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Three Notes on Lucretius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Wendell Clausen
Wendell Clausen
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

To Munro's conjecture, which has been accepted by Diels (1923), S. B. Smith (1942), Bailey (1947), Büchner (1956), Martin (1959), and M. F. Smith (1982), there is a serious, possibly a fatal, objection: the genitive plural of hiems is a grammarians' figment and never occurs in classical Latin (TLL s.v. 2773.84); while Lachmann's conjecture is palaeographically improbable. Read ad gelidas rigidasque pruinas; rigidas was omitted by haplography, a fecund source of corruption, and hiemis then supplied from the context to repair the metre. Cf. 2.431 denique iam calidos ignis gelidamque pruinam, 2.521 hinc flammis Mine rigidis infesta pruinis, and, for the collocation of the two adjectives, 2.858 nec frigus neque item calidum tepidumque uaporem.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 544 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 The non-occurrence of a form of a word in common use over a period of several centuries can hardly be fortuitous; hiemum should not, therefore, be foisted on Lucretius.

2 See my note on Pers. 1.111,Lain, N.F., HSCP 90 (1986), 157f. Cf.Google Scholar, e.g., Lucr. 6.490 magnis nimbis Lachmann: magnis mantis OQ; that is, nimbis was omitted by haplography and montis then inserted (sense and grammar notwithstanding) because of the familiar phrase, 1.201 magnos…montis, 1.897 magnis…montibus, 4.138 magni montes, 5.41 montes magnos, 5.824 magnis…montibus, 5.946 montibus e magnis, 5.1244 montibus in magnis, 6.191 magnos month, 6.786 magnis…montibus.

3 Cf. also 5.640 gelidumque rigorem, Plin. NH 2.34 gelidae ac rigentis…naturae.

4 For other conjectures see Merrill (1907) ad loc.

5 See Norden, E., P. Vergilius Man Aeneis Buch VI3 (Leipzig, 1916), pp. 402f.Google Scholar

6 1.139 propter egestatem linguae et rerum nouitatem. Catullus was the first to elide -ae freely, 7.3 Libyssae harenae, 68.90 Asiae Europaeque; see Leo, F., Plautinische Forschungen2 (Berlin, 1912), pp. 356f.Google Scholar

7 Hence, perhaps, the corruption animo; cf. 521 animus.

8 Cf. R. Heinze (1897) ad loc: ‘endlich ist ein Hinweis auf den vorher geschilderten Vorgang erwünscht, wozu das überlieferte haec ganz geeignet ist.’

9 See TLL s.v. 2141.44. In fact, bos feminine is not securely attested before Varro, LL 6.15, since the text of Plaut. Truc. 277 is uncertain (Meister 44 n. 1).

10 Bockemüller's conjecture (1873).

11 It is characteristic that Ennius should have preferred the Greek word.

12 Diels adopts his own conjecture inactae.