The scribal process of handling “forgotten” lines in two manuscripts of the Iliad: Escorial Upsilon 1.1 and Venetus A

A guest post by Holy Cross undergraduate research teams: Debbie Sokolowski ’14 and Drew Virtue ’17; Becky Musgrave ’14 and Chris Ryan ’16

Often when the Homer Multitext team edits manuscripts throughout the year we encounter irregularities in the way the folios are laid out. One case of this is the way scribes deal with lines of the Iliad that they either forgot or decided not to include within the main text. Debbie Sokolowski and Drew Virtue discovered one example of this in their editing of book 22 in Venetus A this year, on folio 286 verso. The lines are Iliad 22.210–22.213:

ἐν δ’ ἐτίθει δύο κῆρε τανηλεγέος θανάτοιο.

τὴν μὲν Ἀχιλλῆος. τὴν δ᾽ Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο·

ἕλκε δὲ μέσσα λαβών. ῥέπε δ᾽ Ἕκτορος αἴσιμον ἦμαρ·

ᾤχετο δ᾽ εἰς Ἀΐδαο· λίπεν δέ ἑ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων·  

On 286 verso, we encountered an instance in which the scribe seems to have accidentally omitted a line of the text and later inserted it. At the top of the folio, above two scholia, is the omitted line (212): ἕλκε δὲ μέσσα λαβών. ῥέπε δ᾽ Ἕκτορος αἴσιμον ἦμαρ·

This omitted line is identified with a β in the margin. In the main text lines 211 and 213 are marked with an α and γ, respectively, signaling to the reader that the lines should read in the order of α, β, γ. This omission can reveal many important insights about the scribe’s process in composing the Venetus A. We know that the scribe normally writes 25 lines of the poem on each folio. Including the omitted line, folio 286 verso still follows this rule. Therefore, we can conclude that the scribe did not mean to include this line as an alternate or optional line, but that it was intended to be read as a part of the main text. This also raises several questions about the scribe’s transcription and editing process. When did the scribe catch his mistake? Is he copying from a manuscript which is consistent with his 25-line per folio rule? Or is he transcribing from a long, continuous manuscript and counting his lines?

Chris Ryan and Becky Musgrave encountered a similar problem in the Escorial Upsilon 1.1 in editing book 10 throughout this year, yet the scribe handled it in a different manner. Whereas the scribe of Venetus A decided to deal with this problem by marking lines α, β, γ, the scribe of Upsilon 1.1 put an asterisk at the end of the line that the missing line comes after, and then writes the line elsewhere on the folio with the word “stichoi” (“lines”) in front of it to let the reader know that it is part of the main text of the Iliad and not a scholion. 

The first time we encountered this in Book 10 was on folio 126r, line 85: φθέγγεο· μὴδ᾽ ἀκεων ἐπ᾽ ἐ[page cuts off] ρχεο· τίπτε δέ σε χρεώ. 

The line reads in the Venetus B: φθέγγεο· μὴδ᾽ ἀκεων ἐπ᾽ ἐμ᾽ ἔρχεο· τίπτε δέ σε χρεώ.  We can tell that this line is not part of the scholia because the scribe actually puts a scholion marker within the line, and its corresponding scholion beneath it. The ink that the line is written in is also the same shade as the lines of the Iliad and darker than that of the main text of the scholia, so the scribe must have either purposely put the line out in the margin, or realized his mistake while he was writing the main text. The scribe typically puts 24 lines of Iliadic text on each folio, and each folio that contains a “stichoi” line only contains 23 lines in the main text (that is, 24 with the extra line counted). 

The Venetus B has often been considered a “twin” manuscript of the Upsilon 1.1, since they almost always contain the same lines on each page and have very similar scholia, so whenever we encounter something unexepected in our editing of the Upsilon 1.1, we turn to the Venetus B for comparison. One reason that we are led to believe that these are cases of the scribe correcting his mistake and not an intentional editorial omission is by comparing the folio, to the corresponding folio 131r of the Venetus B. In the Venetus B, the line is written within the main text with no special treatment, which leads us to believe that the scribe of the Upsilon 1.1 placed this line in the margin simply because he made an error in the scribal process.

