Again the "Orestes" "Musical Papyrus"

Author(s): Charles W. Willink

Source: Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 2 (2001), pp. 125-133
Published by: Fabrizio Serra Editore
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20546685
Accessed: 09-08-2017 07:55 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Fabrizio Serra Editore is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Again the Orestes "Musical Papyrus"

Charles W. Willink

Much has been written about the very early papyrus fragment of
Orestes 338-344 with musical notation 1. The most recent discussion
by Elena Marino 2 variously invites a riposte 3.
The argument of M.'s article can ben summarized as follows:

(i) that the fragmentary text of P. Find., with Solomon's modifi

cation of the editio princeps4, is to be read as attesting the
colometry

... xaxoXo<pi)QO[xai
(#) u.ctT8QOc a?uxx c?c ? c9 ava?axxeuer
(#) ? u?yac ?X?oc ov u?vaioc ev ?poxotc,
(#) ?v? ?? Xo?xpoc &c ne ax?xov fto?c
(#) xiv?^ac ?aiuxov xax?x?,ucev ?eiv?rv
Jt?VCDV (OC Jt?VXOD

(#) Xa?goic ?XedQioiciv ?v xv^aciv

(#) xiva y??y exi rc?ooc...

1 P. Find. inv. G 2315; for the date, circa 200 B. C, see E. G. Turner, Journ. Hell.
Stud. 76, 1956, 95-96.
2 Elena Marino, 11 papiro musicale dell'Oreste di Euripide e la colometria dei co
dici', in B. Gentili and F. Perusino (edd.), La colometria antica dei testipoetici greci,
Pisa-Roma 1999, 143-156. Reference is also made below to Th. J. Fleming, 'The Survi
val of Greek Dramatic Music from the Fifth Century to the Roman Period', ibid.
17-29.
3 I have discussed the textual issues previously in my commentary on Orestes in
the Oxford series (1986, 1989), pp. liv-lv, 137, 141-143; to which it appears that M.
has paid scant attention (making only two passing references to it, one of which attribu
tes to me a position which I expressly reject).
4 J. Solomon, "Orestes 344-45: Colometry and Music', Gr. Rom. Byz. Stud. 18,
1977, 77. For the previous reconstruction, cf. H. Hunger and E. P?hlmann, Wien. Stud.
75,1962, 76-78; also (as cited by Marino) E. P?hlmann, Denkm?ler der altgriechischen
Musik, N?rnberg 1970, 78. Solomon's version is apparently favoured by Diggle (n. 10
below), but without discussion.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 126 C. W. Willink

The lineation of P. Find, is actually such that the notation here

schematically represented by the symbol (#) appears not at the begin
ning but always in the middle of a line, following the first of a pair of
dochmii ?. M. argues that it should not, however, be read simply as a
divider between dochmiacs but rather as marking the beginning of a
new colon, as shown above. [With the same doctrine applied to the
editio princeps the colometry attested would be ^lax?rjoc... I ? peyote... I
?v? ??... I xiv?^ac... ?XeOptoi- I civ ?v x?^iaciv (...) ]
Whether we should follow Solomon is considered further be
low.

(ii) that there is then less conflict with the colometry attested by
the medieval mss:

UXXX8Q0C aiua cac ? c' ava?axxeuei 338

xaxotaxp?QOum xaxotaxp?QOfxar 339
? u?yac ?X?oc ov u?vutoc ?v ?poxotc, 340
?v? ?? taxupoc (oc xic ?x?xou Oo?c 341
xiv?^ac ?aiuxDv xax?xXucev ?eiv v 342
ji?vcav (be Jt?vxou 343
Xa?ooic ?tadoioiciv ?v x?|iaciv 344
xiva y?g en jt?Qoc... 345

(iii) that the residual conflict between 339-338-340 in P. Find.

and 338-339-340 in the mss is to be resolved in favour of the former,
the papyrus' text being accredited at once by very early date and by
the associated musical notation. Both versions are taken as giving the
same sense ul lament your mother's blood which maddens you".
Given that interpretation (which M. defends), the erroneous transpo
sition of xaxo?,o(pi)QO^taL xaxoXoqp?rjojxai to follow rather than precede
the object will have been easy, as neither affecting the sense nor upset
ting the metre, also as bringing xaxoXrjqr?QO^ai xaxoXoqr?QO^iai more

? The symbol in fact resembles a wide Z with vertical middle stroke and a super
scribed stigme. Whether or not it had some other/additional musical connotation, it
cannot be fortuitous that it occurs only at the end of a dochmiac measure, behaving thus
like a bar-line in a modern musical score. It is usually written on the line between words,
but in one place above rather than after the last letter of a word (doac). It is doubtful
whether that different placing means more than that scribe at first carelessly omitted to
write the 'divider' before xtva^ac, and was thus forced to write it above the line between
the notations of pitch.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Again the Orestes uMusical Papyrus" 127

nearly into responsion with xa&ixeTeuopm xaOxxexeuo^iai in the

strophe 6.

