Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Grazia Merro (ed.), Gli scoli al Reso euripideo. Orione 2. Messina: Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità - Università degli Studi di Messina, 2008. Pp. 297. ISBN 9788882680215. €60.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Stefano Valente, Università di Bologna

"The scholia to Euripides are of great importance but difficult to use with confidence because of the lack of a reliable critical edition",¹ viz. those of W. Dindorf (Oxonii 1863) and E. Schwartz (Berolini 1887-1891). A modern edition of a corpus of scholia to an ancient author is expected to provide a careful investigation of the textual tradition of these marginal notes, also in relationship to the main text they refer to and its textual tradition, to distinguish if possible between ancient and Byzantine materials, and to supply a detailed Quellenforschung; this is for the purpose of establishing the textual stage that can be reconstructed in the edition. These requirements are not fully met by Merro's book, which is based on her doctoral dissertation (Catania 2006) and concerns only the scholia to the Rhesus, a tragedy of the Euripidean corpus, whose authorship remains questionable.

A short Premessa (pp. 5f.) precedes an Introduzione, divided into seven chapters, the first of which summarises the status quaestionis of the Euripidean manuscript tradition (Tradizione del Reso nel corpus euripideo, pp. 9-16). Here, Merro lists and briefly describes the primary mss. of Rhesus, most of which carry scholia (pp. 12f.): O (= Laur. 31.10, without scholia),² V (= Vat. gr. 909), L (= Laur. pl. 32.2), P (= Vat. Pal. gr. 287 + Laur. C.S. 172),³ Q (= Harl. 5743). However, there are no up-to-date codicological and palaeographical investigations. For instance, Merro does not distinguish neither the features of the hand (or hands) that wrote them nor the various sorts of ink (see p. 15 and 31), details which would be useful for revealing different textual stages.

In the next chapter (Tradizione manoscritta degli scoli e delle hypotheseis, pp. 17f.), Merro remarks upon the preeminence of V, "l'unico codice che presenti il dramma accompagnato da un vero e proprio apparato esegetico, costituito sia da annotazioni marginali, più o meno estese, sia da un considerevole numero di annotazioni interlineari, a volte ridotte a semplici glosse di singole parole, a volte consistenti nella spiegazione di un verso intero" (p. 17). On the other hand, L has "solo alcune note di commento sparse, per lo più brevi e coincidenti nel senso e a volte anche nell'espressione con gli scoli di V. Sporadiche annotazioni marginali e glosse sono presenti anche in Q, mentre solo poche glosse sono tràdite da P" (p. 17). The account of the textual tradition of the hypotheseis—A (preserved with some discrepancies also by PSI 12.1286, a witness of the so-called 'Tales from Euripides'), B, C-D—is likewise merely descriptive. An examination of the Einzelüberlieferung of the Rhesus scholia, as well as of the Korpusüberlieferung, is missing, and this omission causes some inconsistencies in the constitutio textus.

The third chapter (Edizioni e studi, pp. 18-24) analyses previous editions of and studies on Rhesus scholia, dealing chiefly with the problem of the authorship of the play; the next two sections (Contenuti e modalità esegetiche degli scoli, pp. 24-31; Gli scoli di V e la storia dell'esegesi, pp. 31-41) describe the main exegetical features of the scholia to this tragedy in the different mss., particularly in V. After a survey of ancient philological studies on Rhesus, Merro concludes that "sembra molto probabile [...] che un commento di Didimo sia alla base degli scoli di V al Reso" (p. 39); thus, she rejects the hypothesis of Wilamowitz, "che sosteneva la confluenza negli scoli di due commentari di segno opposto in relazione all'autenticità del dramma, con in più l'apporto di un manuale mitografico e di materiali lessicografici, su cui infine avrebbe lavorato un parafraste" (p. 40). Moreover, the V scholia, "a differenza degli scoli ad altri drammi, non conservano tracce evidenti di momenti della storia dell'esegesi successiva all'opera del Calcentero" (p. 40), except for two quotations from Herodian (sch. 207 and 817a¹). This conclusion is supported by the cross-examination of what remains of Didymus' works and of the content of some scholia. For instance, "lo scolio 430a commenta l'uso del termine πέλανος, giudicato inappropriato nel passo del Reso in questione e messo a confronto con la iunctura, ritenuta più felice, di Eur. Or. 220, ἀφρώδη πέλανον; si aggiungono poi due proposte etimologiche ed un parallelo omerico. Osservazioni del tutto simili si leggono negli scoli al luogo citato dell'Oreste: che la fonte di tutti i materiali sia proprio il Calcentero è ricavabile da Phot. Lex. s. v. πέλανος (p. 350 Porson)" (p. 38). Apart from the fact that Porson's page number is incorrect (here and at pp. 100 and 209 read "406.17-25"), Photius' entry is identical with Suda π 927 Adler and derives, through the so-called 'erweiterte Synagoge', from the epitome of Harpocration's lexicon (pp. 243f. Dindorf s.v. = π 44 Keaney),⁴ as Schwartz rightly stated in his apparatus to the similar sch. Eur. Or. 220 (~ EM 659.20 Gaisford): Didymus is therefore quoted by Harpocration (or by his source). Thus, coincidences between the cited Rhesus and Orestes scholia and Harpocration's lexicon (including the same quotation from Hom. Il. 10.7) could therefore be explained also through the indirect use of Didymus as well.⁵ However, Didymus' role in ancient exegesis to Euripides remains assured, as Barrett pointed out: "the scholia on six of the surviving plays cite him by name no less than eighteen times, and a note at the end of the Medea scholia makes a general acknowledgement of indebtedness".⁶ Still, some scholia "lexicon sapiunt".⁷