Editorial note: the undergraduate researchers at the Homer Multitext seminar happening right now at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC will also be further investigating the question of “forgotten” lines, with a focus on Iliad 12 in the Venetus A. So stay tuned for more!

Hektor’s Variation on a Lament by Briseis

One of the topics that I am most interested in on this blog and in connection with the Homer Multitext more generally is the concept of multiformity. A primary research question addressed by the Homer Multitext is the extent to which the variation and multiformity that once characterized the performance and composition of the Homeric poems are still evident in the historical documents that transmit the text of these poems to us. As Albert Lord showed (see especially Lord 1960), in an oral epic song tradition like that in which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, no song was ever sung the exact same way twice. The song was created anew each time, using the traditional building blocks of formula and theme, employed in varying degrees of expansion and compression. Every formula is traditional, but every formula carries with it many layers of accumulated meaning, meaning that resonates through time and even across geographical distances. What is “good” about such traditional poetry is not “newness,” but, as Milman Parry put it, putting tradition “to the best use” (Parry 1932, 12-14 [= Parry 1971, 334-35]).

Richard Martin built on the work of Parry and Lord to show how patterns and structures associated with different genres of poetry and speech outside of epic (such as boasting, lament, love song, etc) came to be incorporated into epic, and so formed building blocks with powerful resonance of their own (see especially Martin 1989). One of these genres that I have explored in my own research is that of the traditional lament for the dead, especially as performed by the captive (and soon-to-be captive) women of the Iliad, such as Briseis and Andromache. Laments have a traditional structure and have traditional content, themes, and imagery, but they are dynamic forms of song. They have particular relevance to the life of the woman singing the song and narrate her own personal experiences while at the same time drawing on universal patterns and the experiences of sorrow and grief within the community of mourners. In other words, every lament is a multiform of a notional or archetypal lament, but no two laments are ever the same.

This week I happened to be reminded of the laments for Achilles in the epic of Quintus of Smyrna, whose Posthomerica (which might be translated as “epic events after Homer”) narrates the death of Achilles and the sack of Troy. In that epic, Achilles’ prize of war Briseis gives the following lament (3.551-576):

πασάων δ’ ἔκπαγλον ἀκηχεμένη κέαρ ἔνδον
Βρισηὶς παράκοιτις ἐυπτολέμου Ἀχιλῆος
ἀμφὶ νέκυν στρωφᾶτο καὶ ἀμφοτέρῃς παλάμῃσι
δρυπτομένη χρόα καλὸν ἀύτεεν· ἐκ δ’ ἁπαλοῖο
στήθεος αἱματόεσσαι ἀνὰ σμώδιγγες ἄερθεν
θεινομένης· φαίης κεν ἐπὶ γλάγος αἷμα χέασθαι
φοίνιον. Ἀγλαΐη δὲ καὶ ἀχνυμένης ἀλεγεινῶς
ἱμερόεν μάρμαιρε, χάρις δέ οἱ ἄμπεχεν εἶδος.
τοῖον δ’ ἔκφατο μῦθον ὀιζυρὸν γοόωσα·
ὤ μοι ἐγὼ πάντων περιώσιον αἰνὰ παθοῦσα·
οὐ γάρ μοι τόσσον περ ἐπήλυθεν ἄλλό τι πῆμα,
οὔτε κασιγνήτων οὔτ’ εὐρυχόρου περὶ πάτρης,
ὅσσον σεῖο θανόντος· ἐπεὶ σύ μοι ἱερὸν ἦμαρ
καὶ φάος ἠελίοιο πέλες καὶ μείλιχος αἰὼν
ἐλπωρή τ’ ἀγαθοῖο καὶ ἄσπετον ἄλκαρ ἀνίης
πάσης τ’ ἀγλαΐης πολὺ φέρτερος ἠδὲ τοκήων
ἔπλεο· πάντα γὰρ οἶος ἔης δμωῇ περ ἐούσῃ,
καί ῥά με θῆκας ἄκοιτιν ἑλὼν ἄπο δούλια ἔργα.
νῦν δέ τις ἐν νήεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν ἄξεται ἄλλος
Σπάρτην εἰς ἐρίβωλον ἢ ἐς πολυδίψιον Ἄργος·
καί νύ κεν ἀμφιπολεῦσα κακὰς ὑποτλήσομ’ ἀνίας
σεῦ ἀπονοσφισθεῖσα δυσάμμορος. Ὡς ὄφελόν με
γαῖα χυτὴ ἐκάλυψε πάρος σέο πότμον ἰδέσθαι.
ὣς ἣ μὲν δμηθέντ’ ὀλοφύρετο Πηλείωνα
δμωῇς σὺν μογερῇσι καὶ ἀχνυμένοισιν Ἀχαιοῖς
μυρομένη καὶ ἄνακτα καὶ ἀνέρα·

