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SCHOL. SOPH. OT 1025 AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO SOPHOCLES' TEXT*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Federico Condello
Federico Condello*
Affiliation:
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
*
federico.condello@unibo.it
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Extract

At line 1025 of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus,

      σὺ δ᾽ ἐμπολήσας ἢ τεκών μ᾽ αὐτῷ δίδως;,
our hero seems victim of some serious ‘obtuseness of understanding’, because the Corinthian to whom Oedipus is speaking has already clearly denied being the father of the foundling (line 1020 ἀλλ᾽ οὔ σ᾽ ἐγείνατ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἐκεῖνος [sc. Polybus] οὔτ᾽ ἐγώ, ‘well, neither he nor I begot you’). Is Oedipus in such a state of mental confusion? Perhaps his supposed ‘obtuseness of understanding’ depends on his permanent hallucination? Maybe the same hallucination that keeps him from understanding the explicit prophecies of Teiresias (lines 408–25, 447–62) or drawing obvious conclusions from the revelation of Jocasta (lines 707–25). If so, the text requires no correction, and Sophocles' strategy is to show, through this and similar clues, the basic weakness of the protagonist, who proves to be nothing but a puppet in the hands of the gods.

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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , May 2016 , pp. 395 - 398
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2016 

At line 1025 of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus,

σὺ δ᾽ ἐμπολήσας ἢ τεκών μ᾽ αὐτῷ δίδως;Footnote 1 ,

our hero seems victim of some serious ‘obtuseness of understanding’,Footnote 2 because the Corinthian to whom Oedipus is speaking has already clearly denied being the father of the foundling (line 1020 ἀλλ᾽ οὔ σ᾽ ἐγείνατ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἐκεῖνος [sc. Polybus] οὔτ᾽ ἐγώ, ‘well, neither he nor I begot you’). Is Oedipus in such a state of mental confusion? Perhaps his supposed ‘obtuseness of understanding’ depends on his permanent hallucination? Maybe the same hallucination that keeps him from understanding the explicit prophecies of Teiresias (lines 408–25, 447–62) or drawing obvious conclusions from the revelation of Jocasta (lines 707–25). If so, the text requires no correction, and Sophocles' strategy is to show, through this and similar clues, the basic weakness of the protagonist, who proves to be nothing but a puppet in the hands of the gods.

Such has been, from Bruhn's time, the argument of those who defend the paradosis: and given the recent trend of textual conservatism, it is no wonder that this argument has won considerable approval.Footnote 3 Instead, those who believe that the text is evidently corrupt turn the charge of ‘obtuseness’ against the advocates of τεκών;Footnote 4 and both Lloyd-Jones‒Wilson and Dawe, as many before them,Footnote 5 prefer the excellent emendation τυχών proposed by Bothe and (independently) by Foertsch.Footnote 6

Many internal reasons, in my opinion, support the correction. The pure principle of non-contradiction, so often invoked by the supporters of τυχών, is perhaps too easy to refute, as we have seen, on the basis of dramatic or psychological arguments; but a typical feature of all interrogations conducted by Oedipus in the course of the drama should be emphasized: whenever the protagonist puts his question, as happens here, in this characteristic disjunctive form, the second possibility he suggests is precisely the right one (see lines 112–13 πότερα δ᾽ ἐν οἴκοις, ἢ ᾽ν ἀγροῖς ὁ Λάϊος, | ἢ γῆς ἐπ᾽ ἄλλης τῷδε συμπίπτει φόνῳ;, 960 πότερα δόλοισιν, ἢ νόσου ξυναλλαγῇ;, 1162 πόθεν λαβών; οἰκεῖον ἢ ᾽ξ ἄλλου τινός;, 1168 ἦ δοῦλος, ἢ κείνου τις ἐγγενὴς γεγώς;).Footnote 7 At line 1025, this use would be respected only if the second element of the disjunction could find some correspondence in the answer of the interlocutor, as happens exactly with the conjectural τυχών (εὑρὼν ναπαίαις ἐν Κιθαιρῶνος πτυχαῖς, ‘I found you in the wooded glens of Cithaeron’, replies the Corinthian at line 1026) and not with the transmitted τεκών.

But we have to admit that this and analogous internal arguments are refutable.Footnote 8 Rather, there is another aspect of the problem to which I wish to draw attention here: the ancient scholium on line 1025, which has been strangely ignored as a possible argument for the constitutio textus of this disputed line.

