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.