(For a translation, see Theoi.com.)

In my 2002 book, Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis, I argued that this lament in Quintus of Smyrna may well reflect (however dimly) an archaic epic lament by Briseis for Achilles that has not survived. Instead, we have an echo of that lament in her lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19.282-302, a lament which seems to be in many ways a lament for Achilles himself. An ancient audience would have been able to connect the deaths of the two comrades, and so her lament for Patroklos would have resonated on multiple levels. (See Dué 2002: 1-16 and 74-76.) The traditional formulaic language of oral poetry (and indeed lament) would have evoked all at the same time the deaths of Briseis’ first husband, Patroklos, Achilles, and indeed all husbands who die in battle—including Hektor.

Many scholars, including myself, have noted that Briseis’ lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19 shares many features with the speech of Andromache to Hektor in Iliad 6 (405-432), in which Andromache attempts to persuade Hektor not to return to battle. And in fact, as John Foley has shown (1999:188-198), Andromache’s speech is a lament in every way, even though it is not explicitly called a goos or thrēnos. (Please see chapter four of Homeric Variations for a full analysis.) She first addresses Hektor in the second person directly, then narrates the deaths of her family members in the sack of her city, and then concludes by addressing Hektor once again. The content of Andromache’s speech in Iliad 6 likewise resonates with other traditional laments in the Iliad. For example, the reproach that has been noted as characteristic of laments often takes the form of an accusation of abandonment. Andromache does not reproach Hektor directly in this speech, but she does warn him not to leave her a widow and their son an orphan. Hektor admits he would rather die than see Andromache led off into captivity (6.464-465). Andromache herself expresses a wish to die if she loses Hektor (6.410-411), and this wish too is a common feature of laments. The accusation of abandonment in both ancient and modern Greek laments is typically accompanied by a description of the lamenting woman’s endangered position in the community. Andromache relates how she has lost the protection of all of her family members, and sets up Hektor as her last resource. Many of the traditional lament themes that are featured in Andromache’s speech recur when she learns of the death of Hektor in Iliad 22 and in her lament at Hektor’s funeral in Iliad 24. She relates how Hektor has left her a widow and their son an orphan. She describes the life of servitude that will be hers, and speculates that Astyanax will likewise be a slave or else hurled to his death from the walls (24.727-728, 732-735).

Andromache’s and Briseis’ laments are representative of the way that wives and women in general comment on their status in the community once the man whom they are mourning is dead. Michael Herzfeld has shown in his study of a modern Cretan funeral how women may actually manipulate their status by evoking the sympathy of their audience and warding off potential reproach. Mary Ebbott, following up on the work of Herzfeld, has analyzed Helen’s language of self-blame in the Iliad in order to show how Helen uses the language of lament in even non-lament contexts to voice a view of herself that other characters in the Iliad never express. We can see in Andromache’s speech a similar kind of positioning through lament language even before Hektor’s death.

Likewise, Briseis’ lament for Patroklos deals more with defining her relationship to Achilles than it does with Patroklos. Like Andromache, Briseis uses the medium of lament to narrate the pains of her life and manipulate her status within her community. Briseis sets up first Patroklos and then Achilles as her primary resource after the deaths of her brothers and husband. She mentions the kindness of Patroklos (19.300) in order to comment on her own vulnerability. When she notes that Patroklos always promised to make her Achilles’ “wedded wife” (kouridiê alokhos) she seeks to legitimize her position through lament. She creates a status for herself that might protect her in some way when Achilles himself dies.

