Elegies II (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Tibullus: Elegies II. With introduction and commentary Thomas A. Suits Paul Murgatroyd, ed. Tibullus: Elegies II. With introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. xx + 305 pp. Cloth, $65.00. This is the companion volume to Murgatroyd’s Tibullus I (Pietermaritzburg, 1980) and with it forms the first detailed commentary on the poet since Kirby Flower Smith’s 1913 edition. The editor has been better served by the Clarendon than the University of Natal Press in that the quality of production is superior and the layout less huddled. Users will want to have access to Tibullus I, however, since Murgatroyd makes regular reference to it. In the main, the new volume follows the pattern of its predecessor; but since the latter received relatively little critical notice in English-language periodicals, it seems appropriate to describe principal features, especially where they represent a change from Murgatroyd’s previous practice. General matters received attention in the introduction to Tibullus I, and so the introduction here is brief, addressing the question of the completeness of this extraordinarily short libellus, its structure, and its main characters. The text is essentially Postgate’s 1915 OCT, without apparatus but rather with the handful of departures discussed in a critical appendix. The commentary itself is bulky—254 pages on only 430 verses, or an average of more than a page per distich. (By way of comparison, the commentary in Tibullus I averages just over half a page per distich.) Each elegy has an introductory essay; each of the five to nine sections into which Murgatroyd divides a poem receives its own introduction; and each distich is discussed separately in detail. All this is rather daunting, and few, other than reviewers, are likely to work through the whole, but there is something to engage readers wherever they decide to dip into it. As befits a commentary on a poet whose Alexandrianism is becoming ever more appreciated, Murgatroyd’s work exhibits both sensitivity [End Page 498] and sophistication. In what follows I touch on some of the book’s leitmotifs, in an attempt to convey its general character. There is naturally a vast store of material illustrative of both language and subject matter, selected from predecessors (the debt to Smith is considerable, though he is not followed in his predilection for copious parallels from modern vernacular literatures) and augmented by the editor, in part through diligent use of the TLL and OLD. Unlike Tibullus I, this volume provides English translations for the relatively few Greek quotations. My extensive samplings suggest a rare degree of accuracy in the citations. In his interpretations, Murgatroyd will often leave open a number of possibilities: e.g., “may refer to . . . or . . . or . . . may denote . . . or . . . could be . . . or . . . may mean . . . or . . . if . . .” is the wording in one short paragraph on 2.3.1–2. Again, he will lay before the reader a whole menu of possible senses, as he does for nubilus (on 2.5.75–76); it is salutary to be reminded of the wide range of possible connotations, even where one seems to deserve clear preference. A similar lack of dogmatism characterizes Murgatroyd’s many attempts to describe rhythmic and sound effects. Conscious of how subjective these can be, he always couches them guardedly, as (on 2.4.7–10), “the sudden preponderance of spondees and assonance involving long vowels seem to me to have an air of dejection and weariness.” Likewise, he is appropriately cautious in his frequent suggestions of possible etymological plays (here building on F. Cairns, Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome [Cambridge 1979] 90–99); the general phenomenon, in any case, is clearly established, even if particular instances may be in doubt. Another recurrent type of note seeks to establish instances where Tibullus was the first to use a word in a new sense or to use a particular word combination (iunctura). Although the accidents of preservation make absolute claims in this area impossible, Murgatroyd makes an impressive case for Tibullus’ inventiveness. He is on more solid ground in his analyses of artistry in the word arrangement in individual lines and distichs. He has a very keen sense for this and demonstrates an impressive variety of...