act 2

Question 1

line 116

Answer 1

tristan suggests nuxit for nubit

Question 2

line 117

Answer 2

trimeters resume

A = condo, E =‘credo’

‘A’ is almost certainly an abbreviation misreading

Question 3

line 118-9

Answer 3

‘erepto’ (to go with regno) here is odd - but change to ‘eripere’ perhaps not justifiable

Question 4

line 120

Answer 4

Bentley wants to change to ‘merita non meminit’ or ‘monstra contempsit’ but not necessary

Question 5

line 123

Answer 5

‘vesana’ OR ‘non sana’? both show up in the manuscripts - keep non sana

Question 6

line 128

Answer 6

‘novere’ is perfectly reasonable past alternative to ‘erunt’ - no need to mess with it, tend towards over correction

Question 7

line 129

Answer 7

Bothe suggest ‘patrandum’ over ‘parandum’ but the former never occurs in senecan tragedy so might be a bit of a stretch

Question 8

line 133

Answer 8

‘campo’ instead of ‘ponto’? making it blood being spilt on the land/earth

Apollodorus stages these events at sea and dido threatens to scatter the body of ascanius over the waves in a clear allusion to Medea despite lack of consistent myth

Question 9

line 136

Answer 9

‘saevit’
change from past to present tense makes ‘saevit’ perhaps unlikely? no effective contrast with ‘feci’ along with the tense means it must be wrong.

‘fecit’ as alternative? very easy to see how it would have dropped out

‘saeviit felix’? could have dropped out when the second ‘i’ in ‘saeviit’ was lost and them it was added to ‘felix’ to mend the meter

Question 10

line 140-141

Answer 10

commas are awkward - example of modern punctuation becoming an imposition to the sense rather than an aid

Question 11

line 144-5

Answer 11

implication that children will stay whilst she is banished

Question 12

line 147

Answer 12

Heinsius suggests ‘tumulabo’ instead of ‘cumulabo’ - neither of these words are present elsewhere in senecan tragedy but in latin either term is idiomatic

difference is so small that either is likely/works

Question 13

line 158

Answer 13

heinsius suggests ‘defendet’ over ‘defendit’ - plausible but unnecessary change

Question 14

line 162

Answer 14

‘nobis’ rather than ‘rebus’ - works with the close association of the nurse with medea

Question 15

line 166-7

Answer 15

Giardina troubled by no mention of thunderbolts - replace ‘fulmina’ with ‘crimina’

Question 16

line 171

Answer 16

E =‘sed’ - does not scan due to need for elision

A= ‘et’

‘sed’ could have come from ‘at’ due to similar meaning and then ‘at’ and ‘et’ are easily displaced by eachother

Fitch says ‘et’ can work even if it isn’t immediately apparent

Question 17

line 180

Answer 17

‘exportas’ is long so cannot be conjectured, therefore not a vocative line

Question 18

line 181

Answer 18

‘minus’ instead of ‘manus’

Question 19

line 189

Answer 19

‘fert gradum’ works well in performance and the elision doesn’t work as well with the conjectured lines

Question 20

line 190

Answer 20

‘fuga’ presumable corrupted from line 192

Question 21

line 193

Answer 21

sarcastic tone indicated by description of her at 191 - ‘roget’ could eliminate th problems over the tone - would have assimilated by ‘pellat’

Question 22

line 197

Answer 22

‘redeo’ is correct - ‘redeam’ doesn’t scan

‘advexit’ appears in two different branches of the stem a, polygenetic error -> errors which happen more than once but are still errors

Question 23

line 201

Answer 23

Aventius conjectures ‘Pelia’ as ‘pelias’ does not scan - likely normalisation with ‘supplicium’ next to it

Question 24

line 202

Answer 24

end of propertius 4.11, and dido’s speech in Aeneid 4 - intentional or interpolation?

Question 25

line 204

Answer 25

‘hoc putet’ better than ‘hoc caput’ ‘caput’ result of mechanical corruption (swapping letters)

Question 26

lines 209 and 218

Answer 26

both feature ‘fulsi’, one of which was replaced by ‘vixi’ Tobias believes 218 is protected due to the position of ‘fulsi’ in the line and the sense it conveys if ‘vixi’ is in 209 it would be instrumental perhaps ‘vixi’ in 218? goes with defence to ‘sol’ and ‘clarum’ but unclear the solution

Question 27

line 213

Answer 27

‘dulcescunt’? or ‘durescunt’? R, E and part of A agrees with ‘durescunt’ ‘dulescunt’ however works better with notion of her father’s control

