176 Behher's Digammated Text of Homer. 



the text of Homer which has come down to us by tradition from the 

 ancient Alexandrine editors. And especially with reference to the 

 digamma it will have a value of this kind, as showing what results 

 can be secured by an intelligent, moderate, and cautious attempt to 

 reinstate the long-lost Homeric letter. On this point the editor him- 

 self says in his brief and pithy preface : " The Aeolic letter, after it 

 had disappeared through time and negligence, was by the marvellous 

 sagacity of Bentley reclaimed from oblivion ; but lay thus for a long 

 time, ridiculed by wits, by scholars invidiously assailed or unintelli- 

 gently defended [the last evidently a hit at Payne Knight]. By 

 Heyne it was admitted, at least into his commentary. The indispens- 

 able uses of this letter I could no longer treat with contempt. I have 

 therefore restored the digamma, but so far only as I had the pov/er 

 and right to do, proceeding cautiously and with moderated step : I 

 have restored it to its own place, as indicated by manifest traces, 

 not by eager wishes or by hasty assumptions of my own." 



This language is fully bome out by an inspection of the book. 

 The carefulness and conscientiousness of the editor are everywhere 

 apparent. In deciding what words are to be regarded as having 

 the digamma, he relies mainly on the indications of the Homeric 

 verse. From this it follows as a natural consequence that he recog- 

 nizes only an initial digamma. Thus he writes ^toj of Zeus, xhfig 

 Tcey, oig shee}), not -^/tFo?, xi-f]7lg, oFig, though there is strong reason, 

 derived from inscriptions or from later dialects or from cognate 

 tongues, for believing that these words had digamma in the Homeric 

 language. He does not, however, reject the initial digamma of a 

 word, when it is brought by a prefix or by composition into the 

 middle. Thus the digamma of rslnoai Ucenty is retained in irslxoat^ 

 that of F(jcyi'viut to break in iFayij was hroken, that of Ft'A.7ro,uat to hope 

 in YiYolna I hope, that of yi^bIv to see in '^FlSrjg {tmseen god) Hades, 

 that of ji]8vg sioeet in iiteXi¥i]Si\g, /nsXiTi]Sia -poLvor honey-sioeet wine. He 

 rejects all combinations of digamma with another consonant. Thus 

 dr^v long, Avhich in numerous j^assages has the ajipearance of begin- 

 ning with two consonants, and has been supposed by many to have 

 the digamma-sound after the 5 (^Frj*'), is by Bekker always written 

 with a simple 8. In delbia I fear, many, since Buttmann, have recog- 

 nized a Homeric ^t'cJFta ; in W^Eiaa I feared, a Homeric Ibieioa \ but 

 Bekker ahvays writes them according to the traditional way, only 

 omitting one <J from sSdeiaa. Nor does he recognize any lost letters 

 beside digamma. Curtius, in the second part of his Principles of 

 Greek Etymology, has endeavored to show that a consonant y-sound 



