Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago)

Faber(?) 1-8

[Ed.: I am very pleased to have secured a a copy of this work-in-progress. In fact, the very existence of this text has been well kept beneath any word of confirmation. I cannot reveal the editor and commentator; any faults in the text I will assume myself. Presently I make this text known for the greater enrichment of the scholarly community.]


Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago)
The following text has been reconstructed from a palimpsest reading of a series of forged prescriptions for a variety of medications (seventeen have been recovered to date), to include OxyContin, Percocet, Tylenol 4, and Pepcid AC, known among some circles of graduate students as “The Four Pillars.” Three things alerted the Chicago-area pharmacist to their dubious quality: 1) they were all written on “heavy, crunchy paper” [parchment]; 2) the prescribing physician’s name was printed as “Dr. Sanjeev Smith, ABD, MD-still a doctor”; 3) the person submitting the prescriptions concealed his/her appearance by wearing a large “hoody” and mirrored sunglasses from the rack adjacent to the prescription counter. The person presented him-/herself as “P.O. Nasone.” It is unclear if Mr./Ms. Nasone is the individual who cut the parchment into the seventeen, or more, 4" x 5" prescriptions.

This seems to coincide with the disappearance of six graduate students from the recent conference of the American Philological Association in Montréal. It is believed that these graduate students, from three top-tier public and private research institutions, have become involved in the illicit black market trade in medieval codices and fragmenta. Curiously, their absence was not noted until the fourth week of the semester when faculty at one institution discovered that no one was teaching second-semester Latin (faculty figured this out when they saw the highest pre-registration numbers for third-semester Latin ever). Due to this four-week lead time, the authorities have been as yet unable to locate the missing graduate students.

Federal and local authorities in the Chicago area have graciously remanded these parchment scraps to the scholarly community.

Scholars using facilities at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Duke University have been able to reconstruct the text, employing ultraviolet photography as well as scotch tape. The arduous process of dating is still ongoing.

We are presently able to reproduce only the first four couplets.



quaeritis unde inter mortales, qui sale nullo,
      optuma epe veniant quae omnibus perplaceant,
an quis cantarit primum prima arma uirumque,
      nec pater Ennius est, nec tamen ille Maro.
quem ingeniosum etiam tam diligit aurea Musa       5
      ut uersus doctos candida commoueat?
is non Graeculus est qui luminibus careat
      sed Graius caecus iam est, referunt, alius. 





1. Text
Depite the dramatic circumstances of its recovery, the text itself seems stable, if not without comparanda. Textual issues remain beyond the scope of this cursory initial treatment.


2. Language and Prosody
The language is clearly Classical Latin. A terminus post quem of composition is c. 1 BC. The reference to Ovid’s Amores establishes this. (For further discussion on the dating of Amores, cf. McKeown (1989).)

The poem is composed in elegiac couplets. There are some rather heavy elisions and several monosyllabic endings, placing this well below the caliber of other classical poets composing in this meter.


3. Authorship
Faber (Homerius) is named by no ancient source, nor by any medieval source. He clearly sees himself composing in the tradition of the other elegists, but his persona is completely at odds with this posture. Faber claims to aspire to epic. This sort of transgeneric recusatio is unique to Faber. Rather than follow in the tradition of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, Faber composes elegy while asserting his prowess in composing epic. In doing so, he has exceeded the persona of the exclusus amator; Faber is the exclusus poeta. The effect is nothing short of ironic self-praise, which is subverted in ironic self-mocking at the poem’s close. Elegy is, after all, about the elegist. Unfortunately, this elegist, whoever he may be, is not in the same league as those familiar to our canon. Yet, unfailingly, he places himself well above them. Too bad. The poem seems to have been well served in a “recycled” capacity.


4. Materia
Beyond the conventional tropes associated with the exclusus amator, there is nothing original in substance. A great amount of attention seems to have been given to this elegy’s statement on genre and perhaps being an elegist. Yet, that statement is not given; it remains incomplete, not unlike the history of elegy itself. But this poet, whoever he is, could not have been that clever.


