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Selections from Schröder’s “Titel und Text” – 2

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Continuing from the table of contents of Schröder’s “Titel und Text” here, this is a rough translation of the conclusion to the first part, on the titles of ancient books.

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Part 1 – Conclusion (p.90)

It should not surprise us, if the most ancient book titles seem unimaginative to modern eyes, because they are simply the term for the theme or the genre. It is particularly surprising to modern eyes that the titles of books of poetry are no exception: they are not explicitly given by the authors, but the earliest uses in the secondary tradition are the titles Bucolica, Carmina, Epistulae, Sermones, Epoden.  In some cases we can only say what the work was not called: neither ‘Register’ nor ‘Cynthia’ nor ‘Monobyblos’ can be  detected as the title of a book.  Metaphorical  titles appear only in collections, in those cases where a theme cannot be  concretely identified.

The literal interpretation of a title must not be avoided, but it may indicate the presence of its predecessor, a connection [1] or a difference, for example (Ambrose, De officiis 1:23-25): Dum igitur hunc psalmum considero, successit animo de Officiis scribere; de quibus etiamsi quidam philosophiae studentes scripserint ut Panaetius et filius eius apud Graecos, Tullius apud Latinos […]. videamus utrum res ipsa conveniat scribere de officiis et utrum hoc nomen philosophorum tantummodo scholae aptum sit an etiam in scripturis reperiatur divinis […] (While, therefore, meditating on this psalm, it has come to my mind to write ‘on duties‘; although some philosophers have written on this subject—Panaetius,  for instance, and his son among the Greek, Cicero among the Latin, writers […] let us see whether the subject itself stands on the same ground, and whether this word is suitable only to the schools of the philosophers, or is also to be found in the sacred Scriptures.”); Cicero had already used this as the best translation of the Greek title, see p.31 above.

The number of titles known from the Retractiones of Augustine gives us a good idea of the state of book titles in late Antiquity (see the Capitula at the start of the work, the list of titles).  Only a few titles require explanation, e.g. Soliloquia  (Retract. 1,4,1) De animae quantitate (Retract. 1,8,1), see above p. 13; where the theme is named, e.g. De beata vita, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manicheorum. Occasionally the addressee is simply named (Ad Simplicianum), otherwise the name is always accompanied by information about him or the content, e.g. Ad Cres­conium grammaticum partis Donati, De spiritu et littera ad Marcellinum, De pec­catorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum ad Marcellinum; reference is made to opponents with contra: Contra epistulam Donati heretici, Contra Adimantum Manichei discipulum, De Genesi adversus Manicheos. Genre titles serve as titles also: Quaestionum, Soliloquiorum, Confessionum; Ex­positio quarundam propositionum ex epistula apostoli ad Romanos. The different forms may also be combined: Ad Hieronymum presbyterum libri II unus de origine animae et alius de sententia Iacobi, Contra Pelagium et Caelestium de gratia Christi et de peccato originali ad Albinam Pinianum et Melaniam, De unico baptismo contra Petilianum ad Constantinum. Sometimes the title refers to the state of the work: De Genesi Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio; De Genesi ad litteram liber unus imperfectus — Equally prosaic are the titles of the works of Gregory of Tours (hist. Franc.) and Bede (hist. eccl. 5, 24), likewise the title given in many places by Cassiodorus in the Institutio.

J.C. Scaliger defines the ancient sense (Poetices Libri Septem,Geneva, 1561, book 3, cap. 123, p. 171c): Inscriptio est uno, aut non multo pluribus verbis comprehensio eius partis operis, cuius partis gratia ceterae partes omnes veniunt ad totius constitutionem […]. (i.e. an inscriptio is one or not many more words which summarise the stuff that makes up the work.)

Before we consider the background to poetry book titles in part 3, we must investigate in part 2 the further possibility that short sections of text in tables of contents etc, were designated as chapter titles.

