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A Note on Corinna

D. L. Page

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 7 / Issue 1-2 / January 1957, pp 109 - 112
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800016670, Published online: 11 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838800016670

How to cite this article:

D. L. Page (1957). A Note on Corinna. The Classical Quarterly, 7, pp 109-112
doi:10.1017/S0009838800016670

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 A NOTE ON CORINNA
INC.Q,., N.S. v (1955), I76ff., Mr. A. E. Harvey discusses the problem presented
by the first ten lines of the first column of the Berlin Papyrus of Corinna, and
finds the solution1 in the region of erroneous colometry. So far as I can judge,
he is justified in claiming that he has offered 'the most concise and satisfactory
explanation of the irregularities'; but, if so, there is one further step which
should be taken, and there is one obscurity in his account which should be
clarified.
Mr. Harvey says that the copyist 'failed to make sense of the metre'; 'failed
to appreciate the metrical structure'; 'allowed [the lines] to run over the correct
metrical division'; did not 'divide the lines correctly'. But does he mean that
the lines in question have no colometry (i.e. are written out like prose), or false
colometry? The latter is suggested by the expressions 'the colometry of 1-10
is seriously at fault', and 'divided the text up into lines a few syllables longer
than ionic dimeters'; but the suggestion seems to be misleading, for we are
finally told that 'the writer of this papyrus (second century A.D.) must have
been copying a manuscript in which the lines were written out like prose'.
That inference would be invalid, if it were the case that the first six lines
represent a false colometry: it would then be at least as reasonable, I think more
reasonable, to suppose that what is corrected in our text (from about v. 9
onwards) is not a 'prose' original but an original in which a false colometry
had been adopted throughout this poem.
If Mr. Harvey's explanation is correct, this question evidently remains to be
asked: are the first six lines written out like prose, or do they represent a false
(but possibly consistent) colometry ? The lines stand thus:

I jvcTecpavov
2 ]y&y' enlSi]
3 ]e7r' a.Kpv
4 \ophac
5 ] . pa>vr'op*ICDV
6 ] . v<f>6v\ovop'vi
7 ]
8 ]
9
10 ] evedXd'

The most noticeable features of the first six lines are (a) their extension to-
ward the right, three or four syllables beyond the line-ends of the correctly
1
The solution of other problems too; but master of the true colometry. (ii) Why the
I do not follow him so far. (i) Why a line is copyist 'did not have the confidence to put
(apparently) missing between col. i. 46 and in any paragraphs—but we do not know
ii. 11: it is suggested that the copyist 'com- that he did not 'put in any paragraphi': we
pressed (say) twelve lines into eleven and only know that he left one out at col. ii.
went temporarily astray in his colometry'— 5-6 (the omission of another at col. i. 22 is
too large a blunder to be probable, for a man attested only by the not infallible eye of
who had by this time shown himself to be Croenert).
 j
no D. L. PAGE 1
5
divided stanzas which follow later in this column; (b) the fact that thefirstthree ;\
and the last two1 (vv. 1-3, 5-6) all end or may end in a choriamb : that is likelier to be j
the result of colometry than of chance; moreover, if these lines were written 'i
out like prose, we should wonder why the third and fourth were appreciably \
shorter than their neighbours. '
Consider now the first four lines apart: the first three end or may end j
- v, w -, the fourth ends — ; they all extend three or four syllables farther to
the right than the correctly divided lines in the lower part of the column. This i
result might readily be given if a complete stanza were divided thus:

