what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

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Tugodum
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what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

I mean, in particular, Burnet's to Plato, R. 329 d1 (in the Old OCT): "ἔστι secl. ci. Stallbaum". Thanks in advance!

mwh
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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by mwh »

ci. stands for coniecit (“conjectured”), secl. normally for seclusit (“secluded” i.e. bracketed as intrusive) but here for secludendum. So: Stallbaum conjectured that esti should be secluded/square-bracketed as a textual intrusion.

jcabraham
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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by jcabraham »

"Seclusit coniecit," I believe, that is "bracketed as dubious, and conjectured."

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

Thanks! Now I'm wondering whether the mss. do have στι and, if so, why Burnet printed στι in his main text instead.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by mwh »

I’d recommend reading beyond the first couple of pages—the first eight or nine books, say—before wondering about a thing like that. And a better thing to wonder might be which of your respondents was right in his reply to your first question.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

"a better thing to wonder might be which of your respondents was right in his reply to your first question"--mhw, as I had read your response, it seemed certain to me that jcabraham says the same. Prompted by you, I have re-read their response several times, and now it seems to me that, according to them, the meaning is: esti had been conjectured (i.e., introduced into the text) by Stallbaum and then bracketed (i.e., deleted from the text) by Burnet as dubious. But this meaning does not seem to makes sense, as Burnet deleted not esti but only its accent. Yet my English is far from perfect, so I might have gotten jcabraham completely wrong.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by RandyGibbons »

Hi Tugodum. I'm kind of doubting jcabraham meant anything fundamentally different from mwh, though to be honest I don't really understand what his "bracketed as dubious, and conjectured" would mean. In any case, mwh is clearly correct: in this case the abbreviation is for secludendum coniecit, and Burnet simply found it worth noting in his apparatus that Stallbaum (whoever he was) had conjectured that εστι (which is the reading of the mss.) was an intrusion that should be bracketed.

I don't have the text in hand, but just out of curiosity, would the sentence make sense if indeed εστι were to be bracketed?

Why do you think Burnet bothers to note Stallbaum's conjecture? In so doing is Burnet acknowledging the sentence as passed down in the mss. is possibly problematic? Or maybe Burnet doesn't think so, but he holds Stallbaum in enough esteem to feel his conjecture is worth noting?

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

RandyGibbons--You're raising good questions, of the kind I was intending eventually to raise myself, so as to see what people think, but mwh discouraged me from doing into this before I read the first eight books of the R, at the very least. At any rate, here is the passage in the new OCT edition by Slings (I do not have a printed copy, so as to look into his apparatus, unfortunately):
"...ἁσμενέστατα μέντοι αὐτὸ ἀπέφυγον, ὥσπερ λυττῶντά τινα καὶ ἄγριον δεσπότην ἀποφυγών.” εὖ οὖν μοι καὶ τότε ἔδοξεν ἐκεῖνος [sc. Σοφοκλῆς] εἰπεῖν, καὶ νῦν οὐχ ἧττον. παντάπασι γὰρ τῶν γε τοιούτων ἐν τῷ γήρᾳ πολλὴ εἰρήνη γίγνεται καὶ ἐλευθερία· ἐπειδὰν αἱ ἐπιθυμίαι παύσωνται κατατείνουσαι καὶ χαλάσωσιν, παντάπασιν τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους γίγνεται, δεσποτῶν πάνυ πολλῶν ἐστι καὶ μαινομένων ἀπηλλάχθαι.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by RandyGibbons »

Thanks, Tugodum, for supplying the Greek text. At a glance I recognize it, though I never read the Republic in Greek. From reading it in English as an undergraduate, I have an indelible memory of the opening scene, and I was quite amused at the time by the old man Cephalus, quoting Sophocles, that it was a blessing of old age to have left behind sexual desire. Now many years later here I am, an old man, but I'm afraid not having yet lost my pleasure in 'wine, women and feasts'. If Socrates was right, my soul is never going to get to the good place.

But how about venturing an opinion or at least a guess as to the construction of that last sentence with and without ἐστι?

I wouldn't let our esteemed colleague mwh discourage you, if you are indeed warming up to the pleasures of the critical apparatus :lol: ! But to mwh's point, it takes some serious preparation to really learn how to understand and to evaluate the information in a critical apparatus, and you have to decide in the course of your Greek studies when the time is ripe to take on that preparation.

For what it's worth, here's a recommendation. When you are ready for it, I and many others would highly recommend M.L. West's Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique. After some study of West or an equivalent introduction, pick a work of interest and do a deep dive. That work must have a detailed preface in which the editor reviews the manuscript tradition and the history of the text, including all its previous editions and significant commentators (which editions and commentators will be cited in the apparatus, like Stallbaum in your example), and states his or her approach in establishing the text. And for your purposes, the editor's approach must allow for a reasonably thorough apparatus (not every OCT and Teubner meets this requirement). Master all the information in the preface (if you don't read Latin reasonably well, you will be seriously limited in the works that meet these requirements). Then start reading the work in conjunction with the apparatus. If it's a long work (e.g., the Republic), you wouldn't necessarily have to keep this up for the entire work, but long enough to get your chops.

Randy

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

Thanks for sharing, dear Randy. I'm totally on the same page with you as regards both my age and my perception of Cephalus, and am grateful for the West reference. Yet the point of my posting was not to learn textual criticism but to learn, with some degree of plausibility, what Plato actually wrote. I would have been quite satisfied if anyone of those here who mastered textual criticism and/or did read in Greek the first 8 books of Plato's R. could help me to figure this out.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

P.S. I understand that Plato did not write any diacritics. So, perhaps, instead of "what Plato actually wrote" I should have asked what force of εστι Plato plausibly had in mind here.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by jeidsath »

With ἐστι, the construction is ἐστι + inf., or "it is possible to"? I feel like there is a missing connector, so perhaps am missing something.