There are several weak links in the chain of this argument.

(i) As things stand, the lines of text in the papyrus are indeed out
of step with acceptable colometry (aout of phase", as Turner put it);
most conspicuously so at

... ava?jaxxeusi (#) o uxyacLoX?oc...

with hiatus (and sentence-end) in the middle of a line. But it strains

belief to postulate ad hoc a colometric system in which new cola (in
cluding new ctlxoi) always by rule begin in the middle of a line
(ctixoc). The hypothesis that such a convention might have had value
in a musical score written cfor performance' is not supported by any
argument of substance, let alone by evidence of such a convention
elsewhere. It is surely easier to believe that P. Find, simply gives the
dochmiac measures (and the superscribed musical notes) with an ap
propriate divider wherever two measures are written uno ver su. It may
descend from a ccolometrised' ancestor with more rational lineation.
But it seems equally likely that it was lineated according to a conven
tion whereby the dochmiacs were colometrised only in the sense that
the end of each dochmius was shown either by line-end or by a c di
vider' symbol between a pair of measures, the dividers thus analogous
to the 'bar-lines' in modern musical scores, while also serving to artic
ulate the (possibly unfamiliar) rhythm.
Dochmiacs are in many ways sui generis-, and in this ode the
dochmiac units are notably self-contained (mostly demarcated by
word-end), and rhythmically somewhat uniform, in such a way as to
admit a variety of acceptable and less acceptable lineations.
One may speculate that the lost preceding verses in the papyrus
had been written in similar two-dochmiac lines as

doa?orv ce xov (#) jieXeov coi ?axQua

?axQDct cufi?aAAei (#) jtoqedcov tic etc
?ofxov aXacxoQcov (#) xatoXoqpuQonai
xatoXoqpDQOjiat (xxL)

6 Cf. Kirchoffs transposition of 339, accepted by Murray, to follow 340; tempting

indeed on grounds of symmetry, but not giving an acceptable sequence of clauses.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 128 C. W. Willink

Failure to end a line after cv\i^akXei (a natural colon-end) 7

would account for the cout-of-phase' arrangement of the following
lines. But another possibility is that the scribe had erroneously written
KaxaXo($vQO\iai only once 8.

(ii) There is more to be said both about the colometry attested in

the mss and about the alternative reconstructions of P. Find, before we
can properly consider the conflict at 338-339.
In the first place, M. fails to mention a variant of potentially cru
cial significance in line 338, where a few witnesses (GL, also 0lcV2/3
and ^2 ) read ?c c5 (not ? c' or ?c) ava?axx?U?i. This neglect is the
more surprising in that ?c c' is the reading accepted as the truth by
Diggle in the new Oxford Text9, as previously advocated in my
commentary.
Secondly, the colometry attested in the mss is also that of a 6th
7th century papyrus containing parts of 321-330 and 333-339, of
which M. elects to take no account10. The relevant verses of the stro
phe, with the parts preserved in P. Berol. in bold type, are

xava?v aifteo/ aftJiaXXecd5 a?uaxoc 322

xivujievai ?ixav, xi\v\iev?\ (p?votr 323
xafhxexevojHU xadixexeuoum* 324
xov 'Ayau?uvovoc y?vov ??cex3 ?x- 325
Xad?cda? Mccac jiavi?ooc (poixa- 326
X?o?r qpeiJ ji?x^cov 327
Ol?OV d) x?talC OQEXftdc EQQ81C 328
xq?jio?oc oblo (p?xiv... 329

