8, were derived from a copy or copies of F earlier than . He reaffirmed his view in the preface1 of his edition of the Metamorphoses. To this pioneer work I am deeply indebted: van der Vliet's early death was a great loss to Apuleian scholarship. The later Teubner editor, R. Helm,2 rejected these suggestions, and discarded the later MSS. altogether; and his view has been generally followed. My friend, Professor H. E. Butler, who examined all the MSS. of the Apologia and the Florida, while I was investigating those of the Metamorphoses, writes, in his edition of the Apologia: The numerous fourteenth and fifteenth century MSS. contribute nothing of real importance to the text, though, as must frequently result from the examination of Renaissance MSS., I have found that a number of corrections attributed to Renaissance and even later scholars were in reality made at an earlier date.' E. A. Lowe conveniently summarizes prevailing views in his article in C.Q. 1920 (p. 151): Of all the transcripts of F only one is of importance, and that is '; though, since one of the objects of his article is to prove that p's scribe was neither painstaking nor 'conscientious,' and since he does not attempt to prove that the later MSS. are derived from 4, the grounds of his confidence are not obvious. I should add that, in 1912, C. Marchesi, in publishing a collation of the Apologia in the MS. Laur. 54. 32 (which I call, after Butler, LI) maintained that this MS. was independent of F. arguments, however, tended to show merely that Li is not a direct copy of F: he gives nothing suggestive of real independence. All these views (except Butler's for Apologia and Florida) are based on insufficient knowledge, for the later MSS. of the Metamorphoses have never been systematically examined, though van der Vliet published important readings of a certain number, chiefly in the region of the rent. In the hope of throwing fresh light on the problem, I have obtained partial collations of all the MSS. of the Metamorphoses (thirty-eight in number), of whose existence I am aware. Twenty-seven of these 5 I have seen myself: of the remainder, five were kindly examined for me by Professor Butler, and one by the late Mr. G. L. Cheesman, who each sent me written collations of important passages for the remaining five I have obtained photographs of important pages. Considerably more than half of these contain also Apologia or Florida or both, and all these have been described by Butler in the Introduction to his Apologia. I have added a few details on those not described by him, but I have not attempted full descriptions. I adopt Butler's symbols, with a slight modification of form (L1 for L1 etc.): except that, where a library has only one MS. containing Apologia or Florida, but two or more containing Metamorphoses, I have added a 'I' to his plain letter: for instance Butler's A (Ambros. N. 180) is my A1, because I need also the symbol A2. For the Paris and Wolfenbüttel MSS. I accept van der Vliet's symbols. I have added my identifications of existing MSS. with those cited by Hildebrand: his collations (mostly second-hand) vary greatly in merit, and are sometimes worthless: for the most part they give a fair idea of the general character of a MS., but are grossly inaccurate in detail. The following is a complete list: 1 Teubner, 1897, p. xiii. But here (e.g. p. xviii) he seems inclined to treat & as the only MS. of this class. 2 Metam., 1907 and 1913; Florida (with general preface), 1910. The view that the supplementa of the rent in VIII. 7-9 are guess-work is maintained by Helm and also by Lowe, Class. Quart., 1920, p. 152. 3 Apulei Apologia, H. E. Butler and A. S. Owen, Oxford, 1914, p. xxx. • Studi ital. di filol. class. XIX., 1912, p. 294. 