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  1. [1][126] On the use (Übernahme) of titles in historical writing (annales, historiae) in order to emphasise the continuity of the content, see Zehnacker, Hubert: Les oeuvres antiques peuvent-elles se passer de titre? L’exemple de l’historiographie romaine, in: Fredouille (ed.), p. 209-221.↩

No free speech in France – Jewish group successfully sues Twitter to hand over ID’s of foes to police

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A horrifying story which sets a ghastly precedent.  I have edited it slightly, for reasons that will become apparent.

Twitter hands over confidential data of Jewish-sounding users to French authorities

Twitter has handed confidential account information over to French authorities to track down the authors of Jewish-sounding tweets, to end the legal battle that started last year when the French Union of National Socialist Students sued Twitter for allowing hate speech.

Twitter said in a statement that the disclosure of information   “enables the identification of some authors”  and  “puts an end to the dispute” with the  French Union of National Socialist Students (UEJF), AFP reported. The social  network added that the two parties had “agreed to continue to  work actively together in order to fight communism and  Judaism.”

On Thursday, Twitter lost its legal fight in France after the  Paris Court of Appeal dismissed its objections against the  original ruling.

Last month, the court upheld a January  ruling that  said the social media site must provide personal information on  some users to the UEJF and four other organizations that filed a  complaint against the company in November last year.

The complaint came after a deluge of Jewish-sounding messages  tweeted under the hashtag  #unbonnazi  (#agoodnationalsocialist), with some users posting offensive tweets such as   “#agoodnazi is a dead Nazi.” Some of the tweets were later  removed by the social network.

Hate crimes are strictly punished in France.

Oh hang on …. I appear to have made a small editing error.  Somehow — silly me — the words “anti-semitic” have become swapped with “Jewish-sounding”, and “Jewish” with “National Socialist”, etc.  Of course it is the Union of Jewish Students that demands the identities of those who express dislike for their members.  Quite right too.  Nobody should be allowed to show disrespect for the Übermenschen.

Oh rats, what is the matter with this keyboard?!  That should have read, of course, “disrespect for Jewish students”.

The trouble is, if you just change the nouns referring to the parties involved, the story makes equal sense.  The version above is exactly how it would have read, in the Vichy era.

Ignore all the loaded language about “hate” — for you have to hate people pretty badly to want to throw them in prison for their opinions.

There is no suggestion that the tweeters did anything except express political views.  They are not political views that I hold; but no matter.  They could have been.  The process would have been the same.

Indeed one day they may well be the same.  The first step in political correctness was that Jewish people might not be referred to other than in terms of profoundest respect.  It matters not who the beneficiaries were, of course; it is an outrage, a hideous evil,  that any group in society should be so privileged.

Note also that it was Jewish pressure groups who created this precedent, as here.  Presumably the possibility of short-term gain drowns out, in the minds of these activists, the inevitable historical lesson that, once discrimination is endemic in a society, Jews will find themselves on the receiving end of it.

But once Jews could not be criticised, then everyone wanted the same status.  The feminists demanded that “sexist” language (words they invented themselves) should not be permitted, and won their case.  Then those who hated their own country chimed in, with “racist” language.  Then the homosexuals wanted the same status.  And, of course, the Moslems have lately been added to the list of “priority” groups.  I learn today that British police ignore many crimes, concentrating on “priority” cases.

It will surprise few of us that the police system has a check box which marks cases as priority if they involve members of “priority” groups.

But none of this system of privilege can take effect without injury to every member of the society.  Indeed it even affects members of these “priority” groups, when they find — and they do — that some other “priority” group take precedence, or that nobody is interested unless it serves the cause.  I am told that 11,000 blacks have been shot in the USA since the celebrity race case of Trayvon Martin happened; and nobody cared.

I think normal people would care, pretty seriously, if 11,000 people were shot in this county.  Even — and at the moment, this might be a pretty big ask — if they were members of the French Union of Jewish Students.  Aren’t they people?  Unless, of course, they are tokens in a political power game?

