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AN EMENDATION IN HESYCHIUS π 196

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2021

Georgios A. Xenis
Georgios A. Xenis*
Affiliation:
University of Cyprus
*
gxenis@ucy.ac.cy
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Abstract

The entry π 196 of Hesychius is textually corrupt. This note challenges the traditional way of explaining the corruption and emending the text, which goes back to Marcus Musurus (1514), and replaces it with a simpler and more economical approach.

Keywords

Hesychiuslexicon of Cyriltextual criticismancient Greek lexicographyancient Greek scholarship
Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 462 - 464
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Hesych. π 196:

*παλινδ[ε]ινία· [πάλιν γεννῆσαι] ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ὑδάτων A52

παλινδεινία Η = Α: HSt. | πάλιν γεννῆσαι H = A: del. Mus. | ἢ Η = Α: Mus.

παλινδ[ε]ινία (means) [‘begetting again’] ‘(the eddy that is formed) from the turning of water backwards’

The above are Hansen's text and a revised version of his critical apparatus.Footnote 1 The translation is mine.Footnote 2

The gloss derives from Cyril,Footnote 3 and it is already corrupt in MS A (Vallicellianus E 11, early tenth century), which is the only one of the principal Cyrillic manuscripts to include it. What is the original version of this gloss?

Musurus,Footnote 4 Hesychius’ first editor, deleted πάλιν γεννῆσαι and changed ἤ to ἡ: παλινδεινία· ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ὑδάτων. His assumption seems to have been that in this gloss two separate notes had become mixed up at some point in the transmission, that is, that πάλιν γεννῆσαι is an intrusion from elsewhere.Footnote 5 His approach has been adopted by all subsequent editors (J. Alberti, N. Schow, M. Schmidt, P.A. Hansen), while recently Ch. Avgerinos, rightly I think, finds the ellipsis in the interpretamentum rather awkward, and adds the noun δίνη to Musurus's text: παλινδινία⋅ <δίνη> ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ὑδάτων or παλινδινία⋅ ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ὑδάτων <δίνη>.Footnote 6 He compares such entries as Hesych. π 191 παλινάγγελος ὁ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ἄγγελος, etc.; π 205 παλινδία (sic pro παλινδικία) ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς λεγομένη δίκη; π 225 *παλίωξις ἡ ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς δίωξις; cf. also Hesych. π 198 παλινδικία ἡ ἐξ ἀρχῆς δίκη.

However, the required meaning, as reflected in Avgerinos's text, can be obtained by less drastic and less complicated textual changes. The traditional hypothesis of the conflation of two distinct notes is unnecessary; we can treat the text more economically as a single gloss. We can also dispense with Avgerinos's addition of δίνη. I suggest that the original version of this gloss was as follows:

παλινδεινία: <τὸ> πάλιν δεινῆσαι [ἢ] ἐξ ὑποστροφῆς ὑδάτων.

παλινδεινία (means) ‘whirling about again [or] owing to the turning of water backwards’.

A few remarks are required in relation to the new constitution of the text: (i) The explanation of a noun through an articular infinitive is well attested both in the Cyrillic and in the non-Cyrillic glosses of Hesychius: for example α 3258 ἀλουσία⋅ τὸ μὴ λούεσθαι. καὶ ⸤ἀλουτεῖν ὁμοίως; α 3721 *ἀμνηστία τὸ μὴ μιμνήσκεσθαι; δ 2737 *δωροδοκία τὸ λαβεῖν ἢ δοῦναι δῶρα; ε 6561 *ἑτεροδοξία τὸ ἄλλως δοξάζειν ἤπερ ἔχει ἡ ἀλήθεια; π 199 *παλιγγενεσία⋅ τὸ ἐκ δευτέρου ἀναγεννηθῆναι ἢ ἀνακαινισθῆναι; π 2529 πλεονεξία τὸ πλέον τοῦ δέοντος ἔκ τινος λαμβάνειν. (ii) δεινῆσαι is here intransitive; see LSJ s.v. δινεύω II. (iii) It is not necessary to follow Henricus StephanusFootnote 7 in correcting παλινδεινία to παλινδινία (or δεινῆσαι to δινῆσαι), since the forms with epsilon iota (δειν-) are as common as those with iota (διν-) in Cyril and/or Hesychius: for example Hesych. δ 494 *δεῖναι αἱ τῶν ὑδάτων συστροφαί; δ 496 *δείνας κινήσεις …; δ 497 δεινεύει κυκλεύει; δ 499 *δείνη συστροφή; δ 501 δείνησιν κίνησιν …; δ 517; δ 518. Examples of forms with iota include: Hesych. δ 1849 *δίνη· συστροφὴ ὑδάτων; δ 1852 δίνεον· ἔστρεφον …; δ 1853; δ 1854 *δινήεντος [τὸ] συστροφὰς τῶν ῥευμάτων ἔχοντος; δ 1856 *δινήσας στρέψας …; ε 476; ε 477; ε 478.

