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Notes on Orientius' Commonitorium. I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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Orientius, Bishop of Auch (Augusta Ausciorum) in the early fifth century, possessed a talent for elegiac verse of no despicable order, and this he exercised in a didactic poem of 518 distichs, (known without indeed any good authority) as the Commonitorium. This poem, consisting of two books, describes and exhorts the reader to follow the Christian mode of life, and is characterized by its unassuming simplicity, some effective description, a number of well-turned lines (one of which has attained a modest renown, viz. 2. 184 ‘uno fumauit Gallia tota rogo’), and a sincere belief in the truths he was preaching. The language is in general clear and direct, though tinged here and there with turns of a decidedly late flavour.
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References
page 130 note 1 The manuscript was removed from Tours by the light-fingered Libri in 1842 and subsequently sold by him to Lord Ashbumham. It is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, No. 457.
page 130 note 2 The Migne work is a reprint of Galland's edition in Bibliotheca graeco-lat. uet. pair. 10 (1765–81), the text being that of Martène.
page 130 note 3 Rev.de phil., xxvi (1902), pp. 149–57Google Scholar. A prettyspecimen of H.'s handiwork is to be found in 2. 157 f., where the perfectly intelligible words ‘haec [blessings which the reader can imagine he may find in Heaven] quia, conscendunt animos et mente uidentur, inferiora illis crede futura bonis’ [blessings actually realized in Heaven] are metathe morphosed by H., ‘très heureusement’ claims Bell., into haec quia confundunt anitnos, commenta uidenlur, etc. Cf. 144 (‘praemia) ipso non sénsu praemeditata prius’ and the source, viz. edition 1 Cor. 2. 9 ‘quod… nee in cor hominis ascendit, quae praeparauit deus iis qui dihgunt ilium’. But to H. manuscript authority and scriptural influence meant nothing.
page 130 note 4 It is, however, only just to add that on questions other than those of reading and interpretation Bell.'s work contains much that is valuable and informative.
page 131 note 1 A passage which has been subjected to some heartless butchery (Nettleship, Havet, Bell., Hitchcock, Purser ‘what printers call ”pie”… men do not live for a thousand years’) is 2.215 ff., but the right reading now seems reasonably clear. As has been indicated (see Galdi, , Athenaeum, vi, 1928, pp. 32 ff.)Google Scholar, the lines are by Hieron. Epist. 60.14. 3 ‘inter eum, qui decem uixit annos, et ilium, qui mille, postquam idem uitae finis adiienerit et inrecusabilis mortis necessitas, transactum omne tantundem est’; we should, accordingly, read ‘inter eum (Schurtzfleisch, ntereunt A) decies qui ternos uixerit annos | atque ilium uixit qui modo millesimum (Schurtzfl., missile sim’ A1, missile sim' A2), postquam postremus finis retinebit utrumque, certe supremo tempore mortis idem est', i.e. ‘between him… and him who has now (modo = nunc; cf. 1. 423, 2.384) lived his thousandth year… there is no difference’. I see no reason why Moricca, (Didaskaleion, v, 1927)Google Scholar should substitute uiuai for uixit (on the grounds that modo requires a present tense). Still less is there to be said for Galdi's extraordinary millesimus, which he thinks O., poor barbarous fellow, might use as = ‘millenarian’, and assumption that modo = quidem, tamen. For millěsimum cf. suspicione in 1. 438, herěmo 2.170.
page 131 note 2 ‘Orientii Commonitorium, A Commentary with an Introduction and Translation’, Catholic University of America Pair. Stud., vol. lxxiv, Washington, 1945Google Scholar.
page 131 note 3 Bursian's, Jahresb. ū. d. Forl. d. klass. Alt. lix (1889), p. 25Google Scholar.
page 131 note 4 He translates ‘quels moyens… nous permettent d'éviter les difficultés et de suivre le chemin de traverse qui mène au bonheur’. This perverseness indeed; trames here as often means no more than ‘path;’ with the above cf. Prud. Peri. 5. 369 f. ‘cui recta celso tramite reseratur ad patrem uia,’ and also Dracont. Laud, dei 3. 746 ‘sit mihi longa dies felici tramite uitae’ (Sil. 6. 120 cliuoso tramite uitae’).
page 131 note 5 For other instances see Ellis, p. 199, and Purser, l.c, p. 38, n. 2. Cf. the notes on 1. 115 and 1. 505.
page 132 note 1 Since this was written, I find that Baehr. (Fleckeisens Jahrbb. f. phil. u. pädag., cxxxvii, 1888, ‘Ad Onentium’, pp. 389 ff.)Google Scholar makes an apt reference to Mm. Fel. 18. 8 hie (deus) non uideri potest: uisu clarior est; nee conprehendi: tactu Purior est; nec aestimari: Sensibus maior est.