In fact, in the right margin of L (Laur. Plut. 32.9, fol. 44r) we read the following (p. 202 Pap.):Footnote 9

ἐμπολήσας] ἀγοράσας· δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ λέξις καὶ τὸ εὑρών.

The same explanation—according to De Marco—is in the ‘Roman family’ of manuscripts, i.e. G (Laur. Conv. Soppr. 152), R (Vat. Gr. 2291) and M (Mutin. α.Τ.9.4).Footnote 10 What is surprising here is the asserted synonymy between ἐμπολήσας and εὑρών, which seems devoid of any logic, as well as unparalleled in ancient scholarship (note that the scholia recentiora furnish plainer and more ordinary equivalencesFootnote 11 ). One could perhaps explain the interpretamentum as a clumsy expedient devised by ancient commentators to justify the answer of the Corinthian (εὑρὼν ναπαίαις, etc.), given its apparent lack of connection to the alternative envisaged by Oedipus (ἐμπολήσας ἢ τεκών). This, of course, cannot be a fortiori excluded, though it is rather improbable.Footnote 12

But there is at least one clue—in addition to the gratuitous equivalence ἐμπολήσας ~ εὑρών—that rather suggests a textual corruption in the scholium as transmitted in our manuscripts: a corruption of a very common type, i.e. the conflatio of two or more interpretamenta under the same lemma, or the agglutination of two or more independent scholia in a single and confused explanation, that loses its original ties (also in terms of mise en page) with the original textual references.Footnote 13 The clue that suggests this possibility is the regular correspondence—in the stereotyped synonymic series on which the ancient interpretamenta are based—between forms of εὑρεῖν and forms of τυχεῖν, with their respective compounds. See the illuminating explanation of the scholia recentiora at line 598 of the OT: τυχεῖν] εὑρεῖν (Max. Plan. p. 134 Longo); or at line 1039 of the same drama: τυχών] ἐντυχών· εὑρών (Man. Mosch. p. 65 Longo). See also, among the many possible examples, scholia Aesch. Sept. 209b εὗρε] ἐπέτυχε (II/2, p. 105 S.), 520b τυχών] εὑρεθείς and 520c τυχών] συμβάς, εὑρεθείς (II/2, p. 237 S.), 550b τύχοιεν] εὕροιεν (II/2, p. 250 S.), schol. Soph. Ph. 552 (p. 367 Pap.) προστυχόντι τῶν ἴσων] ἀντὶ εὑρόντι κτλ., schol. Eur. Hec. 698 (I, p. 62 Schw.) εὗρον] ἔτυχον, schol. Ar. Eq. 404b (p. 101 M.J.) ὥσπερ εὗρες] ὥσπερ ἐπέτυχες, schol. rec. Ar. Nub. 535a (p. 309 Kost.) ᾿πιτύχῃ] ἐντύχῃ ChisCant2, εὕρῃ LbChalc, καταλάβῃ Va, as well as Hesych. ε 1783 L. ἐκύρησα· εὗρον. ἔτυχον, ἐπέτυχον, κ 4707 L. κύρσας· ἐπιτυχών r. n., εὑρών n., etc.

On this basis, it seems perfectly reasonable to explain the surprising diction of our scholium as the result of the conflation of two distinct annotations such as (for example) these:

ἐμπολήσας] ἀγοράσας.

<τυχών] ἐντυχών [uel ἐπιτυχών]·> δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ λέξις καὶ τὸ εὑρών.

Of course, other reconstructions would be possible: for instance, supposing a saut du même au même after the unification of two distinct interpretamenta, ἐμπολήσας] ἀγοράσας· <τυχών] ἐπιτυχών, κύρσας·> (cf. Hesych. κ 4703 e 4707 L.) δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ λέξις κτλ.; alternatively, we could consider κιχών, conjectured by Heimsoeth: see schol. Nic. Ther. 502c (p. 199 Crugnola) κιχών] εὑρών. We could also suppose, more simply, that the typical formula δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ λέξις καί (cf. n. 11) has been added after two independent annotations such as ἐμπολήσας] ἀγοράσας, τυχών] εὑρὼν were merged into one.

In any case, the transmitted text of the scholium cannot be considered free from suspicion; and it seems to me highly plausible that its present incongruous formulation shows traces of a former state of Sophocles' text without the corrupted form τεκών,Footnote 14 but with something liable to be explained with εὑρών. In this case, it is difficult to find a better candidate than τυχών.

Footnotes

*

I wish to thank all those who have read and discussed with me a first draft of this note: Lowell Edmunds, Massimo Magnani, Enrico Magnelli, Andrea Rotstein, Renzo Tosi.

