1. ALLEGORY IN CALLIMACHUS’ IAMBI (5.23–9)

This fragment has already been discussed in a recent essay after discovering that it is attested (in a much fuller form than in the known manuscripts of Ps.-Trypho and Choeroboscus) in the margins of MS Par. gr. 2558 (y).Footnote ⁸ While we refer to that article for the discussion of the readings offered by the Parisinus, we emphasize here only a few textual aspects.

The contribution made by Z to the text of Ps.-Trypho is clear (lines 1, 3, 12, 13: the manuscript also admirably confirms conjectures by Walz and West). As for Callimachus’ fragment, the improvements on the text of α, mostly in accordance with the second-century papyrus P.S.I. 1216, are manifold and conspicuous (for example the very existence of lines 7 and 9–11 = Callim. 25 and 17–29; the readings in line 8 = Callim. 26). Aside from orthographical issues (line 5 = Callim. 23 ἄχρις οὗ; line 7 = Callim. 25 καὶ ἐπὶ without the crasis—but Ps.-Trypho must have had κἠπί, see y's κἤπιος) and one word-order blunder (line 5 πρόσω πολλῇ), Z has faulty readings in line 5 = Callim. 23 δ᾽ ἔκαυσας, line 7 = Callim. 25 ἔτι ἀτρέμοι, and line 11 = Callim. 29 κυβιστηθείς (the former two metrically untenable). The issue of line 7 = Callim. 25 οἴκοι is more delicate, as the papyrus traces are uncertain, and the commonly accepted οἰχνεῖ has been restored by Norsa and Vitelli from ο̣ἰ̣[ ̣]ν̣εῖ in the papyrus, while Par. gr. 2558 has εἰ[.]ὴ (corrected from οἰ[ ̣]ὴ): Parsons's conjecture οἰκεῖ, though slightly problematic syntactically, should be carefully considered.

More importantly, the existence of Z now confirms that—as surmised in the aforementioned paper—the quotation in MS y does indeed derive from a lost manuscript witness carrying the fuller version of Ps.-Trypho's treatise on tropes.

2. TRANSPOSITION IN ‘SIMONIDES’ (FGE 44 PAGE = 105 S SIDER)

This section on hyperbaton is of the utmost importance for the tradition of Ps.-Trypho's treatise, since the verbatim overlap with the Leidensis now confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that the fifth-century Vienna papyrus is indeed, as Paul Maas had understood, a witness of the very same treatise handed down in the medieval codices. The final part of the paragraph, carrying the exegesis of the epigram, is preserved only in the papyrus and in the Leidensis, which rules out the possibility that the scribe of the codex (or his model) could have restored it by way of conjecture.

As for the wording of the lines of ‘Simonides’, MS Z now yields the actual quotation from the epigram, not only its paraphrase in ‘regular’ Greek prose (after τὸ γὰρ ἑξῆς οὕτως ἀποδίδοται), which was the only partly readable section in the Vienna papyrus. The reference to the transposition of the τελευταία συλλαβή proves that the hyperbaton here at stake did involve syllables, and that HeadlamFootnote ⁹ was therefore on the right path in assuming that the key feature of the first line, however normalized in the manuscript transmission, was the splitting of ἀνέθη–κεν; accordingly, we assume, the second transposition must concern the splitting of Δήμη–τρος.

This is at least how Ps.-Trypho appears to present matters. Some may assume (with Page) a deeper corruption,Footnote ¹⁰ and others may even believe that these lines were made up ad hoc by some grammarian.Footnote ¹¹ However, we believe that the authenticity of such an unusual wordplay (where tmesis occurs both times at the caesura and projects the last syllable at line-end, with a subtle game of symmetry) should be seriously considered: ‘Simonidean’ virtuoso pieces are attested (see, for example, FGE 684–5 = CEG 430 with the notorious enjambement Ἀριστο- | γείτων), and precise parallels for similar mots fragmentés, though absent from the corpus of extant Greek lyric, can be found in archaic Latin poetry.Footnote ¹² While the corpus of ‘Simonidean’ epigrams offers a limited number of votive pieces,Footnote ¹³ and while the link between Hermes and Demeter (or Demeter's shrine) is unclear (a pun can easily be imagined with the donor's name), one may assume that the wit in the distich could lie precisely in the bold transposition of syllables (a hyperbaton not imposed on the poet by metrical constrictions with the proper names involved). Thus the final exhortation to ‘stay still and learn’ apparently proceeds from a careful study of the conventions of Greek sepulchral epigrams, urging the passer-by to avoid superficiality, and to pause and pay attention to the stylistic peculiarity for which this epigram stands out, if he wants to learn the names of the donor and the goddess.

