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Extract
The question of authenticity still exercises scholars; one recent critic has even reduced the number of genuine Heroides to ten (namely 1—7, 10, 11, and 15). The poems chiefly under suspicion are 9 (Deianira), 15 (Sappho), and 16—21 (the double letters). The most cogent arguments against 9 and 16—21 are the metrical ones, but for the double letters these diminish with the later dating. The Sappho letter (15) has been transmitted separately from the rest of the Heroides; it may be that it was deliberately omitted because of its anomalous (non-mythological) subject-matter when the single and double letters were united into one collection, but there are still some linguistic oddities which need explaining. For the purpose of this discussion I have assumed that all twenty-one of the Heroides are genuine; I have also chosen to discuss the work as a single collection rather than as two separate ones.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1978
Footnotes
1.
Our understanding of the manuscript tradition of Her. has been greatly advanced by H. Dörrie, Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte von Ovids Epistulae Heroidum (Göttingen, i and ii 1960, iii 1972). However, both Dome’s own text (Berlin, 1971) and that of R. Giomini (Rome, i 1957, 2nd edn. 1963, ii 1965) are disappointing; the best plain text is now G. P. Goold’s thorough revision of the Loeb edition (London, 1977). There are no good modern English translations; H. C. Cannon’s version in heroic couplets (New York, 1971) is undistinguished. Apart from Döe’s commentary, that of A. Palmer (Oxford, 1898; repr. Hildesheim, 1967) is still very useful. We now have two good critical discussions, both confined to the single letters, by Oppel and Jacobson, which are fundamental to the literary appreciation of the work; see also the shorter accounts of Kraus (2), Dörrie, and Anderson. There is a comprehensive bibliography in Dome’s edition, 19 ff. and after each letter.