With the laments of Book 24 that conclude the Iliad comes an awareness that Andromache, Hecuba, and every Trojan wife will soon be captive women. And just as Achilles’ death is constantly foreshadowed, but does not occur in the Iliad, so the capture of Andromache by Greek warriors, an event that is foretold in Books 6, 18, and 24, does not take place within the confines of the Iliad itself. Her capture is instead realized in the figure of Briseis, the “wife” of Achilles. Just as Patroklos and then Hektor are substitutes in death for Achilles within the poem, so Briseis can be a substitute for Andromache. And as the funeral of Hektor foreshadows that of Achilles, Andromache’s fears for herself in turn reverberate back to Briseis, whose story, upon the death of Achilles, will come full circle, and she will be a widow and a captive once more.

As you can see, I am fascinated by the way that the traditional diction of Homeric poetry creates meaning and interconnection between different characters and different parts of the poem. For me, the repetitiveness of the poetry allows for more meaning not less. The patterns and structures of lament that I have been discussing here would have been very familiar to an ancient audience, who would have grasped them on an unconscious level. When Andromache begins using what I have called the “language of lament,” the emotional power of that speech would have connected with an ancient audience in a particular and powerful way, just as it does, within the poem, with Hektor.

This brings me back to the lament of Briseis in the Posthomerica, and, in an interesting way, Hektor. Indeed the bulk of Briseis’ lament in the Posthomerica evokes her lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19, with her narration of the loss of her homeland, parents, and brothers, and her “wife”-like (ἄκοιτιν) status with Achilles. But the last part of her lament, in which she tells of her soon-to-be captive (once again) status to a master in Greece, and her longing for death before seeing him dead, recall above all the fears that Hektor expresses for Andromache, as he explains to her why he must return to battle. In a justifiably much admired passage (the first part of which is itself a repetition of Agamemnon’s words at Iliad 4.163-165) he says (6.447-465):

εὖ γὰρ ἐγὼ τόδε οἶδα κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν:
ἔσσεται ἦμαρ ὅτ᾽ ἄν ποτ᾽ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ
καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο.
ἀλλ᾽ οὔ μοι Τρώων τόσσον μέλει ἄλγος ὀπίσσω,
οὔτ᾽ αὐτῆς Ἑκάβης οὔτε Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος
οὔτε κασιγνήτων, οἵ κεν πολέες τε καὶ ἐσθλοὶ
ἐν κονίῃσι πέσοιεν ὑπ᾽ ἀνδράσι δυσμενέεσσιν,
ὅσσον σεῦ, ὅτε κέν τις Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
δακρυόεσσαν ἄγηται ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ ἀπούρας:
καί κεν ἐν Ἄργει ἐοῦσα πρὸς ἄλλης ἱστὸν ὑφαίνοις,
καί κεν ὕδωρ φορέοις Μεσσηΐδος ἢ Ὑπερείης
πόλλ᾽ ἀεκαζομένη, κρατερὴ δ᾽ ἐπικείσετ᾽ ἀνάγκη...
ἀλλά με τεθνηῶτα χυτὴ κατὰ γαῖα καλύπτοι
πρίν γέ τι σῆς τε βοῆς σοῦ θ᾽ ἑλκηθμοῖο πυθέσθαι.

For I know this well in my heart and soul,
a day will come when holy Ilium will be destroyed,
and Priam and the people of Priam of the good spear.
But the pain of the Trojans in the future is not so much a concern for me
nor that of Hecuba herself nor of Lord Priam,
nor that of my brothers, who many and noble
have fallen in the dust at the hands of enemy men,
as much as your pain, when some one of the Achaeans with their bronze khitons
leads you away weeping, having deprived you of your day of freedom.
And then being in Argos you will weave at the loom for another woman,
and carry water from the Middle Spring and Upper Spring,
treated very shamefully, and powerful necessity will lie upon you...
May the heaped up earth of my tomb cover me dead
before I learn of your shout and your being dragged away.

