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Critical and explanatory Remarks on the HIPPOLYTUS STEPHANEPHORUS of Euripides, with Strictures on some Notes of Professor Monk.

No. IV.

V. 3. ὅσοι τε πόντου τερμόνων τ' Ατλαντικῶν ναίουσιν εἴσω, φῶς ὁρῶντες ἡλίου.

Prof. Monk here has the following Note:

"Tóvrou male intelli

Esc. Prom. 355.

git Musgravius post Schol. de Pont. Eux. Montem Atlantem fingebant Poetæ et maris, et naturæ finem esse. Infra 1056. Tέgav ye πόντου καὶ τόπων Ατλαντικῶν, Εἴ πῶς δυναίμην dixit Prometheus ἐπεί με χαί κασιγνήτου τύχαι Τείρουσ’"Ατλαντος, ὃς πρὸς ἑσπέρους τόπους Εστηκε, κίον ̓ οὐρανοῦ τε καὶ χθονὸς Ωμοιν ἐρείδων.” The words of the Scholia are, Τερμόνων δὲ ̓Ατλαντικῶν, περὶ τὸ ̓Ατε λαντικὸν πέλαγος ἤκουσαν· ἔνιοι δὲ τὰ Γάδειρα, ἔνθα ἐστὶν ὄρος ὁ Ατλας, ὅπερ ἐστὶ δυτικόν· ὁ δὲ Πόντος, ἀνατολικόν. The words of Musgrave are, "Pontus hic est pontus Euxinus, ut in versu Aristophanis p.

335.

ἀπὸ τοῦ πόντου μέχρι Σαρδούς.”

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The Professor condemns the Scholiast and Musgrave for giving the right interpretation of the passage, but at the same time he admits that Mount Atlas is here meant for the boundary of the sea and of nature,' finis et maris et terra. I should be glad to be informed how the Professor, who understands by Tóvrou the sea, can elicit an intelligible meaning from the words, of which in this case the interpretation runs literally thus-Whosoever dwell within the sea and the Atlantic boundaries, (ὅσοι τε πόντου τερμόνων τ' 'Ατλαντικῶν Ναίουσιν εἴτω.) One of the Reviewers seems to have had sufficient sagacity to perceive the absurdity of this interpretation, and proposes to understand πόντου τερμόνων τ' Ατλαντι x as a hendiadys, and then the words will run literally thus— Whosoever dwell within the Atlantic boundaries of the sea. But though we may say that a warrior's conquests may be pushed to the very extremity of the earth, yet it would be a somewhat strange expression to say that all the inhabitants within the Atlantic boundaries of the sea had fallen beneath his spear. The fact is that the Euxine sea and the pillars of Hercules were used to denote the two extremities of the world, and when both the terms are used together, they imply precisely what we mean in English, when we speak of a man's fame resounding from pole to pole. Ilóvros καὶ τέρμονες Ατλαντικοί is then manifestly a proverbial expression, and this is indisputably proved by the words in the Hercules Furens v. 234. cited by Beck, and omitted by Mr. Monk, 'Arλay

τικῶν πέρα φεύγειν ὅρων, and by what Theseus says to Hippolytus in he 1056th verse,

Ιπ. οἴμοι, τί δράσεις ; οὐδὲ μηνυτὴν χρόνον

δέξει καθ ̓ ἡμῶν, ἀλλά μ ̓ ἐξελᾶς χθονός; Θη. πέραν γε πόντου, καὶ τόπων ̓Ατλαντικών, εἴ πως δυναίμην· ὡς τὸν ἐχθαίρω κάρα,

(Thus we speak of sending a man to Jericho,) and by the fact that Pindar in his third Olympiac uses (as is observed' by the Reviewer of the Professor's Edition of the Hippolytus in the British Critic for June 1812, p. 562) ἅπτεσθαι Ηρακλέος στηλᾶν in a proverbial sense, and adds τὸ πόρσω

