Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami I-7.

In an earlier issue of this journal (48.2), I reviewed CWE 85-86, the English translation of the poems of Erasmus. This volume, edited by the same person as the CWE volumes, presents the critical Latin text on which the translations were based. The introduction to this volume is the same as the introduction to the earlier CWE volumes. The reader is referred to the earlier review for a discussion of the structure of the two publications, which is identical.

The principal differences between this critical edition and the CWE volumes are that the English translation is missing here and the introductions to each poem as well as the notes to each are placed with the poems, while in the CWE the poems in Latin with the English translations on facing pages were published in CWE 85 and the introductions to each poem and the notes were relegated to a second volume, CWE 86. Erasmus's letters accompanying the poems are here, of course, published only in Latin, while in the CWE they are published in translation. The indices here reflect the fact that this is a critical edition of the Latin text. There are indices of abbreviations, first lines, and meters which are missing from the CWE volumes. For the rest the indices are identical.

For the Latin text, it will be preferable to refer to the volume under review, inasmuch as the apparatus related to each poem is on the same pages as the poem. For the rest, the CWE volumes will be adequate, and certainly will suffice for all except those interested in interpreting the poems as Latin (and in a few cases Greek) compositions. The editing in all these volumes devoted to the poetry of Erasmus has been superb and is likely to remain definitive.

ALBERT RABIL, JR. State University of New York, Old Westbury