Poetics. Aristotle. Theodore Alois Buckley (Translator). London. 1857.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) (English) (Theodore Alois Buckley's English translation, first published in 1850 and represented from the Henry G. Bohn 1857 printing; corrected against a second OCR and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
Poetics
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-752
μεγαλειωτῶν
is all but identical with the reading in A
o,
μεγαλιωτῶν, and simpler than
Tyrwhitt's
μεγαλείων ὡς or
Vahlen's
μεγαλείων ὧν. Α
μεγαλειωτὸν ὄνομα would be a name that has been 'made grand', an exaggerated or amplified name. Though a verb
μεγαλειοῦν is not found in extant literature, it is a legitimate derivative from
μεγαλεῖος, which is sometimes used of words (e. g. in
Xenophon
Mem.
2. 1. 34
); and it is presupposed in the LXX. word
μεγαλείωμα. After
μεγαλειωτῶν we may supply
οἷον =
e.g. For similar instances of the omission of
οἷον see
25, 1461ª26
;
An. pr.
1. 4, 26ª8
;
De gen. et corr.
2. 5, 332b14
;
Eth. N.
5. 8, 1133ª7
;
Rhet.
3. 5, 1407ª38
;
3. 6, 1408b6
(etc.). In lieu of
μεγαλιωτῶν (or
μεγαλειωτῶν) the Arabic version is said to imply
Μασσαλιωτῶν— reading which has met with the approval of
Diels (
Berlin Academy, Sitzungsb.1888 p. 53
) as well as others. An expression like
τὰ πολλὰ τῶν Μασσαλιωτῶν, however, is certainly not free from difficulty. The general view seems to be that it is practically equivalent to
τὰ πολλὰ τῶν Μασσαλιωτικῶν; so that
Aristotle is to be credited with the statement that the majority (
τὰ πολλά) of the proper or other names in use at
Massilia
were of the abnormal type described in the text. There is, as far as I know, no hint of anything of the kind in any ancient writer; and it is to my thinking too improbable to be believed without very distinct evidence.
The recent translators, who accept the new reading, must have felt the difficulty, as they tone down the expression by a free rendering of
τὰ πολλά, making the clause mean either 'like so many Massilian expressions' (
Butcher), or 'wie jene massaliotischen Namen' (
Gomperz). It has to be remembered also that it was hardly necessary for
Aristotle to go as far as
Marseilles
for instances of such names. They were certainly not unknown in
Athens
(
Wilamowitz,
Aristoteles und Athen2 p. 29
); and to judge from their appearance in
Plautus, they must have been common enough in the later Attic Comedy.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-753
1
Ἑρμοκαϊκόξανθος:
a compound of three river-names, Hermus, Caicus, and Xanthus (comp.
Dindorf in
HSt.
s.v., and
Letronne,
Étude des noms propres grecs p. 62). After this the Greek text must have lost something, as the Arabic version, as translated by
Margoliouth, renders the passage by
Ermocaicon Xanthus qui supplicabatur Dominum caelorum (or
Iovem), which
Diels supposes to represent an hexameter line,
Ἑρμοκαϊκόξανθος, ἐπευξάμενος Διὶ πατρί. I hesitate to adopt this very attractive conjecture, though it has been accepted by both
Butcher and
Gomperz, because the context seems to me to suggest rather a second instance of the same kind of word, a
τετραπλοῦν ὄνομα of some sort. Some such compound as
ἐπευξιθεῶναξ, if one may venture to invent the word, would represent the general sense of the Arabic. As these abnormal compounds were characteristic of the Dithyramb (see on
22, 1459ª9
), and not uncommon in Comedy, it is difficult to see why
Aristotle should have had recourse to what would seem to be an epic or a mock epic for an instance of a
τριπλοῦν ὄνομα.
1457b
ἅπαν δὲ ὄνομα κτέ.
The present survey of the vocabulary of poetry may be compared with that in
Isocrates
190 D
τοῖς μὲν γὰρ ποιηταῖς πολλὰ δέδονται κόσμοι· καὶ γὰρ ... οἷόν τ᾿ αὐτοῖς ... δηλῶσαι μὴ μόνον τοῖς τεταγμένοις ὀνόμασιν, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν ξένοις, τὰ δὲ καινοῖς, τὰ δὲ μεταφοραῖς, καὶ μηδὲν παραλιπεῖν ἀλλὰ πᾶσι τοῖς εἴδεσι διαποικῖλαι τὴν ποίησιν.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-791
ἴσα... πλήθη.
πλήθη is 'numbers', as the plural of
πλῆθος,
numerus or
summa. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to restore
πλήθει from certain of the apographs.
14
178.
mvp-aristotle-comment-178
NOTE 178. P. 107.
21.3
LIKE MANY OF THOSE USED BY THE MEGALIOTA.I have read, in some ludicrous book, of a country that was "lost by the ignorance of geographers." This seems to have been the case of these
Megaliota, if such a people ever existed. They are nowhere recorded. —
Dacier
reads,
μεγαριζοντων —
"ceux qui disent de grandes choses": and cites
Hesychius
Μεγαριζοντες — μεγαλα λεγοντες. But this is too distant from the present reading,
Μεγαλιωτων.
