Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/49

 r On Lucretius. 39 &c. why not read ne forte Ids, the poet's constant phrase, instead of ne poteis ? I. 753 755. All that is here required to emend the passage is to read utque for utqui ; so vi. 1007, MSS. have utqui for utque, the most common perhaps of blunders ; funditus belongs to mortali; the .construction is of course hue accedit item. . . utque debeat. . . de niloque, &c. d naturally inter- changes with cl and ct, as in. 321, noctis for nobis : so iv. 632, I would read with Marullus humectum for humidum rather than humidulum. n. 456 463 occurs a very difficult passage, in which every preceding editor has introduced many violent alter- ations. Two words are certainly corrupt, saxa in 460, and sedatum in 462 ; and I think that the passage will be intelli- gible if only these two words are emended. Lucretius is speak- ing of things which are pungent, but whose parts have little cohesion, as smoke, mists, flame ; for sedatum I propose to read sic latum ; but what word is to take the place of saxa ? Flames may be said pungere corpus, but I hardly see how smoke and mists do so ; but if we read fauces for saxa, the passage will be intelligible ; saxa becomes first sacsa ; f and s, a and e also per- petually interchange ; then the u has to be accounted for. I have often noticed an u wrongly inserted, or omitted, as yi. 1285, fauces for faces; on the other hand, at for aut, agmine for augmine, and i. 469, if my conjecture is right, terris for Teucris. I will here emend another corrupt passage, v. 154 ; for tenues de corpore eorum, I read tenues ceu corpora eorum, c and d, a and e again interchanging, and u being added. Thus flames will pungere corpus ; smoke and mist penetrare fauces, and all equally will not cohere, "so that you may easily know, that that which we see applied in this fashion to the senses, consists" &c. o often interchanges with ci, ec, &c. Lachmann, in. 620, rightly reads perfectis for pertotis; i. 321, Lachmann's spatium is not very forcible ; I should almost prefer to read spem omnem (speuem) instead of speciem, Lucretius being singularly fond of the elision of monosyllables like spem. Lachmann's emendations of the corrupt passage, n. 902, &c. are violent and not satisfac- tory, for ex aliis with his reading has no sense ; I would propose to read sueta for sueti, the i at the end of the two preceding verses having probably caught the eye of the copyist; and 904, que haze for cum, i.e. quec, quo, quom; "they who maintain that the sensible can be produced from sensible elements, make