Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Scholiasts on Aristophanes
Henry Jackson, letter to F.W. Maitland (January 27, 1904), in Henry Jackson, O.M. Vice-Master of Trinity College & Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. A Memoir by R. St John Parry (1926; rpt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 129:
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I had thought that the scholiasts on Aristophanes would have interesting things to say, if one did but read them seriously. Lo and behold, they are no better than the barn-door commentator of this twentieth century. They write down obvious statements derived from reading the text, and very seldom have a scrap of tradition to add. Now and then they are palpably wrong. About real difficulties they know no more than we do, and I trust that most of us have rather more judgment.Henry Jackson, letter to D'Arcy Thompson (September 27, 1904), op. cit., p. 53:
I am sorry to say that the scholiasts on Aristophanes appear to me to be incompetent asses.