In the next two chapters (Le hypotheseis, pp. 41-45; La hypothesis B, il problema dell'autenticità e il prologo, pp. 45-61), Merro examines the argumenta, stating their different positions in the mss.; dealing with the hypothesis B, she concludes that "non è improbabile che la nota derivi da un'introduzione al commento al Reso di Didimo, che è alla base degli scoli medievali al dramma" (p. 51). Then she adds some reflections on the problem of authorship in antiquity, suggesting that "l'arco temporale entro cui fu avanzato il sospetto della pseudoepigrafia del Reso potrebbe essere circoscritto [...] fra le Didascalie di Aristotele [...] e l'edizione di Aristofane di Bisanzio" (p. 55); according to Merro, Dicearchus, whose name has been restored in hyp. B l. 5 by Nauck instead of δικαίαν in VLPQ, could have been responsible for this suspicion.

The edition of the scholia is introduced by a short Nota al testo (pp. 65-67); "nella realizzazione del testo critico si è cercato di ovviare agli inconvenienti e alle lacune delle edizioni ottocentesche, seguendo il modello di moderne edizioni di scoli e gli attuali orientamenti filologici per testi del genere [...].⁸ Accanto ai più abbondanti scoli di V e di L, sono inserite nell'edizione anche le brevi annotazioni del codice Q [...] e la maggior parte⁹ delle glosse di P [...], trascurate dagli editori precedenti" (p. 65). The mss. have been autoptically collated (except for Q, on microfilm) and Wood's lamp has been used to decipher some passages in V where the writing has vanished.

A list of Sigla (pp. 69-71) precedes the edition proper of the hypotheseis (pp. 73-76) and of the scholia (pp. 77-118), followed by a detailed Commento (pp. 121-257).¹⁰ Each scholion is accompanied by three apparatuses, one for ancient authors cited, one for lexicographic parallels, one for variant readings and conjectures. The second apparatus in particular is often misleading and incomplete. For example, in the apparatus of sch. 64 ῥύμῃ] ὁρμῇ, φορᾷ, Merro cites only "Hesych. ρ 489 ῥύμη· ὁρμή ~ Sud. ρ 294". Actually, Hesychius' entry comes from Cyrill and is almost identical to Syn. ρ 60 Cunningham = Suda ρ 294 Adler ~ sch. Pl. Epin. 983c Greene; in any case, this explanation is widely attested: see e.g. Phryn. Ecl. 383 Fischer, sch. Ar. Av. 1182a Holwerda and Eccl. 4 Regtuit, Theognost. Can. 131, p. 23.32 Cramer. For ῥύμη = φορά, see e.g. sch. Nic. Al. 498a Geymonat.¹¹ Moreover, Merro sometimes normalises the text of lemmata¹² and scholia, especially the quotations from ancient authors, as if she were editing their texts and not their source, in which they could have already been corrupt: for instance, in sch. 251, in the quotation of Philem. fr. 80 K.-A., Merro prints Cobet's ἐνόμιζ' "metri causa" (p. 179) instead of ἐνόμιζεν in V, and in that of Men. fr. 658 K.-A. Badham's Φρυγ' ὄντα instead of Φρυγῶν ὄντα in V, because the conjecture, "oltre a presentare una certa economicità, darebbe un senso plausibile sul piano comico" (p. 179). Similarly, when addressing sch. 207, Merro stresses that "si richiama qui Erodiano [...], che in Cath. Pros. GG III / 1, p. 309 presenta τὸ μέντοι σαγή τὸ πλῆθος ὡς σφαγή ὀξύνεται, τινὲς δὲ βαρύνουσι. Il codice ha ἡ σφαγή, che Cobet correggeva in ἡ σαγή; tuttavia, anche sulla base del passo di Erodiano, risulta preferibile ὡς σφαγή di Wilamowitz" (p. 175). According to Lentz's apparatus, Herodian's passage has been restored just on the basis of this scholion (including Wilamowitz's conjecture) and cannot be used as a parallel for the emendation.

