Obscurity in matter and obscurity in expression are intimately allied. Euripides, in the Frogs, says of Aeschylus that he was obscure in setting forth his plots (ἀσαφὴς γὰρ ἦν ἐν τῇ φράσει τῶν πραγμάτων, Aristoph. Ran. 1122). Dionysius attributes to Lysias, as compared with Thucydides and Demosthenes, a lucidity which embraces matter as well as expression and treats words as the servants of thought: τρίτην ἀρετὴν ἀποφαίνομαι περὶ τὸν ἄνδρα τὴν σαφήνειαν, οὐ μόνον τὴν ἐν τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν· ἔστι γάρ τις καὶ πραγματικὴ σαφήνεια οὐ πολλοῖς γνώριμος. τεκμαίρομαι δέ, ὅτι τῆς μὲν Θουκυδίδου λέξεως καὶ Δημοσθένους, οἳ δεινότατοι πράγματα ἐξειπεῖν ἐγένοντο, πολλὰ δυσείκαστά ἐστιν ἡμῖν καὶ ἀσαφῆ καὶ δεόμενα ἐξηγητῶν ... τούτου δὲ αἴτιον, ὅτι οὐ τοῖς ὀνόμασι δουλεύει τὰ πράγματα παρ’ αὐτῷ [sc. Λυσίᾳ], τοῖς δὲ πράγμασιν ἀκολουθεῖ τὰ ὀνόματα (de Lysia, c. 4). So far as the two can be separated, it is with wording rather than with subject matter that the present appendix is concerned.
One principal cause of obscurity is the anxious search for brevity. Dionysius sees this, especially in regard to Thucydides; and “brevis esse laboro, | obscurus fio” has many an analogue in his critical pages (e.g. ἀσαφὲς γίνεται τὸ βραχύ and διὰ τὸ τάχος τῆς ἀπαγγελίας ἀσαφὴς ἡ λέξις γίνεται, de Thucyd. c. 24 and Ep. ii. ad Amm. c. 2). At the same time, he does not seem to concede enough to the claims of brevity in C.V. [118] 1, 2, where it is not simply a question of ‘offending the ear,’ or of ‘spoiling the metre,’ or even of ‘charm.’ The two lines there quoted from Sophocles have something of that πολύνους βραχυλογία which has been justly attributed to Thucydides.[200]
But too many words may be just as fatal to clearness as too few. As Aristotle says (Rhet. iii. 12. 6), lucidity is imperilled when a style is prolix, no less than when it is condensed. A disjointed and rambling diffuseness is condemned by Demetrius (de Eloc. § 192); and Dionysius (Ep. ii. ad Amm. c. 15) remarks that numerous parentheses make the meaning hard to follow (... αἱ μεταξὺ παρεμπτώσεις πολλαὶ γινόμεναι καὶ μόλις ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος ἀφικνούμεναι, δι’ ἃς ἡ φράσις δυσπαρακολούθητος γίνεται).[201]
It is, however, the arrangement of words (even more than their number, large or small) that contributes to lucidity or its opposite. Quintilian (ix. 4. 32) says “amphiboliam quoque fieri vitiosa locatione verborum, nemo est qui nesciat”; and certainly the importance of a right order, in its bearing on clearness, is very great even in the highly inflected languages. Elsewhere (viii. 2. 16) Quintilian gives some good examples of ambiguities to be avoided: “vitanda est in primis ambiguitas, non haec solum, de cuius genere supra dictum est, quae incertum intellectum facit, ut Chremetem audivi percussisse Demean,[202] sed illa quoque, quae, etiamsi turbare non potest sensum, in idem tamen verborum vitium incidit, ut si quis dicat, visum a se hominem librum scribentem. nam etiamsi librum ab homine scribi patet, male tamen composuerit feceritque ambiguum, quantum in ipso fuit.” Quintilian’s ideal is a fine one, but it is not always possible to attain it in Latin or in Greek. The freedom of the classical word-order, so desirable on other grounds, stands in the way here.
Illustrations of a certain degree of ambiguity will be found in some instances of the dependent genitive in Greek, as used especially in Thucydides. Thucydides usually places the dependent genitive before the noun on which it depends.[203] As, however, his rule is not invariable, it cannot be said that in all the following examples (which are designedly of a promiscuous character) the reader is absolved, as Quintilian evidently thinks he should be, from making his conception of the general sense help in determining the grammatical construction:—
(1) καὶ μετὰ τῆς ἥσσονος ἅμα ἐλπίδος ὀλίγων ἡμερῶν ἕνεκα μεγάλου μισθοῦ δόσεως ἐκείνοις ξυναγωνίζεσθαι, Thucyd. i. 143.
(2) εἴ τις ὑπομένοι καὶ μὴ φόβῳ ῥοθίου καὶ νεῶν δεινότητος κατάπλου ὑποχωροίη, iv. 10.
(3) Κερκυραῖοι δὲ μετὰ τῆς ξυμμαχίας τῆς αἰτήσεως καὶ ταῦτα πιστεύοντες ἐχυρὰ ὑμῖν παρέξεσθαι ἀπέστειλαν ἡμᾶς, i. 32.
(4) οἵπερ τῶν ὁλκάδων ἕνεκα τῆς ἐς Σικελίαν κομιδῆς ἀνθώρμουν πρὸς τὰς ἐν Ναυπάκτῳ ναῦς, vii. 34.
(5) ἄπιστα μὲν ἴσως, ὥσπερ καὶ ἄλλοι τινές, δόξω ὑμῖν περὶ τοῦ ἐπίπλου τῆς ἀληθείας λέγειν, vi. 33.