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a MS. called the Palatinus I. as the best, and based the text on the MSS. of that family. But the discovery of the valuable Florence MS. L has established that the Palatine group of MSS. is worthless; and the text now depends on the Florence MS. and those that are akin to it. The errors that separate L from Pal. I. are precisely those errors of mere carelessness or ignorance which are the sign of a good MS. Thus we find mere slips of the following nature :

(a) A word from one line is frequently transferred into the next, and supplants a word there. (See i. 6. 2.)

(6) Lines are accidentally transposed, e.g. at vii. 14, the order is 14, 17, 18, 19, 16, 15, 20, etc. (Tank is in error here.)

(c) Words (v. 37. 83) or whole lines, in all about 30 (see i. 6. 34 ; viii. 33), are omitted.

Besides this, numerous passages show the scribe to have been ignorant of Latin.

Unfortunately the MS. is imperfect.

It originally consisted of two folio volumes, in the opinion of Mr. Anziani, bound separately. The first volume contained the Metamorphoses, Nux, and Medicamina Formae; the second, which was much smaller, the Tristia. At some period the MS. appears to have suffered extensive mutilation; it was probably taken out of its binding, and suffered from the exposure so much that in many places the writing became almost or quite illegible. And worse than this, many whole pages were torn out. Later, at some time in the fifteenth century, an endeavour was made to rehabilitate the unfortunate MS. The faint writing was refreshed, numerous, chiefly worthless, corrections were made in the margin, and the lost passages were copied in a large hand totally different from that of the original MS., and were bound into the vacant spaces.

These supplied later portions are of a totally different family from the original MS. Their authority is worthless, for they belong to the interpolated group.

The older part of the MS. I call L, the recent λ. Accordingly our MS. is of a very composite character, which, omitting the

Metamorphoses, Nux, and M. F., is exhibited in the following

table:

fol. 56-57. T. i. 1. 1-5. 10

fol. 58-63. T. i. 5. 11-iii. 7. I

L

(iii. 7. 2–iv. 1. 11 (in all 398 lines) which occupied two

folios are entirely lost).

fol. 64-65. T. iv. 1. 12-iv. 7. 5

fol. 66-70. T. iv. 7. 6 to the end

L

Thus for a large part of the first book, for part of the third and fourth, and the whole of the fifth, the best MS. L unfortunately fails us.

It is therefore necessary to supplement L by other MSS., if possible, of the same class. And although no MS. hitherto known approaches L in goodness, a few may be found which occupy this supplementary position, and stand in their reading and characteristics as boldly apart from the vast aggregate of (interpolated) MSS. as L itself.

Of these I have employed three. One of them has been already published; of the second, there is only a very fragmentary and inexact knowledge; while the third has remained hitherto undiscovered. These MSS. are:

G. Guelferbytanus, Gudianus n. 192, at Wolfenbüttel, a vellum MS., sec. xiii. The original text has been corrected at different times by several different hands, which were not accurately distinguished by Schweiger, who collated the MS. for Merkel's critical edition of 1837. Subsequent collations have been made by Kiessling (used by Tank) and Schenkl (used by Güthling).

H. Holkhamicus, sec. xiii1. A vellum MS. at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, the property of the Earl of Leicester. Of this MS. I hope to speak at greater length on a further occasion. It is sufficient for the present purpose to say that a careful comparison of its readings with those of L shows that it belongs to the best group of MSS., and is inferior in value to none excepting L

1 This MS. was examined and assigned to the thirteenth century, by both Mr. Coxe, the late Bodleian Librarian, and Mr. Westwood, each of them experts of acknowledged skill.

itself. This MS. I have myself collated. (This MS. was used by Mr. Ellis for the Ibis.)

V. Vaticanus, n. 1606, is a vellum MS., sec. xiii., written in the Gothic character, containing the Tristia only. There are many corrections and erasures; besides the original hand, two correcting hands, each of the same age as the original, have operated on the MS. Of this I am informed by Mr. Monaci, who has executed for me a careful collation of it.

The three MSS. G H V are, in my opinion, of equal value; and thus afford, what has hitherto been wanting, a trustworthy group to supplement the deficiencies of L1.

