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?
[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?
posted by App Crit at Saturday, April 22, 2006
6 Comments:
Note the following:
1: qui sale nullo: is taken to go with mortales, but notice that it could also modify the next line. If we are assumed to be seeking witless epics, suddenly many of the analytical problems of this fragment disappear.
2: epe- plural of epos. This is, I believe, unparalleled in the Latin corpus: epos normally occurs only in the nominative/accusative singular.
2: omnibus- Note that the s does not make position. This is unusual in the Classical period. Perhaps it is an allusion to Lucretius, or better yet Ennius?
7-8: I must confess that I don't get it.
I should perhaps have clarified that my reading of line one requires the qui to be adverbial.
[Ed.: E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones has just sent me his responses to recent comments. Ruddybottom-Jones is not the original commentator, but wishes he was. Rumor suggests the editor/commentator may be no less than Brugel Zimmerman.]
1 qui also could be taken with the subject of quaeritis, which would make us all simple, like, for asking.
2 epe true. carmina or even uersus are preferred for poems or poetry; epos is always singular, either as a specified singular or the generalizing singular. So, not typical Latin, Classical like, but it's not typical, see. It's something entirely new, for a very old thing, that is.
2 omnibus Certainly it's more archaism. I think it's brilliant.
7-8 "He [the clever poet] is not some little Greek lacking lights, but, they report, he is now the other Greek." Easy, mate.
[Ed.: Dr. Dr. Brugel Zimmermann's press agent has just relased a statement denying his involvement in any commentary on this fragment. "Herr Dr Dr Prof Zimmermann did not trifle with this dubious palimpsest. He is presently convelescing in Bad Eselschmutz, but asked me to read these responses to the drivel posed by Ruddybottom-Jones." Zimmermann's sugestions are provided below.]
1 qui Yes, yes, adverbial reading it gives that there is no verb. But in this way it is more from prose. And if possibly still maybe perchance nevertheless there is a verb to probably supply, it should be sint, so as still this once there is no real antecedent. The mortales are hypothetical.
2 epe This is not I think so much Latin as we have in preserved authors. Thinking now to claim this as hapax legomenon without a direct study of the text is feeble. To this word, I must for now give obeli. Too much archaismus is not so much good poetry in this way, even for clear amateurs.
7-8 Ruddybottom-Jones will need to review more before his exams. It is for this that I thankfully not anymore do him teach. My translation: "It's not a sightless little Greek, but now another blind Greek, they say." This is like that British joke about Homer. They say that Homer did not exist, but that Iliad and Odyssey were composed by another blind Greek poet called the same, yes.
2 omnibus I probably should have pointed out Plautus as a possible influence as well, cf. perplaceant.
7-8 Ah yes, I remember this joke now. But do we really know what the ancients considered funny? I think that looking for humor in ancient poetry merely demonstrates a lack of taste and good breeding. Perhaps what it really means is "A blind Greek nowadays is The Other."
Of course. Without constructing a reading of this couplet throught the lens of archaeo-post-modernism (a.k.a. pre-meta-modernism), all attempts at schemata construction of discursive "otherness" are themselves left as the "Other." And the poor Greek still cannot see himself for what he is in an intertextual framework. The sharp cacophony of the couplet has blinded him. Other = No one. This allusory degredation of Greek-ness shows Latin poetry's true purpose: to alienate, alternatively under an alias (who the hell is Faber anyway?)
Ancient poetry funny? Thanks for setting the record straight on this. We cannot know what the ancients thought funny. (The pygmy fresco in the House of the Menander was a meta-literal (or meta-litoral) vignette encouraging populist empowerment. Those who think it's funny should have their OUP discount stripped.) There has been a trend lately of some horrible dissertations on this topic. For the sake of the field, this must stop.
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