Oedipus Tyrannus |
Sophocles |
Oedipus Tyrannus, 688-710; 731-752; 775-784; 819-827; 1304-1310; 1351-1355 |
Grenfell BP - Hunt AS, POxy XI, 1369, 1914, pl. VII (fr. 1-2) |
P.Oxy. XI 1369 |
7 papyri ; 4.4 x 8.1 cm (fr. 7) |
Fr. 1-4 verso: 688-710; recto: 731-752; Fr. 5-6 recto: 775-784; verso: 819-827; Fr.
7 verso: 1304-1310; recto: 1351-1358 [the numbers refer to the verses of the literary
work "Oedipus Tyrannus"] |
Source of description: Recto + Verso |
Seven small pieces of three leaves from a papyrus book containing Sophocles' Oedipus
Tyrannus and no doubt other plays of Sophocles were part of a find of Byzantine literary
fragments, which comprised 1369-1374 and 1385, 1391, 1394, 1396-1397 and 1401-1403,
besides a few very small unpublished fragments. Parts of fifty-six lines from the
middle and later portions of the drama are preserved, nearly half being lyric, but
too incomplete to be of much value. The script is a somewhat irregular sloping uncial
of the oval type and probably belongs to the fifth century or the beginning of the
sixth, being thus little later than P.Oxy. I 22, the only other extant papyrus fragment
of this play. There were about forty-three lines on a page. A few corrections may
have been inserted in a different but probably nearly contemporary hand (ll. 780,
822, 1310) together with a breathing in l. 827 and the speaker's name in the margin
of. l. 689. The other occasional corrections and breathings, with the stops (high
and low points), paragraphi, accents, diairesis, and marks of elision and quantity,
seem all to be due to the first hand. Iota adscript is generally omitted. The scribe
was rather careless, l. 778 being omitted owning to homoioteleuton, and where the
Laurentian codex (L) breaks down, as happen not infrequently in the choric passages,
the papyrus rarely helps, so that only novelties are in l. 825 ("embateusai" for "embateuein"),
a variant in l. 752, and an uncertain confirmation of an emendation in the corrupt
line 1310. It is interesting that in at least three instances (ll. 827, 1306 and 1307)
and probably a fourth (l. 1355) the text agrees with the later MSS against L, thus
providing a fresh argument on the side of those who do not regard L as the ultimate
source of the other MSS of Sophocles. |
Oxyrhynchos, Oxyrhynchite nome, Egypt
|
Greek |
Vth-VIth century A.D.
|
Location: Bridwell Library; Perkins School of Theology; Southern Methodist University;
University Park; Dallas Texas 75275; USA |
Pub. status: Recto + Verso |
Literary; tragedy; Papyrus |
Recto thumbnail |
Recto medium |
Recto large |
Verso thumbnail |
Verso medium |
Verso large |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License. |