{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02992021276595745, 'fraction_numerical': 0.00964095744680851, 'mean_word_length': 4.53125, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 1, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Budé Longus

On the death of Georges Dalmeyda in 1932 it fell to J.-R. Vieillefond to complete the preparation of his Bude of Longus. Over half a century later the same scholar himself replaces the volume. As he observes, in that time important work has been done on the text, our knowledge of Longus' world has increased, and Daphnis and Chloe, long thought a dirty book, has been radically rehabilitated; a more fundamental motive, he adds, has been to shake French tradition free of the spell of Amyot's translation of 1559. This is certainly a very diligent effort. It offers a very full introduction, an upto-date text conscientiously documented, copious annotation, and a reliable modern translation. The book is a fitting culmination of long labours. The whole story of the fortunes of Longus in modern times is extremely interesting. The central figure in it is Paul-Louis Courier, who published an edition in 1810. He was the first to realise the value of the Laurentian MS. (here A) and the real nature of the tradition, which depends on only two of a fairly large number of MSS.; but he also allowed himself to deface A with an inkstain at a crucial place, thus blotting his own copybook too (V. cannot exculpate him). But part of Courier's contribution was disregarded until a decisive article by van Thiel in 1961, and the first soundly based edition in our own day was Reeve's 1982 Teubner. In this whole area Dalmeyda's introduction, although certainly not Reeve's, is now replaced by V., who sets out the situation in much detail, as he does the story of Longus' Nachleben and influence. V. then turns to a long discussion of literary aspects of Daphnis and Chloe. In places his essay offers description and an accumulation of evidence rather than analysis in this respect Dalmeyda's briefer treatment is not put out of court but it is trenchant enough in showing that the novel's setting is neither realistic nor even consistent, but a fairy-tale world; not a revolutionary conclusion, but timely given that these prose fiction texts are currently being combed for realia. Similarly, although he has little to offer himself by way of general interpretation of the story, V. is right not to take it too seriously, and to distrust the elaborate, sometimes trendy, religious or aesthetic interpretations that it has spawned in our generation; he is particularly opposed to seeing Longus as a mystagogue (note, by the way, at p. clxix n. 3, that Chalk's 1960 JHS article was in fact independent of Merkelbach see Chalk's n. 1 for its genesis and date). It is regrettable that in an introduction of 200 pages there should be only a few pages of rather general comment on Longus' style and (particularly) language, and very little at all on his literary context. Those who began their Greek with Lucian's True Story will be surprised to learn that it offers an example of periodic style; that is true only of the opening. Conversely, Achilles Tatius hardly seems the best example of d(f>eXeia.