Orphica (Argonautica, Hymni, Lithica)

[au]thority can exist in such a great state of confusion among the Homeric poems. And generally, if one asks about the consistency and uniformity in the use of words in Homer, that consistency is threefold: first, that of each individual poet whose songs were woven into the Homeric works; second, that of all those poets, or at least the majority of them; and third, that of the grammarians. Thus, it is perhaps due to the grammarians that the word speak original Greek: ἔπω (epō) is nowhere found in Homer. Since later epic poets occasionally use this form, we must consider whether they drew it, like certain other things, from the teachings of the grammarians or from more ancient poets—just as perhaps this verse,

original Greek: ὄφρ' εἴπω, τά με θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσι κελεύει

might not require a legendary author. Therefore, in this category, since both the editors diasceuastae: ancient scholars who revised, rearranged, or interpolated lines into the Homeric texts and the grammarians have stirred up marvelous confusion, I believe the critical art in certain matters can progress even beyond the Alexandrians The Alexandrian scholars (like Aristarchus) were the first to systematically edit Homer in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE; Hermann suggests modern critics can be even more precise.—not so that the critic may continually dare to change the text, but so that he may at least point out what is not truly Homeric. For why not? However much we have received a version of Homer that is changed and different from its original appearance, it is necessary that most of it remains intact and genuine. Otherwise, we would neither have Homer at all, nor could we notice that massive discrepancy which exists not only in the diction—by which we mean more than just the use of certain words—but in the subject matter itself, in the very shape of the poetry, in the whole color of the songs, and sometimes even in the very purpose of the poets.

If these things are true, a critic would perhaps not be playing a foolish game if he attempted to join together parts that had been poorly torn apart and, by loosening the current structure of the rhapsodies rhapsodies: the individual books or songs of the Iliad and Odyssey, tried to indicate the original form of the poems. For just as those who are experienced in the study of ancient statues easily distinguish if something has been added by a different artist, or if a lost limb from one statue has been attached to another, why should we not do the same with Homer? This is possible if you have come to know him through accurate reading, and if you do not too disdainfully despise the changes, the rejections original Greek: ἀθετήσεις (atheteseis)—editorial marks used by ancient critics to signal that a line was likely fake, the doubts original Greek: ἀπορίαι (aporiai)—textual puzzles or contradictions noted by ancient scholars of the grammarians, or the well-timed warnings found in the scholiasts scholiasts: ancient commentators who wrote explanatory notes (scholia) in the margins of manuscripts and Eustathius Eustathius of Thessalonica was a 12th-century archbishop and scholar known for his massive commentary on Homer.. Sometimes also, though more rarely, one must consider the Aeolic digamma digamma: an obsolete Greek letter (Ϝ) that functioned like a 'w' sound; its disappearance left "gaps" in the meter that modern scholars use to reconstruct the oldest layers of Greek poetry, by which alone not