5. Commentary

1      cf. Prop. 2.1.1-2 “quaeritis, unde mihi totiens scribantur amores,
/ unde meus veniat mollis in ore liber.”


2      sale nullo “witless,” supply sunt

        optuma: deliberate archaism with epe, but why?

       perplaceant: In poetry occurs only in comedy, Plautus Mostellaria 907, Mercator 348, and Terence Heauton 1066. Whether this is another deliberate archaism or lazily applied metri causa is unclear.


3      cf. Aen. 1.1. The primum seems to serve adverbially as well as adjectivally. The former reading supports the meaning; the latter frames the chiasmus. If this were a more capable poet, this commentator would be impressed.


4      An unusual generic twist. Faber, in an elegy, does what elegists do: he claims literary primacy over epic poets, though even Catullus and Propertius do not take aim at first-tier poets like Ennius or Virgil. Yet, Faber is asserting, or at least building up to the assertion, that his epics are superior. Yet, where are Faber’s epics?


5      aurea Musa: It is not above elegists to discuss this sort of muse above their puellae. Yet, none refers to his Muse as golden. Though Propertius refers to his Musa or Musae considerably more often than the other elegists, the line recalls Tibullus 1.4.65.

        ingeniosum For a thorough discussion on elegists and their ingenium, cf. Carpenter (2004).


6      uersos doctos: really?


7-8  What classics undergraduate hasn’t heard this joke? Could this be its origin? Have we been carrying cliché evidence of Faber within the transmitted soft-discourse of classical scholarship?

CFP: ISIM Annual Conference

[ed.: From time to time, Fragmentary Poets will post calls for papers as a service to the professional communities of papyrology and classical philology. All standard apologies for cross-posting, etc., are given.]



The 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Interpretive Mimetics
12-29 July 2006 in Kyustendzh, Romania


Call for Papers
Submission of Abstracts

The Organizing Committee is accepting abstracts of papers and proposals for panels at the 7th Annual Conference. Abstracts and proposals must not exceed 9000 words, or 27 minutes (for presentations offered in mime or dissonant chant). The Committee must unfortunately return all submissions from persons not yet of majority age.

Abstracts and submissions should address any of the issues facing the field of interpretive mimetics today. What are we doing? What is being done? How does it compare to what could be done? What’s he doing? Can I do that, too? How can we emulate what might be done through our own self-consciousness in the act of self-mimeticism despite the marginalization of the traditional paradigm of phallogenocentric schemata in today’s society? How can we trans-/remit the performative metadiscourses of the emergent transcultural mensch through re-receiving the canon in neo-formalist mimetic response?

Abstracts and submissions that respond to our keynote speaker’s area of specialty are particularly welcome.

The Committee is proud to welcome Dr. Bruno Fabrizio, M.H. of the Università di Bologna and University College, Blarney (NUI Blarney). Dr. Fabrizio will present his recent research in papyrology in his talk titled, “(Re)digitizing the Fragmentary Poets: finger puppetry and textual criticism in the next decade of classical philology.”

Submissions should be sent to:

Mr. F. N. Lackey, M.Litt.
Faculty of Classics and Mime,
High Stone Square,
behind the sonorous goat,
NUI Blarney,
Blarney,
Co. Cork,
Ireland

Deadline for submissions: 1 May 2006

pseudo-Bacchylides 1 (P. Oxon. 3 Bodleian)

[ed.: I am very grateful to Oxford University Press for allowing me to post a pre-press copy of the following.]

pseudo-Bacchylides 1 (P. Oxonensis 3 Bodleian)
Text, Prolegomena, and Commentary by Bruno Fabrizio, Università di Bologna & NUI Blarney

