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TWO OLD HYPERCORRECTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY EDITIONS OF EURIPIDES' MEDEA 497 AND STRATTIS, FR. 9 K.–A.*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Georgios A. Xenis
Georgios A. Xenis*
Affiliation:
University of Cyprus
*
gxenis@ucy.ac.cy
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Extract

There is a widespread practice of spelling the forms κεχρώσμεθα in Euripides' Medea 497 and ϕώζειν in Strattis, fr. 9 K.–A. with the long diphthong omega–iota, that is, κεχρώισμεθα or κεχρῴσμεθα and ϕώιζειν or ϕῴζειν. These spellings are not correct from the etymological point of view, but are recommended by ancient grammarians. In this note I identify the foundation on which these recommendations rest, and provide an assessment of its philological solidness.

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 837 - 840
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

There is a widespread practice of spelling the forms κεχρώσμεθα in Euripides' Medea 497 and ϕώζειν in Strattis, fr. 9 K.–A. with the long diphthong omega–iota, that is, κεχρώισμεθα or κεχρῴσμεθα and ϕώιζειν or ϕῴζειν. These spellings are not correct from the etymological point of view, but are recommended by ancient grammarians. In this note I identify the foundation on which these recommendations rest, and provide an assessment of its philological solidness.

We should begin by addressing the issue of the etymology of the two forms. First, the iota in κεχρώισμεθα has no etymological justification. It is true that χρώιζω does have an iota; however, this iota does not belong to the root of the verb but to the suffix of the present tense, that is, to –ίζω. So there is no reason why this iota should be transferred to the perfect tense κεχρώσμεθα. Etymological dictionaries unanimously acknowledge this;Footnote 1 on the other hand, Kühner–Blass (II 575), LSJ (s.v. χρώιζω) and recent editors of Euripides' Medea 497Footnote 2 adopt the form κεχρώισμεθα. Second, forms universally recognized as parallel to ϕώζω such as ϕώγω, ϕώγνυμι, πεϕωγμένος, ϕώγανον, and ϕωκτός, have no iota in their root. To analyse *ϕώιζω as *ϕω + ίζω (= present tense suffix) is impossible, for the parallel forms cited above indicate that the root must be ϕώγ–, not ϕω–. Therefore the correct analysis is ϕωγ + jω, and one can compare, for instance, κρώζω/κρωγμός and οἰμώζω/οἰμωγή. One must then write ϕώζω without iota. Chantraine is right in this respect, whereas Frisk, Beekes,Footnote 3 Kühner–Blass (II 568), LSJ (s.v. ϕώγω), and editors of Stratt. fr. 9 K.–A.Footnote 4 adopt the form with the iota.Footnote 5

Scholars seem to adhere to the forms with iota because there is explicit ancient evidence in their favour:Footnote 6

  1. (i) Lex. Mess. fol. 282v line 20 (p. 410):Footnote 7 χρῴζω· σὺν τῷ ι, ὡς πλῴζω· Εὐριπίδης Μηδείᾳ.

  2. (ii) Et. Gen. ABFootnote 8 (hinc Et. Sym. cod. VFootnote 9 et Etym. Magn. 667.25): πεϕωισμένος· ἀντὶ τοῦ κεκαυμένος, ὡς ἀπὸ τοῦ ϕώιζω ὡς χρώιζω, ἃ ἔχει τὸ ι (litterae τοῦ ϕώι evanuerunt in A).

  3. (iii) Et. Gen. A (om. B) (unde Et. Sym. codd. CV et Etym. Magn. 803.47):Footnote 10 ϕώιζειν· σὺν τῶι ι, σημαίνει δὲ τὸ καίεσθαι (sic A: καίειν Toup,Footnote 11 recte)· Στράττις घωπύρωι περικαιομένωι (fr. 9 K.–A.) «ἀλλ' εἰ μέλλεις ἀνδρείως ϕώιζειν ὥσπερ μύστακα σεαυτόν». Βιθυνοὶ δὲ διὰ τοῦ γ ϕώιγειν λέγουσιν.