References

1 ‘Did you buy me or generate me before you gave me to him?’. Hereafter, English translations are from H. Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles. Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge and London, 1994), with some changes when needed (here, for example, ‘generate’ instead of ‘find’).

2 So J.C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles. Commentaries, vol. 4. The Oedipus Tyrannus (Leiden, 1967), 198.

3 See in particular, after Kamerbeek, Dietz, H., ‘Notes on Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone ’, RCCM 16 (1974), 281–8Google Scholar, at 285–6; T. Halter, König Oedipus. Von Sophocles zu Cocteau (Stuttgart, 1998), 104 n. 6; J. Bollack, L'Oedipe roi de Sophocle. Le texte et ses interpretations (Lille, 1990), 1.258–9 and 3.654–7; O. Longo, Sofocle Edipo re (trans. M.G. Ciani) (Venice 2007), 66–7 and 254 (not so in the first edition of his commentary, Sofocle Edipo re [Florence,  1972], 219–20); before Kamerbeek, the staunchest defenders of the transmitted text were L. Campbell, Sophocles The Plays and Fragments (Oxford, 18792), 220 (see also id., Paralipomena Sophoclea. Supplementary Notes on the Text and Interpretation of Sophocles [London, 1907], 109); E. Bruhn, Oedipus Tyrannos, vol. 2 of  F.W. Schneidewin, A. Nauck (edd.), Sophokles (Berlin, 191011), 158; J.T. Sheppard, The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1920), 160; B.M.W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes. Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time (New Haven, CT, 1957), 180 and 262–3. A cautious explanation of the text was proposed by G. Hermann (Sophoclis tragoediae septem [London, 18272], 1.255: ‘videtur hoc ita explicandum esse, ut putemus Oedipum non ad verba nuncii, sed ad mentem attendisse’), who five years later changed his mind and judged the text surely corrupt (cf. Sophoclis Oedipus rex [Leipzig, 1833], 187). A psychological explication of Oedipus' incredulity (but in relation to Laius only) is offered by the ancient scholia: see below, n. 14. This does not prove anything about line 1025, because Oedipus has already called the Corinthian ὁ μηδείς (1019), that is ‘in itself “a mere nobody”, but in the context “someone totally unrelated”, like οὐδὲν ἐν γένει (1016)’ (R.D. Dawe, Sophocles Oedipus Rex [Cambridge 20062], 160).

4 So explicitly J. Diggle, in a review of Kamerbeek (n. 2), CR 19 (1969), 150–3, at 151.

5 See H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson, Sophoclis fabulae (Oxford, 1990); R.D. Dawe, Sophocles Oedipus rex (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 19963). Before them, see e.g. R.C. Jebb, Sophocles The Plays and Fragments, vol. 1. The Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge 18933), 136. The correction τυχών is now accepted by B. Manuwald, Sophokles. König Ödipus (Berlin, 2012), 216.

6 The attribution of the correction was dubious for F.H.M. Blaydes, Sophocles (London, 1859), 1.141; the names of Bothe and Foertsch are mentioned together by F. Ritter, Sophokles' König Oidipus (Leipzig, 1870), 87–8 and by Jebb (n. 5), LX and 136, ad loc.; so again in the first and second Teubner editions by Dawe ([Leipzig, 1975], 1.162; [Leipzig, 19842], 1.135), while only Bothe's name survives in the third and last revision. Bothe was unquestionably the first to propose the emendation τυχών (see F.H. Bothe, Sophoclis Oedipus rex [Leipzig, 1826], 83), but Foertsch, as it seems, came independently to the same conclusion in a brief excursus in his Observationes criticae in Lysiae orationes (Leipzig, 1829), 12–13. The editor who credits the silence of Foertsch as proof of independence has to record his name in the apparatus.

7 The norm is respected even when the question is not asked by Oedipus: see Jocasta at line 704 αὐτὸς ξυνειδὼς ἢ μαθὼν ἄλλου πάρα;. An exhaustive examination of the disjunctive interrogations in Sophocles (see Aj. 265–7, 543; Ant. 315, 497, 534, 632–4, 1176; El. 310–11; OC 66, 588, 960–1, 993–4; Trach. 187, 239, 342–3; Phil. 563, 1384) demonstrates that no other tragedy shows a comparable regularity.

