Author Archives: Michael Hendry

Artemis a Model for Widows?

Like Edith Wharton (previous post), Machado de Assis has what looks very like a mythological blunder in his very first short story (first collected, in his case), “Miss Dollar”. The very handsome and affordable new translation of the Collected Stories … Continue reading

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Two or three corrections in Edith Wharton short stories

My first venture into textual criticism of modern printed authors is now (I believe) out of embargo, so I have made a PDF and uploaded it here. If you’re not yet sure you want to click the link, the title … Continue reading

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Dissertation Now On-Line

The University of Virginia library has (with my permission) placed my dissertation, “Problems of unity and design in Propertius II” (1990) on-line. It’s a bit half-baked, but I still think my conclusions are sound. Should you read it? The best … Continue reading

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John Owen 9.53

Just uploaded: a conjecture on an author from the age of print: John Owen (Ioannes Audoenus) the Welsh epigrammatist. This particular couplet was first published in 1613. (This is not my first attempt to emend an oft-printed text: I will … Continue reading

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A Crucial Difference for Some

While I’m uploading pictures, here are a couple of statues I saw at the West End Antique Mall in Richmond, Virginia last Saturday: They’re roughly half life-sized and priced at $562.50 each, though WEAM will usually knock off 10% just … Continue reading

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Still in Business!

The most exciting and unexpected thing I saw in Dublin had nothing to do with classics: Tower Records is still in business in Ireland, and stuffed with interesting CDs and DVDs as well as vinyl LPs. I only had time … Continue reading

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Crazy Quilt

First up: some comments on the Poems without Poets conference at Trinity College, Dublin two weeks ago. There was a paper by Maria Teresa Galli, “The Vergiliocentones minores and the patchwork tragedy Medea of the Latin Anthology: poems without a … Continue reading

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I’m Back

After two months of work-related non-posting, and two months of (partially) recovering from a disc crash, I am finally more or less back. The problem with the latter was not loss of data – my local computer repair shop saved … Continue reading

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Question for Donne Scholars

Though too lazy to look up examples, I know John Donne punned on his last name and its homophone, the participle of ‘did’. Did he ever pun on the Italian homograph ‘donne’ = ‘ladies’? The meaning would certainly suit a … Continue reading

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A Missing Joke in Ovid?

Unable to communicate her plight to her father and sisters in any other way, boviform Io writes a message in the dust with her hoof (Met. 1.649-50): littera pro uerbis, quam pes in puluere duxit, corporis indicium mutati triste peregit. … Continue reading

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An Herbed-Lamb Pun in Horace (C. 4.11.6-8)?

Just uploaded: another Horatianum, exegetical rather than textual for a change, PDF here.

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A ‘Calemphaton’ in Horace, C. 4.12.8?

One of the several meanings of cacemphaton (also deformitas, Greek κακέμφατον) is an inadvertent obscenity found at the junction of two words. As H. Lausberg puts it (Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, Brill 1998, § 1070), “A special kind of amphibolia, … Continue reading

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A Strange Ambiguity in Horace’s Torquatus Ode (4.7)

One of the many memorable couplets in C. 4.7 is 19-20: cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico     quae dederis animo. Has anyone noted the odd change of meaning when we come to the last word? Up until then, it looks … Continue reading

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The Structure of Tacitus’ Annales: Three Hexads or Two ‘Ogdoads’?

In 2000, I gave a lecture on Tacitus, titled as above, at the University of Durham. It was well-received, and a previous version of the main argument has even been mentioned in a footnote (A. J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed, 237 … Continue reading

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Which Are Horace’s Shortest Odes?

I’ve been rereading Book IV of Horace’s Odes for the first time in years, and memorizing as much as I can on walks and long drives. When I finish 4.11 tomorrow, I will have 1-3, 7, and 10-13 down, which … Continue reading

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A Metrical Joke in ‘Theognis’?

Back to finishing up some long-unfinished papers in my files, I’ve just uploaded a page on two passages of the Theognidea (PDF here).

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Is Plural Salamis Correct? Horace, C. 1.7.21

I have now posted a note or short paper every day of August, two on the 7th, for a total of thirty-two. I will be doing fewer, but longer, ones in September. This last contains a conjecture on one of … Continue reading

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How Many Hetaerae? Pindaric Arithmetic in the Skolion to Xenophon of Corinth

Here is the third and last of the Pindarica that have been lying half-finished in my files for many years. The PDF is here.

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Whose Eyes? Pindar, Ol. 3.12

Here’s another Pindaricum: there will be one more tomorrow on his most twisted poem, and the I will be all Pindared out for the foreseeable future. The PDF is here.

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Another Tiny Subtlety in Horace, I. 1.1

Here’s a note on the first three words of Horace’s Iambi (Epodes), or rather on two of the three. The PDF is here.

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