We have now good reason to believe that all of the passages above stem from the grammarian Orus of Alexandria, in particular from his treatise On Orthography, and the discovery of their authorship will be shown to diminish their value as evidence for the spellings with omega–iota.Footnote 12

Orus was active in the fifth century a.d., a period in which the pronunciation of the Greek language was substantially different from the time of Euripides and Strattis. As regards the orthographic issue in question, as early as the mid-second century b.c. the second member of the long i-diphthongs (αι, ηι, ωι) had ceased to be soundedFootnote 13 and therefore had ceased to be represented in writing.Footnote 14 So it comes as no surprise to find Orus' On Orthography featuring a section on ἰῶτα ἀνεκϕώνητον;Footnote 15 the same holds true for Herodian's On Orthography, a treatise composed in the second century a.d.Footnote 16

It is therefore the case that in the three passages cited above no living tradition of pronunciation could have guided Orus to decide whether the forms χρώιζω ϕώιζω and πεϕωισμένος should be spelled with ΩΙ or Ω. Nor did literature provide him with any indication thereof.Footnote 17 For the clarification of the issue Orus is seen to employ analogical reasoning.Footnote 18 The most natural way to reconstruct his five arguments from analogy is as follows: (1) since πλώιζω is certainly known to have iota,Footnote 19 and χρώζω is similar to πλώιζω (cf. ὡς πλῴζω in passage [i] above) (that is, similar in respect of ending), then χρώιζω must have iota too.Footnote 20 (2) Now, since χρώιζω takes iota, and since κεχρώσμεθαFootnote 21 is similar to χρώιζω by virtue of their being forms of the same verb, then κεχρώισμεθα must take iota too (passage [i]). (3) Similarly, ϕώιζω was most probably formed under the influence of χρώιζω, as the phrase ὡς χρώιζω in passage (ii) suggests.Footnote 22 Then ϕώιζω in its turn provided the model for (4) πεϕωισμένος (passage [ii])Footnote 23 and (5) ϕώιγω (passage [iii]).

If it is indeed the above analogical reasoning that constitutes the method by which Orus made his decisions about the orthography of κεχρώσμεθα and ϕώζειν, then no reliance is to be placed on these decisions. Ιn the case of κεχρώσμεθα in argument (2), Orus failed to take into account the morphological distinction between the present and the perfect tense. In fact, this significant difference drastically weakens the second premise of the argument, namely the premise which notes the similarity between χρώιζω and κεχρώσμεθα, and makes it incapable of supporting the conclusion. Ιn the case of ϕώζω in argument (3), the comparison with χρώιζω is wholly ill-conceived, for χρώιζω is unrelated to ϕώζω.Footnote 24 Orus' thinking is important only in so far as it indicates a historical stage in the development of orthographic research. But if our goal is to recover the spellings of Euripides and Strattis, it would be wise to follow our mode of orthographic research, which leads to κεχρώσμεθα and ϕώζειν, both without iota.

Footnotes

*

I thank Professor Charalambos Symeonides and Professor Anna Panayotou for their observations on this article, and the anonymous referee for contributing some judicious material in n. 24.

References

1 Frisk, H., Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1960–72)Google Scholar, s.v. χρόα; Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots (Paris, 1968–80)Google Scholar, s. v. χρώς; Beekes, R., Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2010)Google Scholar, s.v. χρόα.

2 E.g. Page, D., Euripides: Medea (Oxford, 1938)Google Scholar; Diggle, J., Euripidis Fabulae, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; van Looy, H., Euripides: Medea (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1992)Google Scholar; Kovacs, D., Euripides, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2001)Google Scholar; Mastronarde, D., Euripides: Medea (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar; Mossman, J., Euripides: Medea (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar, who reprints Diggle's text. An exception is Méridier, L., Euripide, vol. 1 (Paris, 1956)Google Scholar.

3 All three etymological dictionaries treat ϕώζω under the lemma ϕώγω.

4 Kassel, R. and Austin, C., Poetae Comici Graeci, vol. 7 (Berlin/New York, 1989)Google Scholar, fr. 9. See also the recent editions by Orth, C., Strattis: Die Fragmente. Ein Kommentar (Berlin, 2009)Google Scholar, 81–2 (fr. 9), and L. Fiorentini, ‘Studi sul commediografo Strattide’ (Diss., Università degli Studi di Ferrara, 2006/8, http://eprints.unife.it/21/1/Studi_sul_commediografo_Strattide.pdf), 95, 97 (fr. 9). Previous editors: Meineke, A., Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, vol. 2 part 2 (Berlin, 1840)Google Scholar, 789 (fr. vi); Kock, Th., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1880)Google Scholar, 730 (fr. 65); Demiańczuk, I., Supplementum comicum (Krakow, 1912)Google Scholar, 288 (fr. 1); Edmonds, J., The Fragments of Attic Comedy, vol. 1 (Leiden, 1957)Google Scholar, 814 (fr. 9A).