5 I must express deep gratitude to the authorities of the University Library, Leyden, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Eton College Library, for sending MSS. for my use to the Cambridge University Library; also to the authorities of the other libraries where I have worked, and especially to Professor Enrico Rostagno, of the Laurentian Library. I must also thank Dr. E. H. Minns for his kindness in suggesting dates (from photographs) for some of the MSS. in the following list. I have not given symbols to the extracts from the lost Codex Fuxensis 2 (once at Toulouse), made by Pithou in the margin of Colvius' 1588 edition (now Res. des Imprimés R. 1785 in the Bibl. Nat. at Paris) which I have not seen: nor to Vat. Lat. 8750, a fifteenth century paper MS., containing extracts from Met. V.: and I ignore altogether a few other late MSS. of this commonplace-book type. 1 Butler uses D for the Sandanielensis, but as that MS. does not contain Met., and the Dresdensis does not contain Apol., it seemed simplest to retain here, for the Dresdensis, the old and obvious symbol D. 2 If Hildebrand's reports of the Fuxensis are correct, it was a member of what I call below Class II. But the editio princeps, Rome 1469 (which I call a), is an important witness, and seems to be based on a lost MS. or MSS. Two other early editions which I have tested (Venice 1493 and 1498) are almost identical with a. The Second Juntine (1522) has some remarkable readings. It is based on a, but seems to have used both F and direct: it is the only early text, MS.1 or printed, known to me, that adopts F's marginal variant tricipiti in III. 19. I have only glanced at it, but it deserves a full collation, for it may conceivably draw direct upon some early copy of F now lost. Of the MSS. not described by Butler, A2 is unimportant; it contains only Met. I. and Met. II. up to digrederer c. 18. For V1, see, since Butler, F. Satzl in Sitzb. Heid. Ak. Wiss. 1915, 6. 7. Abhandlung, p. 77. V6, a beautiful illuminated MS., containing only Met., was dedicated in 1345, by the scribe Bartolomeus de bartholis of Bologna, to a nobleman whom I have identified as the famous Bruzio, natural son of Luchino, son of Matteo Visconti. The scribe informs us that the MS. was 'read by a certain intelligent scholar, Peter of Gubbio.' It is carefully written, and full of contemporary variants and notes: some of the variants are in the text: e.g. I. 25 'meo al' nrô magisterio mali debēt coh'cei al malos debeo coh'cere': some are in the margin. P, g, and G (which is very imperfect) are briefly described in van der Vliet's preface. S is written in a difficult Gothic hand: I am dependent for it on notes made for me by Professor Butler, and on the collations published by Oudendorp and Hildebrand: Hildebrand's, at least, are taken from a collation made by F. Modius in 1589. I am not sure of the source of Oudendorp's, which sometimes differs from Hildebrand's. Apart from Hildebrand and his predecessors, I know of the following published collations of the later MSS. of the Metamorphoses. (1) For the most important parts of VIII. 7-9 (the rent in F) van der Vliet published, in Mnem. 1896, pp. 210 sqq., fairly accurate collations of V2 V3 V4 V5 N1 N2 N3 A1 M1 M2 P g 8, and, in the preface to his text (1897) p. xxii, G. (2) Van der Vliet also published in his text some readings of P g G 8, and (for books I. and II. only) V2. (3) Rossbach, in N. Jahrb. f. Phil. u. Päd. 1895, pp. 571 sqq., published the readings of 8 in VIII. 7-9, and some other readings of 8. (4) Purser in Hermathena 1909 pp. 425 sqq. published a collation of O for Met. IV. 28-VI. 24, and a few readings from other books. I have not tried to collate all these MSS. fully, but I have recorded the readings of all in the region of F's rent in VIII. 7-9, and in most I have collated the first fourteen chapters of that book. I have also collated in most MSS. three other selected passages of some length, and a list of important passages from all books. Unluckily I made this list at an early stage, when I was still hunting for traces of independence of F: I should make a different list now. However, the Eton MS., the three British Museum MSS., and the editio princeps represent between them all important classes, and I have checked the most interesting passages in all these, besides collating the most valuable, B1, completely. The most hopeful field of research in the textual study of the Metamorphoses is still the renewed collation of F and 4, two tasks which I hope some day to complete. Helm's collation of F is a wonderful piece of work, for which he deserves the deepest gratitude of all students of Apuleius. But the book is so long, the Beneventan script so tiresome, and the difficulty of deciphering large parts of F so great, that the keenest eye must wander at times: and in my incomplete examination of F I have already found over a hundred passages where I disagree with Helm: in many cases he is certainly wrong. Very often I should probably have missed the true reading, had not the evidence of the later MSS. put me on my guard. Sometimes I have found that van der Vliet, Eyssenhardt (1869), and even Hildebrand's 'excerptor' (who ill deserves his employer's eulogies) were right, where Helm is wrong. As for 1 I do not, however, know the readings of all MSS. in this passage. 