A coronis ( grc, κορωνίς, ''korōnís'', , ''korōnídes'') is a textual symbol found in

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

papyri Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a d ...

that was used to mark the end of an entire work or of a major section in poetic and prose texts. The coronis was generally placed in the left-hand margin of the text and was often accompanied by a

paragraphos A paragraphos ( grc, , , from , 'beside', and , 'to write') was a mark in ancient Greek punctuation, marking a division in a text (as between speakers in a dialogue or drama) or drawing the reader's attention to another division mark, such as th ...

or a forked paragraphos (

diple Diple ( pluralia tantum; pronounced , other Croatian names: ''"misnjiče"'', ''"miješnice"'' and ''"mih"'') is a traditional woodwind musical instrument originating in the Adriatic Littoral. It is played in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Sloven ...

obelism Obelism is the practice of annotating manuscripts with marks set in the margins. Modern obelisms are used by editors when proofreading a manuscript or typescript. Examples are "stet" (which is Latin for "Let it stand", used in this context to me ...

ene). The coronis is encoded by

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

as part of the Supplemental Punctuation block, at .

Etymology

Liddell and Scott's '' Greek–English Lexicon'' gives the basic meaning of as "crook-beaked" from which a general meaning of "curved" is supposed to have derived. concurs and derives the word from (), "crow", assigning the meaning of the epithet's use in reference to the textual symbol to the same semantic range of "curve". But, given the fact that the earliest coronides actually take the form of birds, there has been debate about whether the name of the textual symbol initially referred to use of a decorative bird to mark a major division in a text or if these pictures were a secondary development that played upon the etymological relation between , "crow", and , as in "curved".Schironi 2010: 16–17.

Examples

image:P.Berol. inv. 9875 col. v coronis.jpg, Detail of P.Berol. inv. 9875 col. v (late fourth or early third century BCE), showing the bird-shaped coronis at the beginning of the "'' sphragis''" in the ''Persae'' of

Timotheus of Miletus Timotheus of Miletus ( grc, Τιμόθεος ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 446 – 357 BC) was a Greek musician and dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "new music." He added one or more strings to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the S ...

. image:P.Oxy. XV 1790 fr. 2+3 detail.jpg, Detail of P.Oxy. XV 1790 fr. 2 + 3 col. ii (late second–early first century BCE): the coronis marks the end of a poem (and probably the end of a book of poetry) by

Ibycus Ibycus (; grc-gre, Ἴβυκος; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, a citizen of Rhegium in Magna Graecia, probably active at Samos during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates and numbered by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria in the cano ...

. image:P.Oxy. IV 659 col. i detail.jpg, Detail of P.Oxy. IV 659 col. i (late first century BCE or early first century CE): Pindar, ''Partheneia'' with a coronis marking the end of a strophe. image:P.Lit.Lond. 96 col. xiii detail.jpg, Detail of P.Lit.Lond. 96 col. xiii (late first–early second century CE): a coronis (with a forked paragraphos) marking the end of

Herodas The first column of the Herodas papyrus, showing ''Mimiamb'' 1. 1–15. Herodas or Herondas (Greek: or - the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic sc ...

, ''Mimiamb'' 2 followed by the title and beginning of ''Mimiamb'' 3. image:P.Oxy. X 1231 fr. 56.jpg, P.Oxy. X 1231 fr. 56 (second century CE), showing a coronis, end-title and verse count at the close of

Sappho Sappho (; el, Σαπφώ ''Sapphō'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her Greek lyric, lyric poetry, written to be sung while ...

book one. image:P.Oxy. X 1234 fr. 2 col. i coronis.jpg, Detail of P.Oxy. X 1234 fr. 2 col. i (second century CE), with the coronis used to mark the end of a poem by Alcaeus.

Notes

Sources

*Chantraine, P., ''Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque'' (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1968). *Liddell, H. G.; Scott, R., ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', 9th ed. (Oxford: OUP, 1996). *Schironi, F., ''Τὸ Μέγα Βιβλίον: Book-Ends, End-Titles, and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry'' (Durham, NC: The American Society of Papyrologists, 2010). *Turner, E. G., ''Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World'', 2nd rev. ed. by P.J. Parsons (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1987). {{DEFAULTSORT:Coronis (Textual Symbol) Palaeography Punctuation Ancient Greek punctuation

Etymology

Examples

See also

Notes

Sources