MOUSEION - Memorial University of Newfoundland

162 GIANCARLO GIARDINA
emendation is justified by the words directly preceding ac se etc.. namely et Cleonaeum
caput / opponit. Hercules is protecting his head with the skull of the Nemean
lion. which can be defined correctly as a fragmen: hence et Cleonaeum etc.
and ac se fragmine etc. form a typical poetic repetition. for the sake of uariatio. of
one and the same idea. For fragmine ingenti d. Verg. Aen. 9.569 ingenti fragmine
montis Lucretium ... sternit. This is obviously not a similar situation. but simply
an example of the iunctura ingens fragmen.
814 The text presents a difficulty that needs to be overcome: (postquam) ... nitor
/ percussit oculos Iuds ignotae tbonot etc. The end of 814 is occupied by an attribute
either of nitoror of oculos. For the first case. Buecheler devised nouus. for
the second Ageno proposed nouos. and this last conjecture is now accepted by
Fitch. In 822ff. the reaction of Cerberus to the sudden exposure to daylight is aptly
described (he shuts his eyes unused to light). I would write hebetes (sc. oculos).
The parallels for this iunctura are numerous and impressive: Col. 6.6.1 hebetes
oculi. Plin. Nat. 11.94 oculi ... hebetes. Apul. apol. 43 oculis hebes etc. If we imagine
that the first syllable of hebetes in synaloephe had been confounded with the
ending of the preceding word. it will not be hard to see how the archetypal -betes
has produced the corrupt reading bono in our MSS.
I continue with 81Sf.. resumit animos uictus et uastas furens / quassat catenas.
The attitude of Cerberus cannot authorize us to read uictus. where the context
requires a strong postitive adjective like tumidus or. better. fortis. If we connect
the iunctura resumere animos with an adjective like fortis. my conjecture may be
supported by Hor. Carm. 2.IO.2If. animosus atque fortis appare (see Nisbet and
Hubbard ad loc.: "animosus: combined with fortis by Cicero and others [Thes.l.L.
2.88.4 ff.]"). I consider uictus an Echoschreibungof uictorem in line 816. There
will be someone. I suppose. who links uictus and uictorem as a beautiful paronomasia
and polyptoton intended by the author. In this case. I would have no
answer to this incredible position. to deem finesse de l'auteur that which is only
the effect of an Influenzfehler.
909 Fitch. as in his separate edition of this play. prints B. Schmidt's conjecture
Indi aruis secant. where the MSS offer the nonsensical reading Indorum seges.
Fitch makes clear in his commentary that he privileges that emendation because
"the wording of 910 seems to imply some contrast with the harvesting methods
of the Indians." He approves of Schmidt's conjecture with a resounding adverb
"admirably." In my opinion there is nothing admirable in those words. which
make a horribly limping verse and bad Latinity. If the Indian product to which
Seneca alludes is tus. it is certain that it was not cut out of ploughed fields but
was collected on trees (d. OLDs.v. tus: "Frankincense or olibanum. the aromatic
gum of the trees [my emphasis] of the genus Boswe1lia"). So there is no objection
to referring the words arboribus legunt both to the Indians and the Arabs. In this
sense. odoris can be referred in commune both to the first and to the second quidquid.
The corruption must be hidden under the questionable seges. and I find no
better solution than Withof's genus. Fitch notes that "so weak a use of genus is
not paralleled in Sen.trag.": however. when we discuss the words of an author.
we should not imagine that he was a sort of TLL ante litteram. If that wording is
well witnessed by other writers of good Latinity. this should suffice to accept this
wording in the text of our author. too. And genus + genitive of the nation is a construction
widely attested in Latin writers.