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Author(s): M. L. West
Source: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 57 (1984), pp. 33-36
Published by: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20184100
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33
no. 3537 recto 3ff.) the remains of an interesting poem dating from the
third or fourth century A.D. and belonging to the type in which the writer
Barigazzi). The author sees the effect of the Muses' visitation as being to
raise Hesiod out of his humble rural setting, so that he leaves his family,
his flocks and herds, and his miserable village, or at least rises above them,
him the truth about the gods, which he will celebrate in appropriately
lofty verse. It is a commonplace among writers of the Roman and early Byzantine
periods that Hesiod ceased to be a shepherd when the Muses made him a
poet; see the passages collected by Rzach in his large edition of Hesiod
(1902) on Th. 22ff. (pp.6-9), adding Favorinus P.Vat. 11 xxiv 43ff. (p.
406.15 Barigazzi), and the epigram preserved in some manuscripts with the
venturous perhaps, but the syntactical and rhetorical structure of the three
The beginnings and ends of the lines of the new poem survive, with a gap
of about ten letters in the middle. In many cases excellent supplements are
offered or reported by Parsons, but there remains much room for further
speculation, and some room for positive advance. These notes of mine should
not accusative. After it he suggests xaxdcxia or xai dAcea. aYKea (Op. 389)
to the following sentence, being not very apt for either. The poet got the
phrase from someone who had written of Hesiod's becoming a poet "in a single
presupposes that his vision of the Muses was a dream; for this ancient inter
to pluck ..." following the ancient v.l. in Th. 31, ?p?^acdai instead of
?p?ipacai. There is, however, no other instance in this text of i/ei errors
the Ttx- form, which also appears without metrical necessity in 13, and often
Colluthus 60, 144, 159. My supplement in 11; I might prefer x?v ou Ttdpo]c if
Ttdpoc did not occur in the next line. The idea is that the Muse will give
receives from the Muses an a?oriv O?cTtiv iva xAeioiui xa x* ?cc?ueva Ttp? x'
??vxa. Homer at II. 2.485f. reminds the Muses that mortals depend on them
for knowledge of the past: nueic ?? xA?oc oZov dxououev, ou?e xi C?uev.
12 udv?pr) ?un xpixdfAaiva xai auA]iec ai Ttdpoc aiy&v,
he goes away to compete for glory, a motif for which Theocritus 4.1-28 may
in which Amphidamas, at whose funeral games Hesiod won a prize, met his end?
2) For this anaphora cf. Mesomedes 7.1-2, 8.1-3 Heitsch; Anth.Pal. 9.449,
670; 16.159; Nonn. D. 18.342-6, 40.423-7, 48.767.
A New Poem about Hesiod 35
Ttx?Aeuov [ueAecov (P.) is over-long, and the last trace is the top of a
vertical whose tallness suggests iota rather than ny. I have thought of
In 14-16 Parsons has been misled by his idea that prizes for rustic songs
the theme of rising above his rustic origins. The sense calls for something
like eraxpxecei or ?cpav?dvei or ?Tteua?ev in 14, and in the next line ?aifi
must be predicative: "the whole of Ascra with its wretched cottages is too
small for me". In 16 Parsons reads xuu?nc, while admitting that the space
between u and n is narrow for beta. The supposed beta is actually represented
only by a spot of ink close to the right foot of the my. After examination
of the papyrus I feel sure that the spot is in fact the tip of the left foot
of the eta, the main part of which has become slightly displaced to the right.
Certainly after Ascra Cyme was intended, the former home of Hesiod's father
(Op. 636). "Not do I think much even of ?cpp?vxica would give a better
Cyme."
rhythm than ?Xey?Zcu, but is probably too long. ?uTtd?ouai would do if the
next word began with a vowel, but ?ppexe (or ?AAexe, after Call. fr. 1.17)
would make the tone unduly arrogant. The trace before exe suggests y, c, or
x, but I cannot find any suitable verb with a stem ending in one of those
letters, and the trace may be just a connecting stroke (if it is ink, which
with Ttdvxec, not with Moucai. They were no bucolic Muses that Hesiod met: on
the contrary. And we need a more pointed epithet than xaAfiv (P.) for the
singing that they taught him: de?nv, O?cTtiv, or the like. In 18 P. suggests
natural to read cxficex(e), "you will set up". In the following letters I am
4) Buck and Petersen, Reverse Index 517, list d-, doid-, euuexd-, Ttavx?-,
aux?-, and ?uc-peucxoc.
36 M.L.West
the ideal word might be duoi?aoic (or -a?ov), but it is too long. It is
is this with Hesiod's own Moucdcov ... apxaueO' dei?eiv (Th. 1).
poet combining
But he may be rather of Th. 94/96 ?x Ydp xoi Mouc?cov ... dv?pec doi?oi
thinking
?aciv ... ?x 6? Ai?c ?aciAriec. The Muses are themselves daughters of Zeus,
Simichidas) ouvexev ?cci | udv en' dAadeiai TteTtAacu?vov ?x Ai?c ?pvoc. Another
5 ).
would be [u?Aoc ?cxa]?*. The dotted ]g could also be taken as ]e'
In the next sentence the idea is probably that the gates of heaven (II.
immortals, but to reveal the truth about them to him so that he can compose
his theogony.
28 is apparently the last line of the poem. If it were not so, one might
supplement e.g.
Bedford College
5) There are hardly any lection signs in this text, but they do appear
to be present in 11 ?viCTt[ and 16 xuunc[.