There is evident strophic symmetry between this and the above

lineation of 338-45, with the same, by no means automatic, treatment

7 Three-dochmiac lengths are frequent in the dochmiacs of tragedy, and the long
penult, ('drag') at... cv\i?alXei suggests colon-end. On the normally colon-ending beha
viour, with full diaeresis, of dochmiacs of the form ^w-, cf. my observations on
Hipp. 1272 in Class. Quart. 49, 1999, 425.
8 The surviving single xaxotaxp?Qo^icu is in fact the first word, not simply of a line,
but almost certainly of a column (as Marino observes), consistently with that
possibility.
9 J. Diggle (ed.), Euripidis fabulae III, Oxford 1994.
10 P. Berol 17051+17014; see J. Diggle, The Textual Tradition of Euripides' Ore
stes, Oxford 1991, 134-136. M. justifies her neglect: "preferisco non tenere conto nel
confronto delle colometrie, data l'incertezza della disposizione m?trica nel papiro"; but
there is no such neglect-justifying uncertainty (see Diggle); and the antiquity-confir
ming evidence of P. Berol. as to the line-order at 338-339 cannot be thus lightly bru
shed aside.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Again the Orestes "Musical Papyrus" 129

of 325-328 (~ 341-344) as 2b ' 2b ' ? 12b with two word-overlaps in

the strophe n. And P. Berol. certainly had 338-339 in the same order
as the mss. The degree of unanimity leaves no room for doubt con
cerning the Alexandrian antiquity of the mss' colometry here, includ
ing the line-sequence at 338-339-340, presumably as stemming from
the colometrising editorship of Aristophanes of Byzantium himself.
Thirdly, Solomon's reconstruction of P. Find. ?s lines 6-7 is very
uncertain. Only the top of the letter read by him as the first letter of
Tiya in line 7 is visible, and at least in the photograph given by Turner
(n. 1 above) it looks much more like the top of a sigma, as it had been
taken by everyone before Solomon. Be that as it may, Solomon was
doubtless right in identifying the mid-line 'divider' in line 7 (though
only its stigme is preserved) as sufficient proof that P. Find, had a pair
of dochmii in this line. If he was also right in identifying the second of
these dochmii as xiva y?g ?xi ji?Qoc, we can scarcely accept the colome
try in this tradition as Euripidean; since there can be little doubt that
329/345

xqIji?o?c ?jc? qp?xtv ?v ? <?>ol??c I ...

xtv? y?g ?xt ji&q?c olx?v akX?v I ...

is correctly lineated in the main Alexandrian tradition as the begin

ning of an iambic sequence (though arguably we may prefer to write
Ooi-/?oc and ak-fkov, as Diggle).

(iii) The antiquity of P. Find, is approximately equal to that of

the inferred Alexandrian tradition (also stemming ex hypothesi from

11 That this is not automatic is sufficiently shown by Diggle's different lineation of

325-328/341-344 as 2b '20 2b ' ? (a seven-dochmiac run with three consecutive inden
tations) and by my own preference for 2b ? \2b \2b (with another three-dochmiac len
gth, cf. n. 7 above, and symmetrical patterning in the verse n-avia?oc : (potxaX?oir i <pet3
[i?x^wv ~ xax?xXvcEV i ?eivcav jt?vwv i (be Jt?vxou, again with 'drag' at colon-end). P. Be
rol, attests by secure inference the word-splits at ?x- kad?efreu and qpoixa- k?ov; and vir
tually the only deviant lineations in the mss are associable with these archetypal word
splits, where some scribes ignorant of the metre have preferred a division between
words. The division ?x- kad?cftai has been incorrectly preserved in AB (?xXe- kad?cdai)
and BS (?xtax- l??cflm), while more divide before ex- (CZTp) or after -?cflm (AaL
RfZmZu). More still, but still a minority, divide either before or after <poixa>?ov (Cr
RyTp; AbAnFMnPRSSa ZZmZuTp); and there are corresponding but in no case re
sponsive divisions in some mss before or after ?eivcov it?vov (BVAbFMnRSSa?ZcT;
AaRf). Elsewhere in the stasimon the only colometric variations are in 321-322, 329
330, 332-334 with which we are not concerned. The metrical scholia (reported by M.
alongside her presentation of just two mss, B and P) are compoundly deviant in the stro
phe (?acat5 l?xXafr?com X- \i- ??oixak?ov IqpEu ^i- o?-co x- ?-eqqeic Ixq?jto?oc), but correct
in ant. apart from a deviation at ^a?ooic I ?tado?oici.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 130 C. W. Willink

