Chapter III

§1. nobis ipsis, codd.: e nobis ipsis Gertz.

utilitatis etiam. Ioan. gives etiam utilitatis, which Spalding quotes also from Goth.

§2. alte refossa. This (the reading of N) I have found also in Ioan. and Prat.: alter effossa BH: altius effossa Harl. 4995 M Harl. 4950, 4829 Burn. 244 Bodl. Dorv.: alte effossa Harl. 2662, 11671.

fecundior fit. Fit appears as a correction in T and Vall.: it does not occur in B M Prat. H T Ioan. S Harl. 4995 or 2662. Perhaps fecundior is the true reading, and est is to be supplied in thought: Introd. p. lv.

effundit B Prat. Ioan. N and most codd.: effunditur b H. et fundit Vall.² M, Harl. 4995, Halm and Meister.

parentis: parentium Ioan.: parentum Dorv. Harl. 4950 Burn. 244 C: parentibus bH Bodl.

§4. iam hinc. Obrecht iam hunc: see note ad loc. Harl. 2662 and 11671 agree in iam hic.

§6. scriptorum. This reading, attributed to Badius by Halm and Meister, is found in Ioan. Harl. 4995 Burn. 243 Harl. 2662 (the last corr. from -em). It is also in the editio princeps (Campanus), and the ed. Andr. Becher reports it as a correction in Vall.

§9. sequetur Bn and Bg N Sal. Dorv. Harl. 2662, 4950, 4829, 11671: persequetur b Harl. 4995 Burn. 243: prosequetur HM Bodl. and Prat. Prosequetur (Spald. and Bonnell) may be right: there is a graphic touch about the compound.

§10. ut provideamus obelized by Halm (after Bursian): but see note. Becher proposed provideamus ut resistamus et ... coerceamus: Krüger suggests rather resistamus et provideamus ut ... coerceamus: Jeep, ut provide eamus, also, for efferentes se, efferventes. The passage is discussed by Kiderlin (Blätter f.d. bayer Gymn. 1888, p. 85), who recommends the excision of et before efferentes, as it is found in no MS. He translates: ‘Aber gerade dann, wenn wir uns jene Fähigkeit (schnell zu schreiben) angeeignet haben (bei solchen, welche noch nicht schnell schreiben können, fehlt es an Ruhepausen obnehin nicht), wollen wir innehalten, um vorwärts zu blicken, die durchgehenden Rosse wollen wir gleichsam mit den Zügeln zurückhalten.’ He considers ut provideamus a necessary addition, in order to make the meaning of resistamus clear. ‘Was jeder Besonnene beim Schreiben thut, dass er manchmal innehält, um vorwärts zu blicken, d.h. um sich zu besinnen, welche Gedanken nun am besten folgen und wie sie am besten ausgedrückt werden, rät hier Quint. seinen Lesern.’ The best MSS. read resist. ut provid. efferentes equos frenis: Hb Bodl. Burn. 243 give ut for et: Harl. 4995 has resist. ut prohibeamus ferentes equos fr. quib. coerc.: 4950 and Burn. 244 resist. ut prohibeamus efferentes equos quos fr. quib. coerc. The reading et efferentes se is due to Burmann. Something might be said for et ferentes se: ‘ferre se’ is often used by Vergil of ‘moving with conscious pride,’ e.g. Aen. i. 503: v. 372: viii. 198: ix. 597: xi. 779.

§12. patruo. Harl. 2662 and 11671 both give patrono: which, with other coincidences, establishes their relationship to the Guelferbytanus (Spald.).

§14. quod omni, see note ad loc.: edd. vett ex quo.

§15. plura et celerius Prat. N: and so now Becher reports from B and Ambrosianus ii. Et had escaped Halm’s notice, and Meister follows, plura celerius.

sed quid: sed is supplied by the old edd., but does not appear in any MS. Halm (ii. p. 369) conjectures at, which may easily have slipped out after obveniat.

§17. quae fuit: (manent) quae fudit Harl. 4995 (as also Goth. Voss. 2 and Vall.)

§19. urget. Kiderlin supports (in Blätter f. d. bayer. Gymn. 1888, p. 86) his proposal to read urgetur, which would however give a different antithesis. ‘When we write ourselves, our thoughts outstrip our pen, but when we dictate we forget that the scribe is writing under similar conditions, and give him too much to do.’

