A Note on Statius "Silvae" 4.9.13

I PROPOSE to substitute cocunt for MS reading colunt, as I have indicated in preceding article (Interpretations of Catullus-II, pp. 30-36) As will be evident from note 2 therein, Heinsius' suggestion of olent was made casually in a private letter, was expressed tentatively, and was supported by no argument save consideration of euphony. I have noted, in pages just referred to, how emendation to olent takes for granted whole conception of Roman ways with paper in relation to fish which modern scholars use it to defend. My article on Catullus attempts to demolish those explicit or unspoken assumptions. On palaeographical side, olent seems to me weak; whereas, considered purely palaeographically, cocunt (besides its intrinsic superiority) receives strong support from text of Martial 13.115, where, of alternatives coluntur AA and cocuntur BACA, second is accepted by Lindsay. As between cocunt and coquunt, former (found in manuscripts of authors of all periods) is authentic spelling despite arguments of ancient grammarians for changing it on analogist principles: see Priscian 2.504.1 (GLK) and discussions quoted in ThLL 4.925. When Statius says (if cocunt is right) that enclosing poems cook fish, he is of course using a condensed expression or, to put it another way, he is taking a liberty with strict meaning of a word. It will be granted that this kind of audacity is anything but rare in Statius. I have myself collected a sizeable list of examples, of which following are only a few: in Siluae 4.2, besides coronatis lustris at verse 62, in verse 4 [Homer] consumpsit Ulixem; latter phrase has a close relative at Siluae 2.7.77 et qui perfreta duxit Argonautas, where, as late Robert J. Getty wrote to me shortly before his sudden and lamented death, the situation [instrument instead of natural agent as verb's subject] is reversed, for Argo or nauis would be a natural subject for duxit: however Statius makes subject 'the poet of an Argonautica,' whoever he was. In Achilleid we find, for example, at 1.543 (of Ulysses)fecundum erige pectus, at 1.594 admissum caelo nemus; and an even bolder manipulation of meaning occurs in 2.26 ibat et ipsafreto, of one who (physically at least) stays on land. A like liberty is often taken in Thebaid, e.g

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