Wednesday, January 18, 2012

 

The New Loeb Plautus, Volume I

I just finished reading Plautus, Amphitryon. The Comedy of Asses. The Pot of Gold. The Two Bacchises. The Captives. Edited and Translated by Wolfgang de Melo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library's replacement of Paul Nixon's edition. The new text, translation, introductions, and notes are all excellent, but I did note a few misprints, errors, and inconsistencies.



Misprints in the translation:

Asinaria 216 (p. 165): for "When a fowler prepares a clearing, hejup spreads food there" read "When a fowler prepares a clearing, he spreads food there".

Asinaria 893 (p. 239): for "Yes, much sweater breath than that of my wife" read "Yes, much sweeter breath than that of my wife".

Bacchides 588 (p. 427): for "BACCHIS" read "Bacchis".

Captivi 513-515 (p. 559): "Now follow me (514-15) so you get what you asked for and meet the man" — elsewhere line numbers appear in the margin, not in parentheses, and so "514-15" should appear in the right-hand margin here.

Usually de Melo does not translate edepol, ecastor, hercle and similar words, apparently a matter of choice.



Errors or infelicities in the critical apparatus:

Amphitruo 418 (p. 50): for "418 est datum P, transp. Lindsay" read "418 datum est P, transp. Lindsay".

Amphitruo 726 (p. 82): "726 misero del. Pylades" should perhaps appear on p. 84, where the corresponding text for the end of line 726 is printed. Similarly some of the apparatus for the end of Aulularia 660 should perhaps appear on p. 330, not p. 329, to avoid turning the page.

Asinaria 552 (p. 200): for "552 uersum sed. Bothe" read "552 uersum secl. Bothe" (cf. e.g. critical apparatus for Aulularia 515 on p. 312: "515 uersum secl. Francken").



Finally, a trivial matter. Some editors mark only insertions and deletions of entire words (not of syllables and letters) in a text. But in de Melo's text, there are inconsistencies in how insertions and deletions of syllables and letters are indicated. For example, at Amphitruo 151 (p. 24), de Melo prints "<in>spectantibus", adopting his own supplement for the transmitted text ("spectantibus"). Yet at Amphitruo 998 (p. 112), de Melo prints "inspectantibus" (adopting Pylades' insertion of "in") — here, to be consistent, "<in>spectantibus" should also appear in the text. I see insertion and deletion of letters or syllables marked elsewhere, e.g. at Amphitruo 985 "au<i>dax" (p. 110, Skutsch's insertion), at Captivi 704 "uot[a]uisti" (p. 578, Pareus' deletion), at Captivi 856 "<tu>te" (p. 594, Bentley's insertion), etc. If one were to be consistent in this matter, the following insertions and deletions of syllables and letters would also be marked in the Latin text:

Amphitruo 797 (p. 92): ha<n>c (Spengel's insertion)

Asinaria 348 (p. 178): se[se] (Acidalius' deletion)

Aulularia 120 (p. 270): me<d> (Guyet's insertion)

Aulularia 125 (p. 270): <n>ullam (Lindsay's insertion)

Aulularia 390 (p. 300): potes<t> (Heckmann's insertion)

Aulularia 466 (p. 308): anu[i] (Stockert's deletion)

Aulularia 671 (p. 330): illi<c> (Bothe's insertion)

Bacchides 487 (p. 414): opino[r] (Lindsay's deletion)

Bacchides 592 (p. 426): negat[o] (Acidalius' deletion)

Bacchides 893 (p. 460): Lato[na] (Ussing's deletion)

Captivi 94 (p. 516): illi[c] (Lindsay's deletion)

Captivi 665 (p. 576): seruo<lu>m (Bothe's insertion)

Captivi 1022 (p. 614): <re>cogito (Gruterus' insertion)



Thanks to Charles Collicutt for correcting a typographical error of my own in this post!

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