It is an evil day that Twitter bowed to this pressure to apply a political censorship to its service.  It highlights, again, how we cannot depend on Google, Twitter, Facebook, and the other corporations who control the social media sites, to uphold the most basic freedoms, if their profits are threatened.

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Selections from Schröder’s “Titel und Text” – 1

Posted on by Roger Pearse

B.J. Schröder’s Titel und Text is a profoundly important book for the subject of book titles, chapter divisions, chapter titles, tables of contents and the like.  Yet it seems to be largely unknown in the anglophone world.  I can find no reviews in JSTOR, nor a review at Bryn Mawr.

For a few days now I have been producing rough translations of portions of it, for my own use.  It seems to me that these may be of use to others, as a way into the book.  For who speaks German these days?

I do realise that the subject is perhaps rather technical.  I apologise to those of my readers, for whom the subject lies outside their sympathies.  But I hope that, for some people at least, an English rendering of bits of the book will be useful.

Let’s start with a translation of the title and subtitle, and the book’s own table of contents.  These will give a very good idea of the contents of the book.

I am entirely aware that my efforts at translation are not very good.  However producing them should help me get better!

     *     *     *     *     *     *

Bianca-Jeanette Schröder, Title and Text: On the development of Latin poetry headings. With studies on Latin book titles, tables of contents, and other types of divisions (Gliederungsmitteln). Walter de Gruyter : Berlin : New York, 1999 (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte ; Bd. 54) From: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1998. ISBN 3-11-016453-1.

Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1

Part I: Book titles

1.  Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
         On the emergence of book titles and on the problems of recognition of book titles 10, citation of incipits 16, Information on the index 20

2.  On the relationship between title and content…………………………………………. 30

Ancient comments on the titles of works……………………………………………………… 30
Name versus data………………………………………………………………………………………… 34
Titles of Epics, Tragedies and Comedies 35, Titles of the works of Plato
41, Proper name as title and subtitle in Cicero, Varro, and Apuleius 43

Metaphorical titles……………………………………………………………………………………….. 49
Pliny the Elder 50, Gellius 57

3. Remarks on the titles of selected books of poetry………………………………………… 60

Greek lyrics………………………………………………………………………………………………… 62
Catullus………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 64
Vergil…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 68
           Bucolica 68, Catalepton 70
Horace………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 71
Carmina 71, Epoden 73, Epistulae and Sermones 76
Propertius…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 78
Ovid……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 83
            Amores 83, Ars (Ovid and Horace) 84, Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, Epistulae Heroidum 87
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..90

Part II:
The organisation of texts (especially textbooks)
by table of contents, numbering and chapter headings

1.  Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………. 93
2. The different types of divisions………………………………………………………………….. 99
Necessary differences: between table of contents and chapter headings, between chapter headings and chapter divisions (Kapitelgliederung) ……………………………. 99
Tables of contents……………………………………………………………………………………… 106
Numbering of chapters and tables of contents…………………………………………….. 115
Excursus: The numbering of poems in a collection ……………………………….. 121
Chapter headings………………………………………………………………………………… 123

3. Investigations of individual cases……………………………………………………………..128

Cato and Varro, De re rustica…………………………………………………………………….. 128
Columella, De re rustica…………………………………………………………………………….. 131
The collected index and indices before individual books 131. The relationship between Argumenta and chapters and numbering 134, Chapter headings and their position in the text 138

Hyginus, De astronomia……………………………………………………………………………. 142
Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris…………………………………………………………………… 144
Palladius, De veterinaria medicina……………………………………………………………… 145
Isidore, Origines………………………………………………………………………………………..  146
Cassiodorus, De anima……………………………………………………………………………….. 150
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 153

Part III: Poem titles

1.  Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………… 161
Papyri 161, Manuscripts 170, Citation customs 172

2.  Investigation of authentic headings………………………………………………………..176
1.-3.AD…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 176
Martial (Books 13 und 14) 176, Statius, Silvae 180, Commodian, Instructions 189
4.-6.AD……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 193
Prosper of Aquitaine, Epigrammata 193, Paulinus of Nola, epist.32 (with excursus on Prudentius, Dittochaeon) 195, Psalms 196, Claudian, Carmina minora 198, Ausonius 199, Epigrammata Bobiensia 202, Ennodius 206, Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina 209, Luxurius 212

