act 2 Flashcards
line 116
tristan suggests nuxit for nubit
line 117
trimeters resume
A = condo, E =‘credo’
‘A’ is almost certainly an abbreviation misreading
line 118-9
‘erepto’ (to go with regno) here is odd - but change to ‘eripere’ perhaps not justifiable
line 120
Bentley wants to change to ‘merita non meminit’ or ‘monstra contempsit’ but not necessary
line 123
‘vesana’ OR ‘non sana’? both show up in the manuscripts - keep non sana
line 128
‘novere’ is perfectly reasonable past alternative to ‘erunt’ - no need to mess with it, tend towards over correction
line 129
Bothe suggest ‘patrandum’ over ‘parandum’ but the former never occurs in senecan tragedy so might be a bit of a stretch
line 133
‘campo’ instead of ‘ponto’? making it blood being spilt on the land/earth
Apollodorus stages these events at sea and dido threatens to scatter the body of ascanius over the waves in a clear allusion to Medea despite lack of consistent myth
line 136
‘saevit’
change from past to present tense makes ‘saevit’ perhaps unlikely? no effective contrast with ‘feci’ along with the tense means it must be wrong.
‘fecit’ as alternative? very easy to see how it would have dropped out
‘saeviit felix’? could have dropped out when the second ‘i’ in ‘saeviit’ was lost and them it was added to ‘felix’ to mend the meter
line 140-141
commas are awkward - example of modern punctuation becoming an imposition to the sense rather than an aid
line 144-5
implication that children will stay whilst she is banished
line 147
Heinsius suggests ‘tumulabo’ instead of ‘cumulabo’ - neither of these words are present elsewhere in senecan tragedy but in latin either term is idiomatic
difference is so small that either is likely/works
line 158
heinsius suggests ‘defendet’ over ‘defendit’ - plausible but unnecessary change
line 162
‘nobis’ rather than ‘rebus’ - works with the close association of the nurse with medea
line 166-7
Giardina troubled by no mention of thunderbolts - replace ‘fulmina’ with ‘crimina’
line 171
E =‘sed’ - does not scan due to need for elision
A= ‘et’
‘sed’ could have come from ‘at’ due to similar meaning and then ‘at’ and ‘et’ are easily displaced by eachother
Fitch says ‘et’ can work even if it isn’t immediately apparent
line 180
‘exportas’ is long so cannot be conjectured, therefore not a vocative line
line 181
‘minus’ instead of ‘manus’
line 189
‘fert gradum’ works well in performance and the elision doesn’t work as well with the conjectured lines
line 190
‘fuga’ presumable corrupted from line 192
line 193
sarcastic tone indicated by description of her at 191 - ‘roget’ could eliminate th problems over the tone - would have assimilated by ‘pellat’
line 197
‘redeo’ is correct - ‘redeam’ doesn’t scan
‘advexit’ appears in two different branches of the stem a, polygenetic error -> errors which happen more than once but are still errors
line 201
Aventius conjectures ‘Pelia’ as ‘pelias’ does not scan - likely normalisation with ‘supplicium’ next to it
line 202
end of propertius 4.11, and dido’s speech in Aeneid 4 - intentional or interpolation?
line 204
‘hoc putet’ better than ‘hoc caput’
‘caput’ result of mechanical corruption (swapping letters)
lines 209 and 218
both feature ‘fulsi’, one of which was replaced by ‘vixi’
Tobias believes 218 is protected due to the position of ‘fulsi’ in the line and the sense it conveys
if ‘vixi’ is in 209 it would be instrumental
perhaps ‘vixi’ in 218? goes with defence to ‘sol’ and ‘clarum’ but unclear the solution
line 213
‘dulcescunt’? or ‘durescunt’?