What Hektor fears for Andromache, as we all know, will indeed come true, and in the Posthomerica, for Briseis, it has come true once again. Rereading the lament of Briseis in the Posthomerica I now see that in the Iliad Hektor, like Andromache, draws on the powerful language of lament to make his case. We have in essence, dueling proleptic laments from these two characters, which dramatically adds to the emotional effect of this scene.

Although anthropological research has shown that women were the traditional performers of lament in antiquity, the male heroes of epic do sometimes lament. Achilles in particular has been shown to be versed in both women’s and men’s song-making traditions. (See especially Monsacré 1984.) Here we see that Hektor has heard Andomache’s lamentation, and responded with a traditional lament of his own. This is particularly striking to me in part because ancient laments seems to have been antiphonal, with the mourner and audience responding to one another. (On the antiphonal nature of Greek laments, already represented in the laments of the Iliad, see Alexiou 1974: 131-60 and Dué 2006: 12-14.) This kind of responsion between the doomed couple makes their words even more evocative of an actual funeral.

Hektor’s variation on the captive woman’s lament is powerful precisely because it is a multiform of a pattern of speech deeply imprinted on the audience. It is powerful because it repeats, because it draws on formulas that have evolved over centuries to express precisely this kind of otherwise inexpressible sorrow. And so we see that the laments of Briseis and Andromache and Hektor are all multiforms of one another, and yet each perfectly communicates the very individual pain of each one.

(The image at the top of this post is of a painting by Zoie Lafis, Threnouses [2005], based on an ancient Greek vase.)

Works Cited
Alexiou, M. 1974. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Cambridge.

Carlisle, M., and O. Levaniouk, eds. 1999. Nine Essays on Homer. Lanham, Md.

Dué, C. 2002. Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis. Lanham, Md.

Dué, C. 2006. The Captive Woman’s Lament in Greek Tragedy. Austin.

Ebbott, M. “The Wrath of Helen: Self-Blame and Nemesis in the Iliad.” In Carlisle and Levaniouk 1999: 3-20.

Foley, J. M. 1999. Homer’s Traditional Art. University Park.

Herzfeld, M. 1993. “In Defiance of Destiny: The Management of Time and Gender at a Cretan Funeral.” American Ethnologist 20.2: 241-55.

Lord, A. B. 1960/2000. The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, MA. 2nd rev. edition, 2000.

Martin, R. P. 1989. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca, N.Y.

Monsacré, H. 1984. Les larmes d'Achille: le héros, la femme et la souffrance dans la poésie d'Homère. Paris.

Parry, A., ed. 1971. The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry. Oxford.

Parry, M. 1932. “Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Versemaking. II. The Homeric Language as the Language of Oral Poetry.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 43 (1932): 1-50 [repr. in A. Parry 1971: 325-64].

The dog of Orion

In a previous post, I attempted to describe folio 188r of the eleventh-century manuscript of the Iliad known as E4, in order to make some preliminary observations about the manuscript and its relationship to other Medieval manuscripts of the Iliad with scholia. It was a difficult task, even with the help of my colleagues Christopher Blackwell, Mary Ebbott, and Neel Smith. E4 has not been well studied, and it has many features that make it unlike the other manuscripts we have digitized as part of the Homer Multitext. It became clear to me as I was working on it that I could not fully appreciate 188r without understanding its facing page on the left side, folio 187v. I have now had the chance to study 187v in detail, and it has only confirmed my initial impression of the manuscript, that it is an unusual, very likely unique assemblage of text and paratexts that span multiple lines of transmission. The scholia contained on folio 187v, which comment on the text of 188r (containing Iliad 22.1–37), are particularly indicative of the unique character of E4.

Folio 187v is taken up by a hypothesis to book 22, a large selection from Porphyry, and scholia, both with and without lemmata, including comments on the text of the Iliad that is written on 188r. It should be noted from the beginning that there are two separate hands in this manuscript, which both Allen and Erbse deem to be contemporaneous. The first hand has written the hypothesis, the scholia immediately following it, and the text of the poem and paraphrase on the next folio. The second hand has written the selection from Porphyry and the scholia in the margins.

