BUT as ‘licentia’ is also legal we can see how easy it is to read ‘ista’ as ‘iusta’
line 110
HEXAMETER BEGINS
Bentley wonders whether ‘generosa’ displaced ‘Hymenae’ with the idea that bland adjectives are glosses of unusual names - not that convincing
line 114
Giardina suggests ‘caecis’ over ‘tacitis’
line 115
‘furtiva’ or ‘fugitiva’
‘fugitiva’ - printed more often but is less common. (used once in ovid heroides 5.91)
‘furtiva’ woks nicely with the sense and there are many passages where ‘furtiva’ and ‘fugitiva’ replace one another
question over meaning of ‘eat’ - odd to mean ‘depart’ alongside ‘tacitis tenebris’
remove ‘eat’ for something else?