R, E and part of A agrees with ‘durescunt’
‘dulescunt’ however works better with notion of her father’s control
line 218
example of common split in manuscripts between ‘tunc’ and ‘tum’
evidence in fasti shows a move away from ‘tum’ to ‘tunc’
PREFER ‘tum’ unless ‘tunc’ required to prevent elision
also ‘proci’ (in RE) vs ‘viri’ in (A)
‘proci’ preferred
line 219
‘rapida’ of A is preferable to ‘rabida’ of E
line 220
Avantius conjecture of ‘exilio et’ scans where E and A don’t
R’s ‘exilio’ does scan and may be preferable as ‘et’ is merely demonstrative - not necessary
line 226
‘et’ is an added conjecture, remove?
some manuscripts read ‘gloriae’ rather than ‘graeciae’
possibly abbreviated form of ‘graecia’ (gcre/gera with an abbreviation line) - as well as contextual pressure from ‘decus’ and ‘florem’ which is what let to ‘gloriae’
line 229
Richter suggests deleting as very generic line and unclear what ‘pacifying the rocks’ might mean in context
seems like an orphic reference - he is a chthonic figure -> perhaps there is a larger corruption?
‘saxa’ corrupted from a more suitable object? something like r ‘saeva’ could work and makes sense how it might be corrupted - a true noun could be preferable
how would seneca use substantive adjectives?
rock could refer to her - like a stony/cold woman - hard woman although that is usually using metals
line 230
Heinsius has ‘geminique’ ie: the wins are my gift
corruption via assimilation with munus?
line 233
‘ducum…ducem’ fits better grammatically, but ‘ducem…ducum’ (E) is transmitted and also possible if harder
Genitive first also means the sentence isn’t complete without being whole
line 236
‘fulmina’ seems to deify Creon - Medea may be being sarcastic but perhaps a stretch
‘flagitia’ fits more easily
line 237-43
removed by Hubner- see notes for 242-3
line 239
Giardina suggests ‘pudor’ - might be paired with ‘pietas’ which would then be glossed by ‘pater’
‘pietasque’ works better than ‘paterque’ - change it
line 242-3
‘quae’ is transmitted
Avantius suggests ‘qua’ -> intended to function as equivalent to ‘quomodo’ but very un-senecan, does not work with paradosis
Watt suggests ‘quam’
could be deleted? Jason as subject in 241 and 244, but subjects changes in between
delete 242-3 but keep 237 onwards so the argument is still maintained
if an interpolation wanted ‘quae vis’ but couldn’t make it fit meter
‘quae volet’ argument of deletion
line 248
fitch ‘dextre peti’ is better than ‘dextra peti’ (dextre from the genitive dextrae)
‘fidem’ does not require ‘praesidis’ whereas the ‘dextre’ could take it
line 249
tradition gives ‘terra hac’ (‘terram’ in E)
Giardina offers ‘tutum’ like Bell.Afr.62.3
other conjectures: ‘tutum’ from Leo, ‘terrae’ from Gronouius
fitch/zweirlein’s ‘terra’ makes most sense
line 256
is ‘quippe’ used without subjunctive elsewhere in Seneca? ‘quippe quem’ is not transmitted; ‘quem’ in E, ‘quippe te’ in A
Bentley suggests ‘quippe quam’
line 263
‘nullus…cruor’
A has ‘nullum’ - clear assimilation to the next word. ‘nullum’ would elide and therefore must be wrong
line 266-268
extraordinary closeness of a metrical rarity
final merton is dactyl followed by a trochee
only appears in 4 other places, the other two both involving ‘memoria’
line 266 is the problematic line? or maybe we can just chill
line 267
‘cui feminae’ from R
‘cui feminea’ from EA - this one is odd for metrical stress
Bothe solves this with ‘femina cui’
line 279
is the plurality of ‘conuiges’ a problem?