approximately 200 B.C.). Those like M. who accept the line-order

339-338-340 naturally have regard also to the supposedly accrediting
musical notation-, but that argument also is fallacious.
a) Whether or not the 'tune' is authentically preserved in this and
other apparent survivals of 5th century music , it is noteworthy that
in both of the two most cited tragic parallels there is something
demonstrably wrong with the text. Dionysius of Halicarnassus {De
comp. verb. 11-12) in his discussion of the often-conflicting relation
ship between musical pitch and word-accent was certainly looking at,
or had in mind, a text of Or. 140ff. with musical notation which he be
lieved to be authentic; but it contained at least one error of wording
(Xeux?v for Xejtxov) 13. Similarly the very early 'musical papyrus' of IA
1500(F), 1508 and 784-793 includes phrasing that cannot be at
tributed to Euripides or to any reputable finisher of this posthu
mously-produced play u.
b) Let us, however, accept for the sake of argument the proposi
tion that the music of tragic c?ntica did survive in a written tradition
down to the Alexandrian and even Roman periods, and that such a
tradition will have helped to preserve sound colometry into and
through the Alexandrian period 1d. Such a proposition should en
hance, not detract from, the credence given to colometries determined

12 Not a simple 'either/or' dilemma. We cannot exclude the possibily of an entirely

new 3rd-century setting (no more 'authentic' than 18th-century7 settings of Shakespea
rian songs). At the same time there are various ways in which a.partial memory of the
original music might have been preserved; e.g. an associated note merely of the cmode"
of a stasimon, and/or memory merely of its hummable opening bars. Nor we can
exclude the kinds of inaccuracy associable with pirated texts. Tastes naturally changed;
and we read of anthology-performances which might even include musical settings of
originally spoken verses.
13 It is generally agreed that the v.l. Xeuxov l'xvoc, though widespread and certainly
ancient, is inferior to the more pointed Xejttov lyyoc (most mss). Dionysius's text might
also be regarded as suspect in its assignation of ciya ctya... to Electra (both West and
Diggle accept the mss' assignation to the chorus-leader) and in its attestation of only a
single dochmius in 141 (where Di Benedetto has followed Elmsley in preferring emen
dation of the mss' tradition to give two dochmiacs in responsion with line 154). But I
now believe (not as in my commentary) that Dionysius has the truth in both these mat
ters, as I hope to argue in another place.
14 P. Leid. inv. 510, presumably from an anthology. Cf. my commentary on Or.
pp. liv-lv with nn. 89-90, where I defended L's text and expressed surprise that G. Co
motti could accept without comment x?c yac Jtaxotac as an improvement upon L's xo>
v?cac I jtcxxo??oc. When an adjective unaccompanied by definite article either follows or
precedes an article-plus-noun phrase, the adjective has predicative force ( K?hner-Gerth
I 614 f.; exceptions with ejx?c at Hipp. 683 and S. Aj. 573 are commonly emen
ded).
lo See especially Th. J. Fleming (n. 2 above), also Th. J. Fleming and E. C. Kopff,

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Again the Orestes "Musical Papyrus" 131

by the Alexandrian Editor, who (we are invited to believe) will have
availed himself of the guidance offered by texts-with-music; whereas
any particular scrap of a musical text such as P. Find, might be vari
ously erroneous.

In sum P. Find, and the main Alexandrian tradition represented

by P. Berol. and the medieval mss cannot both be right at 338-339;
and we must consider the conflict between them without prejudice in
favour of the 'musical papyrus'.
It can safely be assumed that in one or both of these traditions the
sense was understood as "I lament your mother's blood which mad
dens you". If we accept that sense as in accordance with the poet's in
tention, then there is little more to be said. Either tradition can be
punctuated consistently with that sense, and we may as well spin a
coin. But most commentators have rightly rejected that interpretation.
xaxo?oqr?Qecdai (xiv?) is to express grieving lamentation for (a per
son), and the object of the repeated xaxoXoqp?QO^iai in this context, ex
pressed or implied, can only be the afflicted 'Aycx|i?^ivovoc y?voc
(moving on to afflicted humanity in general), with whom it is the es
sential function of this ode to express grieving sympathy. It is not
enough to say (with John Griffith) that [xaxeQoc aijia is 'a fair equiva
lent' for the personal object rightly demanded by Di Benedetto and
others; since 'your mother' is not the appropriate object of the chorus's
sympathetic lamentation 16.
From this it follows that the line-order attested by P. Find. (339
338-340) is the incorrect one, since of the two line-orders this one
alone admits only that wrong interpretation (and can be presumed to
have originated in accordance with it). With xaxoXoqr?Qo^iai... preced
ing ^lax??oc aijxa cac ? c' ava?axxeuei there is no possible construction
for 'your mother's blood' except as objective to T lament'.
By contrast, with the line-order 338-339-340 a convincing solu
tion of the problem becomes available, if we make due allowance for a
small corruption in the mss (not only of the already mentioned cor
ruption in most mss of oc c' to ? c' or oc).

