By Elaine M. Coury

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The advance publicity sounded too good to be true: an edition of the Phormio, accompanied by a complete reproduction of one of its principal manuscripts. Professor Coury’s book, however, turns out to be precisely that, and both she and her publishers are to be warmly congratulated on this imaginative and innovative production.

The fourth/fifth century Codex Bembinus is the earliest extant manuscript of Terence and is generally regarded as the most trustworthy. The Phormio is to be found on folios 53r to 76r, and on the left-hand pages of chapter 1 all 47 leaves are photographically reproduced. The reproduction is actual size, one side of a folio to a page, and its quality is astonishingly good: even the scribe’s faint preliminary rulings on the parchment are visible. The method of photography employed has unfortunately not been such as to surmount the problems caused by the transparency of the parchment, and ink showing through from the other side of the folio can sometimes make reading difficult (63v is particularly blurred): but in this respect, as in all others, we are simply experiencing the very difficulties we would encounter if we were face to face with the actual manuscript. On the facing pages of chapter 1 is an exact transcription of the codex, haplographies, dittographies, misspellings, lacunae, and all. In order to make this a more readily understood key to the manuscript, the words of the text are spaced and abbreviations expanded, but otherwise nothing is changed.

Having, thus assisted us towards an initial decipherment of the codex, Professor Coury proceeds in chapter 2 to edit the play. She provides in this section a normalized text, with obvious mis-spellings corrected, missing lines inserted, and so on, all such alterations from the actual reading of the manuscript being clearly indicated by the use of italics and parentheses. In this process of normalization, it is curious that she has retained the confusion in the codex between t and d (e.g. quit for quid, 245, or quod for quot, 454), a feature of early Latin spelling usually edited out. On each facing page are explanatory notes of a fairly basic nature, elucidating grammatical and linguistic difficulties and translating where necessary. Palaeographic information also appears in the notes, with a recommendation to the reader to "refer to the manuscript while you are translating the edited version, so that you will become more and more aware of the source of the text, its problems, and its wonder." In providing this combination of codes, transcription, and edited text, Professor Coury is "aiming for a more integrated experience," and the opportunity of studying a classical text in this way is surely something which senior school pupils as well as undergraduates will find exciting and illuminating. The attractiveness of this volume for school use is enhanced both by a vocabulary and by a particularly useful and readable introduction which includes a clear and informative beginner’s guide to Latin palaeography....

Professor Coury’s main aim, however, is so satisfactorily achieved that it is unfair to criticize: when we are given the whole of an original manuscript, dare we ask for more? The book is a delightful addition to Terentian scholarship: US Graphics have made a splendid job of its production and Marie Cummings’ charming little illustrations of scenes from the play are an added bonus. It is to be hoped that similar volumes will follow: those whose palaeographic appetites are whetted by this one may like to know that Professor Coury has also produced for the specialist a fuller and more scholarly study of the Codex Bembinus under the title Terence’s Bembine Phormio: A Palaeographic Examination (also published by Bolchazy-Carducci).

— Roy M. Pinkerton
The Joint Association of Classical Teachers Bulletin
University of Edinburgh