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Manuscripts and Editions
ofEuclid's Elements
Typology of Choices
Bernard Vitrac & Alain Herreman
To report any correction, suggestion, or request, please contact: alain.herreman@univ-rennes.fr
A typology of the texts of the Elements can be defined based on the choices by which the establishment of these texts proceeds from their sources.
This typology is independent of whether or not there is a change of language and therefore applies to translations and bilingual editions. It can be applied to textual elements as well as figures. It only takes into account choices with the widest scope. Occasional resorting to sources is taken into account in the typology of dependencies.
Serial and Parallel Sources
A text of the Elements that uses multiple sources can use them in series or in parallel.
Serial Sources
In serial usage, the sources used are not in competition, except near the exceptional places where changes occur. This is almost always the case with Greek manuscripts when they have multiple sources. Whether it be a material accident - the loss of a leaf, a quire, or a Book - or a composition by a plurality of scribes each with their own copy - the composition implies a change of model. It even happens that this occurs by deliberate choice after noting a significant textual divergence (the paradigm is the case of Proposition IX.19 which led to the production of mixed manuscripts, first Theonine, then non-Theonine). The previously used model is abandoned in this case. It makes way for another. It may eventually be taken up again.
In parallel usage, on the other hand, the sources used are in permanent competition. They are used together rather than successively.
In serial usage, the text can be broken down into a small number of sections on which it is established based on a single source. In parallel usage, the text is established from multiple sources considered simultaneously and constantly subject to choice.
This opposition is not based on the actual usage that was made of the sources, which is generally not knowable, but on the identified model changes in the established text relative to its identified sources. In fact, printing seems to have favored the use of parallel sources.
This typology aims to provide a simplified description of the choices underlying these changes.
Parallel Sources
Serial sources may involve a choice only at the time of model change. These are punctual choices and by definition few in number, whose origin is generally the abandoned or resumed model. Their characterization can therefore be individual.
In the case of parallel sources, on the other hand, the choices are numerous, even countless. Their individual characterization is also possible, but the choices are too numerous to establish a typology of thetexts. However, their number also prohibits them from being all independent; a small number of common principles must necessarily account for a large number of them. Distinguished recurring choices can be more or less numerous, specific to the considered text, and serve to define more or less precise typologies. Here, we will stick to the most widespread common distinctions that allow for a simple yet discriminative typology.
We can distinguish cases where there is a main source and one or more secondary sources from cases where sources are not pre-hierarchized. The author a priori follows the main source but takes into account the secondary sources. Thus, a source used in series in addition to another can also be used in parallel as a secondary source for common segments. For example, Grynée used the Marc. gr.Z 301 in series for Books I-XIII and the Paris. gr.2343 for Books XIV-XV, which the Marc. gr.Z 301 does not have, but he also uses the Paris. gr.2343 as a secondary source for the common Books I-XIII. He must then choose between one or the other where they differ.
Henrion uses the editions of Clavius and Dounot but does not have a main source
Various editing modalities can be distinguished based on the characteristics of the choice of the text established from the sources, where they differ.
Four non-exclusive modalities are distinguished:
positive
eclectic
differential
free
Positive Edition
An edition is established in a positive manner when the choice of the established text proceeds from the model: it is the fact that the model has a certain reading that accounts for the retained text. The prior choice of the model determines the choice of the established text.
Grynée’s edition is a positive edition of each of its two sources.
Eclectic Edition
An edition is eclectic when the choice of the established text proceeds from the comparison of its sources: the choice does not directly proceed from one of the models but from their comparison. However, the chosen reading is also attested in one of the models. The choice is relative to the sources but does not proceed from the prior choice of a model. It is a punctual preference for one over the other. It is not intrinsic; it is differential, but the established text is attested. It is a positive differential choice.
The choice of an element, existing in one source but absent in another, is an important particular case. The edition is said to be cumulative when it retains the existing elements, it is reductive when it does not retain them, and simply eclectic when it retains some without these choices being related to the type of textual unit of the considered elements.
Grynée’s edition is also cumulative in that it includes elements from the Paris. gr.2343 in Books I-XIII, which are absent from its main source for these books, the Marc. gr.Z 301.
Henrion’s edition is eclectic in that it uses the edition of Dounot or translates that of Clavius, but it is not cumulative or (…).
Differential Edition
An edition is differential when its text is established by transformation or adaptation of its sources. The relevant difference that determines the established text is not between the sources but between the established text and its source(s). However, the established text is still related to its sources, but its justification is not exclusively in its sources but also in its difference from them.
A translation is necessarily differential. It is not necessary to indicate it as such.
An edition that corrects another edition is differential. An edition that
Free edition
An edition is free when its text is established independently of its sources: it is not related to them either positively or differentially.
The demonstrations in an edition whose source has no demonstration are necessarily free. Clavius’s edition is free regarding the demonstrations.
However, it is not always possible to determine whether an edition is differential or free. An edition that reformulates and shortens the demonstrations from its source is differential but may appear free.
Hérigone’s edition is differential or free for its demonstrations, depending on whether a source can be identified or not.
An edition is cumulative if it includes elements from one of its sources that are absent in another, but it is differential when it adds elements that are not present in any of its sources. The added texts are necessarily free, but their addition can also be differential to the extent that it arises from a manifest lack in its sources. In this case, it is preferred to consider them as free.