Gibert, 'Euripides: Hippolytus', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-gibert-euripides
@@@@95.9.25, Stocker, Euripides: Hippolytus
Walter Stockert, Euripides: Hippolytus. Stuttgart and
Leipzig: Teubner, 1994. Pp. xxxviii, 118. ISBN 3-8154-1330-3.
Reviewed by John Gibert -- University of Colorado
gibert@ucsu.colorado.edu
Walter Stockert recently earned the gratitude of Euripidean
scholars with a text of Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis
accompanied by a full introduction and a large and useful
commentary (Wiener Studien Beiheft 16.1-2, Vienna, 1992).
In a review of that work one would have a great deal to say about
the editor's discoveries, judgment, and selection and
presentation of material. The work under review here is a
critical edition of Hippolytus for the Teubner series of
individual plays by Euripides. It is a fine production, but it
would seem that the main reason for a new critical edition of
Hippolytus is the desire to have the play represented in
the series. As Stockert knows very well, W. S. Barrett's
investigation of the mss. of this play laid such a solid
foundation for the text that even J. Diggle could add, as he
says, almost nothing new in this regard. Diggle did collate five
late mss.; he cheerfully admitted that they merely vindicated
Barrett's judgment by contributing virtually nothing to the text.
There is no other work by Diggle devoted exclusively to
Hipp., either in Studies on the Text of Euripides
or in Euripidea. Nor, I think, would Stockert claim that
the textual problems left unsolved by Barrett and Diggle, or
admitting a better solution than they proposed, are particularly
numerous or urgent; at any rate his text differs from theirs in a
fairly small number of places, and he is slightly more inclined
than they to indicate corruption rather than print a solution.
Some may consult this edition chiefly for its collection of
testimonia and up-to-date bibliography, though the latter, unlike
some in the series, is practically limited to textual
discussions. Still, Stockert has made a distinct contribution to
the study of the text. His thoughts and justifications are set
out more fully in a companion article (Prometheus 20,
1994, 211-33).
Stockert follows Barrett for his brief outline of the mss. and
their relationships. We learn that he has corrected some
readings here and there. One of these (at 40) supports him in a
choice that enters the text; the others entail only minor changes
in the apparatus. I turn now to the text itself. According to
D. J. Mastronarde in his review of volume I of Diggle's
OCT Euripides, Diggle's text of Hipp. differs from
Murray's (the OCT predecessor) in over 140 places; well
over one hundred of these differences were anticipated by
Barrett. Mastronarde also mentions that several choices were
strongly advocated by Barrett but rejected by Diggle (CP
83, 1988, 151-60, at 154). It looks as if Stockert's degree of
independence from Diggle, against whose text I collated his,
pretty nearly resembles Diggle's from Barrett. I count 26 places
in which Stockert differs from Diggle. I omit colometry (2 small
differences), the choice of an accent for KLUEIN (8 differences),
and punctuation (significant only at 1013), and I assume that the
accent on YEUDESI in Diggle's text at 1288 is a typographical
error. Of the 26, 5 are shared with Murray but not Barrett, 3
with Barrett but not Murray. (This of course is no measure of
the influence of Barrett, since he influenced Diggle so greatly.)
It will be apparent to those not previously aware of the
health of the text of Hipp. that modern scholarship has
here achieved a rare degree of consensus. This was not
inevitable. Cases in which variants are attested as ancient, or
have a good chance of being so, are plentiful. Only a few of
Stockert's divergences from Diggle result from the choice between
such variants (at 116, 712, 1041, 1266-7). Where editors have
not reached consensus, the range of solutions to problems is by
now pretty familiar. For this play and within this range, I
think Stockert may fairly be called conservative. Unless I
missed something, he never accepts a solution where Diggle sets a
crux; on the other hand, he resorts to daggers 9 times where
Diggle accepts a solution. Perhaps "conservative" also describes
the two occasions on which he unconventionally employs
obeli in the text though his comment in the apparatus is
merely "susp." (953, 1007). On the other hand, Stockert does
delete a few more lines than Diggle (5, on 3 occasions; see
below); he does not retain any lines deleted by Diggle.