Where they agree I have designated their consensus by the letter w, partly for the sake of brevity and partly to enable the reader to distinguish at a glance the difference between this class and that of the interpolated MSS.

My text has been based where possible upon L; where it failed I have had recourse to w, and I have endeavoured to preserve the reading of the MSS. wherever it yielded a tolerable sense 2.

A few words must be added with regard to L, which is a folio vellum MS. of the eleventh century, and formerly belonged to the library of San Marco (hence its name, Marcianus, n. 223). Some critics date it as early as the tenth, and others as late as the twelfth century, but both Mr. Anziani and Mr. Paoli, professor of Latin Palaeography at Florence, who most kindly favoured me with their opinion upon it, unite in assigning it to the eleventh century. The original writing is that of the same scribe throughout; the differences of distinctness and form in the letters are

1 I have once or twice referred to two other MSS., which I have, myself collated, (1) a fifteenth century Bodleian MS., Auct. F. 1. 18 which appears to have been copied from a good original; (2) a thirteenth century MS. at Arras (codex Atrebaticus); these two are occasionally useful as confirming the authority of these MSS.

" The merit of first pointing out the supreme excellence of L, and the difference in value between L and A, which Riese treated as of equal authority, belongs to F. Tank, whose valuable monograph De Tristibus Ovidii recensendis, Stettin, 1879, has been of great service to me.

not due, as has been supposed by some, to the co-operation of two different hands, which, as such differences often occur in the same line, is highly improbable, but to a difference of ink or pen employed. Three correctors have worked upon the MS.: the first, L2, is a hand contemporary with the original, possibly the same. This corrector alone is quoted in this edition, The second and third belong to a later age.

The collation used of L was made by myself in December, 1884. That published by Riese is so full of errors both of omission and commission, as has been shown by Tank, that it is quite untrustworthy. A fresh collation was made for Güthling's text, but even this is not free from occasional mistakes, nor is it published in extenso. There is a careful description of the codex Marcianus in A. Kunz's valuable edition of the Medicamina formae, Vienna, 1881. Besides the signs already explained, the following are used in the apparatus criticus :

5 = the interpolated MSS., either all or the preponderance of them 1.

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The readings of the four principal editors of the text are given

in brackets, thus :

(Me.) or (Me. ed. mai.)
1837.

(Me. ed. min.)

(Ri.)
(Eh.)

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=

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Merkel's Teubner Text. Lips. 1850.

Riese's Tauchnitz Text. Lips. 1874.

Ehwald's recension in Merkel's last published Teubner Text. 1884. (Unfortunately this is a mere text with no apparatus criticus of any kind.)

(Gü) = Güthling's Text. Lips. Freytag. 1884.

Of such MSS. I have collated about a dozen, and many more will be found in Merkel's critical edition.

TRISTIV M

LIBER PRIMVS.

I.

PARVE-nec invideo-sine me, liber, ibis in urbem: ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo! vade, sed incultus, qualem decet exulis esse: infelix habitum temporis huius habe. nec te purpureo velent vaccinia fuco:

non est conveniens luctibus ille color: nec titulus minio, nec cedro carta notetur, candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras.

felices ornent haec instrumenta libellos:
fortunae memorem te decet esse meae.
nec fragili geminae poliantur pumice frontes,
hirsutus sparsis ut videare comis.
neve liturarum pudeat. qui viderit illas,

de lacrimis factas sentiat esse meis.
vade, liber, verbisque meis loca grata saluta:
contingam certe quo licet illa pede.

si quis, ut in populo, nostri non inmemor illi, si quis, qui, quid agam, forte requiret, erit:

5

ΙΟ

15

2. quod] quo Atilius Fortunatianus VI. 291, 17 K. (Gü.). 12. sparsis G'H (Me. Ri. Eh.). passis G1V (Gü.). 14. sentiat w (Gü.). sentiet s (Me. Ri. Eh.). 17. illi G1V Bodl. auct. F. 1.

18. (Me. Eh. Gü.). illo H exstat G2 5 λ (Ri.). (Gü.). requirat s (Me. Ri. Eh.).

B

18. requiret w

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