. . .]με καὶ τὰ[. . .
. . . ]χελῶνα[ . . .
. . . ]δὲ τὴν πο[ . . .
. . . μ]ετὰ τὸν Θησ[ . . .
. . . ]άων τινων[ . . .5
. . . ]ντα μὲν τοῦ ι[ . . .
. . . ]υθεῖσα[ . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .]έειν[ . . . 10
. . . . . . .]ασθαι[ . . .
. . . . . ]ἔγγυές τιν[ . . .
. . . ]χελῶναι στρατ[ . . .
. . . ]ον ἕπτα ταὶ[ . . .
. . . ]λέγοντι ἦθος[ . . .15
. . . ]σθέμεν τοῖσιν[ . . .
. . . . .]θι νεκροῖσι[ . . .
. . . . . . . ]τῷ θριπὶ[ . . .


1. The Text
A fragment recovered from a mummified hedgehog. Date of composition uncertain (see below). Date of text c.476-31 BC., though a terminus ante quem can only be confidently established as 1976 (see below). Original site of excavation is unknown due to an uncommon archival error, though probably from the Mediterranean basin. The fragment was “rediscovered” in 2005, found tucked inside a take-out menu for a chip shop, “Time and Tide,” which is no longer in business, though is reputed to have enjoyed the custom of many graduates in classics. The menu itself was found in the 1976 volume of L’Année philologique, apparently marking the page of the Pindar entry.

2. Language and Prosody
The dialect appears to be literary Doric, in the manner of Pindar and Bacchylides, and absent of the “restored” vernacularisms of Alexandrian poets writing in affected Doric, e.g. Callimachus and Theocritus. The uncontracted -άων gen.pl. of line 5 is, however, inconsistent with Pindaric and Bacchylidean forms.

The meter is iambo-trochaic, beyond more precise determination without the left margin. It would not be unreasonable to identify it as a trochaic meter by analogy to Bacchylides, especially Bacchylides 17 (see below). The meter suggests that the poem is dithyrambic, if not the content. Vowel quantity is consistent with the prosody observed by Pindar and Bacchylides. The hiatus in line 15 is prevented by the presence of digamma, cf. Pindar O. 11.20.

3. Authorship
Pseudo-Bacchylides was likely a contemporary of Bacchylides and Pindar. It is impossible to determine if he enjoyed patronage to the extent of his contemporaries. The content of the fragment, however, suggests that he was writing in imitation of Bacchylides, rather than in admiration. The similarities to Bacchylides 17 are numerous, though there are several deviations from the conventional account of Thesus’s expedition to Crete. Gantz records no lemmata or recensions of the Theseus myth including eels (line 12) or wood-eating insects (line 18). Theseus is well known to have contended with a turtle, but the present context is sufficiently departed. What remains does not appear to rise to the level of intertextual allusion. (Anyone who has had the dubious fortune of judging submissions for undergraduate Latin and Greek composition prizes will recognize this ignorant “one-ups-manship.” Pardon the apostrophe.)

4. Materia
The state of the fragment prohibits any informed attempt at translation, yet it does provide some enticing hints at reconstructing the poem’s context.

5. Commentary

1 τὰ: prob. τὰ but perhaps ταὶ

2 χελῶνα: prob. χελῶναι.

3 τὴν πο: prob. τὴν πόλιν. Athens?

4 τὸν Θησ: prob. τὸν Θησέα

6 ι: digamma present. Perhaps ϝίδε(ν) or ϝίδον. Campbell does not read digamma in Bacchylides 17.16, but he was Australian.

7 υθεῖσαι: prob. τυθεῖσαι, in reference to the girls, or turtles?, to be offered to the Minotaur.

13 στρατ: prob. στρατός, one comprised of both turtles and eels. Or perhaps στρατόν, an army that the eels and turtles are facing together.

14 ἕπτα ταί: ταί nom. pl. Could these be the seven girls? Or are they the seven turtles? Or perhaps the girls are being represented as turtles, to reflect the expectations of public modesty. If so, what then of the eels? Indeed. For a thoughtful discussion on maritime images as models of genderization in New Comedy, see Ute Mannschrank, forthcoming in Arethusa.