παντάπασιν τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους γίγνεται, δεσποτῶν πάνυ πολλῶν ἐστι καὶ μαινομένων ἀπηλλάχθαι.

My translation: In every way that thing of Sophocles comes about, it is possible to be delivered from masters many and mad.

Without ἐστι, ἀπηλλάχθαι goes with τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους?

παντάπασιν τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους γίγνεται, δεσποτῶν πάνυ πολλῶν καὶ μαινομένων ἀπηλλάχθαι.

My translation: In every way Sophocles' "being delivered from masters many and mad" comes about.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

Tugodum
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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

"With ἐστι, the construction is ἐστι + inf., or "it is possible to"?"--Thanks, Joel. This is what I thought Plato meant. But would it not, should this be the case, better for ἐστι to be accented (as it is in all the mss, judging by Burnet's apparatus as explained by mwh)? And if so, why would Burnet (and Slings in his wake) delete the accent?

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Hylander »

ἔστι + inf. "it is possible" is normally paroxytone. I think here enclitic ἐστι (as printed in both Burnet and Slings) would be something like "it is the case that", "it's true that" or maybe it could be translated simply by an adverb such as "really".

Incidentally Slings in his apparatus notes: secl[usit]. Stallbaum fortasse recte: "Stallbaum proposed deleting [ἐστι], perhaps rightly."

Cephalus, by the way, leaves the conversation soon after to go sacrifice. He's portrayed as smug and self-satisfied -- a rich old man who doesn't think too deeply despite his professed love of philosophical conversation. But I don't think he's characterized as arrogant or condescending -- I think Joel's explanation of his use of "we" earlier is correct: referring to himself and his sons when he uses "we" and to himself alone when he uses "I" as he does most of the time.

I can't say I've ever encountered a "royal we" in Greek. Smyth notes the "plural of modesty," used by some authors, but that's something quite different:
1008. Plural of Modesty.—A speaker in referring to himself may use the first person plural as a modest form of statement. In prose, of an author: ““ἔννοιά ποθ᾽ ἡμῖν ἐγένετο” the reflection once occurred to me” X. C. 1.1.1. In tragedy, often with interchange of plural and singular: εἰ κωλυόμεσθα μὴ μαθεῖν ἃ βούλομαι if I (Creusa) am prevented from learning what I wish E. Ion 391, ““ἱκετεύομεν ἀμφὶ σὰν γενειάδα . . . προσπίτνων” I entreat thee, as I grasp thy beard” E. H. F. 1206. See 1009.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0007
Bill Walderman

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

Thanks, Hylander. Now, as you've mentioned the "plural of modestly," why would you exclude this in Cephalus' case? I agreed to the "royal we" earlier for lack of better expression but modestly (albeit a fake one, as is everything about Cephalus) was what I meant.
As for R., I'm still intrigued by the editors' decision to view this as a mere statement of fact.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by mwh »

To clarify. I have no wish to discourage any enquiry. My post was meant to encourage—to encourage learning how to decipher an app.crit. (since that was what the original question was about) and to encourage reading more Plato.

As to whether or not ἐστι (however accented) belongs in the text: Without it, the text reads perfectly well and very naturally. The infinitive phrase (to be rid of irrational desires) is epexegetic of τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους, With ἐστι, the construction is looser, the sentence actually becomes ungrammatical; γίγνεται is the main verb, and there’s no place for another one. If ἐστι is to be kept (which I doubt very strongly myself), I think it would have to be on grounds that Plato is here writing fluent colloquial Greek that's rather unusual. It’s a tough call for an editor, the transmitted text on the one side, regular Greek on the other.

It’s the sort of thing best left to the experts. We’re fortunate in that the Republic has had excellent editors. So I say, read on!

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by RandyGibbons »

I'm with you, mwh, I prefer ἀπηλλάχθαι as epexegetic, dropping ἐστι (fortasse recte!). If ἐστι is retained (I imagine the editors were reluctant to go against the mss. when they have a defensible reading), isn't the clause simply asyndetic (Smyth 2167 a-b) and as such "striking" (Smyth) but not ungrammatical?

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

Thanks, mwh. I never doubt the experts' views when they are unanimous. Yet I assume that they had reasons for their decisions and that one's wish to figure out, whenever possible, those reasons is valid and does not necessarily interfere with one's pace of reading Plato. To boot, Kenneth Quandt believes that deleting the accent was Burnet's mistake. So, the experts are not unanimous in this case. http://www.onplatosrepublic.com/
Last edited by Tugodum on Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

P.S. Your explanation of this construction as epexegetic, mwh, makes the case perfectly clear to me. Thanks again.

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by mwh »

I’d thought of asyndeton (which would want a high stop not a comma before it) but dismissed it as being too choppy. We’re already in an asyndetic sentence (επειδαν αἱ επιθυμιαι κτλ). I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t like it. It's a stylistic judgment, and you won’t find many better judges of Plato's style than Burnet.

I'll make this my last post on this thread. I should have learnt from experience and quit after my first. :D

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Re: what does "secl. ci." in a criticall apparatus mean?

Post by Tugodum »

"you won’t find many better readers of Plato than Burnet"--Perhaps Slings believes he is one of them, as his reading of the passage that I cited differs from Burnet's :) mwh, if you had quitted after your first comment, I would have missed this chance to learn from you. Sorry that the fact that I did not makes you unhappy.

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