§20. in intellegendo. This conj., which is due to H. J. Müller and Iwan Müller, has been adopted by Becher and Meister: legendo BM Ioan, and most codd. (Halm). See note ad loc. The true reading may be si tardior in scribendo aut incertior, et in intellegendo velut offensator fuit. This is supported by et diligendo (bH Burn. 243 Bodl.), for which Spalding conjectured et delendo, Gertz in tenendo (‘significatur notarium imperitum et oscitantem verba quae dictantur non statim intellegere aut fideliter tenere, ut saepius eadem dictanda sint’). A number of codd. (Ioan. Vall. Harl. 4995, 4950, 4829, Burn. 243 and 244, Dorv.) have inertior for incertior: but this gives no antithesis to tardior: it appears, however, in ed. Colon. 1527. The same codd. (and also M) have fuerit, for fuit, which may be right.

concepta Regius: conceptae codd. Becher points out that concipere and excutere are ‘termini technici’: cp. Scrib. ep. ad C. Jul. Callist. p. 3 R ne praegnanti medicamentum quo conceptum excutitur detur: and Ovid, excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas.

§21. altiorem. This reading, ascribed by Halm and Meister to ed. Colon. (1536) I have found in Harl. 2662 (A.D. 1434) and 11671 (A.D. 1467). B N Ioan, and other codd. aptiorem: Prat. apertiorem, and so a later hand in Vall.

frontem et latus interim obiurgare. B, Prat. M, Ioan., Harl. 2662, 4950, 4829, 11671, Burn. 244 and Dorv. all give simul et interim: Harl. 4995 (again in agreement with the 2nd hand in Vall.) and Burn. 243 have simul vertere latus et interim (the reading of many old edd.): so Bodl. except that it omits et. It is to b that we must apply for what must be at least a trace of the true reading; and b gives sintieletus, which H shows as sintielatus. Considering how liable s (ſ) and f are to be confused, I venture to think that ſinti may conceal fronte.

Bursian’s femur et latus (Halm and Meister) is not so near the MSS.: it is based on ii. 12. 10 and xi. 3. 123 (quoted ad loc.), but the latter passage would warrant frontem quite as much as femur, and frontem ferire seems to have been considered by Quintilian a more extravagant action than femur ferire, of which he says ‘et usitatum est et indignantes decet et excitat auditorem.’ In any case the man who is in the agony of composition is as likely, if alone, to ‘rap his forehead’ and ‘smite his chest,’ as to ‘slap his thigh.’

Frotscher and Bonnell’s sinum et latus cannot be supported by any parallel for such an expression as sinum caedere, ferire, obiurgare. Becher approves Gertz’s conjecture semet interim obiurgare, which is adopted also by Krüger (3rd ed.) as = increpare: ‘obiurgat semet ipse scribens et convicium sibi facit ut stulto, si quando tardior in inveniendo est.’

Another interesting conjecture is put forward by Kiderlin (Blätter f. d. bayer. Gymn. 1888, p. 87). He proposes to read (on the lines of b) singultire, latus int. ob. This would need to be taken of those more or less inarticulate sounds which the solitary writer addresses πρὸς ὃν θυμόν, when there is no one there to listen. Kiderlin refers to singultantium in 7 §20, of broken utterance: but we cannot take the reference here of ‘sobs’ or ‘gasps’: the writer is not practising with a view to theatrical effect, he is supposed to be indulging in little peculiarities that become ridiculous in another’s presence. As an alternative Kiderlin suggests singultu latus interim obiurgare, comparing for the ablative §15 cogitationem murmure agitantes. Singultus is common enough: and Kiderlin thinks that as singultire is nearer the MSS. than singultare, it may possibly have been used here by Quintilian.

§22. secretum in dictando. So bH Harl. 4995, 4950, Burn. 243, Bodl., M, Dorv.: quod dictando BN Prat. Ioan., Harl. 2662, 4829, 11671, Burn. 244 (corr. to in). With the reading quod dictando perit, atque liberum ... nemo dubitaverit (Halm and Meister) it is senseless to quote 2 §20 (Bonn., Meister, and Dosson) as parallel. Krüger (3rd ed.) reads secretum dictando perit. Atque liberum arbitris, &c.