Question 28

line 218

Answer 28

example of common split in manuscripts between ‘tunc’ and ‘tum’ evidence in fasti shows a move away from ‘tum’ to ‘tunc’ PREFER ‘tum’ unless ‘tunc’ required to prevent elision also ‘proci’ (in RE) vs ‘viri’ in (A) ‘proci’ preferred

Question 29

line 219

Answer 29

‘rapida’ of A is preferable to ‘rabida’ of E

Question 30

line 220

Answer 30

Avantius conjecture of ‘exilio et’ scans where E and A don’t R’s ‘exilio’ does scan and may be preferable as ‘et’ is merely demonstrative - not necessary

Question 31

line 226

Answer 31

‘et’ is an added conjecture, remove? some manuscripts read ‘gloriae’ rather than ‘graeciae’ possibly abbreviated form of ‘graecia’ (gcre/gera with an abbreviation line) - as well as contextual pressure from ‘decus’ and ‘florem’ which is what let to ‘gloriae’

Question 32

line 229

Answer 32

Richter suggests deleting as very generic line and unclear what ‘pacifying the rocks’ might mean in context seems like an orphic reference - he is a chthonic figure -> perhaps there is a larger corruption? ‘saxa’ corrupted from a more suitable object? something like r ‘saeva’ could work and makes sense how it might be corrupted - a true noun could be preferable how would seneca use substantive adjectives? rock could refer to her - like a stony/cold woman - hard woman although that is usually using metals

Question 33

line 230

Answer 33

Heinsius has ‘geminique’ ie: the wins are my gift corruption via assimilation with munus?

Question 34

line 233

Answer 34

‘ducum…ducem’ fits better grammatically, but ‘ducem…ducum’ (E) is transmitted and also possible if harder Genitive first also means the sentence isn’t complete without being whole

Question 35

line 236

Answer 35

‘fulmina’ seems to deify Creon - Medea may be being sarcastic but perhaps a stretch ‘flagitia’ fits more easily

Question 36

line 237-43

Answer 36

removed by Hubner- see notes for 242-3

Question 37

line 239

Answer 37

Giardina suggests ‘pudor’ - might be paired with ‘pietas’ which would then be glossed by ‘pater’ ‘pietasque’ works better than ‘paterque’ - change it

Question 38

line 242-3

Answer 38

‘quae’ is transmitted Avantius suggests ‘qua’ -> intended to function as equivalent to ‘quomodo’ but very un-senecan, does not work with paradosis Watt suggests ‘quam’ could be deleted? Jason as subject in 241 and 244, but subjects changes in between delete 242-3 but keep 237 onwards so the argument is still maintained if an interpolation wanted ‘quae vis’ but couldn’t make it fit meter ‘quae volet’ argument of deletion

Question 39

line 248

Answer 39

fitch ‘dextre peti’ is better than ‘dextra peti’ (dextre from the genitive dextrae) ‘fidem’ does not require ‘praesidis’ whereas the ‘dextre’ could take it

Question 40

line 249

Answer 40

tradition gives ‘terra hac’ (‘terram’ in E) Giardina offers ‘tutum’ like Bell.Afr.62.3 other conjectures: ‘tutum’ from Leo, ‘terrae’ from Gronouius fitch/zweirlein’s ‘terra’ makes most sense

Question 41

line 256

Answer 41

is ‘quippe’ used without subjunctive elsewhere in Seneca? ‘quippe quem’ is not transmitted; ‘quem’ in E, ‘quippe te’ in A Bentley suggests ‘quippe quam’

Question 42

line 263

Answer 42

‘nullus…cruor’ A has ‘nullum’ - clear assimilation to the next word. ‘nullum’ would elide and therefore must be wrong

Question 43

line 266-268

Answer 43

extraordinary closeness of a metrical rarity final merton is dactyl followed by a trochee only appears in 4 other places, the other two both involving ‘memoria’ line 266 is the problematic line? or maybe we can just chill

Question 44

line 267

Answer 44

‘cui feminae’ from R ‘cui feminea’ from EA - this one is odd for metrical stress Bothe solves this with ‘femina cui’

Question 45

line 279

Answer 45

is the plurality of ‘conuiges’ a problem? Avantius conjectures ‘novam coniugem’ but ‘coniuges’ is fine if we consider Jason a cheater - maybe a little more confused than the conjecture

Question 46

line 284

Answer 46

creon appears to be considering adopting Medea’s sons, very Roman

Question 47

line 293

Answer 47

‘tibi’ for ‘malis’? saying that medea does not need time, as opposed to bad people more generally - bit of a pointless change

