Symposium

Block III: 186a–192e (Burnet pages 20–28)

How it was made. Burnet pages 20–28 (scan pp. 184–192), 256 lines, from Eryximachus’ account of the double Love in medicine, music, the seasons and divination, with his two Loves set beside two Muses, through the exchange in which Aristophanes, his hiccup cured by a sneeze, fears to be ridiculous rather than laughable, to Aristophanes’ speech: the three round kinds of human being, their attempt on the gods, Zeus’ cutting and Apollo’s healing, the halves that seek each other, and Hephaestus’ question to two lovers, which is still unfinished where the block ends at 192e4. The Greek was set line for line from the photographs of Burnet’s page, with his apparatus, and the English written and annotated in the approved voice; independent reviewers then checked the Greek and the apparatus against the photographs letter by letter, the English against the Greek clause by clause, and every note and the extended Editorial Note against their sources.

What the reviewers caught. The Greek text was confirmed letter by letter on all nine pages, with its capitals for the god’s name, its blank lines and its quotation marks. One point was wrongly set: the mark after ἀλλήλοις at 191a7, which the draft read as a full stop, has the shape of the page’s comma heads, not of its full stops, and is a comma whose tail did not print, as the sentence requires. Three forms in the apparatus were corrected to what Burnet prints: T’s ἐνεστον at 187e8, with a breathing and no accent, an apparent misprint, which is kept; ὦγαθὲ with a circumflex for T and W at 189a7; and B’s ἓν ὂν εἴδει at 189e4, with a rough breathing. Every doubtful mark the draft had left open was measured against sure examples on its page: the marks at 186b6, 186b9, 186c5 and 191b7 are specks, those at 187a6 and 192c4 a reader’s pencil, and the comma of “c 3, 4”, Ruhnken’s ὄα, W’s ὠὰ and B and T’s ὠιὰ without the iota subscript, B’s αυτῶν, the crasis ἅνθρωποι and the breathing of αὑτὴ stand as transcribed. In the English, the words of Zeus, which the draft had set in double quotation marks inside Aristophanes’ speech, are now in single marks, as Hephaestus’ and Heraclitus’ are, and so is “the medical” at 186c3. At 187d4–6 those not yet orderly are the subject of “may become more orderly”, not a second group to be gratified. Seven Stephanus markers were moved (187a, 187e, 188c, 189b, 190b, 191b, 191e). Places where the English said more or less than the Greek were corrected: πρὸς τοὺς καλούς is “toward the beautiful ones”, persons (186a4); the sneeze is applied “to that part”, the orderly part of the body (αὐτῷ, 189a5); Apollo is named at 190e5, where the Greek changes subject; ἠφανίζετο, without Ast’s ἄν, is “were vanishing” (190c5); “made up from both” (ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων) is restored at 189e3, and “besides” (ἄλλης) at 191a8; and “Having taken your shot” (189b8) belongs to the subject, as the participle does. Renderings were brought into line: ἰατρός “doctor” at 189d1, as at 185d1; ὠγαθέ “my good friend”; βέλτιστος “most excellent”, as at 177b2; συμπλοκή “intertwining”, with συμπλέκεσθαι “twine”; κοινός “common to both”, kept apart from πάνδημος “Common” (191d6); συντήκω “fuse”, as at 183e6, and συμφυσᾶν “forge together” (192d8–e1); and love is lower case at 189c4, where Burnet prints ἔρωτος. Small words were restored (καί, δή, γε), and twelve phrases that followed Lamb’s Loeb translation were reworded, with one in Block II (185c6).

In the notes, Otus and Ephialtes in Homer only meant to pile the mountains, and Apollo killed them before they were grown; Eryximachus’ Muses are no longer called the mothers of his Loves, since the Greek says only “the Love of the Heavenly Muse”; the androgyne is shown to be a word of abuse from Aeschines, and the hetairistriai are glossed as LSJ glosses them; Hippolytus’ fuller quotation of Heraclitus is in other words; the Asclepiads and the tally are given their sources; and the manuscripts’ pōs at 187c7 is glossed by the accent Burnet prints. Three notes were added, on Stobaeus’ “still” at 190d4 and W’s “allows” at 187e8, readings that change the sense, and on the smith’s word at 192e1. In the Editorial Note, Hephaestus’ words are shown to close at 192e5, on the next page; the second senses of ex and s. v., at 190d7, are given; Eusebius is cited from his Preparation for the Gospel (12.12), where he quotes the cutting as well as the first human beings; and the Vienna manuscript Vindob. 21 is dated.