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Notes on Some Passages in Seneca's Tragedies and the Octavia*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The text quoted above each note is that of the edition of Seneca's tragedies by Otto Zwierlein (Zw.), OCT 1986; numerous passages are discussed in his Kritischer Kommentar zu den Tragüdien Senecas (K.K.), Stuttgart, 1986; various textual suggestions were made in a correspondence with Zw. by B. Axelson (Ax.). Other works on Seneca's tragedies, referred to by the scholar's name only, are: (i)Text and translation: F. J. Miller, Loeb, 1917; L. Herrmann, Budé, 1924–6. (ii)Text with commentary: R. J. Tarrant, Agamemnon (Cambridge, 1976), and Thyestes (Atlanta, 1985); J. G. Fitch, Hercules Furens (Ithaca, 1987). (iii) Text with commentary and translation: Elaine Fantham, Troades (Princeton, 1982); A. J.Boyle, Phaedra (Liverpool, 1987).
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References
1 Cf. her general invective against Jupiter's mistresses: 4f. ‘locum…caelo pulsa paelicibus dedi;…paelices caelum tenent.’
2 TAPhA 111 (1981), 65fGoogle Scholar., and edition ad loc.
3 A close metrical parallel is e.g. 111 ‘uersata primam, facere si quicquam apparo’.
4 Similarly Farnaby: ‘dimittit gregem qui carpat pabula’.
5 Cf. J. Gruterus (1604) quoted by Gronovius, ‘Dicit Seneca pastorem grege in pascua iam dimisso manu sua quoque pabula legisse, eidem pecori futura usui noctu’; so Miller ‘the shepherd…plucks pasturage’.
6 In Ov. M. 13.942f. ‘manuque / pabula decerpsi’ (compared by Fitch), which is not concerned with shepherds or sheep, the presence of manu and of de- makes all clear.
7 In this usage the idea of speed (as in Virg. G. 3.142 ‘acri carpere prata fuga [uaccas]’, here made clear by a.fuga) may sometimes appear, but is not necessarily present: cf. Hor. Od. 2.17.11 ‘supremum carpere iter’ (‘carpere suggests plodding persistence’ Nisbet and Hubbard).
8 For examples see TLL s. carpo 492.53ff.
9 I comment on this and other relevant passages in AJP 97 (1976), 134–7Google Scholar, and CQ 34 (1984), 458fGoogle Scholar.
10 See Würzb. Jbb. 6a (1980), 190Google Scholar.
11 But H.F. 948 has support for the reading rutilam EPQ (m ex t, Zw. (K.K. 64), against rutilat A, Fitch, from H.O. 70 feruidam; just as H.O. 70 has support for Ascensius' correction collo for c(a)elo w from H.F. 949 ceruice.
12 For examples of this common type see Housman, , CQ 10 (1916), 150CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Fantham's rendering ‘the good years of your grandfather's prime’ is not an equivalent of annos aui medios.
14 CQ 17 (1923), 163fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (= Housman, , Classical Papers, ed. Diggle, and Goodyear, [1972], p. 1074)Google Scholar: ‘medios… at once smart and subtle…’, etc.
15 For the error cf. 768 opes A for o spes E, 782 barbara E f. barbarica A, 1013 et magnus A f. est malignus E, etc.; for medicus and medius confused see TLL s. medicus 547.14f.
16 In 718ff. we are told that, after the destruction of Troy and the killing of Laomedon, Hercules showed mercy to the boy Priam and directed him to occupy his father's throne. We know little of Priam's record, but it was believed that under his kingship Troy was rebuilt and its rule greatly enlarged (see Roscher's, mythol. lexicon s. Priamos 2941ffGoogle Scholar., , P. W. s. Priamos 1848ffGoogle Scholar.).
17 See Stegen, G., Lalomus 32 (1973), 185fGoogle Scholar. Zw. K.K. 100.
18 E.g. H.F. 706 ‘ipsaque morte peior est mortis locus’, Oed. 180f. ‘o dira noui facies leti/grauior leto’, Mart. 11.91.5 ‘tristius est leto leti genus’.
19 Note the mother's preceding laments in 766ff.
20 Cf. the succeeding comparison, 1093f. ‘qualis ingentis ferae/paruus tenerque fetus…’.
21 Cf. Oct. 704–6 ‘sublimis inter ciuium laeta omina/incessit habitu atque ore laetitiam gerens/princeps superbo’ (Nero).
22 For the distinction between pro and ante see Kühn.–Steg. i.513f. and 532, Hofm.–Sz. 223, 270.
23 turribus poet. plur. as Ov. M. 13.415 ‘mittitur Astyanax illis de turribus’ (see Bömer ad loc).
24 Seneca, , Phaedra, edition with commentary (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar.
25 Boyle's translation ‘lying on the couch of her golden throne’ is unclear.
26 Langen ad loc. explains ‘tabulata hoc loco sedes ligneae remigum nominantur…; haec t., ut mollius remiges sedeant, sternuntur toris, quae Graeci ὑπηρ⋯σιον discunt’( ὑπηρ⋯σιον, τ⋯, ‘cushion on a rower's bench’, L. S).
27 Seneca, , Phaedra, edit, with comm. (Vienne, 1924)Google Scholar.
28 For frena used of a chariot and its team, cf. Ag. 296 ‘Phoebum…nocte subita frena reuocantem sua’, etc.
29 ‘When thou drivest thy car through the nightly skies’ Miller, ‘lorsque tu diriges ton char nocturne dans les cieux’ Herrmann.