A brief look at the Middle Ages…………………………………………………………………… 219
Theodulf of Orleans 220, Hildebert of Lavardin 221, Godefrid of Winchester 222, Henry of Huntingdon 223

Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 224

3. Investigation into titles added later…………………………………………………………226

Vergil, Bucolica…………………………………………………………………………………………226
Excursus: Theocritus 236
Horace, Carmina……………………………………………………………………………………….239
Addressee 241, Description of content 245, technical terms (para<e>netice,
prosphonetice, pragmatice etc.) 249, Description of metre (tetracolos, dicolos etc.) 255, Observations on the manuscripts 256, Conclusions 261

Horace, Epoden, Sermones, Epistulae……………………………………………………….262
Remarks on Juvenal and Persius……………………………………………………………….268
Ovid………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 270
              Epistulae Heroidum 270, Epistulae ex Ponto 111, Amores 280, Tristia 282

Martial, books 1-12……………………………………………………………………………………283
Headings in ms. E (books 1-12) 284, Headings in ms. L (books 5-12) 288

Anthologia Latina…………………………………………………………………………………….. 293
Excursus: Anthologia Graeca 296
Poem titles in younger manuscripts…………………………………………………………… 298
Propertius 298, Catullus 301, Tibullus 303

Conclusion

Consolidated summary………………………………………………………………………….. 305
Chronological overview 305, Components of poem headings 306 (Proper name or
addressee and subject 307, genre and Absicht / Sprechakt 309), Form and language 309, Function 311, Transmission 314, Summary 316

Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………. 319
Notes on the Latin words for: ‘Work-/book-title’ 319, ‘Table of contents’ 323, ‘An element in a table of contents / chapter’ 325, ‘Heading / Poem heading’ 327

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………… 329
Index………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 345
Illustrations………………………………………………………………………………………………. 351

I ought to add that no page 351 appears in either of the two copies that I have seen, and there are no illustrations included in the volume.

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Alin Suciu on the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon / ‘Gospel of the Savior’

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Alin Suciu notes on his blog that he has successfully defended his PhD thesis.  The content of it is very interesting indeed, and thankfully he has made it available online here:

Apocryphon Berolinense/Argentoratense (Previously Known as the Gospel of the Savior). Reedition of P. Berol. 22220, Strasbourg Copte 5-7 and Qasr el-Wizz Codex ff. 12v-17r with Introduction and Commentary.

He notes:

My thesis is about a Coptic text which is largely known as the “Gospel” of the Savior. Although this titles suggests that the text is an uncanonical apocryphal gospel, literary evidences which I document in my thesis firmly indicate that the text does not belong to this genre, but it is rather one of the numerous “memoirs” of the apostles and disciples, which were composed in Coptic, most likely after the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). Sometimes, the pseudo-apostolic memoirs were incorporated into sermons attributed to the Fathers of the Coptic Church.

The fact that the text belongs to a well-defined genre, formed mostly of homilies with apocryphal insertions, has caused me to eschew the label “gospel,” which I find unsatisfactory and misleading. Instead, I have chosen to call the text the Apocryphon Berolinense/Argentoratense (ApoBA), after the location of the two main manuscripts. In fact, the label “apocryphon” is larger and more generous than “apocryphal gospel.”

The publication of the Berlin papyrus 22220, under the title of the “Gospel of the Savior” (by Paul Mirecki and Charles Hedrick) took place in 1999, and some notes upon it prior to that time, probably in 1998, were among my earliest online endeavours.  Those notes may be found here.

Rather foolishly the editors and/or their publisher decided to engage in a bit of Christian baiting in the press.  This must certainly have alienated a good many of those who might otherwise have purchased their book.  Papyrology owes its existence to massive public funding, raised for the purpose of discovering new words of Jesus at Oxyrhynchus, more than a century ago.  For papyrologists to indulge in religious animosity is to cut their own throats, and the discipline remains chronically underfunded.

