Corrigenda on the Pervigilivm Veneris

Extract

I have to apologize to my readers for two passages in which my corrections of the proof-sheets were misunderstood. In V. 21 for ‘flauum’ read ‘florum’; in the note on VV. 72, 73 I suggested an alternative reconstruction of the text, viz. to take V. 72 (‘peruium,’ etc.) as the fourth line of stanza 16, the verb in the second clause of the stanza being still ‘gubernat’; in that case the missing line was the first verse of stanza 17, and I suggest for it ‘Ipsa corpus omne pollens nuptiali gaudio.’ On the whole I now prefer this version.

May I add that it now seems to me very possible that the ‘Fiam ut’ of 5 in v. 95 is a correction of a damaged ‘Pipiat’ ‘chirps’ ? P and F axe exceedingly alike in uncial writing, and, as Mr. Rackham points out to me, the first Pi- may well have disappeared by lipography; if that happened, ‘Fiat’ remained, and the addition of a line over the a and of an m produced the reading found in S.

In v. 17 a better line results if ‘Praenitent’ is substituted for ‘Enitent’ and ‘Apertae’ for ‘Pulchrae’; and vv. 63, 64 are clearer as ‘Tune cruore de superno pontus undas turbidus Deque uiro defluente,’ etc.