page 132 note 2 Cf. Virg, . Aen. 6. 127Google Scholar ‘noctes atque dies patetatri ianua Ditis’, etc.
page 133 note 1 Purser considers that O. is still referring to Samson, who is dealt with in the preceding couplet, but apart from the general description's being inappropriate, the passage has then little point. Delrio (so Ellis and Bell.) is certainly right in tracing the passage to Num. 25 and 31.
page 133 note 2 See Schmalz-Hofmann, p. 478.
page 133 note 3 Bell, is completely at sea, translating ‘dans I'espoir qu'ainsi déshonoré, — car la faute est toujours grosse du chtiment, — il donnera des baisers’, etc.
page 134 note 1 Cf. 2. 33 f. ‘nullum saeua reum faciat sententia, nullum | austeroproperes plectereiudicio’, another passage in some need of amendment. saeua seems inappropriate to sententia (= ‘opinion’, ‘judgement’), and Baehr. accordingly proposed laeua. The right reading must rather be scaeua (‘malicious’); cf. Paul. Nol. Carm. 10. 268 ‘uulgus scaeuo rumore malignum’ (scaeuo most codd., seuo B), n. 44 ‘scaeua… fabula’ (= rumor), 19. 246 ‘scaeua uoluntas’ (scaeua AD, saeua E).
page 135 note 1 Ellis comments ‘credulitatis Delr. quod sic interpreter, dum cruci figitur Christus propter Pharisaeorum inuidiam, non propter plebis eredulae libidinem. nam ut nimis credulum est uulgus, Christum modo pro rege accipiebant, modo pro nequam et malefico interficiebant’. BelL has ‘quand la malignité de ses ennemis compléta ce qu'avait commencé leur crédulité’. The passage remains unintelligible.
page 135 note 2 In regard to metre it may be noted that O.'s poem contains many examples of two or more successive pentameters whose first-halves are spondaic; cf. 2. 342–54, where there are seven such lines in succeeding couplets.
page 135 note 3 For Havet and Bell. nothing could be simpler than the transition from fluctus to portus; v. Bell. p. 50 ‘la faute consistant employer p pour f était facile à faire. Ainsi, au vers 213, il est probable, nous l'avons vu, que fratrum a été mal lu et changé en proprii [another specimen of Havet's wizardry]’.
page 136 note 1 I am not impressed by the passages adduced by E. L. B. Meurig Davies (Mnemos., 1949, p. 72) in support of the reading portus in Lucr. I.c., viz. Pentad. Fort. 31 f. ‘per mare iacta ratis pleno subit ostia uelo, | in portu mersa est per mare iacta ratis’, and Sen, . Nal. 3. 26. 2Google Scholar ‘si crebrioribus uentis ostium caeditur et reuerberatur fluctu, amnis resistit’. Lucr. is referring to the power of the winds in general terms; in 273 he notes their effect on plains and in 274 on mountains; it is difficult to believe that the poet would link harbours with plains and mountains as typical objects of the wind's fury. Neither the strained epigram of Pentadius nor Seneca's reference to river-mouths (which do no doubt receive their share of wind) offers support to portus.
page 136 note 2 See Löfstedt, , Synt. ii, p. 175 fGoogle Scholar. His observation on the liberties taken in the use of pleonasms, viz. ‘sie sind oft weit grösser, als die kurzsichtige Pedanterie der Kritiker hat anerkennen wollen’, is not without point.
page 136 note 3 See note and footnote5 on 1. 3 above.
page 136 note 4 See note and footnote3 on 1. 597.
page 136 note 5 In Thes. s. curuo, col. 1547.76, falcibus is less naturally taken as an ablative.
page 137 note 1 This is one of the few cases in which the reading ascribed by Schurtzfleisch to an Oxford codex differs from the correction in the margin of the Bodleian copy of Rivinus's edition or from the actual text of R. See Ellis, p. 202 f.
page 137 note 2 See J. H. Waszink, Tertull. De anim., note on 10. 6. But O.'s choice of tense was no doubt largely influenced by metrical considerations; an instructive passage is 2. 119 f. ‘nam quod tu dederas, mox conferet alter et alter: quod multi cupiunt, nemo diu tenuit’.
page 137 note 3 Cf. 2. 207–69, where the initial letter of a number of hexameters is missing. So in 1. 506, where the manuscripts read armamus, I assume the disappearance of F and propose formamns (see note ad I.).