The Characters of Theophrastus [PDF]

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THE

CHARACTERS OF

THEOPHRASTUS NEWLY EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY

J. M. EDMONDS SOMETIME FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE AMD LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

CAM BRIDGE,

HARVARD

MASSACHUSETTS

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

LONDON

W IL L IA M H EIN EM AN N LTD MCMLXVII

CONTENTS PAGH

P reface

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vii

I ntroduction — First printed 1929 Reprinted 1946,1953,1961,1967

i. The Book and its Author ii. The Text . . B ibliography .

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.

A lphabetical G reek acters

A ncient I ndex and

of

I ndex

. .

.

of

the

3 .1 1

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31

C har ­

of

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E nglish T itles . .

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34 35

T r a n s l a t io n .................................................. 36

G eneral I ndex I ndex

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........................................................................33

C omparative I ndex

T ext

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G reek W ords,

127

containing th e prin ­

cipal C R U C E S ...........................................................132

Printed in Great Britain

V

PREFACE T he Characters of Theophrastus are a good wine that needs no bush, but it has been bottled anew, and new bottles may need a word of recommendation. The mere existence o f an early English translation such as Healey’s would hardly justify an archaistic rendering, but the Character, in the hands of Hall, Overbury, and Earle, has become a native genre, and that, I think, is enough to make such a rendering the most palatable. And this style o f translation, taunts of ‘ Wardour Street ’ notwithstanding, has a great advantage. Greek, being itself simple, goes best into a simple style of English ; and in the seventeenth century it was still easy to put things simply without making them bald. A simple trans­ lation into our modern dialect, if it is to rise above Translator’s English, is always difficult and often unattainable. In preparing the text I have discarded much of my earlier work, in the belief, shared no doubt by many scholars, that the discovery of papyrus frag­ ments of ancient Greek books has shifted the editor’s bearings from Constantinople to Alexandria. With the ‘ doctrine of the normal line,’ exploded by A. C. Clark, went much critical lumber, and the dust is only just beginning to clear. The peculiar char-

vii

PREFACE acter of this text, with its recurring καί and its natural toleration o f displacement, makes it an excellent corpus vile to experiment on. It would be too much to hope that my readers will come away from my Introduction as confident as I am that our mss. go back to an 11-letter line archetype, but I cannot help feeling that there is a plausibility in the emendations I have based upon my hypothesis which is not to be found in the others. My thanks are due to F. C. Burkitt, A. C. Clark, A. B. Cook, A. E. Housman, A. S. Hunt, and R. D. Hicks, for generous help o f various kinds ; I grate­ fully acknowledge my indebtedness to the labours of D. Bassi, W. Cronert, O. Immisch, O. Navarre, and G. Pasquali; I would thank Isaac Casaubon if I could and if I dared. J. M. E dmonds.

T H E CHARACTERS OF

C a m b r id g e ,

15th July 1927.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST REPRINT B esides a few minor corrections this edition contains

three more important changes, θίαινων for at XVI. 11 and two truer renderings in XXV. In II, IV, V, and X there are new references to the Comic Fragments. Some of these changes are due to my friend Mr. F. H. Sandbach. J. Μ. E. C a m b r id g e ,

16th February 1944.

THEOPHRASTUS

INTRODUCTION I. T he B ook

and its

A uthor

L ike other unique products o f the human spirit, this great little book has aroused much speculation among those who not knowing how a thing is done must needs find out why. Some measure o f re-editing it certainly underwent in after life—mending rather than emending, or the thin disguise o f the name Alexander would not have been maintained after the necessity for it—political apparently— had ceased.® The first editor was in all probability the author. That Theophrastus collected and edited these pieces himself substantially in the order in which we have them, is suggested by certain signs o f artistic de­ velopment which we may observe in comparing the earlier as a whole with the later. First, the earlier characters are generally the sketchier, not more carelessly drawn but less completely coloured. No. I is any (Athenian) dissembler, and his dissemblings manifold and anywhere (Athenian). Dissembling is a sepia-wash. With the exception o f V III, the Newsmaker, of whom presently, the same is true, “ xxiii. 3 ; for editing in the Peripatetic School c /. Lycon’s will (died 225), Diog. Laert. v. 73, and Arcesilaus’ unpopular revision of Crantors works, ibid. iv. 32, cf. vii. 34 ; and see Barth61emy-St. Hilaire’s Dissertation prefixed to his transla­ tion of the Aristotelian Problems, Paris, 1891.

3

THEOPHRASTUS

INTRODUCTION

more or less, o f all the Characters till we come to X X III. They, too, are sepia-washes or, at the most, tinted drawings. Pretentiousness, however, has fewer and larger parts ; and Cowardice, its next-door neighbour but one, though it is one o f the longest, contains only two scenes. These are water-colours ; and o f the last eight Characters no less than five are o f this kind. Secondly, there is development in the smaller matters o f style. I f we divide the book into three equal parts, (a), (b), and (c), we find that though Seivos appears equally in all, o?o