15 λέγοντι: 3pl pres. The subject is the seven turtle-girls, who appear to be explaining their character (ἦθος) to the dead. Stripped of their physical femininity, in their syncretistic chelonid depiction, they are offering the purest form of woman to an audience unwilling, or unable, to receive it. The foreshadowing of Ariadne's lot is chilling.

18 τῷ θριπί: dat., either as the other recipient of the speech of the turtle-girls or as the instrument of a lost participle explaining how the men happened to die.



6. Conclusions
None. This is either a more interesting version of the Theseus myth that, were it available to Pindar and Bacchylides, would give new reading pleasure to graduate students, or perhaps it is a complete ringer, composed by some Bacchylides-wannabe. Regardless, it is an important text, demanding complete reconsideration of the reception-tradition of the Theseus myth as well as of the culture of lyric poetry, and of the lyric poetry of culture.

[ed.: Dr. Fabrizio is currently engaged in a rigorous and ambitious program of fieldwork searching for any additional evidence of alternate Theseus cycles. He has immersed himself into the storytelling cultures of both Attica and Crete. You may contact him with queries about his work at the ΤΑΒΕΡΝΑ ΘΗΣΕΙΟ (The "Theseum" Tavern) in the Piraeus or in the ΤΑΒΕΡΝΑ ΧΡΥΣΟΧΕΛΩΝΕΣ (The "Golden Turtles" Tavern) in Iraklio, Crete. He is not accepting applications from graduate students, but is sorely in need of several manservants (graduate students, perhaps).

P. Oxyrhynchus 7819b Zimmermann

ta]lis iactabat †clamorem† in me atque etiam ungues

li]mine perstantem sola puella mea

1 talis] talis Zimmermann   :   mollis Ruddybottom-Jones   :  fortis corr. Stahl, forte recte    clamorem] clamorem Handschuhputz   :   digitum atque Pozzo

2 limine] limine Zimmermann   :  flumine Ruddybottom-Jones  :  fulmine Stahl



"That's just how she was hurling a shout at me and even her fingernails, while I was standing firm on her doorstep, my girl all by herself." trans. E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones

"...so did my girl, alone, assail me with her shouts, and claws, as I stood resolved on her threshold." trans. B. Zimmermann



from Textual Criticism Weekly, 4 April 2006

This fragment, recovered just recently, has already been circulated widely among textual critics specializing in elegy or epigram. The condition of the fragment is better than that of many recent finds from Oxyrhynchus, though still lacking in critical points. And so the first round of critical treatment has already generated considerable disagreement. Perhaps the greatest point of dispute is that of authorship.

Handschuhputz is convinced that this is a fragment of Gallus. "Given the source of this papyrus fragment and the elegiac motifs, this must be a fragment of Galllus. As such, this casts new insight into the death of Gallus. Perhaps he did not take his own life after he disgraced himself in his praetorship of Egypt. Rather than by the will of Augustus, it appears he died by the lacerations of his puella."

Zimmermann argues that it is a Propertian couplet, citing the resolved simile opening line 1 (cf. Prop. 1.3.7), which implies that this could not be the first line, and the zeugma. Handschuhputz replied simply that he wanted to be able to say that he worked on a Gallus fragment "[...]in this way really, really bad, nevertheless just once." The other critics have refrained from posing any conjecture.

Brugel Zimmermann and Jürgen Handshuhputz are well known textual critics of today. As leaders of the New Leipzig School of German philologists, they have been especially critical of the Anglo-American sloth among textual critics in those countries. E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones is currently completing his DPhil at the University of Blackpool. He was a student of Zimmermann, but returned to Britain in flight, fearing "committee persecution" over his nation's role in the Second Gulf War. Before reading ancients at Blackpool, he was an assistant script editor on the set of Eastenders. T. Hunter Stahl and Paolino Pozzo have not previously published critical editions of any text.

The editors of Fragmentary Poets Press are currently soliciting additional conjecture or corrigenda.