Phaedrus 1.26: a tit for a tat.

Texts by classical authors as we have them now are not printed from direct texts written by them, but based on copies. It is rare to have manuscripts from before to ninth century and that means that there is a gap of at least 800 years between the original Roman writer and the text we have. For the Classical Greek writers it is even longer. In the course of transmission many things can go wrong and actually do go wrong: words left out by sleepy copyists, or whole sentences, especially when two sentences end with the same word (homoioteleuton), misunderstood words or constructions are `improved’ or  sometimes a copyist may think that his Latin is simply better than that of the original author. It also could happen that a copyist had a hardly legible text to copy and then has to guess what he was copying. Of course this process did not happen once, but each time a new copy was made. Many authors have survived in various manuscripts, especially widely read authors like Vergil and Ovid. It is the task of modern textual criticism to construct from all these manuscripts a text which is as close as possible to the original text of an author. Sometimes a word is so corrupt, that an editor has to make an educated guess and where restauration is beyond hope, the text is put between two crosses (HH), the so-called crux interpretum (pain in the ass for the editors). It can happen that a decision is impossible to make between two various readings and it depends on the preference of the editor which reading to print in a text. School editions  and unfortunately Latin and Greek texts on internet have no critical apparatus  in which the various differences and emendations are notated and even most classical scholars  are happy to rely on the texts given by their colleagues specialized in textual criticism.

Modern textual criticism started with Karl Lachmann (1793-1851), a genius in both Germanic and Classical philology. His critical edition of Lucretius is a milestone in Latin philology and apart from that, he edited other Latin authors as well as Middle German texts. Mind you that such work was done without typewriters, photocopies of manuscripts or electronic devices to study a manuscript, let alone computers with their online databases. Scholars of the 19^th century have performed tasks no modern scholar would dare to think of.

Copying was a laborious and expensive task: parchment was expensive and when an author went out of fashion or was too voluminous to copy entirely, selections were made. Large parts of Tacitus and Livy have not been copied again in the early Middle Ages and almost certainly are now lost forever…

The following fable has two different readings for line 4: The Latin Library, from which this edition is taken, has this reading, Perseus has ` prior invitasse, et illi in patina liquidam’. There is no great difference in meaning.

The fable is the well-known story by Aesop: a fox (vulpes) invites a stork (ciconia) for dinner (cena) and serves her a meal on a shallow plate, which she is unable to consume. In return she invites the fox and serves him dinner in a high narrow jar. Note how the dinners differ too: the fox serves some broth, which he can easily handle with his tongue and the stork gives some crumbled meal,

Phaedrus book 1.26 Vulpes et Ciconia

(Meter: six feet iamb (iambus senarius), five iambs and the sixth can be short in the first syllable)

Nulli nocendum: si quis vero laeserit,

multandum simili iure fabella admonet.

Ad cenam vulpes dicitur ciconiam

prior invitasse, et liquidam in patulo marmore

posuisse sorbitionem, quam nullo modo

gustare esuriens potuerit ciconia.

Quae, vulpem cum revocasset, intrito cibo

plenam lagonam posuit; huic rostrum inserens

satiatur ipsa et torquet convivam fame.

Quae cum lagonae collum frustra lamberet,

peregrinam sic locutam volucrem accepimus:

'Sua quisque exempla debet aequo animo pati'.

nulli = nemini

noceo nocui (+ dat.): to harm

multo: to punish

prior: as first

sorbitio, -onis (f.): dainty drink, broth (I am glad I was not invited!)

in patulo marmore: in shallow marble (illi in patina: to have put before her in a saucer)

gusto: to taste

esuriens: though being hungry (esurio: to be hungry)

revoco: to invite in return

intrito cibo: with a crumbled meal (frogs in the kitchen machine?)

lagona: bottle

rostrum: beak

insero insevi insitum: to implant

satio: to satisfy (satiatur: medial use of the passive `she satisfies herself’ enforced by ipsa.)

torqueo torsi tortum: (here) to torment

conviva (m. and f.): table companion

collum: neck

lambo: to lick

peregrinam volucrem: migrating bird

Sua quisque exempla debet aequo animo pati: everyone must bear (patior) his own examples with an equal mind

Metrical translation by Christopher Smart (1887)

One should do injury to none;

But he that has th’ assault begun,

Ought, says the fabulist, to find

The dread of being served in kind,

A Fox, to sup within his cave

The Stork an invitation gave,

Where, in a shallow dish, was pour’d

Some broth, which he himself devour’d;

While the poor hungry Stork was fain

Inevitably to abstain.

Th Stork, in turn, the Fox invites,

And brings her liver and her lights

In a tall flagon, finely minced,

And thrusting in her beak, convinced

The Fox that he in grief must fast,

While she enjoy’d the rich repast.

Then, as in vain he lick’d the neck,

The Stork was heard her guest to check,

“That every one the fruits should bear

Of their example, is but fair.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lachmann

 

 

 

Illustrations by Arthur Rackham for Vernon Jones’ translation of Aesop (1912).