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[ SOLD OUT ] CALLIMACHUS, Hecale. Edited with Introduction and Commentary by A.S. Hollis. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990. XIII,401p. Cloth wrps. Together with two offprints Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 1991: 86,pp.11-16;89,25-30) a letter from Adrian Hollis to Prof. Arnott, personal notes, and a reprint from the review in LCM17.2. 'The enormous contributions made to the identification, text, interpretation and arrangement of the 'Hecale' fragments over the last 150 years (...) have made it progressively less easy to make important new discoveries unless papyri so far unexcavated of unidentified come to our aid. So what is the value of an edition such as H.'s, which adds little or nothing that is innovative in text and critical apparatus, and disappointingly little in improved interpretations? The answer is simple and positive. Because of H.'s wide-ranging command of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his sensitivity to the nuances of Callimachean language, style and metre, and finally his assembly in the introduction, commentary and appendices of the material that scholars and research students particularly need, we now possess between two covers a paradigm of informative soundness which admirably complements, though of course does not replace, Pfeiffer. (...) The long introduction in twelve sections successfully collects and intelligently discusses the material necessary for an informed study of fragments that are inherently difficult (...) and often contextless. (...) H. goes on to discuss Callimachus' language, making excellent points about variety of tone, erudition, the exploitation of Homeric rarities and variants, and the tendency to dislocate normal word-order. (...) H. closes the introduction with a well-judged survey of modern scholarship on the Hecale, a catalogue raisonné of its papyri (...) and the book-fragment sources. (...) The commentary is magistral: full, learned and yet succinctly expressed. With his remarkable command of ancient literature (...) H. is able to cite parallels that not only illustrate Callimachean language and themes, but also on occasion help to put flesh on broken skeletons. (...) There is, however, one area of it occasionally less than adequate. (...) Birds and plants play a large role in the fragments of the 'Hecale', and in comments on them H. is at times imprecise and inaccurate.' (W. GEOFFREY ARNOTT in Liverpool Classical Monthly, 17.2 (1992), pp.1-4). From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott. € 0 (Antiquarian)