THE FAYUM FRAGMENTS
In the Egyptian Museum at Berlin there are some ancient manuscripts which were bought in the summer of 1879, and which are believed to have come from Medînet-el-Fayûm in Central Egypt, near the ancient Arsinoë or Crocodilopolis. A tiny scrap of parchment among these was deciphered by Professor F. Blass of Kiel, and described by him with much minuteness in the Rheinisches Museum for 1880, vol. xxxv. pp. 287-290. Through the kindness of Dr. Erman, the Director of the Museum, and Professor of Egyptian Archæology in the University, I have been favoured with photographs of each side of this piece of parchment, exactly the size of the original. These have been reproduced in facsimile by the Autotype Company upon the accompanying plate. Some of the minutiæ of the manuscript are lost in the copy, but it gives a fair general idea of the precious relic, and exhibits the manner in which it has been torn and perforated and defaced. It also shows some of the difficulties with which those who decipher ancient manuscripts have to contend. Few, at the first glance, would guess how much could be made out of so little.
The letters on each side of the parchment are clearly written, punctuated, and accented. They appear to belong to the eighth century A.D., so that the writing is at least a thousand years old. The actual letters are these, those which are not decipherable with certainty being marked off by brackets:—
| (A.) | δωσην | (B.) | θεθυμομ |
| ύτωνμέντ' επ | μιπάμπαν | ||
| άλων κἄσλων· (σ | δύναμαι | ||
| · λοις. λυτης τε μ | |||
| 5 | μ' ονειδος | 5 | ασκενῆμοι |
| οιδήσαις. επι τ (α | ς) αντιλάμπην | ||
| ἰα(νἄσαιο. το γαρ | λονπροσωπον | ||
| μ) ονουκ' ούτω (μ | |||
| διάκηται· | γχροΐσθεις | ||
| 10 | μ (ηδ | 10 | ... (ρος |
The two fragments, distinguished by Blass as A. and B., occur, the one on the front, the other on the back of the scrap of parchment. They were edited by Bergk, in the fourth (posthumous) edition of his Poetae Lyrici Graeci, 1882, vol. iii. pp. 704, 705. Blass ascribed the verses to Sappho, and he is still of opinion that they are hers, from the metre, the dialect, and 'the colour of the diction,' to use his own expression in a letter to me.
Indeed, every word of them makes one feel that no poet or poetess save Sappho could have so exquisitely combined simplicity and beauty. Bergk, however, prints them as of uncertain origin, fragmenta adespota (56 A., 56 B). He agrees with Blass that they are in the Lesbian dialect and the Sapphic metre, but he thinks that they may have been written by Alcaeus. Bergk's decision partly rests upon the statement of Suidas, that Horapollo, the Greek grammarian, who first taught at Alexandria and afterwards at Constantinople, in the reign of Theodosius, about 400 A.D., wrote a commentary on Alcaeus; but he gives no reason for believing that these Fayum manuscripts necessarily come from Alexandria: their history is very uncertain. Blass thinks that the greater fame, especially in later times, of Sappho, strongly favours his own view. To my mind there is little doubt that we have herein none but her very words.
A restoration of such imperfect fragments must needs be guess-work. Bergk has, however, attempted it in part, and he has accepted the emendations of Blass in lines 3-5 of fragment A. Bücheler, one of the editors of the Rheinisches Museum, has also expressed his views with regard to some of the lines; but they are not endorsed by the authority of Bergk. According to the latter distinguished scholar, fragment A may have run thus:—
1
δοκίμοις χάριν μοι οὐκ ἀπυδώσην·
κλύτων μέν τ' ἐπτερύγης
κάλων κἄσλων
φίλοις, λύπης τέ με κἀπορίπτης
5
εἰς εμ' ὄνειδος.
ἦ κεν οἰδήσαις, ἐπί τ' αἶγ' ἀμέλγων
Σκυρίαν ἄσαιο· τὸ γαρ νόημα
τὦμον οὐκ οὔτω μαλακόφρον, ἔχθρως
τοῖς διάκηται.
10
μηδ'
In which case it might have had this meaning:—
Thou seemest not to care to return my favour; and indeed thou didst fly away from famous ... of the fair and noble ... to thy friends, and painest me, and castest reproach at me. Truly thou mayst swell, and sate thyself with milking a goat of Scyros. For my mood is not so soft-hearted to those soever to whom it is disposed unfriendly ... nor ....
The words which are here italicised are those which alone are extant in full in the manuscript; the others are only plausible guesses, though some of them are indicated by the existence of accents and portions of letters.
Bergk's ingenious restoration of lines 6 and 7 is founded on a fragment of Alcaeus (fr. 110), wherein Chrysippus explains αἴξ Σκυρία, a goat of Scyros, as a proverb of those who spoil kindness (ἐπὶ τῶν τὰς εὐεργεσίας ἀνατρεπόντων), as a goat upsets her milking pail (ἐπειδὴ πολλάκις τὰ ἀγγεῖα ἀνατρέπει ἡ αἴξ). Blass would, however, complete the phrase thus:—
ἐπὶ τ (ᾷ τε λώβᾳ
καρδ) ίαν ἄσαιο,
And with the outrage sate thy heart.
Disappointing as this is, the restoration of fragment B. is yet more hopeless. Authorities are agreed as to the position of the words in the Sapphic stanza, thus:—
θε θῦμον
μι πάμπαν
δύναμαι
5
ἆς κεν ἦ μοι
ἀντιλάμπην
κά) λον πρόσωπον
συ) γχροΐσθεις
10
ἔται) ρος.
The only additions hazarded by Bergk, or accepted by him from Blass, are given on the left of the brackets. Bergk says that δύναμαι (as if
; cf. fr. [13]) is an old form of the conjunctive for δύνωμαι. He reads line 5, ἆς κεν ἦ μοι, comparing Theocritus, 29, 20, ἆς κεν ἔρης, 'as long as thou lovest': Bergk and Blass alike consider ἠ as a later form of ᾖ. The words may mean:
... soul ... altogether ... I should be able ... as long indeed as to me ... to flash back ... fair face ... stained over ... friend.
But in the absence of any context the very meaning of the separate words is uncertain.
Bergk thinks that the fragments belong to different poems, unless we read fragment A. after fragment B.; there is nothing on the parchment to indicate sequence.
In fragment B. it will be seen that a space occurs in each place where the last (or Adonic) verses of each Sapphic stanza would have been, as if they had been written more to the left in the manuscript; they probably therefore ranged with the long lines, of which we have only some of the last syllables preserved. Indenting the shorter verses is a modern fashion; the ancient way was to begin each one at the same distance from the margin.