II
The Order of Words in Greek

The strong and the weak points of the de Compositione Verborum will appear from the foregoing summary, and still more from the treatise itself and the notes appended to it. Dionysius’ book is unique: no other of its kind has come down to us from classical antiquity. Its immediate subject is the Order of Words in Greek. But its author is happily led to raise fundamental questions such as the relations between Prose and Poetry, together with incidental points of Greek Pronunciation and Accentuation; and generally to take so wide a range that no English title less comprehensive than On Literary Composition seems to fit the contents of the work.[3] The discursive enthusiasm of the writer is obvious. Not less striking, however, is the sound literary taste which converts his quotations into a true anthology and preserves some priceless remains of Sappho and Simonides. It will be necessary to point out certain weaknesses of Dionysius from time to time. But his weaknesses are far more than counterbalanced by his great excellences. Some of his shortcomings are those of his age,—an age which was a stranger to the modern method of comparison as applied to literary investigation. Others, again, are more apparent than real. When, for example, certain omissions are observable in some directions along with ample expatiations in others, it is to be remembered (1) that Dionysius is dealing with the department of expression and not with that of subject matter, (2) that, in the department of expression, he is concerned with the composition (or arrangement) of words and not with their selection, and (3) that, in regard to composition, he is here interested primarily not in lucidity nor in emphasis, but in euphony. Hence we must not expect him to dwell on that great governing principle of literary composition,—logical connexion. To its importance, however, he is fully alive, as is clear from a passage in his essay on Isocrates: “The thought” [in Isocrates, who pays excessive heed to smoothness of style and a pleasant cadence] “is often the slave of rhythmical expression, and truth is sacrificed to elegance.... But the natural course is for the expression to follow the ideas, not the ideas the expression.”[4] And though, in the de Compositione, it is his business to discourse rather upon sound than upon sense, yet the orderly way in which the subject matter of the treatise is presented shows in itself that Dionysius was well aware that the chief essential for a book is a basis of clear thinking and broad logical arrangement, and that, as a consequence, its excellence is to be sought even more in its chapters and its paragraphs than in its flowing periods.[5] It may be well to touch, with a similar regard to sequence and with occasional references to modern parallels or contrasts, upon one or two aspects of his main theme which his own treatment of it suggests as suitable for further discussion and elucidation.

A. Freedom and Elasticity

In his fifth chapter Dionysius shows, with no difficulty and with much vivacity, that it is impossible to lay down universal rules governing the order of words in Greek. He admits that he had been inclined to entertain a priori views on the question of the natural precedence of certain parts of speech and to hold that nouns should precede verbs, verbs adverbs, and so forth.[6]

But he had proceeded, with that sound practical judgment which distinguishes him, to test his theories in the light of Homer’s usage. He had then found them wanting. “Trial invariably wrecked my views and revealed their utter worthlessness.” The examples of variety in word-order which he quotes from the Iliad and the Odyssey are most interesting and instructive. But a modern reader, familiar with languages whose paucity of inflexions often offers freedom only at the price of ambiguity, has more cause than any ancient writer to wonder at the liberty which Greek enjoys in this respect. No doubt the long gap between πολὺν and χρόνον in the Frogs has, and is intended to have, a comic effect. But there is no sort of ambiguity in the sentence, since the poet takes care to use no noun with which the adjective could agree until the right noun at length comes and relieves the listener of his suspense and growing curiosity,—

εἰ δ’ ἐγὼ ὀρθὸς ἰδεῖν βίον ἀνέρος ἢ τρόπον ὅστις ἔτ’ οἰμώξεται,
οὐ πολὺν οὐδ’ ὁ πίθηκος οὗτος ὁ νῦν ἐνοχλῶν,
Κλειγένης ὁ μικρός,
ὁ πονηρότατος βαλανεὺς ὁπόσοι κρατοῦσι κυκησιτέφρου
ψευδολίτρου κονίας
καὶ Κιμωλίας γῆς,
χρόνον ἐνδιατρίψει.

Aristophanes Ranae 706-13.

Here as many as twenty-one words divide an adjective from its noun, though noun and adjective are usually placed close together.[7] But, even in serious poetry, the same thing is to be noticed, though on a less surprising scale. For example:

ἦν δ’ οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς οὔτε χείματος τέκμαρ
οὔτ’ ἀνθεμώδους ἦρος οὔτε καρπίμου
θέρους βέβαιον.

Aeschylus Prometheus Vinctus 454-6.