2.2 "the application of thought to textual criticism" by a.e.  (Page 10/10)

In particular, scribes will alter a less familiar form to a more familiar, if they see nothing to prevent them. Ifmetre allows, or if they do not know that metre forbids, they will alter ἐλεινός{eleinos} to ἐλεεινός{eleeinos}, οἰστός{oistos} to ὀϊστός{oiistos}, nil to nihil , deprendo to deprehendo . Since metre convicts them of infidelity in some places, theyforfeit the right to be trusted in any place; if we choose to trust them we are credulous, and if we build structures on ourtrust we are no critics. Even if metre does not convict them, reason sometimes can. Take the statement, repeatedly made ingrammars and editions, that the Latins sometimes used the pluperfect for the imperfect and the perfect. They did use itfor the imperfect; they used it also for the preterite or past aorist; but for the perfect they did not use it; and that isproved by the very examples of its use as perfect which are found in MSS. All those examples are of the 3rd personplural. Why? We must choose between the two following hypotheses:

• (a) That the Latins used the pluperfect for the perfectin the 3rd person plural only.
• (b) That they did not use the pluperfect for the perfect, and that these examples are corrupt.

[83] If anyone adopted the former, he would haveto explain what syntactical property, inviting the author to use pluperfect for perfect, is possessed by the 3rd person pluraland not by the two other plural or the three singular persons: and I should like to see some one set about it.

If we adopt the latter, we must show what external feature, inviting the scribe to write pluperfect for perfect, is possessed by the 3rd person plural exclusively: and that isquite easy. The 3rd person plural is the only person in which the perfect and the pluperfect differ merely by one letter.Moreover in verse the perfect termination -ěrunt , being comparatively unfamiliar to scribes, is altered by them to the nearest familiar form withthe same scansion, sometimes -erint , sometimes -erant : in Ovid's Heroides there are four places where the best MS. gives praebuěrunt , stetěrunt , exciděrunt , expulěrunt , and the other MSS. give -erant or -erint or both. Accordingly, when the much inferior MSS. of Propertius presentpluperfect for perfect in four places, fuerant once, steterant once, exciderant twice, Scaliger corrects to fuěrunt , stetěrunt , exciděrunt . Thereupon an editor of this enlightened age takes up his pen and writes as follows:"It is quite erroneous to remove the pluperfects where it can be done without great expenditure of conjectural sagacity( steterunt for steterant and the like), and not to trouble oneself about the phenomenon elsewhere."I ask, how is it possible to trouble oneself about the phenomenon elsewhere? It does not exist elsewhere.There is no place where the MSS. give steteram in the sense of the perfect steti , nor steteras in the sense of the perfect stetisti . Wherever they give examples of the pluperfect which cannot be removed by thechange of one letter—such as pararat in i. 8. 36 or fueram in i. 12. 11—those are examples where it has sometimes the sense of the imperfect,sometimes the preterite, but never of the perfect. And the inference is plain: the Latins did not use the pluperfect forthe perfect.

Scaliger knew that in the sixteenth century: Mr. [84]Rothstein, in the nineteenth and twentieth, does not know it; he has found a form of words to prevent him from knowingit, and he thinks himself in advance of Scaliger. It is supposed that there has been progress in the science of textual criticism,and the most frivolous pretender has learnt to talk superciliously about"the old unscientific days."The old unscientific days are everlasting, they are here and now;they are renewed perennially by the ear which takes formulas in, and the tongue which gives them out again, and the mind whichmeanwhile is empty of reflexion and stuffed with self-complacency. Progress there has been, but where? Insuperior intellects: the rabble do not share it. Such a man as Scaliger, living in our time, would be a better critic thanScaliger was; but we shall not be better critics than Scaliger by the simple act of living in our own time. Textual criticism,like most other sciences, is an aristocratic affair, not communicable to all men, nor to most men. Not to be a textualcritic is no reproach to anyone, unless he pretends to be what he is not. To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though italso requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, butone thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding,in your head.