Abbreviazioni bibliografiche (pp. 261-270), 2 plates of Vat. gr. 909 ff. 315r-v, and rich indexes (Indice delle fonti, pp. 273f.; Indice dei loci similes, pp. 275-277; Indice degli autori, pp. 279f.; Indice dei luoghi, pp. 281-294; Indice delle tavole (p. 295); Indice del volume, p. 297) conclude the book.

Ultimately, Merro's edition should be used with caution because of the shortcomings mentioned above, particularly concerning the history of the text, Quellenforschung, and the constitutio textus. However, it can be useful, particularly for some previously unknown scholia and for new readings, thanks to the use of Wood's lamp.

1.   E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship, Oxford 2007, 31; for a general introduction on the scholia to Euripides, see ibid. pp. 31-4 with bibl.
2.   This ms., dated by Merro "al primo ventennio del XIV sec." (p. 12) according to Turyn, belongs to the late twelfth century, as it was produced in the ate/lier of Ioannikios: see N. Wilson, S&C 7 (1983) 161-176: 163f.; P. Degni, S&T 6 (2008) 179-248: 211-213.
3.   On L and P see now M. Magnani, Eikasmós 21 (2010) 49-88: 60-69 with bibl.
4.   For additional informations about this relationship, see I.C. Cunningham, GRBS 27 (1986) 205-221; Id. (ed.), Synagoge, Berlin-New York 2003, 46, 51f., 55, 56-8.
5.   Moreover, in sch. 430a l. 3, Merro prints Schwartz's conjecture κυρίως (instead of οὕτως in V), proposed on the basis of sch. Eur. Or. 220 and Harpocration (unnoticed at p. 209).
6.   W.S. B. (ed.), Euripides. Hippolytos, Oxford 1964, 48.
7.   U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, De Rhesi scholiis disputatiuncula, Gryphiswaldiae 1877, 6 = Kleine Schriften, 1, Berlin 1971, 1-16: 4.
8.   Merro refers to p. 20 n. 39, where she quotes only the Italian translation (Palermo 1991) of M.L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique applicable to Greek and Latin Texts, Stuttgart 1973, 97f.
9.   "Maggior parte" means (p. 65 n. 1) "salvo alcune, vergate in una scrittura così minuta che non è stato possibile decifrarle".
10.   Sometimes the sigla of mss. usually indicated at the end of the argumenta and scholia are missing or incomplete: see hyp. C-D, sch. 36, 346, 351, 417b, 916a¹, 922. Many supplements to the transmitted text are not enclosed in angle brackets (see e.g. hyp. A and sch. 5). The apparatus criticus—which, by the way, reports some interesting conjectures of L. Battezzato, M. Cannatà Fera, A. Guida, G. Ucciardello—is not always consistent: see e.g. sch. 5 l. 17 and 859.
11.   See also e.g. sch. 8, 55, 68, 77, 285a, 311, 312, 426, 503, 674, 784, 887.
12.   In sch. 8, "in luogo di βλέφαρον, tràdito nel lemma da V, già Amati scriveva βλεφάρων del testo" (p. 146): however, in his edition he just noticed the discrepancy: "8. Λύσον [sic] βλέφαρον (in textu βλεφάρων) κτλ." (H. Amatius [ed.], Scholia in Euripidis Rhesum et Troadas, in Euripidis opera omnia [...], 5, Glasguae 1821, 581-610: 586). See also sch. 177a and 342.