I

σπουδαίως scripsi: Sosie ΓΛ: ut Sosie Θ: studiose Kauer: ὡσεὶ ἁπλῶς Wess. (ex Rabb. et Schoel. coniect.) || idest] vel P || simp^r in simp^x corr. C² || id—simpliciter] delevi

In the first act of Terence's Andria, we find a dialogue between the old man Simo and Sosia, the freedman, with the former explaining why he has decided to arrange a false wedding for his young son Pamphilus. He has, in fact, learned that his son, despite being betrothed, has had a relationship with another girl and that—quite a serious matter—the fiancée's father, Chremes, has heard about the clandestine affair. In verses 144–9 Simo reports on the not-altogether friendly meeting he has had with Chremes, who is furious about the complete disrespect that has been shown to his daughter; Simo's only defence is to attempt to deny the truth (146: ego illud sedulo negare factum).

Ancient authors derived sedulo from sine dolo,Footnote ² and thus it could be translated as ‘sincerely’, ‘without deceit’. Hence the question in scholium 119.4: how can the character possibly use the word sedulo if he is in fact denying the truth? Surely one cannot deny the truth ‘sincerely’. If this etymology is retained, then the sentence makes no sense, and Donatus is of the opinion that a different solution should be proposed.

Unfortunately, this section of the text, where one would expect to find a second meaning for sedulo, one that would give coherence to the phrase spoken by Simo, is corrupt: all manuscripts offer the following variant, with minimal differences:

Sosie clearly makes no sense, and WessnerFootnote ³ decided to print a text that was the result of a double intervention: Sosie corrected into ὡσεὶ (Rabbow) and the incorporation by Schoell of ἁπλῶς immediately after. This double intervention thus presupposes a huge corruption, triggered by the presence of letters from the Greek alphabet. It is clear that the text reworked in this way stems from the subsequent id est simpliciter, but it is difficult to identify a plausible meaning; in addition, it seems to overlook the need (which cannot be taken lightly) to provide an alternative readingFootnote ⁴ to the one presupposed by the question ‘Why does he say “without deceit” if he is denying the truth?’.

Kauer rightly disagreed with this textual rearrangement and proposed that the misinterpreted Sosie be corrected into studiose,Footnote ⁵ based on two glosses from the Commentarius antiquior:Footnote ⁶

However, this emendation forced him to change the meaning of simpliciter, which constitutes the further explanatory coda of studiose, defining it as ‘geradeaus, rückhaltlos’.

Leaving aside this latter lexical consideration, Kauer's proposal deserves attention. The second scholium cited by him makes reference to a very interesting passage of the Phormio that is somewhat similar to that of the Andria (Phorm. 449–54):

Hegio maintains that Cratinus spoke sedulo, which, according to the scholium, means that he spoke eagerly, passionately. In addition sedulo here adds a very specific character to a verb of speaking, which would support the case for adapting the meaning of studiose to sedulo in An. 146, as it would indicate the effort and fatigue with which Simo denies Chremes’ accusations.Footnote ⁷

This series of data would seem to support Kauer's amendment; yet, two problems remain. First, the following gloss, id est simpliciter, creates a very strong disharmony with the concept immediately preceding it, which the semantic displacement attempted by Kauer does not resolve: in Donatus, simpliciter, when referring to verbs of speaking, implies the process of explaining the literal meaning of a phrase (cf. Don. Phorm. 988.2). In addition, speaking simpliciter clearly contrasts with speaking εἰρωνικῶς. The semantic levelling which results (sedulo–studiose–simpliciter) seems too artificial: if, in fact, studiose captures the sense of the effort required of Simo to refute Chremes, simpliciter unfailingly brings us back to the meaning sedulo = sine dolo, exactly the meaning that Donatus points out as inappropriate to the context.

The second difficulty relates to how one might explain the genesis of the meaningless Sosie from such an innocuous adverb as studiose.

These two problems deeply weaken Kauer's solution. One imagines id est simpliciter to be a coda added subsequently by some copyist who clearly had not understood well the core of the problem. That is, of course, one possible hypothesis; however, it is also true that to athetize id est simpliciter Footnote ⁸ appears fairly unmethodical, since the intervention is forced from its incongruence not with the misinterpreted text but with an emendation.Footnote ⁹

My proposal is to correct Sosie into σπουδαίως (cf. CGL s.v. sedulo, 251).Footnote ¹⁰ The Greek σπουδαίως would present two enormous advantages: it would allow the scholium once again to make sense, since it conveys the same meaning as studiose (cf. LSJ s.v. σπουδαίως III), but, unlike studiose, it would account far better for the corruption into Sosie, which was already in the archetype.