§23. mihi certe iucundus. After these words H has videmoni (and so the cod. Alm.): Flor. vindemoni. This word greatly puzzled Spalding, and has been allowed to disappear from the critical editions of Halm and Meister. Jeep transformed it into mihi certe vitae inani iucundus, &c. An ingenious suggestion is made by Mr. L. C. Purser (in the Classical Review, ii, p. 222 b). He thinks that it may be “the gloss of a monk, on a somewhat ornate passage about poetry, who recollected how (as Bacon says in his ‘Essay on Truth’) one of the Fathers had in great severity called Poesie vinum daemonum.” Cp. Advancement of Learning ii. 22. 13, where Mr. Wright tells us that Augustine calls poetry vinum erroris ab ebriis doctoribus propinatum, Confess. i. 16; and that Jerome, in one of his letters to Damasus, says Daemonum cibus est carmina poetarum, while both these quotations are combined in one passage by Cornelius Agrippa, de Incert. &c. c. 4. Hence the phrase vinum daemonum may have been compounded.—If the gloss is to be credited to the copyist of H (as seems probable), it perhaps arose from something that caught his eye in the Bambergensis four lines further down, where tendere ani(mum) is shown in a form that could easily be mistaken by a sleepy scribe.

§24. ramis, referred by Halm and Meister to ed. Camp., appears in Harl. 4995: it is reported by Becher also from the Vallensis. All other codd. rami.

voluptas ista videatur most codd.: videatur ista voluptas N.

§25. oculi. Kiderlin thinks it allowable to infer from the words ex quo nulla exaudiri vox that aures aut has fallen out before oculi. Cp. §28 nihil eorum quae oculis vel auribus incursant.

velut tectos: velut rectos all codd. There is the same confusion at ix. 1. 20 where M has recteque for tecteque (i.e. tectaeque). For Becher’s explanation of the vulgate tectos (first in ed. Leid.) see ad loc. Kiderlin (Blätter f. d. bayer. Gymn. 1888, p. 88) is not satisfied, and objects that for tectos teneat we should have expected tegat. The figure also seems to him out of place, as the context speaks not of the attack of an enemy, but of the distractions which draw the mind of the student away from his task: §23 avocent, respexit: §24 ad se trahunt: §25 aliud agere. He proposes, therefore, velut recto itinere, comparing iv. 2. 104 ut vi quadam videamur adfectus velut recto itinere depulsi, and ii. 3. 9 et recto itinere lassi plerumque devertunt. Itinere may first have fallen out, and then recto may have been changed to rectos.—Halm conjectured velut secretos, or coercitos; Wrobel, velut relictos.

§26. haud deerit: aut deerit BN Ioan, and all codd. except a later hand in Vall. Kiderlin (Blätter l.c.) comments on the infrequent use of haud in Quintilian, though haud dubie 1 §85 (where however GH have aut) must have escaped him (cp. i. 1. 4); and founding on the consensus of the MSS. for aut he proposes to read aut non deerit or aut certe non deerit. But haud goes closely with deerit, and does not (like non, ac non) introduce an antithesis to supererit. Aut deerit might be made to mean that the sleepless man is to work: but this would be too cruel!

§29. et itinere deerremus: et ita ne BN Ioan. Harl. 2662, 4829, 11671, Dorv. and Ball.: ita erremus HMb Bodl. (erramus). The reading in the text is given by Halm and Meister as from the old editions: it occurs in Vall. and Harl. 4995.

§31. crebra relatione appears in Harl. 4995 (and Vall.) corrected from crebro relationi which is the reading of B Ioan. and all codd. Jeep suggested crebra dilatione, Kiderlin crebriore elatione. Other proposals are crebra relictionis, q. i. c., repetitione, Gottfried Hermann (in Frotscher), crebra relictione, q. i. c., et repetitione, Zumpt (in Spald. v, p. 423). Becher thinks crebro may be right, adverbs being often used in Latin where we should use adjectives: crebro would then go closely with morantur and frangunt.

§32. adiciendo ‘for making additions’: so Bursian, Halm, and Becher. BN Prat. Ioan, and most codd. have adicienda: b adiciendi sint: Harl. adjiciendi sit. Meister adopts adicienti from ed. Col. 1555: so Spalding: cp. iv. 5. 6 quo cognoscenti iudicium conamur auferre (where B has cognoscendi).

ultra modum esse ceras velim: Ioan, omits esse, and is thus in agreement with N.