Editing Theognis of Megara (section)

==== Friedrich Nietzsche ====
[[File:P.Berol.21220 Theognis.png|right|thumb|A papyrus fragment covering lines 917–33, part of a poem addressed to ''Democles'' (identity unknown) and considered on textual grounds to be a late addition to the Theognidean corpus, probably fifth century<ref>Douglas E. Gerber, ''Greek Elegiac Poetry'', Loeb Classical Library (1999), note 1 page 307</ref><br>Coincidentally, Nietzsche's first published article, ''On the History of the Collection of the Theognidean Anthology'' (1867), concerned the textual transmission of the poems.<ref>Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), note 13:13 page 133</ref>]]

[[Friedrich Nietzsche]], the German philosopher, already studied the work of Theognis during his school days at [[Pforta|Schulpforta]], the subject of his thesis entitled De Theognide Megarensi,<ref>See now the bilingual edition, prepared by R.M. Kerr, [https://www.academia.edu/10959524/Friedrich_Nietzsche_-_De_Theognide_Megarensi De Theognide Megarensi]</ref> an activity which he continued during his studies at Leipzig University. His first published article (in an influential classical journal, ''Rheinisches Museum'') concerned the historical transmission of the collected verses.<ref>Walter Kaufman (ed.), ''On the Genealogy of Morals'', Vintage Books (1969), note 1 page 29</ref> Nietzsche was an ardent exponent of "catchword theory", which explains the arrangement of the Theognidean verses as pairs of poems, each pair linked by a shared word or catchword that could be placed anywhere in either poem, as for example in these pairs:
:lines 1–10 ("child of God") and lines 11–14 ("daughter of God");
:lines 11–14 ("daughter of God) and lines 15–18 ("daughters of God");
:lines 15–18 ("word") and lines 19–26 ("words") etc.
However a later scholar has observed that the catchword principle can be made to work for just about any anthology as a matter of coincidence due to thematic association.<ref>Thomas Hudson-Williams, ''The Elegies of Theognis'', G. Bell and Sons Ltd (1910), pages 13–15</ref>

Nietzsche valued Theognis as an archetype of the embattled aristocrat, describing him as "...a finely formed nobleman who has fallen on bad times", and "a distorted [[Janus]]-head" at the crossroads of social change.<ref>quoted in a biography on Nietzsche by Curt Paul Janz and cited in a note by Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), page 133</ref><ref group ="nb">"Theognis appears as a finely formed nobleman who has fallen on bad times...full of fatal hatred toward the upward striving masses, tossed about by a sad fate that wore him down and made him milder in many respects. He is a characteristic image of that old, ingenious somewhat spoiled and no longer firmly rooted blood nobility, placed at the boundary of an old and a new era, a distorted [[Janus]]-head, since what is past seems so beautiful and enviable, that which is coming{{emdash}}something that basically has an equal entitlement{{emdash}}seems disgusting and repulsive; a typical head for all those noble figures who represent the aristocracy prior to a popular revolution and who struggle for the existence of the class of nobles as for their individual existence."{{emdash}}from a biography of Nietzsche by Curt Paul Zanz, quoted and translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan Swensen in their edition, ''On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic'', Hackett Publishing Company (1998), page 133</ref> Not all the verses in the collection however fitted Nietzsche's notion of Theognis, the man, and he rejected ''Musa Paedica'' or "Book 2" as the interpolation of a malicious editor out to discredit him.<ref>Thomas Hudson-Williams, ''The Elegies of Theognis'', G. Bell and Sons Ltd (1910), pages 60–61</ref> In one of his seminal works, ''[[On the Genealogy of Morality]]'', he describes the poet as a 'mouthpiece' of the Greek nobility: Theognis represents superior virtues as traits of the aristocracy and thus distinguishes (in Nietzsche's own words) the "truthful" aristocrat from the "lying common man".