2 Hildebrand, Praef., p. xii: 'Fortuna satis mira accidit ut eius codicis collatio in excerptoris manus traderetur, quo nemo diligentior, nemo accuratior esse potest.' plene 4, Helm does not claim to have collated it completely: van der Vliet asserts excussi,' and he records much that Helm ignores: but he is careless here (as always), and he has missed and misreported a great deal. Some of the more important points in which I correct van der Vliet and Helm will be mentioned in the course of these articles. At the outset, I had some hope that I might find traces of a tradition independent of F, especially in connexion with the famous spurcum additamentum in Met. X. 20. This curious fragment has recently been discussed by Butler (Apologia, p. xxix). I agree with him that it can scarcely be a medieval or early Renaissance forgery. But it remains, so far as I have discovered, an isolated phenomenon. It is not in F, but has been added to 's margin by a hand which Professor Rostagno confidently assigns to the thirteenth century. A fourteenth-century hand has also added it to the margin of LI. The original scribe of L4' (dated 1422) added it to his margin, clearly not direct from 4, but from LI; and the scribe of L2, who certainly revised his completed MS. by collation with 4 in 1425, took the additamentum over, and placed it in his own margin. Late in the fifteenth century, V5 borrowed it from L4, and placed it, for the first and last time, in the text. I can only add that the same hand, which added it to 4, also added some genuine phrases dropped by p's original scribe: for instance the words uel deserendi ... antesignani dropped by lipography in Met. IV. 11 (Helm, p. 82, 16 to 18). The versions found in and in Li differ so slightly that they doubtless come from a single source, and probably that of LI is borrowed from that of p. The chief variations are expiauit 4, expurgauit L1; conatim &, concitim L1 ; ipsam &, ipsa LI. All these changes look like emendations. Professor Rostagno called my attention to a small inaccuracy in Helm's report of the version: in the last sentence, for modicum id morule read modicum i (= illud) morule. Both Li and L4 have illud L2 istud. If is ever completely collated, it is conceivable that more traces of this mysterious tradition may there be found. Besides this baffling fragment, and a short passage given by three MSS. in the margin of Apol. 95, which I regard, with Butler, as an interpolation, I know of only one set of readings (closely connected) which appears to be quite independent of F. Rossbach, in the article3 already mentioned, called attention to the fact that in V.9 (110, 15) reads glabriorem for F's caluiorem, and that this reading is quoted by Fulgentius, expos. serm. ant. 17 (p. 116, 21 Helm). Van der Vliet pointed out in reply that & had two other readings (not in F) given by Fulgentius, pumiliorem in the next line, and coragio itaque perfecto in IV. 35 (102, 20), and he attributed all three to interpolation from Fulgentius. Van der Vliet was certainly right, though the readings should be discussed on their merits. They occur in MSS. much older than 8, in fact in all those which I group as Class III., the most complex and impure class of all. The class includes (besides ) four MSS. of the fourteenth century, N2, B2, H," and V7 (dated 1358), and one of the fifteenth century, L3. These readings (except that in IV. 35) also occur as contemporary variants in V6 (dated 1345), probably in the hand of Peter of Gubbio, and in this case they are demonstrably borrowed from Fulgentius, for they run al' glabriorem. &.lenem. & ibembem and al' pumilionem. pumilionos dnr lenes & eneruos. Fulgentius, after quoting Apuleius, writes pumilios enim dicunt molles atque enerues, glabrum uero lenem et imberbem. The same hand in V6, at the beginning of the Psyche 3 N. J. f. Phil. u. Päd., 1895, p. 575. 