Question 48

line 294

Answer 48

conjectures for ‘infixus’ (infestus, infusus, inflexus) - fine with infixus (A is incorrect with ‘infelix’)

Question 49

line 300

Answer 49

omitted in E repetition of ‘vocant’/‘vocat’ is odd ‘vocat’ followed by infinitive ‘precari’ is also apparently odd repetition of ‘dies’ and ‘diem’ two lines above A is usually still printed but seems fair to omit the line

Question 50

lines 301-308

Answer 50

choral ode begins in anapests these lines get lots of critical attention leo deletes 305-6 as it is repetition of the sense of the preceding verses some difference in language and the piling upon the detai of uncertainty seems appropriate Hubner would delete 305-8 and steve seems the argument for 307-8 deletion as stronger

Question 51

lines 307

Answer 51

‘vias’ transmitted, ‘vices’ a conjecture by Axelson issue is actually ‘inter vitae’ - as in Tib 1.3 and virgil 3.684

Question 52

line 314

Answer 52

‘flectit’ is a correction of ‘deflet’ from EA

Question 53

line 315

Answer 53

‘attica’ puts us in incoherent mythology, whereas ‘arctica’ is easier as a mythological reading

Question 54

line 320

Answer 54

‘nautis’ form Richter to replace ‘ventis’ corrupted by having just discussed winds in the previous few lines and must be ‘nautis’ as following paragraph just discusses the laws of the sailors is ‘nautis’ too banal?

Question 55

lines 329-34

Answer 55

reordered by piper and leo

Question 56

line 331

Answer 56

‘litora’ is a dactylic word which regularly gets exchanged - possibly ‘limina’ instead of ‘tangens’ the real problem? change to ‘servans’

Question 57

line 331-332

Answer 57

‘arvo/parvo’ as adjacent is odd Hardy suggests ‘agro’ for ‘arvo’ ‘paulo’ for ‘parvo’ could be an option? both are synonym substitutions assimilating to the rhyme of the other unclear which is the problem

Question 58

line 341

Answer 58

‘ducta’ makes ‘ducto’ in 308 is less favourable than ‘ductus’

Question 59

line 343-4

Answer 59

features 2 ablatives working in different ways on the verb ‘gemerent’ ‘subito impulso’ lacks any real sense of belonging strongly to ‘gemerent’ Fitch suggests ‘a lacuna’ with ‘ruper coacta rupibus actis’ OR ‘mononitur’ possibly being omitted neither option is paleographically attractive

Question 60

line 344

Answer 60

‘sonitu’ instead of ‘tonitu’ point of error with less common ‘tonitu’ turning to the more common ‘sonitu’ ‘tonitu’ would enhance the sense of thunder, more effective sound by increasing number of dentals in the line

Question 61

line 345

Answer 61

E has ‘astris’ cannot be right A has ‘astra’ replaced with ‘arcis’ in OCT - also not quite right - what is it referring to the tops of? probably the mountains but its still a little murky phrasing wise Fitch ‘spargeret astra’ - odd to have vowel at the end of a line but not unheard of in medea richter suggests ‘nubesque ipsas spargeret atras’ Fitch says ‘atras’ makes less sense, replace with ‘’undis’ to make work

Question 62

line 349

Answer 62

‘ipsa’ here - maybe want to change the ‘ipsas’ at 345?

Question 63

line 357

Answer 63

‘et’ for ‘cum’ to remove repetition of ‘cum’ with different moods et is better anyway

Question 64

line 359

Answer 64

E has ‘ratem’ corrupted from ‘solitam’ but don’t want ‘ratem’ as people may think it goes with ‘solitam’ when ‘sirena’ actually goes with ‘solitam’ ‘rates’ fits way better

Question 65

line 367

Answer 65

‘referens’ too confusing? schade posits ‘regumque ferens’ contextual pressure to write ‘re’ (from ‘regem’ and ‘remos’)

Question 66

line 373-4

Answer 66

easter persians drinking from the german rivers (north and west) - fits with the swapping of continents going on here seneca uses present subjunctive, in reference to Persian legionaries who are travelling around in this manner Indian drinkin from the eastern armenian river is less surprising as an image and so more surprising here ‘indus gelidum…araxen’ is also from Phaedra - could be an interpolation from some marginalia ‘potat’ possibly right - maybe indian drinking from the ‘ara’ maybe replace ‘indus’ with ‘gallus’ or ‘italus’ so westerners going east to meet the persians going west ‘italus gelidum potat araxen’ fits meter better