2. — *~/ KJ — — w w — — ^ w —

O — W \ » ; — — W KJ — — ^* KJ —

A. — wv-; — — w <j — w

But the first of these lines, it will be objected, would surely have projected
to the right appreciably beyond the other three? No: for the difference in
number of letters, or in space occupied by the letters, of two such lines as 1 and
2 may be negligible or even nil. If the three stanzas from /LteyaAav (col. i. 17)
to Aauc (col. i. 34) are written out in the colometry suggested, it will be found
that the first line in each stanza contains 34 letters, whereas the length of the
second or third line twice amounts to 30 letters: now a 34-letter line often
occupies the same space as a 30-letter line; 3 and of course the first line (in col.
i. 1 and 5) may have had appreciably less than 34 letters (as I write, I think of
lepov T[uoXov dfieufiaca 6od£cu Bpofj.lco(i), which has only 30 or 31). Moreover,
allowance must be made, especially in this papyrus, for the space occupied by
stops, apostrophes, and corrections.
What of the following six lines, col. i. 5-10? If Mr. Harvey's explanation is
correct, it looks as though the change to the true colometry had already affected
v. 9 (end of ionic) and v. 1 o (end of stanza). The first two lines (5-6) end or may
end in choriambs, -aii- opuav and (f>ovXov ovi-: these are consistent with the
explanation given above for w . 1-3 of the column. There remains the blank
space at w . J-8.3 Now this is the point at which the false was replaced by the
true colometry. The true may have been present already in v. 8: v. 7 alone
would then be the point of junction, and there would be no need to look far
afield for an explanation of its relative shortness—it might have contained a
word or two crossed out before the true colometry began. In brief, the state of
affairs in col. i. 5-10 would be given by the following4 (I take an extant stanza
for the example):
1
In v. 6, opvi, the p was marked for Wilamowitz; for one, Croenert. I thought
deletion, according to Croenert. The last that the photograph supported Wilamowitz.
4
sentence in Mr. Harvey's n. 1 on p. 179 sug- If, as Croenert thought, there is room
gests that I print the dot over p without ex- for only one line between 6 and 9, the ex-
plaining it: the explanation is in my app. planation which I give would become sim-
crit. ad loc. pier still: the line following 6 contained
2
Examples abound: e.g. Pind. Pyth. 6. nothing but </ra.£oi' erai-rov, and the true
9 and 12 are about equal in space occupied in colometry began in v. 9, with Kpovftav. Per-
the papyrus; but v. 9 has 27 letters, v. 12 has haps the doubt, whether there is room for
31; Eur. Cretans col. i. 2—3, almost identical one line or two, arises from the copyist's
in length, but 14 and 18 letters respectively; leaving a little more space than usual be-
Callim.P. Oxy. 2211, fr. 1 r. 5 and 22, hexa- tween lines at the point where the false
meter and pentameter identical in length. colometry stopped and the true began.
3
Sufficient for two lines, according to
 A NOTE ON CORINNA in
5 MerAAANT'A0ANAT(jJN€CC€A€TIMAN-TAA'€M€A
6 yeM'MAKAPACA'AYTIKAMO)CH<l>£P€M€N
7 [[tA0ON€TATTON]]
8 *ePeM€NtA<t>ON£TATTON
9 KPOY<t>IANKAAniAAC€rXPOY
io CO*AIOTYA'AMATTANTeca>P0eN-
It is of course impossible to prove that w . i-6 do represent a false but con-
sistent colometry: it is only possible to show that a particular colometry, of a
sufficiently obvious kind, false but consistent, would account for what is pre-
served in the papyrus. Mr. Harvey says that his explanation depends on the
assumption that the model for our copyist was a text 'written out like prose':
I think it is now clear that it does not depend on that assumption, since it is at
least possible, it may even be thought quite likely, that the model was a text
in which a false colometry had been adopted. What has been partly corrected
to a true colometry, whether by our copyist or by an ancestor, was probably
not a 'prose' text but a text in which a false but consistent colometry had been
adopted throughout this poem. We have then no reason to suppose that there
ever existed a 'prose' text of the poem: for the false colometry may have been
adopted in the first book-text of Gorinna.
The assumption on which the explanation really does depend is unwelcome
enough: it is (at least I cannot think how to avoid it) that we have in this
manuscript (or somewhere in its ancestry) something we would rather do
without, a colometrist-copyist. Whether he had 'prose' or false colometry in front
of him, he was an uncommon type of copyist: one who was capable of discern-
ing a true colometry underlying a false one (or none at all), and free to correct
his copy accordingly; yet he did not think of doing so, or did not succeed in
doing so, until mid-poem—and then the truth dawned on him in mid-stanza.
Perhaps we must believe in him: but he was an eccentric person.