1 Helm quotes, besides ø, L4's variants (only) under the symbol L; these (which I have checked) suffice to make it clear that Li is their source. 2 Henceforth I shall quote Helm's pages and lines in brackets—e.g. V. 9 (110, 15). ♦ Mnem., 1896, p. 220. 5 Quoted by Fulgentius, ib. 36 (p. 121, 10 Helm). • I have no information about the reading of H in these passages. story, refers to Fulgentius'1 allegory in the Mitologiae (which in the two best MSS. of Fulgentius immediately precedes the expos, serm. ant.) and so does an early hand in B2. All three Fulgentius readings occur as variants in V2, and those of V.9 in L4: B3 has been altered to the Fulgentius readings in V.9. Helm tacitly accepts van der Vliet's view. There seems, therefore, to be no strong reason for supposing that any extant MS. is independent of F. In fact, my study of the MSS. has convinced me that they are all closely connected with F, and almost certainly derived from it alone. But there remains, in any case, the smaller but not unimportant question, whether any of them have preserved F's original text more faithfully than ; and, especially, whether any of them can prove descent from F in its unmutilated state, before fol. 160 was torn. I hope to prove that certain MSS. do in fact fulfil these conditions, and that they have a real value for the reconstruction of the text. This problem centres on the question of the supplementa of F's rent in VIII. 7-9 (182, 5 to 184, 5). Are these supplementa authentic? And, if so, do any of the extant MSS. represent the tradition from which they were transferred to in the fourteenth century? This question requires more careful treatment than it has yet received. No extant MS. is certainly older than the writing in 4, so that the problem must be solved, if at all, on internal evidence. It is however worth recalling that the high authority of Professor Rostagno would be inclined to assign the writing in to the second half of the fourteenth century. I shall show that V6, written in 1345, contains almost the whole of the supplementa, in a form which proves that they had previously been inserted in the margin of some earlier MS. which was not . I will begin with the facts about F and . The torn sheet of F (fol. 160) is excellently reproduced in Helm's Florida, so that any reader can get a fairly exact idea of the nature of the gaps-two wedge-shaped blocks driven into the text. The parts of the parchment close to the tear are, however, more legible than Helm's facsimile suggests. The parts of F directly affected run as follows: I do not try to show the length of the gaps, which I number (i) (ii) etc., and I ignore most abbreviations. (a) (VIII. 7 and 8=182, 5 sqq.). At illa3 parentum suorum alioquin reuerens inuita quidem uerum religiosae necessitati subcumbens uultu non quidem hilaro uerum. . . (i.) . . . | lo sereniore oboediens ut iubebatur uiuentium . . . (ii.) . . . [nia prorursus inspectore immo uero penitus i . . . (iii.) . . . | lis luctu ac maerore carpebat animum. . . (iv.) tos totasque noctes insumebat 1 . . . (v.) | derio. & imagines defuncti qu... (vi.) . | liberi forauerat adfixo s (vii.) . . .] honoribus ipso se solac . . . (viii.) . ... ra syllus praeceps alioq . . . (ix.) temerarius | prius quam dolorem lacrimae satiarent (I heve omit most of the rest of the sentence) non dubitauit de nuptiis conuenire etc.' 4 (b) (VIII. 8 and 9= 183, 18 sqq.; starting in a speech by Tlepolemus' ghost to his sleeping widow) 'uulnera illa quorum sanguinem . (i.) . . . e lacrimae perluerunt® Non 7 sunt tota dentium uul | . . · (ii.) lancea mali thrasilli me tibi fecit alienum. | . . (iii.) . . . dit. cetera omnemque scaenam sceleris inlumi | . (iv.) . . . t8 illa ut 1 Fulgentius, Mitol. III. 6 (p. 66, 1. 19 sqq., Helm). The note in V6 is interesting: Incipit fabula Psyche. Allegoriam istius fabulae ponit fabius placiades quam require inter alias in libello ueteri. 2 The only alternative possibility is that some are derived from F's immediate ancestor. 3 Illa is Charite, whose husband, Tlepolemus, has been murdered while hunting by the villain Thrasyllus, who is now courting her. 4 The q of alioq is incomplete. 5 This e is ignored by Helm. It might be (=ae), as the bottom is lost. 6 This reading will be discussed later. 7 The capital N has been erased, and a small one substituted. Perhaps there was a full-stop before N. 8 This t is only partly preserved. |