3. MOCK-MODESTY IN CALLIMACHUS’ IAMBI (4.90–2)

The manuscript tradition is here clear and easy to analyse: the example from Callimachus’ Iambi has simply been omitted in all witnesses except the Leidensis Z and a second manuscript, an Olomucensis that, like the Leidensis, has not yet been collated and that we shall call U, which otherwise largely agrees with the rest of the tradition (α, see above §0).Footnote ¹⁴ In the parallel section on asteismos of the other treatise Περὶ Τρόπων ascribed to Trypho (‘Trypho I’, page 206.16 Sp.),Footnote ¹⁵ we do find a reference to a Callimachean line (fr. 93b Schneider = Iamb. 4, fr. 194.13 Pf. †ἐγὼ φαύλη πάντων τῶν δένδρων εἰμί†), which despite its evidently corrupt form has been inserted by Pfeiffer (followed by all subsequent editors) in the large lacuna after line 12 of the fourth Iambus.

Callimachus’ fourth Iambus revolves around the controversy between an olive and a laurel.Footnote ¹⁶ The first of the three lines quoted in MSS ZU most probably represents a more correct form of the same line as quoted in the Περὶ Τρόπων ascribed to ‘Trypho I’ (†ἐγὼ φαύλη πάντων τῶν δένδρων εἰμί†, which we think must be a paraphrase of the original verse): despite the absence of any reference to ‘all the trees’ in the line of ZU, and despite the seemingly ‘poetic’ use of the positive φαύλη used for the superlative φαυλοτάτη, it is unlikely that the olive should resort to such an asteismos twice in the same iambus, in virtually the same terms;Footnote ¹⁷ indeed, one of the witnesses of Trypho I's treatise, the important MS Marc. gr. 512,Footnote ¹⁸ carries this quotation as ἐγὼ δὲ φαύλη τέ εἰμι, which is precisely the incipit of the line as it features in Trypho II's fuller version.Footnote ¹⁹ The new find thus suggests that what is quoted by Ps.-Trypho (both I and II) as an outstanding example of mock-modesty is not a claim made by the olive in its opening speech, of which so little is extant,Footnote ²⁰ but rather the concluding outburst of the long tirade (lines 46–92) by which the olive rebuts the laurel's arrogant speech (lines 18–43).

This state of affairs is supported by manuscript evidence from across the centuries. Lines 90–2 of fr. 194 appear in current editions in the following form:

But M.G. Sandri's new inspection of P.Oxy. 1011 has shown that these lines actually read:Footnote ²¹

This is fully compatible with the lines as quoted by the Leidensis and the Olomucensis, apart from the trivial oscillation between οὔτ᾽ and οὐδ᾽ in line 91. Indeed, as Pfeiffer had seen, these lines represent an echo of the boastful claims of the laurel about her omnipresence in cult and ritual, in lines 24–5 (τίς δ᾽ οἶκος οὗπερ οὐκ ἐγὼ παρὰ φλιῇ; | τίς δ᾽οὔ με μάντις ἢ τίς οὐ θύτης ἕλκει;).Footnote ²² In her long reply, the olive introduces the dialogue between two crows (lines 64–80), who take on the task of comparing the respective merits of both competing trees.

It has been argued by some scholarsFootnote ²³ that lines 90–2, which conclude the olive's speech (line 93 begins ὣς εἶπε), are not spoken by the olive but belong to the dialogue between the crows:Footnote ²⁴ this is now disproved by the new evidence, which indicates that the olive's speech ended on a note of ironical self-deprecation or mock-modesty. It is unlikely that the olive resumed her speech immediately after line 80Footnote ²⁵ or (as Fraser argued) after line 84,Footnote ²⁶ since line 87 καλλίνικος ἡλαίη must still be pronounced by the crows. The fragmentary nature of lines 83–9 prevents us from drawing a firm conclusion on this point,Footnote ²⁷ but it is likely that lines 88–9 contained the first part of the reasoning picked up in line 90 ἐγὼ δέ—perhaps an exhortation to the crows to honour or praise other trees (the pear-tree, line 88 τὴν ὄγχνην, or a better tree, line 89 ] ̣τέρην τιν᾽) as opposed to the olive's own modesty.