δ' ἔστι σοφοῖς ἄβατον,

κἀσοφοῖς, οὐ μὴν διώξω, κεινὸς εἴην,

and by the well known proverbial verse,

εἰς Φᾶσιν, ἔνθα ναυσὶν ἔσχατος δρόμος,

and by the words of Plato in his Phado, which the Professor does not seem to have noticed, c. ξ. ἡμᾶς οἰκεῖν τους μέχρις 'Ηρακ λείων στηλῶν ἀπὸ Φάσιδος ἐν σμικρῷ τινὶ μορίῳ, ὥσπερ περὶ τέλμα μύρω μηκας ἢ βατράχους, περὶ τὴν θάλατταν οἰκοῦντας. Hence then we give by such an interpretation a consistent meaning and a great force to the words of Venus in the opening of the Hippolytus. She says that her power is acknowledged both in heaven, and on earth, (for I have in a former No. remarked that, after oupavou ow, the ingenious Mr. G. Burges most properly puts only a comma, so as to connect these words with the subsequent words, as the poet indisputably intended, οσοι τε πόντου τερμόνων τ' Ατλαντικών Nalovov elow,) on earth, viz. by all whosoever dwell within the Pontus and the Atlantic boundaries, viz. by all the inhabitants of the world from the river Phasis to the pillars of Hercules, viz. a Gadibus usque ad auroram, viz. from the eastern to the western extremity of the world, as the Scholia most properly explain the meaning of the words. I have been led more particularly to examine this passage by having seen this interpretation of it in an admirable note of D. Wyttenbach upon the words of Plato cited above, and which note cannot fail to remove any doubts, which the Professor might be disposed to have, if the matter rested upon my authority, whether my arguments were conclusive, or inconclusive.

I cite the passage of Pindar, as it is there cited, and the writer met with it in J. Windel's Exquartos imiotónixos, de Vita functorum Statu, ex Hebræorum atque Græcorum comparatis Sententiis concinnatus, cum Corollario de Tartaro Apostoli Petri, in quem Prævaricatores Angelos dejectos memorat. The whole passage from this most erudite dissertation is cited in the Classical Recreations p. 346., and by the well-known proverbial verse, the proverb of sailing to the Phasis was applied to all dangerous voyages, from the time of the Argonauts.

« Ρ. 84. μέχρις 'Ηρακλείων στηλῶν ἀπὸ Φάσιδος. Hi censebantur termini Ts olxouuévns, orbis terrarum nobis cogniti et habitati, nostrumque mare includentis. Animadvertendum in Euripidis Hippolyto 3. ὅσοι τε πόντου τερμόνων τ' ̓Ατλαντικῶν Ναίουσιν εἴσως φῶς ὁρῶντες ἡλίου, neque enim simpliciter maris est πόντου, sed Ponti Euxini, oppositi finibus Atlanticis termini. Similis caussa est ibidem v. 1350. πέραν γε πόντου καὶ τερμόνων τ' Ατλαντικῶν. Cicero Nat. Deor. 11, 66. Nam si omnibus hominibus, qui ubique sunt, quacumque in ora ac parte terrarum, ab hujusce terræ, quam nos incolimus, continuatione distantium, Deos consulere censemus ob has caussas, quas ante diximus; HIS quoque HOMINIBUS consulunt,

QUI HAS NOBISCUM TERRAS AB ORIENTE AD OCCIDENTEM CO

LUNT. Sin autem his consulunt, qui quasi magnam quamdam insu lam incolunt, quam nos orbem terræ vocamus, etiam illis consulunt, qui partes ejus insulæ tenent, Europam, Asiam, Africam. Postea in Phasidis et Ponti locum successit India: v. c. in illo Juvenalis X, 1.

Omnibus in terris, quæ sunt a Gadibus usque

Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona.