At the top of folio 187v is the excerpt from Porphyry’s Homeric Questions. The following is a transcription, based on visual inspection of the manuscript images and Schrader’s (1880-1882) edition:

ἠγνόησαν οἱ πολλοὶ ὅτι ἡ κλίσις παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ τὴν περιοχὴν σημαίνει, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐσχηματισμένα ἀπ’ αὐτῆς ῥήματα. <ὣς οἱ μὲν κατὰ ἄστυ πεφυζότες ἠύτε νεβροὶ ἱδρῶ ἀπεψύχοντο πίον τ’ ἀκέοντό τε δίψαν, κεκλιμένοι καλῇσιν ἐπάλξεσιν· αὐτὰρ Ἀχαιοὶ τείχεος ἆσσον ἴσαν, σάκε’ ὤμοισι κλίναντες> (Iliad 22.1–4)· λέγει γάρ· περιεχόμενοι τῷ τείχει οἱ Τρῶες, οἱ δ’ Ἀχαιοὶ τὰ σάκη περιέχοντες τοῖς ὤμοις. Οὕτω λύσεις καὶ τὸ <οἵ δ' ἐπὶ ρὴγμῖνι θαλάσσης κυκλίατο> (Iliad 16.67–68)· λέγει γὰρ ὁτι περιεχόμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν Τρώων ἐπὶ ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης συνηλάθησαν.  καὶ τὸ <ἠέρι δ’ ἔγχος ἐκέκλιτο καὶ ταχέ’ ἵππω> (Iliad 5.356) δηλοῖ περιείχετο. καὶ τὸ <κεῖθ’ ἁλὶ κεκλιμένη ἐριβώλακος ἠπείροιο> (Odyssey 13.235), κεῖται περιεχομένη. καὶ πάλιν <ὅς δ’ἐν Ὕλῃ ναίεσκε μέγα πλούτοιο μεμηλὼς λίμνῃ κεκλιμένος> (Iliad 5.708) δηλοῖ περιεχόμενος. καὶ <ἀσπίσι κεκλιμένοι> (Iliad 3.135)· περιεχόμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀσπίδων. ἀπὸ τοῦ κλείω· τὸ γὰρ ἀποκλεισθὲν περιέχεται· <οὐδὲ πύλῃσιν εὗρ’ ἐπικεκλιμένας σανίδας> (Iliad 12.120). τὸ δ’ αὐτὸ παρίστησι καὶ τὸ <ἀλλ’ ἐν γὰρ Τρώων πεδίῳ πύκα θωρηκτάων πόντῳ κεκλιμένοι ἑκὰς ἥμεθα> (Iliad 14.739–40), ἀντὶ τοῦ ὑπὸ τοῦ πόντου περιεχόμενοι.

A shortened version of this same excerpt from the Homeric Questions appears on folio 137v of E4 (ad Iliad 16.68 κεκλίατο). The full excerpt appears in two places on the Venetus B as well: folio 214v (ad Iliad 16.68 κεκλίατο) and folio 292r (ad Iliad 22.3 κεκλιμένοι, as here). The comment is part of a larger discussion of the meaning of the word κλίσις in Homer, and Iliad 22.1-4 is cited along with several other passages. The scribe of Ε4 saw that this passage in Porphyry was relevant to the opening lines of 22 (in which the Trojans rest by “leaning” on the walls), and so he copied it here. He links the excerpt from Porphyry to the text of the poem (on folio 188v) by means of a graphical sign, or siglum, which is reproduced in the appropriate place on the other folio. 

Next follow several scholia, written across the full length of the page. These too are connected to the text of the poem by means of sigla (more on which below). After these scholia, the (two) hypotheses begin, with a title written in crimson ink: ὑπόθεσϊς τῆς χι ὁμήρου ῥαψωδίας. 

The hypotheses are followed by more scholia, which are contained within the same text block as the hypotheses. These scholia differ from the surrounding scholia in that they have lemmata. Very significantly, both of the scholia with lemmata recorded in this text block can also be found in A in some fashion. Let’s look at them more closely. 

