Again, take the following passage of Plato. What can be the device that produces its perfect dignity and beauty, if it is not the beautiful and striking rhythms that compose it? The passage is one of the best known and most often quoted, and it is found near the beginning of our author’s Funeral Speech: “In very truth these men are receiving at our hands their fitting tribute: and when they have gained this guerdon, they journey on, along the path of destiny.”[164] Here there are two clauses which constitute the period, and the feet into which the clauses fall are as follows:—The first is a bacchius, for certainly I should not think it correct to scan this clause as an iambic line, bearing in mind that not swift, tripping movements, but retarded and slow times are appropriate to those over whom we make mourning. The second is a spondee; the next is a dactyl, the vowels which might coalesce being kept distinct; after that, a spondee; next, what I should call a cretic rather than an anapaest; then, according to my view, a spondee; in the last place a hypobacchius or, if you prefer to take it so, an anapaest; then the terminal syllable. Of these rhythms none is mean nor ignoble. In the next clause, “when they have gained this guerdon, they journey on, along the path of destiny,” the two first feet are cretics, and next after them two spondees; after which once more a cretic, then lastly a hypobacchius. Thus the discourse is composed entirely of beautiful rhythms, and it necessarily follows that it is itself
1 ὀλίγα τὰ F: ὀλίγα PMV 3 καλλίστης P || ὡς] καὶ FMV: om. P || εὐγενείας P: εὐγενὴς MV || ἐπάγων F: ὡς ἐκλέγων τοὺς PMV 4 ταυτηνὶ Us.: ταύτην εἰ F: ταύτην PMV 7 φανερὸν καὶ περιβόητον F 9 οἵδ’ ἔχουσιν P: οἵδ’ ἔχουσι FMV 13 ἰαμβικὸν FP: ἴαμβον MV 15 προσήκει F 16 δ ὁ δεύτερος F: δε ἕτερος P, V: δ’ ἕτερος M 17 εἴθ’ ὁ F: εἶτα PMV 19 ὡς F: ὡς ἡ PMV 25 δὴ] δεῖ F
4. The passage from the Menexenus is quoted by Dionysius in the de Demosth. c. 24, with the remark ἡ μὲν εἰσβολὴ θαυμαστὴ καὶ πρέπουσα τοῖς ὑποκειμένοις πράγμασι κάλλους τε ὀνομάτων ἕνεκα καὶ σεμνότητος καὶ ἁρμονίας, τὰ δ’ ἐπιλεγόμενα οὐκέθ’ ὅμοια τοῖς πρώτοις κτλ. It is also given, as an illustration of the musical and other effects of periphrasis, in the de Sublimitate c. 28: ἆρα δὴ τούτοις μετρίως ὤγκωσε τὴν νόησιν, ἢ ψιλὴν λαβὼν τὴν λέξιν ἐμελοποίησε, καθάπερ ἁρμονίαν τινὰ τὴν ἐκ τῆς περιφράσεως περιχεάμενος εὐμέλειαν;—A somewhat similar period in Latin is that of Sallust (Bell. Catilin. i. 1), “omnes homines, qui sese student praestare ceteris animalibus, summa ope niti decet, ne vitam silentio transeant veluti pecora, quae natura prona atque ventri oboedientia finxit.”
8. First clause:
– – ᴗ – – – ᴗ ᴗ – – ⏓ ᴗ – – – ᴗ ⏓ – ἔργῳ μὲν | ἡμῖν | οἵδε ἔ|χουσιν | τὰ προσή|κοντα | σφίσιν αὐ|τοῖς.
Here three points call for comment: (1) οἵδε ἔχουσιν (and not οἵδ’ ἔχουσιν with FPMV) was clearly (cp. l. 16) read by Dionysius: so in the text of Plato himself; (2) the lengthening of τά before προσήκοντα (although the usage of Comedy would seem to show that such lengthening was uncommon in the language of ordinary life) is preferred as giving a cretic; (3) very strangely, it is thought possible to scan the final syllable of σφίσιν as long (cp. [178] 17, [184] 2, 8).
13. We have a considerable part of an iambic line if we scan thus:
– – ᴗ – – – ᴗ – ᴗ ἔργῳ | μὲν ἡ|μῖν οἵδ’ | ἔχου|σι.
19. For ὡς ἐμὴ δόξα cp. de Demosth. c. 39.
22. Second clause: