On the Cave of the Nymphs

The second part of the Collectanea follows, which illustrates Porphyry, and contains excerpts:

• from Marsham’s Chronic Canon p. 72, 73.
• from Petitus On the Sibyl. p. 73—80.
• from G. Canterus’ New Readings. p. 80—82.
• then my own observations on the booklet of Porphyry on the Cave of the Nymphs. p. 83—122.
  Three indices close the procession: the first critical. p. 123, 124. the second grammatical. p. 125, 126. the third of subjects. p. 127 and following.

I have a few things to say about these individually. And first, regarding the Homeric Dissertation, I have done in it what can be understood from the preceding Letter: namely, having rejected the trifles of my Porphyry, by which he had obscured rather than illuminated the Poet's passage, I proposed a new explanation of the Cave of the Nymphs and shed such light as I could on Homer’s beautiful description. But it is not irrelevant to warn here that my friend, the celebrated Ruhnkenius, disagreed with me somewhat on this matter. He believed that the Homericos Homeric [poles/masts] (*) should be understood differently than they had been accepted by me: namely, not as masts of ships, but (as the word equally expresses) as those timbers to which the ancients fastened their webs, which indeed are sometimes called webs themselves by the Latins; for the stamen warp/thread is the work which is woven. The ambiguous nature of the Poet’s words favors this opinion, if you understand the word to mean masts; for since the mention of φαρεων fabrics/veils follows immediately, woven by the Nymphs in the Cave, the double sense of των ιστων of the looms/masts seemed to him to demand that these should not be understood as masts of ships, but as those weaving instruments to which the warp is fastened. To this is added...

(*) See Dissertation on Porphyry, Chapter II, § 10.