Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2015
More light is thrown on the poetic art of Stesichorus by the papyrus-text of his Geryoneïs than by all his other fragments together. I published some thoughts about it in the Oxford Classical Text Lyrica Graeca Selecta in 1968, and I now give the detail of the work on which that publication was based, together with the results of work which I have done since. Some of the most important of these results are not mine but Mr Barrett's, and I have been careful to acknowledge my debt to him in detail throughout.
I. The Text
A. PMG 184
1 The present paper makes full use of a lecture entitled ‘Stesichorus and the story of Geryon’, addressed by Mr W. S. Barrett to a meeting of the Hellenic and Roman Societies at Oxford in September 1968. Mr Barrett gave me a copy of his lecture, which is not yet published, and with his usual generosity has allowed me to make use of it. Its contribution to the interpretation of the Geryoneïs is very great, and to the understanding of Stesichorus more generally is unrivalled. Mr Barrett has increased my obligation to him by reading the present paper and by allowing me to make full use of his comments on it.
2 For convenience of reference, here and hereafter, I add in brackets the letter prefixed to the text of the fragments in Part I.