Stockert is not an editor who rashly catapults himself into
the text. Indeed, he does not appear there once, unless I
overlooked it. Instead, he divides his appearances between the
regular apparatus and a 7-page appendix consisting of
coniecturae quaedam minus probabiles. In fact he carries
modesty so far that he does not even record in this appendix two
substitutes for LO/GOU at 671 that he ventures in his
Prometheus article (223 n. 94), even though he lists 8
guesses by other scholars!
Before turning to a selection of individual problems, I note a
few other curiosities relating to this appendix. Wilamowitz
turns up there often, but he finds his way into the "respectable"
apparatus an impressive number of times as well. The name
Diggle, however, is found only in the apparatus, never in the
appendix; his solutions are not improbable. Under 867 Stockert
reports that Barrett considers E)PEISFREI\S possible; I cannot
verify this. Finally, what is the remark fort. recte
(under 758, again attached to a suggestion of Barrett's) doing in
an appendix of coniecturae minus probabiles?! As this
example illustrates, the trick is to achieve a rational division
between such an appendix and apparatus. For example, at line 649
Stockert's apparatus offers 3 conjectures, but Willink's defence
of the paradosis is deemed improbable and relegated to the
appendix. Since it is comparatively recent (1968), one might
fairly look for it alongside the conjectures. In general,
however, there is no cause for complaint in the presentation,
which is always clear and intelligent. The only typographical
errors I found were in the apparatus at 761, where
Prometheus confirms that Stockert intended "potius
A)KTA=S" (genitive, perispomenon), and in the text at 766 (where
there should be no iota subscript under the last letter of
KATEKLA/SQH).
The most notorious editorial problem in Hipp. concerns
the choral ode at 1102ff., where the singers (who are supposed to
be Trozenian women) use two (possibly three) nominative singular
masculine participles in first-person utterances. Since these
participles occur in the strophes, while two feminine participles
surface in the antistrophes, Verrall divided the ode accordingly
between a secondary chorus of men, "friends of Hippolytus" (their
status remains a matter of contention), and the chorus of women.
The chorus of scholars remains divided. For example, Murray and
Maas, joined by Fitton, Dimock, Bond, and Diggle, followed
Verrall. Barrett rejected the idea and printed the paradosis,
but at the same time he cautiously suggested in his commentary
that the anomaly could be removed by altering a pronoun (TIN' to
TIS in 1105) and the person of a verb (LEI/POMAI to LEI/PETAI in
1106). This solution was accepted by Willink and Sommerstein,
joined now by Stockert. It seems that Sommerstein, who wrote on
the problem in BICS 35, 1988, 35-9, has contributed the
most to Stockert's decision. (For what it is worth, I agree with
it.)
In general, Sommerstein's article is the single recent work to
which Stockert owes most. He gives careful consideration to
Sommerstein's arguments and suggestions concerning 649, 671, 798,
1013-5, 1046, 1123, and 1459. He also records a number of
suggestions made per litteras by H. Friis Johansen, and in
one place he acknowledges, though he does not put in the text, a
conjecture by Diggle not in Diggle's edition (1133, accusative
for genitive after A)MFI/ in its local sense). He also treats
with great respect two suggestions made by his Vienna teacher and
colleague W. Kraus in WS 101, 1988, 41-6. At 821 Stockert
follows Kraus, who follows early editors in reading KATAKONA/ and
BI/OS, both nominative. Both are found as variants, but not
together until Triclinius' correction (or conjecture) in L. The
idea is that A)BI/OTOS BI/OS, familiar as a "proverb" though not
necessarily derived from here, is appended as a nominal sentence.
The English editors all read BI/OU and construe A)BI/OTOS with
KATAKONA/. Stockert also weighs but finally rejects Kraus'
deletion of 1167-8. I confess that I see no merit in the latter
suggestion of Kraus', little in the former.
