Comedies

PREFACE

Having been ordered by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to see to the publication of a text of the plays of Plautus, as close as possible to the best manuscript evidence, equipped with the same orthography as far as could be managed and with the briefest possible annotation, I set this rule for myself: that in the agreement of (AP) the Ambrosian manuscript (A) with what is called the Palatine recension (P), I should seek that best evidence, from which I would almost never depart, unless I had convinced myself that both this and that scribe had fallen into the same error. Furthermore, in composing the annotation, I set this goal for myself: that if I rejected the reading of either recension or any likely conjecture of scribes or learned men, it should have a place in the bottom margin of the page. Nor indeed did I consider it necessary to enumerate individual readings of all the manuscripts, not even of the principal ones that still exhibit the Palatine recension; for the investigation of those manuscripts has reached the point where one must deal with the original books that have perished rather than with those that still exist. These original books, throughout the first eight plays (Amph., Asin., Aul., Capt., Curc., Cas., Cist., Epid.), I have denoted with these sigla:

P^E, the book from which are derived E (the Ambrosian manuscript I 257 inf., of the late 12th century, which contains all eight), V (the Leiden Vossianus manuscript Q 30, of the early 12th century, which contains the same, omitting Amph., Asin., Aul. 1-189, Epid. 245-end), and also two manuscripts described from a corrupted copy (P^J) ¹ See also: the corrections (V²) in manuscript V also originated from this source., J (the London manuscript of the British Museum Reg. 15 C XI, of the early 12th century, which contains all eight), O (the Otto-