Thankfully the serious Coptic scholars have come to the rescue of the text.  Few of us, after all, have a proper knowledge of Coptic literature; it is, indeed, hard to acquire in the absence of a decent handbook.   Alin Suciu’s knowledge of Coptic literature is already wide, and he has done excellent work on fragments.  The thesis that the work is an original Coptic composition of the 5-6th century, is one that few will rush to disagree with, or be equipped to do so.

It seems entirely sensible to use the neutral term “Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon”, rather than rushing to tangle the text up with the New Testament; although, as he rightly supposes, the use of the term “gospel” will linger in the literature and republications of translations for a while yet.

Like most people, I was unaware of the genre of the “memoirs of the apostles”, and this casts an interesting light on Coptic apocrypha in general.

The thesis is in English, but with a French abstract.  It contains a semi-diplomatic re-edition of the three Sahidic manuscripts: Berlin, Papyrussammlung, P. Berol. 22220; Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire, Copte 4-7a; Aswan, Nubian Museum, Special Number 168, ff. 12v-17r (= the Qasr el-Wizz codex), with introduction and commentary, plus a translation.  Suciu gives a detailed history of the find and reception of the text among scholars, and highlights the important work done by Coptologist Steven Emmel in analysing the text and recognising its connections to other work.

Recommended.  If you are interested in the work at all, get your copy now.  I have no doubt at all that this will become a book in short order.

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Armenian version of Chronicle of Michael the Syrian now in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This morning I received an email from Robert Bedrosian, the translator into English of a great number of Classical Armenian texts:

The English translation of Michael the Great’s Chronicle is now online.  It may be freely copied and distributed.

http://rbedrosian.com/Msyr/msyrtoc.html

This is incredibly good news!

The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian is the largest medieval chronicle.  It was composed in Syriac, and has come down to us in a single Syriac manuscript, of which the beginning is lost; some abbreviated Arabic versions, and a condensed version in Armenian, which alone preserves the opening portions of the work.

Wonderful!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have continued to work on Bianca-Jeanette Schröder’s book.  This evening I have finished translating the conclusion to the second part.  From it I conclude that that section is, I think, something I really will need to read in detail.  Tomorrow I shall begin on the conclusion to the third part.

I wonder if there is merit in placing these rough translations here?  German is so difficult for so many people that perhaps it would be of value.  The extracts are sufficiently small that I do not foresee a copyright problem (and if anyone cares, I could, of course, remove them).

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Reading a book in a language you don’t speak

Posted on by Roger Pearse

For my sins, which evidently must be worse than I had realised, I need to master the contents of an entire book in German.  The book in question is Bianca-Jeanette Schröder’s Titel und Text, with the subtitle: Zur Entwicklung lateinischer Gedichtüberschriften. Mit Untersuchungen zu lateinischen Buchtiteln, Inhaltsverzeichnissen und anderen Gliederungsmitteln.  It was published by De Gruyter in 1999, and is available for purchase at an eye-watering 150 euros, around $220.  It contains around 360 pages, and 8 plates.

My German is very poor, just like everyone else’s.  What on earth does one do?

Here’s what I am doing.  If anyone else has suggestions, I am very willing to hear them.

Well, the first thing I did was borrow the dratted thing from the library.  What else could one do?  Nobody on earth could afford to buy a copy.

The next thing I did was to run it through my scanner, and OCR it in Finereader.  Being a modern type-face it OCR’s quite well.  This gives me each page in the Finereader editor.

I now intend to create notes on the text in a Word document.  This will form a permanent record of what I find in this book.

This morning I have taken the table of contents, and pasted it into the Word document.  I have then pasted it into Google Translate, and, line by line, converted that table of contents in Word into English.  This gives me some idea of the structure of the book, down to a few pages.

