Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 54)

273

Stob. 4.50C.88
(δτι τό γήρας άνεπαχθές καί πολλής αίδοΰς άξιον ή σύνεσις απεργάζεται) Άναξαν-
δρίδου·-
(That understanding makes old age not burdensome and worthy of much respect)
Anaxandrides:-

Metre lambic trimeter.

5

Discussion Morelius 1553. 110-11; Stephanus 1569. 22-3; Grotius 1623
II.484-5, 560; Brunck 1794. 184, 204, 333; Jacobs 1809. 31; Dobree 1833 11.360;
Meineke 1840 III. 195—6; Emperius 1847. 311; Meineke 1847. 589-90; Bothe 1855.
432; Meineke 1857 V.81; Kock 1884 11.159; Herwerden 1886. 178-9; Schmidt
1886-1887 III.50; Kock 1888 III.737; Blaydes 1890a. 84; Blumner 1891. 157;
Schenkl 1891. 327; Blaydes 1896. 125; Headlam 1899. 6; Pickard-Cambridge
1900. 58; Herwerden 1903.100; Edmonds 1959 11.74—5; Webster 1960.166; 1970.
75; Kassel-Austin II 1991 11.270; Sanchis Llopis et al. 2007. 269-70
Citation context Within Stobaeus 4.50 (On old age), the fragment is the
second citation in the third and final part (4.50c; That understanding makes
old age not burdensome and worthy of much respect); adesp. trag. TGrFF 552
= [Men.] Mon. 260 (wrongly attributed to Anaxandrides by a number of early
modern editors) precedes, and S. fr. 210c follows.
Text 4 is metrically unproblematic but is difficult to make sense of. If 4-6 are
meant as a positive example of bearing old age well, in contrast to 7 and what
originally followed that line, the introductory negative makes little sense.
Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, 4-7 (and what immediately followed)
might be an expansion of 2-3 that describe how one who bears old age without
the requisite understanding suffers no matter what he does. In either case, the
end of the line seems deficient in terms of both grammar and sense, ποεϊ with a
causative verb is difficult to parallel, and the sense ought to be ‘causes himself
to sleep’, not ‘makes someone (or something) cause someone (or something)
to sleep’. Some problems could perhaps be solved by introducing the middle
κοιμάσθαι, but the corruption would not be easy to explain and difficulties