5 Fiorentini (n. 4), 97, draws attention to Hipp. Περὶ διαίτης II 56 (=Littré 6.566.4 and 7), where manuscripts transmit the forms ϕώζοντα and ϕωζόμενα without iota. However it is a well-known fact that the testimony of manuscripts does not carry any authority in matters concerning the use of the iota mutum any more than in matters related to punctuation and accentuation (see West, M.L., Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (Stuttgart, 1973), 54–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar); therefore it should not be invoked as evidence either in favour of or against such niceties.

6 The testimony of manuscripts is not taken into consideration for the reason stated above, n. 5.

7 Rabe, H., ‘Lexicon Messanense de iota ascripto’, RhM 47 (1892), 404–13Google Scholar.

8 Throughout the article I cite A (Vaticanus graecus 1818, tenth century) and B (Florentinus S. Marci 304, a.d. 994) of the Etymologicum Genuinum (Et. Gen.) from my own collations. I do not offer an apparatus criticus, as the variants involved are of no significance.

9 That the Etymologicum Symeonis (Et. Sym.) chronologically precedes the Etymologicum Magnum has been demonstrated by Berger, G., Etymologicum Genuinum et Etymologicum Symeonis (β) (Meisenheim am Glan, 1972), xvii–xviiiGoogle Scholar.

10 There is one more version of this material, but it is derivative and thus left out of consideration here: [Zonaras] 1838.7–8 Tittmann: ϕῴζω· τὸ καίω, σὺν τῷ ι. Στράττις· «ἀλλ' εἰ μέλλεις ἀνδρείως ϕῴζειν». In composing his entry, [Zonaras] amalgamated material from Suda ϕ 633 (ϕῴζω· τὸ καίω) on the one hand and Et. Gen. or Et. Sym. on the other.

11 Toup, J., Emendationes in Suidam et Hesychium et alios lexicographos Graecos, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1790)Google Scholar, 193.

12 The Lexicon Messanense de iota adscripto (whence passage [i]) was identified as part of Orus' On Orthography by Reitzenstein, R., Geschichte der griechischen Etymologika: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philologie in Alexandria und Byzanz (Leipzig, 1897), 289–95Google Scholar. Passages (ii) and (iii) were identified as further fragments of Orus' above-named treatise by Xenis, G. A. ‘An unnoticed fragment of Orus’ treatises Περὶ ὀρθογραϕίας and Ἀττικῶν λέξεων συναγωγή, and Phrynichus' Σοϕιστικὴ προπαρασκευή?', Mnemosyne 66.1 (2013)Google Scholar, 124 n. 15 and 122–6 respectively.

13 Hence its description as ἰῶτα ἀνεκϕώνητον.

14 Allen, W.S., Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek (Cambridge, 1987 3), 86–7Google Scholar with n. 69. For the inscriptional evidence, see Threatte, L., The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, Vol. I: Phonology (Berlin and New York, 1980), 352–83Google Scholar. Teodorsson, S.-T., The Phonemic System of the Attic Dialect 400—340 b.c. (Lund, 1974)Google Scholar, 296 argues that the monophthongization had already taken place in the late fifth and early fourth centuries b.c.

15 See above, n. 12.

16 Et. Gen. AII (f. 133v) B s.v. δυσωπεῖσθαι: … οὕτως εὗρον τὴν λέξιν εἴς τε (τε ΑΙΙ: om. B) τὸ ῥητορικὸν λεξικὸν καὶ εἰς τὰ ἀνεκϕώνητα τοῦ Ἡρωδιανοῦ (hinc Etym. Magn. 292.55–6; Lentz ΙΙ 421.3 cites the entry from the Etym. Magn.). See Egenolff, P., Die orthographischen Stücke der byzantinischen Litteratur (Leipzig, 1888)Google Scholar, 21.

17 That literature could help with such questions is clearly shown in the case of e.g. πλώιζω: Theognost. Can. 859 (Anecd. Oxon. II 142.24–5 Cramer) πλῴζω· σὺν τῷ ι· εὕρηνται γὰρ ἐν διαιρέσει σωΐζω πλωΐζω τρισυλλάβως. The starting point for the above remark might have been Hesiod's πλωΐζεσκ(ε) (Op. 634), where the treatment of ωι as two syllables is required by the metre. Theognostus draws upon Herodian's De prosodia catholica (see Lentz's edition at p. 444, ll. 7–8).

