ART. IV. Eschyli Tragedia quæ supersunt; deperditarum Fabu larum Fragmenta, et Scholia Graca, ex Editione Thoma Stanleii: cum versione Latiná ab ipso emendata, et Commentario longè quam Asceantea fuit auctiori, ex Manuscriptis ejus nunc demum edito. dunt varia Lectiones et Nota VV. DD. Critica ac Philologica: Quibus suas passim intertexuit Samuel Butler, S.T.P. Regia Schola Salopiensis Archididascalus, Coll. Div. Ioann.: apud Cantabr. nuper Socius. Tom. 3. et 4. Cantabrigia, Typis ae Sumptibus Academicis. 8vo. 11. Is. Boards. So much time has elapsed, with great reluctance on our part, since our former announcement of this learned and classical production *, that to some of our readers it will be indispensable for us to address a brief recapitulation of the design of the author; as far as it is communicated to us in detached passages of his work, or discoverable by the style and execution of the whole: for the whole (with the exception of indices and prolegomena) is now before the public. We hasten, therefore, at length, to redeem the time which we have been compelled to lose; and, devoting our present attention to the third and fourth volumes, we hope speedily to make a report of the fifth and sixth. To those few scholars, then, in our country, who can yet be uninformed of the peculiar nature and high character of the book in question, we would direct the following introductory remarks. The general plan of Butler's Eschylus may be described as proposing to give what other scholars had previously written on this author in their own words †; the various readings which they or the present editor had collected from MSS.; and such as that editor had also collected from a laborious inspection of all the former editions. In so extensive an undertaking, it was impossible, and it would, if possible, have been idle and ostentatious, in the editor to have digressed from his object to amend fragments or rectify corrupt passages that did not fall absolutely in his way the work already (at the end of the Agamemnon) extends to four volumes, and might easily, on the plan just mentioned, have been augmented to forty: but the plain and practical object of the editor has been, as we have remarked, to collect all that had been written about Eschylus, to lay it before the literary world, and to furnish scholars with the means of deciding for *See Rev. Vol. Ixiii. N. S. P. 162. We would, particularly, in these times of constant and adroitly concealed plagiarism, (when remarks, we mean, are made upon an author from that author,) notice this contrary and most proper practice. Bb 3 them. themselves. He has throughout offered his own opinion, but with that due respect to others, and diffidence of himself, which, from their unfortunate rarity, are doubly valuable. Of the literary merit of Dr. Butler's original observations, we shall more properly speak at the introduction of the several citations; and as we have, in a former article, delivered our general judgment on that subject, we shall at once commence our examination of detached passages in the two plays now before us. From the critical notes on the Septem contra Thebas, we cannot refrain from selecting that which occurs at line 187. It contains the whole of the famous chorus on the approach of the assailants to the walls of Thebes; and, in our opinion, it would be alone sufficient to reflect considerable credit on the poetic feeling and classical acquirements of the writer. Those who can appreciate such qualities will not complain of the length of the passage. Har jam Monostrophica, (frustra enim laborare videntur qui in Antistrophica convertere conantur) ut nobis emendanda videntur, cum narratione metrica proponemus. 6 ΜΟΝΟΣΤΡΟΦΙΚΑ. • ΧΟ. 1. Θρέομαι φοβερα μεγάλα τ' ἄχη 2. Μεθεῖται σρατὸς σρατόπεδον λιπών, (Hic extra scenam auditur murmur confusum agminis e longinquo advenientis.) 6. Ελεδεμνὰς πεδιοπλόκτυπος ὠσὶ (Jam propius auditur clamor militaris.) 19. ̓Ακέετ ̓ ἢ ἐκ ἀκέετ ̓ ἀσπίδων κτύπον α 22. Κτύπος 22. Κτύπον δέδορκα· πάταγος ἐχ ἑνὸς δορός. 