As noted, Stockert agrees with Diggle on deletions (and Diggle
agrees with Barrett, except on 691, which Barrett deletes and
Diggle retains)--with three exceptions, in all of which Stockert
deletes. They are (1) 172, deleted by Murray, moved by
Wilamowitz and Barrett between 180 and 181, and retained in its
transmitted place by Diggle; (2) 513-5, deleted by Nauck,
retained by all three English editors. At issue are the
appropriateness of a reference to magic, the question whether
these lines refer unambiguously to an aphrodisiac, and the
related question whether Phaedra could misunderstand the Nurse's
intentions if she heard the lines; and (3) 1046, deleted by
Wheeler (apparently followed by Sommerstein). If I am to express
my own opinions, I say nil mutandum in all three cases.
On the other hand, Stockert resists many deletions proposed or
supported recently: e.g. by West at 356-7 (355-7 del. Wheeler),
by Willink at 409-12 (406-12 del. Barthold) and 1047-50 (1049-50
del. Nauck, 1049 iam Bergk), by Kovacs at 664-8 or Friis Johansen
at 667-8 (664-8 in susp. voc. Valckenaer), and by Fitton at
1314-26 (!).
A few other passages worthy of comment. At 101 Stockert
adopts the reading of the Sorbonne papyrus PE/LAS (KU/PRIS vel
KU/PRIN codd.). The reading was defended, rightly I think, by R.
Merkelbach in the inaugural issue of ZPE (1967, not 1962
as in Stockert's bibliography). At 758 Diggle accepted Willink's
OI( without comment; Stockert comments in his apparatus vix
recte. This, for him, is extraordinary vehemence. For
example, Fitton's wholesale deletion of 13 lines, just mentioned,
also rates a vix recte. From this the reader may gauge
the average temperature of the whole. On 952-3 (locus
vexatus) Stockert seems to ignore Barrett when he writes,
"Das Verkaufte [misleading translation if Barrett is right] steht
neben KAPHLEU/EIN in der Regel im Akkusativ" (art. cit.
226-7). On the other hand, his supposition that SI/TOIS is a
gloss on DI' A)YU/XOU BORA=S is not unlikely. His BI/ON is
serviceable, but H. Schwabl's A)/GOS vel A)/GH should not have
made the apparatus. (In a strange twist, while politely refuting
it in his Prometheus article (227), Stockert offers
unconvincing support for this same conjecture in a sense opposite
to that intended by Schwabl.) At 1007 Stockert is unconvinced by
Murray's solution, adopted by both Barrett and Diggle; I suspect
that he is right. He sets the daggers. He reaches for them
again at 1453, where he cannot convince himself (with C. Segal
and Diggle) that the sequence of verses 1452-5 is healthy, nor
(with Wilamowitz and Barrett) that the sickness is cured by
transposing 1453 and 1455. Daggers again at 1123 and 1459, where
Diggle accepted A)FAI/AS, proposed independently by Fitton and
Huxley, and other editors made do with the paradosis or a slight
alteration. On the other hand, at 103-8 Stockert agrees with the
majority of editors (but not Barrett, or Mastronarde, loc.
cit.) that transposition is necessary.
I close with a puzzler. Plutarch twice transmits 218-9 in the
order 219-8, implied also by a citation in the Timarion
attributed to Lucian. To be possible in Euripides, this order
requires a change in punctuation and in the form of a participle.
In this situation, with the date of the variant unclear, one
proceeds to arguments on the merits. But a parody in
Aristophanes' lost Anagyros (fr. 53 K-A, date unknown)
implies the same order as the secondary tradition; at any rate
Stockert writes that it "seems to." He calls this a
transposition, "die moeglicherweise auf eine sehr fruehe
Ueberlieferungsphase zurueckgeht" (art. cit. 216). Very
early indeed! If one believes that an Aristophanic parody
attests a reading, how can one conclude that it is a variant and
not the truth? (In this case the order universally transmitted
by the mss. would be an error, hardly a conclusion to make
editors tremble.) I suppose the answer is that one doesn't
believe strongly enough that the parody attests the
reading; i.e., one doesn't believe it at all.[[1]]
NOTE
[[1]] I wish to thank Michael Halleran for helpful comments on