I have interchanged the old
semicolon
at the end of l.
John Donne
.
complevit .
.
.
Argentaria cum Lucano.
'
l. 9. _And her, whose booke (they say) Homer did finde, and name. _ I
owe my understanding of this line to Professor Norton, who refers
to the _Myriobiblon_ or _Bibliotheca_ of Photius, of which the first
edition was published at Augsburg in 1601. There Photius, in an
abstract of a work by Ptolemy Hephaestion of Alexandria, states that
Musaeus' daughter Helena wrote on the war of Troy, and that from her
work Homer took the subject of his poem. But another account refers to
Phantasia of Memphis, the daughter of Nicarchus, whose work Homer
got from a sacred scribe named Pharis at Memphis. This last source
is mentioned by Lempriere, who knows nothing of the other. Probably,
therefore, it is the better known tradition.
ll. 21-2.
I have interchanged the old semicolon at the end of l. 21
and the comma at the end of l. 22. I take the first three lines of the
stanza to form an absolute clause: 'This book once written, in
cipher or new-made idiom, we are thereby (in these letters) the only
instruments for Loves clergy--their Missal and Breviary. ' I presume
this is how it is understood by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor,
who place a semicolon at the end of each line. It seems to me that
with so heavy a pause after l. 21 a full stop would be better at the
end of l. 22.
l. 25. _Vandals and Goths inundate us. _ This, the reading of quite a
number of independent MSS. , seems to me greatly preferable to that of
the printed texts:
Vandals and the Goths invade us.
The agreement of the printed texts does not carry much weight, for
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e. g. l.
l. 9. _And her, whose booke (they say) Homer did finde, and name. _ I
owe my understanding of this line to Professor Norton, who refers
to the _Myriobiblon_ or _Bibliotheca_ of Photius, of which the first
edition was published at Augsburg in 1601. There Photius, in an
abstract of a work by Ptolemy Hephaestion of Alexandria, states that
Musaeus' daughter Helena wrote on the war of Troy, and that from her
work Homer took the subject of his poem. But another account refers to
Phantasia of Memphis, the daughter of Nicarchus, whose work Homer
got from a sacred scribe named Pharis at Memphis. This last source
is mentioned by Lempriere, who knows nothing of the other. Probably,
therefore, it is the better known tradition.
ll. 21-2.
I have interchanged the old semicolon at the end of l. 21
and the comma at the end of l. 22. I take the first three lines of the
stanza to form an absolute clause: 'This book once written, in
cipher or new-made idiom, we are thereby (in these letters) the only
instruments for Loves clergy--their Missal and Breviary. ' I presume
this is how it is understood by Chambers and the Grolier Club editor,
who place a semicolon at the end of each line. It seems to me that
with so heavy a pause after l. 21 a full stop would be better at the
end of l. 22.
l. 25. _Vandals and Goths inundate us. _ This, the reading of quite a
number of independent MSS. , seems to me greatly preferable to that of
the printed texts:
Vandals and the Goths invade us.
The agreement of the printed texts does not carry much weight, for
any examination of the variants in this poem will reveal that they are
errors due to misunderstanding, e. g. l.