With this reading, which fits both in terms of the meaning and in terms of the palaeography (as it allows us to understand the genesis of the untenable Sosie), the coda id est simpliciter would then be expunged as a later interpolation, as a failed attempt to explain the Greek.

II

11.1 Λοξίαν Meineke, dub. Dziatzko: aſiaion A: aſ ΛIΟΗ B: asi sp. rel. K (inc.): as(s)ion Σ: Ἀγυιαῖον Meineke (‘fortasse’): Δήλιον veter. edd.

11.7 sic Menander Λ: om. B || ἀπὸ Λοξίου Saekel: κολεξιασ A: om. nul. sp. B: om. sp. rel. KΣ: κοΔΕξΙΑC Lind.: ἀπὸ δεξιᾶς Bentley: ἀϕ᾿ἑστίας Jakobs: ἀπὸ δ᾿ἑστίας Dübner: ἀπὸ Λοξία Meineke || σὺ μυρρίνας Clericus: om. nul. sp. B: om. sp. rel. KΣ: σὺ μυρρίναις Dziatzko: CYMYPPYNAC Lin. || †χχηησαιετεινε† A: om. nul. sp. B: om. sp. rel. KΣ: XXHCΔΙΕΥΕΥΕΙΝΕ Lin: λαβοῦσ’ ὑπότεινε Saekel (praeeunte Meineke): ἐπὶ γῆς διάτεινε Dübner: χρῆσαι γύναι Dziatzko

To accomplish his plan, Davus needs Chremes to see the child, so he asks Mysis to take some herbs (uerbenae) from the altar and lay them at the door, so that the newborn child can be laid upon them.

Verbenae are aromatic herbs used in holy ceremonies; Donatus therefore affirms that uerbenae are grasses and foliage used to adorn the altars in festivals. In fact, any type of grass served this purpose, provided that it was gathered from an uncontaminated place, and he supports this explanation by constructing a sort of etymological link between uerbenae and herbae, namely herbenae. This latter linguistic observation is followed by a quotation from Menander, which most likely mentioned these decorative plants.

The issue was probably not so easily settled and, indeed, Servius seems to have a different idea as to the nature of the uerbenae cited by Terence: he observes that to call all holy herbs uerbenae is not entirely legitimate, pointing out that with uerbenae the Latin poet is translating a passage from Menander, where only myrtle is mentioned.

The text of Menander to which Servius refers should be the same as the one quoted by Donatus, which has survived in a form that is difficult to reconstruct, with the exception of the word indicating myrtle, μυρρίνας (cf. sch. 11.7). In its first section, some have found one of the customary epithets for Apollo, Λοξίας, a name which is much more common in tragedies than in comedies, even though examples do occur in Menander.Footnote ¹¹ A reference to Apollo in this line of Greek is quite probable, given that in the previous scholia (11.1-3) Donatus suggests that the altar mentioned by Terence is most likely to have been dedicated to this very divinity. Judging by Donatus’ words, even if they are a little vague (‘ex ara’ Apollinis scilicet, quem … Menander uocat), Menander must have expressly mentioned Apollo, naming him Ἀγυιαῖον,Footnote ¹² instead of Λοξίαν,Footnote ¹³ as the quotation in 11.7 would seem to suggest.

The reading Ἀγυιαῖον was proposed, not without doubt, by MeinekeFootnote ¹⁴ and, since then, has been unanimously accepted. However, in my opinion, it could be questioned, since, in the light of the misinterpreted Greek, Meineke's variant is as likely as the variant that seems to be suggested by the following passage from Menander, that is, Λοξίαν.

In sub-archetype Γ, represented by AKB,Footnote ¹⁵ there must still have been a reading from the Greek as proven by the reading of B and the space left by K; AFootnote ¹⁶ attempts instead a transliteration; in Σ, represented by Θ and Λ, the process of transliteration has already occurred. The codex of reference cannot, therefore, be A, which here creates an innovation by attempting to transliterate the Greek letters into Latin ones, but must be B, which retains the more ancient state of the text. If we compare the texts in A and B, Γ could have read something like as. ΛIΟN.

The readings as. ΛION (Γ) and assion (Σ) may easily result from the corruption and transliteration of Λοξίαν: Λ and Α are not infrequently mistaken for each other in Greek capital letters, O could have been read as a lunate sigma and therefore transliterated into s; ξ could have been rendered with a Latin X, which in turn could potentially be construed as Λ.Footnote ¹⁷

The reading Λοξίαν solves, with little effort, the aporia between scholia 11.1 and 11.7, and Saekel's emendation (ἀπὸ Λοξίου) of the first part of fragment 44 (= 40 Saekel) can be accepted without reservation.