There are at least two interesting features in the lines thus recovered: first, the verb κερτομέω (nowhere else in Callimachus), which inscribes the complex relationship between the olive and the crows in the frame of a sophisticated literary game.Footnote ²⁸ Second, the repetition of the adjective φαύλη: first (line 90) in a sort of parodic echo of the laurel's proud statements at line-beginning in line 37 ἱρὴ γάρ εἰμι and line 39 ἁγνὴ γάρ εἰμι;Footnote ²⁹ then (line 92) as the concluding word of the entire speech. It may be argued that this anaphora matches that of δάφνη in the laurel's arrogant words at lines 26–7;Footnote ³⁰ but, more importantly, the place of honour thus attributed to the adjective strengthens Lelli's claim that it represents here an allusion to the particular kind of olive known as φαυλία, while also carrying a stylistic and aesthetic overtone, with reference to the Aristotelian terminology (Poet. 1448a with the opposition between the φαῦλοι and the σπουδαῖοι).Footnote ³¹ If the parallel between this iambus and the conversation between lady Elegy and lady Tragedy in Ov. Am. 3.1 holds true,Footnote ³² then Ovid's incipit in line 41 (sum leuis, et mecum leuis est, mea cura, Cupido), where Elegy speaks with a similar attitude of understatement and apparent self-depreciation (only to rebound later),Footnote ³³ might well be reminiscent of ἐγὼ δὲ φαύλη τ᾽ εἰμί, with a characteristic shift from the ‘humble’ to the ‘tenuous’, from the φαῦλον to the λεπτόν.

4. RIDDLE IN ‘HESIOD’’S WEDDING OF KEYX (FR. 266A.8–11 M.–W. = 204A.8–11 MOST)

The Wedding of Keyx is one of the ‘minor’ works attached to Hesiod's name, of which just a handful of fragments remain: its very nature—an autonomous poem or a section of the Catalogue of Women?—has been hotly debated, with the former hypothesis being now more widely accepted.Footnote ³⁴ It probably narrated Heracles’ disembarcation from the Argo at Aphetae on the Pagasaean Gulf and then his unexpected participation in the wedding ceremony of Keyx and Aeolus’ daughter Alcyone at Trachis. In particular, fr. 37 of the second-century P.Oxy. 2495 (fr. 266a M.–W.) has been considered by scholars a witness of this work, because it displays a hexameter-end τρίποδάς τε τραπέζας (the last word is written above the line, just above the original mistaken καθέδρας), which seems to match what Athenaeus says (Deipn. 2.49a; see also Poll. Onom. 6.83 = fr. 266b M.–W.) about the use of the word ‘tripod’ for ‘table’ in the Hesiodic Wedding of Keyx.

Now, lines 8–11 of the same papyrus fragment, though badly flaked, yield a narrative segment that has been convincingly supplemented through the quotation from Hesiod attested in Ps.-Trypho's On Tropes. The Leidensis (Z) now comes to heal the remaining gaps in both Ps.-Trypho's known text and the papyrus, particularly with respect to two points: in line 9 (our line 4), where it guarantees οἴνουFootnote ³⁵ (which no scholar had conjectured from the manuscripts’ οἷον οὐ—the papyrus is lacunose here) and ἐπὶ στόμα χερσίν (all scholars had accepted Lobel's παισίν, and supplemented accordingly);Footnote ³⁶ and in the entire line 10 (our line 5), which had already been brilliantly restored by West (and partly by Finckh) on the basis of Ps.-Trypho's subsequent prose paraphrase. West had understood that the corruption in Ps.-Trypho's text depended on a saut du même au même from one ἀζαλέην (that of the text) to the other (that of the subsequent prose explanation). It is possible that this very mistake prompted the insertion of Hes. Op. 744, which is not in the Leidensis and was probably added in the archetype of one of the two branches of the α-group in order to compensate for the deficiency of the poetic quotation.Footnote ³⁷

