P. Oxy. 2180 and the Text of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. Part II. Incorrect Readings
Nikolsky Boris M.
The second part of the article deals with those readings in P. Oxy. 2180 that should be interpreted as mistakes. It is argued that the value of the papyrus evidence for the text of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus is overestimated. Certain papyrus readings accepted by contemporary scholars are in fact incorrect. Despite its age, this papyrus does not have any special weight in establishing the text of the tragedy, since the majority of variant readings date back to the time preceding its creation. But at the same time, the discussion of the papyrus readings raises some general questions, both palaeographic (about the number of lines in a column of papyrus) and linguistic (about Sophocles’ appeal to archaic forms known to him from the epic tradition), and questions about stage conventions (e.g. about the presentation of characters when they appear on stage).
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