With regard to the mechanism of corruption: it is easy for the article τό to have fallen out. For example, in interpolating the glosses α 4865, α 7301, ε 7202 from Cyril, the copyists of Hesychius failed to reproduce this tiny word. Τhe loss of τό has also affected Hesych. ε 1318; κ 2003; κ 3202; κ 4074; ρ 243, etc. The remainder of the transmitted gloss is a product of a two-stage corruption: the original δεινῆσαι was changed to the much commoner γεννῆσαιFootnote 8 and the ἤ was then added to distinguish the two unrelated explanations.

Footnotes

Ian C. Cunningham, Georgios A. Christodoulou, CQ's anonymous reader and CQ's editor Bruce Gibson helped me to improve this note. I thank them all.

References

1 Hansen, P.A. (ed.), Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 3: Π–Σ (Berlin and New York, 2005)Google Scholar. Hansen misattributes the deletion of πάλιν γεννῆσαι to Salmasius and omits the information in relation to ἤ in A. In this note I follow the practice of modern editors of Hesychius in placing an asterisk before Hesychian glosses that were interpolated from Cyril's lexicon: see Hansen (this note), xxv with n. 1.

2 It is not absolutely clear what the lexicographer means by this explanation. I assume that he means that a παλινδ[ε]ινία, i.e. second eddy or new eddy, is that eddy which is formed from the rotating of water in the opposite direction, and not in the same direction as the initial eddy. Of course, it is too much to expect from ancient lexicographers to have our state of knowledge in relation to the direction of the rotation in eddies.

3 On Hesychius’ interpolation from Cyril, see Alpers, K., ‘Corrigenda et addenda to Latte's prolegomena to Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon vol. I: Α–Δ’, in Hansen, P.A. (ed.), Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 3: Π–Σ (Berlin and New York, 2005), xviii–xixGoogle Scholar.

4 Ἡσυχίου Λεξικόν, Hesychii Dictionarium (Venice, 1514), col. 570.

5 Later critics elaborated on Musurus's assumption, speculating on the origins of πάλιν γεννῆσαι: e.g. Schow, Ν., Hesychii Lexicon ex codice ms. Bibliothecae D. Marci restitutum et ab omnibus Musuri correctionibus repurgatum sive Supplementa ad editionem Hesychii Albertinam (Leipzig, 1792), 612 nGoogle Scholar. 10 notes: ‘infinitivum πάλιν γεννῆσαι paralipomenis ex margine accensendum videtur. Male huc invectum fuit, nam ex serie vocem παλινδεές praecedere debebat.’ See also Avgerinos, Ch., ‘Hesych. π 143, 145, 167, 660, 1132, 1515 Hansen’, ΒΕΛΛΑ. Επιστημονική Επετηρίδα 8 (2017–19), 225–47Google Scholar, at 236 (by an oversight Avgerinos fails to include ‘196’ in the title of his chapter). G.A. Christodoulou (per litteras) refers the interpretamentum to a lost lemma πάλιν φυτεῦσαι, comparing e.g. Hesych. φ 1069 φυτεύει⋅ κατασκευάζει. γεννᾷ; schol. (vet.) Eur. Or. 11.03 Mastronarde ⟨φυτεύει⟩: ἀντὶ τοῦ γεννᾷ, μεταφορικῶς ἀπὸ τῶν δένδρων. Such attempts unavoidably take speculation a long way.

6 Alberti, J. (ed.), Ἡσυχίου Λεξικόν, Hesychii Lexicon, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1746–66)Google Scholar; Schmidt, M. (ed.), Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, 5 vols. (Jena, 1858–68)Google Scholar; Schow (n. 5); Hansen (n. 1); Avgerinos (n. 5), 236 with n. 40.

7 Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, 1.1572, col. 1019, section g.

8 The two words differ only in a couple of letters; the corruption may also have been facilitated by the potential immediate context in which the παλινδεινία was originally placed in Cyril: was it near e.g. παλιγγενεσία? We have no means to answer this question.