THE EDITOR’S PREFACE

...from there, following certain other writings, the first 305 verses of the Argonautica A Greek epic poem about Jason and the Golden Fleece, traditionally attributed to Orpheus. are read. It is understood that the readings of these codices Handwritten manuscript books. were drawn from a very ancient book of the highest quality, because they almost entirely agree with the Vossian manuscript A significant manuscript once owned by the scholar Isaac Vossius (1618–1689).. Indeed, the Vossian and the Moscow manuscript—which Matthaei Christian Friedrich von Matthaei (1744–1811), a classical scholar known for discovering manuscripts in Moscow. had given to Ruhnken, and which Schneider and I have called the "Ruhnkenian"—as well as the Vienna manuscript Original: "Vindobonensis"., are the best and most ancient manuscripts.

Of a lower rank are the Parisian, Breslau Original: "Vratiſlauienſis", referring to the city now known as Wrocław., and Askew Named after Anthony Askew (1722–1774), an English physician and book collector. manuscripts. Into the same category fall the old printed editions, all of which originated from the editio princeps The first printed edition of a work. For the Orphica, this was the 1500 Florence edition.. I have personally inspected these editions: the first, published in Florence in 1500; the Aldine Published by the famous Aldus Manutius in Venice, 1517. of 1517; the Juntine Published by the Giunta family in Florence, 1519. of 1519; and the Cratandrine Published by Andreas Cratander in Basel, 1523. of 1523. Of these, Heyne Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729–1812), a hugely influential professor at Göttingen. granted me the use of the Florentine first edition from the Göttingen library, and Dassdorf Karl Wilhelm Daßdorf (1750–1812), head of the Dresden library. granted me the Juntine from the Dresden library of the Elector of Saxony; both men were most ready to aid the progress of literature. These editions are indicated in the variant readings The "apparatus criticus" or notes showing differences between various versions of the text. by the letters P. A. I. C.

Certain readings from these editions were omitted directly beneath the text—where I generally found it sufficient to include the variants noted from them by Gesner Johann Matthias Gesner (1691–1761), a previous editor of Orpheus.—but they have been added in the appendix Original: "in addendis". so that no one might find them lacking.

I have reshaped the text of the Argonautica, the Hymns, and the Lithica A poem concerning the magical properties of stones. as it seemed to me to require correction. In the Argonautica especially, which is a most corrupted work, if anything should perhaps seem to have been changed too boldly,