Hesiod and Theocritus in the Text of Papias Daly, I Loyd W Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1968; 9, 4; ProQuest pg. 457 Hesiod and Theocritus in the Text of Papias Lloyd W. Daly THE EARLIEST MA1~USCRIPTS in which Hesiod's Theogony is preserved are of the thirteenth century.1 It therefore struck me as of some possible interest that Theogony 907-11, as well as the first two lines of Works and Days, are quoted in Greek in the first edition (Milan 1476) and in subsequent editions (e.g. Venice 1496) of the Elementarium Doctrinae Erudimentum of Papias, a work which was completed in or shortly after the year 1053. It would, indeed, be noteworthy if one could point to evidence of the existence in Lombardy in the middle of the eleventh century of a manuscript of Hesiod and to evidence that someone at this time and place could not only copy out several lines of Greek verse but could also translate these lines into Latin hexameters. That is precisely what one would apparently be able to do on the basis of the incunabula just mentioned. More than that, there are also quotations from Theocritus 1.55 and 4.1 to be found in this text ofPapias. That this interesting fact has not caught the attention of editors of Hesiod and Theocritus is probably to be explained by the fact that Papias' work has attracted very little attention since the Renaissance and does not exist in a modern edition. From the XV-century edition of Papias it is evident that there was a good deal of Greek in Papias' lexicon, but aside from these four quotations from Hesiod and Theocritus it is all in the form of glosses and has suffered a good deal in transmission. In fact, blank spaces are often left for Greek glosses where they were presumably undecipherable in the manuscript which was used as a basis for the 1476 edition. The fact that the quotations had survived the transmis­ sion in reasonably intelligible form while single word glosses had dis­ appeared seemed anomalous. In an 1856 Breslau program under the title De medii aevi studiis philo­ logicis disputatio, H. A. F. Haase made the statement that Papias was graecae linguae imperitus (p.32) and added in a footnote, nam quod in 1 Cf. most recently M. L. West ed., Hesiod, Theogony (Oxford 1966) p.52. 457 458 HESIOD AND THEOCRITUS IN THE TEXT OF P APIAS Papiae ed. Veneta a. 1485 v. Charites Hesiodi versus graece additi sunt, videtur editori aut doctiori librario deberi. He offers no evidence for this statement and takes no cognizance of the other quotations. To test the truth of Haase's statement I have examined a consider­ able number of manuscripts of Papias ranging from the XII to the XV century.2 The statement is true as to the absence of the quotations, for there is no sign of them in any of the manuscripts I examined. His statement is also true, as far as it goes, as to the source of the quota­ tions, but it is possible to be much more explicit. The Milan edition was printed by Domenico de Vespolate, as appears from the colophon, which is dated Anno domini Mcccclxxvi die xii mensis Decembris. On folio 3V , however, there is a verse address to the reader by Bonino Mombrizio (Boninus Mombritius), who is dearly the editor. Mombrizio studied at Ferrara and taught at Milan.s For present purposes the most signif­ icant fact is that in 1474 at Ferrara he published a translation of the Theogony in Latin hexameters. For purposes of comparison I reprint here the pertinent passage as it appears in the 1476 edition ofPapias, reproducing the original accents and punctuation: Charites dicuntur gratiae tres unius nominis ut alii putant· credendum tamen magis est hesiodo qui illas in theogonia nominat in haec verba ~" , \\' TptS O€ Of, €VPVVOJLV KCXPtTCi,s T€K€ KCXlV\t7TCXPTJOVS ." \ I "~ WK€CXVOV KOVpTJ 7TOI\VTJPCXTOV €WoS €XOvacx \ " '..I. 1 \ e __ \ I \ CX'YI\CXLTJV KCXL €v-ppoavVTJv aJ\LTJV T€pCXT€WaW " \ , Q\..I. \ Q ~ \., \ TWV KCXt CX7TO 1-'1\€-pCXPWV €POS €tl-'€TCX£ O€PKOJL€VCXWV AVatJL€ATJS KaAoV 8TJ7Toc/>pval 8CXKPVOVVTCXt Latine sic verti ipsi versus possunt Trisque Iovi charitas praestanti corpore nata Oceano tulit Eurynome' si nomina quaeris Aglaie prima Euphrosyne Thalieque sequuntur' Ex oculis pulchrum aspiciunt' intentius harum Sydereis irrorat amor lascivus ocellis. 2 Paris Lat. 9341, 11531, 17162; British Museum Harley 4804, Add. 14806, 14807; Vatican Lat. 1461-1467 and Urb. Lat. 304. S Cf Enciclopedia Italiana and the testimonia on Mombrizio collected in the edition of his Sanctuarium, vol. I (Paris 1910) pp. xiii-xxix. LLOYD W. DALY In Mombrizio's translation the verses appear as follows:" Tresque Iovi Charitas praestanti corpore, nata Oceano tulit Eurynome: si nomina quaeris, Aglaie prior, Euphrosyne, Thalieque sequuntur Ex oculis pulchrum aspiciunt, iucundus ab harum Sidereis irrorat amor de more pupillis. 459 Despite minor differences in the translations it seems to me that they are the same. After his completion of the translation Mombrizio will apparently have begun work on the edition ofPapias and been unable to resist the temptation to add some gems of his own, making some improvements in the translation of the quoted passage in the process. The original entry read simply Carite dicuntur gratie tres unius nominis. Thus he is correcting or supplementing Papias. The other passages, which have no similar history, are the following: Hymnus carmen in laude dei Vf.LVW hymno est laudo unde hesiodus librum cui €pya Kat TJf.L€pat ita coepit f.Lovaat 7Tt€ptTJT€V aOto-ryat KA€LOVaat O€VT€ ot EtE7TE" TE acpETEPOV 7TaTEp V/LVELOvaaL.5 Acantilis secundum aliquos sed melius est acanthis avis est vepribus et carduis paso assueta dicta a7TO TOV aKavBov quod grece est spina de qua Theocritus in primo Idylio sic habet Ctf.L4>{ O€7TCtS; 7T€p{ 7T€7TTCtTCt{ vypos; aKaNJos;6 Battus gemma proprium pastoris cuius meminit Theocritus in quinto Idylio 17TE /Lot ~ KOpVOWV7 Thus it would appear that Mombrizio was responsible for the Hesiod and Theocritus quotations in the text of Papias. The ghost of Greek manuscripts in twelfth century Lombardy and of a Papias who could read Greek poetry is laid to rest. But some small vestige of in­ terest still attaches to the passages from the point of view of the textual critic of Hesiod and Theocritus. Although Mombrizio's translation of the Theogony was printed in 4 I quote them from J. Birchmann's edition of Hesiod (Basel 1542) p.308. :; This entry appears only in the XV-century Mss where, with minor variations, it reads: Hymnus greee laus dei interpretatur eomponitur ergo et eantatur in laude dei. 6 In the manuscripts: Achalantia avis vepribus assueta. dicta ab aehalantis greee id est spinis. 7 There is no such entry in any of the manuscripts I have seen. 460 HESIOD AND THEOCRITUS IN THE TEXT OF P APIAS 1474, the first edition of the Theogony in Greek did not appear until 1495. As M. L. West says in his edition of the Theogony (p.61), from Mombrizio's translation: "It is often possible to see what was written in the manuscript he used, especially in the use of proper names; and it is clear that it was a representative of u." Here, then, we have not only his translation for these lines but also his Greek text. The editio princeps of Theocritus is that of Milan, ca. 1480, and it is possible that Mombrizio was quoting from that edition. On the other hand, the orthography suggests that he was rather drawing his quotations from a manuscript. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA July, 1968