7/29/2019 Stokes, Michael C._parmenides, Fragment 6_1960_CR, 10, 3, Pp. 193-194

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Parmenides, Fragment 6

Author(s): Michael C. StokesSource: The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Dec., 1960), pp. 193-194Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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7/29/2019 Stokes, Michael C._parmenides, Fragment 6_1960_CR, 10, 3, Pp. 193-194

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 193

Rh. Gr. iii. 393- 5) XEtLViSe a~elreV77',V Kal

WroL7rTvrwT0tv 'Otrpov, 'Had'Sov, Tv

vpLKW•v.av'roLE yap Ka0' Eav-ov' aJLoL lv7'-

P47TS,al roAAobvs/LeEveKWtLaaa, 7roAAobSg

IAEyeav,'ap' &vSvv'i'a- iy luapaSeaLyara.The same Menander particularly recom-mends Sappho as a model for epithalamia; cf.

Ept ietLSELKTELKwv(Spengel, Rh. Gr. ii. 402.

17) iroAA•• lropla ToLa;r7Lrapd7ror7ataKal

ovyypae"•v-a, ap' oVKai 7 %Vuoptyh'av,E7T#wv'TeLs84Kai7-WV ?avTOOI pWTLKWValOrjZ 'O1pov Ka 'Hard'Sov. Syrianus, the

fifth-century Neoplatonist, in his commentaryon the Hept eIoev of Hermogenes (ed. Rabe

i. p. 15) cites two passages of Sappho ver-batim. Gregory of Corinth, in his rich com-

mentary on Hermogenes' Hepl tLe0'SoSew6~Lvd7os, cites several passages in proseparaphrase, one of which Hermann andother nineteenth-century scholars attemptedto restore (fr. 20o Page-Lobel; for suggestedrestorations cf. Bergk, P.L.G.4 iii.

133).These instances of the use of Sappho byrhetoricians could easily be multiplied.

UniversityCollege,London ROBERT BROWNING

I would hazard the conjecture ibae.av.

" If Maas's dating of Gregory in the tenthor eleventh century (Byz.-neugr. Jahrb. ii

[1921], 53-55) is accepted, then the fullerversion of the commentary, printed by Walzin Rh. Gr. vii, cannot be by him, as it con-tains several references to John Tzetzes.There is room for further work on the com-mentaries on the Heplt LeOOSov

S•ELtvOY7rS,which are particularly rich in quotations.

Cf. H. Rabe, 'Aus Rhetoren-Handschriften',

Rh. M. lxiii (19I2), 127-51.

PARMENIDES, FRAGMENT 63

I GIVE the text and punctuation of Diels-Kranz for lines 3 ff.:

Hpwnrs ycp a'&s ' dOSoDradr7) 877&aLov

< C p y w ) '

awrdpeEL' alTOdTo ,7 7)P7v8 f oL L rMOVvvaTaTToTrra,

SIKpavoL"t&jXaVLqdpevav'w-v

orTOeaLvOvE IrAarKTcvov"V 8%S poOvVTaL

Kw#01dO'LCUr

rv#Aoloe, vaeq7ro•'E•,

GaKpLTa

,

ha,

otssT3 TeAhaLVE Kal OvK tVa& raTOv EVO-,4LoTaL

KOV TavTOV, rVTrOV Se8 raALvrpordseav'

There has been much controversy over

the question whether or not this fragmentrefers to the philosophy of Heraclitus; muchless discussion of the construction and mean-

ing of these singularly difficult lines. Thecrucial point concerns the gender of wravTwvin 1. 9. Kirk-Raven, p. 271, translate as ifit were

neuter,while

admitting, p. 272n.

I,that it is possible that it is masculine. Thisis fair enough; but the word 'possible' is

perhaps an understatement.Those who take Trctivwv s neuter must of

course take the phraserav•Twv

. . . KiACVOOesas an addition to the beliefs of mortals ex-

pressed in the previous line and a half. This

seems to have unpalatable consequences. For,unless Parmenides simply made a grammati-

cal error in puttingo-rl

for etvat,4 he phrase

ots ... Er'L must mean the same as os ...

vev~ovtaata. Even if this were plausible in it-

self, it would have the awkwardness that thedative ots would have to be in the first placea dative of the agent, in the second placea quite different sort of dative; the zeugma,if not impossible, makes ugly Greek. But in

any case it is not very plausible. The dativecan be used 'after' etvat (the copula) as afterother verbs to mean 'in the

judgement of','in the eyes of'. (See Kiihner-Gerth, i. 421 f.,who translate 'nach dem Urteile, in den

Augen jemandes'.) But here the word 'judge-ment' or 'Urteil' should be taken verystrictly. The examples cited by Kiihner-

Gerth, loc. cit., do not include any where

the point at issue, that is to say the opinionheld by the person in the dative, is one on a

question of fact. In all the instances of thisdative there cited, and (I believe) in all that

exist, the point at issue is one of value, of

approvalor the reverse. In fact this dative

means emphatically 'nach dem Urteile

jemandes', and not'nach der Meinung'. Nowin Parmenides fr. 6 the point at issue, if one

takes irdvrTovas neuter, is one of fact; the

goddess might use the word 7raAlvrpo7ross an

epithet denoting an adverse judgement ofvalue on the part of the speaker; but it is

obvious at a glance that mortals would not

so use it, or use it as an epithet to denote

3 I must thank Professor Eduard Fraenkel

for a most helpful discussion of this passage,and Professor A. J. Beattie for reading thisarticle and suggesting some improvements.Neither has given it his imprimatur.