Hæc pro diversa significatione Ts oixouμévns, et ab Herculis columnis ad Indiam definit Aristoteles De Calo II, 14. fin. Meteorolog. 11, 5. Seneca Quæst. Nat. 1. Præf. p. 506, Quantum enim est, quod ab ultimis litoribus Hispanic usque ad Indos jacet? Europa hos fines facit Auctor libri de Mundo c. 111. s. 9. Eйάлη μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ἧς ὅροι κύκλῳ, στήλαι τε ̔Ηρακλέους, καὶ μυχοὶ Πόντου, θάλαττά τε Υρκανία.” D. Wyttenbachii In Platonis Phaedonem Lug. Bat. 1810. p. 299.

In v. 94. of the Hippolytus we have

Θη. ἐν δ ̓ εὐπροσηγόροισιν ἔστι τις χάρις ;

Ιπ. πλείστη γε, καὶ κέρδος γε σὺν μόχθῳ βραχεῖ.

The Professor's Note here is as follows:

"AsiσT TE ediderunt Valck. et Brunck. e Flor. male. Postulatur enim altera particula: neque repetita y cuiquam displicere debet, cum propriam vim utrobique servat. Vertas, Imo maxima, quin et lucrum cum labore exiguo. Equidem olim conjiciebam xaì xégdos T: mox conjecturam istam inutilem judicavi; quod nunc moneo, cum eandem lectionem aliis quoque placuisse intelligam. Legit doctissimus Tate, xai xéplogov u. 6. fortasse recte."

The Professor would have said not fortasse recte, but omnino recte, if he had had the good luck to know the precise force of such an elliptical expression, upon which Michaelis thus slightly touches in a Note to L. Bos's Ellipses Græcæ: "Où póvov subintelligitur in καὶ πάντες δὲ, quippe quod idem est ac οὐ μόνον δὲ, ἀλλὰ xal návτss. Lucas in Actis Apostol. c. 111, 24. et c. v, 32. Pau

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lis ad Timolh. Ep. II, c. III, 12.” Thus we have in Demosthe nes Olynth. B. p. 90. Ed. Mount. καὶ γὰρ εἰπεῖν τὰ δεόντα παρ' ὑμῖν, εἰσὶν, ὦ ἀ. Α., δυνάμενοι, καὶ γνῶναι πάντων ὑμεῖς ὀξύτατοι τὰ ῥηθέντα καὶ πράξαι δὲ δυνήσεσθε νῦν, ἐὰν ὀρθῶς ποιῆτε, sc. οὐ μόνον δὲ τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ καὶ πράξαι δυνήσεσθε, Quin et eadem exequi nunc poteritis, a8 Stocke well translates it. Again περὶ στεφ. c. ιδ. ὑμεῖς δὲ, ὑφορώμενοι τὰ πεπραγμένα, καὶ δυσχεραίνοντες, ἤγετε τὴν εἰρήνην ὅμως· οὐ γὰρ ἦν ὅ, τι ἂν ἐποιεῖτε μόνοι· καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι δὲ Ἕλληνες, ὁμοίως ὑμῖν πεφενα κισμένοι, καὶ διημαρτηκότες ὧν ἤλπισαν, ἦγον τὴν εἰρήνην ἀσμένοι, καὶ αὐτοὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἐκ πολλοῦ πολεμούμενοι, that is οὐ μόνον ὑμεῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι Ελληνες. Thus too Plutarch in the ̓Επιτηδεύματα Λακωνικά C. κη. Αφροδίτην σέβουσι τὴν ἐνόπλιον· καὶ πάντας δὲ τοὺς θεοὺς θηλεῖς καὶ ἄῤῥενας λόγχας ἔχοντας ποιοῦνται, ὡς ἁπάντων τὴν που λεμικὴν ἀρετὴν ἐχόντων, that is οὐ μόνον δὲ, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντας κ. τ. λ. Mr. Tate, to whose ingenuity and acuteness I am ever ready to bear my humble testimony, seems to have been guided by the ear alone to this emendation, as he assigns no reason in favor of it, But with respect to the Professor, Cynthius, instead of plucking his ear and admonishing him, seems to have run away with the ear, or else he would not have received the double γε into his text.