Mr. Winstanley's conjecture —
μεγαλειων, ως
,
1
is somewhat nearer, and, in other respects, preferable: but it is, I think, a strong presumption against its truth, that Aristotle constantly uses
διον, when he gives an instance; never, as far as I recollect,
ὡς.
I have sometimes thought it not very improbable, that the passage might originally have stood thus:
των μεγαλΑ ΔιώΚΟΝτων: i. e. of those who affect, aim at, are fond of, grandeur and pomp of expression; who love hard words, as we say. Nothing more common than this sense of
διωκειν. They who are versed in emendatory criticism, and the theory of transcriptive blunders, know it to have been one source of corruption in antient manuscripts, that the transcribers, when they found vacuities and
lacunae which they could not fill up, rather than reduce the price of their copy by visible imperfection, often chose to write the passage as if there had been no such chasms; especially when that could be done, as in this case, with some passable appearance of a meaning.
2
And thus, here, if we suppose the letters I have distinguished by capitals to have been destroyed, or rendered illegible, in the original MS.
"upo notias kai seton,"
3
they would leave exactly the letters we now have —
μεγαλ...ωτων.
If a commentator, harrassed by obscurity and perplexity, can now and then relieve his labour by treating a passage of desperate corruption as a riddle, and can amuse himself by guessing the meaning, when he cannot inform his readers by discovering it, who will envy him this harmless privilege? I have here hazarded my guess with others; but I give it for what it is. None of us, I believe, have yet deprived our successors of the same amusement. The riddle, probably, still remains, and will remain, till the arrival of those
"codices expectandi" of which the critics talk so much; those precious manuscripts, that are always to be waited for, and never to be expected.
1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-147
Ritter, cap. 21 § 1
Variae nominum species enumerantur, definiuntur, exemplis illustrantur. sub finem capitis nonnulla de genere nominum ab aliena manu adiecta leguntur. Quae hoc capite usque ad §. 12. disputantur, ea et ob suam virtutem et ob Rhetoricorum locos III, 1 et 2., ubi Aristoteles quater ad haec lectorem ablegavit, denique ob Poeticae caput 22. quo haec unice respiciuntur, ab ipso Aristotele scripta esse satis certum videtur. sed quoniam statui nequit post finitum illud c. 19. (vicesimum non esse Aristotelis vidimus) Aristotelem continuo, exponere perrexisse, quae capite 21. exposita legimus,
Ὀνόματος δὲ εἴδη τὸ μὲν ἁπλοῦν cet., vel inde satis liquet haec quae legimus fragmenta esse sive epitomam uberioris de dictione disputationis. idem adprobabitur consideranti locum in Rhetoricis III, 1 extr.
ὥστε φανερὸν ὅτι οὐχ ἅπαντα ὅσα περὶ λέξεως ἔστιν εἰπεῖν ἀκριβολογητέον ἡμῖν,
ἀλλ᾽ ὅσα περὶ τοιαύτης οἵας λέγομεν (de dictione oratoria).
περὶ δ' ἐκείνης (de dictione poetarum)
εἴρηται ἐν τοῖς περὶ ποιητικῆς. nimirum quae illic de oratoria dictione docentur (c. 2-12), ambitu minimum sexies haec pauca quae de poetica exponuntur superant, cum tamen de hac aeque multa vel plura etiam quam de illa dicenda essent. nihil, ut unum exempli gratia afferam, de imagine (
εἴκονι) explicatum legimus, cum in Rhetoricis (III, 4) doceatur, et quid sit imago et quo differat a metaphora. locus ipse, cui haec de dictione disputatio intexitur, male electus videtur.IN POETICAEЕ CAP. 21. §. 1-2. scilicet haec sub finem totius de poesis generibus commentationis ponenda erant, cum ad omnia eius genera aeque pertineant.
ὁ μὴ ἐκ σημαινόντων σύγκειται,
οἷον γῆ: per
μὴ ἐκ σημαινόντων scriptor complectitur
μήτ' ἐκ σημαινόντων μήτ' ἐκ σημαίνοντος καὶ ἀσήμου. nomen
διπλοῦν est quod duobus vocabulis compositum est. horum autem aut utrumque aut alterutrum significativum est, utraque pars nominis duplicis significativa est in
Θεόδωρος,
μητροκτόνος, una in
ἄπτερος,
ὑπερβολή.
καὶ τριπλοῦν καὶ τετραπλοῦν καὶ πολλαπλοῦν: nomina composita cuiusvis generis
συμπεπλεγμένα appellat de Interpr. c. 2.
πολλά τῶν μεγαλιωτῶν: vulgo scribunt
Μεγαλιωτῶν, et in boc nomine vitium admissum putant. mihi
πολλὰ τῶν μεγαλιωτῶν vocis admodum longae et ab Aristotele factae frustula videntur esse. fortasse scripsit
πολλαπλομεγάλωπος.