30 Cf. Ov. Tr. 1.3.28 ‘Lunaque nocturnos alta regebat equos’, Virg. A. 10.216 ‘curru noctiuago Phoebe’, etc.
31 Certainly not ‘as he lays him down, care-free’ Miller, or ‘celui qui repose ses membres’ Herrmann.
32 Boyle does not accept this, translating ‘Surer sleep grips him/On his hard bed tossing his carefree limbs.’
33 Cf. ‘his brawny neck with great muscles bulges’ Miller, ‘sa nuque grasse fait saillir des muscles fermes’ Herrmann, ‘bulging muscles ripple on brawny neck’ Boyle.
34 Cf. Suetonius' description of the emperor Claudius (Cl. 30.1), ‘prolixo nee exili corpore erat…opimis ceruicibus’.
35 Cf. too Virg. G. 3.79 ‘illi [equo] ardua ceruix’, Hor. Sat. 1.2.89; so of humans, Phaed. 830 ‘alto uertice attollens caput [Theseus]’.
36 E.g. Virg. A. 7.523–5 ‘non iam certamine agresti/stipitibus duris agitur sudibusue praeustis,/sed ferro ancipiti decernunt’. Note the different turn in Iliad 13.564, where part of a flung spear μεῖν' ὥς τε σκ⋯λος πυρ⋯καυρτος ⋯ν σ⋯κει ᾽ντιλ⋯χοιο: here the ‘charred stake’ is a pointed post that is driven into the ground.
37 Courtney, E. (Teubner, 1970) ad loc. compares 6.745 ‘atro nebulam diffundit amictu’Google Scholar, ‘a dark shroud of mist’ Mozley.
38 In his translation of Paulinus' poems (1975).
39 Comparing H.O. 1449 stipite ingesto, which there means ‘with a blow from my club’.
40 τ, a manuscript, now lost, used by N. Trevet in the early fourteenth century.
41 Not ‘a tree… stays him with its stock driven right through the groin and holds him fast’ Miller, nor ‘holds him mid-groin on its upright stump’ Boyle, both reading erecto.
42 Being Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bristol, 1987)Google Scholar.
43 Cf. such structures as Phaed. 907f. ‘redit ad auctores genus/stirpemque primam degener sanguis refert’, where refert corresponds to redit ad, degener sanguis to genus, and stirpem primam to auctores, the scope of sanguis (and so genus) being particularised by degener.
44 The early editors Delrio, Farnaby, and Gronovius, I note, have no comma.
45 Yet cf. ‘be dry, my cheeks, stay your flowing tears’ Miller. With ‘arrêtez vos abondantes larmes, ô mes yeux brûlants’ Herrmann seems to have ardentes in mind.
46 Cf. Schanz-Hosius, , Gesch. d. röm. Lit. ii (1935), p. 463Google Scholar.
47 Herrmann's punctuation ‘…intonat/superasse nunc se pelagus atque ignes: “iuuat/ uicisse caelum…”’ seems highly artificial.
48 See Würzb. Jbb. 3 (1977), 174fGoogle Scholar.
49 For the use of tollo Tarrant compares Stat. S. 2.5.21 ‘attollit…manum et ferro…minatur’; note too Virg. A. 5.443f., Val. Fl. 4.289 ‘dextramque parat dextramque minatur’.
50 The verb tollo has indeed a wide range of meanings: cf. the satirical couplet circulating in Nero's time (Suet, . Nero 39.2Google Scholar): ‘quis negat Aeneae magna de stirpe Neronem?/sustulit hic matrem, sustulit ille patrem’, N. removed his mother, A. removed (carried off) his father.
51 A ‘Unikum’ in the poet's language is not in itself proof of textual corruption; the small area 278–300 alone contains four examples: 278 the verb ědo (ědat), 280 tantisper, 287 the verb perduco (perduclus), 300 eius (K.K. 301). Cf. my remarks on the single occurrence of a word or usage in a poet, CQ 30 (1980), 127Google Scholar, and 34 (1984), 459.
52 In Med. 843f., to which Zw. appeals, ‘hue natos uoca,/pretiosa per quos dona nubenti feram’ (Bentley, feras ω), the agency of the sons is emphasized by per quos.
53 There is nothing uncharacteristic of the poet and other Latin poets in the repetition, preces 299 and prece 302, to which Tarrant objects: see e.g. Fordyce, C. J. (ed.), Virgil, Aeneid 7–8 (1977Google Scholar), on 7.491. More noteworthy is the repetition of amputat in Thy. 761–3 (cf. too, above, 299 and 303 durus in the same verse-position, though with different sense).
54 Index uerborum to Seneca's, tragedies by Oldfather-Pease-Canter, 1918Google Scholar (1964).
55 Cf. Raven's, D. S.Latin Metre, An Introduction (London, 1965), p. 58Google Scholar; Tarrant's edition of Thyestes, p. 29.
56 Gnom. 41 (1969), 769Google Scholar.
57 Gymnasium 75 (1968), 296Google Scholar.
58 Eranos 11 (1911), 245Google Scholar.
59 Other conjectures include dispectus (Ritter), suspeetus (Peiper), etc. (see Herrmann app. crit.).
60 Not ‘mais ce glaive que tu méprises les fera ratifier!’ Herrmann.
61 For the usage see Kühn. –Steg. i. 766ff., Hofm.–Sz. 393. TheTLL gives no example of the noun despectus = contemptio (or -us) in poetry before , Claud.Eutrop. i. 138Google Scholar.