First, we find in crimson ink ὅν τε κύν’ὠρίωνα followed by a lengthy mythological note, whose content is attributed to Eratosthenes, the third head of the library of Alexandria (c. 235–c. 270). The following is a transcription of the note, for which I have worked closely with the image of the manuscript folio, as well as the editions of Heyne (1834) and Van Thiel (2000): 

Τὸν ἀστρῶον κύνα οὕτως ἔφη. ἔνιοι δέ φασι τόνδε τὸν κατηστερισμένον κύνα, οὐκ Ὠρίωνος, ἀλλὰ Ἠριγόνης ὑπάρχειν, ὃν κατηστερισθῆναι διὰ τοιαύτην αἰτίαν. Ἱκάριος γένει μὲν ἦν Ἀθηναῖος ἔσχε δὲ θυγατέρα Ἠριγόνην, ἥτις κύνα νήπιον ἔτρεφε. ξενίσας δέ ποτε ὁ Ἱκάριος Διόνυσον, ἔλαβε παρ’ αὐτοῦ οἶνόν τε καὶ ἀμπέλου κλῆμα. κατὰ δὲ τὰς τοῦ θεοῦ ὑποθήκας, περιῄει τὴν γῆν προφαίνων τὴν τοῦ Διονύσου χάριν, ἔχων σὺν ἑαυτῷ καὶ τὸν κύνα. γενόμενος δὲ ἐντὸς τῆς πόλεως, βουκόλοις οἶνον παρέσχε. οἱ δὲ ἀθρόως ἐμφορησάμενοι, οἱ μὲν εἰς βαθὺν ὕπνον ἐτράπησαν, οἱ δὲ περιλειπόμενοι νομίσαντες  θανάσιμον εἶναι τὸ πόμα πλήσσοντες ἐφόνευον τὸν Ἱκάριον. μεθ’ ἡμέραν δὲ νηψάντων αὐτῶν καταγνόντες ἑαυτῶν εἰς φυγὴν ἐτράπησαν. ὁ δὲ κύων ὑποστρέψας πρὸς τὴν Ἠριγόνην, δι’ ὠρυγμοῦ ἐμήνυσεν αὐτῇ τὰ γενόμενα. ἡ δὲ μαθοῦσα τὸ ἀληθὲς, ἑαυτὴν ἀνήρτησε. νόσου δὲ ἐν Ἀθήναις γενομένης, κατὰ χρησμὸν Ἀθηναῖοι τόν τε Ἱκάριον καὶ τὴν Ἠριγόνην ἐνιαυσιαίαις ἐγέραιρον τιμαῖς. οἳ καὶ καταστερισθέντες, Ἱκάριος μὲν Βοώτης ἐκλήθη, Ἠριγόνη δὲ παρθένος. ὁ δὲ κύων τὴν αὐτὴν ὀνομασίαν ἔσχεν. Ἱστορεῖ Ἐρατοσθένης ἐν τοις ἑαυτοῦ καταλόγοις.

This note is also found with some variations on the Venetus A manuscript, though it is not included in Erbe’s edition of the scholia (because Erbse excludes the mythological scholia or “D” scholia from his edition). It is also found in the Venetus B, but in the later, 12th or 13th century set of scholia on that manuscript. (Hence it postdates the construction of E4.) 

A potentially very significant variation is recorded in this note on E4. What is significant about this note is not actually its content, but its lemma. The reading ὅν τε κύν’ὠρίωνα does not match the corresponding text of the poem on folio 188v of E4, nor is it found in any other manuscript, all of which read κύν’ὠρίωνος (“the dog of Orion”). In fact κύν’ὠρίωνα does not make much grammatical sense, though we could take the two accusatives, somewhat awkwardly, to be in apposition to one another (“the dog, Orion”). The Venetus Α scholia, however, record another discussion of this phrase, this one about the proper division of the words:

ὅντε κύν’ ὠρίωνος ὁ Σιδώνιος ὑφ’ ἓν ἀναγινώσκει. ἄμεινον δὲ κατὰ παράθεσιν, ὅτι οἱ κύνες πολλάκις ὀνομάζονται μετὰ τῶν κτητόρων, οἷον Κέρβερος Ἅιδου, Ὄρθρος Γηρυόνου, Ἄλκαινα Ἀκταίωνος· οὕτως κύνα Ὠρίωνος. τῷ δὲ κυνηγετικὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι καὶ πλησίον κατηστέρισαν τὸν κύνα.

