Seneca’s Troades. Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary ed. by A.J. Boyle (review)

444 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS "extant" instead of "extensive" (137, n. 3). GERALD SANDY DEPT. OF CLASSICS, NEAR EASTERN AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA VANCOUVER, B.C. V6T 1W5 A.J. BOYLE, ed. Seneca's Troades. Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1994. Latin and Greek Texts 7. Pp. x + 250. Paper £10.50. ISBN 0-905205-88-X. There has been an astonishing upsurge of interest in Seneca's dramas over the past 30 years, an interest to which Boyle has contributed by editing the Ramus volume of essays (1983) and by his edition of Phaedra (1987). Troades is the most accessible of Seneca's tragedies, a good starting-point for new readers; consequently it is useful to have this compact edition by Boyle to complement the fuller edition of Fantham (1982), which I reviewed in detail for this journal (29 [1985] 435-453). Since most undergraduates begin Latin at university, they need help in recognizing jussive subjunctives, instrumental ablatives etc.-help which Boyle provides clearly and consistently. Undergraduates also expect, rightly, sophisticated literary comment, and this too Boyle provides in a succinct and stimulating fashion. Graduate students and professionals will continue to use Fantham's more detailed commentary, but they will also find much of value in Boyle, particularly on dramaturgy and on style. A special feature of this edition, as of Boyle's Phaedra, is that it aims to serve not only Latin students but also students of Senecan drama in translation. Boyle provides a verse translation, facing the Latin, which is intended to be suitable for study on its own, i.e. by the Latinless; and the lemmata of the commentary refer both to translation and text, e.g. "4f. Look on me/me videat," unless the point concerns the Latin only. In current practice, close reading is done almost exclusively in Latin classes, while reading in civilisation courses is more superficial. Boyle is seeking to reduce that dichotomy by opening the resources of scholarly commentary to the Latinless in order to create a wider and at the same time more knowledgeable readership. These aims are both laudable and debatable. Though readers may become more appreciative of Seneca by these means, they cannot become genuinely knowledgeable without knowing Latin. BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 445 And for Latin students, the presence of an English translation on the right-hand (i.e. privileged) page, and in the prior position in the commentary, is a distraction from the process of engaging with and appreciating the Latin text itself. As a recompense, however, it does encourage them to see the wood as well as the trees. On balance, I can only applaud the intention of making Latin literature, and scholarly understanding of it, accessible to a wider audience. In assessing the edition, let me dispose of complaints before moving to praise. The Latin text constituted by Boyle is not the strongest element of this study. He is remarkably conservative in textual matters-reluctant, that is, to obelize, delete, transpose, or to accept conjectures, even those which are virtually certain (e.g. Zwierlein's ensis at 280) or highly probable (e.g. Bentley's tantus at 913). Boyle has little time for text criticism: he does not cite in his bibliography, and appears not to know (except occasionally via Fantham), Wertis' textual commentary, Zwierlein's Kritischer Kommentar and articles, and my review of Fantham and articles in AJPh 107 (1986) 270-273 and CPh 84 (1989) 236-251. Consequently he makes wrong choices between variants, e.g. at 159 (where "Reeve's Law" rules out the awkward anapaest-trochee sequence of A's nemoris tutus), and retains evident corruption at 304 (where Wertis [97-99] long ago dismantled Bannier's defence of the text). In the anapaests of Ode 1, Boyle diverges from colometry adopted both in the O.C.T. and in my Seneca's Anapaests at lines 7982 , 138-141, 152-155 and 161-163 (O.C.T. numbering); his chief purpose is to round off these sections of the ode with monometers (236-237), but Seneca does not use monometers in such positions more than elsewhere (S.A. 76-77). Boyle's colometry creates...