Attic Nights

(there were infinite Greek words here also).1) Regarding what is read at I 2, 8—3, 8 in the margin, "much is missing here, which was erased," Hertz noted (preface p. C, second note) that this refers not to the Greek words but to the gap common to all these manuscripts. Although the matter stands thus, R is nevertheless not always unworthy of being used for constructing a judgment, as in I 11, 8; 14, 1; 15, 3; II 13, 1; 22, 30; III 2, 13; 16, 23; IV 12, 3; 14, 2; 16, 3; V 2, 2; 8, 4; 10, 11; 21, 17, etc. Therefore, although I omitted many of its readings, I preferred to be criticized for abundance rather than for poverty.

If, meanwhile, having cast aside this manuscript, we turn our eyes to other books of the same lineage, the Vatican manuscript certainly holds greater value, which alone transmits the greatest part of book VII; indeed, in those books where it is permitted to summon both, it yields slightly in authority to manuscript P, as in I 17, 2; 6; 19, 7; 25, 5; II 2, 9; 12, 4; 16, 3; 22, 19; III 4, 1; 7, 8; 9; 16, 17; 18; 19; 8, 8; 16, 1; 19, 2; IV 1, 20; V 11, 12; 14, 11, etc., yet it surpasses it in Greek. For the scribe of manuscript P, though more skilled in the Greek language (or, so that I may not praise him too much, in Greek letters) than the librarian of manuscript R, nevertheless, from II 23 onwards, easily overcome by boredom in rendering them and exhausted by the labor of transcribing what he did not understand where longer sentences and verses are found, he stopped in the first letters; thus, in such cases, one must have recourse to manuscript V, which is itself sufficiently teeming with corrupted and confused words and letters. The Hertzian edition presents a large number of these; I have repeated only a few, sparing the reader's eyes and time.

Standing against these three manuscripts is the oldest book of all, the fact that only mangled fragments of which still exist is greatly to be lamented. For although it was written out quite carelessly, it not only heals the corrupted reading of those in very many places, fills in gaps, and cuts away perversions, but also, in such places where no indication of corruption appears by itself in their words, it provides a text that is far different, yet so excellent in sense and words that a clearer, and certainly truer, image of the writer shines forth from it.