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Two Notes on Lucretius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M.L. Clarke
Affiliation:
Cholsey, Oxon

Extract

This comes near to satisfying; but even with ipsa the change of subject from tecta to plaustra is awkward, and exsultant is inappropriate to a lumbering plaustrum (cf. Virgil, G. 1.163 tardaque Eleusinae matris uoluentia plaustra). I suggest reading cisia instead of ipsa. The cisium was a fast light two-wheeled vehicle which might well jump up on a rough road; and the first three letters cis could have become the -es of the MS exsultantes. Two further points: lapis uiai is not ‘a stone on the road’ (Bailey and Rouse/Smith [Loeb, 1982]), but rather the stone of the road, i.e. the paving; and utrimque is not ‘on one side or the other’ (Bailey in notes) but ‘on both sides’. There remains Ernout's objection that the suppression of the final s of lapis (which stands for lapids*) is unlikely. One can only say that no one would have ventured to introduce by conjecture pendentibu' structas or manantibu' stillent, but both are found in Lucretius' text (6.195, 943).

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 Conrad Müller seems to have had the same idea. His text has nec minus exsultant currus, ubkumque uiai…; but this necessitates inserting an additional line of his own composition.