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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
‘The reading of the MSS, and not the Renaissance correction e, is certainly what L. wrote.’ So Kenney in his edition of Lucretius 3.1 I believe that he is right, but that the case for o (apart from manuscript authority) rests on different grounds from those which he adduces.
Kenney quotes D.A. West 's statement that e is ‘not worthy of the precise and vivid imagination of this poet’, and himself finds it anaemic by contrast with the sonorous o.2 These are subjective judgements. One can only reply by expressing disagreement and pointing out that e has seemed unexceptionable to the numerous editors who have printed it and have preferred it to o (which Lachmann thought valde ineptum).
1 Cf. Kenney, , The Classical Text, p. 150Google Scholar, ‘It was not until 1960 that Timpanaro showed that the transmitted reading at Lucretius 3.1 was in fact what the poet wrote.’ The reference is to Timpanaro's article in Philologus 104 (1960), 147–9.
2 Note on Lucretius 3.1 and Preface, p. 35.
3 His text however has O! Tenebris ..., not O tenebris...
4 Other examples: Virg. Aen. 1.597–601 Ovid, Met. 7.164–5, 15.39, Rem. 557–8; Lucan 9.379–80. I owe the Ovidian references to Professor Kenney. Catullus 24.1, Aen. 1.229–30, and Lucan 1.195–6 are referred to by Timpanaro.
5 Other examples, Catullus 36.11, 64. 22–3, 323–4; Virg., Geo. 4.353–4, Aen. 1.597–601, 4.31, 6.83, 12.95; Hor., Odes 3. 21.1–4. Aen. 5.870–1 and 6.83 are referred to by Timpanaro.
6 In Virgil, Geo. 1.12.14, however, we have ‘tuque o cui...’
7 e.g. Virg., Geo. 2.40, Aen. 1.198–9, 2.281, 10.18; Ovid, Her. 16.171–2, Am. 2.9.1–2; Lucan 2.531–2; 7.588, 8.94–5.
8 In the same way Maecenas is addressed by Virgil as ‘o decus, o famae merito pars maxima nostrae’ (Geo. 2.40) and by Horace as ‘o et praesidium et dulce decus meum’ (Odes 1.1.2).