One further point, in reply to Mr. Harvey's last paragraph. He says that
Pausanias 'saw a picture of the competition' between Corinna and Pindar; and
he suggests (if I do not mistake the implication) that this may be a considerable
piece of evidence in favour of a fifth-century date for Corinna. But, if the fact
were as stated, we need infer no more than that the painter was familiar with
the anecdote about the competition: he would join the company of those who
knew, or thought they knew, this one fact (and nothing else) about Corinna's
life. In my view, indeed, if a painter of the first or second century A.D. wished
to portray Corinna in action, there was no other action which he could portray
—he must either depict the fabulous competition or give free rein to his imagi-
nation. However, since we do not know when the painter lived, he can throw
no light whatever on the date of Corinna.
But the fact is not as stated. Pausanias does not say that he 'saw a picture
of the competition'. He saw 'a picture of Corinna binding a fillet on her head'.
When he adds that she was doing this 'because of the victory which she won over
Pindar in song at Thebes', it is neither said nor necessarily implied that Pindar
and Thebes and the competition, all or any of them, were in the picture. I confess
that it never occurred to me to suppose that the competition might have been
in the picture. I took, and take, the explanatory clause to be Pausanias'
interpretation of a picture of the poetess crowning herself—an interpretation
ii2 D. L. PAGE
suggested to him by the anecdote, presumably the interpretation current in
Tanagra: if Pindar had been in the picture, the natural thing for Pausanias
to say was not rrjc viK-qc eiveKa iji IlivSapov eviKTjcev but Simply viKrjcaca IJlvSapov.
Even if we do go so far as to allow, despite the run of the words, that Pausanias
may be making an inference from something in the picture other than what he
says was in the picture (the poetess crowning herself), we shall still not know
what the inference was drawn from. I do not see how it would help us, if we
knew that the competition was in the picture: and we certainly do not know
that it was. There is nothing of substance here to be explained, let alone
explained away.1

Trinity College, Cambridge D. L. PAGE

1
As for Plut. Mus. 1136b (Mr. Harvey's probable that they are still the source from
last footnote): I still think it should be left this point onwards. Moreover, we know
out of the discussion. There is no reason to nothing of 'Anticles', and should build
suppose that Istros and the enigmatic 'An- nothing further on the conjecture 'Anti-
ticles' are the source for anything beyond (at cleides'. As for Istros: he might (but there is
farthest) the point where dAAoi <j>aciv diverts no proof that he did) have some knowledge
attention from them; indeed it is very im- of a third-century (Hellenistic) Corinna.

LUCAN 7-504-5
nee Fortuna diu rerum tot pondera uertens
abstulit ingentis fato torrente ruinas.
O. A. W. DILKE {Proc. Class. Assoc. liii [1956], 30 f.) disapproves of the reading uergens
advocated by me in C.Q_., NS. iv [1954], 188 f., retains uertens of the better manuscripts
translating 'and Fortune did not take long to change1 the balance of so many
weights',2 and, citing for the use of diu Sen. Contr. 2. 3. 10 'si non impetro ut uiuam,
hoc certe impetrem ne diu moriar', asks 'How is this not a parallel?' Others 3 too have
not hesitated to ascribe a similar use to diu. The difficulty is that to which I briefly
referred in C.Q,., I.e. The adverb diu is appropriate only with verbs representing a
continuous or protracted action: e.g. morior may represent such an action, and it does
so in Sen., I.e.—the speaker prays for exemption from a protracted death and diu
retains its characteristic sense. The verb uerto, on the other hand, represents, as
Postgate points out (see too Francken), an essentially momentary action (would D.
admit as Latin, e.g., non diu gladium arripiens?); for the use of diu with such a verb 4 no
parallel has to my knowledge been adduced. 5
There is the further point that D.'s interpretation does not fit the context: when
Caesar's men are already well on the way to victory, D. may properly ask 'What then
is the change of balance?'
University College of Wales, Aberystwyth A. HUDSON-WILLIAMS
1
Liv. 3.27. 7'punctosaepetemporismaxi- so many weights'.
3
marum rerum momenta uerti', which D. e.g. Haskins, Bourgery-Ponchont, Duff;
compares for the use of uerto, has no relevance so too the schol.
4
here: the meaning is 'depend on, turn on, a There is, of course, no objection if
moment of time'; cf. 8. 27. 4 'discrimen . . . the action, though momentary, is repeated a
rerum suarum in bello Samnitium . . . number of times: e.g. Luc. 8. 673'nodosaque
uerti'. frangit ossa diu', i.e. 'for long he goes on
2
D. takes tot with pondera, commenting 'if breaking'.
5
tot governed rerum, Lucan (as opposed to The Thes.s.v. diu 1559. 82 ff. lists several
Virgil) would have written tot rerum'. I see no examples of diu used with verbs like morior,
justification for this statement, nor do I cresco, etc., but with no verb like uerto.
understand the translation 'the balance of