the fact that we do not put our words together in the same way when angry as when glad, nor when mourning as when afraid, nor when under the influence of any other emotion or calamity as when conscious that there is nothing at all to agitate or annoy us.
These few words on a wide subject are merely examples of the countless other things which could be added if one wished to treat fully all the aspects of appropriateness. But I have one obvious remark to make of a general nature. When the same men in the same state of mind report occurrences which they have actually witnessed, they do not use a similar style in describing all of them, but in their very way of putting their words together imitate the things they report, not purposely, but carried away by a natural impulse. Keeping an eye on this principle, the good poet and orator should be ready to imitate the things of which he is giving a verbal description, and to imitate them not only in the choice of words but also in the composition. This is the practice of Homer, that surpassing genius, although he has but one metre and few rhythms. Within these limits, nevertheless, he is continually producing new effects and artistic refinements, so that actually to see the incidents taking place would give no advantage over our having them thus described. I will give a few instances, which the reader may take as representative of many. When Odysseus is telling the Phaeacians the story of his wanderings and of his descent into Hades, he brings the miseries of the place before our eyes. Among them, he describes the torments of Sisyphus, for whom they say that the gods of the nether world have made it a condition of release from his awful sufferings to have rolled a stone over a certain hill, and that this is impossible, as the stone invariably falls down again just as it reaches the top. Now it is
3 μηδὲν ὅλως ἡμᾶς F: καὶ μηδὲν ἡμᾶς ὅλως PMV || πράττειν μηδὲ παραλυπεῖν F: ταράττηι μηδὲ παραλυπηῖ P, MV 4 δείγματος F: δείγματος ἢ παραδείγματος PMV 5 ἐπεὶ μυρία PMV: μυρία ἄλλα ἐστὶν F || ἂν F: αἴτια PMV 10 ἀλλὰ PMV: ἀλλὰ καὶ EF 13 δὴ F: δὲ PMV 17 καίπερ EF: καί τοι P, MV || ἓν ὡς] ἑν(ως) P: ἐν ᾧ M: ἓν V: om. EF 18 αὐτοῖς EF: τούτοις PV: τούτω M 20 παράδειγμα P: παραδείγματι V || πολλῶν F: ἐπὶ πολλῶν PMV 21 δὴ FP: οὖν MV 26 πέτρον F: πέτρον τινά PMV 27 τοῦ πέτρου om. F
1. It is implied that no general rules can be laid down on this point, but we must trust to nature,—to the aesthetic perceptions of the individual author,—on the principle that “tristia maestum | vultum verba decent, iratum plena minarum, | ludentem lasciva, severum seria dictu,” Hor. Ars P. 105-7.
3. An early reading may have been ὥσπερ εὐθυμούμεθα ὅταν μηδὲν ὅλως ἡμᾶς ταράττῃ μηδὲ παραλυπῇ.
7. προχειρότατον: lit. ‘readiest to hand.’—The verb προχειρίζεσθαι is used often by Dionysius ([76] 2, [236] 21, [250] 13) in the meaning ‘to select.’
13. ταῦτα δὴ παρατηροῦντα: Dionysius would (as the trend of his argument throughout the treatise shows) have an author not only observe, but improve upon, the methods of ordinary people. There is no real discrepancy between this passage and that quoted ([78] 18 supra) from Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria.
17. ῥυθμοὺς ὀλίγους: the two feet (dactyl and spondee) apparently are meant. Of course, the hexameter line can be so divided as to yield longer feet such as the βακχεῖος (see [206] 11) or the molossus; but such divisions are not natural.
18. καινουργῶν ... καὶ φιλοτεχνῶν: see D.H. p. 46.
26. Here, and in [202] 8, πέτρος is used to represent Homer’s λᾶας: in [202] 10, 13, πέτρα. ὄχθος ([202] 9) = Homer’s λόφος.