4elvat of course would not scan; but if

Parmenides had wanted it he could easilyhave recast the line.

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7/29/2019 Stokes, Michael C._parmenides, Fragment 6_1960_CR, 10, 3, Pp. 193-194

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194 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

approval. Hence, if Parmenides meantotEs...

ca-r as the equivalent of o's . .. vedvo~araL,he was extending the use of this dative. Itseems particularly improbable that Par-

menides, of all people, with his clear dis-tinction between being and being believed

by mortals to be, should have so extended

linguistic usage as to make os ... .r&l the

equivalent ofot9s .. vervdouarat.t results thatit is most unlikely that radvTrwvs neuter.

On the other hand, if we take irdvwrovs

masculine, other difficulties arise. With the

punctuation of Diels-Kranz we are com-

pelled to take radv-rwvs 'picking up' ots.The trouble with this is that when in Greekthe relative pronoun is omitted in the second

of two co-ordinate relative clauses the word,if any, which is used to pick it up appearsalways to be another pronoun. Words like

ravyrwyvre apparentlynot used in thisway.I suggest hatthe mostsatisfactory ayout

of the problem s to punctuatewith a colonafter KO1J7ravov,taking rrivrTwve . . . as

syntacticallyparallelto of Se . . . in 1. 6 ofthis fragment.The last clause of the frag-mentwould then be a separate tatementofthe goddess,introducedby an explanatorySe.' It wouldfollow,of course,that 7rdvrTovshould be taken as masculine, since the

goddessouldhardly say that the way of all

thingswas backward-turning. he conclu-sion is that in all probabilitythe phrase

dvrovwv. . K~EAEvOoSeans 'and the path

of all (mortals)is backward-turning'. heabruptnessresultingfrom this punctuationneed arouseno suspicion;for abruptnesssnot uncharacteristic f Parmenides.

Universityof Edinburgh MICHAEL . STOKES

I See Denniston, GreekParticles',p. 169.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF IO, OX. PAP. XXIII. 2369

WHY,when Io is changed into a heifer, shoulda yvvl Mea a be found sitting 'working flax'

(7araL Atvepy[O'or

-[oia' Lobel)or 'worked

in flax' (Awepy[7jsfeiffer, 'Ein neues Inachos-

Fragment des Soph.', Sitz.Ber.Bay.Ak., 1958,p. 24)? Commenting that a 'lion-woman'can hardly be anything other than a Sphinx(cf. Lloyd-Jones, C.R. lxxii [I958], 20),Pfeiffer calls for an Oedipus to solve theriddle and so perhaps dismiss the wholemonster.

I would not claim to be an Oedipus, butthe Sphinx must surely go. The whole meta-

morphosis is being directly and forcefullydescribed

byInachus in

eightlines of

indig-nant pity, leading up to TrorLara,and com-

parison with other compound monsters or

description of embroidered cloths or carpetswould tail off with debilitating effect. Theseated woman can only be Io, and therefore

ALvEpy- ust refer to her activities-or justconceivably to those of her companions; shewas sitting spinning2 when misfortune over-took her. It follows that her transformation isnot total, and she is not clambering over thefurniture. Her cow-muzzle, head, neck,shoulders, and hooves are mentioned, andthe hooves 'clatter on' Opcdv-.he meaningand construction of this word are uncertain:if Opdvovsn the sense of 'benches' or 'foot-

stools', the plural is slightly unnatural, but

the architectural term 'joists' (beams sup-porting the floor) seems a most unlikely turnof

expression for 'floor'or

ground'. KpoTrovUamay be the clatter as the hands, turned to

helpless hooves, seek to manoeuvre the threador drop to the wooden bench, or as the feetrattle uncomfortably upon the stool; or theword may be Opdvovn the genitive, in some

phrase now irrecoverable. At any rate itseems clear that if Io needed to come on the

stage afterwards (see Pfeiffer's arguments,op. cit., p. 40), scenic conventions wouldafter this description be satisfied by her

appearance as a yvvj flo-s, that is with her

upper parttransformed

byhead-mask and

hoof-gauntlets (the same kind of stage-properties as in Ach. 740-5 the Megariangave to his piglets before popping them in the

sack). She is described not as a total heiferbut as a seated 'beast-woman'.

That Aedauvaould be used in this genera-lized sense is a bold assumption, but I cansee no alternative. The word is similarly in-volved in a mixture of animals in Eur. Hel.

375-80, a passage where the grammaticalconstruction is unfortunately obscure, butthe main

juxtapositionmust stand:

dc&opoiOipocpv

aXvoyvtowv

o/lJlar•AdflpcOXl~

a Aalvrs

eeaAAdiaa' 'XOBaAV•r15.

2 Not weaving, since the upright loom ofancient Greece kept the weaver standing;

see G. M. Crowfoot, 'Of the Warp-weightedLoom', B.S.A. xxxvii (1936), 36 ff.

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