III

25.3 discedendi Schopen || a quo] si quem Schopen || desideramus] uolumus B || eum] cum CT || ubi (quo B Schopen) uadat – eat post interrogationem transp. Schopen, seclusi || idem Wess.: iđ A: id BK Σ || facete Bentley || et ante ipse add. Wess. || Charinus post ipse transp. Λ || discedat C (corr. C²): discedat vel abscedat codd. Λ || nunc] om. C: non T

Act four, Scene two finds Mysis, Davus, Pamphilus and Charinus on stage: the wedding is once again at hand and there seem to be no solutions. In the general fear that there is no way to prevent the wedding that Simo has so much desired, Davus announces to everyone that he has a plan: what the plan is, however, he does not say, because he has no time to waste on words, so he asks everyone to leave him alone. Mysis and Pamphilus go away, Charinus stays on to moan, as usual. Davus sees that Charinus has not gone away and asks him ‘What about you? What direction are you going to take?’

Scholium 25.3 is focussed precisely on this last question of Davus. In this case, nothing underlines the problems of the scholium more than the literal translation of the text printed by Wessner, and thus:

One of the most obvious problems of this passage is the section of the text admonemus eum ubi uadat uel quo eat: the verb admonere means (despite its many nuances) to remind someone of something or to urge someone to do something or—as in this case (i.e. followed by an indirect question), where it has a prescriptive meaning—to tell how something must be done (cf. TLL 1.764.77 s.v. admoneo; OLD s.v. admoneo 4).

With Wessner's text, we understand that Davus is reminding Charinus of where he has to go, whereas in reality he limits himself to merely asking where he has to go. It appears that Davus already knew where Charinus had to go and, therefore, has reminded him of this, which is quite the opposite of what Terence writes.

The only way to leave ubi uadat uel quo eat in that position would be to imply a verb of asking (he admonishes him by asking him where he is going). But this is an unacceptably strained interpretation: such an ellipsis would be totally unprecedented. This problem had, in any case, already been recognized by Schopen, who settles it by moving the indirect question around (ubi–eat) and by placing it after interrogationem.

Amongst the various possible interventions, deletion is perhaps the least problematic in terms of restoring an acceptable sense: ubi uadat uel quo eat can be deemed a later addition, which not only distorts the sense of Donatus’ comment, but is also linguistically unacceptable. First, the use of uado as a synonym for eo is only found in the spoken and/or late language, where it usually is confined to natural phenomena.Footnote ¹⁸ Second, and this is the most interesting aspect, the interrogative is defective at a syntactic level. If the commentator had felt the need to insist on the verb ‘go’, then he would have simply written quo uadat uel eat. Vbi is used by Donatus in indirect questions as well, but it indicates simply a state of place, not of movement: cf. Don. Ad. 364 scilicet scire ubi siet (cf. An. 800). The connection ubi + the verb uado can only be found in medieval writers.

Another essential step, if one wishes to re-establish the text, is to reject Bentley's correction facete for the transmitted facere: it seems neither necessary nor grounded on Terence's context. Where would the facetious effect be? Davus’ questions are in no way comic: the servant is, quite simply, anxious to get rid of Charinus and only his later words (narrationis incipit mi initium) can be considered in an ironical way.

Donatus is pointing out that a person who wants to get away from someone else would do it in a roundabout way, by asking him where he intends to go. And Davus attempts precisely this expedient with Charinus. The scholium operates on a double level: first there is a generalization, and then the principles of that generalization are applied to this specific case.

In support of this solution, it is also useful to recall a passage from Don. Ad. 433.3, where in relation to verse 433 (SY: tu rus hinc ibis? DE: recta. SY: nam quid tu hic agas, ubi …) there is an explanation of the purpose of certain interrogative sentences that are typologically similar to those under examination: TV RVS HINC ABIS qui consuetudinis memor est, animaduertit has interrogationes non inquirendi causa poni, sed admonitionis loco esse apud eos, quos uelimus abscedere. sic igitur interrogat, ut hortetur, et sic pronuntiat, ut et fiat et amplietur, quod facit.

I would accordingly propose the following text:

Davus wants to get away but, rather than say ‘I'm going …’, he asks Charinus where he has to go and, in so doing, he admonishes him to go: this interpretation also finds confirmation in the opposition discedere–abscedere that informs the scholium itself.