18 ‘Analogical reasoning’ is the standard modern logical term which best describes the type of arguments that Orus is using in the passages above, i.e. arguments which make the inference from particular to particular. It should not be confused with the ancient grammatical concept of ἀναλογία, which was entirely different from what we have here. Ἀναλογία, as practised by ancient grammarians, was a reasoning process that involved a premise of general or universal truth, a κανών, e.g. John Charax's statement «πάντα τὰ εἰς ινος καιροῦ παραστατικὰ διὰ τοῦ ι γράϕεται»: see Alpers, K., ‘Die griechischen Orthographien aus Spätantike und byzantinischer Zeit’, ByzZ 97 (2004), 1–50Google Scholar, at 6, and at 7, where he argues that Charax here reproduces Herodianic teaching. For ἀναλογία along with διάλεκτος, ἐτυμολογία, and ἱστορία (παράδοσις) as guiding principles for orthographic decisions, see Siebenborn, E., Die Lehre von der Sprachrichtigkeit und ihren Kriterien: Studien zur antiken normativen Grammatik (Amsterdam, 1967)Google Scholar, 67 and 159–163. That Orus invokes no such general premise in his arguments comes as no surprise, since he was an opponent of ἀναλογία and on the side of anomaly: Reitzenstein (n. 12), 296 n. 1; Alpers (this note), 47 with n. 196. For further indications of Orus' anomalistic tendency, see Alpers, K., Das attizistische Lexikon des Oros (Berlin and New York, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 5 and 7.

19 See above, n. 17.

20 A comparable argument forms the basis of Orus' entry ὁρῴην σὺν τῷ ι ὡς βιῴην in Lex. Mess. fol. 282r lines 17–8 (p. 409).

21 Εὐριπίδης Μηδείᾳ in passage (i) cannot but refer to the form κεχρώσμεθα in line 497.

22 Thus passage (ii) renders unlikely the alternative hypothesis that Orus discovered the spelling ϕώιζειν through direct inspection of a manuscript of Strattis. But even if this is how he knew of it, the argument of this paper is not affected, for the reason mentioned above, n. 5.

23 Argument (4) has its second premise comparable to that of argument (2).

24 Φώζω and χρώιζω are also formed with different present suffixes, as noted above, pp. 837–8: ϕωγ + ϕω and χρω + ίζω. On the contrary, in argument (1) χρώιζω and πλώιζω are formed with the same suffix, –ίζω. On this point I received a number of insightful comments from the referee. As s/he admits, they do not ultimately affect the position advanced in this article, but I consider they are worth quoting in full: ‘The fact that ϕώζω and χρώιζω are unrelated and formed with different suffixes does not rule out that ϕώζω really was analogically remodelled as ϕώιζω, on the model of χρώιζω, in the spoken language, before the merger of ω and ωι. Something similar seems to have happened for θνήσκω; originally there was no ι, but it was analogically remodelled to θνήισκω (perhaps on the model of χρηΐσκομαι, according to C.J. Ruijgh, “Problèmes de philologie mycénienne”, Minos n.s. 19 [1985], 105–67, at 148 n. 152). It is nearly always spelled θνήισκω in Attic inscriptions, which suggests that it was actually pronounced θνήισκω as well (i.e. a genuine phonological remodelling, not just a hypercorrect spelling), since η and ηι were apparently still pronounced differently at this stage. The case of ϕώζω and κεχρώσμεθα is different, since, unlike θνήισκω, where we have inscriptional evidence for θνήισκω with ι before the merger of η and ηι, there is no evidence for ϕώιζω and κεχρώισμεθα being anything but secondary, purely artificial spellings (orthographic hypercorrections). However, it might be worth pointing out that there are in theory two possibilities: (1) genuine remodellings in the spoken language, before the merger of ω and ωι, etc. (2) purely artificial spellings, after the merger of ω and ωι. For κεχρώ(ι)σμεθα there is no reason to think that the ι of the present was ever genuinely extended to the rest of the paradigm. (Forms such as θρωισμός seem to be equally artificial hypercorrect spellings). For ϕώζω, it is at least possible that it really was analogically remodelled to ϕώιζω by analogy with χρώιζω; there is a semantic connection, ϕώζω “cook”, χρώιζω “make dark by cooking, brown (sthg)”, as in LSJ's κεστρεὺς χρωσθείς (“fried mullet” vel sim.) from Antiphanes. So, it actually seems quite plausible: something similar happened in θνήισκω and θρώισκω, and the parallel semantics of χρώιζω ϕώζω makes the idea quite appealing (it seems much better than θνήισκω and χρηΐσκομαι!). However, it is still perhaps more likely that ϕώιζω is a purely orthographic form, and that the pronunciation never had an ι.’