intro
I have collated both manuscripts from Photostats which were generously put at my disposal by Dr. William C. Helmbold; and I have recorded under the usual symbols the variant readings of each of them, for I soon discovered that not only is Bernardakis’ report of the mss. untrustworthy, but that the same must be said of Raingeard’s in his recent edition of the dialogue, and that even Treu’s collation (see note b, p. 26) is not free of errors. I have not recorded mere omissions or variations of accent or breathing, however, unless the sense is affected by them; and I have regularized crasis and elision without regard to the manuscripts or report of them, for they show no consistency in this matter.For example, in 931 D they have τὰ αὐτὰ πάσχειν ὑπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ταὐτὰ (B, ταυτὰ -E) ποιεῖν ταὐτὸν . . . and occasionally οἶδ ὅρως and ἀλλ ὅρως, although they do not ordinarily elide the α of oἶda and ἀλλά. Almost invariably both E and B have μὴ δὲ instead of μηδὲ or μηδ. On these matters cf. T. Doehner, Quaestionum Plutarch. Particula Altera and Tertia (Meissen, 1858 and 1862), especially iii, p. 51, and ii, p. 35, n.%2%2; and on the question of hiatus cf. Helmbold, Class. Phil. xxxiii (1938), pp. 244-245, and xlv (1949), pp. 64 f. with his references, and for a much stricter view Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 295-298. To emend for the sole purpose of eliminating hiatus is to take unwarranted liberty with the text; but, on the other hand, to introduce hiatus by emendation is certainly inadmissible. It should be observed, however, that in the Facie, besides the exceptions to avoidance of hiatus listed by Ziegler (Op. cit. 296-297), final αι, οι, ει, and ου before an initial vowel may always be possible (cf. for ου e.g. τοῦ ἰδίου ἀέρος in 944 A), ἄνω and κάτω are permissible before any word beginning with a vowel (cf. ἄνω ἔχειν and κάτω ἄνυθεν in 924 C which guarantee ἄνω ἐστιν in 926 A), and other cases of hiatus which cannot reasonably be eliminated occasionally occur (e.g. χείλη εἰκόνας [921 C], τουτὶ εἴρω [935 D]). In conformity with the usage of Professor Babbitt and regardless of the manuscripts, I have printed the forms γίγνεσθαι, γιγνώσκειν, and οὐδείς, though the manuscripts usually have γίνεσθαι, γινώσκειν, and οὐθείς; but I have adopted the form duei=n throughout. I have tried to the best of my ability to assign emendations to those who first proposed them; but for some which appear without ascription in all modern editions, and the author of which I have been unable to discover, I have had to be content with the unsatisfactory note, editors. For the suggestions said to be written in three different hands on the margins of the copy of the Aldine edition now in the Bibliothéque Nationale (RÈs. J. 94), I have had to rely upon the report of Raingeard in the apparatus criticus of his edition (cf pp. xvi f. of his Introduction)P. Raingeard, Le ΠΕΡΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΣΠΟΥ de Plutarque, texte critique avec traduction et commentaire (Paris, 1935). Raingeard’s text is fantastically conservative, reproducing E for the most part even where E gives impossible Greek; and yet his report of the manuscripts is frequently erroneous either explicitly or by implication. The translation is worse even than the text; and the commentary, especially where it touches upon philosophical and scientific questions, is more often wrong than right, almost everywhere inadequate, and frequently absurd.; all of these I indicate without differentiation by the formula, Anon., Aldine, R.J. 94. Upon Raingeard’s report and those of Reiske, Wyttenbach, Hutten, and Bernardakis I have had to rely for the variant readings of the Aldine edition and of the edition of Xylander; but the edition of Froben (Basiliensis, 1542), as well as those of Stephanus (1624), Reiske, Wyttenbach, Hutten, Dübner, Bernardakis, and Raingeard, and the translations of Xylander, Amyot, Kepler, Kaltwasser, the two translations of Prickard,See note b, p. 18. Prickard’s translation of 1911 was reviewed by W. R. Paton, Class. Rev. xxvi (1912), p. 269, and by L. C. Purser, Hermathena, xvi (1911), pp. 309-324, whose review is rather a series of notes and suggestions for almost two score passages in the essay. and that of portions of the essay by Heath,Sir Thomas L. Heath, Greek Astronomy (London, 1932), pp. 166-180. I have consulted and compared throughout.
