[9.] ἰταμόν. I can make nothing of this word. Various corrections have been suggested, but with little certainty.
[5. 10.] ὡς φωρίου τινος ἐφαπτόμενος, literally, “as though he were laying hands on a piece of stolen property.” The point seems to be, that plagiarists, like other robbers, show no discrimination in their pilferings, seizing what comes first to hand.
[VIII. 1. 20.] ἐδάφους. I have avoided the rather harsh confusion of metaphor which this word involves, taken in connection with πηγαί.
[IX. 2. 13.] ἀπήχημα, properly an “echo,” a metaphor rather Greek than English.
[X. 2. 13.] χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας, lit. “more wan than grass”—of the sickly yellow hue which would appear on a dark Southern face under the influence of violent emotion.[N.2]
[3. 6.] The words ἢ γάρ ... τέθνηκεν are omitted in the translation, being corrupt, and giving no satisfactory sense. Ruhnken corrects, ἀλογιστεῖ, φρονεῖ, προεῖται, ἢ π. ὀ. τ.
[18.] σπλάγχνοισι κακῶς ἀναβαλλομένοισι Probably of sea-sickness; and so I find Ruhnken took it, quoting Plutarch, T. ii. 831: ἐμοῦντος τοῦ ἑτέρου, καὶ λέγοντος τὰ σπλάγχνα ἐκβάλλειν. An objection on the score of taste would be out of place in criticising the laureate of the Arimaspi.
[X. 7. 2.] τὰς ἐξοχὰς ἀριστίνδην ἐκκαθήραντες ἀριστίνδην ἐκκαθήραντες appears to be a condensed phrase for ἀριστίνδην ἐκλέξαντες και ἐκκαθήραντες. “Having chosen the most striking circumstances par excellence, and having relieved them of all superfluity,” would perhaps give the literal meaning. Longinus seems conscious of some strangeness in his language, making a quasi-apology in ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις.
[3.] Partly with the help of Toup, we may emend this corrupt passage as follows: λυμαίνεται γὰρ ταῦτα τὸ ὅλον, ὡσανεὶ ψήγματα ἢ ἀραιώματα, τὰ ἐμποιοῦντα μέγεθος τῇ πρὸς ἄλληλα σχέσει συντετειχισμένα. τὸ ὅλον here = “omnino.” To explain the process of corruption, τα would easily drop out after the final -τα in ἀραιώματα; συνοικονομούμενα is simply a corruption of συνοικοδομούμενα, which is itself a gloss on συντετειχισμένα, having afterwards crept into the text; μέγεθος became corrupted into μεγέθη through the error of some copyist, who wished to make it agree with ἐμποιοῦντα. The whole maybe translated: “Such [interpolations], like so many patches or rents, mar altogether the effect of those details which, by being built up in an uninterrupted series [τῇ πρὸς ἄλληλα σχ. συντετ.], produce sublimity in a work.”
[XII. 4. 2.] αὐτῷ; the sense seems clearly to require ἐν αὑτῷ.