We're talking about the Gongyla poem. Campbell has it as sourced by P.Oxy. 1231 frr. 12 and 15. Edmonds separates the two. Also, Edmonds' completion is perfectly fine with Grenfell and Hunt's reading of fr. 15, while Campbell has critical notation that seems to exclude it. So on what basis is Campbell putting them together whereas Edmonds splits them? And if Grenfell and Hunt say e.g. l. 1 of fr. 15 ends with σ[
, why does Campbell have an exta uncertain alpha excluding Edmonds' κέλομαί σ' [ὄνελθε
? Was something done with the papyrus that revealed more letters?
More details
Here is Grenfell and Hunt's reading:
If I strip Campbell of all completions, accents and spaces, I get:
.].ϵ.[....].[....]ελομαισα̣[
]γγυλα̣[..]α̣νθιλαβοισανα.[
]κτινασ̣σεδηυτεποθοςτ̣.[
αμφιποταται
τανκαλαναγαργατ̣αγωγισαυτα[
επτοαισιδοισανεγωδεχαιρω
καιγ̣αραυτ̣αδηπο̣[.]ε̣μεμφ[
]υπρογεν[
ω̣σαραμα̣[
τουτοτω[
]ολλομα̣[
If I pair up Grenfell-Hunt "restored" version and Campbell's text, I get:
Let's do some compare&contrast, shall we?
- In l. 1, an uncertain near-start nu magically becomes a certain epsilon (!), and, as pointed out above,
σ̣[
at the end of the preserved portion of the line turns toσα̣[
; - The totally illegible letter at the start of l. 2 suddenly becomes a certain gamma, and an uncertain letter before the lacuna vanishes; also, the lacuna has 2 letters for GH and only 2 are given as a completion by C; the two last letters of Gongyla become certain; an uncertain alpha is conjured up after the lacuna; the
μ̣α̣
(both uncertain) turns toνα
(both certain); - A few uncertain letters in l. 3 become certain, and an uncertain nu becomes an uncertain sigma;
- For the rest, it's mostly uncertain letters becoming certain;
- But before the lacuna in l. 8,
δητ[
is suddenly δηπο̣[`; 'xcuse me? How did a certain tau turn to a certain pi with an uncertain omicron suddenly appearing? - And finally, what about
[.]α̣σ
turning toω̣σ
?
Where did the above changes come from?
New info
The Complete Poems of Sappho, by Sean B. Palmer is the only one to mention another source, P. Oxy. XXI (1951) add. p. 125, 11
. Now, I cannot find the volume P.Oxy. XXI on archive.org or elsewhere online, and I cannot seem to find any P.Oxy. XXI images with Sappho (just two commentary fragments I do not really want to transcribe "blind"). So what happened in that source? What does that source give us? What is that source? Is it a papyrus or some kind of scholarly discussion? Is it one of the commentary papyri I found the image of, i.e. 2292 and 2293? And if that's the case, how in the world did they give extra certain letters? Quotations?
Update 2
Just transcribed 2292 as:
̩ ̤ ̣‸[...]Ϲ€€ΜΑΚΑΑ̣Τ̣ΑΝΔ[
ϹΑΓΟΡΓωϹΥΝΔΥΓΑ.ΓΙΤΟΥ̣[
§A̤[....]ϹΥΞ̣ΗΠΛ€ΙϹΤỌΔΙΚΗ[
§§§[...]ΗΙΓ[.]ΗΟΙϹΥΝΑΥΞ§€§§[
§Ṭ§€̣[....]Γ̤ΟΓΓΥΛΗϹΟΝ§§ṆΑϹΘΗ§§[
§Ϲ€Υ̣[...]ΟΙΝΟΝΓΑΡΤΟΟ§Ρ̣Θ̣Υ̤[.]§[
§Μ[..]Δ§ΤΑΙΤΙΚΑ̣ΤΑΤΗ ̣§ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣[ TI/H
[.]Ạ§[...]ΤΑ[.]ΥΤΟΟ̤ΙΚΚΗ̣§§§Ν§ω̣§[
[.......]§[...]§§Ι̤Λ̣ΘΗΙ̤€Τ̤§§[.]ϜΥ[ Λ/Ϲ
[............] ̣ [......] ̣ ΑṬ ̣ § ̣ ΟΥΤ§[
[19 letters]Ν ̣ ΑΝ§[
The § indicate blank spaces in the papyrus, giving an estimate of the number of letters that would fit in the blank. The fact that l. 5 seems to read Γογγύλης ὀνεμνάσθη(ν), I/(s)he have/has been reminded of Gongyla, near the end seems to support the Campbell version of l. 2, so could you guys help me decipher the rest of this?
Update 3
Lobel-Page's apparatus criticus does give some info, as highlighted here, but there are still questions:
- Why are the two fragments joined?
- How did the extra vestiges and uncertain letters pop up in Lobel-Page's reading?
- How does that uncertain nu in l. 1 become an uncertain epsilon?
- How does αν̣ turn to αϲ̣ / α[.] in l. 3? And how can it be uncertain whether there is or not a one-letter lacuna there?
- How does τ[ turn to πο̣[ in l. 7?
- How does l. 9 turn from starting with [.]α̣ϲ to starting with ω̣ϲ?
I can kinda see how the right half of an omega may be taken for an alpha with a hole to the left containing another letter, but all other questions leave me utterly stumped. Any ideas? Perhaps Voigt's edition can help clarify these mysteries?
Update 4
And then Scribd went SURPRISE MOTH… err, ΜΗΤΡΟΣΥΝΟΎΣΙΕ I suppose, presenting me with none other than Voigt's edition of Sappho, online! But the excitement ended there: the apparatus criticus is virtually identical to that of Lobel-Page. It did, however, help me figure out the extra vestige in l. 1 is from fr. 12, which is joined to fr. 12 on who knows what basis, and has 9 lines, the last one fitting into l. 1 of fr. 15.