However, lacking a wider context for Ps.-Trypho's quotation, West elaborated a totally different explanation for the riddle, assuming:

• – that περὶ τοῦ κύλικος in Ps.-Trypho's introduction is corrupt (or else refers exclusively to Hes. Op. 744): hence the conjectures περὶ τοῦ ἀκύλου (Merkelbach) and παρὰ τοῦ Κήυκος (West himself);

• – that the ‘mother's mother’ is the acorn (mother of the oak), and that the solution of the riddle is the Pelasgians (the children of the oaks, according to Stat. Theb. 4.275–81 and other sources), who ‘gathered acorns to die dried and roasted by (for, with) her children’;

• – that this riddle was proposed by Heracles at the wedding banquet, in the frame of a sympotic contest.Footnote ³⁸

The explanation now available in the Leidensis tells however a different (and more simple) story: it makes clear that the ‘mother of wine's mother’ is indeed—in an ingenious pun—the wine-cup made of clay, that is, of cooked earth, earth being the mother of the vineyard (an idea too obvious to require any parallel), and the vineyard being in its turn the mother of wine.Footnote ³⁹ Along this train of thought, the σφέτερα τέκεα are the wood logs (ξύλα) used for lighting up the fire, which are themselves offspring of the earth (possessive σφέτερα refers to the earth, as the dative is an agent or instrument to the adjectives ἀζαλέην καὶ ὀπταλέην),Footnote ⁴⁰ but have died upon being chopped away from the trees.Footnote ⁴¹ In his Table Talks (730E–F) Plutarch tells us that in the Marriage of Keyx (which he regards as interpolated into Hesiod's corpus by some later poet) there is a riddle alluding to the fact that the fire eats ‘the wood from which it was lit, which was its father and mother’ (fr. 267 M.–W.):Footnote ⁴² it is hard to imagine that this quotation had nothing to do with the lost poetic context of our fragment,Footnote ⁴³ but specifically what remains of these lines presents the wood rather as an offspring of the earth than as a parent of fire.Footnote ⁴⁴

Ps.-Trypho's interpretation of the Hesiodic ainigma may be wrong, but we believe that it is methodically wiser to start by taking it seriously. We therefore consider it likely that the narrative inaugurated by these lines (αὐτὰρ ἐπεί) did not belong to Heracles’ intervention (a rather complicated insertion of a narrative-within-a-narrative) but rather to (Ps.-)Hesiod's own voice,Footnote ⁴⁵ and that the banquet here described is indeed that of Keyx's wedding feast, whose participants simply started drinking wine once they had finished eating.Footnote ⁴⁶ It is true that there are a number of cases in which riddles are used at agōnes during symposia, but there is no evidence in sources that this should happen in our case; quite the contrary, the references in Plutarch, Athenaeus and Ps.-Trypho, taken at face value, support the idea that the δαίς here implied is precisely that of Keyx. Furthermore, the description of a wine-cup by way of a complex periphrasis is perfectly in keeping with the riddles and kenningar known from Hesiod's poems, such as φερέοικος for ‘snail’ (Op. 571) or the famous periphrastic description of the octopus’ wintry habits ὅτ᾽ ἀνόστεος ὃν πόδα τένδει | ἔν τ᾽ ἀπύρῳ οἴκῳ καὶ ἤθεσι λευγαλέοισιν (Op. 524–5):Footnote ⁴⁷ this has little bearing on the issue of authenticity (indeed, it might be a good example of how some characters of Hesiod's poetry are picked up and developed in later stages of the epic tradition), but might help better frame a certain use of ainigmata in the context of narrative and sapiential poetry.Footnote ⁴⁸

We leave to other scholars any further speculation on the consequences of this new find on the structure of the Wedding of Keyx, starting from the problematic presence at the end of line 11 (in P.Oxy. 2495) of the words νιφετ]όν τε καὶ ὄμβρον (suppl. West)—they could indeed refer to the people comfortably sitting around a fireplace while the weather outside is wintry.Footnote ⁴⁹