26. Ω χρυσοπήληξ δαῖμον, ἔπιδ ̓, ἔπιδε πόλιν, 30. Ιδετε παρθένων ἱκέσιον λόχον 33· Δοχμολόφων ἀνδρῶν καχλάζει πνραῖς 35. ̓Αλλ ̓ ὦ Ζεῦ πάτες παντελὲς, 47. Ἰχθυβόλῳ μαχανᾷ Ποσείδαν, 49. Σύ τ ̓ Αρης φεῦ, φεῦ, (ingravescit clamor) Κάδμε ἐπώνυμοι. 51. Κήδεσαι τ ̓ ἐναργῶς. 52. Καὶ Κύπρις, ἅτε γένες προμάτως, 56. Καὶ σὺ, Λυκεῖ ̓ ἄναξ, Λυκεῖος γένει 58. Σύ τ ̓ ὦ Λατογένεια κύρα, (Jam curruum circa muros actorum auditur sonus.) 61. Οτοδον αρμάτων ἀμφὶ πόλιν κλύω, 63. Ἔλαχον ἀξόνων βριθομένων χνόαι, (Hic non tantum rotarum strepitus, sed et velitantium c.amores ingruunt.) 65. Δορυτίνακτος αἰθὴς ἐπιμαίνεται. 66. Τί πόλις ἄμμι πάσχει ; τί γενήσεται ; 6. Ποῖ δ ̓ ἔτι τέλος ἐπάγει θεός ; ε, ε, ἔ, ἔ. (Saxa jam machinis hostilibus missa undique in muros feruntur, quorum sonitum mox augent etiam portas irrumpentium voces, clypeorum, bastarum, et galearum illisarum et armorum fragor.) B b 4 68. ̓Αχροβόλων I. Ἰω φίλοι δαίμονες 5. Μελόμενοι δ ̓ ἀρήξατε. “ Facile intelliget vim hujus animosissimi et vere μέσω Αρέως cantici, qui illustrationes quas breviter subinde sparsimus in animo secum feret. Nihil addam, nisi quod haud incommode hac a semichoris cantari poterant, sed hoc pro suo quisque ingenio sibi fingat. Metra sic se habent: I. Iamb. dim. acat. 2. Asynartet. e Dochmiis. 3. Ut et hic, λεως synizesin patitur. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Asynarteti etiam e Dochm. 9. Asynartetum etiam similem præcedentibus vult Hermannus, sed nimis forte licenter. Malim Iamb. trim. acat. in quo tamen casura male servatur: nec illud me movet, cum in his interjectionibus summa sit lectionum varietas, et simul tenendum est poetam proculdubio in melico carmine rei musica consuluisse, quæ motus animi concitati exprimere debuit. Facillimum est mutatis paulo interjectionibus versum ad numeros severiores 10, 11. Asynarteti e Dochmiacis. 12. Antispast. dim.cat. 13. Antispast. dim. brachyc. 14, 15. Asynarteti e Dochm. 16. An potius Asynartet. e duabus penth. Trochquam Dochmiacis: quamvis haud sim nescius utrumvis satis recte dici posse. 17, 18. Asynartet. e Dochmiacis. 19. Iamb. trim. acat. 20. Pherecrateus, nisi σεφέων patitur synizesin, quod minus probo, unde erit Antispast. dim. brachyc. 21. Asynartet. e Dochm. 22. Iamb. trim. acat. 23. Antispast. dim. brachyc. 24. Dochmius. 25. Trach. monom. 26. Iamb. trim. acat. 27. Periodus. 28. Iamb. dim.acat. vel Troch. dim. cat. si θεοὶ patitur synizesin. 29. Troch. monom. 30. Asynartet. e Dochmiacis. 31. Dochmius. 32. Troch. dim. cat. 33. Asynartet. e Dochm. 34. Dochmius. 35. Antipast. dim. acat. 36. Asy revocare. 12 36. Asynartet. e duabus penth. Iamb. pro Dochm. 37. Glycon. + The whole of this chorus appears to us judiciously arranged and explained; and so little have we to object to it, that, when we have stated the few subjoined and not very material doubts, we shall pass on to our references to other passages, and to such quotations as our limits may yet allow. How, then, is line 47, under any arrangement, to be made Iambicum? - for if the second syllable in 'Ixußóλw produci sinatur, (as Dr. B. suggests,) still what are we to do with paxava ? Again, how is line 55. made into Ionicum à majore? And, again, how is 58. Antispasticum Hypercatalecticum; or how does 71. deserve the same appellation? As the above note sufficiently manifests the metrical knowlege of the editor, we shall not have to advert particularly to this point in our remaining extracts: but, for proofs of his fair and full citation of the opinions of others on this head, as well as on more general topics, and of the attention which those opinions that he has himself usually subjoined strongly demand, we would refer the scholar to the critical notes on lines 590.; 719.; 830.; 864.; (where a verbal emendation is very happily supported by a reference to the Anthology, as a metrical fact had been with equal success illustrated by a passage in Athenæus at the preceding number;) 866.; and 958.; which, although a brief note, is a very important one |