8 In fact, a case exists in which the answer given to Oedipus is not a clear choice between the two alternatives he previously posed: see lines 750–1 πότερον ἐχώρει βαιός, ἢ πολλοὺς ἔχων | ἄνδρας λοχίτας, οἷ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἀρχηγέτης;, with Jocasta's reply at lines 752–3. I have offered elsewhere an examination of all the internal reasons that argue in favour of the correction τυχών: see Condello, F., ‘Sul testo di Soph. OT 1025, con alcune osservazioni sul Lapsus di Timpanaro’, Sileno 39 (2013), 59–96 Google Scholar.

9 On the tradition of the scholia vetera, see the exhaustive introduction by G.A. Xenis in his Scholia vetera in Sophoclis Electram (Berlin and New York, 2010), 13–100. Waiting for Xenis's volume devoted to the Oedipus Tyrannus, we still depend on the largely unsatisfactory edition by P.N. Papageorgiou, Scholia in Sophoclis tragoedias vetera (Leipzig, 1888).

10 See Marco, V. De, ‘Sulla tradizione manoscritta degli scolii sofoclei’, SIFC 13 (1936), 3–44 Google Scholar and id., De scholiis in Sophoclis tragoedias veteribus (Rome, 1937), 109–19 and 155 for our passage. We also know of an abridged form of the scholium, like the one in H (Laur. Plut. 32.40, fol. 64r), placed in the interlinea: ἀγοράσας ἢ εὑρών.

11 Namely ἐμπολήσας] πωλήσας· κερδήσας Xr. τεκών] καὶ γεννήσας Xr. (Max. Plan. p. 150 Longo) and ἐμπολήσας] κερδίσας ποθέν (Th. Mag. p. 240 Longo). The equivalence given for ἐμπολήσας is a standard one: see e.g. schol. Ar. Pax 563a (p. 90 Holw.) or schol. Od. 15.456 (p. 619 Dind.).

12 Let us remember that the formula δηλοῖ δὲ ἡ λέξις καὶ (uel similia) is not rarely employed to enlarge the semantic spectrum of a word which is the target of a comment, in order to include the greatest number of its virtual meanings, whether relevant or not for the specific context of use. A good example is schol. Gen. Il. 10.430 (II, p. 109 N.) ἀγέρωχοι] σημείωσαι πόσα σημαίνει ἀγέρωχος· αὐθάδης, θρασύς, ἔστι δὲ ὅτε δηλοῖ ἡ λέξις καὶ τοὺς ἄγαν ἀνδρείους καὶ ἰταμούς, παρὰ τὸ ἄγαν αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ τοῦ γέρως ὀχεῖσθαι. See also e.g. schol. Il. 2.99b (I, p. 198 E.), schol. Soph. Aj. 220 (p. 23 Pap.), schol. Eur. Hipp. 93 (I, p. 18 Schw.), Eust. ad Il. 9.541 (II, p. 799 V.), etc. But here, in our scholium, the supposed synonymy between ἐμπολήσας and εὑρών is very strange, and only the present context of use could have inspired the scholiast.

13 This form of conflatio occurs very often in L: see De Marco (n. 10 [1936]), 13 and 22–7; id. (n. 10 [1937]), 109. For the phenomenon, see also Xenis (n. 9), 21 and 27, and e.g. J.G. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles. Commentaries, vol. I. Aiax (Leiden, 1953), 102 (on line 464), with Casali, C., ‘ Schol. in Soph. Ai. 464’, Giornale Filologico Ferrarese 12 (1989), 37–8Google Scholar. Other instructive examples in Jones, D. Mervyn, ‘Notes on the scholia to Aristophanes, Knights ’, CQ 6 (1956), 157–60Google Scholar, at 157. For these and similar phenomena, see in general R. Tosi, Studi sulla tradizione indiretta dei classici greci (Bologna, 1988), 59–86.

14 A further detail can be underlined. It should be noted that the ancient commentators are extraordinarily sensitive to Oedipus' utterances seemly inspired by strong emotions. So, at line 1019, Oedipus calls Laius ὁ φύσας, even though the Corinthian has already stated that Laius is not Oedipus' father (lines 1015–18); the scholium ad loc. (p. 201 Pap.) observes: ἴδιον τῶν ἐν παραδόξοις ἀκούσμασι τὸ αὐτὸ πολλάκις ἐπερωτᾶν (an even broader formulation is in MR, where is added: ἤδη γὰρ οὗτος ἔφη ἀλλ᾿ οὐ σ᾿ ἐγείνατο [p. 155 De Marco]; cf. n. 3). It is therefore strange that the stronger contradiction represented by τεκών deserves no observation at all. But this, of course, is simply an argument ex silentio.