“The dog of Orion”: The Sidonian reads it as one [word]. But it is better to read it as two, because dogs are often named with their owners, such as Kerberos of Hades, Orthros of Geryon, Alkaina of Aktaion; likewise the dog of Orion. Inasmuch as he was fond of hunting they also made his dog in the constellation next to him. 

Dionysius Sidonius was an Aristarchean scholar who seems to have been very familiar with the methods and scholarship of Aristarchus. (See Nagy 2009: 151–152.) In this comment he seems to be arguing for a reading, perhaps known to Aristarchus, that represents κύν’ὠρίωνος as one word. The only way that such a one-word reading could work grammatically would be if the word were in the accusative case: that is to say, something like κυνωρίωνα. Is it possible that the source from which the scribe of E4 was copying his scholia with lemmata had this other reading? Could such a reading have been corrupted by the influence of the genitive in other sources, so that instead of κυνωρίωνα we find in E4 κύν’ὠρίωνα (divided into two words)? If so, E4’s lemma here would be the sole witness to preserve what seems to be an ancient variation that was being discussed in antiquity. 

The other scholion recorded in this text block, also with a lemma in crimson ink, also has an interesting link to the A manuscript. 

Εἶσϊ τὴν ἑώαν ἀνατολὴν. ἅνεισιν ἀνατέλλει.

A version of this comment is found in several other manuscripts of Homeric so-called D scholia, including the 9th century manuscript Z (= Romanus, Bibl. Naz. Centr. Gr. 6 + Matrit. B. N. 4626), but it is not in B, T, C, or Ge. In the Venetus A, however, ανεισιν ἀνατελλει is written here in semiuncial script above εἶσιν. 

Detail from folio 282v of the Venetus A

This link is now a second indication that the scholia with lemmata in E4 are drawn from a tradition with ties to the Aristarchean scholarship that we find in the Venetus A. 

In the left margin and at the bottom of the folio, surrounding the text block containing the hypothesis and these scholia are additional scholia. These scholia, like those above the hypothesis, do not contain lemmata, and are clearly drawn from other sources. The first two of these scholia are preceded by a siglum in the outer margin, while the final three are preceded by Greek numerals (in the form of letters of the alphabet). The numbered scholia correspond to the numbered scholia in B, E3, and C. The scholia connected to the text with sigla contain material from the so-called “D” scholia. These scholia can also often found in B, but in the second, later hand of B. 

It is clear that the E4 brings together many different sources, which are used selectively and in combination. This is significant because it shows us that the Homeric scholia and other Homeric paratexts cannot be easily defined or placed in a neat stemma. Scribes clearly had a variety of sources available to choose from when constructing a manuscript. We should likewise assume that the text of the Iliad itself was collated in various ways as each manuscript was constructed.  While many scribes may have simply copied an exemplar, we know that they often compared what they were copying to other exemplars and made changes, or else recorded variations in the margins. This practice is especially clear in the Venetus A (on which see Allen 1889). In its text and scholia E4 may well preserve vestiges of the scholarly controversies of antiquity that survive nowhere else.

References cited in this post

Allen, T.W. 1899. “On the Composition of Some Greek Manuscripts: The Venetian Homer.” Journal of Philology 26: 161-181.

Allen, T. W.  1931a

--> . Homeri Ilias  I-III.  Oxford.

Dué, C., ed. 2009.  Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: Images and Insights from the Venetus A Manuscript of the Iliad. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC.

Erbse, H., ed. 1969-1988. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem I-VII. Berlin.

Heyne, C. G., ed. 1834. Homeri Ilias cum brevi annotatione curante C.G. Heyne; accedunt scholia minora passim emendata, necnon Heraclidis Allegoriae Homericae. Oxford.

Nagy, G. 2009. “Traces of an Ancient System of Reading Homeric Verse in the Venetus A.” In Dué 2009a: 133–158.

Schrader, H., ed. 1880-1882. Porphyrii quaestionum Homericarum ad Iliadem pertinentium reliquiae. Leipzig.