PREFACE

The following text continues from the previous page's discussion on textual variants. reading indicates, I decided it should be preserved. I have added a version of the Argonautica A poem detailing the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, attributed to Orpheus. which Cribellus Leodrisio Crivelli (1418–1488), an Italian humanist who translated the poem into Latin verse. Hermann values this translation because it was based on an excellent manuscript that is now lost or inaccessible, making the translation a witness to the original text. produced in Latin verse, having made use of a most excellent manuscript; this version serves as a substitute for an ancient manuscript. In the Lithica A didactic poem on the mystical properties of gemstones., I have added all the notes of Thomas Tyrwhitt An English classical scholar (1730–1786) known for his expertise in both ancient Greek and Middle English literature., a most learned man. Whatever Ruhnken David Ruhnken (1723–1798), a prominent head of the Leiden school of Greek philology. contributed to the study of Orpheus, I have at times repeated in his own words and at other times merely mentioned.

Furthermore, Schneider Johann Gottlob Schneider (1750–1822), a German classicist and naturalist who published an edition of the Argonautica in 1789., who recently edited the Argonautica, has also deserved great credit regarding this edition of mine. This man, in whom kindness is equal to his learning, since he had indicated of his own accord that he would grant me the materials he had collected, sent me a copy of Gesner’s Orpheus The 1764 edition by Johann Matthias Gesner., in which he had written the corrections of others as well as his own. From this source, especially in the hymns The 87 Orphic Hymns addressed to various deities., readers will notice many corrected passages.

In the Argonautica, however, I could not help but disagree with him at times; since he seems to have worked somewhat too hastily on that specific work, it resulted in his variant readings not being entirely reliable in all places, and he neglected certain matters in the notes. Indeed, I was obliged to draw the variant readings of the manuscripts from Schneider’s edition, except where they were indicated by either Gesner or Ruhnken. I myself had formerly collated the Augsburg manuscripts original: "Codices Auguſtanos"; manuscripts held in the library at Augsburg, Germany. with the greatest care. These manuscripts, written by the same hand—and a very recent one at that—are contained in a single volume, which is listed in Reiser’s index Anton Reiser's 1675 catalog of the manuscripts in the Augsburg library. on page 69, number 45. In this volume are written the first 137 verses of the Argonautica; de-