Avantius conjectures ‘novam coniugem’
but ‘coniuges’ is fine if we consider Jason a cheater - maybe a little more confused than the conjecture
line 284
creon appears to be considering adopting Medea’s sons, very Roman
line 293
‘tibi’ for ‘malis’?
saying that medea does not need time, as opposed to bad people more generally - bit of a pointless change
line 294
conjectures for ‘infixus’ (infestus, infusus, inflexus) - fine with infixus (A is incorrect with ‘infelix’)
line 300
omitted in E
repetition of ‘vocant’/‘vocat’ is odd
‘vocat’ followed by infinitive ‘precari’ is also apparently odd
repetition of ‘dies’ and ‘diem’ two lines above
A is usually still printed but seems fair to omit the line
lines 301-308
choral ode begins in anapests
these lines get lots of critical attention
leo deletes 305-6 as it is repetition of the sense of the preceding verses
some difference in language and the piling upon the detai of uncertainty seems appropriate
Hubner would delete 305-8 and steve seems the argument for 307-8 deletion as stronger
lines 307
‘vias’ transmitted, ‘vices’ a conjecture by Axelson
issue is actually ‘inter vitae’ - as in Tib 1.3 and virgil 3.684
line 314
‘flectit’ is a correction of ‘deflet’ from EA
line 315
‘attica’ puts us in incoherent mythology, whereas ‘arctica’ is easier as a mythological reading
line 320
‘nautis’ form Richter to replace ‘ventis’
corrupted by having just discussed winds in the previous few lines and must be ‘nautis’ as following paragraph just discusses the laws of the sailors
is ‘nautis’ too banal?
lines 329-34
reordered by piper and leo
line 331
‘litora’ is a dactylic word which regularly gets exchanged - possibly ‘limina’ instead of
‘tangens’ the real problem? change to ‘servans’
line 331-332
‘arvo/parvo’ as adjacent is odd
Hardy suggests ‘agro’ for ‘arvo’
‘paulo’ for ‘parvo’ could be an option? both are synonym substitutions assimilating to the rhyme of the other unclear which is the problem
line 341
‘ducta’ makes ‘ducto’ in 308 is less favourable than ‘ductus’
line 343-4
features 2 ablatives working in different ways on the verb ‘gemerent’
‘subito impulso’ lacks any real sense of belonging strongly to ‘gemerent’
Fitch suggests ‘a lacuna’ with ‘ruper coacta rupibus actis’ OR ‘mononitur’ possibly being omitted
neither option is paleographically attractive
line 344
‘sonitu’ instead of ‘tonitu’
point of error with less common ‘tonitu’ turning to the more common ‘sonitu’
‘tonitu’ would enhance the sense of thunder, more effective sound by increasing number of dentals in the line
line 345
E has ‘astris’ cannot be right
A has ‘astra’
replaced with ‘arcis’ in OCT - also not quite right - what is it referring to the tops of? probably the mountains but its still a little murky phrasing wise
Fitch ‘spargeret astra’ - odd to have vowel at the end of a line but not unheard of in medea
richter suggests ‘nubesque ipsas spargeret atras’
Fitch says ‘atras’ makes less sense, replace with ‘’undis’ to make work
line 349
‘ipsa’ here - maybe want to change the ‘ipsas’ at 345?
line 357
‘et’ for ‘cum’ to remove repetition of ‘cum’ with different moods
et is better anyway
line 359
E has ‘ratem’
corrupted from ‘solitam’ but don’t want ‘ratem’ as people may think it goes with ‘solitam’ when ‘sirena’ actually goes with ‘solitam’
‘rates’ fits way better
line 367
‘referens’ too confusing?
schade posits ‘regumque ferens’
contextual pressure to write ‘re’ (from ‘regem’ and ‘remos’)
line 373-4
easter persians drinking from the german rivers (north and west) - fits with the swapping of continents going on here
seneca uses present subjunctive, in reference to Persian legionaries who are travelling around in this manner
Indian drinkin from the eastern armenian river is less surprising as an image and so more surprising here
‘indus gelidum…araxen’ is also from Phaedra - could be an interpolation from some marginalia
‘potat’ possibly right - maybe indian drinking from the ‘ara’
maybe replace ‘indus’ with ‘gallus’ or ‘italus’ so westerners going east to meet the persians going west
‘italus gelidum potat araxen’ fits meter better
