The Aegritudo Perdicae, Edited with Translation and Commentary
The text of the Aegritudo Perdicae (a Latin epyllion in 290 hexameters, of uncertain date [perhaps fifth century A.D.] and authorship) depends on one fifteenth-century manuscript whose errors are multitudinous. From its editio princeps in 1877 to the present time, this difficult poem has received three editions and occasional snippets of exegesis, but otherwise little published work. The present dissertation includes a completely reconstituted text and apparatus criticus, with translation and commentary. The author proposes the following emendations: 7. aliisque, 67. et, 126. Oedipoden, 133. discusserat, 231. peruenitque, 249. sed quae (for the gloss iussisti), and 250. turpis. This is the first translation into any language, and its sole aim is to indicate what the author supposes the meaning to be; thus it serves as part of the commentary, and the commentary is itself all the shorter. This is also the first commentary, and it provides a considerable stock of materials for the elucidation and illustration of the text. Its purpose is to discuss textual problems, to begin a collection of parallels (in vocabulary, phraseology, and themes), and to comment on various points of grammar, style, and metric.
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