'Colometry of Greek Lyric Verses in Tragic Texts', Studi it. filol. class. 85, 1992,
758-780.
16 J. G. Griffith, Journ. Hell. Stud. 87,1967, 147a (in his review of Di Benedetto's
edition). M. looks vainly for support also to G. A. Longman (Class. Quart. 12, 1962,
61-66), whose acceptance of 339-338-340 was associated with an ingenious but uncon
vincing proposal jtoQETJoov x? c' in 338 (see n. 17 below); also D. Feaver (Am. Journ. Phi
lol. 81, 1960, 1-15), who was mainly concerned with a supposed relationship between
musical pitch and word-accent.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
132 C. W. Willink

... x?v |i?X,eov, ?i ??xovct 335

??xQuci cv\i?ak\ei
tjtoQ8i)(ovt XLc ?c ?ofxov ?taxcxOQoov,
uxrr?ooc a?fia c?c ?c c' ava?axxevei; 338
xaxotaxp?QOuai xaxo^oqy?QOfxai- 339
? ^t?yac ?X?oc ov u?vaioc ?v ?poxotc... 340

Punctuated thus, the long interrogatively cpitying' first sentence

of the antistrophe ends with "...for whom tears upon tears are com
pounded by some alastor tjtOQeixovt into the house, who maddens you
as to your mother's blood". The chorus in 338 thus make the same
point about the alastor as Menelaus makes about the Erinyes in the
following scene, when he says with similar double-accusative id
iom

auxai ce ?axxeajouct cvyyevx\ qp?vov. 411

It remains to find the right interpretation, or failing that the right

correction, of JioQe?cov (a word not confirmed, as it happens, by either
papyrus). It is barely possible to take Jtoce?cov with the preceding
'tears' (sc. "bringing <them> into the house"); but that is both weak
and awkward, and corruption is likelier, since there are two easy
emendations available. My first idea was JtoXeuorv, which would ap
propriately describe the ataxctooQ as "haunting the house" (cf. PF
645-646 chpeic ewir/oi luukev^evai I etc jxaQ^evcovac); on the common
confusion of X and q see Diggle, Euripidea 469-470. Dr. Diggle then
suggested xoqe?kov to me as an arguably better alternative, a verb well
attested in contests of madness, and associating well with ava?axxeuei.
Both alternatives were mentioned in my commentary, the case for
XOQ8i)(ov being then regarded as enhanced by its occurrence as a vari
ant in the scholia (Schwartz I 134, 12), "though perhaps merely as a
fortuitous error". We now know that xoQeuoov is actually the reading
in one ms (G), justifying Diggle's acceptance of it in the new Oxford
Text.
It is easy enough to account for the wrong JxoQe?cov. Misinterpre
tation of 338 as "your mother's blood which maddens you" will have
been all too easy (in conjunction with the lipographic reduction of ?c c'
to ? c'), and will have necessitated construction of a?jia with a differ
ent verb. Some, as we have seen, will have taken al\ia very anciently as
governed by xaxota)qr?QO|j,ai, this interpretation prompting the trans
position 339-338-340. But jioQeuoov for xoQevwv will have been a
smaller change, giving the sense ubringing into the house your moth
er's blood which maddens you"; an interpretation generally favoured

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Again the Orestes "Musical Papyrus" 133

by previous commentators, until it was justly contested by Longman:

the blood-pollution is of course already in the house, not presently be
ing brought into it17.

Highgate, London

17 The voluminous scholia are variously confused, but explicitly attest this wrong
interpretation among others: Jiope?edkxt rcoit?v xo at^ia xfjc cf)c ^t]xq?c etc xo?c oi'xovc
(Schw. I 134, 7 f.). Longman's own interpretation, "conveying you to Hades" is also
found in a scholion (Schw. I 134, 3 f.), but that "house of ataxcxoQec" is not a possible
phrase for "Hades" has been conclusively argued by Di Benedetto.

This content downloaded from 193.188.46.75 on Wed, 09 Aug 2017 07:55:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms