Dai canti simposiali alla ‘grande donna’: Mimnermo e i suoi epigoni nel prologo dei Telchini di Callimaco

This article reconsiders the problematic and much discussed lines 11-12 of Callimachus fr. 1 Pfeiffer = 1 Massimilla = 1 Harder (the so called Aetia prologue), where there is an allusion to Mimnermus’ elegiac poetry, with the intention of offering a new textual reconstruction and a new interpretation of the general meaning of the passage. Since G. Bastianini demostrated that it is impossible to read the verbal sequence αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν in the lemma of the scholium Londiniense related to those verses by adding the supplement ῥήσιες (αLἱ κατὰ λεπτόν / ῥήσιες), several new solutions have been proposed. One in particular, advanced by L. Lehnus, seems to be paleographically more credible than the rest: he reads αἱ μεγάλαι in the lemma of the scholion and proposes to incorporate it into Callimachus’ text. Starting from this paleographical basis, but also reconsidering the addition of μεγα above the line in the scholion, this paper suggests to integrate αLἱ μέγα λ[εῖαι... at the end of v. 11 with the word ᾠδαί at the beginning of v. 12 (αLἱ μέγα λ[εῖαι / ᾠδαί μ’...]) alluding to sung performances of the sympotic Mimnermus’ elegies. Indeed, the whole context of lines 11-12 constitutes a complex allusion not only to Mimnermus and his poetry, but also to his heirs at Colophon, Antimachus and Hermesianax, and to their different ways of reappropriating his poetry in later performances.