Toward a New Interlinear Gloss of De Rerum Natura

Looks like a great start -- how do we know where to break the lines?

I am so excited too see how this project shakes out! I see some applications for myself! Thanks for being the trailblazer, Joshua !!

Quote from JJElbert

Good question...

Or for that matter, and this may be worse than line breaks, is knowing where to do sentence and paragraph breaks. At some point maybe there's not much choice other than deciding on an authority to copy (smith is latest, but Bailey and Munro are public domain).

I've also noted in some of my transcriptions that even the latin text itself between Munro and bailey and smith is not uniform, so there's that too.

Any way you can use one of the text versions posted to Internet Archive? It would probably require some editing but might include more options?

I was considering doing an interlinear of the Principal Doctrines or the Letter to Menoikeus until I remembered the Epicurus Wiki did a good job on both: http://wiki.epicurism.info/Main_Page/ I'll keep working on my in-depth analysis of the Letter and possibly integrate some interlinear text there.

Don, this applies more to your work with the Greek than it does to the Lucretius, but it really applies to both:

Tonight I have finished adding line numbers to my online copy of Bailey's "Epicurus the Extant remains here: http://epicuruscollege.com/coursematerial…Extant-Remains/

You will see that I have gone through the Bailey edition here and added the page numbers at "approximately" the right place such as this:

What I am wondering is, does anyone here know how to evaluate the line numbers that Bailey is using? I see (I think) that they do match the Loeb edition, so I think his system is consistent with others. However what i can't tell is whether these numbers refer to "lines" of the greek text on the page, or somehow full Greek sentences, or what. Do the lines in the Greek "original" have clearly demarcated sentences with some form of "period" or is everyone reconstructing where sentences stop according to their own view of what makes sense.

I chose to post the PD example above because I've read over the years that the 1-40 numbers are not in the original, and that they were added sometime later (when? by whom?) Can we tell anything about how the PDs were originally divided (if at all) by the Greek line numbers.

We're going to have the same questions about the Lucretius text but I suspect the answers will be significantly different.

Any thoughts?

I will tag Elli here because I suspect she maybe has the best feel for this, at least as to DL.

Also Joshua I am seeing that Smith adopted a significantly different division of paragraphs than did Bailey. That's good since Bailey often seems to have produced a wall of text, and so I am applying Smith's line/paragraph numbers to Bailey's text and redividing it to produce something more reasonable.

But who is to say that Smith's paragraphs are right and Bailey's are wrong? Is there a way to answer that question?

If you look at the end of the Arundel manuscript of Diogenes Laertius, you don't see any numbers... Just the text

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…l_ms_531_fs001r

I don't know when the traditional numbering started.

Quote from JJElbert

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Beginning with Usener, the doctrines are enumerated as forty individual sayings.

http://wiki.epicurism.info/Principal_Doctrines/

Wow! So not until the late 1800s? That's very interesting. Before that they were just the Principal Doctrines with no number attached then it looks like?

Quote from JJElbert

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The Greek/Latin edition of 1692 by Marcus Meibomius divided each of the ten books into paragraphs of equal length, and progressively numbered them, providing the system still in use today.

Via Wikipedia.

So it looks like the length of the paragraph was the determining factor. I know this is the case with the Letter to Menoikeus because there's no rhyme or reason with the breaks for the verses/paragraphs/settings.

Quote from Don

Before that they were just the Principal Doctrines with no number attached then it looks like?

It seems to me that i have read it theorized that they were never numbered in the ancient world at all, and that it was read like a book, like the letter to menoeceus, and in fact what we consider the 40 doctrines may well be one of the books of Epicurus that Cicero refers to as -- gosh what was it -- the "celestial book?" This is definitely something that i've always wanted to pursue because I think the numbering is a MAJOR problem for interpretation, especially for what we consider to be 3 and 4, which I think ought all to be read together and probably closely in context of 2. Splitting them apart really adds to the problem with making sense of them

Quote from JJElbert

But Usener evidently had a profound dislike for Diogenes Laertius!

Now THAT i have never heard. Do you gather it was for more than the standard criticism that DL was a gossiper more than philosopher?

Quote from Cassius

It seems to me that i have read it theorized that they were never numbered in the ancient world at all, and that it was read like a book, like the letter to menoeceus, and in fact what we consider the 40 doctrines may well be one of the books of Epicurus that Cicero refers to as -- gosh what was it -- the "celestial book?" This is definitely something that i've always wanted to pursue because I think the numbering is a MAJOR problem for interpretation, especially for what we consider to be 3 and 4, which I think ought all to be read together and probably closely in context of 2. Splitting them apart really adds to the problem with making sense of them

Now THAT might be an interesting project: to reconstruct the "book" of the Principle Doctrines... Or would that be deconstruct the "numbered list"?

Yes I think it's probably as simple as just combining all the sentences into one long document, finding some logical divisions of topic, and then thinking about how the points "flow" from start to finish without thinking that they are somehow isolated theorems.

For example the aspect of 2 referring the death as the absence of sensation seems naturally very related to the following additional points about sensation of pain and pleasure. They're all focused on the role of sensation as the key guiding principle rather than gods, and it detracts from to consider them to be isolated and as if raising pleasure and pain where totally unrelated to the "all good and evil comes to us through sensation" -- all o that together could well be better seen as a big-picture whole.

I know there's a reference in Cicero, perhaps to Torquatus but might be in Tusculun disputations, where he talks about the Epicureans memorizing his doctrines but it's referrred to as a "book" -- I think that's the "celestial book" referenced.

Edit: Looks like I am thinking about the book on the Canon being the "celestial" one, but I know also there is a reference in Cicero jibing someone about reading his book of doctrines.

Looks like it is Lucian I am remembering, so the issue would be the word in Lucian's Greek --

In DL book 10, paragraph 28 is the list of Epicurus' books; seventh in the list is Chief Maxims (Mensch translation).

Sure wish we had some of the books in that list!