The book is actually in three parts, each with a conclusion.  It looks to me as if translating the conclusions to each part, again with the assistance of Google Translate, might be the next step.  They seem fairly short; a couple of pages.  I can do this.

So far I have translated the conclusion to part 1.  It’s actually interesting stuff; but not what I need to know about (on the whole).  So I can probably ignore part 1.

Just starting on part 2.

Oh yes, what does that subtitle mean?  Well, I come up with this:

On the development of Latin poetry headings. With studies on Latin book titles, tables of contents, and other types of divisions (Gliederungsmitteln).

Should be interesting.  I hope.

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A saying from Polyaenus’ Strategems

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been looking at the Strategems of Polyaenus.  These exist in eight books, dedicated to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.  In book 8 I find the following:

30.  After Caesar had seen all his enemies subdued, he empowered every one of his soldiers to save the life of any Roman he pleased.  By this act of beneficence and humanity he ingratiated himself with his soldiers, and restored her exiled citizens to Rome.

31.  The statues of Pompey and Sulla, which had been demolished by their enemies, Caesar ordered to be replaced: an act of moderation which gained him much esteem.

These strategems reflect well the mind of C. Julius Caesar, who knew how to bind men to him.  Cicero records such political mildness, together with the ruthlessness that lay underneath it.

The translation that I found dates from 1793.  Is it really the case that no translation has been made since?

Mind you… I have yet to discover any edition of the Tactica of Aelian from later than 1855!  There must be one … mustn’t there?

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Saying grace before ….

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At the weekend, I ventured as far as the English coastal resort of Aldeborough.  Like all the little towns on the East Coast of England, it is gloomy and desolate for nine months of the year, its streets swept by the bitter weather that blows in from the North Sea.  But this weekend the sun shone out of a dusty blue sky, and the sea sparkled in the sun.

I parked in the high street, and walked towards the promenade.  On the way I looked into a little second-hand bookshop.  It was a single room, the corner of a little house.  Blocking out entirely one little window and visible from the street, never looked at, stood volumes bound from some gentleman’s library – cheap, useless books, like a Cicero interlinear, that no man would read without compulsion.

But amid the ruin of other men’s libraries, of one generation ago or two, I found a little volume of the Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb.  I leafed through it, and realised that I had never read more than a handful of these essays.  Finding the volume could be bought for less than three dollars, I bought it.

This evening I was reading the essay entitled Grace before meat, when, in his whimsical way, Lamb asked:

Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts–a grace before Milton–a grace before Shakespeare–a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Faerie Queen?

Of course Lamb does not mean it.  The idea is unthinkable to him.

And yet … what would happen if, before we picked up a book, we prayed?  If we thanked God for what we were about to receive, if we asked God to bless us, for what we were about to consume with our minds, if we asked Him to guard us against any poison lurking therein?

Nor do I mean only serious books; but also novels and magazines, the “light literature” with which we amuse ourselves.

Might it be beneficial?  At least sometimes?

We are what we eat, they say.  But are we not, more truly, what we read?

What if we likewise prayed before we sat down with an open internet browser, pouring words into our minds and our souls?

I make no rule here for anyone.  To do so is to forget He who said, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.”  No load of duties do I seek to impose on another.  Least of all do I wish anyone troubled by this.

It’s a thought, at least, that a grace before reading a blog might not be such a bad thing.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A very hot day here.  I have been converting an out-of-copyright Loeb into PDF format.  The book is old and worn, and the binding is loose with much use.  Yes, it is a library copy.

Yet somehow such old volumes have a charm of their own.  I did look to see if I might purchase one online, but only new copies are accessible.  New Loeb’s have a harshness about them.  One of my favourite Loebs is an old Juvenal, bought in Minehead in the west country for practically nothing.  It is long since superseded, in the eyes of librarians, but the softer prose of a century ago makes it far more agreeable than the harsh shouting of the modern translations I have elsewhere on my shelves.

Perhaps I shall recline, Roman-like, on my sofa later and read into that old Loeb.  Possibly with strawberries and cream.

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