Saturday, April 16, 2022
An Indispensable Skill
James Diggle, review of André Tuilier, Étude comparée du texte et des scholies d'Euripide.
Premiers compléments aux 'Recherches critiques sur la tradition du texte d'Euripide' (Paris: Klincksieck, 1972 = Études et commentaires, 77), in Gnomon 46.8 (December, 1974) 746-749 (at 747):
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Now, to work out the relationships between manuscripts is a complex task, and one which requires, in various degrees, many skills. But there is one skill whose acquisition is indispensable and whose absence renders the presence of all other skills vain: and that is a sound knowledge of Greek. For if you cannot tell a good manuscript reading from a bad one, then you have no business to be pronouncing an opinion on the relationships of the manuscripts which contain those readings.