πλείστη γε, καὶ κέρδος γε σὺν μόχθῳ βραχεῖ.

The ear is known to have been considered by the ancients as the seat of memory, and the circumstance just mentioned accounts for the Professor's forgetting the dictum of Professor Porson about καὶ δὲ, (when he so far adopts Mr. Tate's conjecture, as to say of it fortasse recte,) Conjunctiones istas in eodem sententia membro haud credo occurrere apud ævi istius scriptores, nisi per librariorum errores; and this forgetfulness is the more remarkable, because this very dictum of the departed Professor is, as Mr. G. Burges observed to me, quoted by Mr. Blomfield on Prometheus v. 1009. Ed. 2da, and referred to by him on the Sev. a. Thebes v. 469. I doubt whether even Mr. Tate, although the expression is supported by the usage of Demosthenes, the best writers in prose, and the genius of the Greek language, would have ventured upon the conjecture, if he had known that it violates one of Porson's canons, and militates against the supposed practice of the Greek tragedians. Mr. Monk says, as we have seen above : « Equidem olim conjiciebam καὶ κέρδος τι ; mox con jecturam istam inutilem judicavi, quod nunc moneo, cum eandem lectionem aliis quoque placuisse intelligam." These alii may, as I believe, be meant for G. Burges solus, for he has published, as I understood from him, this very conjecture.

Trin. Coll. Camb. Nov. 27. 1813.

E. H. BARKER.

BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL CRITICISM.

PERMIT me to send you, as a Botanist, two or three critical remarks on mistranslations of the Greek in the New Testament.

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1. The first is from the Parable of the Sower, where our Saviour says άλλα (σπέρματα) ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὰς ἀκάνθας. Matt. xiii. 7. Év μécœ Täν áxávov. Luk. viii. 7. In both these passages the word axavba is translated "thorns." Now it is obvious that this is a wrong translation; for the thorns are said "to grow up with the corn.' The thorn (or hawthorn it may be supposed) is a shrub of slow growth, requiring six or seven years to arrive at maturity; and, therefore, if sown with an annual plant, not in the least injurious to its growth. The idea of sowing among thorns already Occupying the ground is too wild to be admitted by any agriculturist. On consulting Schleusner's Lexicon on the word axavox, he says "spina, vepris, sentis:" yet he says afterwards "vox latissime patet apud Græcos, ita ut tam de arbore spinosa, quam de herba aculeata." On consulting, however, the Father of Botany, the species of ἄκανθα mentioned by him are all herbacious, ποώδεις. He has enumerated seven species, many of them accurately described; as they are likewise by Dioscorides, Galen, and by Pliny, and other writers, under the name carduus, a thistle. The hawthorn is thought not to have been known in Greece, but its affinity to the pyracantha is fully described by Theophrastus, under the name 'Oğuάxavba. With this meaning of the word the action of the sower is agreeable to common sense: the sowing among thistles may mean on ground infested with thistles, or with seed not cleaned from thistles; and the natural consequence of such practice would be that the thistles would grow up with the seed, Matt. Mark, that they would grow together, (ruuqueirai) St. Luke, and the beauty of the parable would be preserved without violating probability.

Οξυάκανθα.

2. Συκαμίνῳ...Συκαμωραίαν. Luk. xvii. 6. xix. 4. St. Luke, as it should seem, uses both these words as indicative of the same tree, which is translated literatim in our authorised version, chap. xvii. the sycamine tree, and chap. xix. the sycamore. Schleusner, like a grammarian ignorant of Botany, says, "arbor inter Ficum et Morum media." Now on consulting the Father of Botany, as Linneus in this instance affords no light, we shall find Zuxauivos clearly to indicate the mulberry tree. It is to be noticed that

The Illustrationes Theophrasti by Stackhouse, being a methodical ar

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