Sekker''s Digammatcd Text of Homer, 1Y5 



But our object at present is to consider only one feature of the work 

 — its introduction of the digamma. The objectors genei'ally admit 

 that the digamma-sound (the v, or rather the t<7-sound) belonged orig- 

 inally to the Homeric j^oems, and that it is proper in commentaries 

 and other philological works to point out the traces of its existence 

 and to discuss the extent of its use. But they object to a digam- 

 matcd text. They maintain with much plausibility that the poems 

 from their first reduction to Avriting have never shown this letter; 

 and that the attempt to go back, not only beyond the first manu- 

 scripts that Ave have, but beyond the first that ever existed, can have 

 no reasonable hope of success. At any rate, they say, the case is 

 not yet ripe for a digammatcd text. In regard to many words it is 

 still uncertain whether they were or were not sounded with a digam- 

 ma in the Homeric time ; and in regard to many Avhich certainly were 

 so, it is doubtful whether they were uniformly sounded with this 

 letter, or whether it was not sometimes omitted in pronunciation. 

 If we take words which certainly had a digamma in the Homeric lan- 

 guage, and attempt to represent them uniformly with this letter, we 

 must make many violent and arbitrary changes of the text. If we 

 adopt the j^rinciple of giving them with digamma wherever it can be 

 done without such changes, we have to draw an i;ncertain line be- 

 tween changes which are violent and changes which are not so. And 

 whichever of these courses we take, we can have no assurance that 

 we are reproducing the genuine Homeric usage. It is impossible to 

 deny the force of these objections. But their force would be much 

 greater, if by the decree of fate the world were restricted to one 

 printed text of Homer, just this and no more. In that case we should 

 say without hesitation, give us a text which comes as nearly as possi- 

 ble to that which Aristarchus — following, as we know that he did, 

 with great soberness and caution, the testimony of the best manu- 

 scripts that he could find — fixed upon as the true one ; or, if you 

 depart from that, do so only when there is decisive evidence to war- 

 rant the departure. As a basis for Homeric study, as a standard for 

 general use and reference, a text thus constituted is the best that we 

 can have. But we are by no means restricted to a single text. For 

 general purposes, we may continue to use Bekker's first edition, or 

 w^e may take, what difliers very little from it, the text of Dindorf in 

 Teubner's Bibliotheca, or any better one which we can find con- 

 structed on the same principles. But Bekker's second edition will still 

 have its value as a tentative, to show how far the principle of analogy, 

 in the hands of a consummate critic, Avill serve to correct and improve 



